# Chapter 1604: Blood Debt Must Be Paid in Blood
The Heavenly Killing Organization was certainly hateful, but they only killed for money. What was even more detestable were Shang Zihong and that evil path cultivator who had set up the forbidden technique inside the skull.
Zhang Ruochen wished he could rip out their tendons and drink their blood.
All the evil path cultivators could feel the vast sacred might emanating from Zhang Ruochen, along with a fury that could burn heaven and destroy earth.
Suddenly, among the numerous evil path cultivators, a dark shadow shot out. Its speed was so fast that even some of the Supreme Saints present could barely see it clearly.
It was an evil path Saint King, striking with the speed of thunder, trying to severely wound Zhang Ruochen before he could activate "Equality for All Living Beings."
"Zhang Ruochen, it was I who set up the forbidden technique. But if you want to drink my blood, I'm afraid your strength is far from sufficient."
A deep, low voice rang out.
Zhang Ruochen sensed the fierce baleful aura rushing toward him, yet he stood motionless in place, as if he had no time to defend himself.
The evil path cultivators all showed joy, thinking to themselves: Have we overestimated Zhang Ruochen?
Could it be that all those killing moves we prepared were completely unnecessary?
"That's... damn it..."
The evil path Saint King who had attacked was greatly alarmed and wanted to retreat immediately.
But the force of his attack was too fierce; he simply couldn't stop his momentum.
So, the evil path Saint King quickly mobilized his sacred Qi, injecting it into a black iron necklace around his neck. Instantly, a suit of armor at the Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifact level wrapped around his body.
The reason for his terror was that behind Zhang Ruochen, a huge black skeleton had emerged.
The black skeleton took a step forward, and a massive bone hand slammed down.
"Bang."
The evil path Saint King's attacking sacred art and defensive light waves were all shattered. His body crashed heavily to the ground. If not for the protection of the Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifact-level armor, he would have been utterly annihilated in both form and spirit.
Even though he wasn't dead, his injuries were extremely severe, and he had lost ninety percent of his combat power.
"Still trying to get up?"
Zhang Ruochen stepped on the evil path Saint King's back, pressing him back down as he tried to rise. His eyes were cold and deep. "The reason I didn't activate 'Equality for All Living Beings' immediately was to lure you out. You, deserve to die."
"Sizzle sizzle."
From beneath Zhang Ruochen's foot, green Purifying Divine Flame surged out, enveloping the evil path Saint King.
The black Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifact armor was heated to a red-hot glow.
Inside the armor, the evil path Saint King felt as if he were suffering the torture of branding. His body made a "sizzling" sound, and he let out angry curses.
However, with his profound cultivation and the protection of the sacred armor, Zhang Ruochen couldn't refine him to death in a short time.
From deep within the Yin-Yang Hall, a soul-shaking demonic sound rang out: "How dare you! Trampling on a Saint King of my Black Demon Realm, you are seeking death."
The leader of the Black Demon Realm, Qiong Lin, transformed into a patch of demonic clouds and flew rapidly out of the Yin-Yang Hall.
Originally, with Qiong Lin's cultivation and status, he disdained to personally deal with Zhang Ruochen, lest he invite ridicule from other demonic giants. But Zhang Ruochen had somehow raised the combat power of the Yi Emperor Bone Staff to the level of a Five-Step Saint King. Thus, Qiong Lin had no choice but to act personally.
Just a single soul-shaking demonic sound created astonishing sound waves, causing all the evil path cultivators at the Supreme Saint and Half-Step Saint King levels to turn pale and suffer severe headaches.
Zhang Ruochen had long activated the fifth level of the Hundred Saint Blood Armor. One hundred Saint Shadows at the Thorough Ground Realm stood all around, blocking the impact of the soul-shaking demonic sound.
At the same time, Zhang Ruochen's gaze fixed on the statue of the Moon God, and his lips moved slightly.
"Boom."
The pure white statue radiated brilliant divine light, enveloping the Yin-Yang Hall. In an instant, it purified most of the evil Qi, demonic Qi, and yin Qi in the dojo, turning it into a pure land.
Divine power spread everywhere.
The power of "Equality for All Living Beings" fell upon every living being present. Even the aura emitted by the black skeleton plummeted sharply, reaching the level of a Half-Step Saint King.
