Picked Up an Immortal Destiny

Holding something in safekeeping for an immortal.

Clearly, it was no easy task.

Wang Hao had just closed the ledger.

When the heart of the battlefield exploded once more.

The twelve pairs of Immortal-Aberration wings behind Xuanming folded inward simultaneously.

Every feather bore an eye, and each eye unleashed a silver-black beam.

Tens of thousands of beams pierced the void,

pinning the grotesque body of the Corpse Liberation Immortal to the shattered immortal domain.

The head growing from the Corpse Liberation Immortal’s chest let out a shrill scream.

“Get lost!”

The nine ancient immortal-bronze coffins trembled at once.

Boundless corpse qi surged from within them.

The corpse qi gathered into nine gray-white rivers.

There was no water in those rivers—

only countless rotting corpses.

Every one of them wore clothing from a different era.

Some were human.

Some were demons.

There were even ancient races that had never appeared in the Nine Provinces.

They struggled in the rivers of corpses,

reaching out toward Xuanming.

Xuanming opened his right eye.

Fangs spun within it.

With a single gulp, he swallowed three of the corpse rivers.

The remaining six transformed into chains and wrapped around the arms of the Immortal-Aberration Dharma Form.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal seized the opportunity to retreat.

But in the next instant,

Xuanming’s left hand shot forward.

It seized the Corpse Liberation Immortal’s unevenly sized right leg.

Then he yanked hard!

Rip!

Rotten flesh sprayed through the air.

The entire right leg was torn off by brute force.

There was no blood in the severed stump.

Only densely packed white maggots.

The maggots fell into the void

and immediately swelled into thousand-zhang corpse worms.

They frantically gnawed at space.

Wherever they passed,

even the fragments of the Great Dao left behind by the immortal battle were devoured.

The severed right leg did not die either.

It twisted in midair.

A maw filled with sharp teeth split open at the knee.

The foot flipped backward.

The five toes transformed into five arms.

After no more than a few breaths,

the severed leg had become a ten-thousand-zhang headless corpse demon.

The corpse demon had been searching for the Corpse Liberation Immortal.

But when it neared the edge of the battlefield,

it suddenly stopped.

The enormous maw at its knee slowly turned toward Wang Hao.

More precisely,

it turned toward the two immortal-bronze coffin nails in Wang Hao’s arms.

“Give…”

“Give them back…”

“My…”

“Life…”

The corpse demon let out an indistinct growl.

The Dragon-Slayer tightened his grip on his woodcutter’s blade.

“It’s coming for us.”

Wang Hao glanced at the coffin nails in his arms,

then at the corpse demon.

“It’s not coming for us.”

“It’s here to reclaim lost property.”

The Dragon-Slayer frowned.

“Then are you going to return them?”

Wang Hao looked genuinely surprised.

“Senior.”

“Have you ever seen anyone willingly return an immortal artifact after finding it?”

The Dragon-Slayer fell silent for a moment.

“I’ve never found one.”

“Exactly.”

Wang Hao shoved the two coffin nails deeper into his robes.

“If you have no experience, don’t offer random advice.”

The ten-thousand-zhang corpse demon had already charged over.

Every step it took

caused vast stretches of the void to rot.

Its five toe-arms struck down simultaneously.

A ghastly white eyeball opened in each palm.

Within the eyes were reflections of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

An invisible corpse poison descended first.

Corpse spots instantly appeared across Wang Hao’s skin.

The spots writhed incessantly,

actually trying to burrow into his internal organs.

The Dragon-Slayer’s condition was even worse.

His qi and blood were already in decline.

The moment the corpse poison entered his body,

half of him rapidly lost all sensation.

“Immortal-corpse poison.”

“Don’t let it touch your flesh.”

The Dragon-Slayer issued the warning in a low voice.

The New Emperor Sword, however, grew excited.

The silver-haired youth licked his lips.

The tiny eye on his tongue rotated with it.

“Master!”

“This thing can be eaten!”

Wang Hao looked at the eye.

“Open your mouth.”

The silver-haired youth immediately opened wide.

“Ah—”

Wang Hao extended two fingers

and directly pinched the eye.

With a hard pull,

a strand of black blood threaded out from deep within the youth’s tongue.

The silver-haired youth froze completely.

