Filthy Cultivation: I Pierced the Heavens with the Merit System

"Who is there!"

Bai, whose senses were most acute, shouted out as the storm raged.

His knuckles, gripping the gun with excessive force due to his heightened alertness, appeared somewhat white.

As he turned around abruptly, the lightning from the explosion of the Qiankun Spear revealed a chilling glint in his usually harmless dog-like eyes.

The crackling blue-purple lightning was so bright that it illuminated every detail of the stone walls in the entire space.

From the distorted shadows, a nauseating silhouette slowly emerged—a snake's head gleaming with cold blue scales, foul-smelling saliva dripping from its fangs, and a fat pig's body covered in pustules.

The four deformed arms, where hands should be, are instead covered with strangely shaped fingers, like sea anemones soaked in wastewater.

Those fingers gripped numerous bone spurs formed from congealed blood in bizarre, twisted postures, making the ends of each arm look like sea anemones and sea urchins caught in the act of adultery.

"This taste..."

Li Fuyao's throat bobbed, and the fingertips holding the fan trembled slightly.

She suppressed the nausea churning in her stomach, and as the Lumen Fan unfolded with a "whoosh," it activated the wind spirit power to create a triple wind barrier, forming a pale blue light screen in front of her to block the stench that was rushing towards her.

"It's an aura a hundred times more filthy than that of demonic cultivators."

Her voice was unusually solemn, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the bulging veins on the back of Yun Hanxing's hand holding the sword.

Qiao Tianxing swallowed hard, cold sweat trickling down his temples. He was staring intently at the writhing, unidentified creature on the giant golem's shoulder, a labored swallowing sound escaping his throat, revealing the answer in everyone's mind:

"This, this is actually a vile demon!"

His voice trembled at the end, and his right hand, gripping his sword, unconsciously shrank further into his sleeve.

"How could there be an evil spirit in this place?!"

"Ha, that's a funny thing to say!"

The filthy demon grinned, its serpentine fangs dripping with slime that corroded the ground, producing wisps of blue smoke.

It simultaneously formed hand seals with all four arms, its deformed fingers twisting and turning eerily like blooming lotus flowers, and chuckled sinisterly:

"If you humans can come to this place, why can't we demons?"

The metallic, scraping laughter was so loud it hurt everyone's eardrums. Suddenly, asphalt-like tentacles shot out from the ground and attacked everyone. When Yu Zhenzhen screamed and jumped away, the hem of her skirt, embroidered with canaries, had already been corroded and charred.

Zhao Lingyun swiftly flicked out several talismans that drew azure arcs in the air, severing the tentacles that were about to wrap around Qiao Tianxing's ankles.

Although Yu Zhenzhen was saved, the girl Fu Xiu's pale cheeks were flushed with a sickly redness, clearly indicating that the attack had aggravated her old injuries.

"Where there are people, there will be evil spirits. I thought that after so many years, this would be common knowledge."

"How come none of you knew?"

The two arms at the top of the demon suddenly grew larger, and the barbed bone whips grazed Li Fuyao's ears, severing a few strands of her hair.

The monster's arms, covering its chest, seemed to shyly conceal itself like a woman's, yet its vertical pupils gleamed with a wicked pleasure:

"Oh, sorry, I forgot—"

Its drawn-out tone suddenly turned sharp, the unpleasant laughter filled with contemptuous murderous intent:

"I killed all the little bastards who knew this! Hahahaha!"

Li Fuyao felt a chill run down her spine from the affectedly coquettish trembling voice. She clearly saw that when the demon spoke, the anemone-shaped fingers on its four arms were twitching wildly, and each knuckle was secreting dark green mucus.

In the distance, the colossal golem roared deafeningly, and the black mist on its chest condensed into countless spiked armors, carrying a stench that swept towards us.

"Beware!"

Yun Hanxing shouted, and the usually indifferent eyes of the black-robed swordsman were now frosty. Wherever the sword energy swept, the flying stones fell down in a flurry.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lightning on the tip of Bai Suifeng's spear gradually dimming in the filthy black mist, and his heart clenched suddenly:

This guy is deliberately wasting their spiritual energy!

Upon seeing this, the filthy demon narrowed its four vertical pupils simultaneously, its maniacal laughter carrying the pleasure of a cat toying with a mouse:

"It's not that stupid."

