In the very center of the Blood Cult’s encampment stood a crimson tent, dazzling in its splendor.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of blood—a forbidden sanctuary reeking of death and incense.

Only the cult’s priestesses and a few subdued women were ever permitted to enter this tent. Within it now unfolded a scene that could only be described as strange.

Crimson silk rippled across the bed like waves, and atop it lay a naked woman, her eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed, like an empty shell from which the soul had fled.

Her body did not move, her pale lips were colorless, and her pupils—barely visible—were fixed in lifeless stillness.

If anyone had witnessed the sight and asked, “Is she dead?” that would have been a foolish mistake.

She was very much alive.

Her chest rose and fell slowly but rhythmically, proving that breath still flowed through her body.

On her skin, written densely in her own blood, were strange incantations—lines of a forbidden sutra that anyone even slightly knowledgeable about the occult would have recognized in terror.

They were the words of a ritual that sacrificed a living woman as an offering.

Only silence reigned inside the tent.

Then, just as the lamp burning above her head suddenly flickered and went out—

The naked woman lying on the bed gasped as if bursting through suffocation and opened her eyes.

“Ghhk—!”

The whites vanished, replaced by pupils as red as blood.

From the center of her chest, beneath the skin, a fist-sized crimson gem began to glow, spilling out a pulsating scarlet light.

It wasn’t a mere ornament.

It beat like a living heart, pumping out waves of bloody aura with each throb.

As she struggled to sit up, panting heavily, another woman in the tent hurried toward her in shock and supported her.

“Blood Demon, wh-what happened!? You’ve moved bodies!? Don’t tell me—a Life-and-Death Realm expert from the Central Plains!?”

The body in which the Blood Demon had opened his eyes was merely a temporary vessel—a shadow of his true self.

Once, the Blood Demon had nearly lost his life to the Heavenly Demon, and the terror of that moment had made him create this substitute body before this battle began.

He had chosen one of the women born with excellent “blood aptitude,” and after years of secret preparation, turned her into a vessel.

In case his true body was destroyed, the fragment of his soul tied to a Blood Crystal would be drawn into this woman by a blood-engraved curse.

However, this body was nothing more than a mortal shell with no martial cultivation.

Though her potential was sky-high, her blood channels had yet to ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) be opened.

The fact that the Blood Demon had shifted into this body meant that his true form had been utterly annihilated.

The priestess, unaware of what had happened outside, asked in panic, but the Blood Demon only ground his teeth, rage rising like a flame.

“That damned bird! H-how dare she!”

“Bird...?”

At his furious shout, the priestess blinked in confusion.

Then, the Blood Crystal embedded in the woman’s chest dimmed for an instant before glowing again—

A sign that the Blood Crystal was unstable, that the original soul of the body was trying to regain consciousness.

The Blood Demon groaned in agony, clutching his head and chest at once.

“Gaaah!”

“Please, calm yourself! Even if this body holds great potential, it was once an ordinary, healthy woman. Until your soul fully takes root, you must not act rashly!”

If the host body and spirit were both weakened, as had happened with the Lord of the Five Venoms Sect, it was possible to seize the body completely by killing the original soul.

But that only worked with vessels containing inner power of at least the Flower Realm or higher. This was different—an untrained human body.

If the host soul died, the body would perish with it. To fully transplant the soul required long, painstaking work.

Even though he had prepared rituals and medicine in advance, if anything went wrong, he could fail to possess the body and be expelled back into the Blood Crystal.

So, until the possession was complete, he needed to be careful.

Just then, a strange sound began to echo from far away.

Doo-doo-doo-doo.

Like the beating of many drums—

But the vibration that shook the ground made it clear: those were not drums.

They were hooves.

Countless horses were pounding the earth, and the sound rumbling in her chest made the Blood Demon realize something was terribly wrong.

Because horses could not be raised in the southern lands—meaning an army with so many of them could only belong to the enemy.

The Blood Demon shouted urgently.

“What is this!? Find out what’s happening outside!”

As the priestess turned to leave, shouts from the warriors outside erupted.

They were the Blood Cult soldiers stationed to guard the camp and protect the shell that housed the Blood Demon.

“It’s—it’s the Iron Cavalry! The Imperial Iron Cavalry of the Golden Army!”

“Iron Cavalry!?”

Not understanding what that meant, the Blood Demon looked to the priestess. She ran back toward him, wiping the blood from his body as she cried out.

“You—you must flee at once! The Iron Cavalry of the Central Plains—those men are like celestial immortals to martial artists! Even first-rate warriors can’t pierce the armor forged of Cold Iron—they say it turns tigers into rabbits before them! They’re the Emperor’s personal army!”

“Damn it all!”

Cold Iron—the same metal used to forge the strongest blades.

If their armor was made from that, then indeed, even high-level martial artists would be powerless against them.

The leaders of the Blood Cult who had stood at the front lines were already dead, annihilated by Zimjo.

Almost no commanders remained, and now that he had fallen into this weak body, the outcome of this war was already decided.

Quickly, the Blood Demon wiped the blood-written curses from his skin with a damp cloth and, with the priestess’s help, put on the plain clothes of an ordinary Central Plains woman.

He erased every trace of blood and donned the mask of a mortal.

“I’ll have to run.”

It was another humiliating situation—but that didn’t matter.

As long as he could survive by any means, the Blood Cult could always be revived.

Like flames rising again from the ashes—

If the ember, the Blood Demon himself, lived on, the Blood Cult could rise again at any time.

He was just stepping out of the tent, about to flee toward the rear, when—

The priestess looked back and shouted in panic.

