These old foxes! Each more cunning than the last, each better at hiding!
Jiang Chen cursed inwardly.
He was curled up by the side entrance, but his gaze never left the main hall.
So he could clearly see the corpse of Tian Yong rise to its feet.
What was this?
Reanimation?
Or another refined zombie?
But the voice was powerful, full of vigor.
Chanting "It's a capital crime — your heart is irredeemable," the corpse-like features gradually faded.
Stiff flesh softened. Blue-black receded. Color returned.
The heart beat. Blood and vital energy surged.
In the blink of an eye, Tian Yong transformed from a corpse back to the state Jiang Chen had first seen upon entering the hall.
The moment Tian Yong shed his zombie state and spoke, the cowled zombie whipped around and lunged, its fingernails extending into razor claws.
But Tian Yong was faster. The cowled zombie had barely turned when Tian Yong's palm was already pressed against the crown of Zhao Fangyuan's skull.
He had chosen this moment — while Zhao Fangyuan was directing the zombie to kill Lian Que — to strike, exploiting the time gap, catching Zhao Fangyuan completely off guard.
The cowled zombie froze mid-charge.
Zhao Fangyuan stared at Tian Yong in terror: "Someone else refined a zombie? No — you're not a zombie!"
Realization hit him like a thunderbolt: "The killing intent erosion was your doing! All of this — your scheme!"
*Thump.*
A muffled sound.
Zhao Fangyuan's head showed no outward signs of damage at first. But moments later, blood seeped from his eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears.
The entire interior of his skull had been reduced to pulp.
Tian Yong glanced at the half-formed hand seal that had dissolved before it could be completed, and smiled with contempt.
Zhao Fangyuan was indeed skilled at performance, but Tian Yong was no careless fool.
From the very beginning, he had faked his death.
No — he had truly died once.
Because without truly dying, he couldn't have deceived Ji Xiu of the Eastern King Valley. And Ji Xiu's Nine-Death Poison, using his corpse as a medium, wouldn't have succeeded either.
He had used some secret technique to genuinely "die" — and then revive at this precise moment.
Because he had truly "died," the Nine-Death Poison itself had no effect on him.
And the only truth was this: he was the one who had set up the killing intent erosion.
He had been the second to enter Dragon Palace Number Four. The moment he arrived, he had conceived his plan — first sending Jiang Chen to search the side hall, then secretly inscribing most of the array runes himself.
Once all the cultivators in the Dragon Palace had assembled and confirmed no more would come, he guided them to search different areas with the same preamble.
Then he returned to the main hall, completed the final stroke of the array, and screamed to draw everyone back — immediately "dying" to remove himself from the equation.
His death was the perfect frame against Lian Que. All he had to do then was wait for the competition to slaughter each other.
Once everyone had lost control and killed their rivals, he would "revive" and sweep up the remains. Effortless. The victory would be his.
This was his entire plan.
And now, he had succeeded.
Though there had been some complications — none of the competitors in the Celestial Secret Realm were weak.
But the final outcome had unfolded exactly as he had envisioned.
He had almost succeeded.
The reason it was only "almost" — was Jiang Chen.
...
After killing Zhao Fangyuan, Tian Yong wasted no time. He smeared the blood from Zhao Fangyuan's face, condensed it into an arrow, and flicked it straight at Lian Que.
With this upheaval, Lian Que's blood qi had counterattacked to his lips. But the sudden blood-arrow attack forced him to pause his battle against the death aura, shifting his body to avoid the vital area.
The blood arrow pierced clean through his abdomen. The death aura surged back up to his nose.
But Lian Que didn't even cry out in pain. He simply persisted, fighting the death aura with unwavering determination.
From Ji Xiu to Zhao Fangyuan, and now to Tian Yong — blood qi and death aura had seesawed across his face again and again. Every time he won back a sliver of hope, it was immediately snatched away.
Anyone else would have long since despaired.
But Lian Que showed not the slightest inclination to give up. It was as if he didn't know what the word meant.
And while Tian Yong pressed his lethal attack and Lian Que struggled to survive, Jiang Chen exploded into motion like a flood dragon leaping skyward.
