Chapter 362: Yours is Not the Yimu True Flame

"Aaaaaah—!" A shrill, miserable shriek pierced the air as the blood-red crystal mutated with jarring abruptness into countless twisted, deformed tentacles that hovered between substance and illusion, every last one of them boring straight into the seven orifices of the Feng Family Patriarch.

"Old monster, what do you think you're doing?!" A Feng Family cultivator beside him cried out in panic, simultaneously condensing his spiritual energy into a blade-like edge to hack at those tentacles.

"Are you burning the bridge after crossing it?!"

"Doing what?" Beside them, Shui Xianyun's face curled into a demonic, enchanting smile. "This is exactly what you all wanted. Is this tiny price more than you can afford?"

"Feng Jue, don't move!" The old man's originally white hair turned black at a pace visible to the naked eye, and his features gradually grew younger, rapidly reverting to the appearance of a man in his thirties or forties; the sinister, ghostly aura he had completely suppressed earlier now burgeoned to an unprecedented intensity!

"Patriarch... you...?!" The cultivator watched as Feng Zhengyi slowly turned around, the light gleaming in his eyes so thoroughly wicked and alien that it no longer belonged to a human being!

Feng Zhengyi opened his hand, fingers slightly curled, and a terrifying suction suddenly erupted from his palm. Following a brief, agonizing scream of utter despair, the cultivator fell from the sky like a dried corpse, as if his bones had been scraped clean and his marrow sucked out.

"Hahahaha!" Feeling the surging power within his body, Feng Zhengyi threw his head back and laughed wildly into the sky. "The Nanhua Sect, the Haoran Sect, the Yimu Dao Palace? They are all nothing but absolute rubbish! No need to trouble yourself, Your Excellency; this Daoist feels that with my current power, I can sweep away all these dogshit grand sects!"

"Then please, Patriarch Feng, show us properly just what dizzying heights your strength has reached." Shui Xianyun lightly licked her crimson lips, looking for all the world like a seductive, beautiful serpent.

The Yimu Dao Palace.

Daoist Tianxu stood at the foot of the mountain with several elders and elite disciples. Before them, a mass of crimson clouds surged, dark clouds hung low in the sky, and the winds and clouds roiled in an ominous transformation!

Daoist Tianxu's expression was grave. "Now that our Dao Palace's Demon-Trapping Mountain has been destroyed, and the two great sects of Nanhua and Haoran have also fallen, their disciples and elders reduced to the minions of this demon, the situation is likely even more dire than the great catastrophe a thousand years ago!"

"I have already sent transmissions to all sects and clans. Fortunately, though this crisis struck without warning, the core disciples and sect masters of the Nanhua and Haoran sects managed to escape with their lives. We still have a chance to rally our forces and wage war against this demon!" The middle-aged Daoist beside him spoke up.

"My junior brother speaks the truth. Activate the sect's grand protective array immediately to defend the Dao Palace and await the arrival of reinforcements!"

At Daoist Tianxu's command, a shimmering, hazy golden light suddenly erupted from the innermost mountain peak of the Yimu Dao Palace. Within the golden light, countless sparks of fire could be seen drifting. A wisp of black Qi slammed into the golden radiance, promptly emitting a sharp, agonizing sizzling sound before dissolving into black smoke.

"Old man Tianxu!" A voice resonated powerfully across the sky. "Do you truly think that by shrinking into this turtle shell of yours, this seat will have no way of dealing with you?"

"Feng Zhengyi?!" Daoist Tianxu looked up in shock at the black hair billowing in the wind, suspended high in midair. The man's original transcendent, immortal-like demeanor had vanished, replaced entirely by a thick, oppressive aura of sinister evil.

"Patriarch Feng, even you have been beguiled by that fiend, becoming a minion to its evil?" Daoist Tianxu's face filled with horror. One had to understand that Feng Zhengyi's cultivation was extraordinarily high, and the power of the Feng Family was only a hair's breadth behind the grand sects.

"Beguiled?" Feng Zhengyi sneered. "Do not lump this seat together with those foolish creatures."

With a fierce roar, seven horribly contorted, pitch-black yin-souls immediately flew out from within his body.

"Yin-Fiends?!" Daoist Tianxu's face changed drastically. "To think that the rumor from two hundred years ago was true! Your Feng Family was actually blood-sacrificing Yin-Fiends!"

Feng Zhengyi threw his head back in mad laughter. "Is it merely Yin-Fiends? Look again!"

