Chương 47: Each Displaying Their Divine Prowess

At this moment, the monstrous entity—a creature of such overwhelming dread that its aura rivaled the late Golden Core stage—stood to the side. Its previous ferocity had vanished, replaced by a posture of profound, submissive reverence.

"Fool! Had my master not anticipated your incompetence, you would have jeopardized the entire grand design!" Chu Dian spat, his words punctuated by the spray of fresh blood. The mysterious woman's previous strike had been a furious one, leaving him with internal injuries that rattled his very foundation. Wiping the crimson from his lips, a smirk of triumph gradually spread across Chu Dian's face.

"Hah! The Great Demon Sovereign likely never imagined that eons of meticulous planning would be undone by my hand in a single day. My master's divine prowess is boundless; he calculated the exact moment of your attempted escape and utilized a supreme manifestation to send me to this lower realm. Today, I act as his vessel to grind your existence into nothingness." A baleful green light flickered within Chu Dian's pupils.

He began to chant an esoteric incantation, his gaze locking onto the beast—the vessel of the Ghost-Corpse Sovereign.

"Sacrifice!" he barked. A series of low, mournful wails erupted from the monster's throat. Its massive frame trembled violently as torrents of thick, suffocating corpse-qi billowed outward, slowly enveloping its own form like a funeral shroud. Chu Dian's brow furrowed in irritation. With a snarl of ruthlessness, he barked a command in a forgotten tongue and flicked his wrist, driving a sphere of obsidian light into the beast's chest. Upon impact, the monster's numb, desiccated face contorted in sudden agony.

The dense protective miasma began to dissolve, leaving its withered flesh exposed to the corrosive green radiance of the sacrifice. A sense of relief washed over Chu Dian. Having descended to this lower realm through a forbidden secret art, his Divine Sense and cultivation were ruthlessly suppressed to the Qi Condensation stage by the iron laws of the Heavenly Dao.

Had his master not left behind specific seals to restrain this puppet, he would never have dared to be so reckless as to command the creature to sacrifice its soul to fuel the Primal Ancestor's shadow. However, in that fleeting moment of perceived control, a spark of sinister intelligence flashed within the monster's hollow eyes. The previously vacant pupils regained a terrifying lucidity for a heartbeat before returning to their dull, mindless state. It was a transition so swift it went entirely unnoticed.

Fortunately, the place where I first gained sentience was an ancient ghost cultivation ruin, the Ghost-Corpse Sovereign thought, his consciousness surging within the beast's shell. I obtained a fragmented scripture there regarding the arts of possession and soul-devouring. Otherwise, I truly would have perished today. Hah! I was just wondering how to obtain a perfect new vessel. This brat comes from the upper realm—likely the Spirit Realm itself. His physical body must be of the highest grade.

If I consume him, I gain not only a superior form but the priceless memories locked within his soul. To a cultivator of the lower realms, a single technique from the Spirit Realm could trigger a bloodbath across the entire continent. Now, that legacy was within his reach. The Ghost-Corpse Sovereign had successfully turned the tables, reclaiming the initiative over his own physical form. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

With a flash of cold cruelty, the Sovereign feigned terror, pulling his corpse-qi inward. The moment he sensed Chu Dian's vigilance waver, he struck. A massive, skeletal claw snapped forward, pinning Chu Dian in a vice-like grip. Simultaneously, a globule of ghastly green fire erupted from the monster's mouth, surging into Chu Dian's seven orifices.

"Vermin! What do you think you're doing?!" Chu Dian's face twisted into a mask of shock and fury. As a traveler from the upper realm, he was intimately familiar with the horrors of possession. Panic seized him; his suppressed Divine Sense was far too weak to repel such a concentrated assault. If he failed here, his soul would be extinguished, and his very identity would be erased from the heavens. Chu Dian slammed his eyes shut, pouring every ounce of his will into a desperate defense.

His body became a chaotic battlefield, flickering between billowing black corpse-qi and vibrant green spiritual light as the two souls wrestled for dominance. A quarter of an hour passed in agonizing silence until a violent explosion of corpse-qi erupted from Chu Dian's pores. His flesh withered at a visible rate, the youthful vigor of his features collapsing into the desiccated, grey skin of a walking corpse. The Ghost-Corpse Sovereign had emerged the victor. He opened his new eyes.

They burned with a steady, emerald flame—different from Chu Dian's previous light—resembling flickering ghost-fires in a graveyard.

"Heh... a blessing in disguise. With this robust celestial vessel and these stolen arts, the path to the Nascent Soul stage is laid bare before me!" He flexed his new fingers, a dark chuckle escaping his throat. His gaze then shifted toward the restriction barrier, burning with renewed greed. Having devoured the memories of both Chu Dian and the restriction's guardian, he was now privy to secrets that made his blood run hot.

"A Demon Sovereign... even in the upper realms, such a being must have been a titan. If I can devour her essence, reaching the Soul Transformation stage and ascending to the Spirit Realm is no longer a dream!" After sorting through the stolen memories, he confirmed that the Demon Sovereign was currently at her most vulnerable. By utilizing the secret ritual to fuel the Primal Ancestor's shadow, he could indeed annihilate her.

The Ghost-Corpse Sovereign was a man who had survived centuries through sheer ruthlessness; he did not hesitate.

"Sacrifice!" he roared. His stolen body surged with power, the previously withered frame momentarily filling out with stolen vitality. He pointed a finger at his former monster-body. Under the influence of the green light, the beast's essence blood and remaining mana were forcibly extracted, swirling into a concentrated sphere of power. The old corpse collapsed into a pile of grey ash, scattered by the wind.

"Go!" With a sharp command, the extracted essence was funneled into the restriction. Inside, the Primal Ancestor's shadow threw its head back and let out a world-shaking roar. Its translucent form solidified, and the nebulae swirling within its eyes accelerated, spinning with the weight of countless eons.

"Samsara of Life and Death—Annihilation!" the Sovereign bellowed, casting a series of complex mudras. The shadow's eyes erupted with blinding starlight, manifesting a profound, rotating star-map that descended toward the center of the Blood-Jade Platter. Inside the platter, the mysterious woman's expression remained frost-cold. Though her eyes betrayed a flicker of bitterness at her predicament, there was not a shred of fear to be found.

"Eons of plotting, and yet I still fall into this calamity of life and death," she whispered.

"But if you wish for my end, you shall pay a price that will shatter your soul!" Her brow furrowed as her pallor turned a deathly white. She bit down hard on her index finger, letting a single drop of blood—flecked with obsidian light—fall into the air. It hung there, defying gravity.

"Blood Demon Puppet—Coalesce!" she hissed. The droplet exploded into a shroud of pitch-black radiance. An ocean of pure, concentrated demonic energy erupted from that single drop, swirling into a massive, ovular black egg covered in pulsing, vein-like red runes. From within the egg, a heavy, rhythmic thump-thump echoed—the heartbeat of a terrifying entity being born into the world.