Devouring demons, I attain immortality.

"Ten demon cores break through a realm."

He looked towards the bushes on the opposite bank, where three steel-bristled wild boars from the Heavenly Spirit Realm were rooting around tree roots.

The cores of these low-level demons are only the size of a grain of rice, but they are easy to hunt.

At noon, Lin An squatted on a tree branch, gnawing on a roasted pig leg.

The sound of wheels could be heard from the distant official road; five carriages covered in scales were moving slowly.

The convoy suddenly stopped, and the head of the guards held up a bronze mirror and shone it on Lin An's hiding place.

"Friends in the tree, why don't you come down and have a drink of water?"

Lin An gripped the knife hilt and leaped down from the treetop.

The leader's bronze mirror reflected the pale golden aura surrounding him, a characteristic of the Hunyuan Technique in operation.

The curtain of the carriage in the center of the caravan was lifted, and an elderly man with a goatee squinted at him: "Young friend, are you going to Chixiao City?"

"Just passing by."

"I am the manager of the Treasure Pavilion in Crimson Sky City."

The old man tossed over the jade bottle.

"If you escort the caravan through Black Wind Gorge, this bottle of Qi Gathering Pills will serve as a deposit."

When Lin An caught the jade bottle, the hilt of his knife trembled slightly as a warning.

Upon uncorking the bottle and taking a sniff, one could smell a faint hint of blood mixed with the delicate fragrance of the medicinal pills.

He poured out the pill and crushed it, and sure enough, he found wriggling red threadworms in the lining of the pill.

"Blood Gu Pill?" A blade flashed against the old man's neck. "The methods of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect."

The convoy guards suddenly sprang into action, but their steel blades struck only the afterimages.

Lin An spun around and severed seven blades. As the back of his blade shattered the knee of the last man, the old man had already crushed the escape talisman and fled thirty feet away.

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade flew out of his hand, piercing through the old man's chest and embedding itself in the ancient tree.

After the blade absorbed the cultivator's essence and blood, the tenth shackle shattered with a crash.

Lin An finally sensed the long-lost flow of true essence, and the pressure of the Refining Spirit stage shook down all the withered leaves from the trees.

Seven days later, Lin An stood beneath the blue brick city wall of Chixiao City.

The gatekeeper's aura-detecting technique swept over him, then tossed him a wooden sign: "Entry fee is two low-grade spirit stones; if you stay for more than three days, you will need to pay the difference."

He pulled out the steel-bristled boar's tusks: "This is a bargain."

"Go to the pawnshop in the West Market for the demon materials."

The monk pointed to the place in the city where the smoke from cooking fires was most concentrated.

"Don't resort to violence in the city. The law enforcement team doesn't care who strikes first."

Lin An stopped in front of a shop with a banner that read "Jianbao" (meaning "Treasure Appraisal") after passing through the crowded market.

The shopkeeper was wiping the bronze compass when he looked up and his pupils contracted slightly—he recognized the Chaos Bell mark on the hilt of the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade.

"What would you like to pawn, fellow Daoist?"

Lin An poured out thirty demon cores.

The shopkeeper's jade ruler swept across the crystal core, then he suddenly lowered his voice: "Was it hunted from the Black Wind Forest?"

Seeing Lin An nod, the shopkeeper quickly closed the shop door.

He took out a scroll from a hidden compartment in the counter: "If you, fellow Daoist, are willing to accept this reward, the prize will be tripled."

The scroll records the Blood-Eyed Demon Ape deep in the Black Wind Forest; the crystal core of this demon can cure all poisons.

Lin An noticed that the reward poster's signature was "Bai Cao Tang," and three days ago he heard at a tea stall that Bai Cao Tang was buying up antidote herbs at high prices.

"Add twenty more Fire Rain Talismans."

As the shopkeeper gritted his teeth and nodded, Lin An had already left through the back door.

He traded a black iron dagger at the blacksmith's shop and exchanged five demon cores with a wandering cultivator for a tattered map of Crimson Sky City.

There is a cinnabar mark on the back of the map, which is the dry well in the backyard of Baicaotang.

Late at night, Lin An crouched on the roof of Baicaotang. After absorbing the moonlight, the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade's blade gleamed with a faint blue light.

As he jumped into the dry well, the sound of chains rattling came from the bottom of the well.

At the end of the damp tunnel, three blood-eyed demonic apes were locked in an iron cage.

These demons wore copper rings engraved with runes around their necks, and their abdomens had stitches on them.

Lin An used his dagger to pry open the wound of the nearest one and discovered a black jade tube embedded under the skin—extracting the demon's essence blood.

The moment the blade cleaved the copper lock, the alarm array glowed a burst of red light.

