The night deepened.
Among the piles of barren stone in the Blackwind Mountains, the sinister wind cut like a blade, howling mournfully as it scraped against the grotesque rocks.
Fang Cunsheng sat cross-legged in the depths of a crack barely wide enough for two people. The century-old Corrupt Blood Spirit Mushroom in his arms had already been half swallowed. Its foul-smelling, utterly yin and venomous juice transformed the moment it entered his stomach into an incomparably violent, scorching torrent that crashed downward along his esophagus.
“Ugh…”
Fang Cunsheng grunted, thick blue veins instantly bulging across his forehead. That violent medicinal power was far beyond what an ordinary third-level Qi Condensation cultivator could endure. In an instant, he felt as though his internal organs were being roasted over raging flames. Under the strain of that enormous medicinal force, the meridians connected to his mixed false spiritual root began to develop fine cracks.
If anyone else had been in his place, their meridians would already have shattered, causing their body to explode and killing them outright.
Yet at that very moment, the Three-Lives Stone fragment in Fang Cunsheng’s sea of consciousness suddenly erupted with an ancient, timeworn suction force.
“Buzz!”
Wisps of faint purple haze descended from the stone fragment and swiftly melded into every part of his body. The lethal venom and violent energy were instantly tamed upon contact with the purple haze, becoming as docile as streams flowing into the sea before transforming into the purest, thickest milky-white spiritual power.
Under the nourishment of the purple haze, the cracked meridians began healing and widening at a speed visible to the naked eye. The spiritual-power channels that had originally been as thin and fragile as strands of hair were forcibly expanded several times over, becoming incomparably tough.
A-Xing, who was sitting nearby and guarding him, stared at Fang Cunsheng with wide eyes, his face filled with shock.
From what he could sense, Fang Cunsheng’s entire body was radiating a faint purple glow. His originally weak and chaotic aura was climbing upward at a terrifying speed. Even more incredible, when the violent Black Fiend Wind blew within three feet of Fang Cunsheng, it dispersed on its own, as if instinctively terrified of that streak of purple light.
“Brother Cunsheng… has he been hiding his strength all along? This isn’t an ordinary breakthrough at all!” A-Xing swallowed and tightly covered his mouth, afraid that even the slightest sound might disturb Fang Cunsheng.
Fang Cunsheng had entered a mysterious, wondrous state of emptiness.
He could clearly hear the sound of his blood surging through his body like a great river, and he could feel the thunderous booms as one blocked acupoint after another was forcibly blasted open.
Third-level Qi Condensation… the peak of third-level Qi Condensation!
“Break for me!”
Fang Cunsheng roared inwardly.
Boom!
A tremendous crash that only he could hear exploded within his body. The bottleneck that had shackled him for years shattered instantly beneath the impact of that pure spiritual power, collapsing as easily as rotten wood before a powerful force.
Fang Cunsheng abruptly opened his eyes. Deep within his pupils, two purple flames flickered and vanished.
Fourth-level Qi Condensation!
That was not all. Relying on the abundant medicinal power of the century-old spirit mushroom and the tempering of the stone fragment, his cultivation did not stop after entering fourth-level Qi Condensation. Instead, it steadily settled at the mid-stage of fourth-level Qi Condensation.
Whoosh—
He slowly exhaled a breath of black, turbid air laden with impurities from his body. It condensed in midair without dispersing, shot several feet forward, and smashed a fragment of stone on the ground to pieces.
Fang Cunsheng rose and lightly clenched his fists. He could feel that the surging spiritual power within him was more than three times as abundant as before, and even his physical strength had increased considerably. If he faced that sixth-level Qi Condensation Bone-Spike Netherwolf King again, he was confident he could kill it in a direct battle without having to risk using that method that injured the enemy by a thousand while harming himself by eight hundred.
Most importantly, as his spiritual power surged, the Three-Lives Stone fragment in his sea of consciousness became clearer, and the amount of time he could maintain his Cause-and-Effect Eyes increased substantially.
“Brother Cunsheng… y-you broke through?!” A-Xing hurried over, his face filled with admiration and excitement.
“Mm. Every cloud has a silver lining.” Fang Cunsheng smiled faintly, but the ambition in his eyes burned hotter than ever. “Let’s go. The main force has probably reached Wild Dog Ridge by now. We’ll go see how our ‘Young Master Gang’ is doing.”
