I Swear I’m Not a Demonic Cultivator - Chapter 25
Chapter 25: Fang Zheng’s Compassionate Heart
Fang Zheng gazed down at the figure kneeling at his feet.
Lu Chuxue, a disciple of Hundred Herbs Valley.
He was huddled on the ground, trembling violently, his face a grotesque mask of tears, snot, and dirt, resembling a puddle of rancid mud.
A thought flickered through Fang Zheng’s mind.
Killing him would be simple.
Like crushing an ant beneath one’s heel.
Yet Fang Zheng’s gaze lingered on Lu Chuxue’s eyes, widened in sheer terror.
Amidst that murky despair, he glimpsed a flicker—
A spark of the will to survive.
Fang Zheng had always believed that a sword could both sever karma and ferry souls across. The difference lay solely in the hand that wielded it.
This soul was mired so deep in the quagmire of sin that it could no longer save itself.
But it was still struggling.
Fang Zheng decided to lend him a hand.
Not to use him as a guide.
Purely out of kindness, out of compassion.
With the most thorough and resolute method, Fang Zheng uprooted him completely from that filth!
A grand, compassionate notion solidified within his heart with thunderous force.
“You want to live?” Fang Zheng’s voice was flat, betraying neither anger nor pleasure.
“Yes! Yes! Great Demon Monarch, I want to live! I’ll do anything!”
Lu Chuxue kowtowed frantically, like a dog whose tail had been stepped on. His forehead slammed against the jagged rocks with dull thuds, quickly drawing blood.
Excellent.
Fang Zheng made his decision.
He raised his gaze to the heavens and swore a solemn oath in his heart.
I need a power—a supreme force capable of severing his ties to the evils of the past, planting the light of righteousness in his heart, and bathing him in the Righteous Dao for eternity, making betrayal impossible!
This thought was Fang Zheng’s truest, purest prayer at that moment.
In the next instant, his entire Sea of Consciousness was flooded with endless golden light!
The System activated:
Based on the ancient sages’ principle of ‘Treating illness requires eradicating the root; saving a person begins with saving their heart,’ initiating the optimal solution!
Ultimate Edification Edition—Nine Nether Demon Heart Seed!
These words reverberated through the depths of Fang Zheng’s soul like the tolling of dawn and dusk bells, carrying immeasurable majesty and compassion.
Fang Zheng instantly “grasped” it.
Nine Nether—the deepest abyss of sin.
Demon Heart—a corrupted origin.
Seed—to plant a seed of hope and rebirth!
To delve into the very roots of this man’s wickedness, to forcibly plant a seed of the Righteous Dao within his demon-tainted heart. To make light spring forth from the heart of darkness!
What unparalleled dominance! What boundless compassion!
This was the true “cure, root and branch”! This was the true “salvation, heart and soul”!
This was a seed of hope, a pact of light.
Once planted, Lu Chuxue’s Divine Soul would resonate with Fang Zheng’s Righteous Dao Heart.
He would constantly feel the vast, ocean-like radiance of the Righteous Dao within his heart, subtly purifying his demonic corruption.
From that moment forward, his Dao Heart would be eternally fortified, forever beyond the reach of corruption!
Perfect!
Fang Zheng’s gaze toward Lu Chuxue was filled with relief and pity.
“You are fortunate,” Fang Zheng’s voice softened, like a spring breeze skimming across water. “Today, I shall bestow upon you a blessing of immense magnitude.”
Fang Zheng extended a single finger.
In his vision, Fang Zheng’s fingertip was no longer flesh and bone, but rather a convergence of the purest Great Righteous Qi in heaven and earth, coalescing into a soft, warm, and supremely sacred golden sphere.
Like the first rays of dawn breaking over the horizon.
“Open your mind and do not resist,” Fang Zheng murmured softly, his voice like a priest presiding over a holy baptism.
“Accept it, and you shall be reborn.”
