Cade groaned, forcing open his blood-crusted eyelids. Pain gnawed at every inch of his body, crashing into his mind like a merciless tide. If not for the tolerance he had built up during his time in the coffin, the suffering might have drowned him completely, dragging his sanity down with it.

  “Fu... ck,” he rasped, coughing up red phlegm. His body was coated in a thick layer of stone dust, and the air reeked of blood and burnt meat.

  The jagged wound in the side of his neck throbbed twice as painfully as anything else. He lifted his arms to check its state and, to his relief, found the hole left by the ungodly beam was already closing, with new, tender flesh filling it in.

  “Master, are you alright?” Legion asked, his voice crystal clear in Cade’s mind.

  “Sort of," the Asura fell into another coughing fit, finally clearing the last of the diseased bloody clumps from his throat. At least the beam had spared his voice.

  He sent a pulse of life sense to check on Jade and sighed with relief. Her life signature was weak but stable, showing no signs of further deterioration.

  Cade entered his realm of consciousness and, with the help of his insight, examined his body’s avatar.

  Fortunately, most of his bones had already been pulled back into their correct positions by the powerful life laws governing his physique, and many smaller fractures had mostly fused. His muscles and tendons were likewise knitting themselves back together. His voracious heart was thankfully undamaged, although it was nearly empty.

  Cade traced his red band, bringing out a jug of Rank 3 blood essence, and with a pained grunt, lifted it to his mouth, drinking greedily. The soothing, delicious liquid brought immediate relief bordering on bliss. Sighing, he rested his head on a broken rock and promptly fell asleep.

  He woke up an unknown amount of time later, feeling much better. He managed to lift himself onto all fours, his arms and legs trembling as the rubble beneath him shifted. Everything around him had been devastated by the shockwave. Whatever dilapidated structures had bravely resisted the passage of time for thousands of years were now torn down, with most of the smaller debris reduced to powder.

  He spotted Legion jutting out from a pile of stone rubble beside him and picked it up. Cade frowned. He could have sworn the weapon was marginally brighter and that some of the black rust had flaked off, but the difference was so tiny, it could have been his imagination. He sent the sword into his ring, his gaze turning towards the distant light.

  “Jade…” he started crawling toward her over the mounds of debris.

  It appeared the shockwave had leveled many of the collapsed buildings in the immediate area, but luckily it hadn’t reached the small enclosure where her body lay, as the skeletal walls surrounding the inactive ritual remained standing. Still, Cade felt a pang of guilt. He found himself unable to combat his nature, which had pushed him towards confrontation even though he kept telling himself rescuing Jade was the priority. It was only thanks to sheer luck that she hadn’t died in the explosion.

  Groaning, he pushed himself through one of the empty windows, falling out on the other side and swallowing a chain of curses. He dragged himself toward the lying princess, noting the slow but steady rise and fall of her chest. The bloodstone lay on its side, where it had fallen after Castien’s control over the ritual was interrupted. He sent it into his ring.

  “I’m sorry, Jade. I fucked up,” he whispered, kneeling next to her, focusing on analyzing her life signature in full detail. There were no obvious issues other than the weakness caused by the loss of blood qi. Her foundation was undoubtedly damaged, though probably not very seriously, as her realm hadn't fallen.

  Cade crawled to the nearby wall, resting his back against the dark stone. He gradually ignited his blood qi, pushing it into circulation to speed up his healing. He could only use a minuscule amount at a time, as his tissues weren't ready to bear more.

  A few hours passed before he was finally able to move. Grumbling like an old man, he stood up and ventured out, shuffling his feet in the direction from which the shockwave had originated.

  Let’s see if I can find that arm.

  During their fight, he had noticed a storage ring on Castien’s sword hand, which was then torn away by the post-severing law rebound. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

  He eventually unfurled his ribbon-like wings and rose upward, straining his memory to gauge the approximate area where the limb might have landed.

  According to his timekeeper, it took him more than six hours of sifting through mounds of stone dust and debris to find it. During that time, he constantly checked on Jade, but her condition remained stable.

  The state of the arm surprised him: it appeared half-rotten, as if it had lain there for months, not mere hours. Cade took the golden band encrusted with red gems off the index finger, discarding the decaying limb with disgust.

