Rebirth as a Demonic Cultivator: Starting with a Zombie Planet

Chapter 36: Yin-Fiend Soul-Stealing Grand Array, Three Hundred and Sixty Formation Flags

Tang Jinchuan stared, utterly paralyzed.

High above the apocalyptic ruins, a figure descended, his robes snapping in the wind as if he were riding the very air itself. His gaze was as sharp as lightning, carrying a pressure so heavy it felt as though invisible swords were poised to rain down upon them.

The other two scavengers gaped at the figure hovering in mid-air, their minds breaking under the sheer absurdity of the sight. They simply couldn’t comprehend how, in a perfectly normal, rotting zombie wasteland, a cultivator straight out of ancient myth had suddenly appeared.

But then again, the world had already ended. The dead were walking. Was a Sword Immortal really that earth-shattering?

Hovering effortlessly atop his Heavenly Dipper Flying Sword, Chu Xuan looked down at the trapped men. With a casual flick of his wrist, a crimson line shot from his body.

*Whoosh!*

The impenetrable spider silk that had doomed the scavengers parted like wet paper. The crimson streak snapped back into his palm—the Blood Steel Wire.

Chu Xuan raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised. The hardness of the silk was much higher than he had anticipated. Such tough material would be excellent for artifact refining.

Down below, Tang Jinchuan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.

*Holy shit?*

He had burned through two-thirds of his body fat and swung his weapon with everything he had, failing to leave even a scratch on those webs. This stranger had severed them in a heartbeat? Just who the hell was this guy?

Chu Xuan didn’t pause. The Blood Steel Wire lashed out again, a blur of crimson lightning.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Wherever the wire passed, over a dozen thick strands of webbing were cleanly bisected.

An angry, piercing shriek from the Broodmother echoed from the depths of the warehouse. Instantly, spiders of all sizes surged from the shadows, flooding the concrete like a chittering, venomous tide.

Chu Xuan smiled faintly. “These little things think they can harm me?”

With a casual wave of his hand, Xiao Long, Xiao Hu, and Xiao Bao materialized. Forged through the Vajra Corpse Refining Method, these Yin Corpses were clad in thick, impenetrable bone armor. At Chu Xuan’s silent command, they plunged into the arachnid swarm.

It was like tigers descending upon a flock of sheep.

Each Yin Corpse was a juggernaut of rotting flesh and bone, plowing through the tide. Limbs snapped, carapaces shattered, and ichor sprayed across the asphalt as the undead blasted the spiders apart.

Chu Xuan strolled toward the warehouse with the casual grace of a man walking through his own garden. Any spider foolish enough to cross his path was instantly pulverized by his undead vanguard. It was a display of absolute, uncontested dominance.

“My God… he can actually control Zombies…”

The two scavengers muttered, dumbfounded. Such strength. Such bearing. He moved like a king. Tang Jinchuan’s jaw hung slack, unable to process the slaughter unfolding before him.

*Tap.*

Chu Xuan stopped before the heavy steel doors of the warehouse, clasping his hands behind his back.

Xiao Long and Xiao Hu hammered the last few spiders into pulp, then stomped the ground fiercely, launching themselves to stand before their master. They aimed their fists at the reinforced iron doors and struck.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Fists fell like a torrential downpour of sledgehammers. The steel groaned and rapidly buckled. Within three seconds, unable to withstand the crushing pressure, the massive doors were violently blown off their hinges!

Sunlight pierced the gloom, revealing a stark white nightmare.

The walls, the ceiling, the floor, and the rusted husks of abandoned buses were entirely smothered in thick, pulsating webbing. At the center of the warehouse squatted a massive, fleshy cocoon.

Inside lurked the Broodmother. It was the size of a small room, its venomous fangs longer than machetes. Even now, it was frantically laying eggs. For some unnatural reason, the eggs were hatching at a terrifying speed. Palm-sized white spiders rapidly broke out of their shells, swarming directly toward Chu Xuan.

“Reckless.”

