Jun Xiaomo was not aware of the matters which took place in the woods after she had left. At this moment, Jun Xiaomo was sprinting back to Heavenly Peak with only one thought in her mind – faster! Faster!

She had been too careless. In order to quickly acquire her demonic body, she had absorbed and directed a large amount of demonic energy into her meridians and Dantian, using them to refine and transform her meridians. However, absorbing demonic energy without any suitable and compatible refinement technique was extremely dangerous, as the demonic energy could erupt from within the body at any time. Just like right now!

At this moment, the demonic energy within Jun Xiaomo’s body roiled vigorously like a volcano, ready to erupt at any time and burst through her meridians. Jun Xiaomo was unaware if anyone had noticed any peculiarities about her on the way back home. However, Jun Xiaomo could not care less about this right now. If she could not suppress her demonic energy from erupting in time, then her Sect would soon discover the existence of her acquired demonic body and she would once again suffer the fate of being persecuted for the rest of her life!

It did not matter if she was being persecuted; but she absolutely did not want to implicate her parents or her martial brothers and sisters at Heavenly Peak.

Almost there…almost there…

Bang! Jun Xiaomo slammed shut the door of her room and slid onto the floor.

After catching her breath, she hurriedly retrieved some talisman paper and cinnabar-ink [1] from her Interspatial Ring, haphazardly strewn them on the floor, and immediately started drawing an array on the talisman.

First attempt…failed.

Second attempt…failed.

Third attempt……

Jun Xiaomo’s hand trembled violently. Her meridians were burning up with such intense pain that she could barely maintain the grip on her brush.

“No!” Jun Xiaomo ferociously slammed the brush on the floor and closed her eyes momentarily.

“It’s alright…don’t be anxious…ignore the pain…” Jun Xiaomo silently murmured to herself.

Having calmed her mind down, she picked up the brush once again.

This time, Jun Xiaomo finally managed to successfully complete the talisman array.

The array comprised of five sheets of talisman. Leaning on the wall for support, Jun Xiaomo circled her room, placing one talisman on each corner of the room before attaching the last one to the door.

With this array, even the most immense outburst of demonic energy could be contained and isolated within the room. Naturally, others would not sense anything amiss even if her demonic energy erupts right now. In her previous life, in order to conceal the existence of demonic energy from her body, Jun Xiaomo had devoted such a substantial amount of time researching and studying similar arrays that she could even replicate these drawings with her eyes closed.

After completing her preparations, Jun Xiaomo weakly slid back down onto the floor, completely drenched in her own perspiration. Agony was written all over her face, yet her eyes shone with fierce determination.

She had never been afraid of such pain.

In her past life, when she had first acquired her demonic body, she did not have any suitable refinement method to control the demonic energy within her body. As a result, the unbridled demonic energy would erupt from her body from time to time, bursting through her meridians and sending waves of intense pain coursing throughout her entire body. And when Yu Wanrou and her lackeys murdered her child and crippled her spiritual root, compared with the eruption of demonic energy, the pain she experienced then was far greater by a magnitude of a hundred – even a thousand times!

Therefore, this degree of pain was really nothing to Jun Xiaomo.

Demonic energy was by nature not as gentle as spiritual energy. When Jun Xiaomo embarked on her journey of demonic cultivation, she knew full well that the path ahead would be fraught with trials and tribulations. Yet, Jun Xiaomo was absolutely prepared to ensure such hardship.

Why was it that between demonic cultivators and spiritual cultivators of the same cultivation level, demonic cultivators were always much stronger? Was it not because cultivating with demonic energy was always more difficult to begin with? The prowess of demonic cultivators cannot be measured simply by reference to their cultivation levels. Often, the offensive capabilities of demonic cultivators caused many spiritual cultivators to feel both envious and jealous.

Temperance with extreme pain and hardship begets a powerful soul. This principle was thoroughly exemplified in Jun Xiaomo’s previous life.

As the demonic energy within Jun Xiaomo’s body charged around violently, Jun Xiaomo raised her right hand and channeled all of the demonic energy through her meridians into her palm.

The preamble of the Nineform Spirituo-Demonic Refinement Technique required the practitioner to cripple his own existing cultivation.

Perhaps it might have been safer if Jun Xiaomo crippled her cultivation only after her roiling demonic energy had subsided. But time was not on her side. Yu Wanrou had seen that demonic, red glow in her eyes. If Yu Wanrou wakes up and reports this to the Sect Elders, she was bound to embellish the facts and make a mountain of a molehill about this.

Therefore, Jun Xiaomo had to be prepared.

Once the demonic energy had sufficiently accumulated, Jun Xiaomo took a deep breath and closed both of her eyes.

Then without a moment’s hesitation, she mercilessly slapped down on her Dantian.

“Haack--!” A crimson jet of blood spurted from Jun Xiaomo’s mouth. An acute wave of pain swept through Jun Xiaomo’s meridians, spreading through her limbs and penetrating her bones and marrows. The throbbing pain shot straight into her head, causing her to black out momentarily, almost collapsing on the floor. Fortunately, Jun Xiaomo managed to hang in there.

