The man standing in front of him was clad in a dark cloak, shrouding their silhouette in red shadows. Screaming faces briefly popped out of the smoke. A burning flame held in their hand was pointed towards the An siblings while Song Lin frantically waved his arms.

  “Are you here to kill me?” Lu Qingshan asked. He smiled. “Demonic cultivator, what is your name?”

  “A martial artist like you doesn’t deserve to know my name, you worm.” In an instant, the man was upon him, fingers burning with a black flame. They were aimed at Lu Qingshan’s eyes.

  But they missed. A powerful kick crashed into the demonic cultivator moments later, crushing their chest in that one blow. Their membrane dissolved in a single breath, the man could do little else but choke down a breath.

  A violent energy prevented them from regenerating. Lu Qingshan’s second move aimed to crush their head at once. But then his senses screamed at him to dodge — and a blackened lance of bone jutted out of the ground mere moments later. Right onto where he had been standing.

  Lu Qingshan flicked a finger as soon as he righted himself. A tendril of blood fueled by the burst of five elements inner force snapped towards the dying demonic cultivator. Bone walls broke through the earth to block his attack. They almost succeeded, but it was clear the bone manipulator had not foreseen his strength.

  A fragment of his blood tendril made it past the walls. It entered the dying man’s head. Then exploded a moment later.

  “No!” screamed out a figure in the distance. Such a far projection of power meant one thing: this was a Qi Refinement realm cultivator. One of the first, Lu Qingshan imagined.

  Their countenance carried pure rage, hate, and was that a little fear? Lu Qingshan simply smiled back in return. “What is your name?”

  The demonic cultivator stayed silent. He whirled into motion, summoning a thousand pieces of bone from below him. Then they all shattered, and ten thousand shards flew towards Lu Qingshan.

  He narrowed his eyes. All of this was too simple for him to bypass. Was this really the strength of Qi Refinement? Or had unlocking his upper aperture given him a miraculous effect?

  Forty-two steps trampled the earth, and Lu Qingshan dodged or parried every single one of the shards. Once they drew close, he discovered a filthy energy tainting each shard. None of the attacks could hit him or he’d die from that energy seeping into his entire body.

  He roared. Laced in his shout was a brief passage from the Insect Harmony Mantra. He was just doing it as an experiment, calling the demonized insects over. But he never expected it to interrupt the man’s next spell.

  Lu Qingshan seized the moment. Seven holes emerged in the ground, and his fist came crashing down onto the stunned demonic cultivator. A very brief glow flickered — a damaged artifact — yet somehow his attack blew past the barrier of black flame entirely. His fist tore straight through their neck.

  Their eyes went wide, and hands limp. Lu Qingshan was gone in a heartbeat, and an explosion of black fire transformed the forest into a burning landscape.

  “Run!” he shouted to his group of three cultivators who had frozen up in fear. Lu Qingshan no longer had time to worry about them or the gu refining jar. Instead, he spiritually commanded the newborn spiritual insect to run underground with his steps.

  Above the forest canopy, staring at his secluded spot, was a whole group of seven demonic cultivators. Two among them felt more imposing to his senses. With one Qi Refinement realm slain, these two were probably the only ones left.

  “Courting death!”

  The black flame demonic cultivator attacked. One moment everything was green. The next, it had all drowned in a flickering black. And the entire forest burned.

  His human-faced spiders and many of his Bloodseeker Flies died instantly. Lu Qingshan was forced to leap backwards, but he knew almost immediately where to go. Deer Traverses the Forest took him up the mountain and behind a rock that exploded moments later.

  Lu Qingshan’s cold gaze flashed. He ducked, dodged, and jumped up the mountain in record speeds. None of the fireballs hit him. Each of his movements were fully in tune with the new instincts provided by the opened upper aperture.

  Was this how immortal cultivators felt? Enhanced spirituality, as if the whole world was in the palm of their hands. Like they knew every right move to win.

  Lu Qingshan struck before anyone even knew what was happening. A demonic cultivator was trying to sneak up on him. Their head exploded with a single tap of his Blood Sea vision.

  It had turned near corporeal, now boiling with the fuel provided by five elements of inner force, and amplified by the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique. Lu Qingshan spun and executed another enemy trying to approach. These two were several stages weaker than the first he slew — even weaker than Qin Ye.

  He was now standing on the mountain, a swarm of insects around him. But none of them moved to attack. Instead, they all thought of him as one of their own. Lu Qingshan looked back at the demonic cultivators, standing eye-level with them at this point.

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  Their fear was palpable. The weaker cultivators had taken a few steps back, and were trembling. Even the black flame wielder didn’t have any words to say. Only their leader remained detached from the situation.

  "You die now," the man uttered. Somehow Lu Qingshan heard his words even with all the distance between them.

  This time, the attack was too fast to dodge. Lu Qingshan couldn’t even see what had happened before his body was blasted away into the peak. A few demonized insects scurried away from where he landed.

  Lu Qingshan coughed blood. His Blood Seas Inner Force was hard at work repairing the damage. The stolen life force of multiple slain cultivators helped keep him alive.

  The demonic cultivator slowly descended from the sky. Flight, normally very difficult to maintain for Qi Refinement realm cultivators, looked as easy as walking.

  “Your name?”

