Whether one was virtuous or vile in life holds little to no meaning to the Imperium’s negative lifeforms.

  The burning desire to murder, inflict misery, and consume the essence of tormented souls is as instinctual to the undead as breathing is to the living. In pioneering the path of undeath, the Undead Ancestor Grimsong Specter designed negative lifeforms to retain fragments of their original selves, but in reversing life into undeath, he also reversed even the faintest trace of goodwill into malice, and further corrupt all malice into a venomous, deep envy.

  Xuangu Wenren wasn't an exception. In fact, those who have stronger emotions or desires become even stronger when they turn into a negative life. The darkness of his heart was already way above others before his death, and it only grew stronger as he turned into an undead. This is also one of the main reasons Mizuki did not immediately resurrect all of his 13 cohorts at once, as some are more destructive than others.

  There’s no sugarcoating it, some are more high-maintenance than others.

  When the Serpent Lord was beheaded and calcified in barely a few moves, the lich was inwardly disappointed. A former Paragon can easily dispatch a Lord even when his cultivation base has been reduced to the same level, as his mastery of soul arts when he was still at his peak did not magically disappear. This was especially true considering this is not his first time having his cultivation base reduced significantly.

  Now that it was still living and its souls are even richer than expected, his desire to consume the creature’s soul and create an undead based on its corpse rose to a level simir to seeing a feast after ten days of fasting.

  The bone mass pilged from the calcified head of the serpent is flowing into his body, as if the solid pale mass were extremely viscous liquid. Being his primary cultivation path, maniputing bones within a certain distance of himself feels as natural as breathing. The lich instantly decided to use the bone mass as resources for activating a killer move as he opened his mouth.

  “Rank 1 killer move, [Death by Pale Scourge Breath]!” a deluge of pale smog gushed out, there were a lot of lighter-than-air bone shrapnel amongst the bone dust.

  During that brief moment, the serpentine beast had already regrown its head. Like most wood-path lifeforms, it couldn’t be killed in one hit. Almost if not all wood-path creatures often possessed redundancies with secondary or even tertiary vital systems. At a gnce, the Serpent Lord’s head appeared more than bait, much like the bioluminescent lures of deep-sea fish. A facade of vulnerability designed to deceive.

  With a hiss, the serpent slithered at the lich, its gigantic size betrayed its actual speed. Despite its effort to evade the white smog, realistically, it couldn’t be dodged as Xuangu Wenren’s breath quickly saturated the area. At first, due to the body of the serpent containing a high energy, the flesh of a Lord is incredibly resistant to damage. To the serpent, the lich’s attack was only a cloud of bone particles, mixed with rger lighter-than-air bone chunks that got swept away by the winds.

  However, the moisture within the smog rapidly declined, the temperature rising significantly as if they were put into an oven. To the serpent, the average temperature of 14 degree celsius quickly rose to 400 doesn’t really affect much, but when it jumped to over a thousand degrees in barely a second, it realized something was wrong.

  Before the Serpent Lord could deduct what’s going on with the smog, a thick nce spped the shit out of its face. As an instinctual retaliation, the vines and spores stick onto Xuangu Wenren’s nce while some of its thicker vines try to get a hold of him.

  Melee attacks would no longer be effective on the serpent. Xuangu Wenren closed his mouth and activated a soul art.

  “Rank 1 killer move, [Death by Pale Scourge Detonation]!” He released the bone nce as it exploded, saturating the area with more of the white smog.

  As the concentration of the pale particles rose, the temperature also rose to that of almost three thousand degree celsius within the thicker part of the smog, with most of the bone chunk stuck to the surface of the serpent’s face. The smaller vines on the serpent’s body were quickly ignited, with fungus and some of the small insects on its body already burning to a crisp.

  In that instant, the serpent lord decided to leave the smog, but it was already too te, its new head already ignited and the white particles had already stuck to almost every inch of its surface. Amongst the fine particles, there were lighter-than-air bone shards whose real identity is concentrated white phosphorus.

  In fact, the whole smog is white phosphorus.

  Xuangu Wenren was worried about the ck of instant results. Due to the different dimensional ws of this world, he was concerned that the chemical composition of white phosphorus wouldn’t be as incendiary as it was in Holy Terra.

  His concern was proven true when it only ignited biologicals in 400 degree celsius. Nevertheless, he was quite surprised when reaching sufficient concentration, the white phosphorus had turned back into the chemical weapon he knew and loved.

  Still, that short encounter was enough to deduct the serpent’s weakness. Having no weapon wouldn’t be a problem to the lich whose primary method of combat was not melee in the first pce.

  Sparks flew from the point of contact as he used his metallic bone arms to deflect a thick root-vine attack. It was only as thick as a human arm, but the vine’s esticity and durability was like that of titanium alloy. When used like a whip, the end of the vines could achieve mach 3, the potential damage was extremely high.

  However, in this domain of Pale Scourge smog, every bone particle can be considered as an extension of Xuangu Wenren’s body. Without actively using investigative methods, he could ‘feel’ any movement simir to the living using their sense of touch.

  Dodging or parrying any whip-attack that could potentially break his mortal shell, he internally sighed at his ck of preparation. As one reaches the rank 1 Official realm, a Soul Magus has their person enveloped by a perpetual shield that protects them from harm, simir to an AT-Field. Unfortunately, his resurrection was very recent, and thus unable to synchronize his true cultivation with his mortal shell, therefore the ck of such a shield.

