Chapter 121: No Waste

A sea of blood surged to the sky. Corpses were piled like mountains.

This was a terrifying war.

Even though Lu Ye unleashed the most horrifying slaughter on the battlefield, the number of fallen human cultivators was beyond counting.

Chu Ling was hunting down the allied forces of the foreign races.

After all this time, she had reappeared—and her cultivation had reached an inconceivable level: the peak of the Void Refinement Realm.

Yes. Peak Void Refinement!

One had to understand—Lu Ye had never stopped cultivating either. Not for a single moment.

And he had received the reward for ranking first on the Eternal Heaven’s Chosen Ranking, amassing a staggering quantity of resources. Only then had he reached the Seventh Layer of the Spiritual Unity Realm. This could only mean that Chu Ling had truly pushed herself.

She had been the first to understand Lu Ye’s true thoughts—to know that he never intended to waste time entangled with them.

Lu Ye didn’t need to do anything extra. All he had to do was leave them all far behind, so far they couldn’t even catch a glimpse of his figure when they looked up. That would be the greatest revenge.

She absolutely could not allow that.

So she cultivated like her life depended on it. She cultivated with everything she had.

But Lu Ye had become too strong.

So strong it left her in utter despair.

Spiritual Unity, Seventh Layer!

No. She had to break through to Spiritual Unity too!

Not just break through—she had to achieve a more perfect unity.

Her Dao had always been the Sword Dao. From the beginning to the end. And by now, she could rightfully be called a Sword Dao Emperor—one whose killing power was terrifyingly real.

She would achieve unity.

Chu Ling stopped her pursuit and looked back.

The Supreme Sword Sect... it seemed every strong cultivator had already been sent out...

One of the Lu Ye clones formed hand seals with both hands.

Massive sheets of flame descended toward the ground.

Tears rolled down continuously, yet his gaze was ruthlessly cold.

The # Nоvеlight # flames precisely avoided every human cultivator’s corpse, falling only upon the corpses of the foreign races. Wisps of blood mist rose within the fire, weaving and condensing in midair.

The other two Lu Ye clones merged into one.

“I’ll go hunt them down.”

Lu Ye vanished.

A massive Blood-Flesh Elixir Pill was already slowly forming in the void—composed in large part from the corpses of countless demons and monsters.

After finishing the hand seals, Lu Ye took out the Ten-Thousand Souls Banner.

The banner was instantly refined by him.

When it waved, countless broken souls of the foreign races emerged.

“No! No! No!”

These remnant souls twisted in expression, filled with terror and despair the moment they saw the Ten-Thousand Souls Banner.

The word demon was actually a fascinating one.

Before the formation of the Nine Heavens, there had been two kinds of demon.

The first was the demon race—born with the ability to wield demonic energy, with bizarre forms and an innately violent, brutal nature.

The second was demon cultivators.

Humans who entered the demonic path through demonic scriptures—wielding demonic energy acquired after birth. Treacherous, cruel, committing every imaginable evil. And always coming up with horrifying new ideas.

When demon cultivators got truly ruthless, even the demon race was afraid of them.

These days, the demon race kept trying to emulate the demon cultivators from before the Nine Heavens formed—but they had only learned a thing or two at best.

Take the Heavenly Demon Emperor, for example.

He had the Ten-Thousand Souls Banner in his hands—and yet, the demon race still had such a huge population left?

If one of the old demon cultivators from before the Nine Heavens had owned the Ten-Thousand Souls Banner...

Fellow Daoists, disciples, citizens, monsters—I invite you all to help me cultivate. Come quickly and pay a visit to my Ten-Thousand Souls Banner!

My banner doesn’t cause any pain. Your souls will be honored guests—soaking in hot springs, basking in sunlight, and even served by lovely soul maidens!

Sounds wonderful, right?

Once you enter, your soul will be squeezed into hot spring water. Burned to provide light. Transformed into one of those lovely maidens—to serve others.

Utterly miserable!

