The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 480 Methods to Overcome Inner Demons

An Rong had already made preparations for the new Fire Demon King's power before taking action.

The fact that he could make Xinwu City disappear and create a water-wash sycamore forest using fire-generated gas is enough to surpass the level of an ordinary earth immortal.

Even though he had fully integrated his own immortal destiny, he was not confident that he could defeat that fire demon king.

The safest course of action would be to leave first, reunite with Sect Leader Tang, and then take action against the Fire Demon King.

Sect Leader Tang is incredibly powerful; even now, he can't fathom the extent of his strength. He also possesses the Four Directions Fire Lamp, which has a restraining effect on flames.

The fact that Sect Leader Tang was able to kill Zhu Yinhai without obtaining any immortal destiny shows that he had his own unique approach to dealing with fire-type demons.

With Sect Leader Tang now possessing the Kaiyang Immortal Fate, it's not impossible for the two of them to join forces and even take down the new Fire Demon King in the Fire Demon King's territory.

That being said, he couldn't just turn around and leave, and go directly to Sect Leader Tang.

He went to the Wind Demon-Slaying Army to find help, and Sect Leader Tang would definitely ask him about the new Fire Demon King. What should he say then?
He said that he glanced at Xinwu City from afar through the ink-wash sycamore forest and didn't even see the shadow of the new Fire Demon King. He felt that this demon was not simple and that it would take two people to join forces to kill this fiend.

Is this right?
In Tang Sect Leader's eyes, wasn't it as if the new Fire Demon King, without even showing his face, had used a small trick from afar to make him tremble with fear and flee in panic?

Even if one doesn't doubt his abilities, one might doubt his character, believing that he is afraid to fight against strong enemies and avoids confrontations with the powerful, making him unsuitable for important tasks.

If this impression is left, and one later wants to ask Headmaster Tang for help to accomplish something important, Headmaster Tang will inevitably doubt the credibility of what he says.

He must first probe the new Fire Demon King's true strength and weaknesses, and then seek Tang Sect Leader's assistance with sufficient detailed information.

The celestial beings could no longer withstand the Fire Demon King's flames, so he decided to enter Xinwu City alone to test the enemy's strength.

He had enough confidence in himself that even if he couldn't win, he wanted to leave, and the Fire Demon King couldn't stop him.

What he didn't expect was that the last type of flame possessed by the new Fire Demon King would be so troublesome.

Just as he approached Xinwu City and was about to enter it, a seven-colored phantom flashed before his eyes. When he came to his senses, he had already been pulled into an illusion.

Being in the illusion was like being in a dream. He couldn't remember the events in the dream clearly, only vaguely remembering his own feelings.

He seemed to have returned to his childhood, reliving the tragedy of Huaigu Village. He lingered in it, filled with unease, fear, anger, and hatred.

At this moment, the seven-colored flames reappeared, trying to engulf him, but unexpectedly, that past couldn't affect him. Instead, it activated his magic, bringing him back to his senses.

After regaining consciousness, he felt as if he were having a self-aware dream. He knew that everything before him was an illusion, but he could not escape from it.

However, the fact that he has regained consciousness means that the new Fire Demon King's methods have come to an end.

He only needs to find the key to break the deadlock to get rid of this last kind of Yin deficiency fire.

He rode his young body through what was once Huaigu Village, where traces of blood, not yet dried, remained on the ground, and the road leading from the village to Hollow Mountain was worn with many dents.

Those were the marks left on the ground by the bandits from Black Mountain when they dragged villagers and dumped their bodies.

He remembered clearly that less than three days had passed since the Black Mountain bandits massacred Huaigu Village.

Based on what happened at the time, he should have followed the path into the mountains and started pretending to be crazy.

But as he moved slowly, he saw the Black Mountain bandits torturing the villagers in the open space of the village, interrogating them about information about Shili Huai Mountain and how they had managed to deceive the Da Xuan government.

On the tallest locust tree in the center of the village, hang the bodies of dozens of villagers who had been tortured to death.

An Rong believed that after more than ten years of cultivation and experiencing enough along the way, he was able to control his mind and not be affected by external events, or at least not by illusions that he knew were false and could not be changed.

Seeing this scene before him, he still felt as if he had swallowed a piece of charcoal, and a burning anger surged up his spine and into the top of his head.

No matter how much time has passed, he can't let go.

Anger surged from his mouth and nose, turning into red and purple flames that instantly engulfed him.

Amidst the flames, his consciousness once again faded.

