After some thought, he decided to give it a try.

After all, with so many Demon Fiends around, it would be a terrible waste to abandon all this flesh and blood.

Yang An retracted the red lightning from his hand, melted into the night, and continued deeper into the village.

As he walked, a hand suddenly shot out from the ground, grabbed his ankle, and yanked down hard.

Feeling the pull on his leg, Yang An smirked. A light flashed on his fist as he punched into the ground, dragging a creature straight out of the earth and tossing it aside.

The Demon Fiend's upper body was humanoid, but its lower half resembled a giant, fleshy worm covered in barbs, apparently designed for digging and moving underground.

Dragged from the earth, the Demon Fiend's eyes showed a flash of confusion. It quickly recovered and immediately tried to burrow back into the ground.

But Yang An gave it no such chance. The moment he pulled it out, the black light that had merged with the night erupted.

The Demon Fiend's body was instantly frozen in place, unable to move, and it let out a bizarre, shrieking cry.

"You're the one who came knocking."

A smile spread across Yang An's face. He gestured, and several rays of Golden Radiance appeared, beginning to slice into the living Demon Fiend's flesh.

First, he lopped off its head, then severed its limbs, and finally began dicing the rest of its body.

As a Light Magic technique from the Buddhist Sect, the Great Brightness Buddha Golden Zen Spell was incredibly effective against Demon Fiends.

It sliced through the Demon Fiend's body with almost no effort.

The cuts were clean and smooth, as if slicing through tofu.

This was a Demon Fiend that had just entered the Visceral Stone Realm. After being diced by Yang An, the severed pieces of flesh began to squirm, sprouting new buds as they tried to regenerate.

But in the blink of an eye, the Golden Radiance minced it into a paste—a literal meat grinder.p>So far, since arriving in Celestial Jing State, every Demon Fiend Yang An had encountered was at least in the Visceral Stone Realm. He hadn't seen a single one below it.

'These Demon Fiends are far too strong, both in number and in power.'

In Jinzhu City, the main city of Zichuan State, most of the auras he could sense were of the Visceral Stone Realm, with many in the Corpse Transformation Realm as well. But compared to the number of Demon Fiends here, it was like a drop in the ocean.

A demonic calamity involved tens of thousands of Demon Fiends gathering in one place. It was hard to imagine how anyone could defend against it without the participation of numerous Cultivators.

'No wonder the State Lord of Zichuan State fled to Celestial Jing State. Something huge is about to happen here.'

But for now, that had nothing to do with him. He just needed to find the State Lord of Zichuan State and get the Golden Thread Sect Seal. He couldn't be bothered with anything else.

As one of the dominant powers in the Treasure Temple Domain, the Golden Thread Pavilion surely had its own way of handling things. It wasn't his place to worry.

Focusing on the task at hand, the Demon Fiend's body had been minced to a pulp. It was still regenerating, but its recovery speed couldn't possibly keep up with the Golden Radiance's dicing.

Yang An was actually quite curious. 'This Immortality one gains upon entering the Visceral Stone Realm... is obliterating them to dust really the only way to kill them?'

'Are there no other methods?'

Suppressed by the Power of Rules, the Demon Fiend's flesh was regenerating very slowly.

A single wound might heal in a breath's time, but now that it was chopped into a paste, its regeneration was slowing to a crawl.

The greater the damage, the slower the recovery!

Yang An watched for a while and came to a conclusion, which led to a new theory.

'If I keep it in this state, will its Immortality eventually fade away with time? Will it finally die, unable to recover?'

The Golden Radiance continued to slice at the Demon Fiend's flesh. The Mana consumption was minimal, so Yang An felt inclined to test his theory.

He waited for the time it takes an incense stick to burn. Under the relentless assault of the Golden Radiance, he finally got his answer.

After the incense stick had burned down, the Demon Fiend was dead. Its flesh had completely lost its vitality, showing no further signs of regeneration.

It seemed the Undying Body truly did have its limits. The greater the injury, the more of its Immortality was consumed. Once its Immortality was completely exhausted, it would finally perish.

'So it isn't true immortality, just something close to it.'

If Immortality was treated as a type of energy, then one acquired it upon first entering the Visceral Stone Realm, and gained even more at the Middle Stage of Visceral Stone.

As one's Cultivation Level increased, one could endure for longer and would become harder to kill.

That is, unless one had a specific counter, like keeping the enemy in a perpetual near-death state to rapidly deplete their Immortality.

Otherwise, simply blasting an enemy to smithereens was still the more direct and faster method.

This meant that any Cultivator or Demon Fiend who reached the Corpse Transformation Realm or above must have mastered a killing blow capable of countering Immortality. Otherwise, they wouldn't have achieved such a Cultivation Level and power. 'I absolutely cannot be careless.'

Yang An quickly retrieved the Seal remnant from his Meat Burial Talisman. A silver, finger-sized bead spun slowly in his palm.

