Pay-to-Win Cultivation: I Get 10,000x Returns

Chapter 290: One More Won’t Make a Difference

Song Yuanyi’s voice rose to a fever pitch, dripping with ten thousand years of accumulated bile.

“When he stole A-Yue from me! When he mocked my artifact forging skills at every turn! When he lured that terrifying battle puppet here, causing the death of my sworn brothers and leaving A-Yue and myself on the brink of death! Did he ever consider our ‘friendship’ for even a fraction of a second?”

“We all opposed his insane plan. Even his wife, the Half-Demon King, tried her utmost to dissuade him. But he stubbornly persisted, walking his own path to ruin!”

“He was arrogant, selfish, and dismissive of everyone but himself!”

Song Yuanyi’s face twisted into a mask of vindictive triumph. “Since that is the case, let him die! To be refined by the Heavenly Gourd he personally designed, to become the stepping stone for my Great Dao—this is the best possible destiny for him!”

Zhang Xian listened to the tirade, then let out a sharp, dismissive sneer.

“All I hear is the impotent rage of a loser.”

“Your talent, character, and bearing are all inferior to his. You couldn’t compete, so you resorted to backstabbing your best friend, stealing his wife, and cursing your own descendants. If Senior Lin Yue had even a shred of clarity left, she wouldn’t spare a piece of trash like you a second glance.”

Song Yuanyi’s expression turned icy. “Your glib tongue is meaningless. What matters is that he is dead. And soon, you will be too.”

As he spoke, Zhang Xian noticed the metal walls of the secret chamber beginning to soften and glow a dull, menacing cherry-red. The temperature was skyrocketing.

On the floor, Taichu’s physical body had completely vanished. Even his Nascent Soul failed to escape; it dissolved into pure energy, sucked greedily into the grand formation.

A Half-Step Soul Formation expert, a man who once dominated the Central Continent, had perished just like that—silently, without even a grave to mark his passing.

Zhang Xian knew the gravity of the situation. Wang Ye had designed the Heavenly Gourd as a world-breaking device. With the formation running at full capacity, its power was absolutely at the Soul Formation level.

He subconsciously touched the [Mandarin Duck Wings Together Pendant] on his chest. The jade was dim and cold. The connection to the outside world had been severed.

Song Yuanyi seemed to read his mind. “It is useless. I know you possess many spiritual treasures, perhaps even teleportation artifacts.”

“But my Prism Refining Formation has reached perfection. It forms a self-contained world, isolating all laws. Even if you turtle up in here for ten years or a hundred years, it will eventually refine you—and all your precious treasures—into slag.”

Zhang Xian didn’t panic. Instead, he asked the final, critical question. “What about Lele? Why hasn’t she woken up?”

Song Yuanyi answered frankly, arrogance radiating from him. “There is no harm in telling a dead man. The Seven Emotions Evil Thoughts share a common origin; they sense one another.”

“I know Su Yunmiao used a formation to help her suppress the [Obsession]. But the other four thoughts—Greed, Anger, Hatred, and Malice—have long been under my control. Through the invisible connection between them, I have been quietly injecting the power of those four thoughts into her [Obsession] illusion.”

“That little girl is currently fighting a mental war against five Evil Thoughts simultaneously. Naturally, she cannot wake up.”

Zhang Xian’s face went completely still. “So?”

“So, if she wakes up, it will be as a monster completely corrupted by the five thoughts. She will become a true demon.”

Song Yuanyi smiled benevolently. “But do not worry. After I deal with you, I will personally go to the Southern Region. I will exterminate the [Love] Su Yunmiao and the [Obsession] Zhang Lele with my own hands. Ending the calamity of the Seven Emotions… consider it my service to the cultivation world.”

Zhang Xian took a deep breath. The last trace of doubt in his eyes vanished, replaced by a killing intent so cold it could freeze the air.

“Very good. I have no more questions. You can die now.”

Song Yuanyi raised an eyebrow, a mocking smirk playing on his lips, as if he had heard the world’s funniest joke.

Whoosh.

A shuttle-shaped artifact appeared in Zhang Xian’s hand. It hummed with unstable energy—the Earth-grade Ephemeral Artifact, [Void Breaking Shuttle]!

He slowly raised his head, his gaze sharp as a scalpel. He enunciated every word.

“Old thing. From the moment I met you, my instincts screamed that you were trash.”

“I was always on guard, but I never expected you to be this low.”

“Murdering friends to seize treasure.”

“Stealing names to impersonate ancestors.”

“Brainwashing your own bloodline.”

“A cancer lasting ten thousand years.”