When he regained consciousness, he was still in Huaigu Village. However, judging from the timeline, the villagers who had been buried by the Black Mountain bandits had been transformed into evil spirits under the influence of demonic energy and were now taking revenge on the Black Mountain bandits.

In order to completely suppress the villagers' collective resentment, the Black Mountain bandits set up their first New Year's Eve ritual.

That was the second major crisis in his life.

Liu Shan and others suspected that everything was related to him. Some suspected that it was his existence that led the evil spirits into the village, while others believed that the reason the evil spirits were not able to cause any trouble was because he was left to ward off disaster.

The two sides did not reach a conclusion, but many people in the village hated him because of the evil spirit, but they were also afraid that if they really killed him, they would be held accountable by the other villagers when the evil spirit got out of control.

They then devised various methods to use "coincidence" to kill him.

During that time, he had to be careful of the death traps, both overt and covert, while continuing to play the fool and not actually avoid them.

He had to eat all sorts of highly poisonous plants with a silly grin, and before he really died, he sought help from the bandits who supported his survival.

Having awakened a second time amidst the Yin Deficiency Fire, he had already gained some understanding of the new Fire Demon King's Yin Deficiency Fire.

This Yin Fire will seek out the most dangerous moments in his life, incite these moments into illusions, and trap him within them.

In the illusion, he will lose his memory and repeat the suffering he has endured in the past, only this suffering is more concentrated and intense.

When he can no longer hold on and his will wavers, the Yin Deficiency Fire will appear and deliver the final blow to him.

If he can't hold on, he will be burned by the Yin Deficiency Fire; if he can hold on, he will be able to wake up from the illusion.

What he needs to do now is to find a way to get rid of the illusion after regaining consciousness, and to find out why he fell into the illusion again after regaining consciousness before.

He tried to mobilize the spiritual energy within his body, but found that the Yin Fiend Fire isolated his consciousness from his body. He could not sense the spiritual energy within his body, nor could he use magical artifacts. Only the Immortal Bond, which was bound to his soul, would automatically trigger immortal techniques when he was truly in danger.

He regained consciousness twice, both times thanks to magical powers.

After confirming his own condition, An Rong felt relieved. The effect of Yin Deficiency Fire was strange; even Earth Immortals could be affected without realizing it. However, precisely because of this, the conditions for achieving this effect were extremely demanding.

To completely disconnect his consciousness from his body means that his physical body in the outside world must not suffer any trauma.

As long as he is injured, his body is stimulated, and he can establish a connection with his consciousness for a moment.

With that instantaneous connection, he was able to break free of the cage formed by the Yin Fiery.

In other words, he doesn't need to worry about his body being attacked. As long as he can persevere, he will eventually get rid of the Yin deficiency fire.

Having determined his situation, he walked out of the doghouse-like woodshed, only to find a pool of colorful vomit in front of him. Before he regained consciousness, he had been half-coerced by the bandits into eating highly poisonous mushrooms.

Thanks to his familiarity with the mountains and forests, he found several herbs with detoxifying properties in the woods. After swallowing them, he delayed the onset of the poison and managed to make his way into the village. There, he was given two bowls of emetic soup, which finally made him vomit up the poisonous mushrooms in his stomach and saved his life.

As he came out of the woodshed, he saw a Taoist priest performing a ritual in the center of the village.

He heard Liu Shan accusing the evil spirits of harming people, of committing heinous crimes that were intolerable to Heaven.

When Liu Shan saw him staggering out, he used him as an example, dragging him in front of the Taoist priest and saying that he had been harmed by evil spirits. Not only had his brain been damaged by the evil energy, turning him into a fool, but he had also been lured into ingesting poisonous fog and almost died.

He couldn't refuse what Liu Shan said in the illusion, so he could only nod and grin foolishly, not understanding what was happening.

Seeing his former self, An Rong felt guilty and sad. His eyes were a little wet. When he reached out to wipe them, he found that what flowed out were gray and dark blue flames.

The next moment, gray-blue flames engulfed him, and he lost consciousness again.

Upon regaining consciousness for the third time, he sat with the Mountain-Suppressing Beast at the lower level of the hollow mountain, gazing at the mountain of corpses of Huaigu Village residents before him, lost in thought.

Having been infected twice in a row, he now understands why he was infected again.

That is emotion.

The Heart Flame of the Candle Shadow Skeleton uses the target's fear and anxiety as fuel. As long as these emotions exist, it will burn brighter and brighter until it devours the target.

