Chapter 537: Terrible Scourge

Sen Ye had welcomed the Sun Killing Bow and the Arrow God’s body into his possession, whereas Gao Yu had drawn the Evil God’s body into himself. Upon achieving their goals, both men started evacuating from the Land of Buried Gods as fast as they could.

“Go!” Sen Ye shouted. “Return to the edge of the frozen lake first!”

At his command, the dozen or so eastern barbarians that had been lucky enough to survive the shock wave from earlier immediately turned around and ran back the way they came.

Having taken the Evil God’s body into his own, Gao Yu didn’t hesitate to promptly leave the Land of Buried Gods as well.

Jiang Tianxing was the only one who remained.

In the periphery of the desolate plain that made up the Land of Buried Gods, since Celestial Artifact Sect’s Feng Yiyou and Ten Thousand Beast Mountain’s Yu Men managed to survive the shock wave, they now had the chance to obtain the remains of an ancient elite.

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t seem to be able to retrieve any.

Seeing that even Sen Ye and Gao Yu didn’t dare to be greedy, retreating as soon as they obtained the bodies of the Arrow God and the Evil God instead of trying to obtain more remains, Feng Yiyou and Yu Men forcefully suppressed their own greed. After a brief moment of hesitation, they turned and retreated as well.

They had no choice but to retreat because the Demon Sealing Tombstone and the three spirits had clashed once again, creating a second massive shock wave that was about to spread in their direction.

As a result, Jiang Tianxing was the only one left standing in the Land of Buried Gods.

Jiang Tianxing refused to accept this outcome!

Not many people knew about it, but he and his father were the first ones to learn of the location and mysteries of the Graveyard of Gods.

Both had meticulously planned for the Graveyard of Gods, as well as the remains of the Blood Progenitor and many other ancient elites.

Unfortunately, the most crucial part of their plans, the Demon Sealing Tombstone, had accidentally been taken by Qin Lie.

Without it, the greatest flaw in Jiang Tianxing and Jiang Zhuzhe’s plan to dominate the Graveyard of Gods lay exposed.

The strength of the earth, metal, and water spirits, as well as the ice spirit’s cunning, had greatly exceeded his expectations. They made some of his contingency plans feel hollow and useless.

Both Sen Ye and Gao Yu had managed to achieve their goals.

He, however, was still empty-handed.

How could Jiang Tianxing possibly accept this?

“Haaaaagh… haaagh…!

Jiang Tianxing heaved harsh, nasal gasps, as if a wild demon that had been imprisoned within him for so long… had finally been released.

Rays of intimidating bloody light shot from his eyes, making him appear utterly terrifying.

All of the eastern barbarians that had exploded and died as a result of the previous shock wave, leaving bloody pulp on the ground, were currently flowing toward Jiang Tianxing in an eerie fashion.

From a high vantage point, the blood flowing across the ground looked like numerous bloody snakes. They writhed and squirmed, forming a bizarre, bloody pattern.

“Using the True Soul as the medium… and blood as the fount of power…” Shock filled Xue Moyan’s voice as these words escaped her mouth. “He’s… he’s forming a blood demon!”

A serious expression surfaced on Qin Lie’s face. The Blood Demon Art Jiang Tianxing had executed was slightly different from the one he knew of.

The Blood Demon Art recorded inside of the Blood Codex allowed a martial practitioner to use the power of their own soul to gather the blood from a fresh corpse and bestow it with blood energy, giving it strength. This would make a blood demon rise from the gathered pool of blood, one that the user of the spirit art would then be able to control.

When Jiang Tianxing had executed the “Blood Demon Art,” his hands hung at his sides, blood continuously flowing from the tips of his fingers.

“Drip… drip… drip…!”

Jiang Tianxing’s blood exuded a pungent, iron stench as it dripped into the pool at his feet.

The blood of that pool looked as if it fueled intense flames that instantly became violent and crazy.

The snake-like streams of blood in the surroundings slithered over, also going crazy. They quickly gathered in the pool at Jiang Tianxing’s feet and underwent a grotesque change.