While forming the Blood-Flesh Elixir Pill, Lu Ye simultaneously absorbed the remnant souls.

The human alliance army fell silent as they watched the scene unfold.

“Ahem, Sect Master Liu, does your Grand Dao Sect have secret arts like this?” an elder from the Central Province Dynasty coughed and asked.

Liu Changfeng...

What Lu Ye was doing now really didn’t look like something the Grand Dao Sect would do.

It looked much more like something a demon cultivator from the dark era would have done.

Not a single bit was wasted.

First the slaughter, then the bones and blood, then the souls...

“Maybe we do. The Grand Dao Sect’s secret arts are a bit complicated,” Liu Changfeng said with a smile. “But technique itself isn’t good or evil—it’s the user that makes it so.”

“True, true. Lu Ye is quite the righteous one. Even while killing, he feels so guilty that he weeps. He’s truly a role model for us cultivators!”

“Yes, exactly. Weeping for the lives lost—such a virtuous man!”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone so kind. When others kill, their faces twist with killing intent. But Lu Ye? He kills only out of necessity to protect the common people of the world. That just shows how much he hates slaughter deep down. He’s a true man of the righteous path!”

The strong cultivators of the Calamity Sect...

The Supreme Sword Sect and the Central Province Dynasty had both listened to Bai Qiulan, so many of their disciples had evacuated in time and avoided disaster.

But the Calamity Sect was different.

Half their disciples tried to leave, but were forcibly stopped by the sect elders.

As a result, those disciples died horribly.

And afterward, driven by that grief, they sent their experts to surround and kill Lu Ye.

And a whole bunch of those experts died, too.

The Calamity Sect and the Grand Dao Sect had originally been on good terms, but now—because of this—they had fallen out.

Of course, Lu Ye was partly responsible for what happened. No matter his reasons, he had killed those people.

But the Calamity Sect also bore some of the blame.

Because the one who issued the warning wasn’t anyone else—it was Bai Qiulan.

Bai Qiulan, a Spiritual Unity powerhouse, an unmatched genius of the Grand Dao Sect—she had even sworn upon the Great Dao itself.

That would be like, on Earth, a city lord swearing by the ancestors of eight generations and warning you that a ferocious tiger was about to come crashing through, demanding that you evacuate immediately.

But you refused—because your valuables hadn’t been packed yet.

Some people wanted to evacuate, but then a vice-lord said, “It’s just a tiger, no big deal.”

Then the tiger came.

It ignored weapons and armor. And started eating people like crazy.

Sure, the tiger was at fault. But wasn’t the vice-lord who blocked the evacuation also to blame?

After thinking carefully—and with Liu Changfeng repeatedly offering apologies—the Calamity Sect finally decided to ease tensions with the Grand Dao Sect.

Even as the Central Province Dynasty and Supreme Sword Sect kept praising how “wonderful” Lu Ye was, the Calamity Sect found themselves unable to chime in.

He was kind?

Sure, he cried while killing—but those tears splashed to the ground without a trace of hesitation in his expression.

Kind, was he?

The Blood-Flesh Elixir Pill had already been refined.

All the remnant souls had been collected into the Ten-Thousand Souls Banner.

What a kind soul, indeed!

And yet, precisely because of that, the expressions on the Calamity Sect cultivators’ faces—once blank and stiff—had unknowingly begun to shift into smiles.

With someone this ruthless in the Grand Dao Sect, their rise was inevitable.

After refining the Blood-Flesh Elixir Pill, one of Lu Ye’s clones turned to Liu Changfeng and spoke.

“Sect Master, I’m going after the Myriad Spirit Demon Emperor.”

“Be careful! I’ll send an ancestor to follow you!”

“Alright!”

Lu Ye’s figure turned into a stream of light and shot off in pursuit of his true body.

Huh?

“Alright”?

“You two ancestors, follow Lu Ye immediately. Protect him!”

Five minutes later—

The two ancestors came sulking back.

“Protect what, exactly? He was already gone the moment we took off.”