Stopping in place like this, waiting in the darkness for quite some time, Chan Zi remained silent, standing there without any anxiety, as if he never considered what would happen if the magic didn’t work, or if the fat man deceived him and left him alone in this boundless darkness.
Chan Zi was neither simple-minded nor unafraid; his master had taught him since he was a child that a man without trust cannot stand.
Yes, a man must fulfill his promises.
After waiting for another quarter of an hour, the talisman paper placed at the center of his forehead suddenly moved and patted him.
So Chan Zi stepped forward, feeling himself stepping onto a stairway.
Oh, it’s that Platform of Emperors.
Chan Zi ascended the platform step by step, counting eighty-one steps in his heart before finally reaching the flat ground, and then he successfully felt the snake statue under guidance.
"Hiss!" His palm was so scalded that the skin broke and flesh gaped open, nearly causing him to cry out, but he gritted his teeth and endured.
This snake statue, although not big, only half the height of a person, seemed as solid as if cast from copper and was as hot as a branding iron, causing excruciating pain on his back.
Chan Zi hesitated for a moment.
The fat man didn’t mention that the snake statue would be so hot...
But he did say that carrying the statue would prevent getting burned by the Sun’s fire. Moreover, if this demon statue was not moved to block the broken seal, the monster would inevitably break loose and havoc would be wrought, leaving countless harmed...
Now that I’m here!
So Chan Zi gritted his teeth and carried the snake statue on his back.
"Hiss——"
The scorching snake statue seared his skin, the air around him filled with the stench of burning flesh, but Chan Zi was stubborn; even as he trembled from head to toe, drenched in blood and sweat, he persisted in carrying the demon statue step by step down the sealed platform. Under guidance, one step at a time, he stepped into the demon’s seal.
Yes, he was surely in the seal now, because as the fat man had said, the fire was still burning.
Even with talisman paper covering his eyes, bright light seeped through his tightly closed eyelids, as if a sun had burst into being before him, its all-encompassing golden light threatening to melt him in an instant.
Fortunately, the intense light seemed to be absorbed by the snake statue on his back, no, it was being absorbed; before Chan Zi could be charred to carbon or reduced to ashes, the endless ocean of light was diverted away as though split by a reef, streaming around him like molten lava, washing over him with scorching heat while simultaneously converging and pouring into the snake statue on his back.
His back increasingly burned, his whole body increasingly hot, truly flames enveloping him, ablaze and feverish, as if he were being branded while roasting on a pyre, until Chan Zi completely lost sensation, holding his breath, pacing forward as if a living dead, until he reached the monster’s side.
All right, at first, he didn’t know why the monster only bore one head, and why Chen Xuantian emphasized counting the third from the left.
Because it was simply too enormous.
Trudging with each step, the ground was covered in decaying flesh, forming a mire of blood and mud, as if stepping on warm rotten organs in a slaughterhouse, akin to walking into an ocean of flesh in Purgatory.
And when he raised his head, what stood before him was the long-dead corpse of the Nine-Headed Beast. Like a mountain of bones floating on a sea of flesh, emanating a bone-chilling Demon Wind, reeking of blood and putrid stench.
For a moment, the earth-shattering Demon Wind suppressed the surrounding waves of heat and light, the spine blocking all-consuming light, clearly casting mountain-like shadows in Chan Zi’s sight. On that spine, visible paths diverged, nine in total, stretching forth along peak-like bone ridges into the ocean of light and blood, vanishing into the distance.
He ’saw’ and understood.
Then walk on.
So Chan Zi carried the bronze statue and tread on the festering demon corpse, embarking on the third ridge ’mountain path’ counted from the gate.
Forward, forward, one step at a time, forward, until the light’s end, until the corpse’s end, placing the snake statue down from his back.
Located it, even though he couldn’t see, Chan Zi knew he had found it.
Because he could smell that fresh bloody scent, filled with life, the beating snake head trembling gently at his feet.
Because he could feel those frantic, menacing, evil, yet slightly fearful eyes fixed on him intently.
Here is the head.
Here is the eye.
Here is the knife.
Chop! The knife broke!
Chan Zi was momentarily stunned, feeling the broken end of his chopper.
No, it wasn’t broken, it seemed to have melted.
The external iron casing had been burned away, revealing the broken sword encased within.
So his master had actually given him a sword...
No matter, as long as it can be used.
So Chan Zi mustered all his strength, gripped the broken sword with both hands, and drove it into that frenzied eyeball!
"Gaah——!"
"Whoosh——!"
"Sss——!"
Amid the earth-shattering screech, Demon Blood gushed like a fountain from the punctured eye, splattering all over Chan Zi’s face!
As if bearing a venomous curse, it splashed into his eyes in an instant! The acidic Demon Blood swiftly dissolved the flesh and blood on Chan Zi’s face! Destroying his vision completely!
Excruciating pain! Excruciating pain! Excruciating pain! But Chan Zi was long used to such agony!!
What does it matter! What does this pain even matter!
When being hung up and beaten! When whipped! When starving! When the house burned down! When those around him were taken one by one!

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