“Huh? We’re still going to look for them?” A-Xing nervously drew his neck in.
“If we don’t go, how are we going to obtain the Ninefold Nether Profound Water? And how are we going to reclaim what we deserve?” Fang Cunsheng let out a cold laugh. With a movement of his body, he transformed into a blurred wisp of azure smoke and swept toward the depths of the Blackwind Mountains.
After breaking through, his speed had increased by more than twice. A-Xing gritted his teeth and hurriedly cast his Lightness Technique, following close behind.
An hour later.
Beneath Wild Dog Ridge.
This was a perilous canyon, with sheer cliffs on both sides and only a narrow path of loose stones running through the middle. At this moment, the path was saturated with a thick, almost tangible stench of blood.
Fang Cunsheng and A-Xing lay concealed in a thicket above the canyon, looking down at the grisly scene below.
The group led by Gu Yue Gang had already been driven into a desperate situation. Of the more than three hundred outsider servants originally accompanying them, fewer than fifty remained. Every one of them was injured, their faces full of despair as they formed a circle. Even the haughty elite disciples of the inner estate had suffered more than half their number in deaths and injuries, leaving only a dozen or so still struggling to hold on.
Surrounding them was a pack of lean, long-bodied ancient beasts with two enormous fangs and emerald-green eyes—the Two-Headed Mastiffs.
Although each mastiff was only at the second or third level of Qi Condensation, there were simply too many of them. They were packed together as far as the eye could see, numbering well over several hundred and completely blocking the canyon. More terrifying still, behind the pack crouched an enormous Two-Headed Mastiff King, fully three zhang tall, coldly watching the battlefield from atop a massive boulder.
The pressure radiating from the Mastiff King had astonishingly reached the peak of ninth-level Qi Condensation. It was less than half a step away from the Foundation Establishment stage!
“Damn it! How can there be so many Two-Headed Mastiffs here?! The intelligence clearly said there were only some ordinary beasts!”
Gu Yue Gang was covered in blood, and the silver Daoist robe on his body was already tattered beyond recognition. The scarlet flying sword in his hand had dimmed considerably. As he frantically scattered sword qi to cut down the mastiffs leaping at him, he screamed hysterically.
He had intended to use the lives of the outsider servants to fill the wolf pack surrounding the perimeter, allowing himself to pass through Wild Dog Ridge with ease. He had never imagined that Wild Dog Ridge would be far more dangerous than he expected. The pack of Two-Headed Mastiffs seemed to have been provoked by something, attacking them like madmen without the slightest fear of death.
“Young Master Gang! Our spiritual power can’t hold out! We’ve run out of Rejuvenation Pills!” an inner-estate disciple shouted in despair before three mastiffs pounced on him at once, tearing him to pieces in an instant.
Hearing his companion’s scream, an extreme viciousness and madness flashed through Gu Yue Gang’s eyes.
He turned and looked at the trembling outsider servants, who had nowhere left to retreat. In a grim voice, he said, “Everyone, the time has come to prove your loyalty to the clan! All of you, listen to my order and charge forward! Use your self-detonations to blast a bloody path open for this young master!”
At those words, the remaining dozens of outsider servants completely broke down.
“Young Master Gang! Please, no! We’ve shielded you from so many demon beasts along the way! You can’t slaughter the donkey once it has done its work!”
“I’ll fight you to the death!” An old cultivator at the third level of Qi Condensation was utterly driven to despair and roared as he tried to resist.
Gu Yue Gang, however, gave them no chance at all. He suddenly formed a hand seal with his right hand and began muttering an incantation. In an instant, the Gu Yue clan’s slave seals engraved on the outsider servants’ clothing all lit up with blinding scarlet radiance.
It was the restriction the Gu Yue clan used to control its servants—the Heart-Eating Curse.
“Aaah—!”
Screams immediately rang throughout the canyon. Dozens of servants collapsed to the ground in agony at the same time, their eyes turning blood-red as their bodies began swelling uncontrollably. Their rationality was forcibly erased. Under the control of the restriction, they charged madly toward the pack of mastiffs ahead like death soldiers who could feel no pain.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
A dense series of self-detonations thundered through the canyon. Flesh flew in all directions, and the violent spiritual-power turbulence instantly blasted a huge opening in the mastiff pack ahead.