Song Yuanyi glanced at the [Void Breaking Shuttle] and scoffed. “A mere Ephemeral Artifact? You think that can break my grand formation? You are delusional!”

Pfft!

Zhang Xian violently spat a mouthful of essence blood onto the shuttle! The [Void Breaking Shuttle] instantly erupted with blinding white light. Space trembled violently.

However, the golden light membrane merely shuddered a few times. It held firm.

Song Yuanyi was slightly surprised—he had never seen an Ephemeral Artifact of that quality before—but he quickly recovered. “Hmph. A futile death struggle! It’s far from enough!”

But in the next second, his pupils shrank to pinpricks.

Zhang Xian didn’t stop. With a casual flick of his wrist, he took out four more identical [Void Breaking Shuttles].

Five shuttles hummed in resonance. White light wove together into a blinding net, and terrifying spatial power converged like a singularity.

Hum— Hum— HUM!

The “indestructible” space of the secret chamber groaned, screamed, and was forcibly torn open. A jagged, unstable spatial rift appeared in the air.

“Impossible!” Song Yuanyi screamed, his composure shattering.

Under his horrified gaze, Zhang Xian’s figure flashed and vanished into the rift.

Song Yuanyi’s face twisted in disbelief. His foolproof plan, his ten-thousand-year scheme, had failed because of… what? A brute-force stacking of rare, consumable artifacts? Who fights like that?!

He moved to give chase, but suddenly, the ambient temperature of the world plummeted.

Flash.

Song Yuanyi teleported, appearing in the sky above the ruins of the Animal Crossing Association.

High above, Zhang Xian stood in mid-air, looking down at him with an expressionless face.

Above Zhang Xian, a massive, crystalline ice dome had materialized, sealing off the entire region.

Yunmiao Sword Scripture: Water Curtain Celestial Radiance.

Beneath the ice dome, the faint phantom of a massive gourd flickered—the Heavenly Gourd Prism Grand Formation.

Blood trickled from Zhang Xian’s nose and mouth, a backlash from forcibly activating five Ephemeral Artifacts at once. He wiped it away casually, popped a high-grade healing pill into his mouth like candy, and his aura stabilized instantly.

Song Yuanyi frowned. He didn’t run?

Why didn’t he flee while he had the chance? Does he actually think he has a chance of winning?

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several figures flew out from the key nodes of the Prism formation below. These were Song Yuanyi’s core lieutenants, the hidden hands maintaining the array.

Song Yuanyi floated up to confront Zhang Xian. Though startled, he regained his arrogance.

“I do not know where you get your confidence. Do you think escaping the trap qualifies you to fight me?”

Zhang Xian’s gaze swept over the newcomers. Their auras were tyrannical. Two of them had actually reached the Half-Step Soul Formation realm, their bodies fused with [Malice] and [Anger] respectively.

So, this was the extent of Song Yuanyi’s infiltration. Aside from the Southern Region, where Su Yunmiao and Penglai held the line, the other regions had long been compromised. These two strangers were likely the sect leaders of the Northern Ridge and the Eastern Sea.

[System Alert!]

[Detected Daughter of Destiny (Score: 62): Song Zheng.]

[Song Zheng Favorability: -50.]

[Binding Successful.]

Zhang Xian’s gaze landed on a woman with a fair face standing behind Song Yuanyi. She was staring at him with undisguised vigilance.

“Oh. So she is Song Zheng.”

He understood immediately. The System had hinted at her existence back at the Guiyuan Sect. She must have been the medium Song Yuanyi used to monitor Taichu.

Well, I have enough Daughters of Destiny already. One more won’t make a difference.

Pity. I’ll just kill them all together.

Facing the encirclement of strong enemies, Zhang Xian didn’t move a muscle.

Instead, the sky beneath the ice dome suddenly went dark.

Buzz…

Space warped and rippled.

Hundreds… thousands… of pale-gold figures materialized out of thin air, filling the sky like a swarm of mechanical locusts.

Zhang Clan Battle Puppets.

Every single one radiated the heavy, suffocating aura of the Nascent Soul seventh layer. Their cold, mechanical eyes locked onto the enemies below. The combined Pressure of thousands of high-level cultivators merged into a single, tangible tsunami, crushing down on the world.

“!!??”

Song Yuanyi and his subordinates froze. The two Half-Step Soul Formation experts felt their blood run cold.

“Wha— What is this?!” one of them stammered, his courage shattering instantly.

Thousands of Nascent Soul puppets.

This wasn’t a technique. This was a force capable of overthrowing the world.