Chapter 123: A Drop of Blood

As soon as the command flag appeared, Su Che felt a mighty force enveloping him. With this power, he effortlessly dealt with the Asura. At this moment, he even felt an overwhelming sense of control over everything around him. Yet, Su Che knew that this sense of superiority might just be an illusion—easily shattered with a single touch…

Boom!

A few moments later, the earth shook violently. The furnace hall deep underground seemed to be pulled out of the volcano by an invisible giant hand. Su Che’s vision cleared, and when he looked up, he saw the sky of the Little Mi Immortal Realm.

Immediately afterward, a mental wave surged into his mind, as if thousands of giants were roaring toward the sky:
“The command flag appears; the Mi Immortals unite! The Witch God returns to seize fate once more!”
“The command flag appears; the Mi Immortals unite! The Witch God returns to seize fate once more!”
“The command flag appears; the Mi Immortals unite! The Witch God returns to seize fate once more!”

Three consecutive mental waves overwhelmed Su Che, leaving him dizzy. Fortunately, the Immortal Prison Pagoda in his mind kept him steady; otherwise, he would have collapsed and fallen into a coma.

“The command flag appears; the Mi Immortals unite! The Witch God returns to seize fate once more…” Su Che murmured, “What does this mean?”

“Whatever it means,” Old Hei grumbled in the Immortal Prison, “Master, it seems you’ve caused a huge problem.”

“Yes,” Su Che thought. “I suspected that once the command flag appeared, uncontrollable changes might occur. But in that situation earlier, without it, I would have died!”

Just as he spoke, the scene before him suddenly distorted. Soon, a translucent giant figure appeared before Su Che.

This giant was dozens of feet tall, looking down at the tiny Su Che. Then, it quickly shrank to a few feet in height before bowing to Su Che and saying, “Guardian of the Little Mi Immortal Realm, I greet you, the master who wields the command flag.”

“Is he the guardian here? The so-called sacred guardian force…” Su Che didn’t know how to respond. He thought to himself, “He calls me ‘the master who wields the command flag.’ It seems that whoever holds the flag is the master here.”

With courage, Su Che asked, “Guardian, I have a question for you…”

But before he could ask, the giant figure said, “Please accept your coronation, master!”

“Coronation? What kind of coronation…?”

Full of confusion, Su Che grew anxious.

Whoosh!

A beam of golden light flew from the distant horizon and arrived before Su Che in the blink of an eye.

Immediately afterward, the golden light vanished, and a drop of scarlet liquid hovered in midair, slowly drifting toward Su Che.
“Wait, hey, don’t rush—tell me first what’s going on!”
Panicked, Su Che tried to refuse this “investiture,” only to realize he couldn’t move at all; even holding the command flag gave him no means of resistance. Watching helplessly as the drop neared his chest, he could only shout desperately, “Guardian, I order you to halt this investiture! I order you…”
Yet the giant’s phantom remained unmoved, coldly watching as the scarlet liquid sank into Su Che’s chest.
In the Immortal Prison, Lao He sighed helplessly, “Master, no matter how much you shout, it’s useless. I already guessed that this worthless Guardian has rigid thinking and limited wisdom—only knows how to follow rules without any flexibility.”
Su Che clearly felt the liquid seep into his skin and directly into his heart. Soon, an extremely violent heat surged from his heart, spreading throughout his body like a tsunami.
“This damned investiture—this is bad!”
After saying that, Su Che slowly closed his eyes and fell into deep sleep.
With a gentle gesture, the giant’s phantom caused a temple-like hall to appear out of thin air where Su Che lay. Inside the hall was a long stone platform. Under its control, Su Che’s body floated up slowly and then settled onto the platform, lying there silently in sleep…
“The investiture is complete!”
The giant’s phantom declared stiffly before gradually fading away into nothingness.
Inside the hall, Su Che slept peacefully, and a day passed quickly…
Two days…
Three days…
One day, Su Che suddenly woke up, jumping off the platform in surprise. He looked around in shock and asked, “Lao He, are you still here?”
“Of course,” Lao He replied gravely from the Immortal Prison. “Master, rest assured. I’m fine, and you’re in good condition too—though you’ve been asleep for fifteen days.”
“Fifteen days? What happened to me?”
Su Che moved his limbs and felt his body brimming with strength—almost infinite strength. He even felt an urge to move mountains.
“Master, I guess that red liquid might have been the essence blood of some high-ranking member of the Witch Clan. Over these past days, it transformed your body. So, it’s no exaggeration to say you now truly possess Witch Clan blood.”

