Chapter 999

In an underground cavern, blood surged everywhere, its miasma steaming upward.

The cavern was enormous, tens of kilometers wide, its depths floating with the bones of countless races: human, tiger, ox, and Skullblood Vine Demon.

The Blood Dao treats all living beings equally.

Jiang Ding arrived here, revealing his form—a Wood Vine Demon of Late Soul Transformation, emerald branches thrashing wildly.

This vine demon was once a king of the Wood Vine Demon race in the Demon Stone Minor Realm, later vanishing without cause.

Some speculated he had fled as a slave race member; others believed a high-ranking figure of the Horn Demon Emperor Clan coveted his vibrant Wood Vine Demon heart. No definitive conclusion emerged.

Thus, Jiang Ding borrowed him as a false origin.

“Chì!”

Jiang Ding pulled out a blood egg, half a man’s height, and hurled it into the center of the blood lake.

He sat cross-legged, murmuring incantations, repeatedly casting talismanic seals, extracting treasures from this realm to melt and refine into the egg, cultivating the blood egg born from the Blood River King until it responded to his will like an extension of his own arm.

The surrounding blood lake stirred with his seals; waves of blood dragons rose and plunged into the egg, slowly elevating its aura.

There was no choice—the Blood River King was too weak.

Though he possessed the realm of Late Soul Transformation and decent escape ability, his true strength barely surpassed that of a Soul Transformation Early Realm cultivator.

Such power could accomplish nothing.

Jiang Ding’s goal was to re-cultivate the Blood River King using methods for refining magic treasures and puppets, infusing him with countless materials to enhance his strength.

As for this blood lake, it was the Blood River King’s own contingency.

“...Spare...”

“...Spare my life...”

Within the blood egg, a handsome, eerie face faintly surfaced, pressed against the semi-transparent shell, pleading.

“The strong devour the weak—that is your law.”

“You must abide by it, even when you are the one being devoured.”

Jiang Ding’s expression did not change. He withdrew a fifth-rank Blood Sun Iron, ignited it with spiritual power, and turned it into a pool of crimson metallic liquid, hurling it into the half-man-tall egg. The scorching blood-metal triggered another piercing scream from within.

“Blood River.”

“Rest assured—I will not kill you.”

“In special circumstances, special logic applies. Morality yields before survival; there is no need to condemn you.”

“If you are fortunate enough, you may yet survive.”

Jiang Ding spoke slowly.

He cast more talismanic seals, forcing the Blood River King into deep slumber regardless of whether he understood or not, rendering him powerless to interfere further.

It was the truth.

Jiang Ding harbored no deep animosity toward the Blood River King.

In this brutal society ruled by the Horn Demon Emperor Clan, the Blood River King had done well enough—he had no luxury for morality.

No one could look down on the Blood River King unless they could truly do better.

If the final war ended in victory, Jiang Ding would release him and grant him a true top-tier Blood Dao inheritance to mend his hollow foundation.

Naturally, this is the morality of now.

Should the realm’s situation stabilize and the Immortal Sects and human order prevail, if the Blood River King still clung to his past Blood Dao ways, he would be killed.

Times change.

Jiang Ding, free of distractions, accelerated the refinement process.

At this moment, Jiang Ding had emerged from his spiritual concealment state and begun refining a magic treasure—this was dangerous. If a Great Emperor passed nearby, there was a one or two percent chance he would be discovered.

But what could he do? He was operating in a foreign land—he had to act. He could not remain safe forever.

In truth, even in spiritual concealment, risk remained. After all, this was an alien realm. Only by completing his mission and achieving his home realm’s strategic objective, then returning to the Immortal Sect, could he truly be safe.

While Jiang Ding refined his treasure, the war in the Flame Stone Star Region raged fiercely.

Just over a decade later, Flame Stream Imperial Son had gathered hundreds of thousands of his own clan and slave race troops, completely surrounding the Demon Vine Minor Realm seized by Cangkongdizi .

Facing such overwhelming force, Cangkongdizi dared not fight, retreating behind his realm’s defensive arrays.

Flame Stream Imperial Son’s army, seeing this, surged with morale and launched relentless assaults on the arrays.

First to strike were the slave race armies led by Horn Demon Emperor Clan cultivators, who faced the most perilous arrays head-on, wearing down their edges with their flesh and blood to clear traps and obstacles for the subsequent Horn Demon Emperor Clan main forces.

Countless powerful fox, human, tiger, and Skullblood Vine Demon warriors and soldiers fell within the arrays; tens of thousands of cultivators died every moment, the stench of blood and severed souls filling the minor realm.

In surrounding minor realms, countless slave race households wore white mourning garb.

Flame Stream Imperial Son paid no heed.

When one batch of slave troops died, another was summoned from the rear—insignificant.

Even in death, the slave cultivators’ flesh and souls were collected by the Horn Demon Emperor Clan’s rear-line overseers, used as raw materials for refining treasures and elixirs—nothing wasted.

Under this brutal assault, Cangkongdizi ’s Demon Vine Minor Realm defense array slowly eroded.

Jiang Ding also monitored the ongoing Flame Stone Star Region war through various means.

Fight.

“Does the Horn Demon Emperor Clan possess no inheritance similar to the Boundary Stabilization Array?”

Jiang Ding was startled, then confirmed one fact.

The Boundary Stabilization Array was a defining hallmark of Immortal Sects, distinct from lower-tier sects—it regulated the realm’s spiritual energy flow, controlled natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and storms, and could concentrate the entire realm’s power against enemies, offering partial enhancement to Void Refinement-level beings.

It was a masterpiece of Immortal Dao, combining production and combat.

Yet the Horn Demon Emperor Clan had never developed anything similar.

“Correct.”

“Good news.”

Jiang Ding felt reassured: “The Horn Demon Emperor Clan, this Immortal Dao civilization, has finally revealed a clear technological weakness far inferior to our home realm—of definite strategic value.”

He recorded this test result, preparing to transmit it back later.

Those Void Refinement elders, each a master of cunning, would surely find ways to exploit this advantage to its fullest.

“Condense!”

Amidst Jiang Ding’s swirling thoughts, the talismanic seals he had maintained for over a decade gradually ceased.

Hum!

The surrounding heavens and earth trembled. Countless streams of blood and metallic filaments surged toward him, nearly bursting into a blood Dao phenomenon spanning thousands of kilometers—absorbed by the surrounding arrays, leaving no trace beyond.

Several hours later, the turbulent phenomenon subsided.

There, in the now-dry cavern where the blood lake had been, stood a blood-robed cultivator with snow-white hair and an eerily handsome face, radiating an unbearably sharp, blood-soaked aura—as if he would slaughter all life under heaven before he ceased.