Soon enough, a fiendish blood demon that was around ten meters tall rose from the pool of blood. It unleashed a bloodthirsty roar, emanating an insane aura similar to Jiang Tianxing’s.

On the other hand, Jiang Tianxing’s face was pale as his condition rapidly worsened.

Yet his eyes continued to shine with excitement and madness.

The same kind of light that shone from the eyes of the blood demon.

“Whoosh!”

The blood demon opened its sanguine maw and swallowed Jiang Tianxing in a single gulp. Hi instantly vanished into the blood demon’s body.

The light in the eyes of the blood demon became creepier and more frightening every moment after it swallowed Jiang Tianxing. Its entire body radiated a terrifying aura that struck fear into people’s hearts.

“The Blood Demon Art gathers the blood of the dead and mingles it with soul fragments in their bodies that have yet to completely dissipate. Although blood demons created this way don’t exist very long, they possess terrifying amounts of strength that can temporarily be used to achieve its controller’s goals,” Xue Moyan said, her words tinged with shock.“The blood demon Jiang Tianxing created isn’t quite like the ones that I know of. He… seems to have formed a close connection between his soul and the blood demon in order to unleash the power of his soul and blood.”

She took a deep breath.

“It looks like he’s temporarily merged with the blood demon. If that is truly the case, then Jiang Tianxing has become the blood demon… and the blood demon has become Jiang Tianxing! This way, he’ll be able to keep the blood demon around longer. However, once the spirit art runs its course, he’ll be reduced to a weakened state for an extremely long period of time as well. The blood demon may even devour him instead! Such an outcome is a huge flaw in this altered Blood Demon Art where the blood demon continues to exist after the user’s body has perished!”

“Awooooooo!”

The blood demon looked into the sky and howled angrily.

New shock waves of energy spread from the battle between the Demon Sealing Tombstone and the three spirits. However, when they reached the blood demon, its immense murderous blood aura pushed them aside.

By forming this blood demon using unconventional methods, Jiang Tianxing actually managed to forcefully stay in the Land of Buried Gods instead of retreating at the sight of the shock waves like Sen Yu and his barbarians, Gao Yu, Feng Yiyou, and Yu Men.

However, in order to remain in the Land of Buried Gods, Jiang Tianxing forfeited his rationality and fell into a frenzied state. He was no longer sane enough to think about taking the remains of the ancient elites.

Qin Lie suddenly trembled in realization.

“Absorbing blood is instinct to a blood demon!” he yelled. “Jiang Tianxing created the blood demon in a way that it would instinctively drink as much blood as it wanted! It’ll start sucking the remaining blood from the nearest body of an ancient elite!”

The moment he said this, everyone’s faces filled with shock and terror.

“It’s going to drink the remaining blood inside the bodies of the ancient elites?” Pan Qianqian’s eyes opened wide with fear. “All of these ancient elites were existences that once dominated the world. If any blood remains in their bodies… it would definitely contain tremendous amounts of energy!”

“Here, at the bottom of the frozen lake, the Land of Buried Gods has kept these bodies from decaying.” Understanding flashed across Du Xiangyang’s face. “Their strength, and even their refined energy, may have been completely preserved. This could also mean that every single body of every single elite may still have blood inside of them!”

“What will happen if the blood demon that Jiang Tianxing created drinks all of that blood?” Luo Chen asked.

“Only god knows the answer to that question!” Xue Moyan exclaimed, a worried look in her eyes. “If that happened, Jiang Tianxing may never awaken, and an extremely ravenous blood demon seeking to drain the blood from every living thing could be born into this world!”

“Such a blood demon would ultimately tear its wear out of the Graveyard of Gods and charge into the Land of Chaos!” Qin Lie said grimly.

“That could spell the end of the Land of Chaos.” Xue Moyan smiled bitterly.

In that moment, everyone realized that, if they allowed the demonified Jiang Tianxing to continuously absorb the blood of the ancient elite corpses in the Land of Buried Gods, it could grow into a never-ending evil capable of bathing the world sanguine. Not only would it entirely consume Jiang Tianxing, it might even flood the nine great Silver rank forces and any other living thing in the Land of Chaos with a sea of blood.