“Damn it! This is the end!”
Su Che was terrified, panicked inside: “I don’t want to become a witch clan member. I just want to be human, not turn into a monster…”
In Su Che’s mind, all beings other than humans were monsters. The idea of becoming a witch clan member was utterly unacceptable to him.
“It’s okay, master. You’re still human. It’s just that you now have a bit of witch clan blood,” Lao He said with a grin. “Just like me—having elements of human, demon, and beast in me—isn’t that great too?”
“Nonsense!” Su Che shouted inwardly. “If I had to grow a rat tail, I’d rather die!”
That was purely an outburst of emotion. As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized his mistake and quickly apologized to Lao He, “Lao He, I’m sorry. I wasn’t targeting you. I just…”
“I know, I know,” Lao He said, scratching his head and smiling. “You’re just a bit excited. It’s fine. Trust me, you’re still human. Your physical structure hasn’t changed much, so you can still cultivate.”
“That’s good.”
Su Che took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Then he sat cross-legged and began to meditate.
Soon, he saw that in the center of his heart, that drop of red liquid was still there, barely diminished. This showed that its transformative power was extremely strong. All the strengthening it had done to him over these days hadn’t consumed much of its energy.
Undoubtedly, such a drop of essence blood must be the most precious gift for a witch clan member. It might even be the essence blood of some kind of “Ancestral Witch” or “Witch God”…
But for a human, it was a huge hazard. It was hard to say what kind of impact it would have on him.
Was it a blessing or a curse? At that moment, Su Che really couldn’t figure it out.
“Let’s see. At least I’m still alive…”
Su Che calmed down and then thought, “Lao He, what do you think those words—the guy said, ‘When the command flag appears, the two Mi Xian realms will merge; when the Witch God returns, he will seize fate again’—mean?”
“I can’t guess,” Lao He replied in a low voice. “Anyway, it doesn’t sound like anything good. The phrase ‘the two Mi Xian realms will merge’ is easier to understand. I guess it means that once the command flag appears, the larger and smaller Mi Xian realms will come together.”

“Well, I think so too,” Su Che continued to reason. “Merging the Greater and Lesser Mi Immortal Realms isn’t a big deal, but the phrase ‘The Witch God returns, bringing even more calamity’ gives off the sense of an impending disaster. It probably isn’t good news and could cause a huge upheaval in the entire cultivation world.”
“Yes, master,” Lao He said with a sly smile. “Who knows? You might really cause a huge mess.”
From his tone, it was clear he was taking pleasure in chaos. Su Che didn’t bother arguing with him and continued to ponder the matter…
But after just a short while, that giant phantom reappeared suddenly before his eyes.
“The lord has awakened. Please leave for now. Return to Mi Immortal Realm in a hundred years.”
The giant phantom’s voice still sounded stiff and mechanical, like that of an artificial puppet.
“Return in a hundred years?”
Su Che already knew there was no point in reasoning with this rigid being. Since it had ordered him to leave, it would likely act soon.
Indeed, immediately afterward, Su Che felt the world spinning around him, as if he had undergone a teleportation…
…
On the plain, the primordial elders of various sects, along with over a thousand high-ranking cultivators at the late Golden Core stage, had been waiting outside the Lesser Mi Immortal Realm for eighteen days. Normally, they would have to wait another twelve days before the barrier reopened to bring out the surviving treasure hunters.
At that moment, they suddenly sensed a strong energy fluctuation. The gazes of over two thousand people immediately focused on the same spot.
This spot was hundreds of feet in the air. At first, it was empty, but in the blink of an eye, a dark portal appeared out of nowhere, spewing out figures one after another.
“What’s going on?”
Hundreds of cultivators at the Primordial Soul stage and over a thousand at the late Golden Core stage stood up, their faces filled with shock.
With a series of crackling sounds, the dark portal in the air spat out over a hundred people before disappearing immediately.
These over a hundred people were clearly the treasure hunters who entered the Lesser Mi Immortal Realm eighteen days ago. Initially, two thousand people had gone in, but today, only 127 had emerged.
Su Che was among the survivors, and only he knew clearly: if another twelve days passed, as in previous years, probably less than twenty people would survive and emerge…

Whoa! Over a thousand late-stage Golden Core cultivators each used their flight techniques to quickly gather around. They were all eager to see if their disciples had emerged alive. Of course, what concerned them even more was whether the surviving disciples had obtained any treasures.
“Stop! Don’t come over! Stay calm!”
Several Great Cultivators at the Yuan Ying stage flew into the air and stopped everyone, aiming to protect those disciples who had just emerged from the treasure hunt, so that no shameless late-stage Golden Core cultivator could take advantage of the situation to snatch someone else’s Qi Bag.