If she had really fainted there, then perhaps her death would not be out of the question. A person’s heart and Dantian are located in very close proximity. With this blow, Jun Xiaomo had not only shattered her Dantian, she had also inadvertently jolted her heart.

Jun Xiaomo immediately retrieved from her Interspatial Ring a medicinal pill to protect her heart and swallowed it. At the same time, she continued to drive the demonic energy around her body so that both demonic and spiritual energies within her body would dissipate more quickly and accelerate the process of crippling her own energy arts.

This type of feeling was not pleasant at all. It felt as though her meridians and Dantian were being torn to shreds, and then burnt with Threefold Essenceflame at the same time. It was intensely hot and unbearably painful. She even had to remain conscious throughout this entire process.

Jun Xiaomo could only grit her teeth and endure the immense suffering.

Once this terrifying torture was over, her cultivation level would fall back down to zero.

If others witnessed this scene before their eyes, they would immediately conclude that this sixteen years-old girl must be crazy – for a refinement technique which no one had heard of before, she had not only crippled her own cultivation arts, she had forgone her eighth level of Qi Mastery!

Was it easy to achieve the eighth level of Qi Mastery? To put things into perspective, some fifty years-old cultivators were not even at the eighth level of Qi Mastery. Jun Xiaomo must have been mad to have relinquished all of this!

This type of behavior was completely preposterous; it was madness!

Yet even so, such madness was also a trait of demonic cultivators. They were outrageously capricious, filled with bravado, and they always seem to exude an aura of cruel fanaticism and madness. In fact, this type of madness is so deeply etched into the core and souls of these demonic cultivators that even if they are reborn ten times, they would still be unable to change this identity of theirs.

This bout of what can almost be described as self-abuse lasted for six whole hours. Once Jun Xiaomo’s original cultivation was completely depleted, and her Dantian and meridians were absolutely damaged beyond repair, Jun Xiaomo finally crumpled onto the bed, promptly stuffing a few medicinal pills into her mouth.

With the aid of these medication, her life would finally be saved. This thought briefly crossed Jun Xiaomo’s mind, before her consciousness slowly faded away.

--------------------------------------

On the other side, a few hours after Jun Xiaomo had left, Yu Wanrou finally regained her consciousness.

She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was a tall, towering tree. She was still in the woods outside the Sect and had not been discovered or rescued yet.

At least, that’s what Yu Wanrou thought. The truth was that Ye Xiuwen had already appeared before her, but he had not brought her back nor attempted to wake her up.

“Cough, cough…” Yu Wanrou violently coughed twice, and a bloody stench momentarily diffused from her mouth. Splotches of blood stains were strewn all over her clothes.

“Jun…Xiao…Mo!” Yu Wanrou gritted her teeth as she uttered these three words. Even though she usually appeared to be weak, that was merely false pretenses carefully devised to attract the sympathy and pity of others. Deep down, Yu Wanrou was in fact a very calculative and vindictive person.

This time, she had suffered a huge loss at Jun Xiaomo’s hands. No matter what, she was not going to take this lying down.

But where did Jun Xiaomo’s strength come from? I sustained such serious injuries from one palm strike of hers. With just her cultivation at the eighth level of Qi Mastery, there’s no way she should have been able to do this.

While Yu Wanrou carefully analyzed the incident which took place before she fell unconscious, she realized that certain parts of her memory seemed to have been blurred out. No matter how hard she tried, she could not recall certain details about the incident.

What’s going on? Yu Wanrou knit her eyebrows into a frown. She felt that she had missed out on a very important detail of the incident.

However, no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember anything apart from receiving that palm strike from Jun Xiaomo.

“Cough cough cough…” Yu Wanrou’s injuries were very serious. The little energy she expended on her thoughts caused her to cough out even more blood.

Yu Wanrou angrily bit down on her lower lip and retrieved a jade bottle from her clothes. This jade bottle looked like a typical jade bottle carried by other disciples in Dawn Sect. At first glance, it seemed as though the contents were nothing more than the ordinary life-saving pills typically carried around by the other disciples.

However, the moment Yu Wanrou opened the bottle, a thick layer of spiritual energy wafted out, causing anyone who inhaled it to feel extremely comfortable.

Even a mere mortal who is not a cultivator would be able to sense this thick layer of spiritual energy and discern that the contents of the bottle must be something extraordinary.

Yu Wanrou clutched her chest which was throbbing with pain from her injuries, yet she could not help but smirk smugly to herself.

Her body contained a secret, and it was this secret which gave her immense confidence that one day she would rise above everyone else and become the true master and ruler of the world!

[1] Cinnabar is a type of bright red mineral consisting of mercury sulphide, which is traditionally used as a pigment. People stopped using it later when they discovered that it was toxic. It is supposedly used as ink here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnabar