If I, a death row inmate, am not to become a demon, am I to become a member of the Imperial Guard?

Deep within the underground palace, the rock walls trembled violently.

The Blackwater Dharma King stood on the altar, his eyes as cold as ice.

Steam billowed and blood mist swirled, yet it did not disturb his brow.

His gaze was indifferent, as if he were only listening to the sound of the wind.

Zhou Yang stood at the end of the shadows, a dull ache throbbing in the emptiness in his chest.

He stared intently at the blood pool beneath the altar, where a copper pipe led directly to the bronze alchemy furnace.

The pipes are the only passage between the blood pool and the furnace core, and also a lifeline.

"Only once," he reminded himself silently.

Fingers lightly tapped the sleeves, the warmth of the fingertips infused with the blood.

He moved his left foot lightly, making almost no sound.

Beside the blood pool, the boiling blood churned like broth.

The outer wall of the copper tube is covered with ancient patterns, and there is a faint shimmering light within the patterns.

Zhou Yang's palms were slightly pale, and his knuckles were taut.

He closed his eyes, and Fang Tian's smile flashed through his mind.

That smile concealed countless deaths, but also endless profits.

"One month to burn my lifespan," he muttered to himself.

The lifespan within the body was severed like a thin thread, and a chill instantly spread to the limbs.

Blood-red light gathered in the palm of his hand, and lightning pierced the darkness.

Lightning flashed in his palm like falling stars, without hesitation.

Lightning struck the copper pipe directly, and the metal emitted a piercing shriek under the high temperature.

The tube wall was torn apart instantly, and blood gushed out like a flood.

Blood flowed, washing over the stone carvings of the altar and staining every line red.

A deafening roar echoed through the underground palace, and rubble fell.

The Blackwater Dharma King's eyes finally changed, like lightning piercing the night sky.

He raised an eyebrow and flicked his staff, unleashing a beam of blue light.

The beam of light pointed directly at the thin wall in the shadows, piercing through the stone.

Zhou Yang's figure was captured by the beam of light, and cold sweat slid down his hairline.

He turned slightly to the side, his body sliding into a dark passage just before the beam of light arrived.

The passageway was narrow, and water dripped from the damp stone walls.

His steps were steady, and the warmth of his palms still lingered.

Every step felt like calculating the remaining time.

The war outside has not yet ended, and swords are still flashing.

The elite of the Embroidered Uniform Guard rushed into the blood pool and slaughtered the remaining followers.

The protectors of the Tianli Sect were still chanting incantations softly by the altar.

All Zhou Yang could hear was the whistling sound of blood flowing.

He had only one thought in his mind: to survive, and to live a more enjoyable life.

He clenched his fist, the warmth of his palm still lingering.

The Dharma King's blue light formed a semicircle at the entrance of the dark passage, like a gate of judgment.

The beam of light intensified dramatically, almost splitting the stone wall open.

Zhou Yang's toe touched a loose stone brick, and with a gentle kick, the brick rolled towards the beam of light.

The stone brick struck the beam of light, producing a brief flash.

The beam of light was restrained, and a faint black mist seeped from the crack.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zhou Yang rushed out of the secret passage and hid behind a dilapidated stone pillar behind the altar.

He leaned against the stone pillar, breathing rapidly.

The emptiness in my chest ached again, as if an invisible knife was cutting into it.

But all he could see was the red of the blood pool and the light of the furnace core.

"The show isn't over yet." The Dharma King's voice was deep, yet carried an irresistible pressure.

He lightly tapped his staff with his fingers, and tiny sparks of lightning appeared at his fingertips.

Several bolts of lightning shot out in all directions like raindrops, searching for their target.

Zhou Yang turned his head and saw a thin copper wire still hanging from the broken pipe.

That copper wire was the only channel through which the blood continued to flow.

If it is not cut off, it will transfer the power of the blood pool back to the alchemy furnace in a short time, activating a stronger formation.

He didn't want the Dharma King to obtain a stronger formation.

He once again suppressed his lifespan, and his palms emitted a faint golden light once more.

This time, he didn't burn out a whole month's worth of light, but only used half a month's worth of afterglow.

The lightning in his palm was like an arrow on a bowstring, precise and deadly.

The golden light pierced through the chaotic blood mist and struck the thin copper wire.

The copper wire instantly turned into stardust and scattered on the ground.

The flow of blood in the blood pool was cut off, and the originally surging red waves immediately subsided.

The core of the formation lost its lifeblood, and its light began to dim.

The Blackwater Dharma King finally frowned, and a flash of unwilling lightning appeared in his eyes.

"Impossible," he hissed, his voice echoing through the rock face.

The staff trembled again, and blue light gathered into a huge halo.

