The Eternal Sin

The world spun violently.

Multicolored lights twisted like raging rivers before bursting apart. Jiang Chen felt a tremendous force seize his body and hurl him outward like a stone shot from a catapult.

A moment later his back slammed into dry earth. Dust rose as his body rolled across the cracked riverbed of Sunken Moon Valley, the same place where he had entered the black market.

Jiang Chen had not even drawn a full breath before danger arrived.

A terrifying pressure descended from above. The shadow of a massive weapon blotted the moonlight.

A giant iron hammer crashed toward his skull with the force of a collapsing star.

The man wielding it had clearly exited the market earlier and hidden nearby like a hunter crouching beside a trap. Anyone who emerged from the vortex in confusion would become prey to his ruthless strike.

Jiang Chen’s pupils shrank. His body had not yet stabilized, yet instinct moved faster than thought as he drove his fist upward with all the raw strength he possessed.

Flesh collided with iron in a thunderous boom that exploded across the dried riverbed.

The muscular cultivator staggered backward several steps as if struck by a charging beast.

On the other side, Jiang Chen fared much worse. His right hand became a mangled mess of white bone and shredded crimson flesh as pain surged up his arm like erupting lava.

Jiang Chen did not even spare it a glance, because at that moment the thin silver chain wrapped around his midsection crumbled into dust.

The Bottleneck Qi Chain that had suppressed his spiritual essence had finally exhausted its power. Warm currents of spiritual energy surged through Jiang Chen’s meridians as his eyes flashed with killing light.

But first, Jiang Chen tilted his head and spat.

A tiny silver needle shot from his throat. The Wool Surgeon’s Needle pierced the torn flesh of his palm. Vital energy wrapped around shattered bone and muscle. Blood stopped flowing as the wound rapidly knit together.

Before the healing could fully finish, another killing move arrived.

A spear crackling with lightning thrust toward Jiang Chen’s back with ruthless speed like thunder splitting the heavens.

A female cultivator had just stepped out of the purple vortex. The moment she saw Jiang Chen struggling she seized the opportunity to kill.

"Your life is mine!" the female cultivator shouted, her eyes gleaming with triumph.

Jiang Chen did not bother to turn around. A shadow slipped from his back like a ghost stepping out of darkness. The clone’s arm expanded with the explosive radiance of yellow gold and struck forward with the swiftness of wind.

The female cultivator’s triumphant expression froze as the fist mercilessly struck her chest. Her body flew backward like a broken kite and shot straight into the still swirling purple vortex.

For a brief instant her face twisted with horror.

Her blood token had already been used from entering once. Anyone who forcibly reentered would be torn apart by the gate’s laws. Her body was shredded instantly as bones and flesh were diced into a thousand fragments before those fragments themselves were ground into dust.

Within a breath nothing remained.

Jiang Chen had no intention of relaxing. His figure blurred into a streak of inky darkness that cut across the cracked earth.

The hammer wielding cultivator had only just recovered from the shock of watching the woman die when his eyes narrowed as Jiang Chen vanished from sight. Only to widened again when Jiang Chen suddenly appeared before him like King Yama emerging from the underworld.

The man’s mind had not yet processed the speed before Jiang Chen’s hands reached out in a casual motion and grasped his head.

Then he twisted.

It was as effortless as plucking a pomegranate from a branch.

A wet tearing sound echoed as the head separated cleanly from the shoulders, a fountain of blood painted the dusty earth.

The corpse collapsed without even understanding how it had died.

’Most Qi Condensation cultivators are no longer my match.’ Jiang Chen bent down and quickly removed the man’s storage bag.

The purple vortex behind him continued to flash as more figures emerged one after another. The already chaotic riverbed descended into even greater violence as cultivators attacked each other like hyenas fighting over carcasses.

Several people who had witnessed Jiang Chen’s ruthless slaughter retreated far away from him. None wished to provoke such a dangerous opponent.

Jiang Chen glanced around once before turning to leave. He moved swiftly across the cracked earth while the sounds of battle grew louder behind him.

’There is no need to linger. I have already gained enough from this venture into the black market. Fighting further for meager benefits would only invite unnecessary risk.’

Jiang Chen had long understood a simple truth. Strength did not mean invincibility, and only a fool would believe otherwise.

Just earlier he had fallen into Meng Yu’s plot. Had he not prepared countermeasures beforehand, everything he possessed might have been lost in a single misstep.

One small mistake was enough to destroy a lifetime of effort.

That was the cruel law of the demonic path.

Losses were never tolerated.

Only victory mattered.

And Jiang Chen had always enjoyed standing on the winning side.

A faint smirk appeared on his lips. ’Fortunately I hid everything in the black storage ring and used the storage bag as a layer of deception. Fortunately, Meng Yu took the bait without hesitation.’