“M-Master…”

“It hurts!”

“Bear it.”

Wang Hao’s expression remained impassive.

The black blood thread continued stretching outward.

From its deepest end,

Xuanming’s faint whisper could be heard.

“Come back…”

“Become a part of this immortal…”

The silver-haired youth’s right eye gradually turned pitch-black.

The power he had gained by devouring the Immortal-Aberration tentacle was contaminating the source of his artifact spirit in reverse.

If Wang Hao had not possessed the Myriad Contracts Origin-Unity Seal,

allowing him to directly sense changes in the cursed artifacts bound to him,

the New Emperor Sword would have completely become a part of Xuanming before long.

“I told you.”

“You can’t eat random things off the roadside.”

“But you refused to listen.”

“I won’t eat them anymore!”

“Master!”

“Be gentler!”

Wang Hao continued exerting force.

“You said that last time too.”

“Last time, I was a sword.”

“Now I’m a human.”

“There’s a difference between a human and a sword!”

“You’re quite good at making excuses for yourself.”

Pop!

A black eyeball with twelve thin legs was yanked from the silver-haired youth’s mouth.

The moment it emerged,

it tried to burrow back into the youth’s body.

Wang Hao raised his hand and clenched it.

The power of the Heaven-Imprisoning Earth-Covering Palm erupted in his grasp.

Boom!

The black eyeball exploded on the spot.

A wisp of silver-black smoke tried to escape.

Wang Hao had been prepared for it.

The mouth of the Immortal-Sealing Altar opened

and sucked all the smoke inside.

The wisp of power was not yet enough to condense into complete Origin Blood.

It could only settle at the bottom of the altar.

[The New Emperor Sword has expelled high-level aberrant contamination!]

[The source of the cursed artifact has suffered minor damage!]

[The cursed artifact’s ranking has fallen to eighty-ninth!]

[The artifact spirit’s combat power has stabilized at the seventh martial realm!]

The silver-haired youth covered his mouth,

his face filled with grief and indignation.

“I’ve become weaker!”

Wang Hao nodded.

“At least your brain is still intact.”

“Being weaker is better than becoming stupid.”

The silver-haired youth thought about it.

Then he became even more aggrieved.

“Master!”

“Are you saying I was already stupid to begin with?”

Wang Hao did not answer.

The five enormous palms of the ten-thousand-zhang corpse demon had already descended.

“Thunder Abyss!”

A black tower shot into the sky.

The tower’s nine-story gates opened one after another.

From the eighth level,

a streak of crimson-violet lightning rose into the air.

The lightning rapidly expanded in the void,

transforming into a thunder phoenix that blotted out the heavens.

Caw!

The phoenix’s cry pierced through the corpse qi.

Its wings swept up a boundless sea of thunder and crashed into the corpse demon’s five massive hands.

Thunder naturally countered corpse fiends.

But this severed leg had come from a decayed immortal.

Even as only a fragment of a limb,

it still possessed terrifying power far beyond the Martial God Realm.

The thunder phoenix held out for only three breaths.

Its wings were corroded by the corpse qi.

Countless thunder feathers went dark and died in midair.

The corpse demon’s five palms continued pressing downward.

Wang Hao stepped forward.

He raised both palms toward the sky.

“Heaven-Imprisoning Earth-Covering Palm!”

First strike.

Space trembled.

Second strike.

The corpse qi churned.

Third strike.

The corpse demon’s five palms paused slightly.

Fourth strike.

The ruins of the immortal palace beneath Wang Hao’s feet shattered completely.

Fifth strike.

The sleeves covering his arms turned to ash.

Sixth strike.

A vast river of imperial destiny materialized behind him.

Seventh strike.

The phantoms of billions of Great Xia subjects raised their hands in unison.

Eighth strike.

Cracks appeared simultaneously in the five toe-arms of the ten-thousand-zhang corpse demon.

Golden light surged in Wang Hao’s eyes.

The Transcendent Great Dao within his body began to burn.

“Ninth strike!”

Boom!

The two forces collided head-on.

The ten-thousand-zhang corpse demon was overturned by sheer force.

Its five arms exploded in midair.

Countless pieces of rotting flesh shot in every direction.

Wang Hao was also forced backward several thousand zhang.

