"Bow down to my Lord—I pledge this body to cleave a path for my sovereign, vowing obedience, loyalty, and willing submission!"
Their voices boomed, hoarse and strained, the oaths echoing within the roaring, dancing crimson flames, lingering long after.
Until their forms began to blur, their flesh and blood ultimately vanishing into the wind.
The gathered cultivators were stunned. To ensure Gu Junshi's victory, these lawless, sin-laden demons were capable of such a sacrifice.
They truly couldn't comprehend whether Gu Junshi's charisma was so potent that they willingly threw themselves into fire and water for her, or if their minds were controlled.
Belonging to those who offered themselves, specks of light flowed like a veil, all entering Gu Junshi's body.
Her connection to them vanished, and the contract was broken.
Gu Junshi had pondered many ways to break through the predicament but had never expected a group of people to throw themselves into the flames like moths, all to increase her chances of winning.
She felt no deep affection for these demons bound to her by a forced contract. They were akin to a weapon or a tool, useful when needed.
She wasn't prone to sentimentality or overwhelming grief, but her perception of mutual utilization had clearly underestimated their resolve. Clenching the hilt of her sword, her long, deep eyes fixed on the sea of fire, a tangled mass of sinful flames, burning endlessly.
"Execute first, then report? If you truly trusted me, you wouldn't have done this."
The sword in her hand, Wuxiang, quietly changed its form as she murmured to herself.
It had initially been entwined with dark, black-gold light, plain and somber, but now it bore the colors of the Five Elements—white, green, black, red, and yellow. The Five Elements' light, divided into Yin and Yang, all infused into the blade. Instantly, the sword split into two halves, one Yin, the other Yang.
The three-foot-two-inch blade, as thin and frosty as frost, clearly reflected golden patterns. The blade was Yin, and the Yang was the sword's patterns.
Seeing that Gu Junshi, previously injured, had been mostly healed by those scoundrels, the Demon God pressed down on the residual ashes of the "Wang Ji" formation with a palm. Staring at her with a sinister gaze, he sneered, "They're merely a mob, a mongrel bloodline. Doing this is utterly useless!"
With that, he phased through space three times, appearing behind Gu Junshi.
"Still distracted?"
The next second, a palm pierced her chest. With a swift retrieval, a fist-sized hole appeared in her sternum.
Gu Junshi's pupils constricted, and she looked down at her chest.
The Underworld King had no heart, but she felt an all-encompassing chill. The hole seemed to suck in the wind with a hollow roar, until tiny specks of light began to pour into her damaged wound, and Gu Junshi finally felt a warmth.
Since becoming the Underworld King, she hadn't felt any warmth.
But now, with Cheng Hong and the offerings from those demons, her body was gradually regaining its warmth.
"How do you know I wasn't waiting for this moment?" Gu Junshi's chest wound sprouted numerous slender red "threads," which suddenly coiled around the Demon God's palm.
Furthermore, these thread-like filaments were not soft. They were like needles, piercing the Demon God's skin at an extreme speed, implanting, wriggling, and mutating.
The Demon God felt as if his hand had instantly been poisoned. It throbbed with intense pain and turned black, veins bulging segment by segment. Like withered vines, black blood vessels snaked towards his chest and lungs.
At this moment, Gu Junshi raised her face, a smile still lingering on her lips.
Her deep pupils reflected myriad phenomena, while behind her, a madly surging black mist churned, roiling death qi connecting to a temporal rift on the other side, from which came the cries and wails of vengeful spirits.
The Demon God immediately realized he had been tricked and attempted to retreat. However, the red "threads" were of an unknown substance; no matter how he cut or yanked, they refused to break.
Soon, the pervasive demonic energy and death qi intertwined, tearing at each other ferociously. Vicious ghosts that ravaged all directions lunged towards the Demon God.
The Demon God felt himself engulfed by boundless ghost mist. They were like tiny knives piercing flesh, inflicting small, incremental wounds. Initially painless, these wounds would eventually cause agony everywhere.
Concurrently, the divine and ghost techniques manipulated by Gu Junshi were most adept at creating various negative emotions. Pain, sorrow, despair, and rage surged into the mind, threatening to drag one into a muddy swamp, abandoning all resistance to be slaughtered.
However, this was not a killing move for the Demon God. His demonic consciousness was powerful and vast; she could disdain him, but not underestimate him.
Fortunately, to fully exert his demonic essence, he had chosen to possess another mortal body through his divine consciousness. Now, sharing a single form with the ghost infant, the price of two souls was the added burden of another person's emotional memories.
While he could control himself, he couldn't stop others.
"These arms were a gift I gave to the ghost infant. Since you are not him, you should naturally return what is mine!"
A flash of sword light streaked by, imbued with the power of the Five Elements. Dark and golden light simultaneously cut through the black mist. Two arms, accompanied by billowing demonic energy, traced an arc through the air before falling straight down.
"Ughhhhh—"
The Demon God had not experienced pain in countless millennia. At this moment, the agony of losing both arms, coupled with the humiliating memories of indignity and survival stored in the ghost infant's mind, contorted his face. He roared in pain and fury, his cry echoing through the heavens.
"Gu… Jun… Shi—"
Having instantly lost both arms, the Demon God's demonic energy dissipated. His soul-body, gnawed by celestial hounds and vengeful ghosts, was held aloft. Wild and disheveled, his scarlet, gouged eyes stared fixedly at Gu Junshi.
"This is all you've got."
Gu Junshi observed him like a dying dog, calmly stating, "Not quite."
Suddenly, the red "threads" previously implanted within him became active again. They multiplied and expanded within the Demon God's body, his skin becoming thinner and thinner. The things wriggling beneath were preparing to burst forth.
"What is this? No creature can survive within me, not even the Sacred Gu!" The Demon God surveyed the changes in his body, simultaneously using his demonic energy to encase the restless entities within his blood vessels, preparing to annihilate them at the crucial moment.
"I know that Gu or poison cannot harm you. These are seeds of the Underworld's Mandara flower. They possess form but no spirit. They are Yang-seeking and Yin-loving, planted in Yin and evil grounds to sprout, their winds blowing through the realm of the dead."
After all, this body was still flesh and blood, not yet immortal or divine. Before he could fully claim the ghost infant's body, she had to destroy it first to inflict a heavy blow.
"It's useless. The Demon God's Nine Nether Demonic Qi can only damage it, but cannot completely eliminate its tenacious speed of regeneration."
At this moment, grotesque, thick veins had surfaced across almost the Demon God's entire face. One could even faintly discern the bulges of branching veins moving beneath. He was stretched taut, his arms bleeding incessantly, and even branches were attempting to extend from his ears and nostrils.