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Chapter 509: Chapter 509: Demon Lord

In that case, which of these two ways of improvement would be better to choose?

For Chen Xuan, the answer is almost obvious—he wants "both."

The latter is a stable source of supply. As long as he cultivates a group of believers, he can continuously obtain spiritual qi. Moreover, he can actively grant these people abilities, unleash their potential, and the efficiency of spiritual qi gathering in the future will naturally rise, forming an effective positive cycle.

The former is needless to say, as all demon fiends are excellent fodder. In this way, he can move around under the guise of a Loose Cultivator who eliminates demons. Once word spreads, it will surely attract Liu Shuyue.

With the preliminary direction set, Chen Xuan’s heart was clear.

Once he accumulates enough initial power, he will be able to, like the other taboos, actively open erosion channels and go wherever he wishes.

And in Jiang City, someone is still waiting for him.

"Let’s first find out about the situation nearby."

Chen Xuan opened his hand, and a wriggling lump of flesh squeezed out from his palm, accumulating more and more on the ground... This felt a bit like squeezing toothpaste. If it were in the past, he would have internally rejected this heap of stuff, but now that he had become the Lord of Flesh and Blood, looking at the layers of flesh, he found it suddenly much more pleasing to the eye.

This lump gradually took on a human form.

Ma Shun suddenly opened his eyes and raised his head in astonishment. Upon seeing Chen Xuan, his face turned pale, and he fell to the ground on his buttocks, scrambling backward with hands and feet.

"Do you want to run away?" Chen Xuan asked mildly.

The question made him stop immediately, fear mixing with a desperate hope for life in his gaze. The man seemed to realize something, prostrating himself like a full-bodied bow and repeatedly kowtowing to Chen Xuan.

"Great Demon, Lord Demon, this little one has eyes but failed to see, offending you. I beg you to spare this little one’s life!"

After ten or more kowtows, blood started oozing from Ma Shun’s forehead.

...If he were facing the Star God, he might have already lost his self-will by now, becoming an absolute puppet.

Chen Xuan looked him over, finding the feeling rather nuanced.

Having the ability inherently is one thing, using it personally is another.

After all, people are not the same as birds.

The other party hadn’t become a part of flesh and blood due to complete fusion; they still retained their previous intellect and memories. His authority was more like a container, merely storing life temporarily.

Thinking a little further, this actually made sense.

Isn’t the physical body just a container for the soul?

So, the taboos born based on this naturally have the characteristic of being containers for living beings.

Of course, Chen Xuan could still see a thin line extending from beneath his feet, connecting to Ma Shun’s body, suggesting that he had absolute dominion over him, and destroying him was just a thought away. Similarly, Chen Xuan could control the other party’s body like controlling a bird, just by retrieving his soul back into his body first.

"Do you think I’m a demon?" Chen Xuan asked sidelong.

"No... this little one misspoke, you are an Immortal Master, Lord Immortal Master!" Ma Shun’s voice trembled with fear.

"Stop kowtowing and stand up and talk," he said impatiently.

"Yes! Yes!" The other hurriedly got up, his legs shaking so much that he struggled several times before managing to stand steadily.

"Your name is Ma Shun? From where?"

"Pei... Pei State, from Baihe Village."

"Which kingdom’s Pei State?"

He was stunned for a moment, "Of... of course it’s Great Luo’s..."

So, when he first met Liu Shuyue, it was actually within the borders of the Luo Kingdom? Chen Xuan thought. Releasing this person for face-to-face inquiry wasn’t because he enjoyed seeing others in extreme terror but because he couldn’t directly retrieve all information from the soul. Whether it was the deceased merchant surnamed Huang or the devoured Ma Shun, he only saw some impressive flashes. To know the more trivial information, he had to obtain it through conversation.

The Salvation Ark was the same; they put the store manager in a virtual world, relying on interactions between store managers to get comprehensive information.

