The Demon with Holy Radiance

The corners of his lips lifted slightly, revealing undisguised killing intent.

"If that’s how it is, then you’ve run out of chances."

"Frost Curse!"

No one could see Non-Birth’s movements. He gently raised a hand. The motion seemed slow, yet Yang An had no time to react before a finger was pressed against his chest.

As Non-Birth’s voice slowly resounded...

BANG—

Yang An instinctively activated his Light and Shadow Escape Technique, his body flaring with momentary brilliance. But an intensely heavy palpitation seized him, as if his Heart had just suffered a devastating blow.

The next moment, Yang An reappeared a kilometer away. His expression grim, he looked down at his chest.

A bloody, fist-sized hole had been punched clean through his chest, right over his Heart. You could see the scenery behind him without obstruction.

Blood trickled from the wound. A strange green fluid had already seeped into his body, spreading outward from the hole. Horrifyingly, tender green shoots were already sprouting rapidly from the gruesome opening.

The shoots grew with wild speed. In the blink of an eye, the wound over his Heart was completely choked with countless green sprouts.

’It’s not healing!’

His Immortality circulated within him; a wound like this should have healed in the blink of an eye.

But Yang An immediately sensed something was wrong. The power from Non-Birth’s attack had already invaded his body and was now spreading toward his neck. All the life force and energy within him seemed to be feeding it.

The hole wouldn’t close. Without a second thought, Yang An activated his Power of Rules, and his entire body became suffused with light.

An unbearable wave of pain washed over him. The moment the light appeared, it purged the foreign power from his body. The sensation was like having something violently uprooted from within him, as if his entire Heart was being torn out.

Fortunately, light was light. It easily annihilated the foreign power. Thick smoke billowed from Yang An’s body as the wound began to heal rapidly.

Even at a distance of a kilometer, he still felt no sense of safety.

"No wonder you managed to kill two of my Golden Soul Sect Elders. To think you’ve mastered such a forbidden power... How did you do it?"

A look of surprise crossed Non-Birth’s face. He had left the previous matters to his subordinates, but now he finally understood why they had been so soundly defeated and killed one after another.

It wasn’t as if the Golden Soul Sect had no Light Magic of its own. For example, when Yang An had wiped out their branch in Chongwen State, he’d acquired two such techniques: the Blood Disaster Technique and the Spiritual Light Technique.

Light Magic is exceedingly rare in the world today, but not nonexistent, and Non-Birth himself had encountered it before.

After all, any power deemed ’forbidden’ would grant an enormous advantage to whoever could master it.

Unfortunately for him, he had failed.

Since even he had failed, he never imagined anyone could succeed in mastering such a power.

And because of that failure, he understood just how great a price one had to pay to master a Light Forbidden Technique.

Moreover, what Yang An had displayed wasn’t as simple as merely mastering a Light Forbidden Technique. He had also grasped the Power of Rules for the Light Category.

That was a feat that should have been impossible.

This was a miracle! A true miracle!

A moment ago, he had been thinking of how to obliterate Yang An. But after seeing this display, only a single thought remained in Non-Birth’s mind.

"This must be a sign from the Mother of Non-Birth! She has delivered you to me as a gift for my pious faith!"

"???"

For a moment, Yang An couldn’t fathom the guy’s twisted logic, but he could smell the danger in the air. Without a second thought, his body suddenly swelled in size, and he threw a punch.

Non-Birth’s figure vanished. A tremor ran through the ground, and the earth erupted like a splash of water, spitting out a massive hole. From the shadows within, countless vines shot out and intertwined, forming a giant treant.

The treant’s torso seemed to be cupped between two enormous hands. It let out a heaven-shaking roar, its exposed maw filled with sharp thorns. But in the very instant it appeared, Yang An’s punch was already upon it.

The Light Giant’s fist easily punched through the treant’s head, followed by a brilliant explosion of light that engulfed its body.

Yang An had no intention of giving it any chance. He unleashed his Spiritual Light Net, releasing its full power in an attempt to destroy the creature in a single blow.