  He had half-expected Castien’s storage ring to be protected by a spiritual mark, but the space inside was freely accessible. According to his knowledge, a spiritual mark would only disappear on its own under two conditions: either the owner was dead, or they were so far away the connection between their soul and the ring could not be maintained.

  Naturally, Cade immediately dove in, curious what a Death Dao disciple kept in his personal storage.

  The first and most obvious answer was spirit crystals.

  Cade grinned upon viewing the shimmering mountain of faint, blue light in his realm of consciousness. By outer court standards, Castien was filthy rich. The Asura’s cautious estimate placed the number of crystals inside the ring at several hundred thousand—a fortune that would greatly benefit his cultivation.

  Sitting on a mound of rubble, he smiled broadly after transferring all the crystals into his ring and turned his attention to the remaining items.

  However, other than an Arrow Nine series speeder and half a dozen bloodstones filled to the brim with blood qi, there was surprisingly little of interest. Clothes, some food, even a tent with a full set of expensive carpets and high-quality furniture—it seemed Castien liked to travel in style and comfort. Sadly, none of those things would help Cade progress, though at least Jade would be able to use the gems to regain her lost blood qi.

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  Just as he was about to ditch the ring, he noticed a tiny, transparent crystal containing a dense web of interconnected black threads. It immediately reminded him of the ancient memory crystal he had obtained from Grandmaster Erendriel, but this one was somehow different and looked even older. Cade took it out of the ring and, after a short hesitation, turned his head away and infused the crystal with a trickle of blood qi.

  He was expecting it to explode in his hand, but no such thing occurred. Instead, his mind was instantly filled with foreign words and many complex diagrams. He didn’t understand the language, though it shared vague similarities with Common; however, his voracious heart nearly stopped after he focused on the first available diagram.

  A cold shock traveled down his spine. Cade’s mind immediately left his realm of consciousness before promptly returning, making sure he wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there. The diagrams etched into the crystal strongly reminded him of those in his Asura blood arts. There was no doubt—these were instructions for cultivating death arts. From what he could tell, three distinct and highly sophisticated techniques were encoded within, though one appeared to be sealed behind a cultivation lock, much like his Book of Life.

  Why would these death diagrams resemble my life cultivation ones?! Aren’t these two things in direct opposition? Life falls under the Dao of Creation, and death belongs to the Dao of Destruction.

  He suddenly felt a nigh-irresistible urge to try out one of the ancient death diagrams but quickly restrained his curiosity. He wasn’t in a position to do anything this risky, especially not with the threat of Darkheart on the horizon. He still didn’t know if the manhunter was keeping an eye on Sword Dao personally or relying on Arthur and his brother. Fortunately, there were no changes in his sixth sense—its steady background pressure neither faded nor intensified.

  Cade sent the ancient memory crystal into his ring and activated his insight to check on the condition of his body. Everything appeared mostly healed—his organs had recovered, the fractures in his bones were now little more than faint lines, and his muscles and tendons had returned to normal.

  A few more hours and I’ll be good to go.

  He sat down next to Jade, sighing deeply. In theory, he could have already left the cave, but since Jade wasn’t in any danger, he preferred to wait until he was fully healed. If Darkheart somehow caught up with him and forced a confrontation, he had to be in the best possible shape.

  “Legion, did you manage to recover a little from Castien’s soul?”

  “Master, that tiny amount of soul qi was but a snack. If anything, it made me hungrier,” the spirit grumbled. “But yes, my body has regained a very small amount of its lost strength.”

  “So I wasn’t imagining things. Well, considering my luck, I’m sure there will be plenty of chances for you to feed in the future,” he chuckled bitterly, sensing the spirit’s rising excitement.

  This fight had really taken a lot out of him, but luckily he had managed to gain some benefits. All he wanted now was to deliver Jade to the Sword Dao healers and immerse himself in Rank 3 blood. Now, more than ever, he had to get stronger.

  When Cade first arrived at the Sword Dao Monastery, he never imagined his life would turn out like this. It was supposed to be a time to learn and grow—without pressure and constantly looking over his shoulder. Just as one problem disappeared, another one showed up. Master Lao Ren was right. Even though people don’t know who I am, it seems I still can’t have peace. Is this the fate of every Asura?

