Players: All NPCs in the Sect Are Moles

The Pill Masters continuously tossed pills that dissolved on contact.

Without getting in the way of the fight, they threw them from clever angles straight into the mouths of the Core Formation Stage experts who were dishing out damage.

"Shi, your Diamond Body is about to wear off! Catch!"

"The Sect Leader’s Spiritual Qi is at half! Get the Life-Restoring Elixirs ready!"

As for those at the Early-stage Core Formation and below?

If they die, they can just wait to be revived. No point wasting pills.

On the battlefield, two other figures were particularly bizarre.

Yan Buliu’s figure flickered in and out of the shadows.

He specifically targeted isolated elite mobs.

Every time he struck, he would silently steal something from a monster.

Perhaps it was a wisp of spirit essence, or maybe a fragment of a core.

His purpose was to secure some extra loot from this battle.

But the strangest person on the battlefield was, without a doubt, the figure carrying a giant black coffin.

Ji.

He had no fixed position, his eyes constantly scanning the entire battlefield.

A main damage dealer snatched the "Seed of Xi’s Light" and was about to charge the boss when three mobs shot out from the shadows, blocking his path.

He was about to be held up, wasting a precious opportunity to deal damage.

"Focus on your damage! I’ve got your back!"

Ji’s voice rang out.

He violently slammed the black coffin from his shoulder onto the ground!

BOOM!

The massive black coffin landed, instantly smashing the mobs that were blocking the way into paste.

On another side of the fight, the boss unleashed a wide sweeping attack. Although Shi Gandang blocked the main impact, the residual energy still washed over the vulnerable Pill Masters in the back row.

Just then, Ji’s black coffin appeared before the Pill Masters.

He used the massive coffin as a shield, taking the full brunt of the attack!

KRRRANG—!!!!

The energy blast exploded against the coffin’s surface, instantly adding several more deep cracks to its body.

Ji’s body shuddered violently, and a trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth.

But he paid no mind to his injuries. Instead, he turned his head to look at his fallen sect-mates, those who had died in the earlier self-detonations and monster attacks.

A look of profound grief immediately crossed his face as he gazed upon their bodies.

He dropped to his knees, pounding the ground with his fists as he began his "professional" mourning wail:

"Oh, Heavens! How could you let my brothers die in this place!"

"Oh, Earth! How could you let my kinsmen’s souls be shattered in this foreign land!"

"Oh, my fallen brothers! In life, your Sword Control was as swift as the wind, yet in death, you weren’t even left with a whole corpse!"

"They say fate is preordained, so why is there no place in it for those who strive so hard!"

His wails were jarringly out of place on the clamorous battlefield.

But what was even stranger was that as he cried, wisps of remnant souls drifted from the black coffin and into the corpses, which began to twitch, forcefully pulled by some unseen power!

"Brothers! Why have you left me all alone on this battlefield!"

"I can’t bear this battle any longer! How I wish I could go with you!"

"But!"

Ji’s mournful tone suddenly shifted, becoming impassioned and frenzied.

"To my brothers who still live!"

"Let me summon our fallen comrades for you, so that their very bodies can personally take part in this vengeance!"

He slapped the black coffin!

BOOM!

The coffin lid flew open. Countless remnant souls, shimmering with a ghostly light, surged out and burrowed into the bodies of the Core Formation Stage players who had just fallen!

A second later, the mangled corpses began to twitch and rise to their feet!

Their skin shriveled rapidly, turning them into desiccated husks as ghostfire ignited in their eyes.

An arm severed in the battle remained severed;

a body pierced through the torso remained just as mangled.

They were no longer recognizable, transformed into walking corpses ready for battle.

The cultivation of these undead, converted from Core Formation Stage corpses, had all dropped to the Fake Core Realm.

They could no longer use the intricate Magic they knew in life, but they could still cast basic spells or use their bodies to block attacks and draw aggro.

They fearlessly threw themselves into every gap that opened in the front lines.

Su Ling’er and Wang Xiedi stared at this bizarre group of "senior brothers," utterly shocked.

’This sect really is terrifying.’

’What did he even mean by "so that their very bodies can personally take part in this vengeance"?’

’Is there something wrong with the way that senior brother talks?!’

’First, there was a fire-breathing sword lotus, then a monster that makes you want to just give up, then strange flowers and plants that take root on landing, and now there’s someone who can raise the dead to keep fighting...’

’Just how many other kinds of dark arts do they know that we don’t?!’

The fighting style of this ancient demonic sect actually encompassed Sword Cultivators, Beast Cultivators, Pill Cultivators, Plant Cultivators, Ghost Cultivators, and Thief Cultivators.

As expected of an ancient demonic sect, its legacy was indeed vast!

They all seemed to be on relatively equal footing as well.

Wang Xiedi, however, looked from the battlefield back to himself, a profound sense of powerlessness welling up in his heart.

"It seems... besides following orders and blowing ourselves up, there’s really nothing we can do..."

Hearing his words, Su Ling’er also felt a pang of bitterness.

She, at least, was still fighting.

She activated the Sword Refining Skill, entering that demonic state and charging the mobs again and again.

But even the weakest mobs had the cultivation of the Early-stage Core Formation.

Even when the mobs were weakened by the Grievance Beast’s slothful aura, she could only rely on her tough physique to endure a few hits before being sent flying time after time.

Wang Xiedi had it even worse. As someone in the Qi Refining Stage, the Techniques he unleashed on the mobs couldn’t even break their defense. It was less than a scratch.

In this cataclysmic battle, the two of them were simply too weak, too insignificant.

Meanwhile, Li Chunfeng had also accepted reality just from watching.

He quietly retreated to the entrance of the Stairs of Light.

This battle was no longer something he could participate in.

’It seems I don’t even qualify to scratch the mobs.’

So, he found a spot near the entrance to the Stairs of Light and resumed his practice of drawing and sheathing his sword.

SHING! CLANG!

Li Chunfeng saw a steady stream of new disciples from his sect charging up the stairs.

Their faces bore a fanatical excitement he couldn’t comprehend as they shouted slogans and threw themselves into the fray.

One after another, they fell and were replaced in a seemingly endless cycle.

Li Chunfeng watched the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Guixi Sect disciples and couldn’t help but marvel inwardly:

’Sigh, this sect really has a lot of disciples.’

’So many people, all pressing forward without fear... That’s a good thing, I suppose.’

He thought of the outer sect of Qingxu Temple, of his own mortal body that held no glimmer of hope.

But here, at least, he had found a thread of that immortal destiny.

He finally made up his mind.

’This place holds the heaven-sent opportunity I’ve sought my entire life.’

’No matter what, I’m never leaving.’

’Perhaps...’

’My past at Qingxu Temple, all my struggles and frustrations as a mortal... I should just let it all scatter to the winds.’

’As for Su Ling’er and Wang Xiedi... We were sect-mates, after all. I won’t turn them in.’

’I can only hope... that they’ll be all right in the future...’