Yang Suyin had never imagined he would one day dismember a royalty. Yet here he was, crouching beside the youngest prince of the Twelve Sun Empire—a man now more spirit beast than human. Prince Lihuo would be remembered as a traitor, a stain on the empire that would undoubtedly plague the next emperor, Prince Yang Jinyan.

Sweat beaded on Yang Suyin's forehead and his robes felt suffocating, but his face remained a calm mask. All around him, a cacophony of slashing flesh and monstrous screeches filled the air. The stench of blood and sweat stung his nostrils as a crimson pool spread across the ground. Liu Xing, that absurd cultivator, single-handedly held back the onslaught. Yang Suyin had to manage his part. He had to.

"Hurry!" Liu Xing shouted.

"Give me a minute!" he shouted back.

His hands and feet trembled. His lungs burned, the thick air feeling like syrup. Common sense screamed that he couldn't destroy Lihuo's body. He was a mere Core Splitting realm cultivator, while Lihuo was a Sun Refining abomination. But then there was Liu Xing—a fucking Core Splitting cultivator fighting toe-to-toe with a monster, fending off tentacles that could crush a man to pulp. If that was possible, Yang Suyin figured he could throw his common sense out the window and try.

"All right, let's try different methods," he muttered.

First, he searched for a weak point. His gaze settled on the two snail-like eyes protruding from Lihuo's face on fleshy stalks. They looked soft. Without hesitation, Yang Suyin slashed at it. His sword struck with a loud ping, flaring a spark as if he had hit metal, not flesh. The blade left a small nick but failed to draw blood. He grimaced but didn't lose hope. He slashed the other eyestalk with the same result. He tried the ears, the nose, even pried open the mouth to slash the tongue. Each attempt failed. The body was as hard as steel; his sword was useless.

So, he reverted to fire, but this time he wouldn't try to burn the whole body. He would target a specific point. Some of the muscles had been charred by his earlier attacks, so perhaps his fire had worked; it just hadn't been hot or focused enough.

Pointing his index finger, Yang Suyin cycled his qi, conjuring a fireball at his fingertip. A yellow flame materialized, and he fed it more and more qi, compressing it, making it smaller and hotter. As he worked, the screeches of the giant eye grew more guttural, enraged at being held off by Liu Xing. He glanced up just as the monstrous eye locked onto him. It let out a shriek so powerful the very air trembled.

Yang Suyin gulped, forcing his attention back to the fireball at his finger. It now burned so hot its core glowed blue.

When he judged it was ready, he pressed the flame against the nick on the eyestalk. Black smoke instantly hissed from the point of contact. The smoke billowed as his finger began to sink into Lihuo's flesh. It was slow, demanding immense concentration and a steady drain of qi, but it was working.

"I did it!" Yang Suyin exclaimed.

Liu Xing glanced over for a fraction of a second. "Good! Cut him up to pieces!"

"All right!" Yang Suyin nodded.

He poured more qi into the fireball, controlling it until his head ached, and began dragging his finger sideways to sever the eye from its stalk. Though he was using a fireball, the effect was like a cutting torch. Amid the billowing black smoke, he felt like a welder, only he was doing the opposite.

A moment later, he successfully sliced one of Lihuo's eyes free. The stump of the stalk was charred black, a messy, painful-looking wound. Lihuo was definitely still alive, and Yang Suyin was amazed that whatever had knocked him out was strong enough to keep him unconscious through this. He hoped it would last long enough for him to finish the job.

From there, Yang Suyin began to cut methodically. He removed the other eyeball, then considered the ears but decided against it, going straight for the neck instead.

He burned a line at the base of Lihuo's neck. The flesh there was much tougher than the eyestalks, but with more concentration, his finger sank into the throat. Once his fingertip had burned halfway in, the resistance gave way. The sudden lack of resistance surprised him, but in a good way. The creature's unnatural toughness was only centimeters deep. Beneath it, the flesh was soft. If Lihuo were conscious, qi would have hardened his insides, but now they were vulnerable.

"All right," he muttered, engraving this information in his mind.

He began moving his finger to the side. The process was difficult, but knowing it was possible, he worked with patience and diligence, finally succeeding in severing Lihuo's head from his body.

He smiled wildly, his sweat glittering in the purple light of Liu Xing's attacks. His hand trembled with the thrill of success, like a swordsman who had just found a chink in impenetrable armor. He reined in the emotion and prepared to cut again. Next, he aimed for Lihuo's right arm. He discovered the joints were softer, and he severed the limb much faster. But this effort came at a price.

"Shit, I'm almost out of qi," Yang Suyin muttered. He glanced at Liu Xing, who was still fending off tentacles. "Why do I need to cut him to pieces? What's the reason?"

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After severing the neck, he knew Lihuo was dead. There was no heartbeat, and the qi inside the body was dispersing. If the point was simply to kill Lihuo, he had already succeeded.

"He is an ingredient," Liu Xing reminded him while slashing one tentacle and exploding another. "We cannot let his corpse fall into Wei Yi's hands."

"We can just carry him to a safe place."

"Yes, that's why I need you to cut him to pieces! You need to cut him up so we can store his body parts inside our spatial bags!"

