Skin like charcoal, eyes that led to the abyss, two horns formed of pure sin, and exuding an aura of pure malice, that was a devil. The coffin sizzled as the devil leveraged himself out of it and stared at Jiang Chunye, completely ignoring Daoyi.
"C-C-Chun-ye..." The devil croaked out.
Daoyi's expression tensed as she sensed the powerful miasma leaking from the black being. In terms of aura, it was somewhere between a true devil and a devil monarch. Her pupils shrunk as she made out the devil's features. It looked like Hun Jusang?
Jiang Chunye ignored Daoyi as she cupped Hun Jusang's cheek. "I'm sorry that I need to wake you up, but I need your help."
"H-help...I will...h-help y-you," Hun Jusang said.
Daoyi didn't want to wait any longer and attacked. Under her control, the fourth mountain exerted mountain-like pressure on the two, Jiang Chunye and Hun Jusang. Jiang Chunye curled into a ball, trying to withstand the pressure, but blood started spurting out from all over her body and turned her into a bloody mess.
In contrast, Hun Jusang didn't even move at all. He just stood there staring at Jiang Chunye without moving an inch. Then, he turned around and stared at Jiang Daoyi, who was all the way on the second mountain.
Daoyi felt as if the grim reaper had placed the edge of its scythe against her neck. A cold sweat broke out, but her movements didn't stop as she continued playing her song. The ghostly soldiers all rushed toward the duo. Their target? Jiang Chunye.
Just as the first ghostly soldier neared her and raised its saber against her, it shattered. Where the ghostly soldier's head had once been, Hun Jusang's hand now rested.
Hun Jusang rested in the same position for a few moments even as more ghostly soldiers arrived. "Un-Unfor-giveable!!!"
A roar thundered out, causing cracks to appear on all the ghostly soldiers. Not a second longer, they all shattered into countless tiny shards, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the black miasma exploding from Hun Jusang's body.
Wherever the black miasma touched, it corrupted. Daoyi's face paled as she felt her immortal sense deviate under the influence. To control the Mountains and Seas Formation, Daoyi's immortal sense pervaded every inch of it. Since the fourth mountain was being corrupted, so was her immortal sense.
It would be bad if the corruption reached her. Although she was confident in her willpower and resistance, she didn't want to test it out, so she severed the immortal sense controlling the fourth mountain. Simultaneously, the fourth mountain's corruption rate increased without her input.
Daoyi lost sight of Jiang Chunye, but at this point, she didn't have the spare effort. Almost all her attention was on Hun Jusang.
The ephemeral, immortal-like aura the fourth mountain exuded was no longer present. Now, with each passing second, it exuded a malice-filled presence, a den of evil.
No matter what Daoyi did, she couldn't stop the corruption of the fourth mountain. Still, she did not stop her struggle. The more energy Hun Jusang used to take over the fourth mountain, the better it would be for her.
Sweat rolled down Daoyi's cheeks as she continued her resistance against Hun Jusang. She had long stopped playing her Nine Nether Note Guqin and focused wholeheartedly on controlling the Mountains and Seas Formations.
Daoyi's hand weaved through several seals, and the Life and Death Mountain began to quake. Of the mountains present, the first mountain, Spacetime Mountain, was undoubtedly the most powerful, but Daoyi specialized in the Law of Death. Hence she had more compatibility with the second mountain and could unleash more power.
Death qi exploded from the second mountain. It floated above the peak and started to coagulate into a murky figure draped in a ragged cloak. A skeletal hand appeared from beneath its cloak and clenched. A staff slowly materialized out of its hand. Once it stopped growing, a curved blade emerged at the end, creating a sickle.
The skeletal apparition of death grasped the scythe in both hands and raised it above its head. Its target was all of the fourth mountain.
It swung, leaving behind an arc of black silver.
Mountains and Seas Formation - Soul Silencer
The grim reaper started to dissipate, and Daoyi heaved a sigh of relief as she felt the miasma run uncontrolled. It meant that she successfully silenced the source of the corruption. Now all she needed to do was eliminate the miasma and return the fourth mountain to normal.
'Somethings wrong,' Daoyi thought. She tried to control the fourth mountain, but she discovered that she had less authority over it than before. The miasma that had become weak started to condense.
Daoyi had an ominous premonition. She immediately commanded Spacetime Mountain to lock and contact the fourth mountain. As the seconds passed, she knew her premonition was true. Hun Jusang had survived and was going to detonate the fourth mountain!
"Tian—!" Daoyi didn't even have a chance to finish as the fourth mountain detonated much faster than she expected. An all-devouring shroud of darkness enveloped her.
When the darkness disappeared, there was only a land of black where the Earthcore Heavywater had been. The grass and soil had been upturned and cracked. The lake had taken on a dark hue and ran through the cracks like a river.
It seemed as if everyone had died, but a moment later, a vortex appeared in the air, and Daoyi walked out. She was panting like crazy, and sweat coated her entire body.
"Are you okay?" the chibi Tianyi asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Daoyi said as her breathing returned to normal. Although her expression turned neutral, chibi Tianyi got the distinct impression that she wasn't pleased.
Daoyi tapped the Mountains and Seas Pendant, and the atmosphere around her turned gloomy. "I won't be able to use the Mountains and Seas Formation for a while. The fourth mountain has been destroyed, and I don't know when it can regenerate."
"Oh! Give it to me," chibi Tianyi said. "Maybe I can improve my formation skills while watching it regenerate. I have confidence in my formation technique, but I still can't recreate something like the Mountains and Seas Formation."
