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

The mountain road was very quiet.

Only Zhou Yang's footsteps could be heard. One step after another, crunching on the gravel.

The night wind was cool, making his clothes flutter. He dragged himself along, like a wounded lone wolf. The cold fragment of the dragon's spine in his arms pressed against his chest, a reminder of his gamble.

I traded ten years of my life for this thing.

value.

He needs to rest now. Find a safe place to lick his wounds and process what he's learned.

He looked up at the moon. The moon was full, and its light cast long shadows on the rocks. Were those shadows moving?

Zhou Yang's heart skipped a beat.

It's not the shadow that's moving.

It was the sound of something cutting through the air.

Three dark figures, like three arrows released from a bow, darted down the cliff face. Their speed was beyond imagination. They held short crossbows in their hands, the triggers already empty.

Zhou Yang wanted to hide.

The body can't keep up with the brain.

After a series of battles, his true energy was long exhausted. His dantian was empty. His strength dissipated little by little with the blood he lost. He could only watch helplessly.

puff!puff!puff!

Three muffled thuds.

Not all of them hit their mark. The first arrow missed, embedding itself in the tree trunk behind him, its fletching still buzzing.

The second arrow grazed his left rib, leaving a bloody gash. It wasn't deep, but it stung terribly.

The third arrow was the most deadly.

It pierced through Zhou Yang's right arm.

The arrow entered from the back and exited from the front. His entire arm was pinned down. A tremendous force struck him, causing him to stumble and nearly fall to his knees.

Blood gushed from the wound. His right arm went numb instantly. The fragment of the dragon's spine slipped from his chest and fell to the ground with a crisp metallic clang.

Excruciating pain, like a tidal wave, swept through Zhou Yang's nerves.

He gritted his teeth, his forehead instantly covered in cold sweat. He saw the three dark figures land. They were dressed in matching black outfits, their faces covered by iron masks, revealing only pairs of cold eyes.

It belongs to the Heavenly Principle Sect.

How did they find this place?

"Hand over the fragments, and we'll leave you with a whole corpse," one of the shadowy figures said, his voice like two stones rubbing together.

Zhou Yang did not answer.

He slowly bent down. With his only movable left hand, he picked up the pieces of debris from the ground.

"court death!"

Another dark figure moved. He drew a short knife from his waist, rushed forward, and pointed the blade straight at Zhou Yang's back.

Zhou Yang sensed the murderous aura behind him.

He knew he couldn't dodge. He was now like a fish on a chopping board. He couldn't muster his true energy, and his speed couldn't keep up. Once this blade fell, it would all be over.

No.

It can't end like this.

He still has something to burn.

He still has a long life ahead of him.

Just as the blade was about to touch his back, Zhou Yang's left hand had already picked up the dragon spine fragment. But he didn't turn around. Nor did he use the fragment to block.

He used his fingernail to scratch the wound on his right arm hard!

The wound was already deep. This cut made it even deeper, exposing the bone. The excruciating pain caused his body to tremble violently. But he didn't care.

He drew a strange mark on the wound. A mark he knew all too well.

Bloodstains.

This is the mark he earned with his life. It will appear when he burns away his lifespan.

"Burn..." he murmured to himself.

But this time, he burned more than just his lifespan.

He would use this new wound as a sacrifice to unleash the power of the bloodstain. He would make the flames of the overdrawn system burn even brighter.

"Eight... years!"

The last word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth.

hum!

A soft buzzing sound.

From the blood-red mark he drew, a faint blue light shone.

The light was tiny, like a firefly on a summer night.

But the moment it lit up, the whole world seemed to freeze.

The dark figure rushing towards him froze in mid-air. The dagger that was about to pierce his back stopped.

The wind stopped.

The chirping of insects also disappeared.

In Zhou Yang's eyes, only that faint blue remained.

Blue light began to spread.

It didn't spread outwards. Instead, it followed his blood vessels and seeped into his body. Starting from the wound on his right arm, the blue light flowed throughout his limbs and bones.

He felt his body being transformed.

That feeling was wonderful.

It felt like being submerged in icy river water. From skin to muscle to bone, every inch was contracting and expanding. The excruciating pain in my right arm was replaced by a deeper, tingling sensation.

He could clearly "see" that the dried-up meridians in his body, like dried-up riverbeds, were being washed, widened, and reinforced by a torrent of blue energy. In his dantian, the dying true energy vortex seemed to be injected with fuel and began to spin wildly.

The speed is getting faster and faster.

Power surged wildly within his body.