Chu Xuan softly uttered the word. The silk produced by this mutated Broodmother was quite good—easily considered Top Grade material for a Qi Condensation cultivator.

But that was all it was. Merely good. Since the beast was so ignorant of death and insisted on a desperate struggle, Chu Xuan would naturally grant its wish.

He would send it to hell.

Chu Xuan lowered his right hand. A cluster of sickly, eerie green flames ignited in his palm, radiating a chilling heat that felt as though it could scorch the soul itself.

A hundred feet away, Tang Jinchuan shivered in terror.

*He controls fire too?*

Tang Jinchuan scratched his head in utter bewilderment. He had assumed the man’s talent was controlling Zombies. Could one person possess two apocalyptic talents? He had certainly never seen it.

In the span of a single breath, the Netherfire Bomb fully materialized. Chu Xuan had honed this spell to lethal perfection, compressing its casting time to a mere three seconds. His face remained an emotionless mask as he fiercely hurled the sphere of green death.

Xiao Long, Xiao Hu, and Xiao Bao immediately scrambled out of the way. The Netherfire Bomb burned eternally; even the undead wanted nothing to do with that cursed flame.

The Broodmother’s eight compound eyes shrank in primal terror. It sensed the absolute annihilation radiating from the green fireball and unleashed a desperate shriek. Immediately, a massive wave of spiders abandoned their attack on the Zombies and threw themselves at the Netherfire Bomb, trying to smother it.

It was useless. The Netherfire Bomb was an unstoppable boulder rolling down a mountain. Any living being daring to block its path was instantly incinerated into ash. The green flames devoured the swarming spiders without losing a single fraction of their momentum.

Closer.

Closer still!

The Broodmother exerted every ounce of its strength, emitting a soul-shattering, piercing shriek.

Even from a hundred feet away, the sonic blast hit Tang Jinchuan and his men like a physical sledgehammer to the skull. The two scavengers instantly blacked out. Tang Jinchuan’s vision swam with stars, his knees buckling. Just before darkness took him, he watched the Broodmother’s bloated body get entirely swallowed by the roaring green inferno.

Then, he knew nothing more.

Silence reclaimed the depot. Chu Xuan stepped into the smoldering warehouse and drove a heavy formation flag deep into the concrete floor, setting it firmly in place.

The Formation he was constructing was the Yin-Fiend Soul-Stealing Grand Array. It was an unprecedentedly massive network, combining the Qi Attraction, Fiend Qi, and Soul-Stealing arrays into one sprawling web. It required exactly three hundred and sixty flags to complete. The Donghu City Public Transport Company was precisely one of those nodes.

He hadn’t expected to stumble across a Level 3 mutated Broodmother while running errands.

“Divide these three Psionic Cores among yourselves,” Chu Xuan ordered, casually tossing the crystalline drops to his undead enforcers.

Xiao Hu eagerly swallowed its Psionic Core, then trotted happily over to Chu Xuan like an overgrown, rotting dog. It held out its claws, presenting a single, pristine strand of spider silk.

Chu Xuan took it, noting the surprising chill radiating from the thread. Xiao Hu gestured wildly with its claws, pointing at the smoldering ashes of the Broodmother.

Chu Xuan nodded, genuinely impressed. “You dug this out of the fire? Interesting. A silk that can withstand the burning of Netherfire.”

He flicked a Blood Bead toward the Zombie. “Not bad. Consider this your Reward.”

Xiao Hu caught the Blood Bead eagerly, squatting in the corner to absorb it.

Chu Xuan pocketed the silk. This fire-resistant material was perfect. When forging the Fiend Soul Chain, only the core ingredient—Yin-Fiend Steel—was absolute. The six auxiliary materials were flexible, and this cool, heat-resistant silk fit the bill perfectly.

“Let’s go. To the next node.”

Chu Xuan recalled his Yin Corpses and immediately took to the sky. Counting this one, he had planted three hundred of the three hundred and sixty flags.

The Zombie Horde was already closing in on Donghu City. He needed to move faster.