After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The day after the Gu shell data was imported into the military register, Zhou Ran locked himself in the side hall.

The Taihuang Black Blade was held horizontally in front of his knees. The last layer of its pattern shone with a pale light, even dimmer than it had been a few days ago.

The sword essence consumed in the great battle when the Emperor's son descended had not yet recovered, and coupled with the insufficient supply of magic power caused by his weakened primordial spirit, the weapon that had been with him for more than half a year was deteriorating at a visible rate.

Three days have passed since the 30-day countdown began.

He pulled out two items from the bottom of the military register.

One is a complete map of the six layers of heaven and earth veins scanned by the Moon Emperor, with all the intersections of the nine main veins marked in red.

The other document is the third clause in the secret edict containing the Heavenly Bone Fragment—a prerequisite for the second use of the White Bone Pen.

With the two pieces of information superimposed, Zhou Ran pondered them for almost half an hour, his fingers gripping the hilt of the Taihuang Black Blade slowly tightening.

He pulled a small packet of crushed Soul Abyss Stone powder from his sleeve.

The top-grade Soul Abyss Stone mined from the seventh level of the Soul Abyss was roughly crushed into tiny fragments the size of a thumb.

The pale blue stone powder shimmered faintly in my palm, each fragment containing energy that naturally clashed with the Emperor-level rules.

Zhou Ran poured the stone powder onto the surface of the Taihuang Black Blade.

The blade trembled slightly the moment the shards touched it.

The pale blue light was absorbed by the blade, and the stone powder visibly shrank and thinned, disappearing into the dark blade.

The temperature of the Taihuang Black Blade dropped by more than ten degrees. The hilt was so cold that Zhou Ran's palms turned white.

The background pattern is now highlighted.

It was no longer the flickering light that lingered on. Light surged up from the deepest part of the blade, following the direction of the Emperor-level dark patterns, spreading from the base of the blade to the tip.

The first layer of texture has stabilized.

Its light was full and its edges were neat, just like its state before the Emperor's son arrived.

Immediately following, next to the first base pattern, a brand new pattern emerged from inside the blade.

The second one.

The shape of the pattern is different from the first one.

The first background pattern is an original engraving left from the era of Ye Futian, with bold lines and sharp brushstrokes.

The second line is noticeably more delicate, with rounded curves at the bends.

The new patterns that grew on their own were catalyzed by the residual Emperor's blood inside the Primordial Black Blade by the energy of the Soul Abyss Stone.

The third one was even faster than the second.

The stone powder was being absorbed into the blade at an increasingly faster rate, and each fragment was dragged deeper into the blade by the remnants of the Emperor's blood.

The Soul Abyss Stone and the Emperor-level Dark Pattern reacted violently inside the blade, colliding, grinding, and fusing. Each fusion gave rise to a new pattern on the blade's surface.

On the fourth attempt, the Taihuang Black Blade stopped.

The blade emitted a heavy hum, causing all the Soul Abyss Stone lamp holders in the side hall to shake three times simultaneously.

The four background patterns lit up simultaneously, their radiance more intense than any of Zhou Ran's previous strikes.

However, the growth of the fifth line got stuck halfway. It emerged from the base of the blade, but stopped when it reached one-third of the way down the blade. The end of the line flickered, unable to go any further or back.

Just a hair's breadth away.

Active Imperial Blood.

The energy of the Soul Abyss Stone provides the soil for the growth of the patterns, but the catalytic reaction requires the Emperor's Blood to ignite it.

The remaining imperial blood in the blade had been mostly consumed during the growth of the first four patterns, and what was left was not even enough to ignite a fire.

Zhou Ran closed his eyes.

After his primordial spirit was drained of seven drops of imperial blood, it became so weak that it was almost translucent. Although most of the cracks in his sea of ​​consciousness were repaired, his foundation was still weak.

Deep within the crack, on the charred surface welded with the bloodthirsty ancestral blood, remnants of the Emperor's Blood Dark Nails slowly surged along the edge of the crack.

Those black and gold liquids were nails left inside his body by the Emperor's son.

poison.

arms.

Any normal person would want to eliminate them all.

