First Life: Corpse Shedding, I Shall Register You in the Household Registry

Old Man Heitian’s furious roar came from behind the door.

“Wang Hao!”

“How dare you steal this old man’s contract seed?”

Wang Hao sneered.

“Yours?”

“Did you write an invoice for it?”

The fourth palm!

The fifth palm!

The black contract seed was finally dragged out by force, half of it exposed.

It was not an insect.

Nor was it a talisman.

It was a thin sheet of human skin.

Old Man Heitian’s face had grown upon that skin.

It glared venomously at Wang Hao.

“Young Emperor, you’re going to die horribly.”

Wang Hao raised a hand and grabbed it.

The Myriad Contracts Same-Origin Seal suppressed it.

A remnant page of the Mandate Tax Ledger quietly surfaced. On its first blank line, a trace of Old Man Heitian’s source aura was instantly recorded.

The remnant page trembled slightly.

A name slowly appeared.

Black Heaven.

Beneath it was a line of tiny text.

Owes Great Xia’s Emperor Wang Hao: life-casket collateral tax, dragon-vein depletion tax, sinking-city nuisance tax, emotional damages tax, and sundry other charges.

Wang Hao’s eyes lit up.

What a treasure.

It really could sort everything automatically.

That saved him so much trouble.

The next instant.

A muffled groan came from behind the bronze door.

Old Man Heitian seemed to have been lashed by an invisible karmic whip, and his aura dropped another fraction.

It was an extremely faint decrease.

But at the level of a peak Martial God, even the slightest loss was fatal.

The Demon Lord’s expression changed.

He stared fixedly at Wang Hao.

“What did you just do?”

Wang Hao put away the remnant page and said indifferently, “Collected taxes according to the law.”

The Demon Lord’s eyelids twitched violently.

He suddenly felt that Old Man Heitian’s encounter with Wang Hao might truly have been more than bad luck.

He was simply born owing taxes.

The contract seed within Zi Yuan was pulled out.

Her entire body collapsed to the ground, drenched in cold sweat.

But her eyes had changed.

They were no longer as cold and numb as before, after being conditioned by Black Heaven City.

Instead, they held a trace of ruthless determination—the kind born from crawling out of an abyss.

Wang Hao looked toward the bronze door.

“Open it.”

Zi Yuan forced herself to her feet. Her voice was hoarse.

“This door requires Black Heaven contract script.”

She raised a hand and pressed her blood against the door.

Lines of contract script lit up.

The bronze door slowly opened.

Rumble…

Beyond the door—

There was no palace.

No secret chamber.

Instead, there was a vast darkness.

It looked like a small world buried beneath the earth.

At the end of the darkness hung a colossal corpse husk.

The corpse husk sat cross-legged in the void, a thousand zhang tall.

One half was human.

The other half was made of black bone and scales.

Nine dark-gold black spikes pierced its chest.

Dragon-vein resentment coiled around each one.

Beneath the corpse husk was a lake paved with human skin.

Face after face floated upon its surface.

Old men, young women, children, martial artists, merchants—and the successive stewards of Black Heaven City.

Their eyes were all closed.

They looked as though they were waiting to be worn once more.

Everyone behind Wang Hao fell silent.

Even the New Emperor Sword said nothing.

It loved battle.

It loved devouring.

Yet the sight before it still filled it with instinctive disgust.

The Demon Lord’s eyes seethed with killing intent.

“Old Man Heitian.”

“You truly deserve to die.”

Wang Hao, however, was staring at the corpse husk’s chest.

A fragment of a map hovered there.

It was precisely the final piece of the dragon-vein map.

But at the same time—

The corpse husk’s eyes slowly opened.

An ancient, hoarse voice, filled with venomous hatred, rang out from the depths of the darkness.

“Welcome to my true body.”

The dark little world began to tremble.

The instant the thousand-zhang corpse husk opened its eyes, the entire ancestral nest seemed to come alive.