  ‘I might have… lost myself a bit there.’ He thought to himself. ‘Right, I shouldn’t have gotten carried away.’

  There was a strange glint in his eyes as he reminded himself that there was no time to vent. Having the urge to clench his battle hunger is understandable, but if he prioritized his desire over his mission, it would jeopardise Mizuki’s pn. There are waves upon waves of creatures reaching the periphery, the Serpent Lord was only the closest one. He can’t be occupied by a single objective, things like handling a single Lord should be left to the Immortal Soldiers.

  With that in mind, he took a step back, disengaging the Serpent Lord who was trying to leave the smog.

  Unimpeded, the creature directly slithered to the vilge, ignoring the lich who stood still among the white smog. Although the snake couldn’t reach the speed of sound, its movement speed is still fast, it’ll reach the vilge in no time.

  Looking as if he’s lost in himself, Xuangu Wenren was actually trying to find the solution on how to handle this task. He secretly activated a killer move that generated a lot of thoughts to accelerate his thinking speed. From his perspective, the world turned into a stand still.

  The situation is simply too dire. He deduced that his master Mizuki did not expect the lightcrystal’s shine to also act as a veil that hides the vilge from pin sight. Now that it was flickering, almost if not all beasts in the periphery are surging towards the vilge, excited as if they were injected with chicken blood.

  But then again, it couldn’t be helped. The circumstances were far from ideal. Mizuki were plunged into an unknown world with his cultivation base rapidly shrinking. All of his ‘wrong’ decisions were the best one he could make based on all the information that he had. It’s just that, the circumstances turned to the worse with each passing decision.

  Processing the information that the wraith has provided, they have found at least tens of thousands Apprentice, 1,148 Official and 14 Lords in the periphery, and they are a threat to the vilge. The wraiths also report the traces of a Legendary lifeform that seemed to have hidden itself around the area, like a mantis stalking a cicada.

  The presence of a Legendary alone is concerning, but according to Mizuki, due to the fact that a Paragon is practically the peak of this world, the Legendary creature might be observing things before it makes any decision. For now, Xuangu Wenren can put this into the back of his mind and focus on the looming threat.

  Of the fourteen Lords, the serpent is counted as the middle-weaker ones, so engaging with it is truly an unwise move, but still, even if he can resurrect all of the Immortal Soldiers, each of them are rank 1 Official. Despite being fully capable of dispatching a Lord, it’ll take time, a resource that he severely cks.

  ‘Master Mizuki has authorized the awakening of the Onmyoji… Either him or Ayumi have considered this scenario.’ Xuangu Wenren decided to trust the Onmyoji to handle the things that he can’t.

  After all, the Onmyoji is one of Mizuki’s Cohorts, and any single one is a rank 4 Paragon powerhouse in their peak. Furthermore, the Onmyoji is the only one who is still a Legend after the pnetfall. Although the difference is only a single major realm, there are things that only Legends can do.

  Now that he decided to tackle this problem strategically, he did not see the Serpent Lord as a problem. Based on his deduction, the Onmyoji might be having problems in killing the first Lord, but he’ll be able to use the Lord’s flesh, blood, and soul as a resource to kill the next one, creating a beneficial feedback loop that will help Mizuki.

  By that logic, the wounded Serpent is weak enough that the Onmyoji can kill it in one move. With its corpse, the Onmyoji can enhance the defenses around the area.

  ‘I should’ve sent the first Immortal Soldier to clear rank 1 hordes instead of deying a Lord… but what’s done is done.’ He made the decision to ignore the rank 2 Lords, leaving it to the Onmyoji. If he can handle the thousands of rank 1 Officials, he could optimize the resource expenditure of the Onmyouji.

  Realspace has resumed its normal timeflow as he deactivated his thought-accelerating killer move.

  His soulfire eyes fred with murderous intent, like twin nterns of the grave. Around him, the field of death left behind by his Pale Scourge Breath stirred. As he unleashed his radiation and galvanized his soul essence, biological tissues calcified, and high energy minerals turned into fossils. Fragments of bone dust and ash, splinters of chitin, ossified roots of once-living dark trees, all slowly drawn into the air by a silent command. They howled, not from wind, but from the echo of the lives they once belonged to.

  The remains gathered like vultures to carrion, twisting in unnatural choreography. They did not merely assemble, they offered themselves, dragged by a will of genocide. Vertebrae locked with femurs, skulls split and reformed into gears, ribs slotted into rails like the limbs of a long-dead war machine. A bsphemous monument took shape—a towering artillery engine, its surface pulsing with bck marrow and death runes.

  “Rank 2 bone-path killer move, [Death by Ossuary Bombardment]!”

  With a thunderous groan of white marrow vapor and bck soul essence, the construct came to life. From its spinal silos, grotesque bone missiles, rune-etched pilrs dripping with necrotic energies unched skyward. Each one carried calcification radiation, soul poison, or concentrated white phosphorus, destruction tailored to torment flesh and spirit alike. They unched in waves, not merely to kill, but to defile their corpse into an instrument to continue Xuangu Wenren’s sughter.

  So-sama