Lin An cleaved open the iron cage and turned to leave, but then heard a weak cry for help behind him.

Inside the innermost iron cage, a monk covered in festering sores was scratching the cage pillars with his fingernails.

"Save them...they're using live people to test drugs..."

The ground suddenly shook, and three cultivators at the Refinement of Spirit stage emerged from the earth.

Lin An threw out a fire rain talisman to stop the enemy, and then smashed through the wall while carrying an iron cage on his shoulder. Before the law enforcement team arrived, he had already disappeared into the slums in the north of the city with the witnesses.

Before he died, the witness used his blood to draw a fragmented diagram on the ground.

Lin An recognized that this was some kind of blood sacrifice formation, which was 70% similar to the suppression runes on the Chaos Bell.

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade suddenly emitted a trembling sound like a bell, and the mark on the hilt pointed to the tallest pavilion in the city center—where the city lord's mansion was located.

As dawn broke, Lin An counted his harvest under the bridge.

The Blood-Eyed Demon Ape's crystal core allowed him to break through to the mid-stage of the Divine Refinement realm, and the Primordial Chaos Technique condensed into a vortex in his dantian.

He found half a jade pendant in the witness's hidden pocket, with the words "Heavenly Secret" engraved on it.

The system notification appeared at this moment, but instead of the usual text, it was a star map projected directly onto the retina.

Of the twenty-eight points of light, the closest one is flickering underground in the City Lord's Mansion.

Lin An tied the jade pendant to the hilt of the knife.

As the opening gong of the morning market sounded, he mingled into the crowd and headed towards the city lord's mansion.

A new wanted poster was posted on the street bulletin board, with a portrait of a person wearing a straw hat and revealing a section of a dark red scabbard.

Lin An squatted by the window on the second floor of the teahouse, his gaze sweeping over the silver-armored guards patrolling the street.

These cultivators wore insignia of crossed swords on their chests; they were the personal guards of the Crimson Sky City Lord.

Three days ago, when he sold demon crystal cores in the black market in the south of the city, he saw the same emblem appear in the underground auction house.

The ripples in the teacup suddenly trembled.

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade emitted a soft buzzing sound under the table, and the Chaos Bell mark on the hilt pointed towards the stairwell.

Three men in grey robes walked straight to Lin An's table, the leader of whom had dark gold scorpion tail patterns embroidered on his sleeves.

"Fellow Daoist, did you accept the bounty from Hundred Herbs Hall the other day?" The short, stout cultivator slid a jade slip from his sleeve. "Our Ten Thousand Poisons Sect wants to buy the crystal cores of the Blood-Eyed Demon Apes you possess."

Lin An pressed the jade slip down with the scabbard: "When did the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect switch to the medicinal herb business?"

The cultivator on the right suddenly reached for the scabbard, his fingers gleaming with a bluish-black poisonous light.

Lin An slightly turned his wrist, and the end of the scabbard precisely struck the opponent's elbow pressure point.

The Primordial True Essence penetrated the body, and the man's entire arm was instantly covered in frost.

"Late stage of Spirit Refinement?" The short, stout cultivator narrowed his triangular eyes. "Why must you risk your life for Hundred Herbs Hall, fellow Daoist? We'll offer double..."

A flash of light, and the jade slip was broken in two.

As Lin An stood up, the tea table suddenly exploded into wood chips.

The fourth gray-robed figure, who had been hiding in the corner, revealed himself, with a poisonous caltrop floating in his palm, glowing with a purple light.

"Early stage of returning to emptiness."

Lin An licked the corner of his mouth that had been cut by the force of the energy. The Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade had encountered an opponent that could keep up with its speed for the first time, and the blade trembled with excitement.

When the sound of the enforcement team's gong rang out, the members of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect had already fled.

Lin An wiped away the blood from his nose and jumped off the broken window frame into the street.

The silver-armored guards, mingling in the crowd, were blocking the road. He turned and went into a dark alley, only to bump into two monks carrying wooden boxes covered with talismans.

Dark red bloodstains seeped from the seams of the box, and a strong stench of decay mixed with the smell of medicine.

Lin An recalled the demons that had been transformed in the basement of Baicaotang, and the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade was already drawn before his consciousness could even register.

The moment the blade severed the chains, three cultivator corpses rolled out of the wooden box—each with marrow-extraction nails inserted into their temples.

As the silver-armored guards' spears pierced the wall, Lin An was recording the scene with a photographic stone.

He deliberately let one person escape alive, watching that person flee towards the city lord's mansion.

That night, the number of patrolling cultivators in Chixiao City tripled, but Lin An had already made his way to the mortuary in the west of the city.