Under his control, he channeled Mana into the bead. It quickly responded, and a powerful suction force seemed to emerge from the void, completely devouring all the flesh and blood on the ground.

In the blink of an eye, the Demon Fiend's flesh was gone, leaving only bloodstains and impressions on the ground.

After consuming the flesh, the bead returned to Yang An's hand, where it became motionless, like a dead object once more.

Even though he knew it would take a massive amount of flesh and blood to awaken it, Yang An couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

'Give me some kind of reaction, man!'

Shaking his head, Yang An had no choice but to press deeper into the village.

In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, he killed several more Demon Fiends. He also came across an Elemental Feeding Demon Fiend, which was below the Visceral Stone Realm. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

However, before Yang An could make a move, the Elemental Feeding Demon Fiend was devoured by a Visceral Stone Demon Fiend.

'So that's why I haven't seen any of the weaker Demon Fiends.'

He used the same method as before: first immobilizing the Demon Fiends with the Dark Communication Secret Spell, then disintegrating them to finish them all off.

The silver bead devoured all the flesh, but still gave no reaction. Yang An had no choice but to search for more Demon Fiends.

As he walked, a series of screams suddenly erupted not far away. It seemed a group of mortals in hiding had been discovered and were being attacked.

Under assault from a pack of Visceral Stone Realm Demon Fiends, mortals stood virtually no chance of survival.

In a mere blink of an eye, the screams died down and vanished, leaving only the occasional gasp.

Just then, Yang An arrived at the source of the screams.

It was a cellar dug into the ground. The stone slab that had covered it was shattered. Bloodstains, severed limbs, and chunks of flesh were scattered around the entrance—a truly gruesome scene.

Yang An's senses detected four Demon Fiends outside and another six inside the cellar, for a total of ten.

With this many Visceral Stone Demon Fiends, even several hundred more mortals wouldn't have stood a chance.

Sometimes Yang An wondered how mortals had managed to survive at all. Logically, with so many Demon Fiends on the rampage, they had no ability to resist.

In the twenty years of his predecessor's memories, the place he was from had only started to suffer from Demon Fiend attacks after the dynasty collapsed—which was not long after he himself had transmigrated into this world.

But this didn't align with the long-standing history passed down by Cultivators.

'Haven't Cultivators and Demon Fiends existed for ages? Why was there no trouble before? Could it be that all these Demon Fiends have only just begun to plague the mortal world?'

If Demon Fiends had truly been ravaging the mortal realm for so many years, no number of mortals could have possibly survived.

Unable to figure it out, he decided not to waste any more thought on it and took action.

He unleashed a wide-ranging Dark Communication Secret Spell. Black light enveloped every Demon Fiend within his senses. Immediately after, several rays of Golden Radiance shot into the cellar, blowing the entire structure apart.

All ten Demon Fiends were on the ground within two blinks of an eye. They were no match for him whatsoever.

The Golden Radiance then minced them to pieces. Once the bead had devoured all the flesh, Yang An put it away and prepared to leave.

Just then, an unfamiliar voice called out from the cellar.

"Immortal Master! Immortal Master, please wait! I beg you to save me!"

A small, thin figure scrambled out of the cellar, ran up to Yang An, and fell to their knees with a THUD, kowtowing repeatedly.

Yang An raised an eyebrow, looking curiously at the person before him. He hadn't sensed their presence at all; they had only appeared at the last second.

Otherwise, he would have already been gone.

Now, up close, Yang An finally noticed a thin, film-like substance covering the person's body, completely concealing their aura.

'No wonder I didn't sense them.'

'To be able to evade my senses, as well as those of so many Demon Fiends, without being noticed right under our noses... this person must be hiding something.'

He didn't sense the aura of a Technique, so it was likely a Magical Artifact.

"Stand up."

Yang An said softly, his interest piqued.

The person's hair was a disheveled mess, obscuring their face. Their figure was frail and thin, as if from long-term malnutrition—a common sight in these times.

The person on the ground hesitated for a moment before slowly rising and pushing their disheveled hair aside, revealing their face.

Yang An gave her a once-over, somewhat surprised.

'A woman?'

He had thought it was a man.

Although her clothes were disheveled and caked with dirt, making her look filthy, her face and figure were clearly female. It was just that her voice was somewhat androgynous.

The woman was only as tall as his chin. She glanced at him fearfully, and when she noticed him looking back, she immediately lowered her head.

"Are you from this village?"

The woman shook her head.

"Immortal Master, I was fleeing the famine. I only came to this village to run into Demon Fiends. Thankfully, you were here to help, otherwise..."

Hearing her words, Yang An gave a cold smile.

'Who does she think she's fooling?'

'She can fool my senses and those of the Demon Fiends. Escaping would have been a simple matter for her.'

Still, it was a normal reaction. If he were in her shoes, his first instinct when facing a powerful being would also be to hide.

"Why reveal yourself to me? You have quite a treasure on you. Aren't you afraid I'll kill you and take it?"