Chapter 699: Zhang Zhiyun Comes Out of Confinement!
"I can't achieve Perfection, no matter what, I can't achieve Perfection. Do I really have to pull out the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo?" In the underwater cave, Zhang Zhiyun was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, without the former demeanor of the Young Sect Leader of the Tianshi Sect, looking like a living evil ghost. Even in Zhang Zhiyun's own view, he was an evil ghost, an avenging evil ghost. His fiancée, Ji Xiaolin, whom he fell in love with at first sight, was stolen by Shen Anyu. His only sanctuary, his younger sister Zhang Yaqian, was also taken by Shen Anyu. His two most important and beloved women, their bodies and minds, were plundered by Shen Anyu. He was completely defeated and routed in front of Shen Anyu.
Zhang Zhiyun chose to fall into demonhood, cultivating the Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay, and with astonishing talent and Luck, he quickly achieved great mastery, but there was always a visible yet intangible boundary to Perfection. This final, infuriating barrier stood between him and the power he craved, the power to make Shen Anyu grovel and bleed. Every meridian he circulated, every ounce of Internal Force he channeled, slammed against this invisible wall. The Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay churned within him, a maelstrom of deathly energy that threatened to tear him apart from the inside, yet it refused to coalesce into that final, perfect state.
His eyes, webbed with crimson veins, were fixed on the source of both his hope and his dread: the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo. It was plunged deep into the far stone wall, a shard of crystallized malice that pulsed with a faint, sickening red light. It was less a weapon and more a malignant heart, its beat echoing the darkest chambers of his own. Hesitation and a desperate, clawing struggle contorted his features. He knew. He had always known. The path to true power, the path to vengeance, required him to grasp that hilt and pull. Only by unsheathing that abomination could his Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay reach its apex. Only then could he wield a force capable of shredding the Land Immortal who guarded Shen Anyu like a loyal dog. Only then could he stare down that monster and make him pay for every humiliation, every stolen moment, every piece of his soul that had been ripped away.
But a fragment of his former self, the last bastion of Zhang Zhiyun, the once-proud Young Sect Leader, screamed in protest. That shred of rationality, buried deep beneath layers of hatred, knew the price. To pull that sword was to invite the abyss into his soul, to become its vessel, to surrender his will entirely. It was a complete and utter blackening from which there was no return. Above his head, invisible to the naked eye, the golden aura of his Luck churned violently, boiling and twisting as if in its death throes, warring against the encroaching tide of demonic Qi.
"Shen Anyu, I'm going to make you die!!!"
The roar was not just sound; it was a shockwave of pure, unadulterated hatred. It ripped through the water-filled cavern, a physical manifestation of his agony. His blood-red eyes blazed with a terrifying light, and his long, matted hair writhed around his head as if possessed, lashing through the water without a breath of wind. His voice scraped from his throat, high-pitched and sharp, the shriek of a vengeful spirit tearing its way back into the world of the living. The demonic aura shrouding his body erupted outwards in suffocating layers, a tsunami of raw power fueled by the bonfire of his rage. His Yin Corpse Devil Sword intent, already a potent force, surged in response, exploding with a violence that shook the very foundations of the cave.
The cavern had been adorned with countless luminous pearls, each one a treasure that cast a serene, faint blue glow upon the stone walls, making the underwater sanctuary almost beautiful. But that beauty was fragile. Under the crushing pressure of Zhang Zhiyun's demonic scream, the pearls began to detonate. Pop! Bang! One after another, the precious orbs exploded into glittering dust, their gentle light extinguished forever. In a heartbeat, the entire underwater cave was plunged into a profound, suffocating darkness, a silence broken only by the ragged, desperate gasps of the man who had just destroyed it. The only illumination left was the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo, which now blazed with a dazzling, blood-red light, painting the abyssal chamber in the color of slaughter.
It was then that the whispers began. They slithered into his mind, bypassing his ears entirely, a voice like silk and poison, as if the Demon King Papiyas himself had descended to tempt a fallen Buddha.
"Pull it out… Pull it out…"
The voice was seductive, intimate, promising him everything he ever wanted.
"Pull out the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo, and you will have the power of revenge… the power to retaliate against everything… You will transcend all living beings…"
It showed him images, flashes of a future drenched in blood and glory. Shen Anyu on his knees. The Land Immortal turned to ash.
"Kill Shen Anyu… Get back Ji Xiaolin and Zhang Yaqian…"
The whispers painted a picture of his stolen women, their eyes filled with awe and terror, returning to his side.
"No one can stop you… no one…"
"Ah… ahhh, no! I can't pull it out!" Zhang Zhiyun howled, clutching his head. Pain ripped through him, a schism in his very soul. "That would make me a sword slave of the Yin Corpse Devil Sword! I would slaughter my closest and dearest ones!" His handsome face, hidden beneath the curtain of his filthy hair, was a mask of pure agony. He pressed his palms against his ears as if he could physically block out the demonic persuasion tearing through his mind.
Crack!
Just as his will was about to shatter under the strain, a sharp sound cut through the darkness. It came from the stone wall. The Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo had fractured. A hairline crack spiderwebbed across its crimson surface, and from that fissure, a new thought—cold, ancient, and utterly insane—poured directly into Zhang Zhiyun's consciousness. It was a bloodthirsty, alien awareness, speaking in a language beyond words, a tone of pure, undying hatred. Yet, he understood its meaning perfectly.
