Translator: Cinder Translations
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Not long after Cheng Ruida exited seclusion, some mortals in the Cheng family fell ill with a strange disease, resulting in nearly a thousand deaths in just a few hours.
Cheng Ruida informed the clan members that this was a highly contagious plague. The bodies of the deceased clan members had to be taken far away from the family's location to be burned and buried, to prevent the plague from spreading further.
Although there were many unreasonable aspects to Cheng Ruida's claims, no one dared to question or refute him, intimidated by his authority within the clan.
All the bodies of the deceased were collected by Cheng Ruida using his storage ring.
As for how the bodies were disposed of, no one knew.
After the bodies were taken away, the strange illness suddenly ceased.
Half a month later, just as the Cheng family members began to recover from their sorrow, the illness flared up once more, resulting in mass deaths among the clan.
This time, over three thousand people died, including several dozen early-stage Qi Refining cultivators.
A huge panic erupted throughout the Cheng family.
Various rumors spread.
Some said the family had been cursed, while others claimed enemies had come to seek revenge...
Many mortals in the Cheng family wished to move out to live elsewhere.
Under the suppression led by Cheng Ruida and a group of cultivators, such voices quickly vanished.
In the following two or three days, the Cheng family did not experience any more large-scale deaths. However, the family was still far from peaceful, with clan members frequently going missing for no apparent reason.
About four days ago, Cheng Han, who had already reached the completion stage of Qi Refining but struggled to break through to Foundation Establishment, received a precious Foundation Establishment pill from Cheng Ruida.
Cheng Ruida granted this Foundation Establishment pill to Cheng Han with one condition.
Cheng Han had to willingly open his consciousness and allow Cheng Ruida to plant a Soul Lock Curse; from then on, his life would be controlled by Cheng Ruida.
Although reluctant, for the sake of breaking through to Foundation Establishment, gaining greater power, and a longer lifespan, Cheng Han chose to submit.
After Cheng Han successfully established his Foundation, Cheng Ruida revealed to him the truth behind the deaths and disappearances in the Cheng family.
It turned out that Cheng Ruida had obtained a secret technique in an ancient ruin, known as the "Blood Curse Technique."
This was a vicious blood technique generally used against enemies with deep-seated grudges.
When the caster used the Blood Curse Technique on an enemy, the cursed person would lose their sanity, slaughter their own kin, and devour their flesh and blood.
The more family members the cursed individual consumed, the stronger they would become.
To cast the Blood Curse Technique, one required the essence blood of the enemy's relatives as a medium.
As the head of a family under the Beastmaster Sect, Cheng Ruida had some knowledge of the beast-taming arts.
Upon acquiring the Blood Curse Technique, he thought of another use for it.
He decided to use the Blood Curse Technique to rapidly cultivate a powerful spirit beast.
Thus, he captured a Qi Refining stage nine spirit monkey and, using the essence blood of his own clan members as a medium, cast the Blood Curse Technique on the spirit monkey.
Cheng Ruida attempted the technique three times in total.
In the first attempt, he captured five ordinary clan members, killing them to extract their blood.
However, the amount of essence blood was too little, leading to the failure of the Blood Curse Technique.
Cheng Ruida speculated that the differences between beasts and humans might account for the varying requirements of essence blood for casting the technique.
He then proceeded to the second attempt.
This time, he killed over a thousand ordinary clan members.
As he expected, with an ample supply of essence blood, the Blood Curse Technique succeeded.
However, not long after, the spirit monkey died inexplicably.
It was as if the beast's body had rejected the Blood Curse Technique, causing the technique to forcibly destroy the spirit monkey's body.
Unwilling to give up, Cheng Ruida decided to make one final attempt.
In the third attempt to cast the Blood Curse Technique, he killed over three thousand clan members.
This time, the spell was exceptionally successful.
Even the physical structure of the spirit monkey was completely transformed by the Blood Curse Technique, turning it into the current form—a blood demon that was a hybrid of a monkey and a bat.
The newly born blood demon wasn't particularly strong, possessing only the strength of a Qi Refining stage nine.
To prevent the blood demon from being hunted down by unaware members of the Cheng family, Cheng Ruida fed the blood demon for two days.
During this time, Cheng Ruida would feed it spirit stones, medicinal pills, and the blood of Cheng family members.
After two days, the blood demon advanced to the Foundation Establishment stage.
The blood demon began to hunt on its own.
From then on, the difficulties faced by the Cheng family intensified.
The blood demon rampaged, slaughtering Cheng family members, causing their numbers to dwindle rapidly.
Once the blood demon advanced to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, showing signs of maturity, Cheng Ruida knew he could no longer ignore it.
He reported to the Beastmaster Sect that there were demons causing chaos within the Cheng family and requested that they send an alchemist to assist in exterminating the demon.
Most of the remaining cultivators in the Cheng family were aware of Cheng Ruida's actions in raising the blood demon, but the ordinary clan members were kept in the dark.
Moreover, during the time the blood demon was wreaking havoc, many ordinary members of the Cheng family wanted to escape, but they were poisoned and controlled by Cheng Ruida.
Those poisoned had to take an antidote every five days; otherwise, they would endure unbearable itching, ultimately scratching themselves to death.
Song Wen learned from Cheng Han's memories that Cheng Ruida had once promised Cheng Han that when the Cheng family had recuperated and their population recovered, he would help Cheng Han cultivate a blood demon as well.
Cheng Han had also studied the "Blood Curse Technique," which was noted to originate from the Divine Blood Gate.
After devouring Cheng Han's essence blood and soul, Song Wen stored his body in his storage ring.
At this moment, three Sacred Gu arrived, bringing along three individuals—two dead and one alive.
These three had just witnessed the process of Song Wen slaying Cheng Han.
The two who died were Cheng Wu and Cheng Qi, who had been monitoring Song Wen.
The one captured alive was Qiu Lu.
"Senior Wu, please don't kill me," Qiu Lu said tremblingly.
Song Wen wore a cold smirk.
"Miss Qiu Lu, the esteemed daughter of the Cheng family, actually disguising herself as a servant—what a shame."
Song Wen learned about Qiu Lu's identity from Cheng Han's memories.
Qiu Lu had no spiritual root, rendering her incapable of cultivation, and her status in the Cheng family should have been very low.
However, coming from a family of cultivators and being the daughter of the family head, she was dissatisfied with the mundane life of a mortal and yearned for powerful abilities and a higher status.
Unable to cultivate herself, she had to rely on powerful cultivators.
Thus, Qiu Lu used her beauty as leverage, mingling among the cultivators of the Cheng family and employing her clever mind to quickly secure a place for herself.
She also became another means through which Cheng Ruida controlled the cultivators of the Cheng family.
Upon having her identity exposed by Song Wen, Qiu Lu looked terrified.
"Senior Wu, I can be your servant, I—"
Song Wen was too lazy to listen to her nonsense, using his spiritual power to wrap her up and fly toward the underground cave.
In the ruins Cheng Ruida visited, there were clues related to the Divine Blood Gate.
Song Wen was determined to obtain this segment of memory from Cheng Ruida.
On the way to the underground cave, Song Wen effortlessly devoured the essence blood and souls of Qiu Lu and the two others, also storing their bodies away.
TL: I frickin' love this MC
(End of the Chapter)
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