Divine fire consumes the soul! Zhou Ran: The Song family patriarch? Get in line and wait for me to collect his corpse!

"Too slow."

Zhou Ran did not move his feet, merely tilting his head to the side.

That bone claw, capable of piercing steel plates, grazed past his temple, shearing off a few strands of hair.

Instead of retreating, Zhou Ran advanced, his right hand transforming into a palm to meet the attack.

This palm strike carried no fanfare, no shockwave, yet his palm landed solidly on the distorted chest of the Ghost Tooth Daoist.

Thump!

A muffled sound rang out.

Unmatched, fierce, short-range power erupted within the Ghost Tooth Daoist's body.

His massive frame was sent flying by the immense force, crashing into a load-bearing pillar behind him, creating a web of cracks.

Dust rained down.

"Roar!"

The Ghost Tooth Daoist, seemingly oblivious to pain, landed on all fours, his back arching high as he let out a bestial roar before launching himself forward once more!

This time, the several ghastly white bone spines on his back detached and shot out!

Six streams of light transformed into six rays of death, sealing off all avenues of escape around Zhou Ran.

Each one was forged from the thigh bones of living people, saturated with corpse poison.

"Refining your own body into a corpse puppet. Interesting."

A look of disdain crossed Zhou Ran's face.

He had already lost his patience for continuing this game.

This low-level evil art that turned one into a grotesque mockery of human and ghost alike was an eyesore.

"You like playing with bones?"

"Then let me show you what it truly means to sever a soul."

Zhou Ran made a grasping motion with his hand.

A long blade, its entire body pitch-black and covered in eerie dark-red cracks, materialized out of thin air.

The zanpakuto!

The moment this blade appeared, all the sinister, baleful energy filling the room came to an abrupt halt, as if subjects bowing before their king, prostrating on the ground, not daring to move.

Alarm bells screamed in the depths of the Ghost Tooth Daoist's soul!

That blade clearly had no sharpened edge, yet it made his soul feel the stinging pain of being sliced apart inch by inch.

"Die!"

Forcing down his fear, the Ghost Tooth Daoist propelled the six bone nails, aiming straight for the vital points all over Zhou Ran's body.

Zhou Ran flicked his wrist.

The zanpakuto drew a dark, crescent-shaped afterimage in the air.

Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink!

Six crisp sounds rang out, rapid as a string of pearls.

Those six bone nails, harder than steel, shattered into pieces the moment they touched the blade's edge, scattering on the ground like rotten wood.

The Ghost Tooth Daoist's pupils contracted to pinpricks.

Zhou Ran's figure vanished from before his eyes.

Before the Ghost Tooth Daoist could react, Zhou Ran was already standing behind him, the zanpakuto pointing diagonally at the ground, a single drop of black blood dripping from its tip.

"Urk..."

The Ghost Tooth Daoist stood rigidly in the center of the hall. His once-proud Asura Bone Body now looked utterly ridiculous.

A fine red line stretched from his left shoulder all the way down to his right abdomen.

"This... what kind of blade is this..."

He turned his head with difficulty, his eyes filled with utter terror and confusion.

Zhou Ran did not answer.

He turned around. In the depths of his left eye, within that profound violet, a sinister red lotus quietly bloomed.

Whoosh—

Zhou Ran blew a breath onto the blade.

The dark-red cracks on the zanpakuto suddenly flared with light. A cluster of crimson flame appeared out of nowhere, slipping through that fine wound and burrowing into the Ghost Tooth Daoist's body!

Bizarrely, this flame had no temperature and did not ignite the Ghost Tooth's tattered daoist robe.

Yet, the Ghost Tooth let out a shriek far exceeding a hundred times his previous one, a sound utterly inhuman!

"Aaaaaaah—!

Karmic fire!

This is Red Lotus Karmic Fire!

Just who are you..."

It was the ultimate torture, burning the soul directly!

The decades of accumulated baleful energy within him became the perfect fuel for this karmic fire.

The screams lasted only three breaths before abruptly cutting off.

Before everyone's eyes, the previously rampant evil cultivator silently transformed into a pile of grayish-white powder.

No corpse, no bloodstains.

