Rebirth as a Demonic Cultivator: Starting with a Zombie Planet

Chapter 80: The Terror of the Immortal, I Have Long Since Witnessed It

The Stinky Yellow Mushroom trembled, its voice dripping with terror. “We have no intention… of opposing the Immortal. Please… let me go back…”

Chu Xuan smiled faintly. “You want me to let you go, yet you’re secretly venting spores to signal your brethren—and trying to turn me into a mushroom while you’re at it?”

The mutant fungus stiffened. Its pathetic facade vanished, replaced by feral malice. Seizing the brief window where Chu Xuan had retracted his Blood Refining Corpse Fire, its entire spongy body violently convulsed.

A dense, sickly-yellow miasma erupted, surging toward Chu Xuan to engulf him. It wasn’t just gas—it was a hyper-concentrated cloud of microscopic spores. Once inhaled, they would latch onto his respiratory tract like maggots to rotting meat, impossible to purge. They would take root in his internal organs, violently converting his biomass from the inside out until nothing remained but another mindless mushroom thrall.

“Die!” the Stinky Yellow Mushroom shrieked.

“Interesting.” Chu Xuan casually flicked his wrist, conjuring a Blood Spirit Shield. It was a basic Qi Condensation spell he rarely bothered with these days, but it was more than sufficient for this.

The yellow spores swarmed like living parasites, battering against the crimson barrier and sending continuous ripples across its surface. Yet, they couldn’t breach even this rudimentary defense.

“This level of attack is roughly on par with a mid-stage Qi Condensation cultivator,” Chu Xuan noted, genuinely impressed by the raw biological power of the apocalypse.

“Let… me go!” the creature rasped, its tone shifting back to vicious desperation. “My brothers… they are coming for you!”

Chu Xuan merely smiled.

With a casual wave of his hand, the Blood Refining Corpse Fire flared to life, instantly incinerating the surrounding spore cloud into harmless ash. A few stray spores attempted to burrow into his pores, only to be crushed against his skin by a thin layer of spiritual power.

“No! Don’t kill me!” the Stinky Yellow Mushroom wailed, its bravado shattering.

Chu Xuan didn’t waste breath on a reply. He ruthlessly drove the Blood Refining Corpse Fire forward, completely engulfing the mutant. Its shrieks were abruptly cut short, replaced by the crackle of burning flesh and the bizarrely appetizing aroma of roasted mushrooms wafting across the rooftop.

At Chu Xuan’s nod, Little Leopard darted forward, tearing into the charred fungal remains with ravenous delight. Little Tiger joined the feast, but after a few bites, it dug its claws into the creature’s scorched skull and pulled something out, trotting over to present the prize to its master.

“Hmm?” Chu Xuan took the irregular, amber-yellow crystal, examining it thoughtfully.

It was the mutant’s Psionic Core. He could feel a dense, pulsing psionic energy surging within—far surpassing the yield of any supernatural creature he had harvested thus far.

Could this serve as a wood-attribute spiritual object? A cold, calculating light gleamed in Chu Xuan’s eyes. To forge the Vile Wood Spirit Body, he needed to refine a wood-attribute spiritual object every three days. After thirty-three cycles, the physique would reach minor completion.

Its baseline energy isn’t quite pure enough to match a true spiritual object, but I can force its evolution.

He recalled a specific, gruesome technique recorded in the Blood Fiend Demon Refining Sutra. For righteous path cultivators, spiritual objects were painfully rare. They either had to bleed their fortunes dry in sect marketplaces or waste decades scouring treacherous mountains and rivers.

But for demonic cultivators? Spiritual objects didn’t need to be found. They could be manufactured.

It merely required a catalyst—a base material. For a wood-attribute object, a wood-aligned core was necessary. This mutant’s Psionic Core was the perfect foundation.

Manufacturing a spiritual object requires a massive influx of living biomass, Chu Xuan thought, his lips curling into a predatory smile. Fortunately, this city is teeming with walking, talking fungal incubators.

He glanced at his undead thralls. “Go. Hunt down the rest of these mushroom people and drag them back. The more biomass, the better.”

“Roar!”

The three Zombies unleashed guttural snarls, blurring into streaks of black light as they shot off into the ruins.

