Chapter 167: The Thousand-Year-Old Progenitor of Demons, Nearing Perfection

Inside Zhou Ming’s body, his heart pounded violently in his chest—but gradually, gradually, a second heart, a third heart… until seven hearts beat simultaneously within his flesh.

Each contraction pumped forth a surging vitality, blood rushing like rivers.

Within his skull, his brain trembled; nerve networks grew like wild vines, a second brain, a third brain… until five brains operated simultaneously throughout his body, thoughts interweaving like lightning, consciousness splitting and reassembling across countless dimensions.

His bones hummed, his muscles writhed, his blood vessels spread like tree roots—some terrifying power was awakening within him.

Yet Zhou Ming, in his slumber, knew nothing of this.

But in his dream, his body suddenly contracted slightly, his brow furrowing as if he had brushed against something that made him shudder; yet soon, that strange tension vanished, and his breathing returned to calm.

The night passed silently.

When morning sunlight slipped through the curtain’s gap and spilled inside, Zhou Ming snapped his eyes open.

He sat up almost instinctively, his movement unnaturally fluid—as if his body had long since adapted to such explosive power; logically, he shouldn’t have noticed anything amiss right after waking, but five brains were churning inside him.

He blinked, a flicker of confusion in his eyes—strange, why was his mind so clear?

In the past, whether he slept in bed or elsewhere, waking always left him slightly dazed—but now, his thoughts felt washed clean by water, terrifyingly sharp.

So he clearly sensed the abnormality in his body—the complete absence of his former untrained physique, replaced by a power he had never experienced.

He looked down at his arms; the once ordinary limbs were now covered in sleek, taut muscle, his skin pale as if nearly translucent, faint blue veins visible beneath.

He unconsciously touched his abdomen—his abs were sharply defined, hard and cold, like finely carved marble.

Then his gaze dropped lower—

Huh???

Huh!!!

Zhou Ming shot up from his chair, vanishing in a flash into the bathroom. He flipped on the light and snapped his head up toward the mirror.

And he froze.

The mirror reflected a face both unfamiliar and familiar.

Skin as pale as snow, a sharply defined jawline, a high nose bridge beneath eyes faintly glowing red, pupils deep as some inhuman abyss.

His lips were extremely pale, yet radiated an eerie beauty; his black hair lay messy across his forehead, faintly shimmering with a dark blue sheen.

His entire face was stunningly beautiful—almost inhumanly so—like a character stepped from a manga, yet carrying an unsettling, nonhuman aura.

Zhou Ming slowly raised his hand and touched his own face.

The figure in the mirror mirrored the motion.

The fingertip’s touch was cool and delicate, like touching a work of art.

“This… is me?”

“This is really me?!”

His voice trembled—not from fear, but from an almost absurd exhilaration; the reflection in the mirror widened its eyes slightly, then slowly curved its lips into a smile.

—It was a smile no human could ever produce: an eerie and perfect smile.

After the surge of joy, Zhou Ming forcibly suppressed his excitement and began analyzing his situation calmly.

“An entire day has passed.”

“That means, from when I fell asleep yesterday until now, over twenty hours have passed—not the two or three I thought.”

He glanced at the date on his phone, frowning slightly.

He walked slowly to the living room, his gaze sweeping over the empty table, then opened a cabinet—the Light Stick still lay quietly among his other collectibles, unchanged.

“Yesterday I bought only two things: the Light Stick and that plastic flower.”

“The Light Stick hasn’t changed. Even if it were a celestial artifact, it couldn’t possibly contain any mechanism capable of causing such drastic changes in me.”

“So it must be the plastic flower.”

This conclusion was even more certain now—after all, the flower had vanished since he woke up.

But a more critical question surfaced in his mind.

“I can be one hundred percent certain that yesterday’s flower was purely ordinary plastic.”

“That cheap texture, those rough seams—no celestial artifact would ever look like that.”

“At least, while I was conscious, it was still just a plastic flower.”

“So during my sleep, the flower changed—underwent dimensional intrusion and transformed into a true celestial artifact.”

But which flower in the myriad realms could cause such a transformation?

Or perhaps the flower itself had no such power—but was deeply connected to some being?

Zhou Ming was thinking, but he already had a guess—he simply refused to believe it.

After calming his emotions, he realized he had absolute control over every part of his body—he could instantly divide himself into countless fragments and reassemble them.

He could freely alter his appearance, gender, scent—anything visible to the eye, he could change completely.

Moreover, his mind now held many abilities that felt profoundly familiar to him.

But precisely because they were familiar, he refused to believe them.

“Five brains. Seven hearts.”

“Pallid skin, immense vitality, unimaginable regenerative power even without testing, supreme control over every bodily part, ability to transform into another person at will.”

These traits were far too obvious.

So obvious he didn’t even need to think—he knew instantly where his power came from.

“Kibutsuji Muzan.”

The thousand-year-old progenitor of demons from Demon Slayer, absolute ruler of demons, who called himself “nearly perfect,” a monster with an almost immortal body.

“But if my power comes from Muzan, why am I not afraid of sunlight?”

Zhou Ming looked out the window—sunlight had already flooded into the room; his entire body was bathed in it, yet he felt no anomaly.

Surely it couldn’t be that sunlight through a window didn’t work?

He opened the window and cautiously extended his hand toward a beam of sunlight—his skin remained unharmed.

No burning sensation. No pain. No smoke.

If this were Muzan, it couldn’t be like this—or did he only inherit Muzan’s power without the sunlight weakness?

No, no, no—no matter how he thought, it couldn’t be that. It must be the flower.

(End of Chapter)