The being lying within the coffin was soon revealed. It was an elderly man.

A gaping hole ran straight through his abdomen, while thick black blood continuously seeped from the wound. By all logic, the man should have been dead long ago.

Yet the ancestor of the Undead King Sect had apparently completed his transformation. He had succeeded in turning himself into a living corpse.

In a sense, he had managed to revive himself.

Yet, as Chen Xuan stared into those glowing green eyes and saw only hunger and savagery, he immediately realized something:

This man had both succeeded and failed.

Succeeded because he had indeed "revived" after his death. Failed because the consciousness inhabiting that body was no longer the same one that had entered the coffin.

If Chen Xuan were still living in his previous world, there would be only a single word to describe the creature before him: a zombie!

Regardless of his thoughts, time did not stop.

As the zombie slowly rose to its feet, the entire chamber began to tremble.

Cracks spread across the stone floor like spiderwebs. Within moments, they raced along the walls and ceiling, extending far beyond the chamber itself.

The entire underground cave shook violently, as though an earthquake was taking place.

Chen Xuan, however, had no time to concern himself with that.

The zombie had grown restless.

Its green-glowing eyes locked onto Chen Xuan and Su Tianyi’s figures before it stretched out its hand.

The black nails at its fingertips glimmered coldly in the darkness, making it look particularly eerie.

Yet, the power hidden within them was even more terrifying.

A chill crawled down Chen Xuan’s spine. His intuition screamed in warning, instantly confirming his earlier judgment and Su Tianyi’s words.

The creature truly possessed Soul Formation-level strength.

Immediately, he moved to evade.

The Common Saber appeared in his hand, and he was prepared to slash upward, intending to carve a path through the chamber and toward the surface.

But to his surprise, someone moved even faster.

Although Su Tianyi’s strength was weaker and she radiated an aura at only the Early Stage of the Nascent Soul realm, her reaction was astonishingly swift.

It was almost as if she had anticipated this exact situation.

The golden scepter in her hand shone brightly. A pillar of golden light erupted and blasted a massive hole through the cave ceiling.

The next moment, her body transformed into a streak of light and shot through the small opening.

Seeing this, Chen Xuan immediately understood her intentions.

He paused for a brief moment, hesitating on whether to strike the ceiling or not.

But a moment later, he made his decision.

Lowering the saber, he gritted his teeth and chased after her. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Both figures had soon disappeared from the chamber.

Only then did the zombie’s attack arrive. It contained no Spiritual Energy and was not accompanied by any other spell.

This attack was performed based solely on its physical body.

Yet the moment its hand descended, the entire chamber collapsed.

Boom! The underground hall exploded into countless fragments.

A deep growl echoed.

Amid the dust and rubble, a pair of glowing green eyes peeked out.

The zombie slowly turned its head.

It first looked deeper into the cave, where it could sense several other sources of vitality. Several disciples of the Undead King Sect remained hidden within the tunnels.

However, the creature quickly lost interest. Those lives were too weak.

Compared to a killing handful of insignificant cultivators, slaughtering two Nascent Soul experts looked far more appealing—and nutritious.

Driven entirely by instinct, it gave chase.

--

When Chen Xuan burst through the surface, the familiar scenery of Dread Forest greeted him once more.

This time, however, he had no intention of moving cautiously.

The moment he emerged from the cavern, he soared into the sky, appearing hundreds of feet into the sky.

At first glance, it appeared as though he had escaped the danger lurking underground.

However, Chen Xuan understood that this was merely an illusion.

The oppressive gaze fixed upon his back had never disappeared, and the overwhelming aura continued approaching rapidly from below.

Chen Xuan’s expression darkened.

That woman must have a screw loose in her head.

Otherwise, who would deliberately release a Soul Formation monster?

Upon that thought, Chen Xuan’s face turned ugly.

He ignored the aura below him and raised his head, only to see a golden streak racing through the sky several hundred feet away.

It was Su Tianyi.

She paid no attention to either Chen Xuan or the zombie pursuing them.

Instead, she poured Spiritual Energy into her scepter and fled at full speed.

Clearly, this had been the woman’s plan all along. Or at least, from the moment Chen Xuan appeared in the chamber and killed Elder Xia.

By releasing the zombie and having them fight each other, she could take the opportunity to escape.

As for why she hadn’t simply attacked him with the golden scepter?

Chen Xuan judged that this magic weapon could only launch such a powerful attack once.

Su Tianyi had been unwilling to gamble everything on killing him and instead chose to create chaos.

Within moments, Chen Xuan pieced together the entire scheme.

He had to admit that this woman was quite quick-witted.

After all, from the moment he appeared to the moment she escaped, only a few minutes had passed.

To devise such a plan under those circumstances was no simple feat. She truly deserved to be a member of the Holy Fire Cult.

Unfortunately for her, Chen Xuan had no intention of letting things proceed so smoothly.

Watching her figure pull farther away, he suddenly stopped. An ordinary black saber appeared in his hand, and Spiritual Energy poured into its blade.

Then, he swung it forward.

The attack ignored both time and space. It appeared directly above Su Tianyi’s head, aiming to kill it.

"You... What are you doing?" she gritted her teeth and uttered, as she raised the golden scepter to meet the attack.

Boom!

The golden color cut off the strike.

But just as she was about to resume her flight, her expression froze.

A terrifying devouring force had descended upon her.

As though an invisible hand had seized her body and was controlling it, she shot through the air in the opposite direction from which she wished to go.

Rather than fleeing toward the edge of Dread Forest, she was pulled directly back toward its center.

Back toward Chen Xuan and the terrifying zombie.

Her eyes immediately turned icy.

Looking at the culprit behind this sudden shift—the black vortex in Chen Xuan’s hand—Su Tianyi grew murderous.

Killing intent flashed in her eyes, and she looked ready to attack him. But just then, Chen Xuan interrupted her.

He chuckled and casually pointed downward to the place where the aura was currently coming from.

"Your attention should not be on me. This guy appears not to have eaten for a very long time."

"Judging by its actions, it seems that it has regarded us as today’s meal."