145. I Am a True Immortal

Within the dilapidated Taoist temple, beneath the crimson moon, a temple formed of flesh and blood was rapidly expanding.

It swelled like a bouncing ball.

Suddenly, its roof bulged violently outward, as if something extremely sharp was about to pierce through the temple and brutally drill its way out from within.

No...

It did not just look like it.

Something was truly drilling its way out.

With a soft pop, an extremely sharp, withered tree branch directly punctured the temple.

Immediately afterward, the branch shot straight up into the sky.

Its lower section was immensely thick, directly tearing the entire temple wide open.

It was a tree.

A demonic tree that resembled the legendary heaven-supporting cosmic timber.

It had lingered within this ancient temple for untold ages.

And now, it had returned here once more in a different form.

Chen Huangpi had channeled the power of the demonic tree, materializing its phantom.

This was not the true form of the demonic tree, for its true body remained locked away within the Kidney Temple.

However, even if its true body were to manifest, it would still be no match for the Scarlet Evil.

Nourished by the black smoke, the demonic tree was currently undergoing a metamorphosis toward becoming a Calamity.

The Scarlet Evil was an entity even more powerful than a Calamity.

Yet, it did not matter.

Because at this moment, every single trunk and branch of the demonic tree was crawling with dark cyan eyes.

Rustle, rustle...

The withered branches intertwined and wrapped around each other, forming a gigantic cocoon.

Then, guarded by the branches, the cocoon was pushed up to the crown of the tree.

The tree cocoon opened.

Inside was a youth of about thirteen years of age, dressed in a Taoist robe.

The youth's eyes were tightly shut.

Yet, dark cyan eyes had grown between his brows, across his cheeks, and all over his arms.

Down below, after the flesh-and-blood temple was torn apart, it rapidly shrank.

Following that, a figure draped in a scarlet cloak, engulfed in burning crimson flames, stepped out from within.

It was the Scarlet Evil.

Its expression was extremely grim.

It was utterly certain that Chen Huangpi had completely fallen into demonic corruption.

With a fragile state of mind and chaotic thoughts, he had succumbed to demonic arts in just a few words.

And what was even more terrifying was that it found itself completely powerless against those dark cyan eyes.

A single eye was nothing to it.

However, those eyes were overwhelmingly bizarre.

The moment they appeared, they flooded forth endlessly like an opened floodgate, and even its innate soul fire was affected by those evil eyes.

It could only watch helplessly as Chen Huangpi summoned the demonic tree, which shot up into the sky.

Now that they were outside the temple, with the crimson moon watching overhead, the Scarlet Evil did not dare to make another move against Chen Huangpi within the dilapidated temple.

As if sensing the Scarlet Evil's thoughts, Chen Huangpi stamped his foot onto the crown of the demonic tree beneath him.

The massive tree crown instantly expanded frantically.

The foliage blotted out the sky.

The entire ancient temple was instantly plunged into darkness.

The next second, the branches of the demonic tree drooped, and as the leaves trembled, human-shaped fruits were birthed one after another.

Even more eerie was the fact that all those human fruits bore the exact face of Chen Huangpi.

Their expressions were icy, devoid of the slightest emotion.

Yet, the Scarlet Evil could see that the eyes of those human fruits were filled with an infinitely frantic murderous intent.

"You have fallen to the demonic path!"

The Scarlet Evil said, a mix of panic and rage in its voice: "Chen Huangpi, stop this now! You have already been consumed by the power of those evil eyes. That is not your own strength. If you continue like this, you will be lost beyond redemption."

It was frightened.

It was truly frightened.

In a sense, Chen Huangpi was indeed a good-for-nothing.

Because he had been born a stillborn.

Rising from death to life, naturally, his path was bound to be exceptionally arduous.

But if Chen Huangpi refused to walk that path and suddenly turned back to charge at it instead, the problem would become catastrophic.

Now, Chen Huangpi had fallen into a demonic obsession and only wanted to destroy it. With such an unyielding obsession, what wouldn't he dare to do?

Crack...

Crack...

The necks of the countless Chen Huangpi human fruits turned, and as they reached their palms upward, branches shaped like swords snapped off automatically, falling into their hands.

