1: Chapter 1: Bad News: I've Transmigrated into the Demonic Sect

[Standard procedure: you beauties and heartthrobs, park your brains here!]

...

The wind on the eighteenth floor is fucking strong.

Xiao Ran's hands, gripping the windowsill, had already begun to go numb. Looking down at the neon-lit streets below, the cars were as small as toy models.

Goddammit, it was just a foot massage. Was a surprise inspection really necessary?

"Xiao Ran... I can't hold on anymore."

Li Changsheng's tearful voice came from beside him.

This guy was just in the private room half an hour ago, snot and tears everywhere as he wailed about his miserable breakup. Now, he was literally crying out of fear.

"Hold on even if you can't!"

"Who told you to pick this shitty place? 'High-end club, absolutely safe' my ass!"

Xiao Ran gritted his teeth, his left foot trying to reach the air conditioning unit below.

"How was I supposed to know..."

Before Li Changsheng could finish, the sound of a door being kicked open and a police officer's shout came from inside the room: "Don't move! Hands behind your heads!"

Both of them flinched at the same time.

That single flinch was fatal.

Li Changsheng's foot slipped, and his whole body tilted backward.

Without a second thought, Xiao Ran let go with one hand to grab him... he caught him, but the downward momentum immediately pulled him off the windowsill.

"Holy shit!!!"

The sound of the wind exploded in his ears.

The last image Xiao Ran saw was Li Changsheng's face, distorted by terror, and the lights of the ground rushing toward them.

So this is what jumping off a building feels like.

...

Pain.

It wasn't the instantaneous, agonizing pain of being smashed into a pulp, but rather like thousands of ants crawling over his body, constantly biting him.

Xiao Ran suddenly regained consciousness amidst this intense pain.

His first thought was: I'm not dead?

His second thought: This hurts even more than falling off a fucking building.

He struggled to open his eyes; his vision was a dark, murky red.

He was soaking in a pool of viscous liquid. It was black, yet it shimmered with an eerie, blood-red light.

Many figures stood around him, all dressed in black robes, their gazes either indifferent or full of malice.

"That's the hundred and first one."

"Not a single one lasted half a quarter-hour."

Someone whispered.

"How could these brats possibly endure the demonic shura of the Nine Nether Marrow-Cleansing Pool?"

Xiao Ran didn't understand what they were saying, but he realized one thing... his situation seemed pretty bad!

He instinctively tried to crawl out, but his body felt as if it were nailed to the bottom of the pool, unable to move.

Even more terrifyingly, the dark red liquid was frantically boring into his body like a living thing.

"Argh!"

Suddenly, a scream erupted from beside him.

Before Xiao Ran could figure out what was happening, he forced himself to turn his head and look.

He saw a youth whose skin was cracking all over. Black Qi surged from the fissures, and his entire body began to swell like an overinflated ball.

Then...

Bang.

The boy instantly exploded into a mist of blood, which then merged into the pool water.

Xiao Ran's pupils constricted at the sight, his stomach churning.

He rarely even saw blood in his daily life; this time, he had actually seen a person explode.

The visual impact was too overwhelming.

Just as Xiao Ran was about to vomit, he suddenly realized something strange was happening inside his own body.

The black Qi that had entered him was rampaging through his Meridians, leaving a searing pain in its wake, as if he were being corroded by sulfuric acid.

"I'm going to die. I'm really going to die here..."

The thought surfaced in Xiao Ran's mind.

Wait.

No.

After the initial agonizing pain, Xiao Ran suddenly felt something deep within his body... awaken.

It was a vortex.

A bottomless black vortex located at his Dantian.

It spun quietly, showing a certain... appetite for the rampaging Demonic Baleful Qi?

Yes, an appetite.

In the next instant, the vortex's rotation speed surged.

The Demonic Baleful Qi pouring into Xiao Ran's body seemed to encounter a black hole, being violently dragged toward his Dantian and disappearing into that profound darkness.

The pain began to recede, replaced by a strange sense of fullness, like a vagrant who hadn't eaten in three days suddenly devouring a whole roasted sheep.

The pool water began to churn.

The slowly flowing black liquid now formed a visible vortex with Xiao Ran at its center.

The black-robed people standing by the pool broke into a commotion.

"What's happening?"

"The demonic shura in the Marrow-Cleansing Pool is decreasing!"

"Look at that kid!"

Xiao Ran couldn't hear what they were shouting.

His consciousness sank into the black hole that had suddenly awakened within him.

Not only did this thing devour the demonic shura, but in the process of devouring, it also fed back the purest part of the energy into his body.

He could feel his muscles strengthening, his bones emitting a faint hum, and a cold, violent power Awakening in his Bloodline.

It felt great.

So great that he temporarily forgot the absurdity and danger of his Transmigration.

"Enough!"

A sharp shout came from the edge of the pool.

Xiao Ran snapped back to his senses and found that the pool water had dropped by half, and he was standing naked at the bottom.

He was somewhat surprised, and as soon as he looked up, he met a dozen pairs of eyes filled with shock, wariness, and greed.

Leading them was an old man as thin as a skeleton, wearing a black robe covered in Ghost patterns, with two clusters of green ghost-fire flickering in his eye sockets.

The old man stared intently at Xiao Ran, his gaze like a butcher sizing up a prime piece of pork belly.

"You... come here."

The old man's voice was as raspy as sandpaper.

Xiao Ran didn't move.

This geezer didn't look like a good person at all!

Seeing that Xiao Ran remained motionless, the old man seemed to lose his patience and made a grabbing motion in the air with his withered palm.

Xiao Ran was hoisted out of the pool by an invisible force and slammed onto the cold, black stone floor.

"Test him."

The old man ordered those behind him.

Two black-robed men stepped forward; one pinned Xiao Ran's shoulders, while the other pressed a Black crystal covered in runes against his forehead.

The moment the crystal touched his skin, it suddenly erupted with a blinding blood-red light.

The light was so intense that it dyed the entire cave scarlet.

The hand of the black-robed man holding Xiao Ran trembled.

The blood-red light lasted for three breaths, and then the crystal cracked with a snap.

Dead silence.

The entire place fell into an eerie tranquility.

The ghost-fire in the old man's eye sockets suddenly flared up three inches, and the greed in his eyes was practically overflowing.

"Is this... a Rare Physique?"

"To think that I, Yin Duzi, at three hundred years old, would still encounter such an Opportunity?"

Yin Duzi slowly walked up to Xiao Ran and crouched down to examine him closely, his skeletal face almost touching the tip of Xiao Ran's nose.

Xiao Ran could clearly smell the decaying aura on the man, mixed with the bitterness of some kind of medicinal herb.

"Good, good, good. As long as I drain you dry, this old man can extend his life by another few decades."

Yin Duzi laughed toward the sky, already imagining a hundred and eight ways to consume Xiao Ran.

"Holy shit! I'll fucking—"

Xiao Ran instinctively started spewing profanities, but unexpectedly, the old fossil laughed even more happily upon hearing them.

"Curse, go ahead and curse!"

"Once you're tired of cursing, your flesh will taste even better."

Yin Duzi's face was split in a wide grin as his skeletal hand reached toward Xiao Ran.

Xiao Ran: "Encountering this kind of scene right after transmigrating? Am I going to be the fastest transmigrator to kick the bucket in history?!"