The explanation hit Yang Suyin like a lightning bolt. Of course. The only one with a spatial ring large enough to hold the entire body was the prince, and he was occupied. Spatial bags were the next best thing. Splitting the body parts among several bags was even better, making it that much harder for Wei Yi to reassemble Lihuo.

He turned toward Lihuo's head. It wouldn't fit in a spatial bag and would need to be cut in two.

"I'll try my best," Yang Suyin said.

He was considering how to do it when a foreign qi suddenly flooded his body. His first instinct was to expel it.

"Don't do it! That's my qi. Use it!" Liu Xing shouted.

Yang Suyin reined in his instinct and allowed the stream of foreign qi to enter his qi paths. It felt strange, but not harmful, which meant Liu Xing's qi was compatible with his own. Yang Suyin wondered about Liu Xing's affinity and cultivation scripture. He primarily used lightning, which means his qi should not be compatible with him, but this potent qi told another story.

Pushing the thought aside, Yang Suyin began to cycle the new qi through his body, rekindling the fire at his fingertips. The qi was so fast, so light, it was even easier to control than his own. His eyes widened when the fireball at his fingertips grew to the size of a barrel.

"What the fuck!"

For a moment, he thought he had lost control, but the massive fireball was perfectly stable. There was no volatility, as if it would hold its form even if he released his focus. With wide eyes and a racing heart, Yang Suyin tested his control. He rapidly shrank and grew the flame, and it obeyed his will instantly, as if he were the son of heaven and the fire was his subject.

"It's crazy," Yang Suyin muttered. "This… this almost feels like an entirely different technique!"

The color of his fireball, while still tinged with yellow, now burned with a brilliant white core.

"If you have time to move your mouth, please use it to move your hand instead!"

Liu Xing's words broke Yang Suyin from his shock. He had many questions about this qi, but this wasn't the time.

With a fire that felt so strong yet so easy to control, he could confidently cut Lihuo's body into many pieces. Taking a deep breath, he willed the fire into the shape of a sword. Pure manipulation usually sapped a technique's power, but not this fire. It retained its heat and power, morphing into a longsword in his right hand.

He took a stance and swung as hard as he could. His fire sword struck true, shearing through Lihuo's tough muscle as if it were soft clay. From there, he severed both of Lihuo's legs, then began cutting the torso into horizontal sections two or three fingers wide. He encountered hard bone—the spine was especially difficult—so instead of cutting through it, he simply stripped the flesh from it.

As he worked, he realized what he was doing was horrific. He was desecrating a human corpse. Under normal circumstances, he would have felt remorse, but Lihuo was the monster behind the capital's destruction. Since this was necessary, he felt nothing but grim determination as he cut him to pieces.

A moment later, he had succeeded.

Ninety-nine pieces of Lihuo lay on the ground, including the head, which Yang Suyin had quartered. Thick, blackish blood pooled beneath the remains, oozing a horrific, nose-burning stench. He endured it.

"Done!" Yang Suyin said, then without further instruction, he began stuffing the body parts into his spatial bag. He started with the spine, some sections of the head, Lihuo's bisected left hand, and many pieces of the torso. He chose the parts deliberately, thinking that splitting a single body part across different bags would make it harder for Wei Yi to reconstruct the giant if a specific organ was needed.

"Give me your spatial bag!" he shouted at Liu Xing.

"Grab it yourself, I'm a little busy right now," Liu Xing answered. "It seems Wei Yi is really angry at you."

Yang Suyin looked up and met the gaze of the giant eye. A death glare shot from it that made his body shiver. The monstrous mouth curved into a snarl, and the yellow eye descended, as if it wanted to leap and devour him. Its screeching intensified, rising to a raw, hateful shriek.

Yang Suyin gulped and, with trembling hands, grabbed the spatial bag tied to Liu Xing's waist and began stuffing it with the rest of Lihuo's body parts.

"Now what?" Yang Suyin asked, having finished and retied the bag to Liu Xing's waist.

"While you were cutting up Lihuo, Wei Yi started making his move."

"What did he do?" Yang Suyin asked.

Liu Xing pointed with his chin toward the sky. Yang Suyin looked up and saw Yang Hongyin's fire construct fighting the former emperor more fiercely than before. The emperor's movements were a blur. The fight was no longer an equal match; the former emperor zipped through the air, punching the fire bird repeatedly as if it were a mere sandbag. The former emperor was now completely shrouded in black fire. The sight made Yang Suyin's face go deathly pale.

"I think Wei Yi is controlling the former emperor directly now, and he has called that," Liu Xing looked to the side. Yang Suyin followed his gaze to see a horrible figure crawling across the ground. It had hundreds of white hands growing from its sides like the legs of a centipede, while its face was that of Elder Yang Zhaoyan, once dignified, now a mask of festering pustules. It moved slowly, each step making clicking and clacking sounds.

Yang Suyin took a deep breath. "What are we going to do now?"

"Survive," Liu Xing licked his lips while looking up at the giant. Its throat was bulging, as if it were swallowing a giant rock.

Upon seeing it Yang Suyin's heart hammered against his ribs, his eyes widened, and his body trembling uncontrollably.

The giant had swallowed the second ingredient!

He might have collapsed on the spot if Liu Xing hadn't been standing beside him. Even in the face of an abomination of catastrophic proportions, Liu Xing's gaze remained fixed on the giant, as if he already had a plan to defeat it.

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