Chapter 36: Hearts as Malicious as Demons, Poisonous as Ghosts, Blood-devouring Till a Thousand Bones Wither

Dark clouds shrouded the moon.

Inside the ancestral hall, shadows loomed thickly. Ning Xiu surveyed the dozens of coffins lining the main hall, drew his finely tempered steel blade, and steeled himself for what lay ahead.

He did not relax his guard simply because his opponents had shifted from the supernatural to the human. Sometimes, men could be far more terrifying than any vengeful ghost.

Step by measured step, Ning Xiu advanced, his eyes missing nothing in the dim mortuary. At this moment, even the slightest irregularity would not escape his notice.

He paused abruptly in front of an ancient coffin, with no warning whatsoever. In the same instant, his blade flashed like lightning, plunging into the seam between the coffin lid and its base. With a twist of his wrist, the lid was wrenched free and sent flying high before crashing down with a thunderous thud.

Ning Xiu lifted his gaze. Inside the coffin lay a middle-aged man, his entire body mottled with purplish-green hues—undeniably dead for some time. Though the caretaker of the mortuary was gone, new corpses were still brought in, merely left unattended.

A corpse?

Ning Xiu frowned. Was it a trick of his senses? Yet the cadaver before him could not have been faked.

Shaking his head, he moved on.

But just as Ning Xiu turned away, the man in the coffin suddenly opened lifeless, white eyes, sprang upright, and thrust his right hand toward Ning Xiu's back.

The strike was utterly silent, with neither the whisper of wind nor the flow of inner force—giving no warning, no sign.

It should have landed without fail, but Ning Xiu, as if he had eyes on the back of his head, seemed to have anticipated it. He whipped his blade around with a swift, backward slash.

Clang!

Metal rang against flesh.

Astonishingly, the middle-aged man had blocked the steel blade with nothing but his bare palm.

In that instant, both men unleashed their inner strength.

A surge of chilling, sinister energy rushed at Ning Xiu like a tidal wave. Black mist surged from the man's right hand, staining the blade with a murky haze that rapidly crept toward the hilt.

His inner force was not only icy cold—it was also laced with deadly poison!

Icy winds seemed to swirl around Ning Xiu, the chill piercing to the bone, as if his very blood had frozen solid. Yet, by channeling his Nine Suns Divine Art, he quickly restored himself.

The middle-aged man was visibly surprised by Ning Xiu’s resilience, but wasted no time. He leapt from the coffin, striking repeatedly in midair.

The entire courtyard was swept by a spectral wind, filled with ghostly wails.

Even Ning Xiu did not expect such a display. This man had mastered the essence—the “intent”—of his martial art.

Among martial artists, whether sword or blade, each discipline had its own “intent.” To grasp this was to reach the very core of a martial art, signifying a higher level of mastery.

With no room for carelessness, Ning Xiu summoned the full power of the Nine Suns Art and brought his blade down in a mighty slash.

“Kill!”

The strike, infused with blazing yang energy, thundered down—unyielding and fierce, the perfect nemesis to the man’s venomous, sinister attacks.

The sheer force of the blow churned the air, scattering the black mist.

A shrill, ghostly scream split the night as the darkness vanished, revealing the pale, drawn face of the middle-aged man.

...

In the end, the man could not evade the fatal blow. His body collapsed onto the cold stone floor of the mortuary, and only after a moment did Ning Xiu’s heaving breath subside.

This opponent had been formidable, standing at the very peak of the second tier of martial mastery—easily the strongest Ning Xiu had ever faced. Coupled with his strange, poisonous inner force, even Yan Song or Zhang Kuo might have died on the spot if taken unawares.

Fortunately, Ning Xiu’s own technique was a perfect counter to his. Otherwise, victory would have come at a steep price.

It was time to claim his spoils. Yet, after thoroughly searching the corpse, Ning Xiu found nothing. This was no surprise—wandering martial artists rarely carried their secret manuals with them. Those tales where a casual search yielded a peerless manual existed only in storybooks. There were exceptions, though: if a technique required constant study, its owner might keep it close, or else hide it at home.

Pondering this, Ning Xiu returned to the caretaker’s quarters and approached the locust tree in the courtyard.

He noticed the soil beneath the tree looked recently disturbed, tinged with a dark, reddish hue.

A faint, metallic scent of blood lingered in the air—it was coming from here.

“As I thought!”

After digging up the ground before the locust tree, even Ning Xiu was momentarily taken aback, his expression growing increasingly grave.

Beneath the soil lay dozens of corpses. Some were stripped of flesh, bleached to bone, while others had yet to fully decay.

Among them, Ning Xiu recognized the bodies of three outer stewards from the Bamboo Grove Society.

Piled together with the remains was a bronze chest. With a deft flick of his blade, Ning Xiu brought the box into his hand.

Inside, it was filled with gleaming gold ingots. Ning Xiu frowned and tipped them out.

The gold tumbled to the ground, forming a small mound.

There must have been several hundred taels—tens of thousands of silver taels in all. Such wealth would make even the great families of Lingnan green with envy. But Ning Xiu spared it not a glance.

This was not what he sought.

He inspected the now-empty chest, his brow furrowing more deeply. Had he been mistaken? Perhaps the man had never kept a martial manual on him.

Unwilling to give up, Ning Xiu tapped the bottom of the chest.

Thud, thud, thud...

“The sound is off—there’s a hidden compartment.”

Channeling a bit of force through his palm, he broke the false bottom, and finally found what he was searching for: an ancient book.

On the cover, written in blood-red script, were the words “Blood Devouring Technique.”

Ning Xiu leafed through it briefly and saw that it was a thoroughly wicked art, requiring the practitioner to drink human blood daily. As one advanced, the required amount increased, until in the final stages, one needed the fresh blood of a hundred people each day, or risk exploding from within.

This alone spoke to the terrifying power of the technique. The middle-aged man had only mastered the first stage, yet already possessed strength at the very peak of the second rank. If he had perfected the art, even with a countering technique, Ning Xiu would not have been his match.

Yet, Ning Xiu had no interest in such a method.

If he recalled correctly, the game had a feature to recycle martial manuals.