Devouring demons, I attain immortality.

The hidden door burst open with a deafening roar, and the Heavenly Sword Pavilion Master stepped out, clapping his hands: "You are the first person to be able to see through my Heart-Eating Gu."

Seven starlight chains emerged from his sleeve; they were actually the Dragon-Binding Chains, infused with the soul of the Doumu Xie Sword.

Instead of retreating, Lin An advanced, his Green Scale Dagger tracing an eerie arc.

The Devouring System suddenly went berserk, actually drawing sword soul power in the opposite direction along the chains!

[Star resonance detected!]

[Forced activation of the Horned Dragon Sword Soul (incomplete)!]

[Temporarily obtained Azure Dragon Armor (Defense +300%)!]

The starlight chains snapped inch by inch, and when the Heavenly Sword Pavilion Master retreated violently, his left sleeve was empty, his entire arm already devoured by the Azure Dragon illusion.

Lin An stepped on the fallen arm, his boot sole crushing the communication worms hidden in the flesh.

Thank you for your hospitality!

He removed the bronze sword case from the center of the secret chamber, and the Pavilion Master roared, vomiting blood, "You have no idea what this is all about! The Star Palace envoy will arrive in three days..."

The candlelight flickered as Lin An wiped the blood-red seal on the Horned Dragon Sword Soul.

The Xuan Tian Mirror floated in mid-air, reflecting the star-patterned ships sailing from the sea a hundred miles away.

"Sir, Miss Su from the pharmacy requests an audience." The waiter's voice trembled as he knocked on the door. "She says...she can cure the Heart-Eating Gu."

The woman in plain clothes entered through the door, carrying a medicine box, but half of a Miao silver headdress was visible at her temple.

Lin An's nose twitched slightly as he smelled the sweet scent of the love potion hidden beneath the medicinal fragrance.

"The Heart-Eating Gu requires the Three-Watch Grass as a catalyst, and this grass..." The woman's fingertips brushed across the hidden compartment of the medicine box, "...is only grown in the Nine Nether Island herb garden throughout the entire East Sea."

Lin An suddenly grabbed her wrist, his devouring power piercing through the disguise mask: "When did the Holy Maiden of Miao territory switch professions to become a healer?"

Amidst the dripping sound of water droplets, the saintess shed her disguise: "What the Star Palace wants is not the sword soul, but the memories of tribulation left within it by their ancestor."

She opened her palm, and half a fragment of the Chaos Bell resonated with the remaining piece in Lin An's arms.

"How about a collaboration?" The saintess's eyes gleamed with the golden light of Gu spirit. "I will take the essence of the Love Gu sealed within the bell, and you will take the Twenty-Eight Constellations Sword Soul."

Lin An pressed the fragment into the stone wall, revealing the entire course of the East China Sea's spiritual vein.

Three hundred feet underground in the Heavenly Sword Pavilion, half of a bronze bell vaguely appears.

"Tomorrow at Shenshi (3-5 PM), I need the defense map of the Nine Nether Island medicine garden."

He flicked his finger, forcing the Soul-Devouring Gu into the Saintess's dantian. "Remember, this is the proper attitude for cooperation."

Lin An squatted on the top of an ancient tree, while the patrolling disciples below discussed the envoy from the Star Palace.

The Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade suddenly trembled slightly, and a familiar demonic aura came from the southeast corner. It was actually the demon general's clone whose right arm he had devoured three years ago!

"This is getting more and more interesting." He licked the blood from the corner of his mouth.

The Devouring System sent a new notification: [Multiple forces' entanglements of destiny have been detected. It is recommended to activate the Destiny Furnace function!]

The winds of the East China Sea began to carry the smell of rusty blood.

Lin An ran his fingertips along the cracked bark of the ancient tree, and the unique agarwood fragrance of the Star Palace seeped from the tree's core.

The demon general's clone, three zhang away, was gnawing on the corpse of the guarding disciple. Seven soul-devouring nails were embedded in the newly grown flesh at the severed arm, which were the marks he had left on the opponent's demon core three years ago.

"Looks like your master won't even part with a good arm!"

As Lin An stepped out from the shadows of the trees, the demon general's roar suddenly stopped.

The Mysterious Mirror hung above the demon general's head, its surface reflecting the writhing substitute Gu within his dantian.

The demon general's retreating figure crashed into an invisible barrier, and the phantom of the Prison Suppression Peak crushed half of his body.

Lin An stepped on the splattered demonic blood, his devouring power transforming into threads that pierced the substitute poison: "Go back and tell your Demon Lord to send someone who can withstand three moves next time."

Before the demonic energy dissipated, he deliberately revealed a wisp of sword spirit aura.

Deep within the Abyss of Ten Thousand Demons, thousands of miles away, someone must have sensed the fluctuations of the Horned Dragon Sword Soul.

The saintess brought in a salty, damp sea breeze as she pushed open the door, her sleeves stained with the phosphorescent powder unique to Nine Nether Island.

She spread the map of the herb garden's defenses on the table, her fingertips tracing the blood pool in the southeast corner: "The Three-Watch Grass is planted inside the skull of the Nine-Headed Serpent, but the real trap is..."

