Kill, kill, kill; slash, slash, slash.

The brass oil lamp was not hallucinating.

It had truly witnessed, with its own eyes, the abbot who had grown two heads being drugged into unconsciousness.

When the abbot was still sane, his Taoist robe was a deep blue-black. After he lost his mind, it took on three colors—purple, white, and blue. At this moment, the robe on his body was a tangled weave of those three hues, swirling together like a vat of paint poured into water, the colors dazzling yet exuding a chilling sense of dread.

It was not the only one to notice.

Chen Huangpi saw it as well. So did Song Qiuyue and the other cultivators. Even the gods themselves witnessed it.

They watched as that terrifying old Daoist, with a sudden jerk of his legs and a stiffening of his body, collapsed straight to the ground.

Not only did his breathing cease; even his heartbeat stopped.

A strange, unspoken thought flickered through everyone’s mind.

“Go!”

“Quickly, go!”

Without the slightest hesitation, Song Qiuyue and the other cultivators took flight to escape.

But in the very next instant, a dense lattice of sword-qi materialized, forcibly blocking their path overhead.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Chen Huangpi said coldly. “You haven’t handed over my two mountains of copper coins, and you want to leave now?”

“You think you can stop us?” Song Qiuyue’s face was frosted with fury, her eyes full of murderous intent.

The rest of the cultivators were the same. Each of them was a Nascent Soul master—while Chen Huangpi was just one man, and though forty gods still stood behind him, their spiritual incense had nearly been depleted.

Yet a sliver of power remained.

The old Daoist’s sudden collapse—any fool could see something had gone wrong. If they didn’t take this chance to escape the Ten-Thousand Mountains and return to Xuzhou City, once the old Daoist recovered, none of them would survive.

And this accursed yellow-skinned brat dared to bar their way.

He was courting death!

Chen Huangpi suddenly realized, “So you never intended to pay me at all, did you?”

“Shut up!” Behind Song Qiuyue, the shadows of forty gods appeared. The cultivators gathered behind her, encircling Chen Huangpi.

“You are utterly foolish! You spurn gold and silver mountains, demanding only two hills of copper coins. Do you think my life is worth so little?” Song Qiuyue pressed forward, her teeth gritted. “Short-sighted fool! If I were to give myself to you, you should be overjoyed, treating me as the rarest treasure in the world. But what did you do?”

“You cut off both my hands! You have no interest in my body whatsoever! What do you take me for? I am Song of Qinghe—”

She had not finished speaking when Chen Huangpi formed a sword-finger, and a flash of sword-qi, sharp enough to cleave anything, swept across Song Qiuyue.

In the next instant, blood sprayed several yards high. A head rolled to Chen Huangpi’s feet.

Song Qiuyue’s beautiful face was frozen in disbelief.

If Chen Huangpi had looked down, he would have seen her lips moving, as if trying to say something.

But he did not spare a glance.

A soul was instantly drawn into the Soul-Summoning Register.

“You—” Zhao Hai’s face turned ashen, rage twisting his features. “You dare to kill—”

But before he could finish, another line of sword-qi flashed.

He was cleaved in two on the spot.

Another soul was reaped by the Soul-Summoning Register.

The cultivators were seized by terror.

It was only now they realized that this youth they had considered powerful only by virtue of the uncanny old Daoist, was actually even more formidable than any Nascent Soul cultivator.

“No, impossible!”

“Nascent Soul is the pinnacle of cultivation!”

“No matter how talented you are, you should be no different from us—how can you be so fearsome!”

“You’re not a cultivator, you’re a fiend!”

They could think of no other explanation.

But Chen Huangpi had no intention of wasting words.

If they weren’t going to pay, then they could die.

A-Gui had earned merit, and now, gravely wounded and in deep slumber, needed the souls of cultivators to recover.

“Invoke the gods! Slay this fiend!” someone shouted furiously.

The forty gods were already driven near madness.

Though they were gods, in the Song family’s eyes they were little more than servants—summoned and dismissed at will. To put it bluntly, their very divinity was sanctioned by the Prefect of Xuzhou.

But now, Chen Huangpi had slain Song Qiuyue before their eyes—as easily as one might slaughter a chicken. If they did not kill Chen Huangpi, once they returned to Xuzhou, they would face complete annihilation.

“Open your minds!” bellowed a burly god holding a trident, four-eyed, with another pair of eyes above the first.

He inhaled deeply.

Strands of human vitality were instantly drawn from the cultivators.

Their faces paled.

That vitality was merely cultivation for a Nascent Soul master, but in the hands of a god, it became incense power.

The other gods did the same.

In the blink of an eye, those cultivators were left emaciated, mere skin and bones.

“Kill!” roared the god with the trident, revealing his true form. Gray beams shot from his four eyes.

Chen Huangpi felt his movements constricted, as if bound by that gray radiance.

Then, the god’s trident, empowered by divine strength, expanded with the wind, in the blink of an eye becoming a blade vast enough to cleave the heavens.

