The Author's Draft-Chapter 29: Heavenly Demon Transformation.

The blade pressed harder against Long Chen’s throat. Blood trickled down his neck, warm and sticky.

’Move. Move!’

His body wouldn’t respond. Elder Feng’s grip on his hair was iron, his spiritual pressure pinning him like an insect under glass.

Somewhere in the distance, explosions echoed. The clash between Dugu Jian and the Clan Master shook the mountainside. Trees splintered. And the ground trembled, the spiritual energy in that area in complete chaos.

But that fight was far away. Too far to help.

Long Chen’s vision blurred. His broken ribs scraped with every shallow breath. His shattered collarbone sent white-hot pain shooting through his shoulder.

*Let me out.*

The voice whispered again from Demon Dweller. Cold. Hungry. And promising power if he just said yes.

’No.’

He’d die before letting that thing control him.

’There has to be—’

The Heavenly Demon Cultivation Technique.

The knowledge sat buried in his mind, sealed behind warnings written in the technique’s original text. A forbidden skill. The kind disciples were told never to use unless they wanted to destroy themselves.

Heavenly Demon Transformation.

Its activation would raise his cultivation forcefully. Push his physique beyond human limits. Make him feel no pain.

The technique came with a price written in blood across every manual that mentioned it: *Upon deactivation, all accumulated damage returns tenfold. Pain receptors overload. Meridians tear from the backlash. Use only when death is certain.*

’I’m already dying. What’s the difference?’

Long Chen stopped struggling. He let his body go limp in Elder Feng’s grip.

The elder sneered. "Finally gave up?"

"No."

Long Chen’s remaining qi—barely a drop left in his dantian—surged through pathways he’d never opened before. Secret meridians hidden within the Heavenly Demon Cultivation Technique. They ignited like kindling, burning through his body with searing heat.

His skin felt like it was melting from the inside. His bones creaked under sudden pressure. His blood boiled in his veins.

The liquid qi in his dantian compressed violently, crystallizing into something harder, denser. The barrier between Qi Gathering and Foundation Establishment—a wall that should take months of careful cultivation to breach—shattered like glass under a hammer.

Foundation Establishment Stage 1.

Power flooded through him. His meridians expanded forcefully, tearing at the edges but holding. Spiritual energy poured into newly opened pathways, filling spaces that hadn’t existed seconds ago.

Elder Feng’s eyes widened. "What are you—"

Long Chen’s hand shot up faster than the elder could track. His fingers wrapped around Elder Feng’s wrist—the one holding the sword to his throat.

He squeezed.

Bone crunched under his grip. The sound was wet, sharp, final. Elder Feng’s wrist collapsed inward, radius and ulna snapping like dry twigs.

The elder screamed and jerked backward, releasing Long Chen’s hair.

Long Chen rolled away, his body moving with a speed and power that shouldn’t be possible. He came up five meters away, feet planted firmly on the ground.

But the transformation wasn’t finished.

Stage 2.

His bones began shifting. The sound was horrible—grinding, cracking, reforming. His ribcage expanded. His spine straightened with a series of pops that echoed through the clearing. His broken ribs fused back together, not healed but forcibly realigned.

His muscles tore apart and regrew in seconds. Fibers ripped and reknit themselves, denser than before, harder, like steel cables replacing rope. His flesh bulged grotesquely for a moment before settling into a new configuration.

His skin darkened, color draining away until it turned ashen gray. The texture changed too—harder, almost scale-like in places.

Stage 3.

The final stage hit him like a lightning strike.

Two protrusions burst from his skull. Blood sprayed as horns pushed through bone and skin, curving backward like a ram’s. They were black as obsidian, gleaming wetly in the afternoon light.

His eyes burned. The whites turned crimson. His pupils elongated, becoming slits like a predator’s. When he blinked, his eyelids moved sideways instead of up and down.

His nails extended into claws. His teeth sharpened into points. His breathing changed—deeper, slower, more controlled.

The pain from his injuries vanished completely. Not dulled. Not reduced. Gone. His shattered collarbone should be screaming. His torn muscles should be useless. His broken ribs should make every breath agony.

But he felt nothing.