As long as you kill all the descendants of Immortal Master Si and absorb their Bloodline Power, you can remain clear-headed and rational under the Yin Corpse Devil Sword.
The message was a revelation, a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. The former master of this unholy blade, it seemed, bore a grudge against this "Immortal Master Si" that was so profound, so absolute, it had survived the passage of countless eons. The blood feud was etched into the very consciousness of the sword embryo, a hatred that time itself could not erode.
A surge of manic joy electrified Zhang Zhiyun. Having spent day and night cultivating its dark arts, he knew better than anyone the terrifying, world-breaking power sleeping within that sword embryo. If it could be fully refined into the Yin Corpse Devil Sword, the force it would unleash would make Land Immortals seem like ants. It would be a power to rival a Martial God. His only fear, the one thing holding him back, was the loss of his sanity, the horror of becoming a mindless puppet of the blade, fated to murder his own family.
But this… this was a loophole. A way to have it all. If he could wield that godlike power while remaining himself, who wouldn't be tempted? It was a dream he hadn't dared to entertain, and now it was being offered to him on a silver platter.
"Immortal Master Si?" he muttered, the name feeling strange on his tongue. He frowned, his mind racing. For this ancient, demonic intelligence to refer to someone as an "Immortal Master," they had to be an extraordinary figure, likely a being far beyond the scope of a Land Immortal. It was a level of power he could barely comprehend.
And the surname, Si? As the former Young Sect Leader of the Tianshi Sect, his education was vast. He searched the archives of his memory. Si… the surname of the descendants of Jie, the final, tyrannical monarch of the Xia Dynasty from thousands of years ago. Over the millennia, the Si surname had largely evolved, becoming the modern Yu.
The Yu surname was not one of the largest in Yanxia, but it was far from rare. There were millions of them. His mind reeled. How can I possibly find the specific descendants of Immortal Master Si among them? Should I… should I kill all several million people named Yu?
A chilling realization washed over him. He was startled to find that a part of him was genuinely tempted by the thought. The idea of slaughtering millions of unrelated people felt… manageable. A necessary, if large, step on his path to revenge. The demonic thoughts had already taken root deeper than he had imagined.
'Even if I haven't pulled out the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo, my constant contact with it while cultivating the Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay has allowed the demonic thoughts to enter my body, like a parasitic worm,' he reasoned, a cold logic settling over his frantic mind. 'Perhaps finding the descendants of Immortal Master Si is the only way out, the only opportunity to control this power without being consumed.'
He continued his train of thought, his excitement mounting. 'This Immortal Master Si, to be remembered with such eternal hatred by the sword's original master… he must have been an unparalleled expert. Perhaps there is something in his bloodline, a unique quality that can suppress the demonic nature of the Yin Corpse Devil Sword. At the very least, their blood can pacify the overwhelming resentment sealed within the embryo!'
His crimson eyes gleamed with renewed purpose. 'Once I can control the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo and successfully refine it, that Land Immortal beside Shen Anyu, and that terrifying woman in white… neither will be a threat to me! Killing Shen Anyu, destroying Yanxia's Shen Clan, and taking back Ji Xiaolin and Zhang Yaqian will be as easy as flipping my hand!'
Lost in his triumphant fantasies, Zhang Zhiyun failed to notice that the blood-red glow in his eyes had intensified, burning with a colder, more sinister light. Just then, the stone wall holding the sword embryo groaned. With a final crack, a small, ancient talisman floated out from the fissure and drifted toward him through the water.
Zhang Zhiyun reached out and caught it. The moment his fingers touched the ancient paper, a flood of information poured into his mind from the sword embryo's consciousness.
Blood Curse Talisman!
He instantly understood its function. He could use this talisman to hunt down the bloodline descendants of Immortal Master Si and plunder their essence blood. Fulfilling this task would suppress the sword embryo's catastrophic resentment. The information also revealed that a fully powered Blood Curse Talisman could exterminate an entire bloodline from thousands of miles away, but after endless years, this one's power had decayed to less than a tenth of its original strength. It could no longer perform such a feat.
'Was this left behind by the Senior who forged the Yin Corpse Devil Sword Embryo? Just what kind of blood feud did he have with Immortal Master Si?' Zhang Zhiyun wondered, a thrill of dark inspiration running through him. 'If I could master the art of refining these Blood Curse Talismans… could I curse the entire bloodline of Yanxia's Shen Clan to death? Make Shen Anyu's entire clan perish without him ever knowing who did it? Wouldn't that be even sweeter?'
Zhang Zhiyun carefully tucked the talisman away, making a mental note to study its secrets thoroughly. He then slowly rose to his feet, a new, terrifying resolve etched onto his face, and walked out of the underwater cave.
'Tsk tsk, the hatred is as deep as the sea, endless. Unfortunately, all your trump cards were given to you by me.' Shen Anyu, hidden to the side, watched Zhang Zhiyun's ambitious and confident appearance with interest. Zhang Zhiyun, however, did not know that he had already become a blade in Shen Anyu's hand, a blade used to kill with borrowed power. Furthermore, even his trump card, the Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay, was bestowed upon him by Shen Anyu. 'It's getting cold. It's time for the Yu Family to be annihilated!' Shen Anyu smiled.
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