Chapter 703: Demonic Phase

"Enemy attack!"

When Shen Shen Jinxiao's figure walked out from the grey, hazy mist, the House Luolan House convoy instantly went on high alert. The elite experts of House Luolan House led by Yuan Qing all changed expression drastically, and at the same time a shrill warning cry rang out.

Clang!

Every member of the House Luolan House forces drew their weapons, and streams of phase force lit up like bright flames. Phase force flames of different attributes dotted this long avenue, and viewed from high above, it looked like a brilliantly coloured giant python.

Li Luo and Jiang Jiang Qinge's expressions were rather calm, but the eyes with which the two of them stared at the figure at the end of the avenue ahead were filled with piercing killing intent.

"Shen Gou, you really did show up after all." Li Luo spoke.

Shen Shen Jinxiao smiled faintly and said, "Student Li Luo, being so disrespectful to your mentor will earn you punishment, you know."

Li Luo looked at Shen Shen Jinxiao with contempt in his eyes and said, "You still have the nerve to call yourself a mentor. If Vice Principal Suxin were here, she'd probably tear your mouth apart. The academy treated you well, you obtained plenty of cultivation resources from it, and yet you colluded with the 'Return-to-One Society' and caused the academy's Phase Force Tree to be destroyed, leaving countless people displaced."

"Shen Shen Jinxiao, you are truly the most disgusting villain I have ever seen in my life."

Faced with Li Luo's merciless mockery, Shen Shen Jinxiao seemed utterly unbothered, a gentle smile still hanging on his face. He shook his head and said, "At the academy, I wasn't simply enjoying the resources—I put in effort as well. So between me and the academy, it was merely a simple transaction. Talk of betrayal is rather baseless."

"The Return-to-One Society offered me conditions I couldn't refuse, so it was only natural for me to switch to a new patron."

"As for the academy being destroyed..." Shen Shen Jinxiao smiled and said, "That was their own incompetence. What does it have to do with me?"

"Enough, Li Luo, there's no need to keep wasting words on this..."

Shen Shen Jinxiao's gaze slowly shifted from Li Luo to Jiang Jiang Qinge beside him. At this moment, the look in his eyes as he gazed at Jiang Jiang Qinge became incomparably fervent and... greedy. This kind of look, he had wanted to reveal it back when he was at the academy, but to avoid exposure, he had forcibly held himself back.

But now, there was no need to hold back any longer.

"Student Qing'e, do you know how long I've waited for this day?" Shen Shen Jinxiao said softly.

"From the very first day I saw you... an uncontrollable greed sprouted in me for that sacred, flawless Bright Heart of yours. I could hardly imagine such a perfect existence in this world..."

Jiang Jiang Qinge looked at Shen Shen Jinxiao, whose face was faintly twisting with excitement and agitation, and felt a sudden flash of understanding. She said lightly, "So what you were after was my Bright Heart."

No wonder she had always keenly sensed a faint, hidden covetousness from Shen Shen Jinxiao in the past, but that covetousness had felt somewhat peculiar. It turned out what Shen Shen Jinxiao coveted was not her as a person, but her Bright Heart, which had been tempered by the radiance of light-type phase force.

This Bright Heart granted Jiang Jiang Qinge the ability to sense people's hearts. That was why, even though Shen Shen Jinxiao had exerted all his effort to suppress his inner covetousness, she had still sensed some faint malice from him, and so she had decisively chosen to switch mentors.

"A Bright Heart refined from a ninth-grade light phase is the purest thing under heaven and earth, and also the supreme delicacy under heaven and earth."

"But such a pure Bright Heart is not my ultimate goal, because what I want is a Bright Heart condensed with negative emotions."

Shen Shen Jinxiao's voice was gentle as he said, "When within a pure Bright Heart, that kind of dense negative emotion appears, and the two merge—for me, that is the most wonderful thing in the world. Do you know why that is?"

As his voice fell, behind him light and shadow intertwined and coalesced into the phantom of a strange creature, white all over, shaped like a rat.

When that phantom appeared, everyone present felt an illusion, as if the voices within their hearts had been stolen away by the other party.

