Looking at the Dengying King—once unbeatable just a month ago—now lying defeated before him, Feng Qi felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
Since stepping onto the path of cultivation, his growth was plain to see.
After unlocking the first seal on the Demon Blade, he'd spent a full month adapting to its weight. Only now could he barely swing it again.
Even if only barely, the Demon Blade under its first seal had gained unimaginable power.
Seeing the Dengying King still twitching, trying to rise, Feng Qi decided to claim his prize.
He slung the Demon Blade over his shoulder and walked up to the fallen king.
The Demon Blade lifted.
With a piercing whistle as it sliced through the air, the blade came crashing down with unstoppable force.
The Dengying King struggled to lift both arms, trying to block the incoming strike.
Crack!
A crisp shatter rang out.
The Demon Blade, like a mountain falling from the sky, instantly shattered the Dengying King's arms and crashed into its chest without losing momentum.
Its eyes widened. The chest collapsed inward while the rest of its body puffed up like an inflated balloon.
Smack!
Green liquid sprayed in all directions.
Right then, Feng Qi's right hand gave a slight twitch. The glowing patterns on the Demon Blade lit up.
Time seemed to freeze.
The green liquid that had been flying through the air suddenly froze mid-air, then reversed its path like time rewinding—flowing back into the Demon Blade, completely enveloping it.
As the Demon Blade absorbed the Dengying King's life force, a cool sensation rushed into Feng Qi's body, coursing through his organs and meridians.
This feeling lasted for about a minute before gradually fading.
Glancing down at the now shriveled corpse of the Dengying King, Feng Qi rested the blade on his right shoulder and turned calmly to face the Dengying lifeforms forming a circle around him.
The king's death had thrown them into a panic. They called out "Jili!" in agitation.
Larger Dengying creatures led the charge toward Feng Qi.
It was like a trumpet had sounded—waves of Dengying lifeforms raised their dark green stone pillars and stormed forward.
Black mist seeped from Feng Qi's battle armor, swirling around him.
He raised the Demon Blade high—then smashed it down hard onto the ground.
Boom!
A violent shockwave blasted outward. Smaller Dengying lifeforms were instantly thrown back.
Raising the blade again, he swept it sideways.
That horizontal slash tore a five-meter-tall Dengying creature in half at the waist. Green liquid splattered everywhere.
With a spin of his body, he switched the blade from right to left hand and followed up with a sweeping strike.
Several Dengying creatures were sent flying. The moment the blade connected, their fate was sealed.
Taking a deep breath, Feng Qi shifted his stance, drawing power from his back and waist. His body was like a taut bowstring, each slash releasing the full strength of his entire body into his arms in a burst of force.
Though he hadn't yet fully mastered the unsealed state of the Demon Blade, every swing was exhausting—but its power was undeniable.
Even a casual swing was something the Dengying lifeforms couldn't withstand.
As the Demon Blade itself put it, "Right now, even if you casually toss me, none of these Dengying creatures could lift me."
Feng Qi, with complete dominance in strength, was like a war god.
Even as his stamina drained rapidly, he crushed the charging Dengying lifeforms like dry weeds.
After over ten minutes of brutal combat, the enemy began to lose heart and scattered like retreating tides.
Feng Qi didn't chase them—he didn't have the strength for that.
When the black armor melted back into liquid and returned to the Demon Blade, Feng Qi was drenched in sweat. He planted the blade into the ground and panted heavily.
Wielding the Demon Blade in battle was like running a cross-country race with weights—it pushed his endurance to the limit.
His mouth felt dry and parched.
The Demon Blade trembled. Green liquid gathered from all directions and flowed into Feng Qi's body again, cooling and restoring him.
The fatigue slowly faded.
After resting for a while, Feng Qi dragged the Dengying King's remains back to the lake. He chopped up some nearby branches and piled them together, then said:
"Blade Bro, light it up."
The Demon Blade didn't reply. A strand of black mist drifted from its tip onto the woodpile—and fire erupted, blazing intensely.
Feng Qi fetched a stone pot the size of a washbasin that he had carved himself, filled it with lake water, then chopped off the spirit fruit from the Dengying King's head and some flesh from its body, tossing it all into the pot to boil.
Before long, bubbles rose from the pot.
The scent spread quickly.
That meal warmed Feng Qi from the inside out.
The Dengying King's flesh was like mushroom meat—when he bit into it, juices oozed out. The soup brewed from it was rich and flavorful.
Only one problem—after eating, Feng Qi realized his mouth was numb.
