True Immortal Xuanming’s gaze was icy.
He pointed with one finger.
Cangxu’s brow was pierced in an instant.
Golden blood gushed forth.
His soul shook violently,
yet he still used his remaining pair of wings to seal the rift.
True Immortal Xuanming’s second finger descended.
Cangxu’s chest exploded.
The third finger.
His primordial divine body was torn into four pieces.
Yet every fragment of flesh continued to burn,
transforming into primordial divine patterns that wrapped tightly around the cracks in the immortal light.
Cangxu took one last look at the land of the Nine Provinces.
“Humanity.”
“Do not forget your promise.”
The Dragon-Slayer gripped his woodcutter’s blade.
“I won’t.”
Cangxu threw back his head and laughed.
All his flesh exploded at once.
The cracks in the immortal light shook violently.
The surrounding area rapidly collapsed.
The two arms True Immortal Xuanming had extended into the Nine Provinces were also slashed by the spatial turbulence, leaving them covered in countless wounds.
The seventh Transcendent.
Had fallen!
Of the nine,
only the Dragon-Slayer remained.
Between heaven and earth,
a deep sorrow descended.
Billions upon billions of living beings gazed at the ragged woodcutter.
He was too old.
And far too thin.
Standing before a True Immortal,
he looked like an insignificant speck of dust.
Yet he did not retreat.
The Dragon-Slayer lowered his head and looked at the woodcutter’s blade in his hand.
The power of the dragon veins accumulated within the blade over seventeen thousand years had been exhausted in that last strike.
Now,
it truly was nothing more than a rusted woodcutter’s blade.
True Immortal Xuanming looked down upon him.
“You have no strength left.”
The Dragon-Slayer nodded.
“That’s right.”
“Then why don’t you kneel?”
The Dragon-Slayer raised his head.
“A woodcutter enters the mountains to chop wood.”
“Does he kneel before the mountain?”
Xuanming said indifferently,
“The mountain cannot be defeated.”
The Dragon-Slayer smiled.
“The mountain indeed cannot be defeated.”
“But a man can chop down the trees one by one.”
“Eventually,”
“One day,”
“the mountain will become a plain.”
A murderous intent flashed in Xuanming’s eyes.
One finger moved toward the Dragon-Slayer’s brow.
Once that finger landed,
the last Transcendent would fall as well.
At that moment,
from deep within the ravine stretching for thousands of miles,
a feeble voice suddenly rang out.
“Wait.”
Xuanming’s finger paused slightly.
All the beings of the Nine Provinces turned toward the source of the voice.
The smoke and dust dispersed.
Wang Hao supported himself against a broken boulder and struggled to his feet.
His entire body was drenched in blood.
His chest was still caved in.
His face was so pale that not a trace of color remained.
With every step he took,
a bloody footprint was left beneath him.
The pupils of the Taiyin Old Matriarch suddenly contracted.
“Wang Hao!”
“He’s still alive!”
The Yellow Springs Ancestor stared blankly at Wang Hao.
The next moment,
he suddenly realized what had happened.
“That bastard was pretending to be dead the whole time?”
The New Emperor Sword immediately defended its master.
“What do you mean, pretending to be dead?”
“Master was engaging in a strategic death!”
The corner of the White Bone Old Monster’s mouth twitched.
“Strategic death?”
“This is the first time I’ve heard anyone make pretending to be dead sound so fresh and refined.”
Wang Hao ignored them all.
He raised his head and looked at Xuanming.
True Immortal Xuanming’s expression remained indifferent.
“You’re still alive.”
Wang Hao coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“His Majesty has a tough life.”
“Besides,”
“You still haven’t paid back the money you owe His Majesty.”
“His Majesty can’t bear to die yet.”
A cold glint flickered in True Immortal Xuanming’s eyes.
“With my next palm,”
“This Immortal will obliterate your Great Dao.”
Wang Hao nodded.
“His Majesty believes you.”
“So His Majesty has no intention of taking your next palm.”
He raised his hand
and pointed at the eye on the back of Xuanming’s hand.
“Everyone.”
“Have you ever considered a question?”
The Dragon-Slayer frowned.
“What question?”
Wang Hao said,
“Why does the power of the Immortal Dao cause the Venerables of the Nine Lives to undergo strange transformations?”
“Why does the shadow behind Xuanming always mirror his every movement?”
“And another thing.”
“If he truly has achieved immortality, why would he devour the entire Dark Immortal Sect just to replenish such an insignificant amount of power?”
Everyone turned to look at Xuanming.
More precisely—
They were looking at the eye on the back of his hand.
The eye was still moving.
Its pupil shifted, now gazing toward the Nine Provinces, now staring back at Xuanming himself.
It was as though another living creature had taken root within Xuanming’s body.
For the first time, True Immortal Xuanming’s expression changed.
“Shut up.”