“Now! Go!”
Gu Yue Gang’s face was pale, his eyes cold and ruthless. Without even glancing at the servants who had died horribly behind him, he stepped onto his scarlet flying sword and, with the remaining trusted aides of the Chief Steward, transformed into several streaks of light, frantically charging toward the canyon’s exit through the opening blasted open with human lives.
However, he had underestimated the peak ninth-level Qi Condensation Two-Headed Mastiff King.
Seeing countless members of its pack blown to death, the Two-Headed Mastiff King crouched atop the boulder and let out a roar of utmost fury. Its enormous body suddenly leaped, crashing down like a small black mountain before Gu Yue Gang and the others. With fiendish miasma surging around it, it firmly blocked the only exit.
Whoosh!
The left head of the Mastiff King suddenly opened its jaws, spewing a torrent of ghastly white netherfire. In an instant, the two inner-estate disciples at the front were burned to flying ash.
“Damn mutt!”
Gu Yue Gang was scared out of his wits and hurriedly summoned a defensive jade talisman. A cyan spiritual-power barrier instantly shielded him, but when the ghastly white netherfire landed on it, it emitted a hissing, corrosive sound, and the barrier’s radiance rapidly dimmed.
His life hung by a thread.
Meanwhile, in the thicket above the canyon…
A-Xing trembled like a sieve as he watched the bloody, horrific scene below. Seeing the inner-estate lords who normally strutted about die as easily as grass being cut, he felt not only fear but also an indescribable exhilaration.
“Brother Cunsheng… Gu Yue Gang is about to die. What do we do now? Go back the way we came?” A-Xing asked in a low voice.
Fang Cunsheng did not answer. Purple radiance blazed in his eyes as he stared fixedly at Gu Yue Gang below and the enormous Two-Headed Mastiff King.
Within his field of vision, countless complicated threads of cause and effect intertwined wildly.
He saw a faint, extremely well-hidden azure spiritual light glowing at Gu Yue Gang’s chest. It was a storage talisman concealed beneath his inner clothing. The threads of cause and effect connected to that storage talisman pointed straight toward the cold pool at the very heart of the Blackwind Mountains.
“So that’s how it is…”
The corners of Fang Cunsheng’s mouth lifted slightly, forming a cold arc.
“That storage talisman contains the trump card Chief Steward Xu gave him—the only treasure capable of safely entering the cold pool and harvesting the Ninefold Nether Profound Water. Gu Yue Gang can’t die in the Mastiff King’s jaws yet. At the very least, both his treasure and his life must be collected personally by me.”
“Brother Cunsheng, w-what are you going to do? That’s a ninth-level Qi Condensation demon beast!” A-Xing heard the killing intent in Fang Cunsheng’s words and was so frightened he nearly cried out.
“A-Xing, if you want to make it back to Jinling City alive and stop being someone else’s dog, stay right there and don’t move.”
Fang Cunsheng slowly rose. He brushed his right hand across his waist, and an ordinary fine-iron longsword appeared in his grip. The weapon was crude, but the aura emanating from him now carried an unreasonable steadiness and dominance.
Within his Cause-and-Effect Eyes, the seemingly imposing and invincible Two-Headed Mastiff King had a glaring gray death line wrapped around the point where its abdomen connected to its back.
That was the fatal weakness it had exposed when it forcibly spewed out the netherfire just now, causing the demon power within its body to circulate unevenly!
“Gu Yue Gang, don’t you like borrowing a knife to kill?”
A cold glint flashed through Fang Cunsheng’s eyes. Like a hunting eagle, he leaped from the cliff several zhang above and plunged straight toward the chaotic battlefield below!
“Today, I’ll give you a taste of cause and effect too!”
📚 Qidian-Style Author’s Note
Chapter three’s 3,100-word mega-update is complete! Fang Cunsheng not only successfully broke through to mid-stage fourth-level Qi Condensation, but also got a perfect view of Gu Yue Gang’s merciless face as he fell into dire straits and used his servants’ lives to pave the way. Now the protagonist has drawn his sword and descended the mountain, preparing to become the final hidden predator at the crucial moment when the Mastiff King and Gu Yue Gang destroy each other!