But even as the light instantly destroyed more than half of its body, the treant’s vines defied the corrosion and wrapped around the giant’s arm. Billowing black smoke as they burned away, the vines instantly spread to the giant’s shoulder, about to pierce its neck.

Just then, under Yang An’s control, the Light Giant chose to self-destruct.

’This guy is clearly after me,’ he thought. ’He’s trying to use this chance to invade my body.’

A beam of light shot out from the giant’s body, and Yang An’s figure reappeared several kilometers away. At that same instant, an explosion of innumerable light beams erupted where he had just been, turning heaven and earth into a blindingly bright day and unleashing apocalyptic destruction.

The blast engulfed everything within a ten-kilometer radius. As the light reached its zenith, the resulting destruction was unimaginable.

Rings of arcing light appeared, but they weren’t light at all. They were spatial distortions, formed as the explosion warped space itself—like wrinkles created by layers of spacetime being twisted and compressed together, resembling a black hole.

The blindingly bright scene instantly flipped to absolute darkness, as if all light had been devoured in a single moment.

Panting in the absolute darkness, Yang An could no longer sense Non-Birth’s aura, but he didn’t dare to relax.

Under those circumstances, if he had hesitated for even a second, Non-Birth would have likely found his real body. The danger had been extreme.

’What else could you expect from the Sect Leader of the Golden Soul Sect?’ His methods, compared to the pressure Xuan You had exerted, inspired a much deeper terror in Yang An—the sense that a single wrong move would mean losing everything.

But his opponent clearly hadn’t expected him to be so decisive, to abandon that massive construct of the Power of Light by making it self-destruct.

Undoubtedly, even though self-destructing the Light Giant had consumed half of Yang An’s Mana, it had been the best possible response under the circumstances.

’Looks like he was killed in the blast.’

Within that patch of darkness where everything had been corroded and collapsed, Non-Birth’s aura had vanished completely.

Still, just to be safe, Yang An activated his Light and Shadow Escape Technique and instantly teleported into Earth Demon Cliff.

Huan was inside Earth Demon Cliff, quietly observing everything. Seeing Yang An arrive, it let out a soft chuckle.

"Well done."

After saying this, the enormous bird-man Dharma Aspect vanished in the blink of an eye.

Huan’s departure was indirect proof that Non-Birth was no longer a threat. Only then did Yang An finally let out a true sigh of relief, feeling thankful for his earlier decisiveness.

’Looks like that guy really was blown to bits.’

However, his newfound understanding of Non-Birth’s power made Yang An’s expression turn grave.

What was known was that the Golden Soul Sect had no one at the Immortal Platform realm. This meant Non-Birth’s Cultivation Level was likely the same as Xuan You’s: Late Stage of the Insect Dao, or at most, Insect Dao Perfection—the Half-Step Immortal Platform realm.

But the being he had just faced wasn’t Non-Birth’s true body, but rather a projection-like clone, and even *that* had displayed such formidable power.

Previously, Yang An had believed that with his current combat strength, since he was able to kill Xuan You, he should also be able to contend with the Sect Leader of the Golden Soul Sect head-on, even if he couldn’t kill him.

But now, it was clear he had both overestimated himself and underestimated the true power and foundation of those who, after thousands of years, could become the Leaders of great factions.

’If I really want to get that Command Token from the Golden Soul Sect, my chances are slim with my current strength.’

In the end, he just wasn’t strong enough. If he could become stronger, if he could advance past the Zombie God realm and break through to the Insect Dao, then the next time he faced Non-Birth, he certainly wouldn’t be caught so off-guard.

The excitement from killing Xuan You hadn’t even faded, yet this encounter with Non-Birth’s immense power was like a bucket of cold water, leaving Yang An feeling utterly sober.

Fortunately, with the great war in the Treasure Temple Domain imminent, the Golden Soul Sect likely couldn’t afford to be distracted. He still had time to grow stronger.

’Sooner or later,’ he vowed, ’I’ll get him back for this!’