Wang Hao smiled.
A True Immortal.
Even when surrounded and attacked by nine Transcenders, he had never told Wang Hao to shut up.
But now—
He was panicking.
That meant Wang Hao’s guess had been correct.
Wang Hao raised his hand and recalled the New Emperor Sword.
The silver-haired youth transformed into a silver sword and fell into his grasp.
At the same time, the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower materialized.
The tower trembled slightly.
The Ten Thousand Contracts Origin-Seal radiated a dim, sinister light.
The moment the three eldritch artifacts appeared—
The eye on the back of Xuanming’s hand suddenly widened.
The Check-In Intelligence System within Wang Hao’s body also issued a shrill alarm for the first time without him having checked in.
【Warning!】
【An ultra-high-level source of eldritch contamination has been detected!】
【The target’s life state is undergoing irreversible mutation!】
【Current corruption progress: 63%!】
【Target: True Immortal Xuanming!】
Wang Hao stared at the system notification in his mind.
The final trace of doubt in his heart vanished completely.
He raised his head.
His voice traveled through the fortune of Great Xia, reaching every corner of the Nine Provinces.
“Listen carefully.”
“This immortal—”
“Is not invincible.”
“He’s sick.”
Behind True Immortal Xuanming—
The enormous black shadow suddenly stopped writhing.
The next moment—
It slowly raised its head.
Then it made exactly the same movement as Xuanming.
Wang Hao spoke, every word deliberate:
“True Immortal Xuanming has been infected by the eldritch.”
“He is undergoing corruption.”
The world fell silent.
Everyone was struck as if by a thunderbolt.
The Dragon-Slayer abruptly turned toward Xuanming.
The Taiyin Old Matriarch’s expression changed drastically.
The Yellow Springs Ancestor instinctively tightened his grip on the chains.
The White Bone Old Monster stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Even the ancient beings concealed within the forbidden lands of the Nine Provinces—those who had never dared reveal themselves—were shaken at this moment.
An immortal—
Could be infected?
An immortal—
Could become an eldritch creature?
The detached expression on True Immortal Xuanming’s face vanished completely.
His five fingers slowly curled inward.
Yet the eye on the back of his hand suddenly split open at the edges.
That’s right.
The eye had no mouth.
But its pupil tore apart in both directions.
Row upon row of fine, densely packed teeth emerged.
It was smiling.
Xuanming lowered his head and looked at his own hand.
For the first time, unmistakable shock and fury appeared in his eyes.
“Shut up!”
The eye smiled even more wildly.
At the same time—
The enormous black shadow behind Xuanming spread open its arms.
Countless tentacles covered in eyes rose from the depths of the shattered immortal domain.
The inverted river of stars was wrapped in tentacles.
The remnants of the immortal palaces collapsed one after another.
Corpse after corpse of immortals who had slept for countless ages opened their pitch-black eyes in unison.
Wang Hao tightened his grip on the New Emperor Sword.
The corners of his lips slowly curled upward.
“So that’s how it is.”
“It isn’t that immortals are pursuing the eldritch.”
“Nor is it that the eldritch is pursuing immortals.”
“From the very beginning—”
“They were the same thing.”
Wang Hao’s voice spread throughout the Nine Provinces.
On the back of True Immortal Xuanming’s hand—
The eye bristling with razor-sharp teeth suddenly spun around.
Its pupil fixed itself on Wang Hao.
Beyond the cracks in the immortal light—
The enormous black shadow slowly bent down.
Thousands upon thousands of tentacles drooped toward the earth.
A rotting immortal corpse was strung along each tentacle.
The lips of those immortal corpses opened and closed in unison.
Hoarse voices drifted out from the shattered Immortal Realm.
“He’s right.”
“We…”
“Were originally the same thing.”
True Immortal Xuanming’s expression changed drastically.
“Shut up!”
Immortal might erupted.
Hundreds of immortal corpses were pulverized on the spot.
Yet there was no blood inside those corpses.
Only thick black mist poured out, once more merging into the enormous shadow.
The eye on the back of Xuanming’s hand wore an even more exaggerated grin.
What opened was not a mouth.
It was a crack stretching across the entire back of his hand.
Within the crack,
row upon row of teeth rubbed against one another furiously.
The clacking sound made one’s scalp prickle.
The Dragon-Slayer raised his woodcutter’s blade, his expression grave.
“Just what is this thing—an immortal or a monster?”
Wang Hao coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“An immortal.”
“And a monster.”
“To be more precise…”
“Xuanming stopped being a living creature long ago.”
Killing intent as sharp as ice burst from Xuanming’s eyes.
“Mortal.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Wang Hao’s face showed not the slightest trace of fear.
“Of course I do.”
“Anything that owes me money—whether it’s a living person, a dead person, an immortal, or a monster—I must first get to the bottom of it.”