With every step he retreated,

a gigantic palmprint was left in the void beneath his feet.

The corpse spots covering his body grew darker and darker.

They had already spread to his neck.

“Three zhang below the seven-inch point.”

The Dragon-Slayer suddenly spoke.

Wang Hao immediately looked over.

Although the corpse demon had no serpentine form,

The “vital point” mentioned by the Dragon-Slayer

had never referred to a location.

It meant the demon’s weak point.

Three zhang beneath the giant mouth on the Corpse Demon’s knee,

an immortal-copper rune was flashing incessantly.

Behind the rune

was a shrunken immortal-copper ancient coffin.

It was one of the nine ancient coffins!

The Dragon-Slayer vanished in a single step.

The next moment,

he had already appeared beside the Corpse Demon.

His rusty woodcutter’s knife came down.

There was no earth-shaking blade light.

Only an extremely thin black line.

That black line cut precisely into the immortal-copper rune.

The Corpse Demon abruptly turned its head.

Its giant mouth snapped toward the Dragon-Slayer.

“Old bastard!”

“I’ve found you!”

The Dragon-Slayer did not retreat.

He had only one arm.

And only one rusty woodcutter’s knife.

Yet the moment that single arm gripped the blade,

his entire body became like a mountain that could never be cleaved.

The woodcutter’s knife fell again.

A second black line descended.

A corner of the immortal-copper rune cracked open.

The Corpse Demon’s giant mouth was only a hundred zhang away from him.

Drops of corpse fluid dripped from its fangs.

Every drop that landed

caused great patches of gray hair to sprout across the Dragon-Slayer’s body.

The New Emperor Sword in Wang Hao’s hand let out a long ringing cry.

“Senior.”

“Duck!”

The Dragon-Slayer did so without hesitation.

His body sank down.

A silver sword light skimmed over his scalp.

“The Nine Swords of Heaven-Cleaving!”

The first sword struck into the mouth.

The Corpse Demon’s fangs shattered.

The second sword tore apart its tongue.

The third severed its corpse tendons.

The fourth pierced through its kneecap.

The fifth extinguished its corpse markings.

When the sixth sword descended,

the Corpse Demon’s entire giant mouth had already been split in two.

The seventh sword—

The immortal-copper rune shattered completely.

The eighth sword—

The shrunken ancient coffin emerged from the rotten flesh.

Wang Hao gripped his sword with both hands.

Behind him, the river of imperial fortune contracted into a single fine golden line.

“The ninth sword!”

“Heaven-Cleaving!”

The sword light fell.

The Corpse Demon split apart through the center of its knee.

The immortal-copper ancient coffin also broke free of the severed limb.

The Dragon-Slayer reached out and grabbed for the ancient coffin.

Wang Hao was faster.

A golden dragon of national fortune poked its head out from behind.

With one bite, it swallowed the entire ancient coffin.

The Dragon-Slayer grabbed nothing but air.

He turned to look at Wang Hao.

“I found it first.”

Wang Hao shook his head.

“Senior was only responsible for showing me the way.”

“The houses along the road don’t belong to the guide.”

The Dragon-Slayer tightened his grip on the woodcutter’s knife.

Wang Hao immediately added,

“Of course.”

“Your emperor has always respected his elders.”

“If this ancient coffin is sold,

you may have half a percent.”

“It was two and a half percent just now.”

“That was immortal blood.”

“Now it’s a coffin.”

Wang Hao explained solemnly,

“They’re different goods.”

“The commission naturally has to be calculated by different standards.”

The Dragon-Slayer drew a deep breath.

In the end, he still did not bring the blade down.

Because countless cries of alarm suddenly came from the distance.

The shattered remains of the Corpse Demon

were transforming into a rain of corpses covering tens of thousands of miles.

The corpse rain was falling toward Jingbian City on the western frontier of Great Xia.

There were more than three hundred thousand civilians in the city.

The eight thousand soldiers of the Jingbian Army had already taken their positions atop the walls.

Their leading veteran general possessed only the strength of the Skyflight Realm.

Yet, facing immortal-corpse blood rain that even a Martial God would not dare to withstand head-on,

he did not take a single step back.

“Raise the formation!”

The eight thousand soldiers of the Jingbian Army raised their spears at the same time.

Their vital energy and blood condensed into a scarlet barrier.