“Qin Lie.” an indifferent voice suddenly rang out. “Can you help me find Jia Yue?”

Gao Yu appeared out of nowhere like a lone ghost, standing twenty meters away from Qin Lie. He didn’t take a single step closer.

“The ice spirit corrupted Jia Yue and dominated her soul. I hope that you will be able to help me expel the ice spirit from her body and get her back… if possible.”

Gao Yu didn’t say anything more. He just watched Qin Lie silently.

“I currently don’t have any idea how to go about doing that,” Qin Lie said. After a moment of thought, he asked, “How much do you know about the Land of Buried Gods?”

“The Jiang father and son pair brought news of the Graveyard of Gods to the eastern barbarians,” Gao Yu answered nonchalantly. “According to my knowledge, when Blood Fiend Sect perished thousands of years ago and those who cultivated using human blood were being hunted down, Jiang Zhuzhe and a group of trusted aides escaped to the eastern barbarians. Jiang Tianxing was born of his father’s union with a scarlet barbarian woman. Since the blood of the Scarlet Barbarian Tribe flows through him, the scarlet barbarians consider him half scarlet barbarian.

“When the hunt for Blood Fiend Sect in the Land of Chaos died down and was no longer carried out with such fervor, Jiang Zhuzhe took Jiang Tianxing back westward and they hid amongst Celestial Artifact Sect.

“Both of them know the secrets of the Graveyard of Gods and the Land of Buried Gods better than anyone. Jiang Zhuzhe was the one who told the eastern barbarians to get Thunderblitz wood in preparation for dealing with the thunder spirit. He also told them about the Pure Soul Springs hidden inside of the thunder lagoon.

“He also revealed the fact that both the ancestor and the ultimate treasure of the eastern barbarians, the Arrow God and the Sun Killing Bow, were in the Land of Buried Gods.

“For this information alone, the eastern barbarians could not reject Jiang Zhuzhe’s proposal. Not to mention the fact that the Jiang father-son duo had even told them about the Trial and how elites of the nine great Silver rank forces would be dispatched to the Graveyard of Gods as a result.

“In order for the them to obtain their ultimate treasure and the remains of their ancestor… to eliminate future leaders of the Land of Chaos… to obtain the Pure Soul Springs and the remains of ancient elites… the eastern barbarians gathered hundreds of tribesmen in the Netherpassage Realm and had them enter the Graveyard of Gods through different spatial passageways.

“Jiang Tianxing knew more about the Graveyard of Gods than anyone else in here. Every step he took probably corresponded with a plan that was already in place.”

One piece of information after another, Gao Yu explained everything about Jiang Tianxing that Jia Yue had told him.

This information shocked Qin Lie and the others beyond belief. They never would have imagined that the first ones to solve the mysteries of the Graveyard of Gods would be the Jiang father-son pair.

They hadn’t expected them to be the driving force behind the entrance of the eastern barbarians.

It seemed as though Jiang Zhuzhe, the culprit of the catastrophe that turned the Land of Chaos upside down a thousand years ago, driving Blood Fiend Sect to its destruction, was the terrible scourge behind everything in the Graveyard of Gods.

“Jiang Zhuzhe is extremely terrifying,” Gao Yu added. “According to Jia Yue, many elders of the eastern barbarian tribes respect him and trust him quite a bit. The eastern barbarians believe he may be the key to invading and sweeping through the Land of Chaos.”

“This man vanished for more than a thousand years and has probably been cultivating with human blood in secret. His strength has probably reached the pinnacle of strength in the Land of Chaos,” Qin Lie said, a serious expression on his face. “If he manages to obtain the Blood Progenitor’s body, seize the Bloodthirsty Dragon, and plunder all of the remains of these ancient elites, he may turn the Land of Chaos on its head once more.”

In his eyes, Xue Li’s junior brother, Jiang Zhuzhe, had just become the Land of Chaos’s most terrifying enemy.