A demonic mace that Qiong Lin had thrown originally emitted three layers of sacred power light waves, unleashing a three-radiance perfect power. But now, the black light radiating from the mace grew fainter and fainter, finally barely retaining only two layers of sacred power light waves.
Of course, even with two-radiance perfect power, the force was still quite astonishing.
Just as the demonic mace touched the one hundred Saint Shadows, those shadows first retracted, converging onto Zhang Ruochen's arms.
"Dragon-Elephant Reaching Heaven."
A dragon soul rushed out from Zhang Ruochen's left arm; an elephant soul rushed out from his right arm.
With the empowerment of the hundred saints' power, Zhang Ruochen struck out with both palms simultaneously. A dragon shadow and an elephant shadow flew out together, spinning rapidly to form a revolving vortex, colliding violently with the demonic mace.
With a thunderous roar, the demonic mace shattered the revolving vortex.
However, the two layers of sacred power light waves on the demonic mace also shattered. The terrifying force on it was completely neutralized by Zhang Ruochen's palm strike.
"A Mid-rank Sacred Art?"
Wang Xu's face showed a look of uncertainty.
Last time he fought Zhang Ruochen, he had discovered that Zhang Ruochen's greatest weakness was his lack of Mid-rank Sacred Arts and the Way of Truth.
But just now, the palm technique Zhang Ruochen had used was indeed comparable to a Mid-rank Sacred Art.
How much time had passed? Zhang Ruochen had already mastered a Mid-rank Sacred Art? Wang Xu felt deeply struck and became even more eager to eliminate Zhang Ruochen.
The other evil path cultivators also became serious, truly regarding Zhang Ruochen as a formidable enemy.
After all, the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace thrown by Lord Qiong Lin, even if just a casual strike, could shatter mountains and split the earth. Yet Zhang Ruochen had caught it without any damage—an utterly inconceivable thing.
Seeing the sacred power light waves on the demonic mace disappear, Zhang Ruochen immediately mobilized his space power, reaching out with both hands to try to take the demonic mace through space.
As the sacred artifact of the Black Demon Realm's leader, it was definitely a treasure.
Taking it would be like cutting off one of Qiong Lin's arms, greatly reducing his combat power.
"Hmph."
Only now did Qiong Lin step out from the gate. From within the thick demonic clouds, a thick arm extended, remotely controlling the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace.
"Whoosh—"
The Blood-Refining Demonic Mace traced circles in the air, causing space to tremble slightly.
Although the space power Zhang Ruochen had unleashed locked onto the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace, he couldn't take it away for the moment. Instead, strands of pungent blood Qi emanated from the mace, taking the shape of a flying snake and spreading toward Zhang Ruochen.
The surrounding evil path cultivators also began to stir. So Zhang Ruochen stopped contending with Qiong Lin and immediately withdrew his space power.
Qiong Lin was also somewhat worried, so he didn't take risks. He reached out and grabbed the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace, pulling it back, thinking to himself: "This Zhang Ruochen kid is indeed cautious. I deliberately weakened my power to entangle him, but as soon as he sensed something was wrong, he stopped contending with me. Capturing him alive today won't be easy."
This was the Moon God's dojo. They didn't dare kill Zhang Ruochen directly, or they would break the rules of the Truth Heaven Domain and have to pay with their lives.
Of course, if that were the only issue, they could find a scapegoat in advance. After beating Zhang Ruochen to the brink of death, the scapegoat would kill him. That way, only the scapegoat would die, and the other evil path cultivators would be safe.
More importantly, Shang Zihong had given an order: Zhang Ruochen must be captured alive.
For these two reasons, the evil path cultivators present were somewhat restrained in their actions.
A piercing scream rang out.
The evil path Saint King who had been stepped on and refined by Zhang Ruochen now had his sacred armor revert to a black iron necklace. His body was being held by the black skeleton.
"Crack, crack."
The black skeleton bit down, tearing off the evil path Saint King's head.
Although the head fell into the skeleton's mouth, the evil path Saint King wasn't completely dead. Knowing that Qiong Lin couldn't save him, he let out a sharp roar: "Then let's die together!"
The head emitted thick demonic Qi, trying to trigger the sacred source in his brain.
But the next moment, his screams became even sharper: "No, how is this possible? Don't refine my... sacred soul... ah..."
The evil path Saint King's sacred soul was controlled by the evil spirit within the black skeleton and was being devoured bit by bit.
