I Swear I’m Not a Demonic Cultivator - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Arrogant Deacon Kneels Instantly

“Get out of my way, you useless trash.”

Deacon Zhang kicked Wang Er flying, the tip of his boot instantly splattering a pool of filth. He brushed off his azure Daoist robes with disdain, even the slightest crease in the fabric displeasing him.

Fang Zheng.

The name felt like sand in his throat.

A fool who constantly spouted platitudes about “diligence.”

A Mixed Spirit Root waste with all Five Elements, his Immortal Path severed.

Frost in the summer night?

Ha!

Just a low-tier Cultivation Technique gone awry, a common sign of uncontrolled spiritual energy.

Deacon Zhang circulated his spiritual energy, a layer of warm azure light enveloping his body. The perfected ninth layer of Qi Refining stage Azure Origin Art was his foundation for dominating the Outer Sect for twenty years.

He strode forward, his posture arrogant, as if inspecting his own backyard.

His cloud-patterned fast boots stepped into the patch of ghastly white frost.

Then…

His world went dark.

No.

Not darkness, but nothingness.

An invisible hand brutally erased all color, sound, and existence from his senses.

Wang Er’s suppressed gasps behind him vanished.

The rustling of night wind through the treetops vanished.

Even his own heartbeat and the rush of blood through his veins vanished.

A brutal, unreasonable terror of annihilation—a terrifying void that forcibly canceled all existence—engulfed him.

The arrogance on Deacon Zhang’s face froze into a ludicrous mask.

In the next instant…

The protective spiritual aura of the Azure Origin Art, which had guarded his body for twenty years with the familiarity of a limb, remained untouched by any external attack.

It was… rebelling!

The warm, jade-green light instantly turned deathly pale, like the skin of a corpse. Then, it began to flake and crumble away.

Every strand of energy that composed the aura had come alive!

No longer protecting him.

They transformed into billions of ice needles, each coated with deadly poison, abruptly reversing their course to pierce his vital organs from within his own meridians.

“Hrr… hrr…”

Deacon Zhang wanted to scream.

But his vocal cords were seized in violent spasms, his trachea completely blocked by the freezing, metallic torrent. He strained his mouth wide open, but only a muffled rasp, like a broken bellows, escaped his throat.

He wanted to retreat!

But his body refused to obey!

The deathly pale domain of Frost emanated a palpable will.

This was no mere force.

It was a principle.

A supreme principle, telling him in the coldest possible terms: The Azure Origin Art you cultivate is trash. Your Dao is unworthy of existence here.

He tried to lift his leg.

Crack!

His knee buckled of its own accord.

He didn’t want to kneel.

But his bones, his spine, every cell in his body screamed in primal, abject terror!

Kneel!

Before that dilapidated wooden hut!

In the most abject posture, he kowtowed, begging for mercy!

“No… this isn’t a Cultivation Technique…”

Deacon Zhang’s teeth clattered violently, producing a brittle, rattling sound like a puppet about to fall apart.

He finally understood why Wang Er had wet his pants.

He finally understood the utter despair in that wildcat’s screams.

The thing in that room…

Wasn’t human!

Nor was it a ghost or demon!

A force abruptly ripped open a page of dust-laden memory in his mind with a deafening boom.

It was the forbidden ancient scroll he had risked his life to steal a glimpse of as a lowly errand boy in the Sect’s Forbidden Zone!

Fragmented images, drenched in the stench of blood, seared themselves into his brain!

An Immortal Dynasty collapsing, crumbling into dust!

A sun dying, its radiance extinguished!

And a blood-drenched ancient character, forged from the bones of billions of gods and demons:

【Silence】!

Cold sweat erupted instantly, freezing into icy beads that clung to his eyebrows.

With every ounce of willpower, he barely stopped his forehead from crashing to the ground. Like a boneless stray dog, he braced himself with his hands and inch by inch, dragged himself toward the dilapidated wooden door.

The door wasn’t locked.

But in his eyes, it led to hell itself, to ultimate nothingness.

Pushing it open would erase his very existence as a “person.”

He dared not.

“Divine… Divine Sense…”

This was his last chance.

He had to see what was behind that door!

Deacon Zhang bit his tongue fiercely, trading searing pain for a moment of control.

He forced a wisp of Divine Sense from his brow.

The wisp, like a startled snake, trembled as it probed toward the wooden door.

Contact.

Then—

A clean, pure black void erupted in Deacon Zhang’s mind.

Gone.

His wisp of Divine Sense hadn’t been blocked, nor had it been shattered.

It had been… erased.

As if an invisible eraser had wiped away a corner of his very soul.

Pfft—!

The soul-searing agony of this erasure struck his Dao Foundation like an invisible hammer.

His vision went black, and a scalding, metallic sweetness surged up his throat.

He coughed up a mouthful of vital blood!

The crimson blood splashed onto the deathly pale Frost covering the ground.

Sizzle—

A bizarre phenomenon occurred.

The crimson blood didn’t melt the Frost.

Instead, the life force and spiritual energy within the blood were instantly and utterly drained by an unseen force.

Within a single breath—

The blood congealed, turned black, and crystallized into jagged, ominous black shards of ice.

The wooden door no longer appeared to him as a mere door.

It had become the gaping maw of an ancient demon god, silently mocking him.

Run!

That single word was all that remained in his mind.

He didn’t dare linger a moment longer. Whipping around, he grabbed Wang Er, who stood paralyzed with fear, his pants soaked and soiled, and forced out a single hoarse word from his throat, his voice cracking:

“Move!”

At the very moment Deacon Zhang vomited blood and fled,

Azure Cloud Sect, Forbidden Zone of the Back Mountain.

An area even the Sect Master was forbidden to enter without authorization, perpetually shrouded in dense mist.

Deep within the Forbidden Zone, in an ancient Cave Mansion, a pair of eyes that had been tightly shut for three centuries suddenly snapped open!

Those eyes held no lingering drowsiness, no imposing authority.

Only a profound, primordial terror that originated from the depths of his Dao Foundation.

On the stone table before him, a warm jade cup he had caressed for three centuries silently crumbled into a handful of fine white powder.

A sudden gust of Yin wind swept through the Cave Mansion, scattering the powder.

The stone walls of the entire cave buzzed with resonance as countless talismanic inscriptions flared and flickered wildly.

“This is not demonic energy…”

The aged voice trembled with an uncontrollable tremor.

“It’s the Dao!”

His withered body, which had sat motionless for three centuries, his right hand—the hand that had once caressed immortal artifacts—trembled uncontrollably for the first time.

“It’s that Dao forbidden by the Immortal Court… the Dao of Annihilation!”

As the words fell, a Sect Master’s Token, engraved with the Azure Cloud Pattern, materialized before him. Electric arcs crackled across the Jade Slip’s surface, emitting piercing crackles.

In the next instant—

Whoosh!

The Sect Master’s Token transformed into a streak of azure light, shattering the hundred-zhang-thick mountain wall of the Cave Mansion. With irresistible force, it tore through the night sky, streaking straight toward the Azure Cloud Sect’s Main Hall!

A cold, urgent, and unquestionable command pierced the void, exploding directly into the Sect Master’s mind:

“Proclaim my decree!”

“Seal the Sect! Activate the Mountain-Protecting Grand Formation at maximum power!”

“Spare no cost! Hunt down that source… and bring it to me!”