The new Fire Demon King's Yin Fiery is designed to target all negative emotions.

The new Fire Demon King's Yin Deficiency Fire is a hundred times more troublesome than Zhu Yin Hai's Heart Flame. Regaining consciousness from the past constructed by Yin Deficiency Fire does not mean that he has defeated Yin Deficiency Fire, but rather that Yin Deficiency Fire has truly begun to torment him.

After regaining consciousness, he cannot allow any negative emotions to arise in the face of what has happened in the past. If negative emotions do arise in his heart, they will engulf him and force him to start all over again.

The first time was filled with anger and hatred; the second time with sadness and guilt.

Click.

He saw the mountain of corpses not far away move, and a dark shadow emerged from it, which was the evil spirit the bandits had been talking about.

The evil spirit did not harm him; instead, it broke off a branch from the locust tree that was suppressing evil spirits and placed it in front of him. He remembered hearing from the villagers that he was a child abandoned in the mountains, and that the villagers found him when they went into the mountains to collect herbs and took him back to the village to raise him.

After he regained consciousness, he kept crying and couldn't be soothed no matter what he did. The only thing that stopped him from crying was when he saw the golden locust flowers growing in the village. If he put the flower in his mouth, he would even smile.

So ever since he was a child, whenever he was feeling down, the villagers would give him a small bag of dried locust flowers.

An Rong reached out to pick up the locust flowers, but as soon as his hand was outstretched, he saw that the back of his hand was covered by deep blue flames.

With the fourth, fifth, ninth...

An Rong couldn't remember how many times he was lucid, or how many times he was pulled back into his memories by the flames of emotion.

He survived in Huaigu Village, which was occupied by bandits from the Black Mountain.

After leaving Shili Huai Mountain, they encountered danger repeatedly on their way to Shuanghu City.

Having achieved success in his cultivation under Li Kang's tutelage, he wanted to make a name for himself in the Great Xuan and uphold justice, only to find that the world was far more complex than he had imagined. Despite his great cultivation, he was powerless in the face of rules, factions, and interests, just like when he first left Shili Huai Mountain.

Zhu Yinhai's innate talent is Yin Deficiency Fire, which is also the strongest flame of the new Fire Demon King.

As the darkest of all demons, Yin Xu Huo always chooses scenes that represent the most intense emotional moments in An Rong's life.

But when he gets emotional, he gets consumed by flames, forcing him to start all over again.

Each time he briefly felt relief from a nightmare, his emotions would plunge him back into the illusion, leaving him awake to suffer the torment of the past.

If it were someone else, they would definitely try to accept the past, or even forget it, try to become cold and devoid of any emotions, and then look for ways to get rid of the yin deficiency fire.

But An Rong was different; he did not run away.

Each time he was engulfed by the Yin Fiery Insufficiency and saw the scene he least wanted to see in his life, he understood himself more clearly. Through each brief moment of lucidity, he constantly reinforced and confirmed his thoughts.

Later on, even when he was consumed by the flames of emotion, he was able to remain clear-headed.

The flames of emotion did not force him to abandon his emotions; instead, they burned away his hesitation and anxiety, allowing him to look back on the past and forge a Daoist heart.

Finally, Yin Xu Huo arrived at the altar for worshipping Heaven inside the cave in Hulu Mountain.

This was the biggest obstacle for him to break through the Yin Deficiency Fire. Ever since he saw that thing at the altar of Heaven that day, he had been caught in confusion and hesitation.

His subconscious was trying to avoid everything he saw, wanting to postpone making a choice until the very end. But having gone through everything before, he believed that he could now face with equanimity what he saw at the sacrificial altar.

He took a deep breath and was about to walk towards the altar to confront his greatest inner demon when a figure appeared behind him and also arrived in Calabash Mountain.

He turned around and saw that the person who had come was none other than Tianren Heping.

Looking at the sacrificial altar before him, Wu Chang asked in confusion:
"So this is where you're trapped?"

This is An Rong's past memory. When he entered Hulu Mountain that day, there were Master Tang and his wife, as well as several celestial beings, including He Ping.

But at this moment, with the appearance of Peace behind him, the illusory figures of Sect Leader Tang and others all disappeared, leaving only Peace behind him.

An Rong asked doubtfully, "Are you serious?"

Wu Chang shrugged and said, "Of course. I saw you trapped in the flames and hadn't been able to break free for a long time, so I came to see what happened to you."

He then told An Rong about the situation outside.