He felt like an inflating balloon, ready to burst at any moment. But the blue light was like an invisible hand, firmly imprisoning all the power within his body, compressing it again and again.

[Subtracting lifespan, eight years.]

Current remaining lifespan: XX years.

[True Essence Enhancement: True Essence Perfection.]

A cold, impersonal notification sounded in his mind.

Everything can happen in the blink of an eye.

The world has returned to normal.

The sound of the wind, the chirping of insects, and the startled breathing of the dark figure.

Zhou Yang slowly straightened up.

He looked down at his right arm. The crossbow bolt that had pierced his arm had been forced out of his muscle by the newfound strength. It fell to the ground with a clatter.

The wound is still bleeding.

But the blood was no longer warm. A faint blue halo mingled with the crimson. The wound was healing at a visible speed.

He raised his left hand and clenched his fist.

"Click!"

The joints made a series of cracking sounds.

An unprecedented sense of power filled every cell of his body. He had reached the pinnacle of True Essence. This was a realm he had never dared to dream of before. Now, he had easily achieved it by simply burning eight years of his lifespan.

This power feels amazing.

It's also very expensive.

He looked up at the three men in black before him. Their eyes, which had previously held contempt and murderous intent, now held shock and fear.

"What...what did you do?" The voice of the dark figure trembled.

Zhou Yang did not answer.

He just looked at him.

That look was as if he were looking at three corpses.

He took a step forward.

This step was very light. It made no sound.

But the three men in black simultaneously took a step back. They felt an invisible pressure. It wasn't an aura, nor was it murderous intent. It was a purer kind of suppression, originating from the level of life itself.

It's like an ant facing a dragon.

"Monster!" The dark figure holding the knife finally broke down. He screamed, dropped the knife, and ran away.

The other two also realized what was happening and immediately split up to try to escape.

They want to escape?

A cold smile curled at the corners of Zhou Yang's mouth.

He didn't chase after them.

He simply raised his left hand.

A ball of blue light was gathering in his palm. The light grew brighter and hotter. The air distorted in his palm, making a hissing sound.

This is the power he can naturally control after his True Essence has reached perfection.

"Trying to leave?"

He spoke softly.

The sound wasn't loud, but it clearly reached the ears of the three escapees.

"Did you ask me?"

The moment he finished speaking, he pushed his hand away.

That ball of blue light neither transformed into a pillar of light nor into a thunderclap.

It simply disappeared.

The next second, the man in black who had been the first to flee suddenly froze. He stopped in his running posture. A fist-sized hole appeared out of nowhere in his back. Blue arcs of electricity were still crackling around the edge of the hole.

He looked down, staring incredulously at the empty hole in his chest. Then, his entire body turned to ashes and vanished into the night wind.

The other two, seeing this, became even more terrified. They used all their strength to flee frantically.

Zhou Yang didn't even glance at them.

He bent down and picked up the fragment of the dragon's spine from the ground. With his left hand, he carefully wiped away the dust. Then, he put it back into his pocket.

After doing all this, he raised his head and looked at the other two dark figures who had already escaped dozens of feet away.

He extended his right index finger and gently tapped the back of one of the escapees.

"Bang."

A muffled thud.

The shadowy figure's body was struck as if by an invisible giant hammer, instantly exploding into a cloud of blood mist.

The last one was trembling like a leaf. He ran even faster, almost tumbling and crawling.

Zhou Yang simply watched him quietly.

He did not make another move.

Making an example of someone is enough.

He needed to spare one life. He wanted him to go back and report. He wanted to let those rats hiding in the gutter of the Heavenly Principle Sect know that he, Zhou Yang, wasn't so easy to kill.

He turned his head away, no longer looking at the fleeing figure.

A night wind blew by, carrying with it a heavy stench of blood. Under the moonlight, only a pool of blood and a few tattered black garments lay on the ground. The three assassins of the Heavenly Principle Cult had been wiped from this world.

Zhou Yang stood still, feeling the surging power within his body.

True essence is complete.

This feeling is great.

However, although the wound on his right arm had stopped bleeding, it left a hideous scar. The shape of that scar was exactly the same as the bloodstain he had made with his fingernail earlier.

A blue, indelible mark.

He touched the scar, his eyes deep.

Burn-in life, breaking through the bottleneck.

He might do this kind of deal many more times in the future.

But the ultimate price is life.

He didn't linger, turned around and continued on his way.

This time, however, his steps were no longer weary. His back was ramrod straight. He was no longer the prey struggling to survive in the darkness.

Now, he is the apex predator in the darkness.