"This is Shen Shen Jinxiao's second phase, the Heart Beast Phase."

Mentor Xi Shan's cold voice rang out from behind at this moment, her figure appearing beside Li Luo and Jiang Jiang Qinge.

"This phase possesses the strange ability to beguile the mind. When clashing with it, one must constantly guard the clarity of one's heart."

Xi Shan stared at Shen Shen Jinxiao with eyes like knives and said, "But I've never heard that the Heart Beast Phase needs to covet a Bright Heart."

"Heart Beast Phase?"

Shen Shen Jinxiao's lips curled into a playful smile as he said, "Xi Shan, the intelligence you people have is only what I've chosen to reveal to you... In fact, from the very beginning, my second phase was never any Heart Beast Phase."

The moment these words left his mouth, Li Luo and the others immediately saw the strange rat-like phantom behind him begin to writhe at this moment. The white rat's flesh and blood were torn apart, and black liquid actually flowed out from within. At the same time, the flesh struggled and gradually transformed into a pitch-black, twisted entity.

It looked like a twisted heart forged from black flesh and blood. On its surface, four dark-red pupils opened, and beneath it, a great mouth split open, oozing black liquid. Within that mouth, it seemed to contain an abyss.

A thick, eerie aura rose up along with it.

Seeing this scene, a hint of shock finally surfaced in Xi Shan's eyes.

"This is... a Demonic Phase?!"

Li Luo and Jiang Jiang Qinge both started upon hearing this and said, "Mentor, what is a Demonic Phase?"

"The myriad phases of the world, broadly speaking, fall into only two categories: Element Phases and Ten Thousand Beast Phases... but there is also a third kind, an acquired, evolved phase derived from these, and that is the so-called 'Demonic Phase'. This seems to be the creed and pursuit of the 'Return-to-One Society'. They commit evil everywhere, releasing aberrations, and their ultimate goal is to allow their own phase affinity to undergo an alternative sublimation. We generally refer to this kind of polluted, sublimated phase affinity as a 'Demonic Phase'."

"This Shen Shen Jinxiao has carried out some kind of polluted sublimation on his 'Heart Beast Phase'. Strictly speaking, his second phase now should no longer be called the 'Heart Beast Phase', but rather, the 'Heart Demon Phase'."

"No wonder he has been targeting you all along, trying to strike at you in every way possible. His goal was to use you as a medium to cause a flaw to appear in Student Qing'e's sacred, pure Bright Heart, so that he could plant a seed of pollution. Once the Bright Heart was finally polluted, he would be able to devour the 'Bright Heart' and once again sublimate his own Demonic Phase." Mentor Xi Shan's voice also turned Solemn at this moment.

Li Luo's pupils contracted slightly. This actually made sense. In the past at the academy, Shen Shen Jinxiao's many obstructions against him might have seemed to others to stem from jealousy over his engagement with Jiang Jiang Qinge, but the real reason was an attempt to cause a flaw to appear in Jiang Jiang Qinge's Bright Heart, so that Shen Shen Jinxiao could strike at her vulnerability.

"Looking at it this way, the person behind Manager Pei Hao really was you." Li Luo said darkly.

Shen Shen Jinxiao nodded with a smile, quite candidly saying, "That's right. Originally I planned to borrow his hand to crush you, seize House Luolan House, and thereby strike at Jiang Jiang Qinge. But unfortunately, that good-for-nothing was even more useless than I imagined."

"But it doesn't matter anymore... After observing for so long, I've already discovered that Li Luo, you are Jiang Jiang Qinge's flaw."

He stared at Li Luo with a smiling face, but that gaze made one's hair stand on end.

"So today..."

"I will kill you right in front of her."

Hum!

And the instant Shen Shen Jinxiao's words fell, from within a carriage behind, a shocking blade aura suddenly erupted. The blade aura contained an unimaginable ferocious, baleful energy. The blade light swept up, as if it had completely swept away and shattered the grey, hazy aura of malice filling this stretch of heaven and earth.

One slash cleaved out, and heaven and earth were split apart.

At the same time, what was split apart along with it was Shen Shen Jinxiao's body up ahead.