Chu Xuan cleared a flat stretch of concrete and began laying down the framework for a new Formation. It was called the Hundred Wood Spirit-Nourishing Array. The name sounded peaceful, almost like a righteous sect’s gardening tool. In reality, it was an industrial meat-grinder of a demonic array. It was designed to violently extract the life force of wood-aligned beings—even human cultivators with wood spiritual roots—rendering them down into raw, agonizing nourishment to forcefully cultivate a spiritual object.

***

One week later.

The Great Dream Marsh.

Situated at the borders of Hanhai, Linjiang, and Jingshan Provinces, it was the largest wetland in the Yanhan Celestial Dynasty. Before the Zombie outbreak, it had been a pristine ecological reserve, drawing thousands of tourists daily to marvel at its rare flora and fauna.

Above all, the marsh was famous for its fungi. Over half of the ten thousand fungal species native to the Dynasty were discovered here. No one could have predicted that when psionic energy saturated the globe, these simple organisms would mutate, achieve sentience, and evolve into a terrifying, highly organized hive.

Now, deep within the Great Dream Marsh, tens of thousands of mutant mushroom people lay dormant in the muck, a silent army awaiting orders.

Atop a high ridge overlooking the swarm stood two distinct, humanoid fungi.

The one on the left was short and pitch-black, its massive, inky cap drooping down to shroud its entire body like a grim reaper’s cowl.

The one on the right was tall, robust, and a garish, toxic emerald green. Its wide, vibrant cap sat atop its head like an oversized, clownish sombrero. It looked utterly ridiculous—a supposedly terrifying apex predator of the apocalypse cursed to look like a pathetic clown wearing a bright green dunce cap.

“Big brother, I was on the verge of completely assimilating the human survivor camps in Jingshan Province. Why did you suddenly recall me?” the Green Hat Fungus asked, its voice a low, wet rumble.

The Inky Ghost Umbrella spoke, its tone grave. “Fourth Brother was captured by the Immortal.”

The Green Hat Fungus reeled in shock. “Captured? Then what are we doing here? We have to mobilize the swarm and rescue him!”

The Inky Ghost Umbrella shook its dark cap, its unseen face devoid of emotion. “No. We abandon him.”

“But—”

“I have witnessed the terror of this Immortal firsthand,” the Inky Ghost Umbrella interrupted coldly. “I calculate that Fourth Brother is already dead.”

The Green Hat Fungus dared not argue. Among the four mutant brothers, the Inky Ghost Umbrella was not only the most powerful but possessed the highest intellect. Without his tactical mind, the fungal swarm would never have conquered the Great Dream Marsh; the native supernatural beasts would have slaughtered them long ago.

“So you pulled me back to consolidate our forces?” the Green Hat Fungus asked. “What about Second Brother?”

“He is already en route,” the Inky Ghost Umbrella replied. “The Immortal has suddenly become active. I do not know if he is specifically targeting our network, but we cannot take the risk. We will lie low, submerge the swarm, and observe his movements.”

The Green Hat Fungus shifted uneasily. “And if the Immortal comes knocking on our door?”

“Impossible,” the Inky Ghost Umbrella stated with absolute certainty. “It would take him months to track the spore network back to this main hive. Even if he somehow deduced our location, traversing the wasteland to reach us would take considerable time. I have buried thousands of sentries in a fifty-mile radius around the marsh. We will detect his approach the moment he steps foot in our territory. Rest assured, Third Brother. We are safe.”

The Green Hat Fungus nodded, its garish cap bobbing. “Good. Then I will follow your lead. We hibernate.”

At that exact moment, a sharp, piercing hum echoed from the horizon—the unmistakable shriek of a blade cutting through the air.

A figure draped in black, standing casually atop a hovering flying sword, abruptly descended from the clouds, stopping dead in the air right in front of them.

“I’m afraid it’s a little too late to lie low,” Chu Xuan said, looking down at the two mutant leaders with a cold, predatory smile.

The Inky Ghost Umbrella and the Green Hat Fungus froze, their fungal bodies trembling as their pupils shrank to pinpricks. One second they were safely discussing the Immortal from the heart of their impenetrable fortress.

The next second, the Immortal was already here.