  Lu Qingshan’s vision was groggy, but he still smiled. Because beneath the earth was his secret weapon. It lunged towards the man’s boots.

  And pierced through them with ease. A shrill scream pierced the air as the Eight Thorns Spider injected all eight of its venoms into the man. He stumbled, trying to kick off the latched spiritual insect from his feet. But there was no recovery from this.

  Lu Qingshan seized the moment. The disruption of the enemy’s circulation of spirit qi meant he couldn’t fight back. And so, a single fist was enough to crack bone.

  His other hand went straight for the throat. He tore it open. Then his right hand lashed out towards the eyes. They were punctured and plucked out in an instant.

  The man was in no condition to fight back. His body was torn apart, and a giant Bloodseeker Fly entered his torso cavity. It quickly chewed up the body while Lu Qingshan staggered away from the corpse.

  He had to disable the Heavenly Demon Disintegration Technique. Any longer and he risked his martial arts foundation burning up entirely. But there were still enemies left.

  In the distance, the black flame demonic cultivator was standing there, hesitant to attack. With him were two additional Embryonic Breathing realm cultivators who hadn’t been fast enough to avoid being conscripted. They were eyeing his condition.

  Lu Qingshan had been rendered almost incapable of defending himself, but he wasn’t alone. The Insect Harmony Mantra began to turn the demonized insect swarm against them. Waves of giant insects rushed to attack the three enemies.

  The black flame demonic cultivator easily fended off the bugs, but cultivators didn’t have an infinite amount of spirit qi. He couldn’t spare the energy to help his two human shields. They were quickly overrun by the sheer mass of the swarm. In desperation, they tried to run.

  The An siblings intercepted their path. Shimmering motes of light prevented the two demonic cultivators from easily escaping.

  Seeing the situation turn bad, the black flame demonic cultivator fled, abandoning his two human shields to their demise. Lu Qingshan watched him leave. Then a crystal cicada crawled out from the trees moments later.

  It was unfortunate, but the man had managed to escape an early death. Now, the mountain was theirs, including the insect controlling and repelling formation that the demonic cultivators had set up. They would have to stay very wary of their revenge, though.

  Lu Qingshan didn’t like that. Especially with the unknown threat coming from the fetus-like silhouette he’d seen underground. He vowed to hunt them down once he had the chance. The most important thing right now was to regroup, especially with the Seven Mysteries Gate.

  "Give me your blood-replenishing pill bottles," he ordered the An siblings. They quickly obliged.

  After consuming a few of them, Lu Qingshan was relieved to find they greatly relieved the internal injuries in his body. Though the healing was not as complete as the blood essence stolen from the Blood Seas Inner Force, it was certainly fast enough for him to maintain enough level of strength to continue.

  “Where’s Song Lin?” he asked.

  “Ran away with the gu jar. He shouldn’t have gone far, though. Unless someone took him away.”

  Lu Qingshan had tagged him with the Bloodsense Bug already, so it was easy to know where he went. Judging from the lack of speed, he probably hadn’t been intercepted by the black flame demonic cultivator. It was safe to chase him even with his current sequelae.

  He chanted the Insect Harmony Mantra, bringing over a batch of demonized insects, then linked what he felt from the Bloodsense Bug to them. In no time they tracked down the fleeing Song Lin, who was trying to stay alive under a barrage of attacks from a single demonic cultivator.

  The crystal cicada appeared incensed to have lost its prey previously. Without paying attention to Lu Qingshan’s thoughts, it simply charged at the attacker. They barely noticed the cicada heading towards them until it was far too late.

  A shrill scream rang out as the cicada burrowed into their body and turned the entry point into crystal. This was a woman. Lu Qingshan politely requested the crystal cicada to not take her life. He had ideas in mind, for the purposes of refining gu.

  “Tell me again what makes these people demonic cultivators,” Lu Qingshan asked the An siblings. In the meantime, Song Lin finally noticed he was being rescued and was starting to make his way back towards them.

  “Depends on who you ask. For some sects, it’s anything that deviates from the orthodox way,” An Xin said. “This could include illusions, poison, pain, and a whole range of different paths. But only the most stringent and strict sects would use this definition. Most are more lenient.”

  “Where does refining gu stand?”

  They hesitated to answer.

  “I take it not favorably, then.”

  “I haven’t heard of any orthodox immortal sect supporting the practice of raising gu,” An Xin said. “They might occasionally have a skilled disciple, I’ve heard of them being able to break some rules, but it is not supported among most of the cultivation world. Included in this list are ghost cultivators, who are said to be adept at using the power of ghosts for themselves. They’re very frowned upon, so it’s mostly demonic sects who freely take them in.”

  Lu Qingshan nodded. He was still planning to interact with the immortal world. If they were considered a demonic sect, that would cut them off from trade, information, and a whole host of valuable relationships. To enter their world formally, he needed to consider all these things delicately.

  What he didn't know was how martial artists were treated in the immortal world. Hiding his allegiance as a rearer of gu should be relatively easy, although controlling insects in plain view of others might not be favorable. But he wanted a sect full of martial artists. Giving the entire mortal world a chance to reach higher realms without needing spirit roots would be the foundation of his prestige.

  The moment would come sooner or later. For now, Lu Qingshan wanted to loot the area and evacuate, then reconvene with his sect. He had bought them plenty of time. Hopefully, they’d bring him surprises in return.