The human-skin lake churned.

Face after face rose to the surface.

They opened their eyes at the same time.

Countless hollow gazes turned toward Wang Hao and the others.

The feeling was extraordinarily eerie.

It was as if they had not broken into Black Heaven’s ancestral nest.

Rather, they had been swallowed into the belly of a monster that had slept for eight hundred years.

Yin Jiuyou immediately stepped in front of Wang Hao.

Xue Wuhen drew his blade.

Han Shanyue also tried to draw his sword.

But the moment he raised his hand, more than a dozen storage bags nearly crashed to the ground from his back.

He hurriedly steadied them.

“That was close.”

“The national treasury cannot fall.”

The New Emperor Sword gave him a look of disdain.

“Can you still fight?”

Han Shanyue answered solemnly, “I am protecting Great Xia’s economic lifeline.”

“This is another form of battle.”

The New Emperor Sword thought about it.

It actually found the argument somewhat reasonable.

Wang Hao watched the corpse husk, his expression grave.

This thing was incredibly powerful.

Even though Old Man Heitian’s cultivation had fallen, even though his life casket had been suppressed, and even though the sinking-city formation had been broken—

This first-life corpse husk still radiated a pressure that surpassed the peak of the Martial God realm.

It was not a complete half-step transcendence.

But it had touched that level before.

It was like a stone scorched by heavenly fire.

Even after the flames had gone out, it still retained enough residual heat to burn straight through flesh and blood.

The Demon Lord said coldly, “Don’t let Old Man Heitian fuse with the corpse husk.”

“Otherwise, he could rise to half-step transcendence once again.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“Understood.”

“We’ll kill him while he’s changing clothes.”

The Demon Lord fell silent.

Although the wording was terrible—

The meaning was frighteningly precise.

A crack split open between the corpse husk’s brows.

A black shadow emerged from within.

It was a wisp of Old Man Heitian’s original soul.

He had not come down personally.

The many Martial Gods outside were still surrounding and attacking him.

But his soul could manifest through the ancestral nest.

Old Man Heitian looked down at Wang Hao, his eyes filled with venom.

“Wang Hao, do you think breaking the sinking-city formation means you’ve won?”

“Do you think suppressing the life casket is enough to restrain this old man?”

“You flesh-and-blood mortals have no idea what it means to be immortal.”

Wang Hao thought for a moment.

“I understand a little.”

Old Man Heitian sneered.

“What do you understand?”

Wang Hao answered seriously, “People who refuse to repay their debts are usually very good at dragging things out.”

Old Man Heitian’s expression stiffened.

What he hated most about Wang Hao now was not that Wang Hao had plundered his treasury.

Nor was it that Wang Hao had suppressed his life casket.

It was that Wang Hao had recorded his source aura on that strange remnant page.

For some unknown reason, that thing could reduce his fortune from afar.

Not by much.

But it was incredibly irritating.

It was like someone repeatedly scraping the edge of his destiny with a small knife.

One cut was not fatal.

But no one could stand being scraped forever.

Old Man Heitian said coldly, “I’ll kill you first.”

The corpse husk slowly raised its hand.

One finger descended.

Boom!

With a single finger, the dark void was crushed.

This was no ordinary martial technique.

It was a fragment of transcendence power.

The laws of heaven and earth twisted beneath that finger.

Wang Hao did not retreat.

He knew he could not.

The bronze door was behind him.

Beyond it lay Black Heaven City, where the others were still fighting.

If the corpse husk broke out, every Martial God outside would be dragged back into the blood sacrifice.

More importantly—

The dragon-vein map fragment was in the corpse husk’s chest.

He absolutely could not allow it to fall back into Old Man Heitian’s hands.

Wang Hao raised his palm.

Heaven-Prisoning Earth-Covering Palm!

First palm!

A golden palm print streaked across the sky and collided with the corpse finger.