“Otherwise, if the debtor dies…”
“Who am I supposed to collect interest from?”
New Emperor Sword could not help saying:
“Master.”
“Under normal circumstances, you’re the creditor.”
Wang Hao lowered his head and glanced at the silver sword.
“I said debtor.”
New Emperor Sword fell silent for a moment.
“Master is wise.”
“It’s just that he looked so shameless while refusing to pay his debt that I was misled for a moment.”
The corner of White Bone Old Monster’s eye twitched violently.
At a time like this?
These two things were actually still discussing which one of them was the creditor!
Yellow Springs Ancestor, however, kept his eyes fixed on Xuanming.
“His Majesty is right.”
“Xuanming isn’t breathing.”
“He has no heartbeat, either.”
“His immortal body appears to be brimming with vitality.”
“But what flows through it isn’t life force.”
“It is a power forcibly driving his rotting flesh.”
Taiyin Old Matriarch’s voice was dry and hoarse.
“In other words…”
“The one seated in the Immortal Realm is merely a corpse?”
True Immortal Xuanming did not answer.
But his silence had already said everything.
Inside Wang Hao’s mind,
the system’s warning continued without pause.
【Target’s corruption level is rising!】
【Current corruption progress: sixty-four percent!】
【Core life signs detected in target!】
【Immortal body deceased!】
【Immortal soul incomplete!】
【Current consciousness is being maintained by an immortal obsession and a high-level aberration!】
【Warning!】
【Target is losing balance!】
Wang Hao’s pupils contracted slightly.
The immortal body was dead.
All the power Xuanming was displaying now
came from a corpse that had been dead for who knew how many ages.
A mere immortal corpse
could effortlessly kill seven Transcenders.
How terrifying, then,
must a true immortal have been?
And yet even such a terrifying being
had still died.
More and more immortal corpses appeared within the shattered Immortal Realm.
Some had been reduced to nothing but heads.
Some had been stretched into ten-thousand-zhang-long threads by some unknown force.
Some had black roots growing throughout their bodies.
There was even one immortal whose entire lower body had transformed into a palace of flesh and blood.
Inside the palace,
countless tiny figures were kneeling in worship.
With every act of worship,
the immortal corpse revealed an expression of agony.
They were all dead.
Yet none of them had truly died.
The whispers within the black shadow grew increasingly clear.
“The Immortal Realm is shattered.”
“The substance of immortality has withered away.”
“The immortal path has an end.”
“Decay has no end.”
“We wanted to live.”
“So…”
“We found another way.”
True Immortal Xuanming suddenly raised his hand.
His five fingers plunged straight into the back of his own hand.
He intended to dig that eye out by force!
Splurt!
Immortal blood sprayed forth.
But the eye burrowed into his flesh a moment sooner.
In the next instant,
another eye opened on Xuanming’s shoulder.
“Immortals fear death.”
“The uncanny yearns for wholeness.”
“Immortals devour the uncanny.”
“They use chaos to mend their decay.”
“The uncanny devours immortals.”
“It uses the immortal path to shape itself.”
“One seeks to survive.”
“The other seeks to become a true living being.”
“When they reach the end…”
“They will naturally become the same kind of thing.”
Wang Hao’s heart trembled.
Immortals merging with the uncanny.
The uncanny devouring immortals.
The two seemed to stand opposed to each other.
In reality,
both were pursuing the ultimate form of life.
When the immortal path reached its end,
it borrowed the uncanny to break through that limit.
The uncanny had no complete consciousness,
so it devoured the great paths and memories of immortals.
Who consumed whom
was no longer important.
What mattered was what emerged in the end—
something that could control the laws of the immortal path
while possessing the uncanny’s nearly indestructible vitality.
Wang Hao said softly:
“So there are no true immortals left in the Shattered Immortal Domain.”
From within the shadows,
thousands of immortal corpses turned their heads at once.
“Immortals…”
“Are already dead.”
Boom!
Those brief five words
crashed into the hearts of every living being in the Nine Provinces like five great mountains.
For countless ages,
all martial artists had regarded immortals as the ultimate destination of cultivation—
eternal life,
immortality,
and the power to look down upon the ages.
But now,
an existence from the Shattered Immortal Domain had told them with its own lips:
Immortals were already dead.
So-called eternal life
was merely a lie that lasted an exceedingly long time.
Xuanming’s face gradually twisted.
“This immortal is not dead!”
“This immortal crossed the Immortal Gate.”
“This immortal forged an immortal body.”
“This immortal mastered the immortal path.”
“As long as I devour the Great Dao of the Nine Provinces, I can rebuild the Immortal Domain!”
The eye on his shoulder suddenly spoke.
Its voice was exactly the same as Xuanming’s.
“You are already dead.”
“The one who lives now…”
“Is me.”
Xuanming raised his hand and struck toward the eye on his shoulder.
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
