Within the tightly sealed grand hall, it was not long before the terrified shrieks of the demon spirit rang out!
Like a man possessed, madness gleamed in Ye Feng's eyes as he frenziedly gnawed at the demon spirit's body!
Even when the demon spirit pulled its power together and hid inside his arm, Ye Feng tore the flesh from his limb with his bare teeth and crunched his own finger bones to splinters!
Leaning against a stone pillar with disheveled hair, Ye Feng's mouth was smeared with fresh blood and thick, viscous demonic qi.
A strange, unreadable glint flickered in his eyes, and his voice came out in a low, bone-chilling rasp.
"My body... will only ever have one master!"
"You want to take me over? Then come and try!"
The demon spirit's terrified screams echoed within him: "No! Stop!"
"If he finds out your soul hasn't been completely seized by me, he will definitely kill you!"
"Stop eating! You lunatic! You madman!"
The demon spirit had every reason to be terrified.
It had fused into Ye Feng's arm—in other words, Ye Feng's arm had become its body!
When Ye Feng chewed his own fingers and bones, he was chewing on the demon spirit's body.
It could clearly feel its form being ground down bit by bit between Ye Feng's teeth.
That vivid, agonizing tactile sensation and the soul-deep torment filled it with dread.
At times, it could hardly tell which of them was the true demon!
What was more...
The Yinming Profound Flame inside Ye Feng's body could actually refine its origin demonic qi.
With every mouthful Ye Feng tore away, a portion of its origin power vanished.
On the surface, it appeared to possess thirty percent of his soul, but given the current situation...
It feared that in the end, Ye Feng would rip out his own soul and start gnawing on that, too.
Lately, the demon spirit had endured this inhuman torment every single day. At times, it even wished it could simply die.
Ye Feng turned a deaf ear to the demon spirit's cries. Looking through his tangled hair, his eyes fell upon the jade slip lying by his feet.
He knew...
Sha... his plan to drag Ye Feng into the mire had already begun.
The subtext of what Sha had told Song Zhi'ang was unmistakable:
When carrying out the mission, Ye Feng was meant to sever the weeds at the roots, sparing only the few individuals named on the list.
The forces behind those individuals would inevitably drown in rivers of blood, and countless lives would be slaughtered.
Like a wounded beast, Ye Feng madly tore at the flesh of his arm.
For reasons he could not explain, tears welled in his eyes.
He understood that if he refused this mission, death was the only outcome.
Yet...
Ye Feng had also pieced together certain clues!
Sha...
It was very likely that Sha was deliberately courting death!
His own demise might very well be part of his grand design!
As for the ultimate purpose behind that design, Ye Feng still did not know.
Gradually, the look in Ye Feng's eyes hardened with resolve. He slowly rose and picked up the jade slip from the ground.
When he walked out the grand hall's doors, his entire right arm was reduced to bare bone, with only a few shreds of flesh dangling from it.
Song Zhi'ang leaned against the doorway. Watching Ye Feng step out, she said softly, "Have you... truly made up your mind?"
Ye Feng stared coldly at the woman before him. "If not for you," he rasped chillingly, "he would already be dead."
Song Zhi'ang parted her lips, but no words came out.
She turned and walked toward the back mountain, casting a deep, lingering glance back at Ye Feng, her beautiful eyes swirling with complex emotions.
She offered not a single word of defense. She merely turned her head and said in a quiet voice, "We depart in one hour."
After saying that, she seemed to sigh at her own fate as well.
Looking down at her snow-white hands, she murmured, "Once they are stained, they can never be clean again, no matter how many times you wash them..."
Ye Feng's pupils constricted slightly; he knew what she was hinting at.
Yet toward the fact that Song Zhi'ang had ultimately used her natal ancient soul lamp to spirit Sha away, he harbored immense resentment.
In his eyes, everything had begun because of her!
Letting out a soft sigh, the one-armed Ye Feng gritted his teeth and finally took a step forward, following behind Song Zhi'ang.
That step was slow and agonizingly heavy.
Looking down, Ye Feng felt as though he could see a trail of bloodstained footprints before him.
And now, his own steps were falling right atop those delicate prints.
Only...
He did not have to forge a second trail of bloody tracks. It was enough to simply follow the woman ahead.
Song Zhi'ang's voice drifted into his ears: "You only need to suppress the demon spirit."
"The people—I will kill them."
Her tone held neither joy nor sorrow; not a single ripple of emotion could be heard in her voice.
Ye Feng snapped his head up to stare at her retreating back.
At that moment, for reasons unknown, he felt a sudden curiosity about what this woman was truly after.
His eyes flickered faintly. His right eye abruptly turned pitch-black, and his bare-boned right arm instantly restored itself to its original state!
The demon spirit only dared to roar and curse inside Ye Feng's mind. The moment Ye Feng raised his arm, however, it instantly caved, thoroughly cowed...
Lowering his arm, Ye Feng followed behind Song Zhi'ang as if nothing had happened.
As the demon spirit's power climbed, the fluctuations of primal energy radiating from Ye Feng grew increasingly fierce.
Ye Feng's brow furrowed slightly. He knew that if this continued, his soul would sooner or later be swallowed by the demon spirit.
His gaze inadvertently swept past Song Zhi'ang, and he sighed inwardly.
To preserve his sanity and keep from falling under the demon spirit's control, he had to remain constantly on guard, preventing it from seizing any opening to devour his soul.
And his only means of suppressing the demon spirit was to tear into it and consume it.
This was also a vital reason he had survived back in the Purgatory Abyss all those years ago.
So long as he continually refined the demon spirit's power and claimed it as his own, the creature would never be able to overpower his will.
***
Within the void, deafening roars rumbled without end.
After venting for who knew how long, Li Guanqi finally let out a long breath.
He stood in the empty void, panting heavily.
For ten thousand zhang around him, the void had shattered entirely, thick with residual arcs of lightning.
Standing in place, Li Guanqi looked up into the pitch-black void and retrieved Ye Feng's life-bound jade slip once more. To his surprise, he found that the crack on its surface had disappeared.
However, demonic qi now covered nearly a third of the slip!
Gripping the jade slip, Li Guanqi murmured softly, "Brother, you have to hang on!"
The two of them returned to the Gu clan domain, only to find the entire territory enveloped in silence. Even the several nearby volcanoes spewing flames had been sealed beneath layer upon layer of restrictions, preventing even the faintest noise from leaking through.
Six figures sat cross-legged around the pill cauldron, surrounded by tier after tier of terrifying flame barriers.
Listening to the hushed murmurs of the numerous high-grade alchemists nearby, Li Guanqi finally grasped the current situation.
The coordination among the five alchemists was seamless, and many onlookers were marveling at Xiang Huaizhi's extraordinary mastery of alchemy.
Suddenly!
The pale-faced Meng Jiangchu swayed slightly and hurriedly retrieved a pill, swallowing it down.
Yet that slight movement instantly disturbed the others!
Guo Feng's and Jiang Qizhi's auras erupted at once, forcibly steadying the flames they controlled within the cauldron!
Xiang Huaizhi and Gu Changsheng remained impassive, the flames before them steady as Mount Tai.
Yet the white-haired elder, Han Yuan, experienced a drastic shift in expression!
Within his flames, what sounded like an evil ghost shrieked. In merely an instant, the dozens of purified clusters of spirit liquid before him collapsed into a handful of flying ash!
Chapter 984