"Who are you?" Ren Jiang scrutinizes Renhu with suspicion but the latter refuses to answer and looks back at him with contemplation.
Renhu has his work cut out for him.
He must pursue every demon that has infiltrated the realm and gather them near this mountain. The task would have been far less tedious if Zhang Xiyu had not abruptly ordered a halt to the cleanup.
During their pursuit of the fragments, the three of them investigated the unstable rifts torn open between Hell and Earth. Their true director was Ren Jiang himself, though this crucial information was deliberately withheld from the increasingly frantic ministers.
Everyone had their own axes to grind.
Out of a sense of 'generosity,' they aided the overwhelmed Pànguāns by devouring the intruders. This killed two birds with one stone – recovering fragments embedded in corrupted souls, and feeding their army.
When the search for fragments concluded, Zhang Xiyu recalled all manpower from Earth. Renhu initially assumed the mission had simply ended. He did not realize the recall was meant to set a trap for Ren Jiang.
Which meant Renhu's real assignment had not even begun.
It could only begin once his two seniors arrived to restrain the primary enemy. Until then, Renhu was tasked with stalling this prodigal son of Hell by any means necessary.
"You are neither demon nor human." he states flatly, clearly displaying his lack of patience.
"What exactly are you?"
"You are correct."
The red pillar of demonic energy fails to illuminate Renhu's face, leaving his features buried beneath layers of shadow. When he speaks again, his voice carries the weight of something ancient and foul. "I am the residue of countless souls."
"What—"
The interruption dies in Ren Jiang's throat as a phrase flickers vaguely through his mind.
"You pushed Yutao, me, and countless other souls into its unforgiving depths, gambling that at least one of us would crawl back out with it."
Ren Jiang inhales slowly, deliberately, suppressing the spike of irritation threatening to break his composure. So he is withthem.
Of course, that remains an assumption. Ally or enemy, this thing is no friend of his. And far more troubling than its allegiance are the questions it raises simply by existing.
How did it materialize at all? How had a creature of this magnitude remained hidden beneath Ren Jiang's awareness?
How could it descend into the mortal world in such a short span of time?
No, he is stronger than a Profound Immortal. Only those weak mortal demons can slip through undetected.
So, how did he get here? Augmentation stones do not grow on trees!
Artifacts capable of dragging an entire physical body into the mortal realm are priceless beyond measure. Not even the wealthiest immortals could afford such an artifact. So how could a nameless ghost manage it?
But Ren Jiang does not have the leisure to get answers. The laws of nature will soon catch up to him. The law that keeps both gods and monsters away from this realm.
There is a reason why gods cannot step into the mortal world to save everyone and that is Equilibrium.
When a being of overwhelming power steps into this realm, nature compensates by allowing an equal force to invade alongside it.
Low-level angels and demons occasionally slip through the cracks. But anyone who has reached the lowest stage of true immortality—Heavenly Immortal—does not possess such leeway, let alone Ren Jiang, who is two stages above that and just one stage before being an Immortal Emperor.
Soon an equal force will be reckoned with.
But for now-
Renhu grins. "Would you like to meet them?"
In the span of a blink, his torso liquefies into drifting strands of grey vapor. His form convulses violently, as though something inside him is attempting to escape by force. Limbs rupture outward, tearing through vapor and bone alike. Skulls burst free from his body, their jaws stretching impossibly wide as they scream, clawing their way out as if desperate to be born again.
They rise above Ren Jiang in a towering mass of twisted anatomy; a living monument built from suffering.
The ghouls moan, their voices overlapping and grinding together into a shrill, maddening chorus of resentment and rage.
"They are eager to see you."
Renhu's laughter spirals into madness as he watches Ren Jiang's expression finally tighten. With a sharp, practiced sweep of his hand, the prince erects a golden barrier that erupts outward, encasing both himself and the red pillar beneath the storm-choked sky.
The ghosts attack immediately.
They slam themselves against the barrier with reckless abandon. Deformed mouths split wider as their jaws unhinge. Hollow eyes tremble violently in their sockets. Their malformed bodies smear against the golden wall, leaving streaks of blackened residue as fine particles of divine energy flay strips of flesh and bone from Renhu's ever-regenerating mass.
Limbs are severed.
Skulls are crushed.
They regenerate instantly.
So rapidly, in fact, that their numbers appear to swell, crawling over the barrier like a tide of rotting meat and screaming faces.
