Eternal Blood Monarch: The Monarch that rose form the Dead!

"Ughh... your grandma, what is this nonsense?"

The Evil Empress's face was filled with disbelief as she returned to see Ning Gufan taking his last breath. There wasn't a hint of pity in her eyes, only resentment and frustration.

Whoosh!

She emptied the storage ring in a swift motion, her eyes scanning its contents with growing surprise and anger.

"Why the hell are you carrying this coffin? There is nothing useful in this entire ring! Old monster, you bastard, you've wasted your grandma's time!"

She cursed a few more times before kicking Ning Gufan's lifeless body.

Her anger unquenched, she pressed her heel between his legs, the sharp crunch of bone echoing through the silent forest.

Crunch!

"Argh..." Ning Gufan let out a groan of pain, blood spurting from his mouth.

He coughed violently, choking on his own blood, which made the Evil Empress frown in disgust.

"Disgusting bastard! Is this the only treasure you have? If the cultivators of the Four Heavens found out, they would be embarrassed to no end!"

She glared at him, her eyes burning with contempt. "You were once a feared Monarch of the Infernal Realm, and now look at you. Pathetic."

Ning Gufan's vision blurred, the pain overwhelming him. 'Is this how ants treat me now?' he thought, his mind racing. 'All my power, my reputation, reduced to nothing...'

Her spirit sense wasn't nearly as strong as Ning Gufan's had once been, when he was a fearsome figure in the Four Heavens.

If not for his crippled veins, she wouldn't have had the confidence to even take a single blow from him.

But now, he was a shadow of his former self, and she didn't care.

"All these years, striving for power, and it comes to this," she muttered, half to herself. "Why do we do it? For glory? For immortality? What a cruel joke." She bent down, her face inches from his. "You were supposed to be a growing legend, Ning Gufan. A name that would never die. And now? You're just a fucking disappointment."

Ning Gufan coughed, his voice barely a whisper. "You... you'll... regret... this..."

"Regret?" The Empress laughed coldly. "I have no room for regret. Survival, power—those are the only things that matter."

She stood up, wiping the blood from her hands. "And you, Ning Gufan, are nothing but a stepping stone on my path."

She kicked the old man a few more times, her frustration evident with each blow.

"Today was a fucking waste," she muttered, snorting in contempt. "I thought I would find something to restore my cultivation in his treasure, but it's useless!"

She glanced back at the items she had scattered on the ground.

It wasn't that the things were entirely useless; it was just that none of them could restore her cultivation.

She had hoped for a miracle, a divine elixir, or a powerful artifact that would bring her back to her former glory.

Instead, she found mundane treasures, worthless in her eyes.

With one final look of disdain, she turned and walked away, her figure disappearing into the shadows.

As she vanished into the night, the forest seemed to close in around Ning Gufan.

His last thoughts were filled with bitterness and regret. 'If only... if only I had been stronger... if only I had one more chance...'

But it was too late. The world of cultivation showed no mercy, and now, he was just another corpse.

Blood fumed over his disgusting face, and as the fire died out, it left behind sizzled flesh, enough to make a grown man vomit.

After an incense stick's worth of time...

Rumble! Rumble!

The coffin lying alone began to buzz and shake, before—

Boom!

The door of the coffin was pushed open.

"Gasp!"

Inside the coffin lay a pale-faced figure with dry, cracked lips.

Su Xiaobai, dangerously injured and on the brink of death, lay motionless inside the coffin bound with gold chains.

His body was a ruin of broken bones and torn flesh, blood pooling beneath him. His breaths were shallow, each one a struggle against the encroaching darkness.

But deep within his veins, a dormant power stirred.

The mutated bloodline of the Demon clan, a secret even to Ning Gufan, began to awaken.

A surge of immortal vitality coursed through him, knitting torn flesh and mending broken bones.

The icy energy wrapped around his heart, pulling him back from the abyss of death.

Slowly, Su Xiaobai's eyes fluttered open.

"Hiss!"

Above him, the beautiful starry sky stretched infinitely, a tapestry of glittering diamonds.

He blinked, disoriented, as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings.

Where am I?

He stood up staggering, looking around he found some movement.

An old man lay on the scarred ground, breathing his last breaths.

The man's body was a horrifying sight, his flesh burned and hanging in charred strips.

His skin was a patchwork of raw, blistered wounds, the remnants of black flames still flickering at the edges.

Blood oozed from the cracked, seared flesh, pooling around him in his suffering.

The man's face was lined with age and suffering, yet his eyes held a spark of disbelief as he saw Su Xiaobai awakening.

For a moment, he stared in stunned silence, his expression frozen.

Then, suddenly, a maniacal laugh burst from his cracked lips, echoing through the silent night. "You... Kekkee—cough—couch—you-you're alive!" he wheezed, his laughter growing louder and more unhinged. "The heavens truly are cucklords!"

"Moth*rfucker you are so unfortunate even heavens refuse to take you in!.. kekekekekee"

His disbelief quickly turned into manic laughter, a harsh, grating sound that sent shivers down Su Xiaobai's spine.

Ning Gufan's chest heaved with each laugh, his frail body struggling to sustain the effort.

Splurt!

A stream of blood suddenly burst from Ning Gufan's chest, splattering Su Xiaobai and startling him.

The old man continued to laugh, as if the pain was not enough to deter him.

His laughter echoed through the night, filled with a mixture of madness and triumph.

Su Xiaobai struggled to keep his mind around, his body still weak but healing rapidly. "What… what happened?" he managed to ask, his voice hoarse.

Ning Gufan's eyes softened slightly, a rare moment of defeat in his final moments. "It seems your bloodline has saved you," he said, his voice rasping. "A mutated power... Huh... Dying must be the prerequisite to trigger it..."

Su Xiaobai's mind raced. 'My bloodline… I never knew I had such power. I needed to die to trigger it?' He marveled at the strange fate that had befallen him. How could such a condition exist?

The old man's body trembled as he coughed again, blood trickling from his mouth, his strength fading rapidly. "Listen to me, brat. I initially wanted to refine you to heal my injury... but now..." His face twisted bitterly; there was barely a face left, only bones with some flesh hanging. "Now... I am dying. The Evil Empress... she has taken everything from me. My power, my pride... my life."

Su Xiaobai frowned, his thoughts a whirl of shock and realization. 'He wanted to kill and refine me?'

Su Xiaobai still couldn't believe it. He checked the body once more and couldn't recognize if it was the same old man from the prison, but the voice was unmistakable.

'So this old man wanted to kill me...' Su Xiaobai's expression hardened, recognizing the uneasy feeling he always had in the back of his mind.

He smiled slightly contemptuously at Ning Gufan. "Your condition has nothing to do with me. You can continue dying."

Ning Gufan's eyes widened with a hint of panic as he saw Su Xiaobai turn to leave. "Hey, brat! Stop! This is not your White Cloud Star. If you walk carelessly, you will die again!"

"Huh?" Su Xiaobai halted, but suspicion lingered in his eyes.

This devil knew how to manipulate well.

Ning Gufan saw the suspicious gaze and laughed like a maniac, a hollow, desperate sound. "Good! Good! Never trust anyone. I will give you all my knowledge, all my inheritance. But you must promise me one thing."

Su Xiaobai's eyes narrowed as he listened, his mind calculating the risks and benefits. "And what is that?"