I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

The suicide squad faced off against five hundred Night Elf elites. Eight against five hundred. They knew they would die, but no one retreated. One suicide squad member grabbed an elite warrior, while another stabbed the elite in the throat from behind. The elite's blade severed the first man's neck, and both men fell. Five men died, in exchange for ten elites.

Yuan rushed towards the altar. He had no cultivation, no weapon, only a pair of grayish-white hands. He grasped a piece of ancestral core floating above the altar. The core was so hot that his palms stuck to it. His fingers began to crack, his grayish-white skin resembling a parched riverbed, black liquid seeping from the cracks. The power of the ancestral core was backfiring on him, but he did not let go.

He pulled out a piece.

The altar trembled the moment the ancestral core left it. The levitation stability was shattered, and the remaining four ancestral cores began to shake. Yuan grabbed the second one and ripped it off. His hand was unrecognizable; his fingers were deformed, and bones were exposed, but he kept pulling.

The third, the fourth, the fifth. He tore off all five ancestral cores and held them in his arms. Black liquid dripped from his arms, hissing as it fell onto the altar.

The altar collapsed. Stones fell, and dust filled the air.

Seeing that the Ancestral Core had been stolen, Xu stopped chasing Qin Yuan and struck Yuan with a palm. Yuan was sent flying, crashing into the inner city wall, which cracked, trapping him inside. The five Ancestral Cores were scattered on the ground, their dark red light illuminating his ashen face. Black liquid spilled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were half-closed.

Ye Ji tried to escape. She turned and took three steps when Lin Qing'er stabbed her in the knee from behind. The blade protruded from in front of her knee, and Ye Ji knelt down, turning to slash at Lin Qing'er. Lin Qing'er didn't dodge; she blocked with her left arm, but Ye Ji's blade became embedded in her bone and couldn't be pulled out.

Qin Yuan crawled up from the broken stone steps. Blood was still in his mouth; he spat it out—red, not black. He gripped his sword in his right hand and decapitated Ye Ji with a single stroke. Ye Ji's head spun halfway through the air before landing on the ground, rolling to Lin Qing'er's feet. Her eyes were still open, her lips were still moving, and it wasn't until a few breaths later that they stopped.

When Xu saw his daughter's head severed, his hair stood on end. Not an adjective, but literally stood on end. All six eyes turned red, and the scales on his body cracked, spewing black steam from the fissures. His cultivation level surged from the first level of Chaos Ruler to the second level.

He struck Qin Yuan with a palm strike. This strike was faster than all the previous attacks combined, and Qin Yuan had no time to dodge, only able to block with the blade of his sword. The sword bent, and Qin Yuan flew out, crashing into a house in the distance, causing half of the house to collapse. He crawled out of the rubble, a large amount of blood gushing from his mouth—not spitting, but gushing, as if someone had poured a bucket of blood down his throat.

Yuan struggled out of the wall. His hand was useless; he used his arm to hold a piece of the ancestral core and threw it at Qin Yuan. "Absorb it!"

Qin Yuan caught the Ancestral Core. The Ancestral Core transformed into black light and merged into his palm. It wasn't hot, it was cold, like ice melting into his veins. His cultivation level broke through from the first level of Chaos Ruler to the second level. He stood up, and the wounds on his body were healing rapidly, not completely, but no longer bleeding.

The illusory being sensed it, its six red eyes fixed on Qin Yuan. "You swallowed my ancestral core?"

"Yours?" Qin Yuan gripped the sword tighter. "This belongs to the myriad realms."

The two faced off on the collapsed altar. Eternal Night City burned, flames reflecting from all directions, turning the black walls a dark red. Lin Qing'er leaned against a pillar, blood still flowing from her leg wound. She tore off a piece of her clothing and bound it tightly around her thigh. Yuan leaned against the wall, still clutching two ancestral cores. His fingers were no longer visible, only a mass of grayish-white flesh remained.

Qin Yuan raised his sword, the tip pointing at the void.

He raised his palm slightly, and black energy condensed in his palm.

The City of Eternal Night is burning. The firelight illuminates half the sky.

Qin Yuan's right arm hung limply at his side, black cracks spreading from his shoulder to his fingers, his entire arm resembling charcoal, the skin peeling away to reveal the muscles beneath. The muscles were black, dry, and devoid of blood. But his left hand gripped a sword, its tip pointed at Xu's throat.

The six red, ethereal eyes stared at Qin Yuan. Blood was flowing from his armpits, and there was a sword wound on his neck. His daughter's head lay on the ground, eyes wide open. He raised his right hand, and black energy condensed in his palm, growing larger and brighter, like a compressed sun, but while the sun was bright, his energy was black.

"Eternal Night Heavenly Blade." Xu didn't speak, but his voice came from his body, like countless blades rubbing against each other.

His scales peeled off his body, flying up piece by piece and hovering in the air. The edge of each scale transformed into a blade, as thin as paper and as sharp as light. The scales clung to his arms, legs, back, and head, covering his entire body. He had become a humanoid figure made of blades.

The void rushed forward. Its speed was so fast that Qin Yuan only saw a black streak. Qin Yuan raised his sword to parry, the blade slicing through the blade, sending sparks flying. A second strike, a third strike, a fourth strike. Each strike left a wound on Qin Yuan's body—left arm, right leg, chest, abdomen. Blood gushed from the wounds, not flowing, but spurting.

Qin Yuan gritted his teeth and pressed the golden protective shield he had formed from the Heavenly Dao against his skin. The sound of the blade cutting through the shield changed; it went from the sound of flesh being sliced ​​to the sound of metal scraping against metal. The shield blocked the blade, but not the impact. Each strike felt like being hit by a hammer; Qin Yuan's bones cracked, and several more of his already broken ribs snapped.

The illusory bladed arm pierced Qin Yuan's heart. Qin Yuan didn't dodge. He used his left arm to trap the illusory arm, the blade plunging into his left chest, passing through the muscle and lodging between his ribs. Qin Yuan's left hand gripped his sword and thrust it into the illusory abdomen. The blade emerged from behind.

He gripped the blade tightly, preventing Qin Yuan from drawing it. With his other hand, he shattered Qin Yuan's left shoulder. The bones in Qin Yuan's left arm were broken, and his arm hung limply, held together only by skin and flesh.

The two tumbled down from the top of the altar, crashing onto the stone steps, and then rolling onto the street. Qin Yuan's head struck the stone slab, and his vision went black. Xu was on top of him, his bladed arm still burrowing into his chest. Qin Yuan used his right hand—the hand already covered in black cracks—to grab Xu's arm and push it away. His right hand fingers wouldn't obey him; he couldn't muster any strength.

Xu drew a bladed arm and stabbed it towards Qin Yuan's eye. Qin Yuan tilted his head, and the blade embedded itself in the stone slab near Xu's ear, shattering a piece. Qin Yuan bumped his forehead against Xu's nose, causing Xu's head to tilt back. Qin Yuan then pulled the sword from Xu's abdomen and slashed horizontally. The blade sliced ​​across Xu's neck, and black blood spurted out, splattering Qin Yuan's face.