Chapter 133: One Who Ignites His Own Soul

  The aura of the dying martial artist subsided, and his heart grew calm.

  Then, Instructor Li slowly revealed the truth: “That sinborn demon really did suffer heavy injuries… Among the group that rushed here to capture you, there was a Martial Veins Grandmaster. He confronted that sinborn demon head-on and defeated it.

  “But that sinborn demon still had a trump card. It was a split demon of a certain Great Heavenly Demon, and in its moment of defeat, it borrowed its main body’s power. The Grandmaster grew careless and was ambushed, even having half his body devoured—yet how could a Grandmaster of our Heavenly Will Demonic Sect die so easily by a demon’s hand? Grandmaster Shu unleashed a Divine Ability before perishing, severely wounding that Heavenly Demon.

  “Right now, that sinborn demon is hunting packs of beasts and mountain folk in the surrounding area, devouring their lives and souls to recover… Strictly speaking, it’s still much stronger than Internal Energy martial artists like you and me, but it’s greatly weakened compared to when it first appeared.

  “If you truly have some hidden trump card, perhaps you really can defeat it.

  “Lastly… An Jing.

  “This is the 《Later Earth Spirit Harmonizing Mixed-Origin Body Cultivation Method》 that was originally meant to be bestowed upon you after the ritual.”

  Veins bulged; it was clear Instructor Li did not have long to live. With his lone, trembling arm, he drew out from his chest a tome he had kept close. “Even though you killed the Manor Lord, and Old Xu and the others, I don’t hate you. The Heavenly Will Demonic Sect is ruthless—how could I not know that? Butchering people like livestock, refining them like rendering oil… We who can do such things, who can stomach Blood Pills, are nothing but beasts.

  “You’re still young; it’s only natural that you hate. I simply dared not hate—I was powerless to hate… I could only hate in secret…

  “Hate this world.

  “If you, too, hate this world, then take it… You will need it.”

  Mustering what strength he had left, the instructor lifted his hand, offering the book.

  An Jing believed that if he did not take it, within a few short breaths Instructor Li would lose his final bit of strength, letting the tome tumble into the mire of blood and bck mud pooled along the mountain road.

  By doing so, An Jing could also sever this lingering “tie” to the Heavenly Will Demonic Sect.

  But An Jing never feared entanglements.

  He made the choice that suited his character.

  “I’m not doing this solely because I hate this world, but also because I need this power.”

  An Jing accepted the book with his left hand, his right hand curling in midair. The Scarlet Death Bde, wreathed in Demonic Qi, pressed against Instructor Li’s neck. “Xu… that white-robed schor—what was his name?”

  Questioning him thus, the young martial artist had many matters on his mind, but in the end, he only sighed and asked one final question: “And also, why did you… join the Heavenly Will Demonic Sect?”

  “Xu… Changjing.”

  Forcing out those st three words, Instructor Li had no strength left to speak.

  But upon hearing An Jing’s final question, the remnants of his consciousness flickered and churned, returning him to many years ago, when he was abducted from the county town by human traffickers and sold as a servant to a rge household in the countryside.

  Hard bor, beatings and scoldings, humiliation and contempt. No words could describe it—he was trampled into the dust, plunged into utter despair… For hundreds upon thousands of nights, he fantasized that his parents and the local authorities would come rescue him, that he might escape that vile cage.

  Then, one day, just when he had resigned himself, he heard familiar voices—those of his father and mother—calling him by his childhood name. Stunned, trembling with joy, he tried to climb the wall and escape, but halfway up, he heard a scream. That once-familiar sound never rang out again.

  After a short while, officials arrived, and he heard the solemn, self-righteous words of that big family’s master.

  “Just now, two human traffickers showed up, trying to abduct my family’s child. The servants noticed, and everyone was furious. They got carried away and beat them to death… You see, there shouldn’t be any problem with that, right?”

  “Ah, Master Huang, you’ve done a great deed indeed. Traffickers deserve death at everyone’s hands…”

  They were dead. All of them, dead.

