Chapter 348: The Main God Space (4)

Su Chen stepped closer to the rotting corpse. He discovered that a special substance had infected it.

"This is demonic qi… A powerful demonic cultivator must have fallen here, contaminating the entire world with demonic energy and causing mutations."

Su Chen remembered that every nightmare-level beginner instance contained hidden rewards.

The unexpectedly fallen demonic expert was likely the hidden harvest of this instance.

"I cannot continue cultivating the Undying Nether Emperor Scripture. I must forge an entirely new path."

In his previous life, Su Chen had not concealed his origins. Every method and technique he once possessed had probably been thoroughly investigated by various forces. Continuing with his old cultivation methods would be no different from walking into a trap.

A thought suddenly flashed through Su Chen's mind.

His eyes turned cold. In an instant, a dark, shadowy current slowly emerged within him.

The current flowed smoothly. With a single thought, Su Chen stepped onto the cultivation path and entered the Spirit Awakening realm.

He pointed casually. A tiny black particle landed on the rotting corpse. Within three breaths, the corpse shriveled completely and dissolved into a puddle of foul liquid. The black particle doubled in size, returned to Su Chen's body, and transformed into surging vital energy and blood.

Su Chen's cultivation advanced from the first layer of Spirit Awakening to the second layer.

Such methods were undoubtedly demonic techniques, reviled by the world.

To Su Chen, however, whether grand and righteous or despised demonic arts, they were merely paths to greater strength. Worldly moral judgments held no meaning in his eyes.

...

Great Yin Dynasty, Year 53.

Fifty years had passed since the outbreak of the demonic disaster.

Scenes of scorched earth, ruined walls, and people resorting to cannibalism were commonplace throughout the Great Yin Dynasty.

Some said the current ruler had seized the throne through unjust means and defied heaven's will, provoking the heavens' wrath and bringing down the demonic disaster to destroy the dynasty.

There was truth to those words. The ruler of Great Yin had broken his oaths, murdered his Ruler, and usurped the throne. Within three years, the once prosperous and peaceful nation had turned into a living hell.

This world originally lacked the power to fight thousands alone, and heroes from across the land had united against the Great Yin Dynasty.

But one day, twelve individuals appeared within the dynasty. Each wielded a different weapon and claimed to be one of the Twelve Divine Artifact Envoys. With their artifacts, they could easily fight a thousand—or even ten thousand—enemies. A single strike from them could shatter seemingly impregnable city walls. Their godlike power suppressed all opposition and stabilized the Great Yin Dynasty's rule.

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From then on, life for the common people grew even harsher. No matter how hard they struggled, they could not topple the dynasty. With the Twelve Divine Artifact Envoys guarding it, the Great Yin Dynasty stood eternal.

Then came the day of the heavy snowfall.

The demonic disaster erupted.

This was the history of the Great Yin Dynasty that Su Chen knew.

In his view, the dynasty had likely discovered the corpse of that fallen demonic expert long ago and tried to uncover its secrets. They had succeeded, but they had also failed. The demonic expert had been at least at the Profound Connection realm—far beyond what a group of mortals could control. In the end, the leakage of demonic qi triggered the disaster.

Su Chen casually handed a piece of broken silver to an old man. The elder clutched the silver, about to offer thanks, but when he looked up, the handsome young man had vanished. It felt like a dream, except for the silver in his hand that proved it was real.

"Good heavens! This old man must have encountered an immortal today!"

The old man widened his eyes and muttered to himself, "An immortal… It must be an immortal descending to the mortal world. The Great Yin Dynasty has provoked heaven's wrath and the people's resentment. The immortal will surely seek justice for us common folk!"

The old man kept murmuring.

Su Chen, of course, did not hear him. He had already left the city far behind.

He was no righteous immortal who upheld justice.

The tragedies of this world were merely one among countless others in his eyes. They stirred no ripples in his heart. On the contrary, to cultivate the demonic path and increase his strength, he had casually killed many so-called "experts" of this world.

"It's you?"

Not long after Su Chen left the city, four disheveled figures trudged together along a desolate road.

They were precisely Su Chen's "teammates."

Compared to the four ragged and wretched individuals, Su Chen wore clean white clothes with a sword hanging at his waist. He looked like a young noble out on a leisurely excursion.

The burly man spotted Su Chen and shouted loudly. Jealousy and greed filled his eyes.

Su Chen felt somewhat surprised that these four fools had survived this long. Judging by their tattered clothes, some even stupider fools must have helped them block a disaster.

"Why are you so selfish? You clearly have a better way to survive in this world, yet you refuse to share it. Are you even a man?"

The woman with the pure-looking avatar, who had been hiding and fleeing for over half a month without a proper bath, now looked no different from the refugees in the wilderness. She had endured enough sleepless nights. Seeing Su Chen's starkly different condition, jealousy burned in her heart. She took the moral high ground and tried to threaten him.

Su Chen confirmed his earlier thought: fools remained fools. Even after repeated beatings, they never changed.

A flash of white light passed. A head flew into the air as a body collapsed, kicking up dust. The remaining three froze in place as if petrified, unable to move. Hot blood splattered across their faces and bodies, yet they felt only bone-chilling cold, as if they had fallen into an icy abyss.

"B-Big Brother…"

The other woman's voice trembled, but before she could finish, she met the same fate.

The burly man turned to run in terror, but before he could escape, he saw a headless corpse. It looked exactly like his own body.

Only the bespectacled young man remained, standing frozen in place.

"You… you actually dared to kill your teammates? Aren't you afraid of punishment?"

He sounded utterly confused.

Su Chen's expression remained cold as he casually sent him on his way as well.

Killing a teammate would deduct one hundred points at the end of the beginner instance. Insufficient points meant erasure by the Main God Space. For others, earning even one hundred points in a beginner instance was extremely difficult, let alone losing four hundred.

To Su Chen, however, the so-called twelve divine artifacts of this world were already within his grasp. Spending four hundred points for peace and quiet was a small price to avoid carrying four dead weights.

After killing the four, Su Chen looked in the direction they had fled from. His mind stirred. He sensed an aura that clearly did not belong to this world.

"Interesting."

As the four corpses dissolved into puddles of foul liquid, Su Chen had already vanished without a trace.