This mushroom… was poisonous!
Fortunately, his body was strong enough. The numbness faded after a few hours.
Full and content, Feng Qi lifted the Demon Blade again and walked west—deeper into the Dengying Domain Field.
Feng Qi decided that his time in the Dengying Domain Field had come to an end.
With the Dengying King dead, the remaining Dengying lifeforms posed no real threat to humans. Once the Star City West Supply Zone was completed, this domain field would become one of Star City's resource supply areas. Conquering it wouldn't be difficult.
Two days later.
Feng Qi's figure passed through the dark green barrier of the domain field and appeared in the outside world.
What greeted him was a torrential downpour. He looked up at the sky—thick clouds churned overhead, and faint arcs of purple lightning flickered across the horizon, rumbling in the distance.
Stepping into the curtain of rain, his clothes were quickly soaked through.
Lowering his head to glance at his torn shirt, Feng Qi thought for a moment, then decisively tore it off.
The shirt had long since been damaged from battle after battle. Especially when wielding the Demon Blade, the immense force would rip the fabric apart over and over.
At this point, it was no better than a patchwork of rags hanging on his body—he might as well get rid of it.
Now bare-chested, his lean and muscular torso exposed to the rain, Feng Qi walked westward through the downpour.
Over the next three months, Feng Qi crossed two more domain fields.
Continuous combat pushed his mastery of the Demon Blade to a new level.
His physique also grew stronger with every kill, as the Demon Blade fed life force back into him.
At first, just running while carrying the Demon Blade in its first unsealed state would leave him gasping for air and forced to stop. But as his body grew stronger, the benefits of weighted training became clear—his strength increased drastically.
This journey carrying the Demon Blade felt like hauling a small mountain. Every step was growth.
One day, after defeating the overlord of a third domain field and sitting to rest atop a tall cliff, the long-silent Demon Blade suddenly spoke in his mind:
"Kid, now that you've gradually adapted to the first seal release, it's time to learn a blade technique that suits you."
Hearing this, Feng Qi was momentarily stunned—then nodded.
Blade techniques were essential on his path as the wielder of the Demon Blade—skills of slaughter he had to master.
Simply smashing enemies with the blade's weight worked fine against low-level threats, but it wouldn't be enough against stronger opponents.
After all, the high-tier enemies he'd face could fly, teleport, or do all sorts of insane things.
Only by pairing the Demon Blade with specialized blade techniques could he truly target enemies with special powers.
In the days that followed, Feng Qi went into seclusion atop the cliff, beginning blade technique training under the Demon Blade's guidance.
He started with the basics.
According to the Demon Blade, its current form—created uniquely for Feng Qi—was completely different from versions used by previous wielders. Most of their techniques weren't compatible. Feng Qi would have to forge his own path.
For example, earlier versions of the Demon Blade could not only slash but also stab, thrust, and cut in various ways.
But his version clearly wasn't suited for that kind of finesse.
To solve this, the Demon Blade had already laid out a complete plan.
It intended for Feng Qi to walk the path of self-created techniques.
Although that path was harder, many of the previous wielders had chosen it too.
The greatest advantage of self-created blade techniques was perfect compatibility with the weapon's form—bringing out its full power with no awkward mismatches.
During this time, the Demon Blade became like a professional instructor, constantly correcting Feng Qi's mistakes and guiding him in creating and learning techniques that fit him.
In just two months of relentless training, the cliff behind him had a whole chunk shaved off by his practice.
And Feng Qi had created eight basic blade techniques that matched his fighting style.
The Demon Blade's strength lay in overwhelming force, crushing opponents through sheer power. So he ditched all techniques that relied on finesse.
The eight techniques were:
First Style: Slash.
Slash like a furious dragon crashing into waves—use body momentum and footwork to move and strike swiftly from every angle. Speed was the top priority.
Second Style: Cleave.
Like a raging tiger breaking free from its cage—channel the full force of the body to directly overwhelm and destroy the opponent with absolute strength.
Third Style: Sweep.
Like a storm scattering clouds—domineering and soul-crushing. Sweep attacks in a wide arc, ideal when surrounded.
Fourth Style: Flick.
Start the flick without a trace—before the enemy moves, you've already struck. This move focused on defense, countering downward attacks and easily transitioning into a dragging strike.
The remaining four were:
Push, Block, Chop, Sever.
These eight foundational techniques became Feng Qi's new methods of unleashing the Demon Blade's might.