  When those parents, who came to that remote vilge in search of their child, were mistaken for kidnappers and beaten to death, there was no one left to verify the truth.

  How foolish! Didn’t they realize that in a rural vilge that trafficked sves, everyone there would be in on it? In such a pce, killing people to silence them was the easiest thing in the world!

  Why did they even come looking for him… why did he still cling to the hope of being saved?

  At that moment, all he wanted was to die.

  No one in Great Chen’s government offices ever cared about such trivial matters. Maybe from the very start, they, too, were in on it.

  The details were no longer clear in his mind. In the end, Li Xiang escaped that prison, fled into the mountains, and became one of the so-called “refugees.”

  In a daze, he sold himself, joining the so-called “Demonic Sect,” and then, step by step, became a “demonic fiend” who burned, killed, and pilged the countryside—eventually wiping out the entire Huang family.

  The Heavenly Will Demonic Sect devoured people? Of course he knew. But at the very least, that Sect bought his life—even if cheaply, even if they took advantage of his desperation, even if they deceived him… they still gave him power!

  As long as they gave him the chance to take vengeance, he let himself be devoured fully and willingly!

  And what about those serfs, those household servants, those driven to their deaths by harsh taxes and forced bor…

  Were they not also devoured entirely, even down to their descendants?!

  And precisely because he was such a person, when he saw An Jing—living with his mother and even selling himself to save her—his once stone-cold heart was moved, prompting him to offer that extraordinary price.

  In the final moments of his life, Instructor Li lifted his head. His eyes, on the verge of being completely darkened by demonic corruption, fixed firmly on An Jing.

  —An Jing, I’ve taken countless lives; my sins are monstrous. If you kill me, it’s only right by Heaven’s w! I hold no grudge, no hate, and even feel relief! But if possible…

  —Then go and behead all those other man-eaters too!

  A spray of bck and crimson foul blood erupted, and Instructor Li’s head fell.

  His body immediately decayed, dissolving into a swath of bck fluid across the ground.

  Before he was fully consumed by demonic corruption, An Jing struck off his head.

  Even without words, An Jing understood the other man’s resentment and his sense of release.

  Some people remain in this world only because they have no reason to die. Once they get a chance to become a spark that sets the world afme, they go forth and burn.

  But An Jing was different. He could choose wealth, choose achievement, choose to join a faction and become part of it, perhaps even a pilr, a Divine General, or a prodigy. He had no need to join the Heavenly Will Demonic Sect to obtain power.

  He chose to burn of his own accord, igniting his own soul rather than the blood of others.

  Thus, An Jing responded to him.

  “I will. No one is exempt—including me.”

  Stepping over the corpse, An Jing waved his hand to dispel the Scarlet Death Bde. He continued forward toward the mountain vilge that now billowed with smoke—the sinborn demon’s present hunting ground and ir.

  Closer… ever closer.

  The forest path grew wider and wider. He could faintly see the outline of the vilge walls ahead, and he caught the stench of something like vomit mingled with stomach acid.

  Then, a stretch of scorched earth and the bzing ruins of the vilge came into view.

  This had once been a tranquil rural settlement, with uneven fences and walls of earth and stone protecting scattered vegetable fields. A network of narrow nes ran through the vilge like veins.

  But now, the vilge was filled with crumbling walls and ruins, with signs of battle everywhere. Everything y under a haze of bck smoke, and scattered bones and remains littered the roads and houses, their outlines caught in the flickering firelight.

  His field of vision kept rising, rising…

  Until he could overlook the mountain vilge, now thoroughly destroyed. Until he saw its far edge—where a sinister demonic creature, missing both wings and one leg, y slumbering in a crude shack built from bones and remains.

  A drone’s buzzing floated through the air, then grew sharper as it accelerated.

  Next, it turned into a shrill hawk-eagle cry, plunging straight down from the heavens in a sudden dive!

  (End of Chapter)