"You? A royal consort?"

With a peculiar expression, Qi Xiu faced the stick insect, which couldn't exactly be described as ugly, only extremely nauseating. It was hard for him to imagine what kind of aesthetic preference would lead to fancying such a creature.

"Expert, you may not be aware, but the Second Princess of Green Mulberry Country is renowned for being famously unselective. Men and women, old and young, birds and beasts, crickets and grasshoppers. As long as they are living creatures, they are included in her array of consorts. A rough count reveals there are over three thousand varieties of consorts for the Second Princess."

For the precious chance to save its own life, the stick insect's attitude was respectful and humble, spilling everything it knew, whether it should be said or not.

"Over three thousand?! Can she even handle that many?" With a slightly stunned expression, Qi Xiu couldn't help but ask.

"The Second Princess has her methods, Expert, please allow me to explain in detail..."

"Stop, stop, stop, I'm not interested in this sort of thing." Seeing that the stick insect was about to elaborate on the details, Qi Xiu hastily gestured for it to stop. The Second Princess's taste was too unique; he still had use for his ears.

After stopping the stick insect's nonsense, Qi Xiu bent down, his eyes narrowing slightly. "I have a few questions for you. If you answer them well, it's not impossible to give you a chance to live."

Upon hearing this, the stick insect hurriedly kowtowed. "Please ask, Expert. I will certainly spare no detail."

Nodding, Qi Xiu formed a sword-finger gesture with his right hand and lifted slightly. An invisible force immediately levitated the demon before him.

"Do you know how many demons from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains were actually dispatched to invade Dianchuan Province?"

"Erm... let me think." Its life was on the line, so the stick insect began frantically recalling the secretive news it had accidentally learned during moments of excitement while entertaining the Second Princess.

"I remember now. The Second Princess, in a moment of particular... elation, once mentioned that she happened to pass by while the Lord of Green Mulberry was conversing with an old family friend from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains. She overheard a part of the conversation... three hundred Little Demons, thirty Great Demons..."

"Three hundred Little Demons, thirty Great Demons?" His eyes narrowed, Qi Xiu slowly fondled the Golden Cry Jade Beads on his wrist.

Little Demons are also demons of the Dao-Entering Realm. Great Demons belong to the Blood-Stained Realm. Three hundred? Could it be three million?

His pupils contracted slightly as Qi Xiu's action of turning the Golden Cry Jade Beads abruptly stopped. Three hundred Dao-Entering Realm demons? Three hundred thousand Blood-Stained Realm Great Demons? This number... seemed a bit exaggerated.

As far as Qi Xiu was aware, there were approximately one million cultivators in the entire Dianchuan Province. This number included a large portion of newly initiated disciples from various major sects. And there were at most only around fifty thousand cultivators in the Blood-Stained Realm.

With that, the number of demons invading Dianchuan Province was almost five to six times that of the province's cultivators. Furthermore, the demons from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains were mostly ancient Gu Clan demons. Their combat power was naturally stronger than that of Human Cultivators.

With such a comparison, Dianchuan Province's chance of victory in this great battle was virtually nil.

"Is this information reliable?" As he pondered, Qi Xiu questioned sharply, his eyes flickering with a glint of lightning, almost scaring the stick insect to death.

"Spare my life, Expert! This information, I also heard it from the Second Princess. Whether it's true, I truly have no way to verify," the stick insect, frightened to the point its skin turned deathly pale, hastened to explain.

"I'll ask you another question: Has there been any unusual activity at Divine Sorrow Ridge recently..."

「...」

For a full three days, Qi Xiu interrogated the stick insect from the inside out and the outside in, over ten times.

Although the creature's combat strength was average, its temperament was cunning and deceitful. It was hard to guarantee that its words weren't half-truths, intended to confuse and mislead. Besides, it was a Great Demon of the Blood-Stained Realm, and its soul had also cultivated to the Yin Spirit Realm. Mind-Intoxicating Dew was essentially ineffective on it.

If Qi Xiu tried to forcefully perform a Soul Search, the creature, seeing no hope of survival, would most likely choose mutual destruction, self-destructing its soul for a quick end.

Therefore, Qi Xiu resorted to the interrogation methods of the Mortal World: questioning repeatedly, revisiting topics, and using fatigue tactics to verify the truth of the information it divulged. This way, although more troublesome, he could at least filter out some of the deceptive traps.

"That's truly all I know..." After being interrogated for three straight days, the stick insect's eyes were bloodshot, and it was utterly exhausted. Qi Xiu had intermittently used the aura of his Thunder Magic to stimulate and intimidate it during questioning, leaving its mind and soul weary. If this continued, its sanity would likely begin to falter.

"Hmm, you've cooperated well these past few days. In that case, I'll give you a chance to live."

Hearing Qi Xiu offer a chance to live, the stick insect's listless and weary eyes suddenly brightened. "Thank you, Expert! Thank you so much, Expert..."

However, while the stick insect was still rejoicing at its narrow escape, Qi Xiu's next words plunged it back into hell.

"As long as you can defeat him, you're free to go wherever you wish."

Slowly stepping aside, Qi Xiu revealed a colossal, towering figure behind him.

It was a protector Vajra constructed entirely of Dragon Bones. This protector Vajra stood nearly a hundred meters tall, its skeletal structure as defined and seemingly indestructible as a mountain range. It radiated a pale golden luster, and faint, pale flames flickered between the Dragon Bones. Every Dragon Bone was etched with ancient, complex, and exquisite patterns and marks. Around its head, a halo of mysterious and eerie Buddha Light shimmered with a ghostly phosphorescence in the dim light. This circle of Buddha Light was not the warm and compassionate image ordinary people perceived; instead, it carried hints of coldness, overwhelming mental pressure, and an aura of unearthly transcendence.