Devouring a sacred soul was a thousand times more painful than having tendons ripped out and skin flayed. Even a Saint King couldn't bear it and screamed out.
Qiong Lin trembled with rage. With so many evil path cultivators gathered to deal with Zhang Ruochen, they had still lost a talented Saint King.
"Attack! Cripple Zhang Ruochen first." Qiong Lin said in a deep voice.
The evil path cultivators had long been gathering their attack methods. In an instant, dozens of Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifacts, activated to their perfect power, flew out.
Such terrifying might, even if aimed at a One-Step or Two-Step Saint King, could shatter them into ashes in an instant.
Xiao Hei chuckled, controlling the Three Evil Star Formation, sending out three rock spheres ten zhang in diameter.
"Boom, rumble."
The three rock spheres clashed fiercely with the dozens of Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifacts. Not only were they not destroyed, but they blocked all the attacks.
This time, all the evil path cultivators were dumbfounded.
This Three Evil Star Formation had been set up as a killing move to deal with Zhang Ruochen.
Now, the Three Evil Star Formation was being used against them.
Dozens of cold eyes glared at Master Lin, who had set up the Three Evil Star Formation. They suspected that this Master Lin was actually a mole planted by Zhang Ruochen in the Yin-Yang Hall.
Master Lin was now drenched in sweat. How could he have expected that the carefully arranged formation would be broken by an owl and taken over?
This was fundamentally impossible.
Unless that owl's formation mastery had reached the level of a Formation Saint Master.
But Formation Saint Masters were even rarer than Great Saints and had no need to waste time comprehending the Way of Truth. How could one appear in the Truth Heaven Domain?
Qiong Lin certainly knew that Master Lin couldn't be a mole planted by Zhang Ruochen, but his eyes still held a trace of deep disappointment. He asked in a deep voice, "Can you take back the Three Evil Star Formation?"
Master Lin shook his head. "If 'Equality for All Living Beings' hadn't been activated, with my fifty-sixth-order spiritual power, I might have tried. But now my spiritual power has been suppressed below the fifty-fifth order..."
Suddenly, Master Lin felt his entire body unable to move. Just as he was extremely shocked, his heart turned cold.
"Pfft."
A black sacred sword pierced through his sacred heart.
For martial cultivators, the most important things were the Qi Sea and the sacred source.
For spiritual power cultivators, the most important thing was the sacred heart.
If the sacred heart was broken, death was certain.
The body of a spiritual power cultivator was that fragile.
Zhang Ruochen's figure emerged from behind Master Lin. He withdrew the immobilization talisman stuck to Master Lin and pulled back the Abyssal Ancient Sword.
Just now, when the evil path cultivators had thrown their Ten-Thousand Pattern Sacred Artifacts, the light and sacred power from the artifacts had completely engulfed the area outside the Yin-Yang Hall.
Taking advantage of this, Zhang Ruochen had used a Space Displacement to appear behind Master Lin.
What Zhang Ruochen feared most was the formations in the Yin-Yang Hall, so he had to eliminate this master with high formation skills first. That way, the power of the formations in the Yin-Yang Hall would be greatly reduced.
"The immobilization talisman works even on Saint Kings whose cultivation is suppressed to the Half-Step Saint King level. What a good thing." Zhang Ruochen thought to himself.
Just now, Zhang Ruochen had risked using the immobilization talisman on Master Lin. After applying it, it directly froze Master Lin's body and suppressed the spiritual power within him.
Without the immobilization talisman, Master Lin would have activated a protective talisman the moment he sensed danger, blocking Zhang Ruochen's attack. Martial Saint Kings might not have high-grade protective talismans, but a formation master certainly would.
Secondly, even if Zhang Ruochen's ambush succeeded, Master Lin would have launched a desperate counterattack. At such close range, Zhang Ruochen might not have been able to dodge.
Having the immobilization talisman and not having it would lead to completely different outcomes.
"Seeking death."
Qiong Lin had watched Master Lin being killed by Zhang Ruochen's sword but couldn't save him. Naturally, his heart was filled with rage. He grabbed the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace, dragging a bloody baleful wind behind him.
In almost the blink of an eye, the Blood-Refining Demonic Mace reached the top of Zhang Ruochen's head.
The power emitted by the demonic mace was many times greater than that of the first strike. It could be said that this was Qiong Lin's true strength.