A moment later, the Mountains and Seas Pendant disappeared from Daoyi's waist. Daoyi didn't fuss over it and stared into the distance without saying a word. "They survived, didn't they?"
Chibi Tianyi shrugged. "I sensed Hun Jusang fleeing, so I unleashed an attack from the Nine Heavens Universe. Logically speaking, he should have perished, but I don't think he would die so easily."
"What about Jiang Chunye?" Daoyi asked.
"Her? I think she survived as well. I didn't sense any spatial fluctuations, but I sensed a patch of darkness attached to Hun Jusang. That could be her," Tianyi said.
"Next time," Daoyi said. "Next time, I'll definitely kill her."
Chibi Tianyi's eyes widened as he stared at Daoyi. "Woah, that's a massive amount of killing intent radiating off of you. I think this might be the first time I felt so much killing intent from you!"
"Once, twice, I can ignore," Daoyi started. "I didn't think much about her at first. Even if she wanted to kill, I still didn't place that much importance on her. Logically speaking, we don't have much conflict, and she instigated all of them. Still, I didn't actively seek her out. If I could kill her, good."
The killing intent around Daoyi condensed. "But she keeps annoying me like a mosquito, no, a cockroach. This time, I'll be the hunter."
'Wow, Jiang Chunye must have really pissed her off," chibi Tianyi thought. 'She wasn't this active in killing the Xu Clan's enemies. I almost feel bad for Jiang Chunye. Almost.'
Over a thousand kilometers away, a black streak soared through the yellow sky. A few seconds later, the black streak started to sway back and forth until it hit the ground, revealing Hun Jusang with an unnaturally large shadow.
However, he wasn't fine at all. Hun Jusang had numerous lacerations covering his entire body, and he was missing an arm. From the stump of his arm and wounds, black blood leaked. He didn't care at all and reached into the shadow and pulled out an unconscious Jiang Chunye.
"Chunye! Chunye!" Hun Jusang shouted, but no matter how he shouted, Jiang Chunye didn't react.
Hun Jusang placed his finger underneath Jiang Chunye's nose and felt the flow of air. Only then did he sigh in relief and relax. He couldn't use immortal sense or spiritual sense to check her body because he was no longer a cultivator but a true devil.
Devils were beings that brought calamity to all. Hun Jusang wasn't sure what his devil sense would have done to Jiang Chunye's body, so he could only use this rudimentary method.
Hun Jusang slung Jiang Chunye over his shoulders and turned into a black streak again. He feared Daoyi and that unknown immortal chasing them. After fleeing for several thousand more kilometers, Hun Jusang stopped after finding a safe location.
He leaned Jiang Chunye against the cavern walls and inspected himself. This was the first time he had seen his body since the devil monarch within his body had started possessing his body.
As expected of a devil's body, Hun Jusang's wound had stopped bleeding and was in the slow process of healing. Devils were creatures that fed on negative emotions. Even now, Hun Jusang could perceive the negative emotions of the immortals in the Yellow Mausoleum.
In his eyes, they were fed to him through faint currents, healing him. The more negative emotions he was mired in, the stronger, faster, and more terrifying he was. Conversely, if he didn't reign in his own negative emotions, the more easily he would become affected by them.
Devils didn't need to care as they thrived on negative emotions, but Hun Jusang didn't want to lose his reasoning, especially after he regained his body.
Jiang Chunye's eyelashes fluttered, and Hun Jusang immediately appeared in front of her. She looked at Hun Jusang in a daze. "Jusang?"
Hun Jusang smiled for the first time in a long while. "I'm back, Chunye."
Jiang Chunye's eyes snapped open as she leaned forward in surprise. "Jusang, you're back?!"
She closely observed Hun Jusang for any sign of the devil that had been sealed inside of him. Hun Jusang still possessed charcoal-colored skin and two horns formed of sin, but his eyes were no longer pure black. The scleras were still black, but his irises had their former color.
"How?" Jiang Chunye asked.
"It must have been because of your sister's attack," Hun Jusang said. "I could sense that her last attack would be fatal to the soul, so I completely gave up control of my body to the devil inside me. I was pretty lucky since her attack destroyed the devil's soul, giving me complete control of my body back."
"Heh, that bitch was useful for something at least," Jiang Chunye said. "Are you completely cured? An inner devil won't try to possess your body again, right?"
Hun Jusang shook his head. "I'm not sure. A situation like this has never happened before. I'm not even a cultivator anymore but a devil. If I were to form an inner devil, the same might even happen to me. Or, I might have become an existence like an inner devil. Who knows, I might become a devil in the true sense after some time."
Hearing Hun Jusang's words, Jiang Chunye frowned and pinched his cheeks. She pulled, hard. "I don't want to hear such words from you. As long as you live, there will always be a chance."
Jiang Chunye stopped pinching and pulling. Her hands slowly cupped Hun Jusang's face in her palms. "You're the first person to successfully become a devil without your mind corrupted. Maybe you'll become an ancestor-like figure and devise a new cultivation path. Our story is just beginning."
Hun Jusang placed his hand over hers. "You're right."
"Anyways, I want to go back and kill Daoyi, but we should leave first. I don't want to leave all the opportunities for them, but your life is more important," Jiang Chunye said. "Your situation is very unique. We should ask your master if there are any records and help you."
"Okay," Hun Jusang complied. He followed behind Jiang Chunye as she left the safety of the cave. Unknown to her, Hun Jusang revealed a regretful expression. 'I'm sorry, Chunye. The truth is that your sister's attack didn't just exterminate the devil but part of my soul too. I don't know how long my soul can last before my body becomes a husk. At least in my last days, I want to spend them with you.'
