After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

There will be no more "Jin Ping Mei".

There will be no more stolen cultivation manuals.

There will be no more of the joy of being sarcastic and verbally abusive.

There will be nothing left.

The mycelium trembled slightly in the cracks of the gravel.

The path to retreat has been cut off; there is nowhere left to retreat.

"Oh shit."

Bai Xuan cursed again.

The volume was turned up slightly.

The mycelium suddenly shot out, piercing straight into the gap between the broken bones, and tightly binding the wisp of the soul that was about to dissipate.

Between breaths.

The shriveled umbrella canopy bulged outwards with all its might.

The arc expands to the extreme of this life.

The entire mushroom burst forth with a dazzling, eerie green light.

That is the entirety of the origin accumulated over thousands of years.

Pure plant essence.

The essence of a thousand years of sun and moon.

A thousand years of wind, frost, rain, and snow.

A thousand years of secretly eating, drinking, studying, and watching.

Everything is condensed in this ray of light.

It wasn't to repay a debt of gratitude.

Bai Xuan doesn't believe in this stuff in his life.

It simply did the math.

When the score was finally settled, it turned out that he owed a life.

And Bai Xuan hates being in debt the most.

The eerie green light pierced straight into the broken bone.

It seeped deep into the bone crevices, tightly covering the wisp of soul fragment that was about to be extinguished, reinforcing, nourishing, and repairing it layer by layer.

then.

The stream of light, carrying the fragment, pierced through the ruins, penetrated the rubble, cut through the billowing smoke and dust, and entered Zhou Ran's brow.

"This is the last time I'll call you boss!"

……

The sea of ​​knowledge.

It was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Zhou Ran's consciousness sank to the bottom.

The surrounding darkness oppressed the senses, making it hard to breathe.

Nightfall's demonic thoughts have already occupied most of the territory.

Those barbed black tentacles savagely burrowed into every corner of his consciousness, devouring his remaining soul inch by inch.

It's almost gone.

The traces of existence are being rapidly erased.

My memory is starting to fade.

First, some trivial things.

The feeling of first grasping a barbell at the gym when I was a child.

The taste of that cheap fried rice in the university cafeteria.

What follows is of utmost importance.

The temperature when Chen Ya handed over the family heirloom ring.

The first time Lin Qingxue smiled.

Xiao Hongli's reddened eyes when she threw the high heel.

In the past, in the Void Realm of the Prison Mountain, the domineering laws were to ruthlessly annihilate living beings.

He is now being forcibly erased as well.

All the resentment, all the indignation, all the attachment to this world.

They all come together to form one word.

"Hold!"

Just as Zhou Ran's last bit of consciousness was about to be extinguished.

A surge of energy, mixed with the earthy and fishy smell of fungi, flowed in from between my eyebrows.

It's not spiritual power.

It's not demonic energy.

It is a kind of more primal, yet stubbornly unreasonable life force.

These powers originate from the roots of mushrooms that grow in the humus soil that has been growing for thousands of years.

Ignoring the rocks or steel that block their way, they drilled in with all their might.

Zhou Ran's consciousness was violently pulled by this external force.

They were forcibly dragged out of the swamp.

He opened his eyes.

"Old dog—"

On a conscious level, Zhou Ran's eyes were bloodshot and red.

He couldn't swallow this insult.

"Get out of here and go to the corner!"

Zhou Ran's will transformed into a rough, purple-gold longsword.

There was no profound sword intent, nor any dazzling martial arts technique.

A blunt weapon forged entirely from anger.

They launched a desperate counterattack against the central consciousness of Ye Futian.

outside world.

Ye Futian, who was in control of Zhou Ran's physical body, was mobilizing his remaining demonic energy to prepare for the final blow from the phantom.

A sudden, excruciating pain in my brain.

The flow of spiritual energy was forcibly cut off.

The demonic energy gathered at his fingertips dissipated completely, turning into ashes swept away by the wind.

The halberd was already hanging above his head.

"That damn mushroom—!"

Ye Futian's voice was squeezed out of Zhou Ran's mouth, and the tone was distorted.

He wanted to hide.

But his limbs were no longer under his control.

Inside, that damned traitor was wielding a blunt knife, recklessly hacking at his soul defenses.

A knife.

Two cuts.

Three knives.

Every strike failed to penetrate the defense.

