Ji Xiu's eyes went wide in an instant, filled with disbelief.
"A zombie?" The Eastern King Valley's secret art clung to his life force as he murmured: "No... impossible. A zombie couldn't have passed the screening and entered the Celestial Secret Realm."
His first thought was of the cowled cultivator.
The man's voice had been chillingly devoid of warmth.
Now that he thought about it, that could only mean zombie.
So even though he had driven a silver needle into the zombie's heart, the man had remained "alive" — because a zombie was already dead. The heart was not its weak point.
But how could a zombie have deceived the powerful cultivators outside the Full Moon Gate? How could it have passed the screening to enter the Celestial Secret Realm?
If it could do all that, it shouldn't have been limited to this level of power.
"Of course it couldn't."
Zhao Fangyuan's voice came from behind him.
The pain of his wounds forced him to pause before continuing: "Because he was turned into a zombie after entering the Celestial Secret Realm."
So the cowled cultivator had been under his control all along — in this competition for the Dragon Palace's opportunity, Zhao Fangyuan had held two combatants in his hand. And he had acted from beginning to end.
When the cowled man had stood motionless earlier, it was because he had accidentally been caught by the killing intent erosion. A zombie without its master's control simply couldn't move.
The others, fighting to resist the hidden manipulator's scheme, had unknowingly saved him.
And when Zhao Fangyuan barely survived, his very first act upon regaining consciousness was to direct the zombie in a continued performance.
Such cunning!
That was how he had earned this chance to turn the tide.
He had appeared utterly harmless, but he had never lost the ability to fight back.
His injuries were real. The killing intent erosion had truly affected him.
But the zombie he had refined still retained its full combat power.
The moment he realized he had been affected again, he immediately had the zombie play dead — all for this sudden strike.
And of course, he hadn't done it to save Jiang Chen. This was simply the optimal moment to act.
Angle, position, timing — all perfect.
He had eliminated Ji Xiu of the Eastern King Valley — the greatest threat present — in a single blow.
At any other moment, with Ji Xiu on guard, he could never have succeeded so easily.
Zhao Fangyuan's voice carried a note of triumph: "They say 'no one survives the Nine-Death Poison,' but if I kill you, the poison should be cured, right?"
"Yes..." Ji Xiu murmured.
He felt the rigid, cold hand slowly withdrawing from his body.
As a cultivator of the Eastern King Valley, he could perceive the departure of life with exquisite clarity.
That steady, inexorable draining — bit by bit.
Why had he taken up medicine in the first place?
Wasn't it because he had witnessed the inexorable departure of life and wanted to save something?
But what had he saved? he asked himself.
A small white hand seemed to wave before his eyes.
"Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!"
That voice spoke.
Ji Xiu struggled to lift his eyelids, but could not raise them again.
"What a... pity..."
The zombie withdrew its arm. Ji Xiu collapsed.
...
With Ji Xiu's death, the Nine-Death Poison lost its anchor. The death aura became rootless.
As long as the poisoned could hold on, the Nine-Death Poison would gradually dissipate.
This was the moment Zhao Fangyuan would not waste.
He wouldn't race the others to purge the poison — because the zombie he had risked everything to refine upon entering the Dragon Palace still possessed complete combat power.
For this zombie, he had nearly exhausted every trump card, creating it in secret without anyone noticing.
The result proved his choice was beyond correct — it had utterly reversed his defeat, making him the sole claimant to the opportunity.
Whatever it was, however it appeared — with all his opponents dead, it would naturally be his.
And the first person he needed to kill was Lian Que.
Because his wounds were the work of this Chiyang Lian clan brat. And Lian Que was incredibly tenacious — the gray on his face had already receded below his nose.
He would likely be the first to purge the Nine-Death Poison. So he had to die first.
The zombie had no consciousness, controlled entirely by Zhao Fangyuan's will.
When it turned toward Lian Que—
Lian Que immediately cursed: "Zhao Fangyuan, you actually learned the corpse-refining art! Aren't you afraid of the Three Punishments Palace? It's a capital crime — your heart is irredeemable!"
The Three Punishments Palace was the holy land of legalism, enforcing the law across all under heaven.
Refining living people into zombies — once discovered, the Three Punishments Palace would pursue the perpetrator to the ends of the earth.
If the matter escalated, even the Four Seas Trade Association might be implicated.
The moment Lian Que opened his mouth to curse, the crimson on his face wavered, and the gray line advanced.
He immediately shut his mouth, focusing entirely on resisting the death aura's encroachment.
Even with things this dire, he refused to give up.
Before the zombie reached him — just a little more effort, a little more.
With his last reserves of strength, he would unleash one final scorching burst.
He closed his mouth and stared at the zombie, silently waiting for the final moment.
Zhao Fangyuan smiled. He had no intention of responding — it was merely the howl of a beaten dog.
Within the Celestial Secret Realm, even the laws of Qi couldn't reach here, let alone the Three Punishments Palace.
He had obtained the corpse-refining art and kept it carefully hidden, never revealing it. Even on the rare occasions he used it, he stayed far away.
But in the Celestial Secret Realm, using it openly in front of everyone — so what?
Once they left the realm, who would remember?
No — they would all be dead.
This Lian Que was laughably stupid.
"You're right. To dare learn the corpse-refining art..."
A voice picked up where Lian Que had left off: "It's a capital crime — your heart is irredeemable!"
That voice...
Jiang Chen's fingers twitched.
His heart lurched.
He had been prepared to draw his sword the moment Ji Xiu approached.
For greater certainty, he had deliberately endured, waiting until the last moment before death — only then would Ji Xiu be most off-guard, giving him the best chance of a decapitating strike.
But he hadn't expected Zhao Fangyuan's zombie to beat him to it.
So he was forced to continue playing the role of a gasping, near-dead man, waiting for his chance.
Playing near-death for this long was somewhat suspicious. But in this situation, no one was paying attention.
Ji Xiu and Zhao Fangyuan — one couldn't say who was more sinister.
These two — one used a corpse as a medium to deploy the Nine-Death Poison; the other directly refined a competitor into a zombie for a sinister reversal. Beyond strength and strategy, luck had played a significant role as well.
Both made Jiang Chen's spine chill with cold sweat.
He reflected — if he hadn't been someone who cared only about the opportunity and harbored no killing intent toward his competitors, he wouldn't have survived the first wave of killing intent erosion.
During the second round of the Nine-Death Poison, if the Nether Candle hadn't detected and absorbed the death aura in time, he wouldn't be in much better shape than Lian Que — just another fish on the cutting board.
And if he hadn't pretended to faint — could he have dodged the zombie's sudden attack?
That question was also quite uncertain.
The greatest danger in the Celestial Secret Realm was not the realm itself, but the people exploring it!
These people, freed from all worldly restraints, with nothing to hold them back.
Now, watching Zhao Fangyuan perform his final cleanup — even though his target wasn't Jiang Chen, making the distance for a sword strike much greater —
He still had to act.
He was ready, and about to act.
But the sudden voice that rang out nearly scared him into internal injuries.
Who the hell was that now?