Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 208: Transforming Demonic into Righteous

Wind Descending Continent.

Southwest Sector.

A boundless, stinking expanse of black swamp stretched to the horizon.

Deep within the muck, the geometric lines of a massive, hidden teleportation array flared to life.

A figure stepped out of the blinding light. Dressed in immaculate black robes, his features were handsome and refined, resembling a mortal prince.

It was Lu Yuansheng.

He didn’t look at the swamp. He lifted his gaze toward the sky.

Looming over the desolate landscape was a colossal, ancient divine statue that pierced the clouds. It possessed twenty-four massive arms. However, instead of striking martial poses, all twenty-four arms were folded tightly together in front of the statue’s chest, the palms gently cupped upward.

It looked as if the giant was reverently cradling an offering.

Lu Yuansheng’s eyes narrowed slightly, a profound, heavy gravity settling over his features.

He ignited his Magic Power and rocketed into the sky, touching down softly on the tip of one of the colossal stone fingers.

As his gaze swept into the hollow of the cupped palms, his pupils violently contracted to pinpricks.

Suspended in the air, radiating an impossibly dense, suffocating aura of blood and vitality, was a corpse.

The body was built like a mountain. Even with its eyes closed in death, the corpse exuded a terrifying, oppressive pressure, making Lu Yuansheng feel as if he were an insect being judged by a god.

If it weren’t for the thumb-sized, fatal puncture wound perfectly centered between its eyebrows and the dried tracks of blood running down its face, Lu Yuansheng would have sworn the man was merely sleeping.

“Pang Xiao…” Lu Yuansheng whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs.

He violently clamped down on his shock, smoothing his expression into a mask of perfect serenity.

A moment later, a relaxed, almost cheerful voice drifted down from the crown of the statue.

“You’ve arrived. Tell me, how are our zealot friends from the Incense Burner Path? Enjoyable company?”

Lu Yuansheng immediately pivoted, dropping into a deep, flawless bow as Ning Daohuan leisurely descended from the statue’s head.

“Reporting to the Sect Leader,” Lu Yuansheng answered, his voice stripped of all emotion. “The zealots do possess a rather bizarre arsenal of profane arts. However, relying on the ‘Blood Bone Holy Venerable’ you graciously bestowed upon me, this disciple managed to crush two of their Third Rank elders.”

“Unfortunately, my Magic Power reserves ran dry before I could finish the job. The remaining four slipped the net and have now integrated themselves with the vanguard of the Five Sects.”

Ning Daohuan waved a hand, his face devoid of any disappointment. “For a junior who crossed the Golden Core threshold mere months ago, wielding the Blood Bone Holy Venerable to such devastating effect is already a monumental achievement.”

He sighed softly, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. “It is merely a profound tragedy that Elder Ju and the others had to fall.”

Lu Yuansheng remained perfectly silent.

When Ning Daohuan had assassinated Pang Xiao, the sheer audacity of the act had triggered a berserk retaliation from the Five Sects. Faced with the combined, apocalyptic fury of over twenty Golden Core True Persons, even Ning Daohuan had recognized the mathematical impossibility of survival and retreated.

Ning Daohuan’s movement techniques were supreme, allowing him to easily slip the net. However, the elite cadre of Heavenly Gate Sect Golden Core elders who had assisted in the assassination were not so lucky. Exhausted from burning their reserves to pin down Pang Xiao, several elders had failed to evade the Five Sects’ initial bombardment and were instantly vaporized.

Had Ning Daohuan not intervened to cover the retreat of the survivors, the entire squad would have been wiped out.

Even depleted, Ning Daohuan was a Nascent Soul True Lord. He had unleashed a catastrophic counter-attack, forcing the Five Sects to halt their pursuit, allowing the remnants of his team to escape.

“By the way,” Ning Daohuan smiled, his tone conversational. “I received a report. A scout observed Ji Lan and the surviving Eastern Sage Sect elders fleeing west. It seems they have formally abandoned the State of Chen. What is your tactical assessment?”

“They possess basic survival instincts,” Lu Yuansheng replied smoothly. “Remaining in the theater would guarantee their total annihilation.”

“However, we must remain paranoid. Ji Lan’s mind is an abyss. We cannot dismiss the probability that this highly visible retreat is merely a grand piece of theater, designed to lower our guard while he covertly infiltrates our rear.”