“The front-line troops are already being wiped out!”

He had assumed there would be plenty of time to escape.

Even after losing nearly ten thousand to that bird, Zimjo, another ten thousand had arrived overnight.

No matter how strong a cavalry charge might be, once corpses piled up, their speed would have to slow down.

After all, horses needed solid ground to run; once the terrain was clogged with bodies, their charge would falter.

But the army was collapsing far faster than expected.

He had thought the fifty thousand remaining could at least hold for a while—but behind the cavalry came waves of Imperial troops and martial artists of every color, and behind them—spirit beasts.

The Blood Cult soldiers were breaking ranks and fleeing, their formation shattered.

A massive turtle crashed through their lines, and a roaring creature—Hoja—grabbed soldiers from the rear ranks and hurled them over the front lines like dolls.

The Blood Cult couldn’t even dream of proper resistance.

“Aaaargh!”

“Spare me—!”

And that wasn’t all.

From above, the centipedes rained down deadly venom, melting warriors into sludge, and the toads that had appeared from nowhere spat flames that set men ablaze.

From the riverbank, the twin-headed serpents and the black-and-white snakes surged forth, imbued with inner energy, crushing and impaling the soldiers.

The Blood Cult’s men melted into meat and blood, vanishing without even leaving corpses behind.

“So... once I’m gone, the spirit beasts run wild.”

The spirit beasts had remained restrained only under the Blood Demon’s control. Now, with him reduced to such a pitiful state, they rampaged freely—and his army fell like straw before the scythe.

It was clear he wouldn’t be able to escape like this. So he decided to gamble.

He would pretend to be one of the captive women brought in by the Blood Cult.

The Blood Demon always preferred the blood of virgins.

It had no impurity and overflowed with life force, perfect for strengthening his cultivation.

Thus, around his tent were always women captured from the Central Plains, kept in preparation for sacrifice. Now he would act as one of them.

He shouted to the priestess,

“We can’t run like this. If we try, we’ll be caught for sure.”

“Th-then what should we do?”

“The women captured from the Dai Viet campaign—those Central Plains women—hide among them.”

“Hide among them!?”

“Yes. We’ll disguise ourselves as ordinary women and flee deep into the Central Plains. There, we’ll lie low and rebuild.”

“Understood!”

The two slipped in among the stunned, enslaved women whose minds had been sealed, blending into the group.

They would feign helplessness until they could sneak into the Central Plains again, where they would start anew.

It was a dangerous gamble, but as long as the Blood Crystal in his chest wasn’t exposed, no one would think to strip a captive woman naked.

The spirit beasts and cavalry would slaughter every last remaining cultist, turning the area near the Beast Palace into a vast graveyard.

The two of them lay down among the dazed women, wearing the same vacant expressions.

***

Just in case, my sister and I cloaked ourselves and landed above the tent where the Blood Demon was said to be hiding.

He was of the Life-and-Death Realm, but since he was my prey, I intended to ambush him quickly and finish it cleanly.

Sshh— 『He’s in there!』

At Sister Jeokwol’s words, I spread my energy outward to scan inside. I sensed the presence of women—many of them—but something was off.

‘Huh? That’s strange.’

It wasn’t just that the women couldn’t move, lumped together like discarded dolls—that was strange enough, but not the main issue.

The biggest problem was this:

Even though my sister said the Blood Demon was inside, I couldn’t feel any aura of a high-level martial artist.

No matter how well a master concealed their energy, at my level it was impossible to hide from me.

A cultivator’s qi interacted with heaven and earth—its trace couldn’t be completely erased.

Every internal technique formed a dantian that breathed with nature itself; that breath left a clear signature.

All martial arts, however different in method or efficiency, shared that same fundamental link.

So there was no way to hide one’s realm from me anymore.

By now, just seeing someone was enough for me to sense their level—and inside that tent, there was only one woman with the energy of a first-rate martial artist.

『“Sister, are you sure?”』

Ssshh. 『Yes, over there. I can smell a strong blood scent from her chest.』

She pointed toward a corner.

And strangely enough, it wasn’t where the first-rate martial woman was.

『“That’s odd...”』

“What’s wrong, Master?”

“Well, Sister Jeokwol says the Blood Demon is over there, but the woman she’s pointing to hasn’t cultivated at all. She’s an ordinary person.”

I spoke in confusion, and a moment later Gun Hye-rin shouted,

『“Master! Her body might have melted and she could’ve transferred to a weaker vessel. The Blood Art can move soul and spirit, but martial cultivation resides in the flesh. If she changed bodies, her realm would’ve dropped.”』

“Really?”

That made sense. My senses weren’t mistaken—so if Hye-rin was right, then the Blood Demon had become... a mere mortal.

I couldn’t help but smirk. All the better.

『“Kids, help out those uncles over there. Anyone in red clothes—beat them up. Everyone else, come out and lend a hand.”』

If the Blood Demon had turned into an ordinary person, nothing could stop the children.

So first, we’d clear out the rest of the Blood Cult soldiers; the Blood Demon could wait.

This was the final act of the faction that had plagued the martial world for decades—it wouldn’t be fair for me to take all the fun.

Ssslither. 『Got it, Dad.』

Pii! 『Baap?』

Kishit. 『Understood, Brother.』

At my request, the children swarmed out, mercilessly butchering the remaining cultists.

About an hour later, the only ones left were those who had been human.

We’d deliberately spared the tent where the Blood Demon lay, so now we dragged the captives out of the intact tent.

It was time for the public execution to begin.