Upon hearing these words, Lu Chuxue felt an icy chill shoot from his tailbone to the crown of his head. He wanted to run, to scream, to self-destruct!
But the moment Fang Zheng’s gaze fell upon him, he couldn’t even twitch a finger.
He could only watch helplessly as that fingertip, radiating ominous black miasma in his eyes, slowly approached the space between his brows.
In that instant,
Lu Chuxue saw no golden light.
He saw only a wisp of black qi, darker than the abyss and colder than venomous hatred, detach from the Demon God’s fingertip.
It wasn’t qi.
It was a tiny, barbed, living Demon Insect!
With a silent shriek, it pierced Lu Chuxue’s skin in an instant, carrying with it a scalding, flesh-tearing pain as it burrowed into his Divine Soul’s Sea of Consciousness!
Lu Chuxue writhed in agony, yet not a sound escaped his lips.
His body arched backward violently, his spine bending at an inhuman angle, emitting a series of crisp “crack, crack, crack” sounds as his joints dislocated.
The Demon Insect burrowed into the innermost core of his Divine Soul, then sank its roots deep.
In the next instant, a billion unspeakable torturous visions exploded in his mind!
He saw himself thrown into a blood-soaked pool for showing the slightest disrespect to his master, his skin being torn off inch by inch by countless malevolent spirits.
He saw himself having his Divine Soul ripped out alive for being a fraction of a second too slow in executing his master’s orders, then impaled on Nine Nether hellfire to be scorched for eternity.
He saw himself transformed into a corpse puppet for revealing a trace of his master’s whereabouts, then strung from a Demon Banner to watch helplessly as his family and sect were slaughtered one by one, their souls forever condemned to endless torment.
Betrayal.
Neglect.
Disloyalty.
Any sliver of negative emotion toward the Demon God before him would trigger a living torment a million times more terrifying than death itself.
Heh… heh… heh…
Lu Chuxue’s throat rasped like a broken bellows. Foul-smelling white foam frothed from his mouth, his eyes rolled back, and beneath his skin, countless worm-like things seemed to writhe at breakneck speed, transforming him into a living creature of pure curse.
Fang Zheng watched this spectacle, not with worry, but with a relieved expression.
See?
How fiercely he resists!
This proves how deeply rooted the sin within him is!
The agony he was enduring was precisely the soul’s process of severing itself from past wickedness.
This was the inevitable path to purification, the labor pains of a soul’s rebirth.
The more excruciating the pain, the more thorough the cleansing.
Fang Zheng sat cross-legged, quietly guarding him as he awaited the birth of a brand-new soul.
Time seemed to stretch into an eternity.
Yet it also passed in an instant.
On the ground, Lu Chuxue finally stopped convulsing.
His clothes were completely soaked through with cold sweat and filth, making him look as if he’d just been dragged from a fetid ditch.
Slowly, with hands still trembling slightly, he pushed himself upright.
Then, he knelt upright.
His movements were precise and steady, like those of a puppet programmed to perfection.
He raised his head and looked at Fang Zheng.
His face no longer held the terror, cunning, or desperate will to survive that had been there before.
Only a pure, absolute… emptiness remained, radiating from the deepest depths of his soul.
His gaze was unfocused; his eyes now served only to reflect his master’s figure with unwavering fidelity.
This reverence transcended even the fear of death.
For through that recent “baptism,” he had profoundly “understood” a truth:
For this being, death was merely the most merciful of gifts.
Thud!
Lu Chuxue’s forehead struck the hard ground with a heavy, unadorned impact.
This time, there was no testing the waters, no cushioning.
The collision between bone and sharp stone produced a dull thud, like a rock sinking into soft mud.
He raised his head, his forehead a bloody mess.
“Master,” Lu Chuxue’s voice was hoarse, flat, devoid of emotional inflection, yet imbued with an unprecedented, factory-default-like devotion.
“Thank you, Master, for granting me rebirth.”