Boom!

The palm print shattered.

Wang Hao’s shoulder sank, and the ground beneath his feet exploded.

Second palm!

Third palm!

Fourth palm!

Palm force layered upon palm force, like nine heavens collapsing downward.

The corpse finger’s descent finally slowed.

The Demon Lord attacked at the same time.

Demonic energy transformed into a ten-thousand-zhang abyss that cleaved across the corpse husk’s wrist.

Xue Wuhen’s blade light erupted.

Yin Jiuyou’s shadow pierced into the corpse finger’s joints.

The New Emperor Sword cried out excitedly.

“Chop down the big one!”

It transformed into a streak of silver light and began hacking wildly around the corpse finger.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sparks flew in all directions.

The corpse husk’s skin was frighteningly hard.

After more than a dozen strikes, the New Emperor Sword had only managed to leave behind shallow white marks.

It grew furious.

“How is it so hard?”

Wang Hao gritted his teeth.

“It’s eight-hundred-year-old cured meat.”

“Did you think it had just come out of the pot?”

The New Emperor Sword’s spirits soared.

“Then I have to chew it even more!”

It opened its mouth and bit down.

It actually bit down on a piece of flesh from the corpse husk and tore off a strip of black scales by sheer force.

The corpse husk shuddered violently.

The New Emperor Sword swallowed the black scale, and silver light suddenly surged from its body.

Its eyes lit up.

“Delicious!”

“Master, this is delicious!”

Wang Hao’s eyelid twitched.

This child’s eating habits were becoming more dangerous by the day.

But the good news was—

It worked.

After devouring a fragment of the corpse husk from the First Life, the New Emperor Sword’s aura visibly grew stronger.

Its combat power, which had originally been at the peak of the seventh realm, began to approach the Skyflying level.

Of course, it was still some distance away from the true eighth realm.

But the ranking of this uncanny artifact was beginning to shift ever so slightly.

Old Man Heitian had clearly noticed it as well.

He roared, “Wretched artifact!”

“How dare you devour my corpse husk!”

The New Emperor Sword was indignant.

“My master said that once something enters Great Xia’s treasury, it becomes Great Xia’s property.”

“What’s wrong with me eating a little?”

Han Shanyue shouted from behind, “Watch your wording!”

“It hasn’t entered the treasury yet!”

The New Emperor Sword turned around and snapped, “Then I’m inspecting the goods first!”

Everyone fell silent.

Within the tense and terrifying Ancestral Nest, their quarrel had somehow created the absurd atmosphere of a market stall inspecting meat.

Old Man Heitian was so furious that his divine soul twisted.

At last, the finger of the corpse husk pressed down completely.

Wang Hao’s gaze sharpened.

The fifth palm!

The sixth palm!

The seventh palm!

The Prisoning-Heaven, Overturning-Earth Palms came crashing down in succession.

The blood and qi around Wang Hao boiled, and his cultivation at the second layer of the Martial God realm erupted to its absolute limit.

Every palm that landed sent the darkness of the Ancestral Nest trembling.

Cracks appeared across the surface of the corpse finger.

But blood was flowing down Wang Hao’s arm as well.

His realm was ultimately too low.

Even with a divine-grade martial technique defying the heavens, forcibly clashing with a corpse husk that had touched the threshold of Transcendence was still unbearably difficult.

The eighth palm!

Wang Hao struck out with one palm, and the heavens and earth were imprisoned.

The corpse finger was finally knocked three zhang to the side.

The Demon Lord seized the opportunity and drove a fist into the cracks.

Crack!

Half of the corpse finger broke off.

The New Emperor Sword cheered and rushed over, hugging the severed finger as it began to gnaw on it.

“Mine!”

Han Shanyue panicked.

“That belongs to the national treasury too!”

The New Emperor Sword replied indistinctly through its mouthful, “I’m digesting it for the treasury first!”