Just cold, crystalline clarity. Every sense sharpened to a razor’s edge. He could hear Elder Feng’s heartbeat thirty meters away. Could smell the blood soaking into the earth. Could see individual leaves trembling on distant trees.

The Heavenly Demon Transformation was complete.

Long Chen stood there, gray-skinned and horned, looking more demon than human. His cultivation had jumped three stages and an entire realm. Foundation Establishment Stage 3.

Still two full realms below King Realm Stage 7.

But no longer helpless.

Elder Feng stared at him, cradling his shattered wrist. "What kind of demonic technique is this?"

Long Chen didn’t answer. He raised his hands toward Demon Dweller where it lay on the ground, each action deliberate, measured. His body moved differently now—heavier but more controlled, like a boulder rolling downhill with purpose.

The cursed blade flew into his hands of its own accord.

The moment his transformed fingers closed around the hilt, Demon Dweller pulsed. The sword recognized something in him now. The killing intent it constantly whispered intensified, but Long Chen’s demonic form absorbed it like water into sand.

For the first time since claiming the blade, the whispers felt... welcomed.

Elder Feng raised his sword with his uninjured hand. "Foundation Establishment Stage 3? You think that’s enough?" He channeled King Realm qi into his weapon, making it glow white-hot. "I’ll show you the gap you can’t cross!"

He vanished from sight.

Long Chen’s transformed eyes tracked him easily. The elder had used a movement technique, closing the distance in a blur.

But to Long Chen’s enhanced perception, it looked slow. Predictable.

Elder Feng’s sword came down in a vertical slash aimed at splitting Long Chen’s skull in half. The blade carried enough force to crater the ground, spiritual energy cascading off it in visible waves.

Long Chen raised Demon Dweller.

Their weapons collided.

BOOM!

The shockwave exploded outward, flattening grass in a ten-meter radius. The ground beneath Long Chen’s feet cracked in a spiderweb pattern, chunks of earth flying upward from the impact.

But he didn’t move. Didn’t stumble. Didn’t get thrown backward.

His feet sank into the ground up to his ankles, but he held firm. His arms absorbed the impact without trembling. Foundation Establishment cultivation versus King Realm power, and he’d blocked it clean.

Elder Feng’s eyes widened in genuine shock. "Impossible—"

Long Chen twisted his blade, redirecting the elder’s sword to the side, and countered immediately.

Void-Splitting Strike.

His sword thrust forward, moving faster than anything he’d produced before. The technique compressed all his Sword Aura into a single point at the blade’s tip, condensing it until it became sharp enough to pierce through anything.

The strike shot toward Elder Feng’s throat like an arrow.

The elder jerked his head sideways, the blade missing his throat by a finger’s width, but carved a line across his cheek. Blood welled up, running down his face in a scarlet stream.

First blood.

Elder Feng touched his cheek, stared at the blood on his fingers, then looked at Long Chen with an expression caught between fury and disbelief.

"You... drew my blood.... again?"

"Yes." Long Chen’s voice came out deeper than normal, rougher, carrying an edge that sounded more beast than human.

Elder Feng’s face contorted with rage. "I’ll tear you to pieces!!!"

He attacked with genuine intent to kill now. No more testing. No more playing. His sword moved in combinations refined over decades—clan techniques passed down through generations, each strike flowing into the next with practiced precision.

A horizontal slash aimed at Long Chen’s ribs. A vertical cut targeting his shoulder. A thrust toward his heart. Three attacks in rapid succession, each one carrying enough force to shatter stone.

Long Chen met them.

His Sword Aura flared around Demon Dweller, extending the blade’s effective range by half a meter. He blocked the first strike, steel meeting steel with a sound like a bell being struck. Sparks flew. The impact traveled up his arms but caused no pain.

The second strike came before he could reset his stance. Long Chen activated Phantom Step, his body blurring sideways. The elder’s blade passed through empty air where his shoulder had been a heartbeat ago.

Long Chen reappeared three meters to the left and immediately countered.

A diagonal slash aimed at Elder Feng’s ribs. The elder blocked with his sword, but the force behind Long Chen’s strike made him slide backward two steps, his feet carving trenches in the dirt.

