The slaughter intensified as the shocked rogue cultivators looked on. The left and right Dharma Protectors had lost their conscious wills, and attacked with shocking power. The woman in the scroll painting was defeated in exchange after exchange, and the 9th Li Clan Patriarch’s face was ashen. Blood sprayed from his mouth as his fleshly body was destroyed by the 3rd Li Clan Patriarch. His Nascent Divinity flew out at top speed.
“3rd Patriarch!!” he shrieked miserably.
Unfortunately for him, the 3rd Li Clan Patriarch was not aware of what was happening, and his only reaction was to attack again.
The Li Clan members fought back miserably, but were incapable of standing up to the elite cultivators of the Blood Demon Sect.
Thousands were killed just in the initial salvo.
The battlefield was soon soaked with blood, with slaughter being carried about constantly. Meng Hao didn’t attack, nor did his second true self. They merely observed the battle.
By now, Meng Hao was starting to grow weary of the bloodshed. In all the years since he had begun to practice cultivation, he had never killed so many people…. Even during the migration in the Western Desert, he had not seen such endless slaughter.
He felt a great weariness in his heart, and his expression was somewhat blank.
His ears were filled with the din of slaughter, bloodcurdling screaming, curses uttered moments before death, and battle cries. Despite the sheer volume of these sounds, all of it seemed to transform into a drone that came from very, very far away.
He suddenly realized that he reeked of blood. He could even sense that his heart was changing color… and was almost black.
It was the result of the accumulation of murderous desires and too much killing. When his heart became completely black, Meng Hao knew that would probably mean… that he had reached the point where the excessive killing didn’t bother him any more.
But was all of this what he really wanted?
He suddenly missed his days back in the Demon Immortal Sect, back during the Western Desert migration, back in the Southern Domain as an alchemist, and even his naive life in the Reliance Sect.
But now, he was surrounded by killing, and he was exhausted because of it. When he closed his eyes, he could sense the countless vengeful spirits of the people he had killed, swirling around inside of him. They engulfed him, transforming into an intense, resentful miasma that was like a curse. A never ending curse.
Meng Hao stood there, taciturn and silent.
He really was… very tired.
“Perhaps this is why I have been unable to push the Blood Demon Grand Magic past the fourth level,” he thought with a sigh.
“After all, I am still not the Devil that Patriarch Blood Demon wishes me to be…. I simply can’t be that cruel and merciless. I just can’t kill and kill without being shaken inwardly.”
After reaching the fourth level of the Blood Demon Grand Magic, he had tried on multiple occasions to achieve enlightenment regarding the fifth level, but all to no avail. It was as if he had reached the end the road.
He looked out at the bloody carnage and the twisted expressions of those that were caught up in the slaughter, and the weariness and exhaustion within him surged even higher. Finally he had his answer.
“Perhaps, deep in my heart, I’m simply not truly willing to allow myself to become completely blackhearted. I don’t want my happiness to come from the ghosts of those who I have killed. I don’t want my path to be filled with slaughter. In that case… I guess I’ll never reach the fifth level of the Blood Demon Grand Magic in this lifetime.
“The fifth level requires even more killing. It requires innumerable souls…. It requires more and more vengeful spirits to gather around me to successfully cultivate the magic.
“Only if I concede and become a Devil can I fully embrace the Blood Demon Grand Magic. At all times, regardless of the circumstances, I must embrace the colors of red and black.
“That is the only way. And it is a way… that I cannot accept.” He stood outside the Li Clan looking at rivers of blood, mountains of corpses, and ruins. Booms filled the air as cultivators from both sides fought back and forth ferociously, almost as if they had lost any semblance of reason.
It was at this point that Meng Hao suddenly came to a realization….
The battle didn’t last very long. With the left and right Dharma Protectors in action, it barely took two hours before the Li Clan’s fate was sealed.
The woman in the scroll painting could not be killed. She was a strand of divine sense that would return to her true self on Planet North Reed upon the painting’s vanishment. As she began to fade away, her cold voice echoed out.
“You chose the path of extermination! From now on, if you step foot outside of Planet South Heaven, the Li Clan will hunt you down wherever you go in the Ninth Mountain, for as long as it takes!”
Meng Hao’s eyes flickered with coldness. His second true self waved its right hand tow