Qingfeng Mountain was now held by countless Division Commanders.

Several demon-hunters in plain clothes worked through the Qingfeng Mountain disciples in turn, checking them one by one.

Among them was the young man who had been clutching Hong Lei’s leg earlier, face still carrying the aftermath of shock — though when the inspection came to him, he showed no resistance.

The moment they’d been forced to swing their swords at Division Commanders, they had technically committed an assault on representatives of the court. Keeping their lives was already something to be grateful for.

Being absorbed into the Division was sudden, yes — bound now to answer to someone else’s orders, instruments of the court with no more of Qingfeng Mountain’s easy freedom. But thinking back to the Founding Sword, to the fury in the Elder of Fury Sword’s eyes before he ended himself — that so-called easy freedom no longer seemed worth very much.

Even the two white-haired Condensate Realm elders had changed into ink-black uniforms and stood in silence behind General Chen.

Other Division personnel filed out of the side halls carrying boxes filled with martial texts, pill formulae, and rare medicines, transporting them down the mountain in orderly rows.

The great gate of the mountain — a fallen leaf drifted through — had taken on an inexplicable desolation.

Led by Hong Lei, Shen Yi made his way back to the previous campsite at Sword-Viewing Gorge.

“Get some proper rest tonight, Brother Shen. Back to Qingzhou tomorrow. Apply this medicine to the wounds — don’t skip over the deep tissue either, press it in properly. Three days and you’ll be recovered. Qingfeng Mountain’s pharmaceutical supplies — no reason not to use them. Don’t hold back.”

“Thank you, Senior Hong.”

He had learned a great deal from this man’s plain-spoken generosity.

Shen Yi clasped his hands, took the medicine bottle, and stepped into his tent.

Twenty-some golden-eagle Commanders glanced sideways, then stood silently and took up positions around the perimeter without being asked.

Hong Lei shook his head with something like wonder.

First time he’d heard the man call him Senior Hong. Probably the last. Once they were back in Qingzhou, he’d be the one calling him Commander Shen.

Deep in the night. The wrecked forest rustled with wind and nothing else.

Shen Yi sat upright in the tent, his face lit by the swaying candle.

He removed the outer robe, exposing his upper body, the golden-flecked qi moving through the ugly wounds.

He uncapped the black ointment, pressed it to his face for a moment with a faint crease between the brows, and then applied it to the wounds. His eye twitched once.

He wasn’t unaffected by pain. He simply wasn’t accustomed to showing it where others could see. The predator licking its wounds was always the easiest target.

The old flood dragon was dead. The Yangchun River flood dragon clan was still out there.

There were probably other demons who bore him ill will by now.

Even setting all that aside, caution had no downside. Over three hundred years of personal lifespan — dying carelessly would be a genuine waste.

Beyond the Condensate Realm method, I need to learn more body-refinement techniques.

He brought his thoughts together. It would be dishonest to say the promotion meant nothing — but actually spending three years beside a general, absorbing the demons that strong enough to provoke that level of power, would be difficult to manage. He couldn’t keep relying on luck and opportunistic finishing moves.

And there was the matter of what he’d just watched: Qingfeng Mountain’s Sect Master, with a thousand-odd disciples and elders behind him, had been utterly certain the formation could hold the Demon Suppression General. Then the General made half a step of progress — and everything ended.

Shen Yi’s curiosity about that half-step domain was growing harder to ignore. Three years was a long time. If the luck ran poorly it could stretch to five or ten.

And with demon lifespan reserves this substantial — it was time to try the Demon Crystal.

He opened the panel.

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 3,264 years · Condensable】

【Demon Crystal: An object that concentrates the residual incomplete memories and resentments of demons. When used to fuel martial arts derivation, it draws on those memories to assist the simulation process. Consuming it extends lifespan.】

One thousand years per crystal. It had better not disappoint him.

Even if it couldn’t derive a proper Condensate Realm method, there at least needed to be visible progress.

He pressed his intention inward, and a thousand years spent in a breath — he gripped his fist somewhat painfully against the cost.

The Qingfeng Mountain medicine isn’t doing anything for the pain either.

【Remaining Demon Crystals: 1】

After a brief hesitation, he fed it into the Thunder-Wind Solar-Fusion Scripture.

By his current read of things, whether through the court or through sects and great families, what was most tightly controlled was the Condensate Realm method — something essentially impossible to obtain quickly through conventional means.

Hong Lei’s advice was noted, but Shen Yi hadn’t taken it too literally.

Find what a sect forgot to hide properly? If that were as easy to do as it sounded, Qingzhou’s four families and six sects would have lost their standing long ago.

