I Can Merge Techniques

The Demon Suppression Captain he had saved was none other than Nangong Yue, one of the three core experts who had previously joined forces with Li Mubai to besiege the Blood Shadow Sect Leader.

This powerful female Demon Suppression Captain, whose cultivation had already reached the Fourth Heaven of the Acupoint Realm, was now in a wretched state.

Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth, staining the front of her robes crimson. Her body was covered in gruesome, bone-deep claw marks, dripping with blood and horrifying to behold.

Her face, pale as paper, was a mask of horror and pain, filled with indignation and despair. It was clear the Blood Shadow Sect Leader had beaten her to the point where she was completely unable to fight back.

Chu Fan’s gaze shifted past Nangong Yue in his arms, settling on the center of the battlefield.

A single glance made his heart sink, his expression turning solemn.

A towering, ferocious monster, its body covered in a hard, dark-red carapace and its muscles gnarled like mountain ranges, was rampaging and roaring across the battlefield. Everything in its path was obliterated!

It retained a vaguely humanoid shape, but sharp, curved horns sprouted from its head. Its mouth was split wide to its ears, with sharp fangs jutting out. Within its bestial, blood-red eyes, there was only the most primal, purest madness and desire for destruction, with not a shred of humanity remaining.

"ROAR—!! Li Mubai, I’ll tear you to shreds! I’ll devour your flesh and blood! I’ll drink your marrow dry!!"

The furious roar, no longer sounding human in the slightest, reverberated through Cold Crow Valley, shaking it so violently it seemed on the verge of collapse.

Each time the terrifying monster—the transformed Blood Shadow Sect Leader—brought its palm down, it seemed to channel the very ley lines of the earth, creating a cataclysmic scene of collapsing mountains and splitting earth. Its power was immense.

Shattered stones shot out like cannonballs as clouds of dust billowed into the air, forming a massive curtain that blotted out the sky. The entire battlefield was shrouded, and visibility dropped to near zero.

Even Li Mubai, the strongest of the Demon Suppression Bureau’s contingent and wielder of a Middle-Grade Profound Weapon, was reduced to desperately dodging with his exquisite Body Technique. Under the monster’s devastating, frenzied assault, he was forced to constantly retreat, completely unable to find an opening to counter-attack.

He, too, had sustained several new wounds, and his breathing was growing unsteady.

The monster had descended into a completely berserk state. It no longer distinguished between friend and foe, knowing only slaughter.

In its frenzied onslaught, some Blood Shadow Sect disciples who failed to dodge in time were obliterated by its massive palm before they could even scream, exploding into a mist of blood and flesh, leaving no corpse behind.

"Chu Fan..."

Lying in his arms, Nangong Yue coughed up another mouthful of blood, staining the front of Chu Fan’s robes. Mustering the last of her strength, she spoke, her voice hoarse and broken.

"That... that old Demon... he swallowed the sect’s secret, forbidden elixir... the Beast Transformation Pill..."

"His body swelled, transforming him into this... this inhuman, monstrous form!"

"His power... is surging wildly. I’m afraid... he now temporarily possesses the terrifying combat strength of the fourth realm—the Bright Heart Realm!"

"Only... only Captain Li can barely keep him occupied. We... we’re completely powerless against his terrifying, overwhelming strength..."

"What... what do we do? We..."

Her voice was filled with deep despair and helplessness, completely devoid of her usual confidence and poise.

At this moment, a decorated Demon Suppression Captain was asking a mere Demon Suppression Guard—a man far below her in rank—what to do. Yet, she herself saw nothing amiss in this.

In the face of such an absolute disparity in power, the astonishing strength Chu Fan had displayed earlier had become her only hope.

Chu Fan’s eyes narrowed slightly.

’Beast Transformation Pill...’

Though he wasn’t very familiar with this Elixir, he vaguely knew it was one of the most vicious and desperate measures used by followers of the Evil and Demon Dao.

Taking such an Elixir meant burning one’s own Essence, Divine Soul, and even one’s entire future on the path of cultivation—all for a brief, terrifying burst of power that surpassed one’s limits.

It seemed the combined assault from Li Mubai and the other two Captains had pushed the Blood Shadow Sect Leader to the absolute brink.

Otherwise, he never would have resorted to consuming such a forbidden Elixir, a path that guaranteed mutual destruction.

But the power gained at such a cost was utterly lethal, its sheer dominance chilling to the bone.

Against a berserk monster that had truly stepped into the Bright Heart Realm, not even Li Mubai, who had the highest cultivation among them, stood a chance of victory.

Even if all six of them formed a combat array, it was uncertain whether they could withstand the monster’s reckless, all-out assault.

However, the poison mist from the Bone-Eroding Pill they had deployed earlier now permeated every corner of Cold Crow Valley, clinging to everything like rot to bone.

’At a critical moment like this, there was no need to fight the beast-transformed Blood Shadow Sect Leader to the bitter end!’

Li Mubai and the others clearly understood this. They were tactically evading, neither confronting the monster head-on nor retreating too far, doing just enough to keep its attention fixed on them.

But the monster the Blood Shadow Sect Leader had become was horrifying beyond measure, far exceeding their expectations.

A single, casual punch could blast a ten-foot-deep crater into the solid rock, sending shards flying like shrapnel.

If it caught up to him, even Li Mubai, clad in Profound Armor and wielding a Middle-Grade Profound Weapon, would be unable to withstand such a blow.

Chu Fan’s mind raced for a solution. In that split second, a hair’s breadth from disaster—

A bone-chilling killing intent, like a viper striking from its hiding place, suddenly surged from behind him. The hairs on his body stood on end as alarm bells screamed in his mind.

On the razor’s edge between life and death, with no time to think, he strained his arms, and with a surge of strength, shoved the heavily injured Nangong Yue aside by her waist.