Chương 48: Blood God Pearl, come and kill me if you dare!

Before she could speak, Cang Lian walked over and helped her up from the ground.

While supporting him, he asked, feigning curiosity, "By the way, General, what kind of evil art does this man practice that allows him to recover by sucking blood?"

"That's not a cultivation technique," Chu Zhaoxue gasped, her voice weak but clear.

"It's because there's a 'Blood God Pearl' inside his heart! That pearl can absorb the essence and blood of others, then transform it into the purest qi and blood to supply his cultivation. It's like an inexhaustible, unique secret medicine!"

"If he hadn't possessed the Blood God Pearl, which allowed him to absorb the lifeblood of everyone in the town to sustain his fight against me, would he have been able to achieve a mutual defeat with me on his own? This time... I was careless; I underestimated the power of the Blood God Pearl."

Blood God Pearl?

Upon hearing this, Canglian subconsciously scanned the surroundings of the town.

Upon closer inspection, a terrifying detail came to mind.

The streets were littered with corpses, soldiers and townspeople alike, all dried up like the mist monkey.

Their skin was an eerie grayish-white, and their mouths were wide open, as if they had experienced unimaginable suffering before their death.

A cold wind blew by, and the corpses emitted hollow whistling sounds, like the wind passing through the cracks in the dead wood.

Clearly, they had all had their blood drained by that evil Blood God Pearl!

"This Blood God Pearl..." Cang Lian's voice tightened, "Just how many people has it killed?"

Chu Zhaoxue didn't answer immediately. She raised her hand with difficulty, pointing to the blood-robed man's corpse: "Quick, take it out... If it falls into the hands of villains again, it will become another Blood God Cult!"

Cang Lian walked over with her sword, came to the corpse of the man in the blood-stained robe, and expressionlessly slashed through the blood-soaked robe on his chest.

The sword tip pierced precisely into the heart, and with a gentle flick, a bead the size of a pigeon egg, entirely crimson, was pulled out and rolled to the ground.

He bent down to pick it up, looked at the Blood God Cult Leader's corpse on the ground, and was filled with emotion.

Such a powerful figure, capable of turning the world upside down with a flick of the wrist, a powerful figure who could even severely injure Chu Zhaoxue, a target of an S-rank mission, died at his own hands. It felt like a bizarre and fantastical dream.

Cang Lian raised her hand and placed the Blood God Pearl in her palm.

The bead was warm to the touch, pulsating slightly as if it were alive. A cold and evil aura emanated from his palm, as if it wanted to actively suck his blood!

It's truly eerie!

At that moment, he suddenly realized a terrifying fact—if this bead is placed inside the body and does not absorb the blood of others, it will turn against the host and absorb his own blood! In order to survive, the host must constantly kill people and absorb the blood of others!

Thinking about it this way, it's not a treasure at all, but an evil object that leads people to an abyss of no return!

Although it can strengthen a person's qi and blood, equivalent to a continuous supply of secret medicine, it is worlds apart from the Heaven and Earth Pearl, which absorbs only the essence of heaven and earth and is gentle and peaceful. One is in the heavens and the other is on the earth!

Cang Lian felt a surge of disgust. He quickly put aside his thoughts, took the Blood God Pearl, and hurried back to Chu Zhaoxue's side, preparing to hand her this hot potato.

Just then, from the entrance of the town not far away, a deep, cheerful voice rang out like a thunderclap from a clear sky:

"Excellent, excellent, very good! Chu Zhaoxue, I never expected you to actually kill the leader of the Blood God Sect! This is a great achievement and will surely be recorded as a Class A merit! You are so young, yet you have already completed eight S-level missions. The position of the future Hall Master of our Martial Arts Hall will probably be yours! If you have the authority to cultivate all the national martial arts, it is possible that you will even become a Martial Immortal in the future!"

People from the National Martial Hall?

Upon hearing this voice, Cang Lian abruptly turned her head to look.

The newcomer was a refined middle-aged man, dressed in a well-fitting Zhongshan suit, with a smile on his face and a composed gait.

But the moment he stood there, he was like a volcano about to erupt, his blood and qi so powerful that it was like a huge furnace. The oppressive feeling he gave Cang Lian was exactly the same as that of Hong Jiuru and Yuan Ye. He was undoubtedly a strongman at the peak of Dan Jin!

With the arrival of such a powerful expert at the peak of Dan Jin, safety was undoubtedly greatly guaranteed.

However, Cang Lian keenly noticed that Chu Zhaoxue's expression turned extremely ugly the moment she heard that voice, even more so than when she was facing the leader of the Blood God Sect.

"Hong Lie!" Chu Zhaoxue's voice was icy cold.

"Why are you in Shenghai instead of staying at the headquarters of the Martial Arts Hall of Nanzhou? Did a traitor in my base tip you off? It seems you've been eyeing the Blood God Pearl in the hands of the Blood God Cult for a long time."

"What do you mean by 'traitor'? Chu Zhaoxue, your characterization is terrifying!" The middle-aged man named Hong Lie's smile remained unchanged, but his eyes turned cold.

"We all serve the National Martial Hall, sharing information. How can you call us traitors?"

He laughed loudly, his gaze passing over Chu Zhaoxue and landing directly on Cang Lian, his expression one of condescending scrutiny: "Little brat, give me the Blood God Pearl. I'll remember this as a great service, and who knows, I might even transfer you to the headquarters of the National Martial Hall!"

Upon hearing his words, alarm bells rang in Cang Lian's mind, and he subconsciously moved closer to Chu Zhaoxue.

"You want the Blood God Pearl?" Chu Zhaoxue struggled to stand up straight, grabbing Cang Lian's clothes at the waist with one hand and taking the Blood God Pearl from his hand with the other. Her eyes were sharp as knives.

"This is my spoils of war. If you dare to touch it, I'll chop off your hands!"

"Oh? You won't give it to me?" Hong Lie's smile vanished completely, his eyes narrowed slightly, and a chilling killing intent swept over him like a tidal wave.

"This is the order from above. Are you really going to disobey?"

"What's going on?" Cang Lian's expression changed. He clearly felt that the chilling killing intent was directed at Chu Zhaoxue, pure and deadly.

"We're both from the National Martial Hall, how can there be such a strong killing intent!"

"The National Martial Arts Hall and the New Army you see are far from monolithic. There are many factions within them, with different ideologies and voices both externally and internally," Chu Zhaoxue said in a deep voice.

"My father, Chu Mingzhang, and my teacher, He Baiweng, were determined to expel the foreign invaders and rebuild a powerful and independent Celestial Empire."

"But within the National Martial Arts Hall and the new army, there is another voice: 'compromise' and 'deal'."

Her voice was low, laced with undisguised sarcasm: "Most of these people come from old bureaucratic or comprador families, or have intricate ties to the West or Japan. Their ideals? They have no ideals. Their beliefs are 'interests,' 'stability,' and 'maintaining the status quo.'"

"Expelling foreigners? They thought that was something only a madman would do, that it would destroy the existing 'prosperity,' destroy their business and relationships with foreigners, and... their villas and savings in the concessions, and their children's future at Western universities."

"Some wanted to carve out a new world, while others wanted to turn the new army into their 'new court' to seize power and consolidate their position. In their eyes, the warlord wars were nothing more than a redistribution of territory and interests. Foreigners? They were troublesome, but also people who could be traded with and leveraged. In order to maintain the power they were about to gain, they didn't mind continuing to kneel, just in a different way, or making the country bleed in a different way."

"Chu Zhaoxue, look at the prosperous scene in the West and the East! What's wrong with embracing the trend and prospering together!" Hong Lie sneered.

"Hand over the Blood God Pearl, and the credit for killing the Blood God Cult leader will still be yours, otherwise..."

"Otherwise what? I'm standing right here today. Come and kill me if you dare!" Chu Zhaoxue tilted her head back and swallowed the Blood God Pearl. In an instant, her eyes turned blood red.

"You! You actually dared to swallow the Blood God Pearl?" Hong Lie's expression changed, and anger burst forth from his eyes.