Cultivation of immortality begins with an eighty-year-old eunuch.

"wrong."

With a single sword strike, Chen Fan cleaved the three undead in two. A flash of spiritual light appeared beneath his feet, and he retreated to a small hill. He gazed at the undead army surging towards him like a tidal wave, a rare look of bewilderment crossing his eyes.

"What exactly is slaughter?"

He remembered Rosa's words.

"It's not out of hatred, not for profit, not to save your life, but simply because you are strong enough that you can kill."

This statement sounded domineering and arrogant, but Chen Fan felt that something was off.

If he is truly killing for the sake of killing, then what is the difference between him and these mindless dead?

If killing truly requires no reason, then what is the end of the path of killing but nothingness?

He stood there, lost in thought.

But the undead won't give him time to think.

Taking advantage of his momentary pause, tens of thousands of undead surged in from all directions, surrounding him completely. Swords, magical artifacts, fingernails, teeth—countless attacks rained down on him like a storm.

Chen Fan raised his head.

His gaze swept over the distorted faces of the undead, over the will-o'-the-wisps burning in their eye sockets, and over the horrifying wounds on their bodies.

Suddenly he put away eleven.

The three gates of intent transformed into a gray-white shield around his body, blocking all the attacks.

He sat cross-legged on the mound, closed his eyes, and began to perceive in the most clumsy way.

He released his divine sense, enveloping every spirit within a radius of dozens of miles.

He observed their every attack posture and felt the power within them that sustained their relentless killing.

What kind of power is that?

Is it resentment?

Is it an obsession?

Or is it some kind of more primal, more instinctive impulse?

Chen Fan's divine sense penetrated deep into the core of a dead spirit.

That was the spirit of a Golden Core cultivator in life.

He had a penetrating wound in his chest, clearly indicating that he had been killed by a sword through the heart. His soul had long since dissipated, leaving only a wisp of obsession to sustain his mutilated body.

This lingering obsession was the killing intent he felt when he swung his last sword before his death.

That was an extremely pure killing intent.

There was no hatred, no fear, no hesitation.

It was only in the last moment of his life that he poured all his strength into the tip of his sword and desperately thrust it at the enemy.

"This is... slaughter?"

Chen Fan's brows furrowed even more.

He vaguely sensed something, but it remained elusive, like a thin layer of paper separating him from the viewer.

Three days later, Chen Fan opened his eyes.

His eyes still held confusion, but beneath that confusion lay the budding of enlightenment.

"You can't understand it just by looking at it."

He stood up and drew Eleven back from its sheath.

"If you can't understand it, then go kill."

Chen Fan no longer sat cross-legged to contemplate, nor did he attempt to analyze the essence of the killing from an outsider's perspective.

He carried Eleven and charged into the Sea of ​​the Dead once more.

This time, he held nothing back.

With all three gates of his power activated, the greyish-white sword light stirred up a storm in the sea of ​​the dead. He no longer deliberately observed the changes in the undead, nor did he deliberately analyze the patterns of the killing.

Chen Fan immersed himself completely in each sword strike and each kill.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

Only this one word remained in his mind.

In the first month, Chen Fan killed 100,000 undead.

The following month, he killed another 100,000.

This time is different from before.

In the first month of killing, he was merely a killer, an intruder from outside.

As he reaped the dead with his sword, he also used reason to tell himself that this was just a test, that these dead were not truly alive, and that killing was merely a means to an end.

However, by the end of the third month, those barriers began to dissolve.

Perhaps it was because of the excessive and prolonged killing, or perhaps this sea of ​​carnage itself was subtly influencing the minds of the intruders.

Since when did Chen Fan stop calculating how many souls he had killed? He no longer thought about whether his sword strike conformed to the optimal solution of swordsmanship, nor did he think about how to allocate the power of cause and effect and the power of life and death to conserve spiritual energy the most?

He simply drew his sword, sheathed it, and drew it again.

As the first year came to an end, a hint of something indescribable appeared in Chen Fan's usually indifferent black eyes.

It was a barely perceptible red light.

Hidden deep within the pupils, yet undeniably present.

Change begins in the small things.

It started with his sword techniques.

In the past, Chen Fan's sword strikes were precise and deadly, but each strike carried a clear purpose.

For example, this sword strikes to the throat, this sword breaks through the formation, this sword repels the enemy. There is nothing wrong with this kind of purpose, but it is the biggest obstacle to the killing intent.

Because true killing requires no thought about the next step. A person truly consumed by killing will not consider what will happen after the sword is thrust out.

He only thrust out this one sword.

It's unclear when exactly, but Chen Fan's swordplay began to become more casual.

He would thrust his sword one more time, shattering the already vanished remains of the undead into pieces once more. After carving a bloody path, he would turn back and slaughter the resurrected undead once more.

From an efficiency standpoint, these sword techniques are simply a waste of spiritual energy.

Chen Fan would never have done such an unnecessary thing in the past.

But now, he has done it.

He wasn't even aware that he was doing it.

By the end of the second year, Chen Fan's eyes no longer held much clarity.

Those eyes, usually so clear and bright, were now filled with a dense network of blood vessels. The tiny red glint deep within his pupils had spread from the size of a pinhead to the entire iris, making his gaze appear particularly eerie in the dark red light of the day.

His appearance has changed too.

Twelve months of relentless killing made his cheekbones even higher, his cheeks deeply sunken, and his lips thin as a knife from being tightly pressed together for so long.

The original color of the blue robe was no longer visible; dried bloodstains layered upon layer, congealing into a dark red suit of armor.

Chen Fan's walking posture also changed.

It was no longer the steady and cautious stride of the past, but a more direct and aggressive stance!

The biggest change was in his aura.

Previously, Chen Fan's aura was restrained. After cultivating the Fixed Word Technique, his aura became even deeper, like an ancient well without ripples.

But now cracks are starting to appear on the walls of this ancient well.

A trace of murderous aura, invisible to the naked eye but clearly perceptible to the soul, was seeping out from those cracks.

However, this killing intent is far from being refined enough!

This is something that naturally grew in Chen Fan's body after he used Eleven to kill over a million undead.

He has not yet mastered it, and may not even be fully aware of its existence.

However, this murderous aura has begun to affect him in return.

The third year.

Chen Fan rarely stops to rest anymore.

He stuffed the Rejuvenation Pill into his mouth like a candy, replenishing his spiritual energy while simultaneously pushing his meridians to their limits. He no longer sat cross-legged in meditation or regulated his breathing; when he was tired, he would lean on Eleven and stand in place for a moment before plunging back into the Sea of ​​the Dead.

In his mind, all thoughts other than killing were being squeezed out little by little...