Han Shanyue was nearly angered to death.

Wang Hao ignored them.

His eyes were fixed on the remnant dragon-vein map on the corpse husk’s chest.

He had to obtain it.

He raised his hand and summoned the Vein-Suppressing Black Nail.

The moment the black nail appeared, the nine dark-gold nails embedded in the corpse husk’s chest began to tremble in unison.

The resentment of the dragon vein boiled.

The Vein-Suppressing Black Nail in Wang Hao’s hand was precisely the one he had taken from the Ninth Vault.

It shared the same origin as the nine nails in the corpse husk’s chest.

It could even be said that those nine black nails had originally belonged to a single set.

Old Man Heitian had relied on them to suppress the resentment of the dragon vein, and had also used them to stabilize the corpse husk of the First Life.

Golden power of the people’s wishes surged through Wang Hao’s palm as he forcibly activated the Vein-Suppressing Black Nail.

A dragon’s cry rang out.

It was not a howl of resentment.

It was a low, gentle rumble after being soothed.

One of the nine nails in the corpse husk’s chest actually loosened slightly.

Old Man Heitian’s divine soul was thrown into shock.

“You dare pull out the nail?”

Wang Hao said calmly, “Old man.”

“You have been illegally occupying an object used to suppress the dragon vein.”

“As the Emperor of Great Xia, I have the authority to reclaim it.”

Old Man Heitian was enraged.

“This is not Great Xia’s dragon vein!”

Wang Hao answered with complete confidence, “Sooner or later, every dragon vein beneath heaven will belong to Great Xia.”

The Demon Lord glanced at him.

If anyone else had said such a thing, it would have sounded like arrogance.

But when Wang Hao said it, people inexplicably felt that he really might make it happen.

Wang Hao took a single step forward.

The wishes of the countless people gathered behind him, forming a faint phantom of mountains and rivers.

There were cities.

Farmland.

Rivers.

The incense of the common people.

This was not a false display of imperial majesty.

It was the true image of mountains and rivers formed from the hearts and hopes of countless millions.

Under the illumination of this power, the resentment of the dragon vein within the corpse husk actually fell silent for a brief moment.

Wang Hao seized the opportunity and reached out.

“Come out for Me!”

Boom!

A dark-gold black nail was forcibly pulled three inches free.

The corpse husk trembled violently.

The entire Ancestral Nest shook.

The Lake of Human Skin surged into waves a thousand zhang high.

Countless human faces shrieked.

Old Man Heitian frantically urged the corpse husk onward.

“Kill him!”

The corpse husk raised its other hand and slapped toward Wang Hao.

The palm blotted out the sky and covered the earth.

A black abyss spun within its palm, as if it intended to swallow an entire world.

The Demon Lord’s expression changed.

“We can’t block it!”

Wang Hao, however, did not retreat.

He drew a deep breath.

The ninth palm!

Prisoning Heaven, Overturning Earth!

Nine palms in succession—the heavens and earth were imprisoned!

This palm was not aimed at the corpse palm.

It struck toward the black nail in the corpse husk’s chest.

Crack!

The black nail finally came loose.

Using the Vein-Suppressing Black Nail as a conduit, Wang Hao forcibly pulled the first dark-gold nail from the corpse husk’s chest.

The resentment of the dragon vein erupted.

The structure suppressing the corpse husk instantly fell out of balance.

The enormous palm striking toward Wang Hao halted in midair.

The Demon Lord seized the opening. His demonic fist swept across the sky and forcibly knocked the giant palm aside.

Boom!

The giant palm plunged into the Lake of Human Skin.

The entire lake exploded.

Countless human skins were hurled into the heavens before drifting back down like scraps of torn cloth.

Zi Yuan stared at one of the familiar faces among them, and her pupils contracted.

It was the previous chief manager.

The woman who had once bought her from the slave market, taught her bookkeeping, and taught her how to smile while killing.