He crossed half the hall in an instant, his fist smashing down toward Tian Yong's head.
This was something Tian Yong had never anticipated.
Because if Jiang Chen still had the power to fight, then why hadn't he acted at any of the earlier opportunities?
When Tian Yong had moved to eliminate his opponents as a precaution, he had instinctively targeted Lian Que first — precisely because of his assessment of the situation.
The more intelligent a person was, the more they trusted their own judgment.
It was confidence accumulated from countless correct decisions, countless victories.
Now, that confidence had doomed him.
Tian Yong spun and threw a punch, meeting fist to fist.
But halfway through, Jiang Chen shifted from fist to palm. In his palm, a flame blossom bloomed.
Using his extraordinary aerial control, Jiang Chen hovered in midair as the flame blossom shot forward, colliding with Tian Yong's fist.
*Boom!*
The entire fist was blown away.
Amid Tian Yong's uncontrollable scream, Jiang Chen's palm descended again.
Tian Yong gritted his teeth and swung his remaining left fist to intercept.
Jiang Chen retracted his hand, avoiding the fist's peak force, then lunged forward — gripping it, and twisting violently!
Starting from the point of contact, Tian Yong's entire left arm erupted in sequential bursts of muscle and blood.
Bones cracked and splintered.
Jiang Chen used the momentum to yank Tian Yong toward him, driving his knee upward.
The knee strike launched Tian Yong's entire body skyward, slamming him into a palace pillar.
Jiang Chen flipped backward to the ground.
Tian Yong slid down the pillar. His internal organs had been obliterated by the knee strike — dead beyond any doubt.
How tragic. A lifetime of learning — the Daze Tian clan's techniques and secret arts, even his killing intent manipulation — all of it, wasted. He never got to use any of it.
In terms of complete combat readiness, compared to the post-fake-death Tian Yong, Jiang Chen was the one who had maintained the most pristine fighting condition throughout!
Tian Yong had made only one mistake today — about one person.
And that was the cause of his death.
Jiang Chen stood alone in the hall. The other cultivators who had competed for this Dragon Palace were all dead. Only Lian Que remained on the ground, dying.
Kill him, and the Inner Palace divine skill opportunity would be his.
Killing him would be easy — he wouldn't even need to draw his sword. A single flame blossom would suffice.
But Jiang Chen didn't even glance at him. Instead, he resumed searching the hall — not looting the bodies, but looking for clues to the opportunity, afraid he might have missed something.
The cultivators who had entered the Celestial Secret Realm certainly possessed valuable items. But within the realm's rules, those items were useless. Any single corpse's remains could make Jiang Chen fabulously wealthy overnight.
But he couldn't take any of them.
Though nothing would be remembered after leaving the Celestial Secret Realm, those "relics" were unmistakable evidence.
If he took any item, it meant he had killed its owner. No one would give him a chance to explain.
Even though killing within the Celestial Secret Realm was something everyone tacitly accepted — once outside, no one would admit it.
Because nations needed rules. Humanity needed rules. This world needed rules.
Jiang Chen didn't make a move, but Lian Que spoke first.
"You're not going to kill me?"
The death aura had been forced below his neck, so he could just barely sustain conversation.
Jiang Chen was examining the pattern on a screen, trying to uncover some hidden secret. He replied absently: "You weren't going to kill me. Why should I kill you?"
It was a perfectly reasonable statement.
But Lian Que froze for an instant, then shouted in outrage as though he had been deeply insulted: "At a time like this, in a place like this — who are you pretending to be? The magnanimous saint? If you're going to kill me, just do it! I, Lian Que, won't even furrow my brow. But spare me those disgusting mind games!"
"Disgusting mind games? What do you mean?" Jiang Chen's eyes were practically pressed against the dragon painting, but he still hadn't found any clues.
He continued casually: "Skinning? Tendon-pulling? Starting from the tips of your toes and slow-roasting over a small flame? Growing grass in your nostrils?"
With each suggestion, Lian Que's eyes widened further.
And on that grotesque face, already a battleground between crimson and gray, a third color appeared — deathly pale.