After two months of training, he no longer relied on just swinging the blade around. His power control and precision had clearly improved.
What hadn't changed was his battle style—still bold, brutish, and utterly dominant.
That was his identity in battle. It burned like fire in his heart.
If he changed that, the unyielding spirit driving him forward would be extinguished.
The techniques were mainly to help him get better at using the Demon Blade.
That was something the Demon Blade kept emphasizing while he developed his own blade style.
The Demon Blade would always form itself into the shape that suited him best—that was the choice of his heart. If he gave up his battle style just for the sake of technique, it would be like destroying his own foundation.
With over a thousand years of memories, the Demon Blade was no doubt the best teacher.
It saved Feng Qi from many wrong turns, and his grasp of blade momentum improved by leaps and bounds.
After two months of secluded cultivation, Feng Qi descended the cliff and left the third domain field on his journey.
Next, he would continue heading west.
Feng Qi was full of curiosity about the world beyond the Eastern Region.
He'd once discussed with upper-level members of the Crimson Research Institute what the rest of the human world might be like.
Some said there might be no humans left outside the Eastern Region—those areas had likely already been devoured by domain fields.
Even though no one in the Eastern Region had ever left, no humans had ever come in either.
Others believed that outside the Eastern Region, there were still scattered remnants of human forces barely hanging on.
But whether humans still existed beyond the Eastern Region remained unknown. There was no reliable information to confirm what lay out there.
The path beyond was cut off by countless domain fields. Humanity in the Eastern Region couldn't open up any main route to the outside world.
So, walking this path as the wielder of the blade, Feng Qi made up his mind—to cross the endless domain fields blocking the way and go see the outside world for himself.
If he found surviving human forces out there, then once the Five Great Cities were unified, they would become his next target.
Carrying that hope, Feng Qi crossed mountains and rivers.
The journey was filled with brutal battles, but it was also full of breathtaking scenery.
He saw a towering stone giant standing like a mountain in a domain field at sunset, its body covered in grass, trees, and moss. It had stood motionless for who knows how many years. Even the slightest movement would shake the entire domain like an earthquake.
He saw a golden ocean domain field, where countless radiant golden creatures swam in massive schools, writing the cruel law of survival of the fittest through constant struggle and slaughter.
He even ventured into a domain where green plants floated endlessly through the air, drawing energy from it to live. These plants traveled endlessly with the wind—homeless, yet at home everywhere.
Beyond the surreal beauty, he also fought many deadly battles.
On a grassy hillside, he fought a domain chieftain with a pig's head and human body. He won, but was badly injured and needed days to recover.
In a snowy world under a sunset sky, he battled a being made of ice and snow. He won again—but as soon as the enemy fell, an avalanche struck and buried him deep in the mountains. It took him several days to dig his way out, and he nearly got lost.
The most dangerous time was in a volcano field, where magma boiled everywhere. There, he fought a one-eyed domain elder. During their fierce clash, the volcano kept erupting violently.
All of it stayed in his memory like snapshots.
His journey wasn't just filled with wins—there were losses, too.
"Blade Bro, run!"
Feng Qi couldn't even count how many times he'd yelled that.
Different domain worlds had wildly different levels of strength.
He clearly remembered stumbling into a domain overrun with twisted purple plants—where even the weakest domain creatures were insanely strong.
Realizing he couldn't survive or train in that place, he immediately retreated and changed course.
Every day of the journey was fulfilling. His worldview had been blown wide open.
He'd studied domain science for a few years while stationed on the front lines. But compared to the way books described domain worlds, seeing them with his own eyes revealed the vast differences in thought, laws, and survival patterns between different lifeforms and ecosystems.
These bizarre domain worlds shocked him again and again.
Every time he entered a new domain field, it was like opening a brand-new book.
One moment it was a roaring ocean world, the next it was a magical realm where spells danced with a wave of the hand.
Different worlds had different ways of thinking—shaped by their own rules, resources, and environments.
To Feng Qi, their logic seemed strange. But in truth, each had its own consistent, underlying logic.
Summer bugs can't speak of ice.
On this journey, Feng Qi's perspective had been fully transformed.
He recorded the sights like a photo album in his mind. And alongside the scenery, he recorded how different world systems clashed—and even found ways they could coexist.
Time flowed like a song, and memory was its lyrics.
Each unforgettable snapshot in his memory album was a musical note—a line in the song of his life.
Feng Qi's mindset matured on the road.
Still carrying the Demon Blade, he pressed forward, measuring the wonders of countless worlds with every step.