Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure

Chapter 227: Reaping What You Sow! A Debt of Blood Must Be Paid in Blood!

While Gu Xiu was enjoying a rare moment of peace, the scene atop Spirit Beast Peak was a vision of hell.

“No! Stop! You must stop!”

“Vile beasts! You deserve death! These are my blood sacrifices! This is the fuel for my Demon Ancestor Nascent Soul!”

“I will flay you alive! I will grind your bones to dust and scatter your ashes!”

Lu Qingyao screamed in a mixture of terror and rage. The arrogant smile was gone, replaced by frantic desperation.

She was using a forbidden, lost art: the Demon Ancestor Assistance Method. The requirements were insanely strict, but she had met every single one. She had never imagined, even in her worst nightmares, that the vengeful spirits would choose to possess their own kin.

Possession meant resistance. Resistance meant chaos.

And chaos meant the destruction of the bloodline pipelines.

BANG!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sound of shattering conduits echoed like a string of firecrackers. In moments, over a thousand pipelines exploded, spraying vital essence into the air.

The disruption was catastrophic.

Inside Lu Qingyao’s Dantian, her half-formed Nascent Soul—which had been radiating a supreme, divine aura—began to wither.

Pop… Splat!

As the two-thousandth conduit shattered, the Nascent Soul cracked open.

Like a cicada shedding its shell, the glorious outer layer peeled away and crumbled into ash. The divine light vanished.

“You deserve death!” Lu Qingyao shrieked, her eyes bloodshot. “My Demon Ancestor Nascent Soul! My perfect creation!”

This wasn’t a metamorphosis. This was a Devolution.

Her Nascent Soul dropped a full grade. It was no longer a Demon Ancestor. It was now merely a Demon Saint Nascent Soul.

It felt like tending a rare fruit for centuries, only for a hailstorm to smash it to pulp moments before harvest.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!”

She roared, trying to activate the formation to crush the spirits. But the spirits ignored her. Led by the Silver-Clawed Wolf Demon, they accelerated their destruction.

Lu Qingyao was alone. Her formation was designed to keep outsiders out, not to police an internal rebellion. She was powerless to stop the swarm.

Panic finally set in.

“Stop! Please! I won’t kill you anymore!”

“Really! I swear! I’ll let you go! I’ll stop the torture!”

If her Nascent Soul degraded any further, her ambition would be ruined. She begged, her voice trembling.

But her pleas fell on deaf ears.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The destruction continued.

Inside her Dantian, the Demon Saint Nascent Soul began to shrivel. Cracks appeared on its surface.

Pop… Splat!

When the four-thousandth conduit broke, the sickening sound of shedding skin returned.

“NO—!”

Lu Qingyao’s scream tore through the air.

Her Nascent Soul shed another layer. The divine rhythm faded to a dull hum.

Devolution.

From Demon Saint… down to a half-formed Demon General.

“I know you hate me!” Lu Qingyao cried, tears of fear streaming down her face. “But if you stop, I promise to perform release rites for you! I’ll take you to the West Desert! I’ll hire Buddhist monks to chant for your souls! Just stop destroying it!”

“This is my Dao Fruit! This is my life’s work! You can’t do this!”

She was no longer the imperious Peak Master. She was a beggar, pleading for mercy from the victims she had tortured.

But it was useless.

From the moment the spirits decided to free their kin, they had stopped caring about their own fate. They swept through the formation like a plague of locusts, destroying everything in their path.

Blood mist filled the air, turning the peak into a crimson nightmare.

“Damn you… damn you all…”

Lu Qingyao gritted her teeth, frantically trying to absorb the spilled blood mist to stabilize her Nascent Soul.

But destruction is always faster than creation.

Pop… Splat!

The six-thousandth conduit shattered.

Devolution.

The Nascent Soul shed its skin again. This time, it lost all traces of divinity. It looked dry, shriveled, and pathetic.

Demon Spirit Bloodline.

It was a common, mediocre grade. Her plan to dominate the Demon Emperors? Gone. Her dream of invincibility? Ashes.

Even worse, because she was bound by the Demon Rules, encountering any beast with a higher bloodline would now subject her to suppression.

“My Dao… my Demon Ancestor… my plans…”

“Gone. All gone.”

Lu Qingyao slumped to the ground, her spirit broken. She watched blankly as her dreams were torn apart.

But then, a new horror dawned on her.

The spirits weren’t stopping.

“You… you intend to wipe me out completely?”

“You can’t! Even the Demon Emperors have a rule: never exterminate a bloodline completely! You must leave a trace! You can’t push me to zero!”

“You are defying the laws of your own kind! You will be punished!”

Fear, cold and absolute, gripped her heart. If she devolved further… the consequences were unthinkable.

“I can’t just sit here! I’ll die!”

“Senior Sister! Save me!”

Lu Qingyao finally remembered her backup. She frantically formed hand seals to summon her Fourth Senior Sister. Her Fourth Senior Sister was just outside. If she came in now, the breakthrough would be ruined, but at least Lu Qingyao wouldn’t be destroyed.

But just as she completed the seal…

BOOM!

A terrifying pressure slammed into her.

It wasn’t spiritual pressure. It wasn’t soul power.

It was Bloodline Suppression.

Lu Qingyao struggled to look up. She saw the Silver-Clawed Wolf Demon. It had successfully possessed the body of a Demon General wolf.

And now, facing Lu Qingyao—who was currently a mere Demon Spirit—the Wolf exerted absolute dominance.

This was the Rule. The weak obey the strong.

Lu Qingyao froze. Her body refused to move. Her spiritual energy stagnated. She felt like a mortal standing before a god.

She tried to push the signal.

But her fingers wouldn’t obey.

I’m finished!

She struggled with every ounce of will she had. Slowly, painfully, she forced her hand to move.

But just as she was about to trigger the signal…

Her face went deathly white. She collapsed.

The eight-thousandth conduit had shattered.

Inside her Dantian, the shriveled Nascent Soul convulsed and shed its skin again.

Devolution.

Demon Soldier Grade.

The lowest of the common ranks.

At that moment, Lu Qingyao’s hope died.

Because now, she felt the suppression not just from the Wolf, but from hundreds of beasts. Creatures she had once viewed as insects were now gods towering over her.

And they still weren’t stopping.

Two thousand conduits left. One thousand. Five hundred.

Pop… Splat!

The last conduit shattered.

Lu Qingyao’s Nascent Soul underwent its final, catastrophic transformation.

Demon Servant.

The slave caste. The bloodline cursed by the ancestors to serve forever.

Lu Qingyao stopped trembling. She didn’t scream. She just stared into the void.

A Demon Servant bloodline meant that no matter how high her cultivation reached—whether she became a Nascent Soul or even a Mahayana Supreme—she was biologically hardwired to serve.

If she met a common crab soldier or shrimp general, her instincts would force her to kneel and call them “Master.”

As Lu Qingyao drowned in despair, the spirits completed their possessions.

One by one, the reanimated beasts broke out of their cages.

They formed a circle around her.

Their eyes glowed with feral, predatory hunger.

They had come for revenge. And for a Demon Beast, there was only one way to settle a blood debt.

Feast.