Ning Daohuan nodded approvingly. “My thoughts exactly. I am assigning you to oversee the counter-intelligence sweep. Oh, and your execution of the ‘Empty Fort Strategy’ to lure them into the garrison was flawless.”

“I claim no strategic brilliance, Sect Leader. The spy, Cheng Shu, was simply a moron,” Lu Yuansheng replied, his face an icy mask. “He believed he had infiltrated my inner circle undetected. In truth, I never trusted the rat for a microsecond. When the time came, I purposefully ‘leaked’ the fabricated intel in his presence. As expected, he immediately ran to his masters like an obedient dog.”

“Reading the fatal flaws in a man’s heart and manipulating them to dance on your strings… that is no simple parlor trick,” Ning Daohuan chuckled, shaking his head. “If you can truly master that art, I can rest easy passing the mantle of the Heavenly Gate Sect to you when my time comes.”

“Sect Leader, your cultivation is at its absolute zenith. You hold the promise of a ten-thousand-year Lifespan. Why speak of such grim inevitabilities?” Lu Yuansheng asked, a rare flicker of genuine reverence breaking his stoic facade.

Ning Daohuan waved him off, a bitter, cynical smile touching his lips.

“Ten thousand years… Ha! Sweep your gaze across the entirety of the Wind Descending Continent. How many ancient fossils truly endure for ten millennia?”

“It is a myth. We are all just grasping at smoke!”

Ning Daohuan turned, gesturing broadly. “The Heavenly Gate Sect is built upon four supreme True Methods. Four distinct, heaven-defying paths that point directly to the Nascent Soul realm.”

“But it wasn’t until I actually crossed that threshold that I realized the catastrophic, fatal limitations of our legacy.”

“Limitations?” Lu Yuansheng’s brow furrowed in deep curiosity.

In all his years, he had never heard Ning Daohuan speak a single negative word regarding the sect’s foundational True Methods.

In a rare moment of melancholy vulnerability, Ning Daohuan elaborated.

“The Four Great True Methods are, without question, masterpieces of magical engineering.”

“But let us strip away the propaganda: they are the absolute pinnacle of the Demonic Path. We harvest the lives, blood, and souls of the masses to forge our own divinity. We butcher the world to elevate ourselves.”

“The advantages are undeniable. Our cultivation speed is terrifying. Our raw destructive output is unparalleled. Our hexes and curses defy logic, allowing us to effortlessly slaughter orthodox peers of the same realm.”

“But the Heavenly Dao is an absolute scale. Every stolen advantage demands a cosmic toll. Once a practitioner of our path reaches the Golden Core realm, the scale violently tips. Those heaven-defying advantages invert into an insurmountable curse.”

“The ambient rejection of the Heavenly Dao makes advancing even a single millimeter an agonizing, near-impossible nightmare.”

“That is the brutal truth of why our sect boasts twenty Golden Core True Persons… but I am the solitary Nascent Soul.”

Ning Daohuan closed his eyes, his voice heavy with the weight of centuries. “Even with my allegedly ‘unmatched’ talent, forcing my way into the early stages of the Nascent Soul realm has completely burned out my Potential. I have perhaps eight centuries of life remaining, but I know in my bones… I will never advance another stage.”

“This is the dead end of the Demonic Path. This is my fate.”

Listening to the confession, a suffocating weight crashed down on Lu Yuansheng’s chest.

This was the first time Ning Daohuan had ever stripped away the god-like mystique to reveal the ugly, rusted mechanics of their cultivation.

It shattered Lu Yuansheng’s worldview. He had broken into the Golden Core realm at a terrifyingly young age. His heart had always been set on eventually claiming the Nascent Soul throne for himself.

To hear the greatest genius the sect had ever produced declare the path a dead end… it was a psychological gut-punch.

“However…”

Ning Daohuan’s voice suddenly dropped an octave.

He slowly opened his eyes and turned to look down at the endless, rotting black swamp.

The melancholy and resignation evaporated instantly, replaced by a terrifying, all-consuming fire of unadulterated ambition.

“I have never been a man who bows to fate!”

“If the Demonic Path leads to a dead end… then I will simply carve a new path into the Righteous Dao!”

“I will transform the Demonic into the Righteous!”

He didn’t shout, but the sheer, absolute force of his will struck Lu Yuansheng like a physical thunderbolt.