Fifteen minutes have passed since An Rong was engulfed by the Yin Deficiency Fire.

When Wu Chang first realized that An Rong had been tricked, he prepared to take action himself and enter Xinwu City.

However, when he arrived at An Rong's side, he found that An Rong's breathing was steady. Despite being in the Yin Fiery Realm, An Rong was not only unharmed, but his breathing was also becoming more refined, as if his cultivation had made a breakthrough. Therefore, he did not take action to wake An Rong.

Seven minutes passed, and An Rong's strength gradually reached its peak, but at that moment, An Rong's transformation stopped.

An Rong seemed to have been put on pause; his breathing stopped changing, and he just stood there blankly, as if he had fallen asleep.

After waiting for another three minutes, he saw that An Rong still couldn't get rid of the Yin deficiency fire, and he knew that An Rong had a problem.

He had not only promised Chi Yuan to take care of An Rong, but An Rong also had a hidden side quest that had not yet been activated. From any perspective, he could not stand idly by and watch An Rong get into trouble.

He asked the Omniscient Crystal how to break the deadlock, and learned from the Omniscient Crystal that his soul, nourished by the Soul Cleansing Banner, had become extremely solid, and with his high level of willpower, it could leave his body to some extent.

By using the calamity-averting banner, one can synchronize with An Rong's consciousness and help An Rong get rid of the Yin deficiency fire.

He immediately did as instructed, and his consciousness entered An Rong's body.

Wu Chang possesses the talent of misfortune and has used the Misfortune Space to mentally attack his opponents more than once. He has some experience in mental attacks.

Before entering, he had imagined many scenarios that would trap An Rong, but he never expected that An Rong would be trapped by the sacrificial altar inside Hulu Mountain.

After hearing Wu Chang's description, An Rong stood there stunned for a while before he came to his senses.

According to Wu Chang, from the outside perspective, he had been trapped in the Yin Deficiency Fire for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

Having gone through all that, he remained steadfast in his beliefs and arrived here in just 70% of the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

He thought he had just entered Calabash Mountain and was preparing to complete the final test and defeat Yin Xu Fire, but in reality he had been under hard control for nearly five minutes without his consciousness.

The moment he discovered the truth, a bitter smile appeared on his face. He hadn't expected that he still couldn't make up his mind to take the final step on his own.

Wu Chang looked at the sacrificial altar and thought to himself that An Rong had indeed seen something troublesome back then, and what he saw was very likely related to the hidden side quest that had not yet been fully developed.

Having managed to control An Rong for so long, he certainly wouldn't easily reveal this to a stranger, so he could only turn back and use his true form to contact An Rong.

He asked, "An Tai Sui, are you planning to stay here and try to break through your limits, or will you leave with me to meet the new Fire Demon King?"

An Rong hesitated for a moment, then said helplessly:

"Given my current condition, I'm afraid I won't be able to break free from the Yin deficiency fire on my own for the time being."

"To my shame, I have been trapped in this illusion for a long time and have not yet found a way to escape it, which has also caused His Excellency Peace to be trapped here with me."

Wu Chang said nonchalantly, "Since An Taisui is willing to leave, then things will be easy."

He stepped forward to the altar for the sacrificial ceremony and said:

"As long as you find the right method, overcoming your inner demons is actually quite simple."

An Rong asked curiously:
"Please enlighten me, Your Excellency."

Wu Chang said:

"Since the goal is to break through, then force will suffice."

As he spoke, he raised his fist, and three hundred points of willpower surrounded it, transforming into dazzling starlight.

He then punched the altar, and countless cracks appeared where he hit it.

Cracks spread along the altar, reaching the ground, walls, and even the air.

The cracks seeped into An Rong's body, and he felt an itch in his throat. When he coughed, large bursts of seven-colored flames appeared.

As the flames left the body, everything around them collapsed completely.

The endless, inescapable nightmare that had plagued An Rong for so long collapsed easily with a single punch from Wu Chang.

An Rong snapped out of his daze and found himself back in reality. Less than a hundred paces in front of him was the gate of Xinwu City.

He looked to his side and saw Wu Chang slowly retract his fist, tilt his head slightly, and say:

"See, it's very simple. As long as you exert force, the inner demons will naturally shatter."

An Rong: ...

"Teachable."

Ignoring An Rong, who was still in a daze, Wu Chang went straight to the gate of Xinwu City, bent his index finger, and knocked on the door.

"Is anyone home?"

(End of this chapter)