Their moans grow louder. Closer. More desperate.
Through the cacophony of shrieks and wet tearing sounds, a single word cuts through with terrifying clarity.
"Die… Die…"
It is not fair to live alone when we are all dead.
"DIEDIEDIEDIE—"
"Hah…" A nerve twitches violently on Ren Jiang's forehead as he watches the grotesque spectacle unfold before him. He feels no fear, no guilt. Only irritation.
"Fucking pests."
His eyes blaze with cruel amusement as he bares his teeth. "If you want me to shatter what little remains of your pitiful souls," he snarls, "then keep coming, you fuckers."
From afar, the red pillar appears to fade into the night like a dying illusion. In truth, it is being smothered. The damned souls climb it like parasitic vines, wrapping tighter and tighter, their bodies merging into a choking mass of bone and grey flesh.
Ren Jiang does not notice the shift above him. He merely reinforces the barrier again, his expression wooden, already preparing to draw his sword and end Renhu once and for all.
Then—
Crack.
"What…?"
His gaze snaps upward just as rot spreads across the golden barrier.
At the ghosts' touch, his spell decays like diseased flesh. The corruption blooms outward, spreading in sickly veins as the barrier softens, peels, and collapses inward. The ghouls surge through the opening like maggots bursting from a corpse, chanting for his death as they pour inside.
Ren Jiang stares in disbelief.
This should be impossible. These souls should not even be capable of scratching his spell. Even weirder is the nature of the qi that has made his own energy decay.
So this is ghost cultivation.
Before he can retaliate, the ghouls that were eager to consume him suddenly lost all interest in him.
No, they turn instead toward the red pillar—the demonic conduit linking Ren Jiang to his servants.
Only when the pillar is completely encased within skeletal forms does he understand what is happening.
The pillar of the undead spirals upward, wrapped in dense grey fog and screams of agony that are mercifully brief. Then, without warning, the screams cut off.
The mass explodes.
The ghosts shatter into a million black birds.
They surge skyward, following invisible branches that stretch toward every demon ravaging the land in Prince Ren's name.
And just like that, they are gone.
Renhu never intended to fight the prince. His purpose was to capture every demon on Earth. Hunting them individually would have been tedious. So instead, he corrupted their shared connection.
Stealing the locations of every servant sowing chaos, Renhu dispersed himself into a million crows, each one screaming through the sky faster than sound.
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Somewhere in a roadside diner, people screamed and prayed as the owner locked the doors and began his slaughter.
The police never responded.
The owner's movements were no longer human. His limbs bent at impossible angles as he tore into flesh with his sharpened claws.
If the demon noticed you, your death was already decided.
Tables once covered with warm, inviting meals were now slick with blood. Bodies of loved ones lay strewn across the floor in pieces. Arms ripped free, faces pulped beyond recognition. Survivors huddled together, sobbing uncontrollably as they listened to the demon crack the bones and spill the organs of their loved ones.
With silent tears they earnestly prayed for someone to save them.
Police. Military. Superheroes. Angels.
Anyone.
But no one came.
Instead—
Two crows smash through the diner's glass front as if it were made of wet paper.
The demon's warped eyes snap toward them, unimpressed. With a roar, he hurls a chair with enough force to cave in a skull.
The birds dodge effortlessly.
Their beaks plunged downward, gouging into his eye sockets. They tore his eyes free with wet, popping sounds and spit them onto the blood-soaked tiles.
The demon screams in anguish.
Enraged, he seizes one crow and attempts to crush it in his fist, pouring all his strength into pulverizing it.
However, the bird does not struggle.
Its claws elongate, slick and serpentine, wrapping around his palm and tightening with bone-crushing force.
Too late, he realizes both hands are trapped.
The crows spread their wings and drag him into the air, smashing through another glass pane. Onlookers watch in stunned horror as two birds haul a shrieking demon skyward.
They slam him into walls, signs, and streetlights, making sure his head collides with every solid object in their path.
Each impact effectively dulling his screams.
After all, they only need him alive. Not intact.
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The rapid chain of events felt unreal to Ren Jiang, like a lucid dream stitched together from violence and absurdity.
Luckily for him, he did not have to remain in that confusion for long.
Because the strategist is here to kindly explain it to him.
"Ah. Don't worry about him." Zhang Xiyu languidly says. "He's just rounding up your dogs and sending them back to where they belong."