A demon fetus!

Su Xiaoxiao was scared witless by what she saw—Qing Ruyan’s child was a demon fetus! That was the only explanation for the omens manifesting here.

Once born, the demon baby would wreak havoc in the world.

“Formation!” declared a clear voice, ushering the instant appearance of a great formation over the area. Feinie had taken over the protective formation of the governor’s manor to conceal what was happening in its premises.

If any other immortal saw this scene, rumors would run rife through Dusk Province and the authority Lu Yun had worked so hard to build would be destroyed overnight.

“It really is a demon fetus!” Lu Yun and Qing Han were stunned when they arrived at the manor.

The roiling smoke above the premise had turned into a giant infant’s head. It was smiling, an uneerie hatred quirking its lips. It was as if the baby bore strong resentment for the world before it had even been born.

“Xing Mou and the little fox are still in there...” Qing Han was looking on with great concern. The situation in the manor was too frightful, and now Qing Ruyan’s lifeforce had vanished entirely.

……

“Qing Ruyan entered Dusk Province when too much blood was being spilled. The resentment of the immortals who died there concentrated on her, turning the immortal fetus she carried into a demon fetus. We didn’t even have to risk our own karma by moving against her!”

Outside Dusk Province, a few grim-looking elders were looking into the province with strange smiles on their faces.

“She fancied herself so clever, sneaking into Dusk Province during that Scarlet Ape’s attack. All the malice and resentment in the air from the violence raging in the province… someone pregnant with an immortal fetus was the perfect target. Besides, she even killed a few people while she was at it… tsk tsk, how foolish.”

There was an eerie presence of death about them, but they were still alive. Their auras were even greater and more powerful than the various leaders of the major factions; they were all origin dao immortals!

They were those who’d reached peak arcane dao immortal realm and entered the void under the origin dao fruit’s guidance, and were lucky enough to pluck their dao fruit. During the process, however, they’d suffered great injuries. Those injuries constantly ate away at their life force and forced them to go into closed door cultivation to fight their wounds.

They hadn’t appeared when Scarlet Ape invaded Dusk Province. Now that Qing Ruyan was going to deliver her child, they’d emerged at the border to take in what was happening.

Clearly, it was their doing that Qing Ruyan had so easily entered Dusk Province and participated in the earlier battle. Gleeful delight punctuated their lighthearted conversation as they watched the demon fetus arrive in the world.

“That little fellow in the Panorama Pavilion is about to be guided by the dao fruit tree, isn’t he?” chuckled an old crone with a cane.

“Soon. Another hundred years…. I do hope he’ll succeed in plucking the origin dao fruit and become inhuman beings just like us… hehehe...” cackled another voice.

“Origin dao? Hehehe, we’re the real origin dao immortals, the true powerhouses of the world of immortals. The nine celestial emperors are nothing but free-range pigs. Pigs are to be slaughtered and roasted once they grow fat enough. How foolish of those nine poor bugs to think about working together....”

“Silence!” the other origin dao immortals hectored when they heard the old crone bring that up.

She laughed awkwardly and stopped talking.

……

“Qing Ruyan is dead,” Lu Yun suddenly muttered.

Blood drained from Qing Han’s face when Lu Yun made that declaration.

Qing Ruyan hadn’t been sitting idle over the past few months, and had frequently given pointers to the group in Dusk. Even Lu Yun’s envoys had many weaknesses and insufficiencies, Qing Ruyan had helped them shore up many of their failings and progress past bottlenecks.

Empress Myrtlestar and the Azure Dragon King were more experienced than she was, but they cultivated the ancient methods, which weren’t necessarily suited for today’s immortals. Xing Mou and the little fox, especially, had made great progress under her guidance.

Now, however, she was dead.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” Lu Yun said stiffly. “Stay here and guard the place. Kill anyone who dares draw close.”

He subconsciously threw a glance to the west, his lips curled into a cold smile. Bringing out the Formation Orb, Feinie set up a great formation to seal off the manor without missing a beat.

Upon setting foot into the black smoke, Lu Yun was immediately met with incessant howls and wails. Even he, the overlord of all things spooky, felt a little unnerved by it all.

I was wondering why there were lost spirits but no resentment after hundreds of millions died in Dusk. So it all went into the fetus... Lu Yun’s expression was dark.

“Old man, what’s the deal with your Heaven Descent Pill?” He manifested an image in the dragon palace in hell to pose the question. “Why did it concentrate all of the malice and resentment in Dusk on her?”

“Heaven Descent Pill?” Qi Hai looked around blankly.

He was indeed Qi Hai, but the Qi Hai from the Primordial Era possessed only tens of thousands of years worth of memory. Compared to his lifespan of millions and millions of years, or his knowledge from the Primeval Era, that Qi Hai had been but a drop in the bucket.

“Search for the memory and find it, or I’ll kick you out!” snarled Lu Yun.

Qi Hai smiled resignedly and closed his eyes, searching through the memories of the ancient times recorded in his soul.

“Heaven Descent Pill… you refined that too?” Qi Hai opened his eyes and frowned. “It’s nothing good and not something you should touch. If my guess is right, the three who originally benefited from the pill all met a terrible destiny in the end.”

“With the ancient world of immortals destroyed, even those who didn’t take the pill have all suffered terrible ends too,” Lu Yun huffed. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“The Heaven Descent Pill intercepts a heavenly opportunity to create a natural-born immortal, and the heavenly dao takes from those who have too much to share with those who have too little.” Qi Hai looked seriously at Lu Yun’s projection. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“She’s suffering the envy of heaven?” The connection quickly came to Lu Yun and he briefed Qi Hai about Qing Ruyan’s matter.

“No wonder…. It was beyond reckless of her to come to the emperor’s resting place after taking a Heaven Descent Pill! She was courting death!” Qi Hai shook his head and sighed. “If my guess is right, an akasha ghost has taken possession of the fetus she bears. That’s why the delivery is occurring three months early, and is causing damage to the mother.”

“Akasha ghosts again!” Lu Yun scowled.