Lu Yuansheng stared at Ning Daohuan’s back, utterly paralyzed.

“Heh. Have you been losing sleep wondering why I obsessed over assassinating the Mountain Sea Sect’s Pang Xiao?” Ning Daohuan chuckled softly, pointing a pale finger at the hulking corpse suspended in the statue’s hands.

Lu Yuansheng nodded dumbly.

Then, the pieces violently clicked together in his mind. His eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror.

“Sect Leader… you intend to Body Seize him…”

“Exactly! Your intellect never disappoints!” Ning Daohuan turned, beaming with genuine pride.

“The Body Refining Path is the only orthodox, Righteous physical vessel resilient enough to withstand the corrosive stress of hosting a Demonic Nascent Soul! But Body Refiners of that caliber are practically extinct in the Wind Descending Continent. I scoured the empires of Great Chu and found nothing but dust. The Mountain Sea Sect was my only viable target.”

“But there was a fatal flaw. While Pang Xiao’s mortal vessel was monstrous, it was still only a Golden Core body. It would have instantly detonated if I tried to force my Nascent Soul into it. I had to wait. I had to meticulously engineer his breakthrough. I personally orchestrated the delivery of that supreme body-refining treasure to him, knowing his arrogance would compel him to absorb it and trigger his Tribulation.”

“Under the absolute tempering of the Heavenly Tribulation, his mortal shell underwent a fundamental, qualitative mutation into a true Nascent Soul vessel.”

Ning Daohuan exhaled a long, satisfied breath. “Decades of planning, the sacrifice of the garrison, the loss of my elders… it was a steep price, but the vessel is flawless. It was worth every drop of blood!”

Hearing the confession, Lu Yuansheng finally understood his own role in the grand design.

He had personally executed the covert operation to deliver the ‘lucky find’ to Pang Xiao. He hadn’t known the endgame then. Now, he realized Ning Daohuan had weaponized Pang Xiao’s greed, manipulating the man into upgrading his own body just so Ning Daohuan could steal it.

Ning Daohuan had timed the outbreak of the continental war to perfectly mask the assassination. He had manipulated the Five Sects, the Incense Burner Path, and even his own elders like pieces on a chessboard.

The only variable he hadn’t perfectly controlled was the loss of the Golden Core elders during the retreat. But in war, pieces fell.

“Now you understand why I summoned you,” Ning Daohuan said, his eyes locking onto Lu Yuansheng.

Lu Yuansheng’s heart hammered. He understood perfectly.

“You will return to the Eastern Sage garrison. You will command the defense. You will hold the line against the combined, apocalyptic fury of the Five Sects and the Incense Burner Path, no matter the cost in blood.”

“You must hold the line for exactly six months.”

“Six months… that is the time required to complete my metamorphosis into the Righteous Dao!”

Ning Daohuan’s eyes, while seemingly calm, radiated a lethal, absolute authority that brooked zero failure.

Lu Yuansheng didn’t dare hold eye contact. He immediately dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead against the stone.

“This disciple understands!”

“This disciple will defend the Eastern Sage garrison to his last breath!”

“Good. If the siege becomes untenable, you are authorized to abandon the outer perimeter. But you must hold the central core. Fan Ming must not be compromised!” Ning Daohuan commanded.

“Yes, Sect Leader! I swear upon my Dao: so long as my heart beats, Fan Ming shall remain secure!”

“Then you are dismissed.”

Lu Yuansheng rose smoothly, bowed once more, and leaped backward off the statue. He landed within the teleportation array and vanished in a flash of light.

Minutes after the array powered down, the shadows behind Ning Daohuan seemed to pool and condense.

A formless, humanoid silhouette made of pure darkness materialized.

“Master.”

Ning Daohuan didn’t turn around. The warmth, the fatherly pride, the burning ambition—all of it was instantly wiped from his face, leaving behind a mask of absolute, robotic sociopathy.

“Report. Since his ascension to the Golden Core realm, who has Lu Yuansheng maintained contact with?”

“Five Golden Core True Persons: Elder Jing, Elder Bei…” the shadow rattled off, its voice a hollow, metallic monotone.

“Eighty-four Foundation Establishment disciples: Zhang Xi, Zhu Ziji, Yan Yun… Yan Chi, Dong Qiyu… Wang Ba…”

“Three Qi Refining initiates…”

Ning Daohuan didn’t interrupt the monotonous drone. He cross-referenced every single name against his own internal psychological dossiers.