As they spoke, the uppermost arm suddenly grew three zhang (approximately 10 meters) in length, its fingers transforming into a barbed bone whip that lashed directly at Zhao Lingyun, who was leaning against the stone wall, panting.

"But compared to that girl from the Yanjian Sect who cried and begged to go home three months ago, you guys are more fun to play with."

"You scoundrel! Looks like you've done plenty of evil!"

Li Fuyao unleashed a gust of wind from her Luminous Fan, which carried twelve golden spirit blades as they shot out. She activated her soul power to form the Purifying Soul Whip, which clashed with the Bone Whip, sparks flying amidst the ear-piercing friction.

Zhao Lingyun took the opportunity to retreat quickly, but Yu Zhenzhen grabbed her wrist:

"Idiot! Watch your step!"

Where she had been standing, a pit several feet deep had suddenly appeared, with boiling venom bubbling up.

Just then, Bai Suifeng suddenly groaned, and the lightning patterns on the Qiankun Spear were corroded by the filthy blood and became dull and lifeless.

In a moment of panic, Li Fuyao used the recoil from the wind and thunder ball to leap into the air. Suddenly, he saw a flash of blue light under the scales on the back of the evil demon's neck—the faint curse mark was exactly the same as the runes on the chest of the giant puppet!

"Attack its neck!"

The gust of wind whipped up by the Luminous Fan carried away the gravel, and Li Fuyao shouted sharply into everyone's minds using telepathy:

"Those cursed seals might be the control center!"

As she spoke, she stared intently at the demon's reaction, and sure enough, she saw the monster's four vertical pupils suddenly contract.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Lingyun gritted her teeth and threw out three more Explosive Flame Talismans. The moment the talismans were released, blood trickled from the corner of the girl's lips again.

Flames formed the shape of a Vermilion Bird in the air, but then the filthy demon suddenly opened its blood-red maw, and thick black liquid poured out like a waterfall, swallowing the entire Flame Bird.

"Is that all you have?"

Its chest and arms were pounding its belly exaggeratedly, and the anemone-shaped fingers on each arm were twitching excitedly:

"Compared to that old man who self-destructed his golden core last month, you're not even an appetizer!"

Before Qiao Tianxing's sword energy could even get close, it was swallowed by the black mist. The recoil caused him to stagger backward, and the blood from his split tiger's mouth stained the rope wrapped around the sword hilt.

He stared at the blood on his palm, and suddenly remembered the elders of his clan stroking his head before he left, urging him to bring honor to the family. A pang of sorrow gripped his heart.

"Are we...going to die here?"

"How dare an ant try to hinder the Lord's great cause?"

The demon's four arms suddenly swelled into pillars, and its gaping maw spewed out a foul, stench.

"I might as well let you die knowing why—"

It deliberately dragged out its words, watching with satisfaction as everyone's expressions suddenly changed:

"We replaced the patrolling disciples of the Yanjian Sect three months ago. The deaths of all the cultivators in the secret realm today will be attributed to them!"

Upon hearing this, Li Fuyao's pupils contracted sharply, and her memory flashed through the fog like lightning:

The stiff-looking gatekeepers who entered the secret realm had jade pendants on their waists that were indeed tokens of the Yanjian Sect. Now that I think about it, the jade was bluish-black, clearly a sign that it had been tainted by filth.

Her knuckles cracked as she gripped the fan, then she suddenly demanded sharply:

"How many people did you replace?"

"Who knows~"

The demon's lowest arm suddenly extended, its fingertips grazing Yu Zhenzhen's cheek, leaving a bloody mark on the girl's delicate skin.

"Perhaps your most respected teacher, your closest future fellow disciples..."

It deliberately lowered its voice, and all four vocal cords simultaneously emitted a seductive vibrato:

"They've already become one of ours~"

"If the four major sects were to go to war because of this..."

Qiao Tianxing flicked his sleeve to deflect the bone spikes that were attacking him, his voice hoarse as if he had swallowed sand and gravel:

"Then the entire cultivation world will be..."

"Qiao Tianxing!"

Bai Suifeng suddenly roared, and the Qiankun Spear, drawing upon thunder from the heavens, slashed down. The purple lightning illuminated his features, making him appear like a demon reborn. The tip of the spear was aimed directly at the curse mark on the back of the demon's neck.

"Instead of worrying about the world, we should kill this beast first!"