His fingers brushed lightly against the black ring on his hand.

’This confirms something else as well. My black storage ring is truly difficult to detect. Even with his methods that saw through my concealment talisman, he still failed to recognize the ring as a storage treasure.’

Jiang Chen’s eyes suddenly glimmered with amusement. ’Heh. I wonder what kind of expression he will have when he reads that letter.’

He continued retreating at full speed as the chaotic battlefield gradually faded behind him.

Something Jiang Chen couldn’t help but notice was that the sky was still dark. When he had first entered the Black Market, it had already been late into the night. Now he had spent what felt like more than half a day inside.

This made him consider the strange nature of the place. Perhaps time within the market moved far faster than the outside world, so that twelve hours there amounted to only an hour or so here. Or perhaps the opposite was true, time inside flowing slightly slower, making him feel as though he had spent half a day while a full day passed outside.

Either way, the Black Market warped time in a way that left him uncertain of the hours. Such considerations could wait. Jiang Chen refocused on escaping this place.

Two hundred meters passed in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly Jiang Chen’s steps halted and his expression changed drastically.

An invisible chill crawled up his spine.

"Shit!" Jiang Chen’s divine sense reached into his storage ring. A five sided plate the size of a chessboard appeared in his hand.

He threw it onto the ground.

The plate flashed with faint runic light. A moment later the Divine Concealment Array unfolded around him. Invisible spiritual patterns spread through the air and formed a barrier with a radius of five meters as Jiang Chen’s presence vanished completely, as if swallowed by heaven and earth.

Only then did he turn around and lift his gaze toward the sky.

What he saw made his heart tremble.

Above the battlefield a literal sea of blood red swords hovered in the air, casting a crimson pallor over the valley. Each blade radiated concentrated malice and overwhelming power that chilled the bones.

Standing upon one of those swords was Gu Tianhao, hovering in the air like a god of slaughter descending upon the mortal world.

His robes fluttered gently in the wind.

His expression was cold and callous.

The time for words had long passed.

Gu Tianhao lowered his gaze. That single glance was enough to move the sea of swords.

Hundreds of crimson blades fell from the sky like rain made of blood as they pierced downward with terrifying speed.

Cultivators below screamed in terror. The men and women who had been fighting moments earlier abandoned their grudges instantly. Greed vanished along with enmity as all of them turned their weapons toward the sky.

Yet their defiance was a drop of water thrown into a blazing furnace.

The swords struck like divine punishment.

Blood splashed across the cracked riverbed like blooming red flowers.

The slaughter lasted only a short while, perhaps half a minute. When the swords finally returned to the sky nearly fifty cultivators lay in pieces, their lives extinguished like candles in a hurricane.

Jiang Chen remained motionless within the concealment array as shock filled his mind.

’Such overwhelming strength..’ Jiang Chen was taken aback.

Gu Tianhao raised his hand and a dark banner appeared in his grasp.

It was a Soul Gathering Banner.

As the banner fluttered countless faint lights rose from the corpses. These were the departing souls of the slain cultivators, which were instantly absorbed by the banner.

Gu Tianhao closed his eyes briefly. It seemed he was searching their memories.

Jiang Chen’s heart tightened.

Gu Tianhao soon opened his eyes again and slowly swept his gaze across the battlefield until it moved toward Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen’s expression turned dark, extremely dark. His right hand gripped the hilt of his blade while his left hand held a thick bundle of talismans.

’Even if I unleash everything I possess... would it be enough to stop him?’

The answer was likely no.

But the word surrender had never been written in Jiang Chen’s heart.

Just as the tension reached its peak Jiang Chen suddenly noticed something.

Gu Tianhao’s gaze did not stop on him.

It simply passed over the area as if nothing existed there.

Only then did Jiang Chen’s expression relax slightly. ’Good.. his methods cannot see through the Divine Concealment Array.’

A faint sigh escaped his lips.

’Fortunately I obtained this formation base from the black market. With it I can deploy formations on the fly.’

His eyes briefly fell upon the five sided plate beneath his feet.

Jiang Chen had examined thousands of treasures within the black market. In the end he had purchased only a few. Each of those purchases had been carefully chosen.

This formation base allowed the instantaneous deployment of complex arrays as long as they had been pre loaded into the base plate.

A treasure like this could mean the difference between life and death.

Jiang Chen watched silently from within the array.

Gu Tianhao eventually rushed in his direction. He crossed the space above Jiang Chen and soared across the sky like a crimson comet.

Only after the terrifying aura completely vanished from sight did Jiang Chen finally release the breath he had been holding.

The concealment array remained quiet around him.

A faint smile slowly appeared on his face.

’It seems this life of mine can continue for another day.’