Then, those Chen Huangpis simultaneously made a motion of drawing a sword.

The next instant, ominous, evil sword qi imbued with frantic murderous intent slashed instantly toward the Scarlet Evil.

Kill, kill, kill! Slash, slash, slash!

It was the Taisui Demon-Slaying Sword Qi, for Chen Huangpi only knew this single sword technique.

"Well struck!"

The Scarlet Evil roared, and the blood-like flames burning beneath its feet surged.

The flames transformed into a city wall.

The countless streams of sword qi slashed against the wall, utterly unable to breach it.

The Scarlet Evil was far too powerful.

It was merely helpless against Chen Huangpi's evil eyes; it did not mean it was weaker than Chen Huangpi.

Immediately afterward, however, those human-fruit Chen Huangpis seemed to realize something, and they all took a deep breath simultaneously.

There were simply too many human fruits—so dense that there were at least several million of them.

When so many human fruits inhaled simultaneously, a fierce gale was instantly whipped up inside the ancient temple.

"Hoo!!!!!!"

The human fruits exhaled in unison, but what they breathed out was not wind.

It was fire.

An unthinkably chilling nether flame.

It was the fire of the Nine Nether Divine Lamp, specialized in burning away true essences.

"Fighting fire with fire?"

The Scarlet Evil laughed out of sheer fury: "I am the ancestor of fire manipulation!"

With that, its hands rapidly formed a hand seal.

The blood-colored flames beneath its feet instantly formed a ring of fire. The moment the fire ring appeared, it split into countless more.

"Absorb!"

As its voice fell, the overwhelming nether flames rushing toward it were drawn by an invisible force. Before they could even reach the Scarlet Evil, they unhesitatingly divided into countless streams and drilled straight into those fire rings.

The Scarlet Evil was the essence of fire.

Its fire could ignite thoughts and stir a person's soul.

Yet, to it, flames also possessed thoughts.

Nether flames were fire, too!

"Watch closely, this is how you truly fight fire with fire!"

With a ferocious grin, the Scarlet Evil formed seals once more: "Return them to you!"

Countless rings of fire spun.

wisps of chilling nether flame were manipulated by it, instantly blasting back toward the demonic tree.

Points of fire filled the sky, crashing down like a shower of falling meteors.

To the Scarlet Evil's utter astonishment, however, those Chen Huangpi human fruits showed no panic at all. Instead, they formed a hand seal that was exceptionally familiar to it.

Chilling rings of nether fire materialized out of thin air one after another.

"Absorb!"

Those nether flames controlled by the Scarlet Evil plunged right into those fire rings just as easily.

"This... this..."

The Scarlet Evil felt its scalp go numb: "You managed to replicate my technique after just a single glance?"

The Chen Huangpis formed seals with indifferent expressions.

However, this seal was one the Scarlet Evil could no longer comprehend.

Though this seal looked similar to its own technique, something about it felt profoundly wrong no matter how it looked.

For the nether flames within those fire rings did not charge at it; instead, they rapidly contracted inward, condensing into a tiny black dot.

"Kill!"

Countless voices filled with murderous intent rang out.

And the black dots within the fire rings suddenly expanded.

Thick pillars of black light surged forth from the fire rings, blasting toward the Scarlet Evil below.

Boom, boom, boom!

Countless pillars of black light slammed into the Scarlet Evil from different directions and trajectories.

Dust billowed and shattered rocks flew everywhere.

The ground shook relentlessly.

The black pillars forcefully carved out a bottomless giant crater hundreds of meters wide.

At the very bottom of that crater, the Scarlet Evil's body was riddled with massive holes. It lay on the ground, staring in disbelief at the countless Chen Huangpi human fruits hanging from the branches of the demonic tree.

"How can you alter my technique so casually?"

As the lord of Lesser Scarlet Heaven, it had never imagined that a day would come when someone could master its technique just by looking at it once, using it not only better than itself, but also inventing multiple variants to use however they pleased.

"I am an anomaly," the Scarlet Evil said, gritting its teeth. "If not for the fact that my immortal essence was devoured by this ancient temple, how could I ever be subjected to such humiliation by you?"