Zhou Ran poured his magic power into the inner wall of his sea of ​​consciousness, searching inch by inch along the edge of the crack in his primordial spirit.

Three locations were found where the most concentrated black liquid was stored in small puddles under the charred shells, much like ink frozen at the bottom of a river in winter.

He started pressuring them.

The magic power, wrapped in the black-gold energy of the Demon Emperor's origin, was squeezed from the inner wall of the sea of ​​consciousness into the meridian system.

The remnants of the Emperor's Blood Dark Nail were driven out of the crack and flowed along the meridians towards the arm.

As it passed the broken stump welded by the bloodthirsty ancestral blood, the black gold liquid and the crimson weld scars briefly clashed—

pain.

The pain caused Zhou Ran's pupils to dilate briefly before refocusing.

The Emperor's blood flowed into his palm.

Blackish-gold liquid seeped from the gaps in the palm lines, flowing down the fingers that gripped the hilt and onto the blade.

The moment they made contact, the Taihuang Black Blade let out a long howl.

It's not a buzzing sound.

A long howl.

The oscillation waves that erupted simultaneously from all the deep patterns of the blade penetrated the stone wall of the side hall and traveled along the corridor toward the main hall.

Qin San stood outside the door, gripping the hilt of his Taihuang Black Blade, his knuckles cracking. His expression shifted from grave to a wide grin, his mouth stretching to his ears. He didn't even care that blood was seeping from his mouth.

The fifth line bulged out from where it was stuck and traveled through the remaining two-thirds of the blade in one go.

The light shone along with the previous four, and the five background patterns illuminated the surface of the Taihuang Black Blade as a starry sky interwoven with black and gold.

Following closely behind, the magic mark that Ji Yue left in his sea of ​​consciousness was passively activated under the impact of the Emperor's Blood.

Lunar Eclipse Compression.

Silver Moon True Essence surged out from the framework of the incantation imprint and collided with the surging Demon Emperor's Origin in Zhou Ran's dantian.

Two forces with completely different attributes intertwined within his body for three breaths, with silver and black-gold surging alternately in his meridians.

The density of true essence surged under the compression principle of the lunar eclipse technique.

It's like the water in a riverbed being squeezed down to one-third of its original volume using magic.

The same amount of water, squeezed into one-third of the pipe, tripled both the flow rate and pressure.

The meridian carrying capacity of the technique framework, which was modified by the Silver Moon True Essence, has been broadened by a significant level.

The bottleneck of the late-stage Nascent Soul realm appeared cracked under the compression of the Lunar Eclipse Technique.

It's loosened.

The bottle cap had been twisted half a turn but wasn't off yet. But for Zhou Ran now, half a turn was enough.

Once he has fully mastered the art of lunar eclipse.

The sixth pattern begins to take shape on the blade.

The patterns emerging from the base of the blade were slower than the previous five. Each inch of their movement was accompanied by a fierce collision of the energy of the Emperor's Blood and the Soul Abyss Stone within the blade's body.

Halfway through, the temperature of the blade plummeted.

The coldness traveled from the palm to the fingertips, and from the fingertips to the wrist bones.

The cold made the hairs on Zhou Ran's entire arm stand on end.

It wasn't the cold of the Soul Abyss Stone, nor the cold of death energy; he had only ever felt this temperature in the deepest part of the Soul Abyss.

A reflection appeared on the surface of the Taihuang Black Blade.

It's not Zhou Ran's.

Black armor, profile, deep-set eyes.

His jawline was sculpted like a knife blade, and his lips were pressed into an almost invisible line.

The night bears the weight of the sky.

The afterimage reflected on the blade was exactly the same as the figure that disappeared before the seventh level of the Abyss of Souls.

The dark patterns on the black armor flowed within the blade, and the hue of the light was a deep cyan unique to those from 30,000 years ago.

The afterimage opened its mouth towards Zhou Ran, who was reflected in the blade.

silent.

There was no sound transmission, no magical fluctuations, nothing at all.

But Zhou Ran could clearly see the movement of her lips.

The mouth shape is very simple; you can read it by reading the lips.

Don't believe her.