Within the trident was a terrifying force, part intent, part the slashing, demon-destroying will of the Demon-Slaying Sword.

There was no avoiding it.

Nor was there any need to.

That power bore a will of its own, locked onto him—no matter how he fled, the trident would strike.

Chen Huangpi did not dodge. He simply looked up, curious, sensing the unique power of a god.

With a thunderous crash—

The massive blade struck down at his head.

A dull clang rang out, metallic, echoing like iron on gold.

The god’s eyes widened in disbelief.

The trident shattered in his hands, while Chen Huangpi’s hair remained untouched—not a single strand cut.

“Even the most fearsome fiend should not be unscathed!”

Hearing this, Chen Huangpi touched his head and said, “Well, it did hurt a tiny little bit. All right, I lied. Maybe if your strength were ten times greater, I might feel a little pain.”

“Aaah!” The god, furious at the taunt, raised his fist and smashed it down at Chen Huangpi’s head.

But Chen Huangpi had no interest in playing games.

He formed his sword-finger, and the vital essence from his kidneys was instantly drawn forth.

A sword-qi, many times more powerful than that of the god, slashed upward.

Before the god’s fist could descend, he was cleaved to dust.

The brass oil lamp snickered.

It had known, the moment these people entertained treacherous thoughts, that their end was near.

Nascent Soul cultivators? Forty gods half-drained by the abbot? The Great Abbot had refined Chen Huangpi with true fire for years without burning even a hair. The Second Abbot’s teeth could leave marks on the lamp’s body, but not scratch Chen Huangpi’s skin.

And these people hoped to kill him?

Truly laughable.

“Scatter!” the remaining gods shouted in unison and tried to flee in all directions.

Their incense power was low, their methods meager. Seeing they couldn’t harm Chen Huangpi, they dared not tarry another moment. Even exile from Xuzhou and being hunted by the Song family was better than dying here.

But could they escape?

“Huang Er!”

“I know.”

The brass oil lamp grinned, spewing forth streams of true fire.

The flames wove together, forming a fiery net in which the gods, like birds, were trapped.

Sword-qi raged!

Killing intent flashed in Chen Huangpi’s eyes as the Demon-Slaying Sword’s energy poured out endlessly.

Wherever the sword-qi swept, gods wailed in agony, and handfuls of yellow earth scattered to the ground.

The brass oil lamp applauded. “Well done, splendid! None of you know your place. Chen Huangpi is merciful enough to grant you a swift death—if it were up to me, I’d light your celestial lamps and leave you longing for death but unable to die!”

“No,” Chen Huangpi replied seriously as he killed, “Master said gods eat but do no work—they’re useless. Supplies are running low in the temple, we can’t keep them around, they must all be slain!”

And so he did.

In the blink of an eye, only one of the forty gods remained.

With a thud, the god fell to its knees, hands clasped, begging for mercy. “Spar—”

Before the word was finished, a sword-qi charged with killing intent reduced it to a handful of yellow earth.

But the murderous urge in Chen Huangpi’s heart had not subsided.

He turned to the Nascent Soul cultivators, now mere skin and bone.

Without giving them a chance to plead, his sword-qi swept through them, heads rolling in an instant.

Only then did Chen Huangpi feel at ease, the killing intent within finally abated.

Not only him—the Soul-Summoning Register itself seemed to cheer, emanating a chill that soothed the last traces of agitation in his heart, as if congratulating him.

He took out the Soul-Summoning Register, turned to the page where Song Qiuyue and the others had signed, and carefully checked each Nascent Soul within against the register.

“Hmm, all accounted for.”

“And with the souls of forty gods, that should be enough to awaken A-Gui.”

He took his share, letting the souls of the cultivators be consumed by the murky yellow mist in the realm of the register.

As for the gods—they hadn’t signed any contract. Which meant, when the Death Summoner awoke, he could let it sift through their memories at will.

He was quite curious about the gods. He knew that, had their incense been abundant, they would not have been so easily destroyed by his sword. Gods were strange beings—he wondered how these cultivators had managed to attain divinity.

He knew, from watching his master create gods, that it was always done with mud from the underworld and other peculiar materials—substances that grew scarcer with each use. Could it be that outside the Ten-Thousand Mountains these things were abundant?

The Pure Immortal Monastery, so lively just moments before, now fell abruptly silent.

Chen Huangpi walked to where his master lay stiffly on the ground.

His master now had two heads—one was the First Abbot, the other the Second. Both faces looked peaceful.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe you could actually drug the abbot,” the brass oil lamp marveled, drawing nearer. “When he wakes up, you’re bound to get a beating.”

“It won’t be that soon,” Chen Huangpi said, a hint of pride in his voice. “My elixir is a hundred times more potent than the Heavenly Poison Pill. Fighting poison with poison—once Master wakes, the illness will be cured. He’ll praise me, not punish me.”

“And if the abbot never wakes?” the brass oil lamp asked curiously.