With a furious roar from Feng Zhengyi, his entire body began to twist and elongate. Finally, his distorted face no longer resembled that of a human, and both sides of his forehead swelled slightly, as if something were about to break through the skin.

With a face as hideous as a ghost, Feng Zhengyi tapped a slender finger lightly forward, and a pitch-black rift instantly tore open through the Yimu Dao Palace's grand protective array!

Feng Zhengyi flew inside soundlessly, looking down with utter contempt at the assembled cultivators gathered within the Dao Palace. "This is power. Can you see it?"

"This... this is not your own power!" Daoist Tianxu cried out in horror. "What kind of power is this?!"

"This is my power!" From the dark clouds in the sky, a terrifying demonic face materialized. "The power of my race is far beyond anything you ants can fathom! You may choose to submit, like him, or die!"

Daoist Tianxu laughed bitterly. "In the past, our Yimu Dao Palace's predecessor, Patriarch Longmu, poured out his entire cultivation and paid with his life to suppress you foul evils. Today, how could I, Tianxu, submit my body to a demon?!"

"You court death!" Feng Zhengyi's eyes turned icy cold as he swung his wide sleeve. Upon the ground, a dense, infinite tide of terrifying yin-corpses with bodies like iron and gold surged forward, charging toward the remaining cultivators of the Yimu Dao Palace. Seven Yin-Fiends swirled around his body, and at his command, the vast army of yin-corpses and the seven distorted, sinister Yin-Fiends—refined through utterly inhuman cruelty—roared as they lunged at the crowd in the Dao Palace!

In nearly the blink of an eye, the already damaged grand array was utterly obliterated like dead wood before a storm. The Dao Palace collapsed, and the hundreds of cultivators gathered inside could not help but show panic on their faces when confronted by such a demonic army.

Before long, they were thrown into utter chaos and cut down; under this suffocatingly oppressive environment, some were even corrupted by the demonic Qi, turning into demons on the spot!

"Splendid!" Shui Xianyun clapped her hands and smiled softly. "Patriarch Feng's strength is indeed not to be underestimated. It seems the Sacred Lord will be exceedingly pleased."

Feng Zhengyi wore a look of disdain. "A band of mere mortals—how could they ever comprehend such sacred power?"

"Now..." He directed several of the strongest among the seven Yin-Fiends and pointed them toward Daoist Tianxu. "Old man Tianxu, since you refuse to appreciate my favor, then go to hell!"

Amidst a terrifying, screeching wail, several acutely distorted yin-souls roared as they pounced toward the old Daoist Tianxu.

At that exact moment, a brilliant black-and-white light suddenly erupted around Daoist Tianxu, forcing these incredibly powerful Yin-Fiends to a sudden halt. Daoist Tianxu's face turned slightly pale, and he stumbled back several steps.

Steeling himself after a slight stagger, Daoist Tianxu looked at Feng Zhengyi in the sky with sheer dread. "I never imagined your strength would increase by so much!"

"Next time, you won't be so lucky!" Feng Zhengyi sneered, chanting an incantation under his breath. All the Yin-Fiends suddenly went into a frenzy, lunging at Daoist Tianxu with mad ferocity.

"Do you see it?" Feng Zhengyi laughed maniacally. "With that paltry, insignificant power of yours, how can you hope to contend with this seat?!"

But in the next instant, the pale-faced Daoist Tianxu lightly wiped away a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth, his face hardening with ruthless resolve. "This old Daoist will gamble everything against you!"

"Yimu True Flame! Eleventh Realm!" Daoist Tianxu roared in fury.

"The Eleventh Realm? Who are you trying to bluff?" Feng Zhengyi scoffed. "The Yimu True Flame clearly has only ten—"

Before his words could finish, Daoist Tianxu gritted his teeth, channeling his spiritual energy to trace patterns in the empty air. One point, two points, three points... suddenly, countless tiny, starlike sparks of orange-red fire materialized in the sky. "Solar Flare!"

The Yin-Fiends he had spent countless drops of blood and effort to refine slammed into these orange-red specks of light. Following a chorus of agonizingly sharp shrieks, their entire bodies were instantly engulfed in these very flames!

Moreover, this sky-spanning fire was still expanding rapidly, enveloping Feng Zhengyi like a heavenly dragnet!

The air within began to burn, and the terrifyingly high temperature instantly reduced everything inside to ash and cinders!

Even the horrific demonic power he unleashed was being continuously dissolved!

Feng Zhengyi's face finally lost its color, and he shrieked in terror, "This is not the Yimu True Flame!"