Mighty Dragon Demon Vajra!

The foremost of the eight great protector devil gods of the White Bone Demonic Dao!

It possessed the power of a True Dragon to prop up the heavens and an indestructible Vajra body! Its pure destructive force was enough to shatter mountains, break peaks, sever rivers, and split waterways.

Previously, when Qi Xiu was in the lower levels of the Dragon Prison, he had fortuitously collected seventy or eighty dragon bone demon pills. After returning to Dianchuan, he found an opportunity to cultivate this Mighty Dragon Demon Vajra.

"What, still not making a move? Don't want this chance anymore?" Qi Xiu said with a smile, tucking his hands into his sleeves as he looked at the petrified stick insect.

"You... you... you liar! You'll die a horrible death!" the stick insect shrieked hysterically.

BOOM—

A terrifying fist, about ten feet wide, slammed down!

Layer upon layer of visible shockwaves scraped the air, generating brilliant trails of fire and erupting in a dazzling flash of light.

The stick insect, with only a trace of its bloodied form left, didn't even have a chance to scream before the Mighty Dragon Demon Vajra's punch obliterated it into nothingness.

Gazing dispassionately as the dust settled before him, Qi Xiu lightly shook his head. "I gave you a chance, but you were useless."

「...」

Dispelling the Hunyuan Palace, Qi Xiu returned to the present world.

With a wave of his hand, a grayish-white sutra mat, buried under thick dust and smoke on the ground, suddenly flew into his grasp.

"For this item to fall into the hands of you wicked beasts is truly like casting pearls before swine."

Gently shaking the sutra mat, Qi Xiu exhaled a long breath, a hazy, crystalline mist tinged with color. He then took out over ten Thunder Talismans, applying them one by one to the mat.

Under the dual cleansing of the colorful mist and Thunder Magic, the originally grayish-white, eerie sutra mat astonishingly began to drip blood. The blood was thick and fetid, as if it had been decaying for a long time. Soon, it formed a small, trickling stream of dark, miasmic blood on the ground.

Using his Hunyuan true essence and the power of Thunder Magic, Qi Xiu washed away the accumulated and settled demon blood from the sutra mat. The originally grayish-white, dry mat, which had exuded a hint of coldness, became soft and delicate. Its touch was as smooth as the skin of a young, tender maiden, and it even carried a faint warmth.

This was its true appearance.

A piece of human skin.

A piece of skin from a Dao Expert!

On this human skin, the interlocking textures were like the traces left by the passage of time. Upon closer inspection, one would find it covered in a vast expanse of ancient, profound scriptures, myriad scrolls' worth, all clearly discernible. These characters seemed to possess a life of their own, slowly flowing and writhing in the faint light, like living entities in eternal recitation.

And when one drew close enough to the sutra mat, one could hear the sound of chanting seeping through from another world—low, indistinct, and intermittent. It was an invisible mouth, murmuring words that were incomprehensible yet seemed to contain the voice of the ancient Great Dao.

No wonder I found this sutra mat so familiar, as if I had seen it somewhere... Is it the handiwork of that Disaster Elder again?

Staring at the sutra mat in his hand, its color like gold and jade, emitting soft whispers, Qi Xiu recalled fragments from an ancient, damaged text.

"After the Disaster Elder disappeared, he left behind countless inheritances for later generations to discover. The Catastrophe Inducing Skill used by the Flood Dragon King was one of the more prominent among them, the most studied and widely circulated. The original owner of this sutra mat, however, learned another of the Disaster Elder's inheritances—"Other-Transforming Extinction Demon Curse"."

"Other-Transforming Extinction Demon Curse."

Compared to the Catastrophe Inducing Skill, which used disasters as a means to overcome tribulations and enhance one's strength, this disaster Dharma Gate was even more extreme. Transforming the body into disaster, the physique into calamity. Exchanging the annihilation of all living beings for the balance of Heaven and Earth. Its level of harm was far more terrifying than that of the Catastrophe Inducing Skill.

"Ancient records within the sect state that only three individuals in history cultivated "Other-Transforming Extinction Demon Curse." Two of them were slain by the Sword Sect, their bodies obliterated, their souls extinguished. The remaining one was Master Mingtan, the superintendent of the Great Freedom Temple in Spiritual Linghang Province, a place once renowned as a Buddha Land on earth.

It is said that Master Mingtan's original intention was to use his supreme Buddhist Dharma to reverse this "Other-Transforming Extinction Demon Curse," to transform it from evil to good, making it a universal law of compassion. However, he never anticipated that this demonic curse was so terrifying that even with his consummate mastery, Master Mingtan could not resist its erosion. In the end, he succumbed to qi deviation, becoming an unparalleled demonic monk.

Afterward, the Sword Sect dispatched powerful Sword Cultivators to hunt him down on several occasions, but he always managed to escape. Eventually, he vanished without a trace and was never seen again.

It seems this master ultimately regained his senses. Otherwise, this object would not exist."

Gazing at the sutra mat in his hands, Qi Xiu's eyes held a peculiar light.

These damned demons were all pig-headed; they couldn't recognize true value. They had no idea what this item was, only knowing that by forcibly activating it with demon blood, they could unleash a power that annihilated all things.

What they didn't realize was the true preciousness of this item: the faintly circulating, constantly transforming, seemingly living scriptural characters upon it.

"Other-Transforming Extinction Demon Curse!"

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