Unlike Yi Qingzhou, though Yi Qingzhou was merely an immortal, his immortal essence had not vanished after he became an anomaly.

Consequently, the power Yi Qingzhou naturally displayed was far greater than the Scarlet Evil's.

The methods the Scarlet Evil currently employed only served to drive its fundamental nature—namely, the flames.

However, the Scarlet Evil no longer dared to use any techniques.

Because it knew that with those evil eyes present, it stood no chance of killing Chen Huangpi.

Conversely, Chen Huangpi could master its techniques with a single glance and immediately turn them against it.

Before long, without even needing to turn back and flee, Chen Huangpi might actually manage to beat it to death right here.

Flee...

It had to flee!

The thought of escape arose in the Scarlet Evil's mind.

Before it could act, however, it watched in despair as countless branches drooped down from the crown of the demonic tree.

The demonic tree was too massive.

Those branches were immensely thick, each the size of a mountain, sealing off the area covered by the tree canopy so tightly not even a drop of water could leak through.

The branches themselves weren't even the worst part.

It was the countless evil eyes covering those branches.

It didn't dare to fight, it couldn't kill him, and it certainly didn't dare to push him into a corner.

The Scarlet Evil had never experienced such a suffocating moment in all its existence.

"Chen Huangpi, I was wrong!"

"I shouldn't have targeted you, I shouldn't have plotted against you, and above all, I shouldn't have called you a good-for-nothing."

"You are a genius, a true, genuine genius."

Kneeling on the ground, the Scarlet Evil swore to the heavens: "If you spare my life today, I am willing to acknowledge you as my master. I am exceptionally powerful, and as you can see, I possess sentience. Take me under your command, and I will surely become a formidable asset to you."

Yet, Chen Huangpi paid it no heed.

For he had truly fallen into a demonic state.

The countless human-fruit Chen Huangpis were still forming hand seals with their hands.

The hand seal was bizarre in the extreme.

After taking just a single glance, the Scarlet Evil's expression changed drastically: "The Life-Slaying Sword Classic?"

The Life-Slaying Sword Classic, a technique Chen Huangpi had previously been unable to execute, was now wielded as effortlessly as turning over his hand now that he had fallen into corruption.

The Chen Huangpi human fruits spoke in unison: "Soul-Slaying!"

As the words fell, the Scarlet Evil could no longer hear any sound.

Everything around it plunged into an eerie, dead silence.

The Life-Slaying Sword Classic was a technique of the Immortals-Cleaving Temple.

However, Chen Huangpi had not learned the entirety of it from the anomaly formed by Xu Qingshan's severed arm; he only knew the art of Soul-Slaying.

And Soul-Slaying was naturally meant exclusively for slaughtering souls.

The Scarlet Evil froze in place.

Its body collapsed with a loud thud, transforming into a mass of blood-colored flames.

It was as if its soul had been completely obliterated.

Rustle, rustle...

The branches of the demonic tree trembled.

The Chen Huangpi human fruits detached and fell to the ground, rotting rapidly.

Then, they transformed into wisps of vital essence that melted into the trunk of the demonic tree.

The branches sealing the perimeter were likewise retracted by Chen Huangpi.

High up on the tree crown, the Nine Nether Divine Lamp, controlled by a single evil eye, hovered to the side, its aura feeble and withered.

Chen Huangpi raised his head, gazing at the crimson moon in the sky.

The evil eyes all over his body blinked rhythmically.

Within those evil eyes, golden-black characters resembling birds, fish, and insects were emerging.

The characters swirled.

The Nine Nether Divine Lamp had no inkling of what those characters signified.

It only knew that at this moment, Chen Huangpi appeared to be deep in thought.

Pondering something far beyond its comprehension.

"I am a true immortal!"

Chen Huangpi stated with cold ruthlessness: "I will slaughter all gods, slaughter all cultivators, slaughter all mortals, slaughter all anomalies... I will slaughter them all!"

"You are no true immortal right now."

The Nine Nether Divine Lamp said in despair: "You are clearly nothing more than an anomaly that knows only how to kill, kill, kill..."