At the center of the halo was a huge black vortex, like an abyss that devoured everything.

The vortex's suction instantly swept up the surrounding rubble and blood mist.

Zhou Yang felt the stone pillar beneath his feet being pressed into the ground by a powerful suction force.

He quickly grabbed the remaining base of the stone pillar, and his body was thrown into the air in an instant.

In the air, Zhou Yang's body was caressed by a dizzying red light.

His vision went black, and he saw countless fragmented reflections in his eyes.

But he was still thinking about the next step, even if there was only half a second left.

"Choose." The Dharma King's voice resounded like thunder in my ears.

Qin Shuang's smile flashed through Zhou Yang's mind, like frost piercing his chest.

He understood that if he fell at this moment, he would lose the entire game.

So, he made his final decision in the air.

With a flick of his finger, the remaining life force within his body surged once more, forming a tiny blade of light.

The light blade sliced ​​through the edge of the vortex, like a knife cutting through dense fog.

The light blade pierced through the vortex, reaching the core of the Dharma King's staff.

The staff shattered instantly, and the blue light scattered into fragments.

The Blackwater Dharma King's eyes shifted from lightning to astonishment, and then turned into frost.

The tremors in the underground palace suddenly weakened, and the blood mist began to solidify into a dark red solid.

Zhou Yang's body flipped in the air and landed steadily on a protruding rock.

He stood up, his palms still retaining a faint warmth of golden light.

The Imperial Guards had surrounded the altar, all looking in the direction where the Dharma King had fallen.

Qin Shuang walked over from a distance with steady steps, but raised her eyebrows slightly the moment she saw Zhou Yang.

"Why is your knife back again?" she asked in a low voice, a hint of surprise in her voice.

Zhou Yang smiled faintly, the trembling blade in his hand reflecting a faint bloody light.

"I just want to live longer and, incidentally, turn this game upside down."

Their gazes met in the lingering light and shadow of the blood pool.

The underground palace was dimly lit, yet it ignited a spark of unease.

Amidst the chaos, Zhou Yang has already positioned himself at the very center.

Zhou Yang stood by the blood pool, the strange smell of rust and herbs lingering around his nose. He had just finished telling Qin Shuang his plan to turn the tide, and was already calculating his next move. Destroying the pipeline was only the first step; what he truly wanted was what was inside that bronze alchemy furnace.

He glanced at Qin Shuang. Her face was expressionless, but the knuckles of her fingers gripping the knife were slightly white. This woman always hid her emotions very well.

"Did you cause the commotion outside?" Zhou Yang asked.

Qin Shuang did not deny it. "Lu Chenzhou is more efficient than I thought."

"Then we need to hurry." Zhou Yang smiled. "Good things don't wait..."

He suddenly stopped speaking.

An extreme chill rose from behind. It wasn't the damp, gloomy cold of the underground palace, but a kind of ice that pierced to the bone, carrying an absolute sense of oppression. The air seemed to be sucked out in an instant, becoming viscous and heavy.

Zhou Yang's muscles suddenly tensed up.

He didn't need to turn around to know who was standing behind him.

Qin Shuang's expression also changed. She looked behind Zhou Yang, and for the first time, a genuine sense of seriousness, even a hint of fear, appeared in her eyes.

A figure slowly emerged from the shadows at the far end of the underground palace.

The man wore a large black robe, the hood covering most of his face, revealing only a pale chin and two bloodless lips. He walked very slowly, his footsteps barely audible, as if he were not walking on solid ground, but floating above the shadows.

He didn't look at Qin Shuang, nor at the surrounding corpses and blood pool. His gaze, like two invisible nails, was fixed directly on Zhou Yang. More precisely, it was fixed on the broken copper pipes behind Zhou Yang.

"You did it."

The voice was flat, revealing neither joy nor anger. It was like asking, "How's the weather today?"

Zhou Yang slowly turned around. He didn't speak, but simply held the knife horizontally in front of his chest. The blade still bore traces of the protector's blood, which gleamed a dark red in the dim firelight.

"Have you considered the consequences of destroying my possessions?" the Blackwater Dharma King asked again.

Zhou Yang twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing an expression that was hardly a smile. "The price? All I know is that when something breaks, someone has to fix it. Or, someone has to pay the price."

He said this to the Dharma King, and also to bolster his own courage. The system panel didn't indicate the opponent's specific strength, but this aura was more terrifying than any opponent he had ever faced, including Fang Tian, ​​whom he had killed through a scheme.

The Blackwater Dharma King seemed to find his words amusing. A soft, sigh-like nasal sound came from under his hood.

"To be buried with them?"

He raised his hand.

