Chapter 1 Breathing Arrest

Breathing seized, Zou Zhengze subconsciously gripped his neck with his left hand, hastily throwing a right hook at Li Ang's head.

Li Ang twisted his body to the left to evade the punch, and as his foot pushed off the wall, he hammered his right downward punch into the demon's abdomen.

Ripple energy spread wildly, permeating inward from the external oblique muscle, staining the rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, greater omentum, ileum, jejunum, all the way to the lumbar vertebrae behind!

Zou Zhengze only felt his abdomen go numb, his spine lose all sensation. He barely mustered his strength, kicking his left leg toward Li Ang's chest. Li Ang moved his body back, blocking the incoming leg with his left arm, while simultaneously stepping forward with his left foot, continuing to hammer his right fist into the demon's abdomen and chest, caving in his entire chest cavity.

Dong, dong, dong—

Fist after fist, Li Ang expressionlessly hammered the demon's head like a pile driver, driving his entire head into his sunken chest cavity.

"...It hurts, so much."

Zou Zhengze, his head retracted into his chest cavity, muttered indistinctly, "It really, really hurts..."

Visibly, black demonic energy spread across his body.

Li Ang felt every hair on his body stand on end. He slammed down with both fists, unleashing the rolling ripple, destroying the opponent's limb joints. At the same time, he activated his cat's eye, releasing an illusion, and retreated swiftly, flashing to the end of the corridor.

"It hurts, so much..."

The mass of rotten flesh showed no effect from the illusion, twisting and "standing" up in a way that completely defied human biomechanics.

The place where the head should have been was replaced by a grotesque, writhing mass of flesh, mixed with blood, muscle, and bone.

————

Chai Cuicao, who was guiding souls back to their resting places above the shantytown, suddenly discovered that the black cloud vortex binding the surrounding souls had quietly dissipated, and her actions were no longer hindered.

This was not a good thing, because all the Yin Sha demonic energy in the sky had converged into a long dragon, rushing straight down through the huge gap in the rooftop, pouring entirely into Zou Zhengze's "head."

This action indicated that Zou Zhengze had completely abandoned his plan to devour the souls of the shantytown residents. It also meant that Li Ang was now facing a complete demon without any worries...

Chai Cuicao, no longer hindered by the black cloud vortex, bit her lip tightly, kicking each soul back into its own body one by one with extreme speed, like kicking a soccer ball. Then, with a flick of her long skirt, she flew straight toward the building where Li Ang was.

"Giggle, giggle giggle giggle."

The demon, with its grotesque flesh-mass head, emitted a sharp, eerie breathing sound, like a young infant just learning how to walk, staggering crookedly through the corridor.

The red and black runes on his skin were like the garbled code on a crashed computer, spiraling out of control, twitching, changing, trembling, shuddering.

The bone spurs covering his body would sometimes grow, sometimes recede, sometimes spontaneously erode into hollow holes, ejecting red and white bone marrow, and sometimes grow pink, slender fleshy tumors resembling squid tentacles, hanging down naturally.

This "thing" could no longer be called a human, but on the system page, it was still marked as a player who had cultivated the Heavenly Demon Art.

*Tianzi Zhuanqi* (Chronicles of the Heavenly Emperor) was an unadulterated high-martial-arts world, and the Heavenly Demon Art was among the most supreme techniques even within *Tianzi Zhuanqi*. Although Zou Zhengze was a veteran player, his martial will and cultivation were still insufficient to completely control this technique.

He was usually able to maintain an independent and complete personal will entirely because of another skill, the Ice Heart Spell, which offset the negative effects of the Heavenly Demon Art's Yin-Yang Dual Extremes Demon Path.

Skill Name: Ice Heart Spell

Type: Universal

Effect: Passively calms the mind, maintains a serene consciousness, and offsets illusions and hallucinations.

Cost: None

Learning Requirements: Intelligence attribute greater than or equal to 10

Note: A heart like clear ice, unshaken by a collapsing sky; amidst myriad changes, remain steadfast, with a tranquil spirit.

The Ice Heart Spell was inherently not as powerful as the Heavenly Demon Art, and now with the surging demonic energy entering his body, the Ice Heart Spell was completely defeated, allowing the pure malice brought by the Yin-Yang Dual Extremes Demon Path to invade Zou Zhengze's mind.

It could even be said that Zou Zhengze was no longer himself, but had become a demon driven by savage instincts and cunning nature.

Li Ang silently took slow steps backward, the copious amount of blood flowing from Zou Zhengze slid down his gloves, painting a long red line on the dusty corridor floor.

Crack—

As if a nuclear reaction had reached criticality, the demon's body swelled again, his thick right arm quickly covered with bone armor, forming a bone blade comparable to a door panel.

The demon slashed out diagonally, and the raging demonic energy spreading along the bone blade transformed into a crescent-shaped blade aura, advancing forward.

The entire corridor, and even the entire second floor, was split in two by this slash. The indestructible reinforced concrete collapsed and caved in like tofu.

The building tilted to one side, and smoke obscured the sky and the sun. Li Ang advanced instead of retreating, breaking out of the tilted corridor!

He formed his index and middle fingers into a sword, and a special energy called Silver Ripple Rush (Gin'iro Hamon Jirusho) was condensed and gathered at his fingertips, radiating a dazzling, blinding silver light.

Silver Ripple Rush!

The demon, devoid of reason, did not dodge or retreat. Standing on the tilted corridor, facing Li Ang rushing up from below, he relied entirely on his body's instinct to block with the door-sized bone blade in front of him.

Boom!!

The fingertip pierced through the bone blade without resistance. Sharp bone fragments shattered and scattered in all directions, one of which even flew over a hundred meters and struck a distant tree trunk.

Li Ang stuck close, grabbing the demon's thick neck, slowly and steadily driving the finger sword, inch by inch, destroying the bone blade, stabbing towards the demon's skull, while the demon tried his best to push forward with his right arm, where the bone blade was located.

The two figures seemed to freeze, locked in this pure and simple contest of strength.

Finally, unable to endure the sense of crisis, the demon's left arm delivered an uppercut from below toward Li Ang's waist and abdomen.

Pa—

Dense and long black hair surged out from the floor, barely hooking onto the demon's left arm that was attacking Li Ang. Every moment, strands of hair were burned and broken by the thick blood energy, but the next moment, more and denser hair filled the space.

Chai Cuicao, her face as pale as snow, crouched on the lone wall behind the demon like a cat, desperately draining the Yin energy in her body, unleashing a continuous stream of black hair, hooking onto the demon's arm and torso, and pulling backward.

The stalemated tug-of-war finally lost its balance, and the finger sword, shimmering with the silver light of the Ripple Rush, stabbed into the meat mass of the demon's head.

The warm, jade-like, majestic ripple energy was like arsenic poison to the demon. The demon's head swelled, contracted, swelled, contracted, almost faltering, and finally exploded.

Eliminated the murderer who killed Zeng Weiming and Wang Fangni 1/1

Regular mission "Madman" completed

Reward settling