’He’s strong,’ Elder Feng thought, his mind racing. ’Too strong for Foundation Establishment. That transformation isn’t just raising his cultivation—it’s multiplying his base power.’

The elder planted his feet and launched a palm strike with his free hand. King Realm spiritual energy condensed in his palm, forming a visible sphere of white light.

"Mountain Shattering Palm!"

The attack shot forward, distorting the air around it. Long Chen raised Demon Dweller to block, but the technique wasn’t aimed at his blade.

It struck his chest dead center.

BOOM!

The impact sent Long Chen flying backward. His body crashed through a tree trunk, snapping it in half, then hit the ground and skidded another ten meters before coming to a stop.

A crater formed where the palm strike had landed—his chest caved inward, ribs cracked, sternum fractured. If he’d been in his normal state, that blow would have killed him instantly.

But the Heavenly Demon Transformation dulled all pain receptors. Long Chen felt the damage register in the back of his mind—acknowledged it clinically, distantly—but it didn’t slow him down.

He stood up.

Elder Feng’s expression shifted. "You should be dead."

"Should be." Long Chen looked down at the crater in his chest, then back at the elder. "Not yet."

He charged forward.

Phantom Step carried him across the clearing in three bursts of speed. Elder Feng readied his sword, prepared to block.

Long Chen feinted left. The elder’s blade moved to intercept. Long Chen twisted mid-step and attacked from the right instead.

His sword cut across Elder Feng’s thigh.

The blade bit deep, carving through protective qi like it was paper. Blood sprayed. The elder’s leg buckled slightly before his cultivation stabilized the wound.

But the damage was done. Elder Feng’s mobility had just been reduced.

’Good. He’s slowing down.’

Long Chen pressed the advantage. He launched Heavenrend—pouring a massive amount of qi into Demon Dweller, making the blade blaze with white light. Sword Aura condensed into a single devastating arc.

He swung horizontally.

The attack tore through the air, leaving a visible trail of distorted space. The crescent of energy shot toward Elder Feng, wide enough to cut a house in half.

Elder Feng’s face went pale. He channeled all his remaining qi into his sword and met the attack head-on.

Their energies collided mid-air.

BOOM!

The explosion shook the entire mountainside. Trees within fifty meters were torn from their roots. The ground split open, creating a fissure that ran twenty meters long. Dust and debris filled the air like a sandstorm.

When the dust cleared, both fighters were still standing.

Elder Feng’s sword arm trembled. Blood leaked from his mouth. His spiritual energy had dropped significantly—that last clash had cost him dearly.

Long Chen stood ten meters away, breathing steadily despite the massive qi expenditure. His gray skin was covered in blood and dirt giving him a wretched look, his demonic appearance making him look like something pulled from a nightmare.

But he was still upright. Still fighting.

Elder Feng stared at him, and for the first time since swallowing the cultivation-boosting pill, doubt crept into his eyes.

’This shouldn’t be possible. He’s Foundation Establishment. I’m King Realm Stage 7. The gap should be insurmountable.’

But the gap was closing. Not because Long Chen was getting stronger—he’d hit his limit. But because Elder Feng was getting weaker, the backlash of the pill he took starting to take its toll.

The impact from Dragon Roar earlier still affected him greatly. The gash across his chest hadn’t healed. His shattered wrist hung uselessly. The cut on his thigh leaked blood with every movement. And the pill he’d swallowed—the one that temporarily boosted his cultivation—was burning through his life force to maintain the increased power.

He was on a timer, and he knew it.

’I need to end this. With the heaven defying treasure i can easily recover spent lifeforce.’

Elder Feng raised his sword high above his head with his good hand. Spiritual energy poured into the blade—everything he had left. The weapon glowed so brightly it hurt to look at directly.

"Cloud-Splitting Sword!"

He brought the blade down.

A massive sword projection formed in the air—fifty meters long, ten meters wide, made entirely of condensed King Realm qi. It descended like judgment itself, casting a shadow over the entire clearing.

Long Chen looked up at the technique. Calculated his chances of blocking it.

Zero.

That attack would kill him. Foundation Establishment cultivation couldn’t withstand it. His Sword Aura would shatter. His body would be obliterated.

He had one option left.

Run.

Long Chen turned and sprinted toward the treeline.