The hand was very clean, with long, slender fingers and skin as white as fine porcelain. He extended only one finger, the index finger.

He gently tapped in Zhou Yang's direction.

There was no earth-shattering gas explosion, no dazzling brilliance.

There was nothing there.

But the air in front of Zhou Yang froze in an instant.

It was like flowing water suddenly freezing into solid ice. The air was no longer air, but had become an invisible, absolutely solid wall. Zhou Yang could even feel the outer shell of his protective true essence groaning under the invisible spatial pressure.

Click.

A very slight, crisp sound.

It was as if a thin sheet of ice had been accidentally broken in winter.

The protective true essence that Zhou Yang had cultivated at the cost of a great deal of his lifespan, which had once withstood sword and blade strikes, crumbled instantly, like a window paper pierced by a finger.

The shattered true essence vanished into thin air without even forming a ripple.

Zhou Yang's pupils suddenly contracted.

He didn't have time to react.

That finger, several feet away, seemed to have already poked his forehead.

An indescribable and irresistible force slammed into his chest.

That wasn't a push, nor was it an impact.

It was a pure, violent, and irrational "penetration".

Zhou Yang's body flew backward like a tattered sack. The knife in his hand flew out of his grasp, tracing an arc in the air before crashing into the blood pool in the distance, splashing up a small patch of crimson water.

His vision was rapidly receding. Stone walls, torches, Qin Shuang's astonished face, the blood pool, the alchemy furnace... all the scenes stretched and distorted before his eyes.

boom!

A dull, loud bang.

His back slammed hard against the stone wall of the underground palace. The hard rock felt like his bones were shattering. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and he could no longer hold back, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Blood splattered in the air, like a bewitching red flower.

He slid down the stone wall to the ground, curled up in a ball, and coughed violently. Each cough brought out more blood and froth. His chest felt like it had been trampled by a galloping elephant; even breathing was excruciatingly painful.

He looked up, his vision blurred by the intense pain.

He saw the black-robed Dharma King still standing in the same spot, his posture unchanged. The finger that had pointed out the first finger had just slowly lowered.

The Dharma King didn't even move his feet.

He snorted coldly. His voice was soft, yet it struck Zhou Yang and Qin Shuang's hearts like a heavy hammer.

"Ants."

After saying that, he didn't look at Zhou Yang again, as if the person by the blood-stained wall was just an inconvenient stone on the roadside.

He turned around and walked toward the copper pipes that Zhou Yang had cut.

He stretched out his pale hand and gently touched a broken section of the metal. A ghostly blue light flowed from his palm, like mercury being injected into a copper tube. The broken metal cut emitted a hissing sound, and under the glow of the light, it began to slowly writhe and merge.

It was as if it had come back to life.

Zhou Yang tried to stand up, but as soon as he exerted force, a piercing pain shot through his chest, causing his vision to go black and him to fall back down. The energy from that finger strike had thrown his meridians into disarray, and his true essence had completely collapsed, rendering him completely unresponsive.

He looked at the Dharma King.

The man was repairing the pipes, his movements focused and calm. It was as if everything before him was just a trivial farce. A clown had broken something, which he casually brushed aside, then leisurely went to fix it.

There was no anger, no murderous intent, not even any other emotion.

That kind of utter, deep-seated indifference is more hurtful than any humiliating words.

This is the power of a top-tier expert.

Zhou Yang had always believed that he could dominate the chessboard with the help of the system and his intellect. Only now did he truly understand that there was an insurmountable chasm between him and a real chess player.

It cannot be made up for by trickery.

It can't be made up for immediately by the lifespan of the fuel.

Qin Shuang finally reacted. She rushed to Zhou Yang's side, helped him up, and leaned him against her. Her hands were trembling slightly.

"How are you?" she asked anxiously, her voice trembling without her even realizing it.

Zhou Yang coughed up a mouthful of bloody saliva and gave a bitter laugh. "I won't die..."

He leaned against Qin Shuang's warm body, but his gaze was fixed on the Blackwater Dharma King's back. In his eyes, there was no longer the previous ease and arrogance, nor the fear and despair of the present moment.

It was an extremely cold calm.

Like a nailed specimen, it used its remaining eyes to remember every detail of the predator.

"The gap... is too big," he said in a low voice, as if he were talking to Qin Shuang, but also as if he were talking to himself.

Qin Shuang gritted her teeth and steadied Zhou Yang more firmly. She drew her knife, holding it protectively in front of her, and warily watched the Dharma King, but dared not make a move. She knew that if she rushed forward, she would only become another Zhou Yang.

Inside the underground palace, only the hissing sound of the eerie blue light repairing the metal and Zhou Yang's suppressed, heavy breathing could be heard.