Rebirth as a Demonic Cultivator: Starting with a Zombie Planet

Chapter 76: Officially Entering Wuzhou, Arriving at Iron Thread Mountain

Chu Xuan and the four other disciples rode their flying Magical Artifacts past the borders of the Extreme Yin Cave, finally crossing into the true Wuzhou.

Suffocating humidity, blistering heat, venomous insects, and roaming ghosts… Add in the indigenous cultivators lurking in every shadowed corner, and the picture was complete.

This was the real Wuzhou. A domain saturated with lethal threats.

Intelligence reports surfaced in Chu Xuan’s mind. He had been systematically compiling data on this region for a long time. Wuzhou hadn’t always belonged to the Yu Kingdom; it was originally the ancestral domain of the southern barbarian tribes. Only a millennium ago, after a brutal conquest by the Wuji Sect, was it forcefully assimilated.

The indigenous Sects here were all founded by those barbarian tribes. Their signature methodologies—cultivating Gu parasites, nurturing malicious spirits, and refining corpses—were fundamentally rooted in the demonic path. The Wuji Sect had cannibalized many of these techniques, weaponizing them to crush the righteous path and ascend as the demonic hegemon of the Yu Kingdom.

Because of this shared history, the Wuji Sect intimately understood the lethal potential of Wuzhou’s natives. They might lack a high concentration of Golden Core cultivators, but their absolute mastery over the treacherous rainforests, toxic swamps, and hidden valleys allowed them to slaughter invaders with terrifying ease.

Running a cold cost-benefit analysis, the Wuji Sect had abandoned the idea of total annexation. Instead, they treated Wuzhou as a massive, self-sustaining resource node—a backyard garden for harvesting rare materials. Recognizing the arrangement, the indigenous Sects maintained a tense but peaceful coexistence.

That peace shattered when the Wuji Sect fell. The five righteous Sects carved up the territory, assigning Wuzhou to the Tianyin Sect.

And so, the meat grinder of war began.

After advancing a few dozen miles, the five-man squad wordlessly splintered, each heading toward their assigned coordinates.

The war between the Tianyin Sect and Wuzhou’s natives was in full swing. The entire region stretching ten thousand miles east of the Extreme Yin Cave had been reduced to a sprawling frontline.

Five Foundation Establishment cultivators were far too valuable to clump together. The Tianyin Sect was bleeding manpower, desperately throwing fresh troops into the fray to plug holes in their defenses. The combat zones surrounding three specific indigenous factions—the Thousand Bug Sect, the Blood Fury Sect, and the Bone Refining Manor—were the most violently contested.

The Extreme Yin Cave disciples had been tasked with the total subjugation of the Thousand Bug Sect. As one of Wuzhou’s twelve apex factions, it commanded a network of nearly thirty subordinate Sects. The first two waves of Tianyin Sect cultivators had been bogged down in a grueling war of attrition against them.

The natives fought dirty. Their primary weapons were Gu parasites, utilizing untraceable poisons and stealth assassinations to bleed the invaders dry.

Li Xuanming and the others had their own specific objectives, though none were suicidal enough to strike the Thousand Bug Sect’s main headquarters directly. Instead, they were systematically dismantling its affiliated branches.

After all, the Thousand Bug Sect was anchored by Golden Core Patriarchs. Even if they only had one or two—a number dwarfed by the Tianyin Sect’s might—a Golden Core cultivator was still a walking natural disaster. Until the heavyweights on both sides took the field to neutralize one another, Foundation Establishment cultivators were merely high-tier cannon fodder.

I’ll scout the perimeter first, Chu Xuan calculated coldly. If the casualty rate is too high, I’ll just shift to Hailan Planet and wait it out. There’s zero profit in dying for the Sect.

His operational doctrine was simple: harvest the weak, flee from the strong. With the Blood Mirror anchoring him to two dimensions, he held the ultimate escape hatch.

A day later, Chu Xuan hovered at the outskirts of Iron Thread Mountain.

It was one of the Thousand Bug Sect’s primary resource nodes, garrisoned by a mere six Foundation Establishment cultivators and devoid of any Golden Core presence.

Recently, an anomalous fog bank had swallowed the mountain. Three early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators from the Tianyin Sect were currently MIA within it—one of whom was the direct descendant of a Tianyin Sect Golden Core elder.

Chu Xuan had taken the extraction mission.

Even from a distance, the unnatural density of the mist was obvious. It churned like a living thing around the peaks, occasionally illuminated by the muffled, strobing flashes of magical detonations.

The intelligence reports didn’t mention the fog being this thick, Chu Xuan noted, his eyes narrowing.

He touched down and advanced cautiously. Within steps, he found the mangled corpse of a Qi Condensation cultivator. Scattered around it were the broken bodies of ordinary mortals—collateral damage, shredded by the shockwaves of cultivator battles before they could evacuate.