When the shadow finished, Ning Daohuan asked, “Based on your analysis, which of those contacts possess conflicting loyalties or hidden variables?”

“Wu Yetan… Dong Qiyu… Wang Ba, and Zhu Yushi.”

Ning Daohuan mentally isolated those four profiles.

“Dong Qiyu… a tragedy,” Ning Daohuan murmured, dismissing the name. He paused on the next file. “Wang Ba… the beast-tamer. I recall him. He submitted a highly profitable logistics report to me previously. What is the anomaly?”

“This individual engaged in bribery. He gifted Lu Yuansheng a Second Rank Top Grade Spirit Poultry,” the shadow reported flawlessly.

“Was the bribe successful?”

“Affirmative. In exchange, the individual’s Dao Companion was granted immunity from the frontline draft and remained stationed within the garrison.”

Ning Daohuan gently tapped his index finger against his thumb, calculating the variables.

“A Second Rank Top Grade Spirit Poultry… from a junior who breached the Foundation Establishment realm quite recently, correct?”

“Correct. His tenure in the Foundation Establishment realm is under two years.”

“Fascinating. To breed a Top Grade anomaly in such a compressed timeframe implies a heaven-defying aptitude for beast-taming. His raw talent in that specific sub-domain likely eclipses even Yan Chi of the Profound Talisman Path.”

Ning Daohuan made his decision instantly.

“Do not touch him. We keep the beast-tamer. Now, regarding Zhu Yushi…”

“Understood,” the shadow replied to the orders.

“That is all. Return to your post immediately. Your current vessel is only at the Foundation Establishment level; do not draw his paranoia.”

“Yes, Master.”

The shadow dissolved, bleeding back into the natural darkness.

Simultaneously.

Inside the Eastern Sage garrison.

Bai Yu slowly opened his eyes. They were completely, terrifyingly blank.

…

Wang Ba stood perfectly still, his breath caught in his throat.

Looking at the figure standing in the dust before him, he felt a profound, terrifying vertigo. He felt as if he were trapped in a cruel, fragile dream.

He didn’t dare speak. He didn’t dare breathe.

He was paralyzed by the absolute certainty that if he made a sound, the illusion would shatter, and he would be left alone in the ashes again.

But then, the graceful figure in front of him tilted her head in confusion. She raised a hand wrapped tightly in linen bandages and waved it tentatively.

“Senior Brother? Senior Brother, is that you?”

Bu Chan’s face was a picture of pure bewilderment.

But before she could process the moment, Wang Ba violently blurred into motion. He slammed into her, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her shoulder, crushing her against him as if he were trying to fuse their souls together.

Caught completely off guard by the sheer, desperate violence of the embrace, Bu Chan’s face instantly flushed a brilliant crimson.

She panicked, her eyes darting around the crowded plaza. Dozens of cultivators had already stopped their repair work to stare at the bizarre spectacle. She saw knowing smiles, envious glares, and sneers of open disgust.

“Senior Brother! Senior Brother, stop! People are staring, we’re in the middle of—”

Bu Chan frantically tried to wedge her hands between them to push him back.

But as she pushed, she felt the violent, uncontrolled trembling wracking his entire frame.

She stopped fighting. She slowly tilted her head back to look at his face.

Wang Ba, the man who had always been a fortress of absolute, paranoid calm. The man who had never once lost his temper, raised his voice, or displayed a single crack in his armor.

As he looked down at her, she saw a single, gleaming tear slide down his cheek.

“Senior Brother…”

The sight of his absolute, unguarded devastation shattered her embarrassment. Her heart physically ached.

She raised her bandaged hands, gently cupping his face, shielding his vulnerability from the prying, predatory eyes of the sect.

Ignoring the whispers, ignoring the stares, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and pulled him back down, burying him in her warmth.

She felt the frantic, heavy pounding of his heart against her chest.

And she heard his broken, desperate whisper.

“You’re still here… thank the gods, you’re still here…”

“I’m here, Senior Brother,” Bu Chan whispered back, gently stroking the back of his head like she was soothing a terrified child. “I’m always here.”

In that single, perfect moment, the war, the blood, and the madness of the world faded into absolute silence.

(Author’s Note: This is my absolute ideal female lead. There will not be a second one. I’m exhausted today, so no bonus chapters. Sorry everyone!)