The Yellow Springs Ancestor and the White Bone Old Monster rushed over from two directions.

But they were too far away.

They would never make it in time.

The Dragon-Slayer’s expression changed slightly.

“They can’t stop it.”

Wang Hao, of course, knew they could not.

The ruins of that immortal palace were still being dragged along by the golden dragon of national fortune.

They had already entered the area covered by Great Xia’s national fortune.

Give him another quarter of an hour,

and he could bring the entire structure into the space of national fortune.

That was an immortal-domain building.

Every brick and stone was engraved with immortal Dao runes.

Its value was impossible to estimate.

Wang Hao glanced at it only once

before raising his hand.

“Go.”

The golden dragon of national fortune released the ancient coffin.

Its four claws seized half of the immortal palace.

Then it hurled it violently toward the sky above Jingbian City.

Boom!

The ruins of the immortal palace streaked across the sky.

Before the corpse rain could fall,

they blocked it above the heads of the three hundred thousand civilians.

In the next moment,

the boundless corpse rain engulfed the immortal palace.

Those ancient halls, which had not been completely destroyed even when the immortal domain shattered,

rapidly rotted under the corrosion of the corpse poison.

Pavilions collapsed.

Hall pillars broke apart.

Tiles of immortal gold crumbled into ash one after another.

The corner of Wang Hao’s eye twitched faintly.

There went his admission ticket.

The eight thousand soldiers of the Jingbian Army stared at the burning ruins of the immortal palace overhead.

They all fell to their knees.

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

The three hundred thousand civilians also prostrated themselves in the city.

Streams of faith-power shot into the sky

and poured into Wang Hao’s body.

The corpse marks on Wang Hao’s body were scoured by the faith-power,

and their spread gradually halted.

He looked at the half of the immortal palace that had turned to ash.

After a moment of silence,

he wrote another entry in his ledger.

“Corpse Liberation destroyed half of Great Xia’s immortal-domain ruins.”

“Compensation in silver…”

Wang Hao thought for a moment.

“Priceless.”

“Charge him with one life for now.”

At the center of the battlefield,

the Corpse Liberation Immortal suddenly let out a shrill howl.

The immortal-copper ancient coffin was swept back by the golden dragon of national fortune

and finally landed in Wang Hao’s hands.

Three twisted immortal characters gradually lit up on the surface of the ancient coffin.

Right-Foot Coffin.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal’s severed right leg had originally continued regenerating.

But as soon as the ancient coffin fell into Wang Hao’s hands,

all the newly formed flesh withered at once.

Even the maggots in the wound rapidly died.

The head growing from the Corpse Liberation Immortal’s chest snapped toward Wang Hao.

For the first time,

genuine fear appeared in its eyes.

“Mortal!”

“Put down this Immortal’s Life Coffin!”

Wang Hao placed one foot on the coffin lid.

He lowered his head and looked at it.

“Yours?”

“Call it over.”

“Does it answer to you?”

The Corpse Liberation Immortal flew into a rage.

The nine ancient coffins were the foundation of his undying flesh.

Losing each one

was equivalent to losing one immortal life.

He could no longer spare any thought for Xuanming.

His rotten right hand crossed the battlefield

and pointed toward Wang Hao.

As that finger descended,

all the corpse qi in the heavens and earth froze at once.

A gray-white fingerprint covering a million miles

slowly emerged across the sky of the Nine Provinces.

Within every groove of the fingerprint,

billions upon billions of corpse shadows crawled.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal’s voice was venomous.

“Steal one of this Immortal’s coffins…”

“This Immortal will refine you into a coffin.”

“I’ll make you live another lifetime in my place!”

Wang Hao raised his head.

He looked at that withered immortal finger,

powerful enough to press down an entire domain.

Then he moved the immortal-copper ancient coffin behind him.

“You’re making it sound so frightening.”

“Looks like this coffin really is worth something.”

“Senior.”

“Prepare to strike.”

The Dragon-Slayer gripped his woodcutter’s knife.

“How are we calculating this strike?”

Wang Hao did not hesitate.

“Official business.”

“No commission.”

The Dragon-Slayer’s woodcutter’s knife nearly fell on Wang Hao’s head first.

And at that very moment,

the withered immortal finger descended completely.