Whoosh!

A body was violently ejected from the fog bank, hurtling directly at Chu Xuan. He sidestepped with clinical precision, letting the mass slam into the dirt.

It was a Tianyin Sect Qi Condensation cultivator. His chest cavity was caved in, and his right leg had been sheared off at the hip. But the true horror lay in the wound: several pitch-black, wire-thin parasites were frantically burrowing through his exposed flesh, devouring him alive.

Before Chu Xuan could extract any intel, the man convulsed and died, his eyes rolling back in agony.

Chu Xuan stared at the writhing parasites. Iron Thread Worms. The signature biological weapon of Iron Thread Mountain.

Are you the reinforcement? Form up on me! We’re breaching the mist! a booming voice barked from behind.

Chu Xuan turned to see two Foundation Establishment cultivators descending from the sky. Both wore the standard Tianyin Sect robes, though their faces were unfamiliar.

Meat shields. Perfect, Chu Xuan thought, his expression remaining neutral. He had zero intention of blindly wading into an anomalous hazard zone alone. The mist radiated a palpable, predatory threat. Let these two trigger the traps.

He seamlessly integrated into their formation, exchanging brief introductions. The burly, loudmouthed cultivator was Zhao Luan. The tall, reedy one was Zhou Yu. Both were from the second deployment wave. While they didn’t broadcast their exact cultivation bases, Chu Xuan’s senses easily pegged them both at the early Foundation Establishment stage.

The trio had barely crossed the threshold of the mountain when a figure burst from the treeline, bleeding profusely and sprinting in blind panic.

Run! Get out! the man shrieked. His eyes were wide with absolute terror. He didn’t even slow down upon seeing Chu Xuan’s group, desperately scrambling past them.

Chu Xuan’s spiritual sense swept over the fleeing man. Beneath the skin, he detected the frantic, squirming signatures of multiple Iron Thread Worms tearing through the man’s internal organs. He was already a walking corpse; his brain just hadn’t realized it yet.

Chu Xuan’s frown deepened. Was the biological warfare of Iron Thread Mountain truly this potent?

Zhao Luan scoffed, watching the dying man flee. I know him. Just a Rogue Cultivator who got lucky and stumbled into Foundation Establishment. Ignore the trash. We push forward.

He puffed out his chest. Extracting those three trapped VIPs is worth a flat three hundred Sect contribution points. I’m not leaving that kind of profit on the table. Just stay behind me. I’ll handle the heavy lifting.

Zhou Yu leaned in, his tone conspiratorial. Brother Zhao is at the third layer of Foundation Establishment, just a hair away from the fourth layer. Fellow Daoist Chu, you can relax. With him on point, we’re perfectly safe.

Chu Xuan gave a slow, agreeable nod.

A second later, Zhao Luan paused.

Damn it, why is it so itchy…? The burly cultivator reached back, frantically scratching at his spine.

Chu Xuan’s eyes locked onto the man’s robes. Two pitch-black Iron Thread Worms had already breached the fabric and were violently burrowing into Zhao Luan’s flesh.

Are you guys feeling this itch? Zhao Luan asked, turning to face them.

As he turned, Zhou Yu recoiled in absolute horror. Two grotesque, pale worms were wriggling directly out of Zhao Luan’s eyeballs. Yet, Zhao Luan blinked normally, completely oblivious to the parasites extruding from his own pupils!

Zhou Yu stood paralyzed, his jaw slack.

Fall back! Chu Xuan hissed, his voice laced with cold urgency. There’s a high-tier Gu Master in the perimeter!

His mind raced, calculating the threat level. The stealth of this attack was terrifying. Even with his heightened senses, he hadn’t detected the vector of infection. Zhao Luan had been compromised without a single ripple of spiritual energy.

Zhou Yu swallowed hard, the color draining from his face. Without a word, he spun on his heel and bolted.

Hey, where are you guys going? Zhao Luan called out, staring blankly at empty air. Why can’t I see you?

The Gu worms had already hollowed out his optic nerves. The vision he was experiencing was a complete neurological fabrication, a hallucination fed to his dying brain by the parasites. He had no idea Chu Xuan and Zhou Yu were already gone.

It itches… God, it itches! Zhao Luan shrieked.

The phantom itch rapidly escalated into agonizing, tearing pain. He clawed at his own face and chest, his fingernails gouging deep trenches into his flesh, ripping away strips of skin until he was drenched in his own blood.

Thump.

His flight artifact failed. He plummeted from the sky, crashing heavily into the blood-soaked mud below. Instantly, a writhing tide of black worms erupted from the soil, swarming over his convulsing body and dragging him down into the muck.