"How long have you been a mountain bandit, and how many people have you killed?" Chen Xuan continued to ask.

"Half...half a month, not even," Ma Shun replied tremblingly, "Human lives... I don’t know."

"You don’t know?"

"This little one really didn’t deceive you!" he lamented, "This little one just followed others in, waved an axe a few times, might have struck someone, but few have died on-site! Most of the meat tickets captured would be executed, but they wouldn’t let a small fry like me handle that!"

"Oh?" Chen Xuan raised a brow, "I saw how decisive you were when stabbing the merchant Huang."

"Great Immortal Master sees clearly. This little one thought he had turned into a corpse; a weasel demon had possessed him!" Ma Shun’s legs quaked, nearly kneeling again, "If I knew it was you, even with a hundred... no, ten thousand times more courage, this little one wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you!"

"Mind Reading Technique" confirmed he wasn’t lying.

His mental defenses had been completely shattered by fear.

Before, Chen Xuan dared not misuse Mind Reading Technique as he feared other soul fragments would mix into his own soul, but now there were no such worries. His extreme control over flesh and blood allowed him to perceive every soul’s size, shape, and color meticulously. Regardless of how many soul bits were imprinted by Mind Reading Technique, he could store or even digest them without being affected.

"You have a home in Baihe Village, so why become a bandit in the mountains?"

"If this little one didn’t escape, it would have been a dead end too!" Ma Shun gritted through his teeth, "The government suddenly went crazy, drafting all young men to do labor. Rather than die meaninglessly in the government office, it’s better to take a chance outside!"

Drafting labor? At the time when the Immortal Master descended?

Chen Xuan detected a thread of intrigue.

"Tell me in detail."

"Eh... Yes. About a month ago, Pei State suddenly started drafting males aged fifteen to twenty-five, saying the Lotus Cloud Immortal Master had descended to grant the people of Luo Kingdom an immortal fate..." Ma Shun explained truthfully, "But that’s not the case at all! Not one child from wealthy families went! And it’s easy to avoid going; just pay the government some money."

"Someone from our village saw it with their own eyes. When they drafted people from a neighboring town, they shackled them like prisoners to prevent escape. Those who resisted were even beaten to death by the governmental constables. How is this immortal fate... it’s clearly just drafting labor!"

A month ago...

Chen Xuan recalled Liu Shuyue had mentioned feeling uneasy and lost, deliberately slowing her pace, and taking half a year to reach Qi Kingdom as the Immortal Master.

Which means she is still on route, not representing the other disciples. At a normal pace, it takes up to a month to reach various countries from Kunlun Mountain. Lan Qin, the Immortal Master in Luo Kingdom, should now be a favored guest of Prince Luo.

Had she already begun preparations for merging with neighboring countries seven or eight years later?

Honestly, Chen Xuan had not paid much attention to this character before. In his eyes, other Immortal Masters posed no threat to Liu Shuyue, especially after Hot Pepper Village was fully armed. Not to mention a hundred or two hundred Loose Cultivators, even if they brought three to five thousand cultivators to challenge Liu Shuyue, they were destined to fail miserably.

After all, there was an upper limit on the Mountain Disciples from Lotus Cloud Sect; even if they taught out the sect’s secret methods, the cultivators trained could never reach Immortal level. Of course... that wasn’t their fault. Now Chen Xuan knew the overall design of the Grotto Heaven of the Lotus Cloud Sect was never to nurture genius cultivators. The generational Immortal Master system was merely for humanity to survive in a collapsing world.

"Do you want to go home?" Chen Xuan smiled slightly.

Ma Shun’s eyes flickered with a trace of bewilderment, followed by more intense terror and panic, "No... this little one doesn’t want to return at all!"

That was a lie.

He heard the man’s true heart: absolutely cannot bring the demon back to Baihe Village, otherwise, all the people there would be devoured by it!

"Then you can stay here," Chen Xuan said joyfully, "I will go to Baihe Village alone."

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