Only a fingernail-sized crystal, emitting a faint blue glow, lay quietly amidst the ashes.

Another Corpse Core.

The essence of the Ghost Tooth Daoist's lifetime of cultivation, and also the biggest unexpected gain of Zhou Ran's trip.

Zhou Ran bent down, picked up the crystal. A bone-piercing sense of malice transmitted through his fingertips.

It seems that cultivators above the Foundation Establishment stage all possess some form of condensed essence within them.

He stored the Corpse Core into his ring.

Only then did his gaze sweep past the wreckage on the floor, settling on the figure slumped against the wall.

"Young Master Song. Now, it's time for us to have a chat."

Song Qingshu huddled in the corner. A dark, wet stain was rapidly spreading across the crotch of his expensive suit pants.

He had seen too many scenes.

But the man before him did not belong to any scene. He was the source of fear itself, the one who set the rules.

That Ghost Tooth Master revered as a deity in the capital...

Was just burned to ashes like that?

"You... stay away!"

Each of Zhou Ran's footsteps hammered against his heart. Song Qingshu's voice was shrill, its pitch distorted.

"I am the heir of the Song Family of the Capital City!

If you dare touch me, the Song Family will never let you go!

My grandfather...

My great-grandfather is an immortal! A true immortal!"

Zhou Ran stopped walking. He sat down on a nearby sofa, even picking an apple from the fruit bowl and wiping it on his clothes.

"A true immortal?"

Zhou Ran took a bite of the apple, looking at Song Qingshu.

"You mean that old monster who's been hiding in a coffin for two hundred years, clinging to life by sucking the essence and blood of his descendants?"

These words left Song Qingshu's mind blank.

His face paled with horror as he stared fixedly at Zhou Ran.

"You...

How could you know?!"

This was the Song Family's greatest secret!

A taboo only the family head and the heir were permitted to know!

Zhou Ran swallowed the fruit, speaking unhurriedly.

"Not only do I know he's alive."

"I also know he's almost completely rotten."

"So, he urgently needs a new body.

A young body, vigorous with blood and qi, with a compatible birth chart, and preferably...

one with a bit of a cultivation foundation."

With each sentence Zhou Ran spoke, Song Qingshu's face grew paler.

By the end, Song Qingshu slumped to the ground, his gaze unfocused, reduced to unconscious muttering.

"So... father didn't lie to me..."

"He said sending me to Jiang City was for training... but actually... actually he was offering me as a sacrifice..."

Not a trace of sympathy showed on Zhou Ran's face.

From the moment he first laid eyes on Song Qingshu, his Demonic Pupils had seen through everything.

A hidden "Soul-Stealing Nail" had been planted between this kid's eyebrows.

Even a vicious tiger does not devour its cubs.

This Song Family Old Ancestor truly stopped at nothing to cling to life.

"Since everything's out in the open now."

Zhou Ran tossed the half-eaten apple into the trash can, leaned forward, and those eyes glowing with violet light locked onto Song Qingshu's.

"Then stop hiding."

"Tell me, what stage has that old monster reached now?"

Song Qingshu shuddered.

But when his eyes met Zhou Ran's, he felt his very soul being laid bare, all his secrets clamoring to rush out of his throat.

"The... the Wuji Sect gave the Old Ancestor a scripture called 'Blood God Scripture'. They said once mastered, it could break through the shackles of a Land Immortal..."

"The Old Ancestor is now...

now already at the late Foundation Establishment stage, but his physical body has decayed, he can't exert even thirty percent of his strength..."

"Sending Ghost Tooth this time was to control Governor Liu, to turn Jiangnan Province into the Song Family's backyard, all in preparation for the Old Ancestor's emergence..."

"And... and..."

Song Qingshu's eyes filled with terror, as if remembering something even more horrifying.

"The Old Ancestor has set up a 'Thousand Spirits Blood Array' in the capital. It requires nine hundred and ninety-nine people born in a Yin year, Yin month, and Yin day as the array's anchors..."

"Once the grand array is complete, he can...

can reshape his fleshly body and achieve immortality!"

Hiss—

Chen Guodong, standing to the side, drew in a sharp, cold breath.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine lives?