Hui gestured Jin Xian back. She hopped back and stood where he’d sat, gazing blankly at the ghouls around them. Hui drew a deep breath and looked out at the ghouls rising through the earth.

How many are there? Ten… twenty… thirty… fifty? Fifty fourth-stage ghouls? Grandpa trial realm, please… this small cultivator only just reached the fourth realm, and you’re already telling me to take out fifty ghouls?

He glanced at Jin Xian, but sighed immediately and shook his head. There’s no point. She’ll just get destroyed immediately. I can still refine her further if I make it out of here. Destroying her now will be a total waste of my effort.

Jin Xian twitched. As he watched, the ghouls connected to her glowing green strings shuddered, then withered away. Globes of green light passed up the string and into her hand. Her eyes flickered, and she sighed. The last of the green strings faded away. For a second, she stood there, completely still.

All at once, her body trembled. Fluctuations at the peak of the third realm rolled out from her body. Green strands of light flickered all over her, reminiscent of the aurora borealis. Her eyes went wide, blazing with green light. She turned to Hui and gnashed her fangs.

Hui blinked. “Elder Sister… are you, by any chance, hungry?”

Jin Xian smiled and licked her claws.

He furrowed his brows. She can’t eat these ghouls as-is, but if I weaken them some… His eyes flashed. “Zhubi! The silver poison!”

Zhubi reared up on Hui’s neck. Hui grabbed the shadow snake and pressed it against Zhubi. The shadow snake squirmed desperately, and Zhubi flinched away, but he didn’t let either go. “You two, be friendly, okay?”

Zhubi hissed, annoyed.

The nearest ghouls charged at him, fangs bared.

“Zhubi!” Hui shouted. He flicked his wrist and drew a talisman just in case.

Zhubi snapped forward. A glob of silver flew through the darkness. In midair, the silver turned into a wall of mist. The mist wall rushed at the ghouls. Sensing danger, they slammed in their heels and backpedaled, but too slowly. The silver mist settled over the ghouls.

The ghouls slowed. Their death qi flowed oddly, circulation suddenly slower.

From behind Hui, Jin Xian rushed forward. Green threads flashed from her fingertips. They plunged into the ghouls. In seconds, the ghouls withered up. Jin Xian trembled again, and the fluctuations from her body grew stronger.

It almost feels like I’m building a death cultivator, Hui thought to himself, smiling.

He paused, then glanced at Jin Xian. Wait, hold on. Jin Xian… she definitely has a cultivation base, not just residual qi! When did that happen? Is that normal for refined cultivator corpses? Or… or, is she a death cultivator?

If she’s a death cultivator… then… wouldn’t she bear a grudge against this small cultivator?

Hui shook his head at himself. “No, no. Chang Bolin didn’t recognize me. There’s no guarantee. She might have forgotten everything, right? And that’s even assuming she’s a death cultivator! It’s a tiny chance. Infinitesimal. Surely she’s a refined cultivator corpse, nothing more, and it’s only this small cultivator’s ignorance that takes it as strange.”

A high-pitched shriek from ahead caught his attention. Jin Xian glanced at him, then stared hungrily at the ghouls, then shrieked again, a demanding tone in her voice.

“Alright, alright.” Hui patted Zhubi, raising the shadow snake again. “You want to help her?”

Zhubi unwound from his neck and zipped over to Jin Xian’s side. He crawled up her leg and coiled around her neck. From his new perch, he gave the shadow snake a disgusted look.

“Don’t you need the snake to…” Hui hesitated, suddenly uncertain. Jin Xian can fight unbound in this realm. Don’t tell me, is it only cultivators whose qi is restrained?

Placing the shadow snake in his sleeve, away from his flesh, he raised his hand and summoned his death qi. Carefully, he fed it out into the world.

The death qi emerged easily from him, not bound in any way by the rules of the realm.

Hui laughed. He snapped his hand shut, dismissing the death qi. That makes sense! Jin Xian uses death qi. Even her residual qi is based off death qi. And Zhubi is using a physical property of his beast body, not a qi technique. The only kind of qi restrained in here… is ordinary qi! Or, should I say, ordinary qi-based qi? Qi, blood qi, probably beast qi… but not death qi!

Chuckling to himself, he almost didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him. He leaned and barely dodged as a ghoul clawed at his back. Before it could claw again, he snapped his hand out and grabbed its skull. Killing his qi, he used the suction that always happened with the resulting surge to suck the death qi out of the ghoul. As the other ghouls crumpled when Jin Xian’s strings attached, so, too, this ghoul withered away.

“This truly is… a holy land for me! I thought the Blood Mist Valley was easy, but compared to this trial realm, it was a world of hardships and pain!” Hui’s eyes glittered. He gazed ahead, past the ghouls. “Am I the one fated to accept the inheritance of this realm? Is this demonic sect nothing but a windfall for me?”

A second later, he froze. No, no, no, Hui! You’re a righteous cultivator, righteous! Inheriting a demonic sect’s secret inheritance technique? No, no, no. That’s impossible. Surely the elder who created this realm would never choose a righteous cultivator like me. It’s not like the red soul. I don’t have a reversal for the spell array, or a way to lock away whoever created this realm and loot it at my leisure. I’m not cheating at all, not one bit! The ancestor would have to honestly choose me to inherit his technique, and naturally, they never would! Never. Not a chance.

Ten ghouls rushed at him. Hui flashed a handful of fire talismans. Fire tabbies rushed at the ghouls, slamming into them. The attack barely made the ghouls stagger, but the flames caught on their rotting robes and flesh. Unfeeling, they didn’t pat out the flames. Hui retreated, letting the tabbies whirl about and rush at the ghouls again and again. Their flesh slowly weakened as the tabbies cooked it.

Hui smiled. One attack from a third-realm talisman isn’t much, but repeated attacks? It won’t kill you, but as long as I can weaken you, that’s enough! He jabbed his hand out and drew at the ghoul’s death qi.

The ghouls shuddered. Black qi streamed from their bodies to his hand.

I guess being at fourth stage has its advantages, after all.

Hui closed his hands. The ghouls toppled. He turned toward Zhubi and Jin Xian. “I’m coming…”

Jin Xian stood atop a pile of dead ghouls. Green threads buried into the pile, pumping orbs of green light into her body. She licked putrid blood off her lips and glanced at him, then screeched.

“Er… aha! I see you’ve done it without my help!” Hui said, chuckling nervously. Er… Elder Sister? You… you’re scaring me.

Jin Xian walked over to him and stood quietly by his side. Zhubi leaped off her neck and wound around Hui’s instead, rubbing his head against Hui’s neck in joy at their reunion.

“That’s right. You did well, boy,” Hui said, patting him on the head.

At the far end of the bone chamber, a door creaked open. An ordinary door, sized for an ordinary man, it stuck out for its ordinariness. Hui looked up, then strode toward the door, clasping the shadow snake in his fist. Jin Xian followed silently. A glimmer of intelligence swirled in her eyes, suppressed a second later.

Hui glanced back. He frowned, then rubbed the back of his neck. What was that? I felt… as if this small cultivator should play dead, suddenly. But… why?