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After slapping her daughter across the face, Vampire Archduchess Veloria Lucarion glared at her with a forced smile that made her appear incredibly unsettling.
"Hm? What was that, my dear? Don’t you rember what I said about talking back to your mother? You will do what I say... right?"
"Y-Yes... yes... I-I... will do it..." The girl’s hands trembled, her heart pounding rapidly. Her mother knew.
"Ahh, so adorable and small..." Veloria laughed, patting her head once. "So disgusting..."
She turned and walked away, casting one last cold glance over her shoulder.
"Get ready. We’re leaving in a few hours. Also wipe your face. Water is leaking from your eyes again, and you know how much Mommy finds that disgusting."
"...O-Okay."
The girl nodded, standing alone in the room as tears stread down her cheeks.
"Master Wu Lieng... Everyone... I’m sorry... sniff... ugh..."
.
.
.
Inside the Poison Sect.
The Thousand Poison Master laughed, gazing at the hundreds of corpses laid out before him.
All were victims dragged here by his disciples from various missions.
They rested within a massive demonic pentagram formation.
"My first Demon Army, rise!"
He raised a glowing red key. A blazing portal tore open, flooding the formation with demonic energy. The corpses floated upward.
Their auras erupted, exploding with imnse power.
At the sa ti, they absorbed the demonic energy and began to mutate.
Hundreds of demons leaped from the gate as spectral beings, possessing the changing corpses and breathing new life into them.
The humans’ skin shifted into various colors.
So grew muscular, others long and slender.
A few even resembled giant beasts or insects.
They all rejoiced, laughing demonically as they raised their claws to the sky.
"Gyahahahaha!"
"We have escaped Floor Zero!"
"We are free to destroy, burn, and devour!"
"We can finally live!"
The Thousand Poison Master smiled at their celebration, spreading his arms and nodding.
"Thank you for coming," he said, sensing their overwhelming power. Several demons rivaled Immortals in strength. "Your King has entrusted with a great task. Will you help accomplish it?"
"Of course."
"That’s why he sent us."
"Maria, right?"
"We’ll shred her to pieces. Gyahahaha!"
"Then this world will burn and weep!"
"As we devour everything!"
"Souls... give souls already!"
"Patience..." the Thousand Poison Master said calmly. "You will have plenty of souls soon."
As hundreds of demonic voices echoed with laughter, sharp ears on the surface caught sothing ominous.
Lin Ming paused.
An unsettling chorus of voices drifted up from below.
"Hm?"
He stared toward the sect building, his expression darkening.
He couldn’t quite comprehend it.
Yet his senses recoiled, as if sothing vile was brewing beneath.
It was so repulsive that nausea rose in his throat.
"S-Senior! What’s wrong? Are you okay?"
A young Dhampir boy rushed over.
"I’m fine."
Lin Ming held up a hand, keeping distance.
"Don’t worry about , Terion..."
He sighed as his direct superior approached—an Assassin at the Nascent Soul Realm known as the Hundred Poison Master.
"Lin Ming, prepare yourself. We depart soon. The master has a grand plan, and you must be part of it."
"A grand plan? What is it?"
"A grand plan... With his newfound powers, this world will kneel before our sect."
"What?"
"No longer will we hide. No longer will we be despised... Isn’t that wonderful, Lin Ming?"
"..."
The senior smiled unsettlingly, patting Lin Ming’s shoulder and leaning close to his ear.
"You’d better not hesitate like before, or the master will kill you personally."
Lin Ming broke into a cold sweat as his superior—now radiating a strange, unnatural aura—walked away.
"I won’t."
"Good. Go prepare."
"...Yes."
Terion stood there, almost invisible to the other sect mbers.
When Lin Ming glanced at him, the senior suddenly fixed the boy with a piercing stare.
"Your father says you may join us, Terion. He has high expectations after your rigorous training."
"A-Ah! Really?! Yes...! Of course!"
The Poisonous Needle Assassin couldn’t shake the ominous feeling surrounding all of this.
"Just what has the Sect Master done?"
.
.
.
The next morning, Maria slowly opened her eyes.
She had been sitting cross-legged, ditating while using her Dream Ghosts to practice martial arts and spar against one another.
She trained relentlessly this way, honing her skills at breakneck speed.
While battling within her mind and soul, she ditated.
She circulated Sword Ki from her soul into her Dream Heart, then her Spiritual Heart and body.
Dream Ki, Nightmare Ki, and Phantasmal Ki flowed and rged.
Yet without a proper Cultivation thod, progress felt slow and awkward.
This was why she imitated the philosophies of existing thods, adapting them with her own abilities.
Maria was slowly grasping what she had been missing.
As the Heavens rejected her and Fate despised her, she forged her own path through blood and tears.
As the sun rose on the horizon, her connection to the stars gradually faded.
Yes, the stars.
From studying countless Cultivation thod books, Maria discovered one common truth.
All humans in Murim studied, communed with, and deciphered the stars.
It brought them closer to Heaven, allowing them to understand their own Fate.
Cultivation toward Immortality ant defying Heaven and Fate itself.
To achieve that, Cultivators first had to grasp their Fate, predict it, and comprehend the aning of each star in the night sky.
They sought the stars’ blessings.
But Maria could not receive those blessings. She was incompatible.
The stars ignored her.
They never looked upon her.
Their radiance and knowledge remained forever out of reach.
Deciphering Constellations, their ties to the Five Elents—Wood, Fire, Earth, tal, and Water—and everything connected to them...
This was how Cultivators unleashed such devastating spells.
Martial Artists followed a different path, refining their bodies, weapon mastery, and self-transcendence.
Yet the paths often overlapped.
Pure Cultivators who never touched weapons or learned Martial Arts existed, but there were no pure Martial Artists.
Martial Arts alone could not split the heavens. They required Cultivation’s power to elevate further.
However...
As Maria pondered obsessively, teetering on the edge of madness...
As her eyes watched the sunrise and a faint smile touched her lips...
She finally saw it.
"I don’t need those stars. I’ve always had my own."
A Dream Soul Sphere surged from her Aura.
Then another, and another...
Until nine floated around her body.
FLUOSH!
A dark sphere manifested.
A Nightmare Soul Heart.
She wielded her magic to create night, draping the sky in darkness and forcing the world into an artificial evening of her own design.
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