Even with the Sect Master’s collusion proven beyond question, that kind of action would invite quiet retaliation from the remaining powers. The General could hold that off. Shen Yi probably couldn’t.

【Year one — you consume the Demon Crystal, connect a new aperture, and begin examining whether this technique has a viable path forward.】

【Lifespan extended by twenty years.】

【Year two — you have no clear direction. But the remnant consciousness of the fox demon describes the legends of external pill methods from the Blue Hills. Something in it resonates.】

【Year five — you finally grasp what the external pill method involves. But the fox demon was young and didn’t know the actual working, leaving you unable to derive the specific mechanism.】

【Year thirty — the flood dragon’s remnant stirs slightly, and gradually recalls a sinister technique from the water clan — which aligns considerably with this external pill approach. It tells you.】

【You successfully connect one aperture.】

【Year ninety-three — with the demon remnants’ assistance, you begin attempting to integrate this with the Thunder-Wind Solar-Fusion Scripture.】

【You connect one more aperture.】

【Year two hundred and eight — the flood dragon’s remnant helps you complete the final step. Name given: Heavenly Demon Yama Essence-Devouring External Pill Art.】

【Condensate Realm · Heavenly Demon Yama Essence-Devouring External Pill Art — Untrained】

【The Solar-Fusion Furnace, formed from two hundred and seventy-five apertures, is now more complete than before.】

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 2,056 years】

【Remaining Personal Lifespan: 316 years】

The sequence of notifications scrolled past all at once.

A crack from Shen Yi’s palm — the medicine bottle, gripped without noticing.

His pupils contracted. The breath that came out was strangely hot, his throat dry. A long moment passed before he brought the shock under control.

Even knowing roughly what the Demon Crystal might produce — its actual effect defied easy comprehension. The demons he’d killed, their resentment and fragmented memories, had been stirred back to partial awareness — and had, in return, explained their own methods to him.

Didn’t martial techniques require hundreds and hundreds of years to derive?

He turned the name over.

Heavenly Demon Yama Essence-Devouring External Pill Art. That was a name with a certain quality to it.

The next moment, a vast flood of information crashed into his mind. He closed his eyes involuntarily, and spent a considerable time absorbing it before the tide settled.

When he opened them, something was different in his eyes.

This wasn’t a Condensate Realm method in the conventional sense.

More precisely — it was another unorthodox shortcut. A forced breakthrough past the Jade Liquid Realm.

Demons rarely cultivated structured martial arts. They relied primarily on innate demonic talent and sinister techniques. Combining those things with the Solar-Fusion Scripture had naturally produced something that was also not entirely orthodox.

The first part matched his expectations: through an elaborate mechanism, the jade liquid throughout the body condensed into a core.

The second part was entirely different.

The external core didn’t connect to the practitioner’s own meridians. It hung suspended in the qi sea — and the Solar-Fusion Furnace held it in place.

And being separate from the meridians, it couldn’t draw on the breath of heaven and earth.

Instead, this external core was fed entirely by consuming beast cores and demon cores, violently gathering that savage demonic force and converting it to usable power.

Once depleted, replenishment required more plunder — an endless demand for beast cores, accumulating into a scale of slaughter befitting the name. Heavenly Demon Yama. Genuinely appropriate.

He had to admit—

Shen Yi found himself thinking, with inexplicable feeling, that this suited him somewhat well.

Kill demons, take their lifespan. Devour essence, take their cultivation. Nothing wasted. Clean and complete.

He reached slowly for the caiman’s beast core and the flood dragon’s core.

If he was reading this correctly — swallowing the flood dragon’s core would make his entire cultivation level temporarily equivalent to a Condensate Realm flood dragon, until those reserves were spent?

His pulse quickened.

Not from apprehension about using demonic methods. When blood-corruption energy had entered his body the first time, he hadn’t even had the Solar-Fusion Furnace to stabilize it with — and looking at where that had ended up, the Heavenly Astral Blood-Corruption was practically a reflex at this point.

Sinister was fine. Useful was what mattered.

What Shen Yi couldn’t quite follow was the arithmetic.

If one flood dragon’s core could be fully absorbed — what if two could be held at once? Could a single Heavenly Demon Yama external core, filled to that level, overwhelm a conventional Condensate Realm practitioner in terms of raw qi density?

Advancing to the external pill stage this way.

And even the one apparent weakness seemed almost like a joke.

The external core needed beast cores to sustain itself — but conventional Condensate Realm practitioners drew on the thinly-distributed breath of heaven and earth, or else used beast-core-derived rare medicines anyway, just with an extra step in the process.

(End of Chapter)