  And this time, the problem ahead was no joke. Darkheart was naturally a concern, but if worst came to worst, Cade believed he could at least guarantee his escape and survival. He wasn’t dying to that cadaverous fuck.

  But that wasn’t the end of his problems. Next, he would have to spend several weeks cultivating inside the coffin, marinating in blood essence like a slab of meat in brine. Massgrave was arriving in three months, but knowing his luck, it would be sooner. And there was still the matter of obtaining blood for the first stage of War Form.

  Cade let out another heavy sigh.

  Too many things are going on, and it’s all because of fucking Brighthearts. Excluding Jade, as she was innocent in all this. He glanced at the sleeping princess—her skin was pale, her eyes still beneath her eyelids. Cade suspected Castien had fed her something that knocked her out or perhaps used some kind of mind-controlling death art. Her body was weak, but otherwise fine. It was her mind that had yet to awaken. He sighed, shaking his head as his thoughts returned to the recent battle.

  The one thing that truly surprised him was Castien’s durability. Death qi was definitely improving his regeneration, though how, he couldn’t tell. Cade replayed the fight in his mind, going over every aspect while mindlessly scratching at a piece of rock with his nail. He reviewed how Castien had used the black smoke. It seemed to come out through the pores of his skin…

  A thought struck him, and Cade stiffened. His mouth parted slightly as a profound realization washed over him. He could swear the core of his being—his soul—tingled.

  Castien’s black smoke behaved very similarly to my crimson mist! The mist carried blood qi, and the smoke could heal the undead with death energy. There was a reason he had found the death diagrams so familiar, yet inexplicably different. Their rules… they were reversed! It was as if he was viewing them in a mirror.

  His mind began to rapidly analyze the implications and new possibilities born from this discovery. There was a chance that if he reversed the death diagrams, he might learn something useful. If he was correct, it would essentially become a life art after a complete reversal. He just had to find a way to translate this vaguely familiar language. The diagram descriptions would be priceless in deepening his understanding.

  Wolf armor, the black fire beam… Could the secrets to these arts be found on Castien’s memory crystal? He wasn’t sure about the beam, but one of the two readable techniques seemed to condense a lot of qi all over the body. After inverting the complex pattern in his mind, he immediately recognized its resemblance to the Book of Life technique that allowed him to sheathe body parts in ignited qi. There was a major difference, though—this death art drew on multiple unknown laws to achieve its result, and its complexity was incomparably greater.

  It took him an hour to inscribe a small part of the inverted diagram into his realm of consciousness. He tried to understand how it worked, but without reading the technique’s description, it was beyond his current ability. Still, he suspected he should be able to use it; he just didn’t know what the exact effect would be.

  All of this made him incredibly excited. He quickly finished all the blood in the jug and sat in the lotus position, focusing on revolving his blood qi.

  Three hours later, the young Asura opened his eyes with a shocked expression.

  His crimson irises overflowed with vitality. His body was in the best shape of its life, and it appeared that being thoroughly battered had yielded some unexpected benefits. The extent to which his physique had adapted to the damage was astounding. He had no idea this was even possible, as the Book of Life never mentioned it.

  Cade clenched his fists, sensing his newfound power. His bones became tougher and heavier, while his muscles grew slightly thicker and significantly denser. His organs likewise felt more robust. The amount of blood qi flowing inside his body had noticeably increased, and his voracious heart thrummed with vigor. Despite the number of prismatic spherules remaining unchanged, he felt significantly stronger.

  His confidence against Darkheart instantly soared.

  The Asura sprang to his feet, light as a feather. He leaped out of the walled enclosure and brought out Castien’s Arrow Nine speeder from storage. It was larger, broader, and more aggressively designed than his model Six, with two sets of horizontal stabilizers and a tail fin, as well as a passenger seat.

  He returned to Jade and gently picked her up from the ground. He could barely register her weight. She was completely helpless in her current state, and he had to get her to safety.

  Cade sent out a pulse of life sense, but luckily, he detected no third-rank signatures. His head turned towards the exit, his expression hardening with grim determination.

  Manhunter, if you mess with me now, you will learn what suffering a bad death truly means.