Chapter 70: Inner Demon
"Heart Ghoul!"
Miu Tyanh snapped awake, dread sinking into his bones like a jagged, rust-eaten blade. His mastery of the Heart Ghoul Fist Art—a sinister demonic technique—was no small feat. With it, he could summon phantom ghouls from the shadows of the mind, their eerie murmurs weaving a hypnotic aura that enslaved weaker cultivators, binding them to their own darkest fears.
It was a power as haunting as it was potent. But every blade has its edge turned inward. The Heart Ghoul Fist Art carried a curse: its wielder faced periodic assaults from the very ghouls they commanded. When the cultivator's Dao Heart wavered, the ghouls would stir, reborn from doubt, clawing at their master's soul.
Miu Tyanh's cultivation will had once been ironclad, a blazing torch on the path to the Great Dao. That unshakable Dao Heart was why he'd chosen this perilous martial art. It was also why he'd plunged headfirst into the Lurewoven Grove's dreamscape—partly to meet his dead brother one final time, partly to shatter the mirage with raw force and carve a swift path through the grove's tangle.
But fate mocked him. The Heart Ghoul didn't strike early or linger late—it chose this moment, when his Dao Heart teetered on the edge.
His chest heaved as he sucked in a ragged breath. With a snarl, he drove his fist into the illusion's skull. A wet crack split the air, crimson blood sprayed like a geyser, and the illusion image's corpse burst apart. The surrounding scenery shattered with it, peeling back to reveal the truth: a writhing sea of blood-red vines surging toward him, their snarling tendrils whipping with feral hunger.
Miu Tyanh's lips curled into a savage grin, but his vision warped. The vines twisted before his eyes, morphing into countless copies of Kinson Wexford and Lordi Payne. In a heartbeat, their numbers swelled—dozens, then hundreds—flooding the grove, their faces contorted with malice as they closed in from every angle.
"Kill!"
The word exploded in his mind, a single spark igniting a wildfire. It roared louder, splitting into a deafening chorus, reverberating through his skull like a storm of shattered glass.
"Kill! Kill! KILL!"
The voices multiplied, relentless, clawing at his sanity until his thoughts frayed into ribbons, leaving only one primal urge: kill everyone before him.