DLBTF 07

Chapter 07

Establishing the Foundation, Defying the Heavens and Changing Fate!

In the secret chamber of the Blood Kitchen.

Bai Feng reviewed his personal attribute panel once more.

His heart swelled with waves of shock again! One had to realize that in the first expansion pack, in every battle scene where Bai Qingling appeared, he essentially instant-killed his opponents. Players only knew he was a boss with a thick health bar and an oppressive aura, but they never realized… He was actually ridiculously strong!

Although he had lost all his cultivation and a vast array of mystical abilities were currently in a “suspended” state. However! That pile of all-purpose auxiliary skills—alchemy, bug-crafting, and so on—had all been leveled to the maximum! You have to realize: The protagonists controlled by the players hadn’t managed to grind a single auxiliary skill above level 60 even by the end of the second expansion pack!

“If Bai Qingling had lived until the second expansion pack, he would probably have joined forces with Mu Xinlan and easily suppressed those big bosses from outside the realm. There would be nothing left for the players to do.”

“Looking at it this way, a ‘plot-mandated death’ was indeed the most appropriate ending for such an over-powered villain.”

After a brief moment of reflection. Bai Feng pulled back his thoughts and began to calculate his next plan.

“I have already had Xing’er pretend the poisoning scheme succeeded and inform Xiao Chen and my second disciple, Tantai Lingyin.”

“According to the normal plot line, Tantai Lingyin will want to play it safe and have Xing’er enter the Blood Kitchen after seven days to inspect my corpse.”

“By then, as my life force fades, the restrictions I set up outside the Blood Kitchen—using the demonic blood in my own body as the source—will gradually lose their effectiveness.”

“Therefore, in order to claim great merit and make a name for himself in both the righteous and demonic worlds, Xiao Chen will enter the Blood Kitchen ahead of time to deliver the killing blow…”

“Hmm… looking at it this way, seven days from now is my only chance.”

Having made up his mind. Bai Feng walked through a downward-sloping corridor and arrived directly at the third basement level. Upon sensing the boiling demonic blood within him, the massive bronze door in front of him opened automatically.

Rumble…

With a dull, massive sound, the bronze door swung wide. What entered his vision was a confined space roughly ten feet square. Compared to the spacious depths of the first and second levels, this place looked more like a private storage room filled with evil aura. At a glance, various human bodies, organs, and heads were soaking in eerie, transparent soul-detention jars. Some of the living subjects even had their eyes wide open, cursing loudly at something.

“No wonder I vaguely heard all sorts of curses in my ears when I first transmigrated; it turns out they were coming from here.”

“But then again, this place is just too damn ominous.”

Bai Feng couldn’t help but curse in his heart. He naturally knew that this place was exactly where Bai Qingling sacrificed living souls. And those detained here were almost all righteous warriors who had spent these years racking their brains to assassinate him and make a name for themselves.

“I will likely have to spend these next seven days, or even a long time after that, in this place.”

“Therefore, if I want to defy the heavens and change my fate, I must calm my mind and adapt to this environment!”

“I am the true Qingling Demon Venerable!”

After some self-coaching. Bai Feng stepped into the hall with an indifferent gaze. At this moment, seeing him walk in, those pitiful test subjects became agitated, and their curses grew even more vicious.

“Silence!”

A violent shout. Swish. The soul-summoning banners hanging all around seemed to hear their master’s call; they rose in unison and lashed out at the remnant souls of the test subjects. In an instant, the scene fell into dead silence.

Bai Feng nodded in satisfaction.

“Good. Next is to find… that thing.”

After a simple scan, he walked directly to the side of a boiling blood pool. Straining his eyes, he saw a black wooden box about five feet square, carved with obscure runes, floating in the center of the pool. He knew. Inside this lay Bai Qingling’s foundational vessel! It was also the contingency plan Bai Qingling had designed for himself before his decisive battle with Mu Xinlan!

Without the slightest hesitation. Bai Feng placed his palm over the top of the black wooden box.

Whoosh—

As if sensing some kind of call, the ancient spiritual patterns on the surface of the wooden box blossomed with golden, otherworldly light! The next moment, the black wooden box slowly opened. A thick, pungent stench of blood rushed into his nostrils.

Bai Feng covered his nose and mouth and looked closely. A solid, blood-red, flesh-like, indescribable object appeared in his vision. It was about the size of a human head, its surface sticky and moist, as if bathed in fresh blood. It looked both ferocious and nauseating. As Bai Feng drew closer, this indescribable object seemed to sense its master’s call; it actually began to twist and pulse, just like a living thing!

“This is Bai Qingling’s foundational vessel?”

“This thing is just too twisted.”

Staring at this mass of twisted demonic matter, Bai Feng felt as if his spirit were being contaminated.

According to the game’s lore, Bai Qingling was naturally cautious—like a clever rabbit with three burrows—and never allowed himself to be placed in danger. Therefore. When he calculated that the Daoist Saintess Mu Xinlan had awakened from her ice coffin, he concluded that she would sooner or later come looking for trouble with him, the most prominent demonic giant of recent years, to raise the prestige of the righteous cultivation world, which had been in decline for a century.

After weighing his options, Bai Qingling first dug out his own internal organs and catalyzed them with the power of the Five Elements, storing them in five locations within the sect where the veins of demonic energy were thickest. Then, he refined his own cultivation source, merged with his innate Wuxiang Demon Heart, into a form outside his body, and placed it in the black box as a foundational vessel, sealing it in spiritual liquid. He then used, for the time being, artificial organs cultivated over decades, along with a “Chaotic Foundational Vessel” refined from the life-pills of hundreds of righteous experts.

In this way. Even if he were defeated by Mu Xinlan in the future, as long as a single wisp of his remnant soul could escape, he would have a chance to re-incubate a physical body and live a second life.

“Everything was originally going according to his plan.”

“Mu Xinlan really did come to his door later, and he really did escape that disaster.”

“It’s just a pity that for all his calculations, he didn’t count on dying at the hands of his own formerly docile little disciple.”

“It’s just too damn tragic.”

“Forget it, he was just a virtual character in a game, while I am the real Bai Qingling.”

“And what I need to do now is follow this path, slowly grow my power step-by-step, and defy the heavens to change my fate!”

Suddenly. Bai Feng reached out and gripped that ferocious, indescribable mass of flesh in the void! Sticky, slippery, withered… Just the weird sensation alone made him feel physically ill!

“The narrator in the game mentioned that this thing needs to be swallowed whole…”

“But… can this thing actually taste any good?”

The pungent, thick smell of blood made Bai Feng put on a “mask of pain”! He hesitated once more.

“Relying on Bai Qingling’s former prestige to intimidate others won’t hold up for long. Only by becoming strong myself and restoring my former power can I survive…”

“Yes, even if I get rid of Xiao Chen, I still have the greatest opponent—Mu Xinlan!”

“I have survived now, the world line has changed, and there is bound to be a bloody close-quarters fight between me and this woman!”

“There is no other path to take!”

Under continuous self-urging. Bai Feng slowly brought the ferocious and terrifying foundational vessel toward his mouth.

Gulp, gulp.

His throat moved. One bite after another. Bai Feng was surprised to find… This thing was unexpectedly—

Crunchy!

“Hmm, delicious~”

(End of chapter)