Lin An suddenly pinched her finger that was pointing at the drawing, and a wisp of poison was drawn out from under her fingernail.

Within the red light emanating from the Devouring System, the scene of the Nine Nether Island Lord and the Star Palace Envoy's secret conversation last night appeared. They actually intended to use the Midnight Grass as a catalyst to refine the entire herb garden into a Poison Puppet Array.

"The sincerity of the Miao people is truly touching."

He released his grip, and the ink on the defense map suddenly twisted into Gu worms, but they froze and turned to ash when they touched the halo of the Xuan Tian Mirror.

"Next time, remember to use the Five-Poison Spider for communication; the Centipede leaves too much of a trace."

The saintess's earrings trembled slightly, and the silver bell on her wrist moved without wind: "The Star Palace envoy entered the city at Chen Shi (7-9 AM), carrying the Yin-Yang Armillary Sphere."

She changed the subject abruptly, "I want the Rebirth Gu sealed in the Chaos Bell. When you retrieve the sword soul, don't break the Gu egg."

The star-patterned ship crushed the morning mist, and seventy-two white-robed cultivators stepped onto the divination positions.

The armillary sphere held by the leading envoy hummed, its pointer pointing directly at the inn in the south of the city.

Lin An squatted on the eaves of the teahouse and bit into a sugar figurine. The sweet malt aroma was mixed with a hint of meteorite rust.

"The seventh step of the Kan position."

He silently counted the envoy's steps, and just as the envoy was about to trigger the underground sword formation, he flicked away the sugar crumbs.

The sunlight refracted by the Xuan Tian Mirror pierced the core of the Hun Tian Yi, and the hexagram representing "great misfortune" on the instrument panel suddenly reversed.

Before the star-fixing disc that had slipped from the envoy's sleeve could even hit the ground, Lin An had already appeared beside him: "Excuse me, could you please tell me? Does the Heavenly Sword Pavilion Master feed his Heart-Eating Gu human blood or demon cores?"

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade grazed the envoy's earlobe, and the blade's energy overturned three bronze carriages.

Inside the iron cage that rolled out of the carriage was Elder Xie, whose body was wrapped in demon-sealing chains. The old man's dantian was swollen like a pregnant woman's, clearly indicating that he had been implanted with a self-destructing Gu seed.

The Pavilion Master sat upright in the black jade chair, the Heart-Eating Gu Mother Worm he held in his palm had swelled up to the size of an infant.

As the Star Palace envoy stepped across the threshold, Lin An's voice came from the crossbeam: "Using cultivators at the Refinement of Spirit level to raise Gu worms, Pavilion Master's method is even more ruthless than that of the Miao people."

Suddenly, the armillary sphere burst forth with starlight, and the twenty-eight dragon-carved pillars inside the hall shattered in response. Black blood seeped from the cracks in the floor tiles, and seventy-two poison puppets burst from the ground, each with a poisoned nail made from midnight grass stuck in its heart.

"Is this a three-way battle now?" Lin An chuckled, and the phantom of the Horned Dragon flew out from the star map on the scabbard.

The moment the Azure Dragon illusion swept away the poison puppet, his true form appeared behind the Pavilion Master, his five fingers piercing into the opponent's spine to extract the Gu Mother.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Star Palace Messenger activated the Celestial Instrument, but the stars that appeared on the top of the palace suddenly distorted. The Mysterious Mirror, which had been hanging at the center of the array, refracted the starlight into a cage that trapped the messenger.

"Don't worry, everyone will get a share."

Lin An crushed the Gu Mother, and the dark green venom condensed into arrows in the phantom image of Zhenyu Peak.

"The things in Elder Xie's dantian should be returned to their rightful owner."

As the arrow pierced Elder Xie's abdomen, the engulfing vortex simultaneously enveloped the entire hall.

The self-destructing Gu seed, the poisonous puppet's evil aura, and the power of the stars mixed together into a torrent, flowing along the earth's veins straight into the depths of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion.

The sound of a bronze bell came from three hundred feet deep, which made the Holy Maiden reveal the sacred artifact of Miao territory ahead of schedule.

Amidst the earth's tremors caused by the resonance of the sword's soul, Lin An lightly touched the shattered dragon pillar with his toes, and the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade intercepted the flying fragments of the bronze bell.

The stardust that the Star Palace Envoy shook out from his sleeve had not yet condensed into array patterns when it was completely absorbed into the surface of the Xuan Tian Mirror. The mirror then showed the scene of the Star Palace Ancestor's fall three hundred years ago, and the sword mark that pierced through his brow was exactly the same as the aura of the Twenty-Eight Constellations Sword Soul.

The sacred artifact made of Miao silver suddenly slipped from the saintess's hand and transformed into nine golden silkworms that entangled the core of the celestial sphere.

Lin An caught a glimpse of half a star pattern peeking out from the gap where the Gu worms were gnawing, and promptly placed the star map from the scabbard onto the instrument panel.

The phantoms of the Horned Dragon and the Fighting Wood Demon roared and clashed, causing the floor tiles of the entire hall to flip up layer by layer, revealing a bronze passageway below flowing with lava.

"So the sword soul is the key!"

He sneered as he shattered the Pavilion Master's heart meridian, letting his corpse fall into the lava.