But each cut forced him to lose focus.

The halberd slashed down.

The airflow blew away the last remaining bluestone slabs at the bottom of the underground palace.

The physical body controlled by Ye Futian was violently thrown by the airflow, crashing through a stone wall a hundred meters away.

Large sections of rock collapsed, creating a two-meter-deep pit in the rock face.

This strike.

It did not directly target the vital points.

Zhou Ran's body only suffered some superficial injuries.

However, the impact transmitted to Ye Futian's sea of ​​consciousness broke through his soul defenses, creating a gap.

This is what Zhou Ran was waiting for.

It doesn't need to be big.

One crack is enough.

The remaining consciousness transformed into a purple-gold wedge, cutting into the central nervous system through the crack.

They are unreasonable, leave no room for maneuver, and give no chance for negotiation.

One kick.

He kicked it right in the center of the remnant soul of the Night-Bearing Sky.

This was a clean and decisive stomp.

He was humiliated by being possessed, and he also held accountable for the mushroom that burned away a thousand years of his spiritual wisdom.

Ye Futian's remnant soul was kicked back to the deepest corner of his sea of ​​consciousness.

Zhou Ran did not stop.

The Great Sun Tathagata Purification Mantra

I repeated it silently no less than ten times.

Layer upon layer, they sealed the black mist into a lifeless, dead sphere.

"This is interest."

Zhou Ran exhaled a breath of foul air mixed with the smell of blood from his sea of ​​consciousness.

"We'll settle the principal later."

Ye Futian unleashed a frenzied growl from within his shackles.

The sound, having passed through layers of interception, was already faint and difficult to discern by the time it reached the other end.

Zhou Ran gathered his consciousness.

The moment of regaining control of the body.

The pain sensation has returned.

All the pain that had been forcibly severed by the night sky poured in without regard to the order in which they came in.

The wound from the severed arm, the depleted veins, the broken ribs.

The dantian platform is covered with dense cracks.

Zhou Ran slammed one knee into the pile of rubble.

Mouth slightly open.

What he coughed up was no longer blood, but a thick, black liquid mixed with fragments of internal organs.

"Your opponent is me."

He used his only remaining right hand to desperately support himself on the ground.

Five deep grooves were dug out from the gravel with his fingers.

His gaze swept towards the distance.

Bai Xuan lay quietly on the ground.

The once rounded umbrella canopy has shrunk and shrunken, its surface covered with dry, wrinkled skin.

The luster has completely faded, turning into a dull, grayish-white.

Those thieving eyes that used to dart around everywhere were gone.

The patterns on the canopy were blurred together, just like the wild mushrooms that could be found everywhere in the muddy ground.

It has overdrawn its intelligence.

It degenerated into an ordinary white umbrella mushroom.

They cannot speak.

I don't swear.

I won't keep yelling that I want to read *Jin Ping Mei* in that annoying tone anymore.

I can't do anything anymore.

Zhou Ran stared at the shriveled mushroom.

I stared at it for three seconds.

His chest heaved violently.

He didn't say anything particularly moving.

They didn't do anything particularly sentimental.

He could only straighten his swaying body, take a step, and bend down to pick up the shriveled mushroom.

Brush off the surface dust and gravel.

Tuck it into the front of your clothes.

I owe you my life.

He said.

"When you come back, there will be plenty of Jin Ping Mei."

No one responded to him.

The umbrella remained completely still.

Zhou Ran raised her hand to wipe away the bloodstains from her lips.

Raise your head.

In mid-air, Li Chengfeng's phantom raised his halberd once more.

Even though its outline had faded and turned white, the halberd's locked position remained unchanged.

The pressure from the Nascent Soul level returned with a vengeance.

The force was significantly reduced this time.

However, this greatly diminished power of the Nascent Soul stage still represents an insurmountable obstacle for Zhou Ran at present.

His meridians were depleted, his left arm was completely lost, and the Dao platform in his dantian was covered with cracks.

He needs to dig his right fingernails into his palm to stay awake, even when he's standing straight.

The halberd blade sliced ​​through space.

There was no sonic boom.

There was no blast wave.

This attack was extremely slow.

Slow enough that Zhou Ran could clearly see every ancient forging pattern on the halberd blade.

But it is precisely this unhurried, slow pace that forces people into an inescapable dead end.