Under the gaze of the little child in the crimson bib, whose eyes were like pure black gemstones, the battle-blade in Yao Di's hand slowly began to bend under an invisible, mysterious force, the edge automatically curling upward.

Scalding, bright-red blood streamed down Yao Di’s wrist. He felt a sensation like a mosquito bite—a fleeting itch—but upon closer inspection, he realized the scene before him was swaying side to side, the world lurching in his vision. How strange. After pondering for a moment, he finally realized his head had been severed from his neck...

Then, he felt the picture before him expand; he was incredibly close to the little child in the crimson bib, so near he could discern the faint vellus hair on the child's soft, pink cheek and the milky scent emanating from his body. Yet, woven within that milky fragrance was a barely perceptible hint of the stench of decay.

Next, he saw the little child in the crimson bib smiling, his pure, bright eyes filled with mischief and curiosity, reaching out toward him.

No, don't come closer, he roared inwardly, a surge of fury rising to his lips, yet not a single sound escaped. Then, he felt a small hand grasp his face. That small hand was shockingly cold, like a shard of ice; even with his constitution, he shivered uncontrollably.

Then, he heard the child’s clear, cheerful giggle: "Such fine skin. So well maintained! The feeling of being alive... is truly wonderful!"

Immediately after, Yao Di felt a sharp pain on his face, followed by the sensation of something trickling down his cheek. A few drops of blood slipped away in the world before him, staining everything red. Then he saw the little child withdraw his palm, only in that tender, pink hand, it seemed to clutch a pale, bronze-colored... piece of skin?

A wave of sheer terror surged through his core, a ferocious beast of dread crawling over his heart, choking his throat. Then, the world before him dimmed, plunging into absolute blackness...

In the gentle breeze, droplets of splattered, crimson blood descended softly from the sky.

Emperor Shun, who had been in pursuit, felt his heart seize violently. The hairs on his body stood erect like a furious beast's quills, his sharp gaze filled with horror and righteous fury. He had only seen Emperor Yao’s body rush toward the little child in the crimson bib, freeze momentarily, then flash with a dozen streaks of crimson light across his skin. As the breeze passed, his body collapsed slowly, like a skyscraper toppling over, the cuts shockingly clean and smooth. Limbs, torso, viscera—all were sliced into countless fragments, drifting down like weightless goose-down snow, falling swiftly away from his sight toward the infinite depths below.

He was paralyzed by the gruesome spectacle, his skin numb, his blood seemingly reversing its flow, his heart constricted by some savage entity, letting out choked, explosive gasps.

However, he was fundamentally seasoned in combat. Though his legs felt leaden, weighed down by terror, rendering him incapable of movement—even forgetting the need to move—at this critical juncture, his reflexes snapped him alert. Without a second thought, he unleashed every ounce of his strength and speed, spinning around and fleeing back toward the distance.

Too terrifying, too horrific. This is definitely a monster beyond my ability to resist!

A soft breeze swept past his rapidly retreating figure, adding a faint scent of milk and decaying flesh to the air. Before Emperor Shun could fully recover his senses, he saw the little child in the crimson bib seated upon the back of the snow-white silver divine wolf, his legs tucked to the same side, knees bent, his small feet resting on the wolf's smooth, silver fur. He held a blood-soaked head, devoid of facial skin, between his small, white, lotus-like arms, while his other hand supported his chin, his small mouth pursed cutely. "Where are you going? Don't you want to play with me?"

In Emperor Shun's eyes, this innocent-looking child was now a demon draped in a bloody bib, more brutal and venomous than any corpse present. His heart spasmed violently as he looked at the head of Yao Di cradled by the child. At this moment, the skull was entirely encased in thick frost. From the faint life fluctuations in the air, Shun knew Yao Di had not yet completely perished.

For those who reached their level, dying was exceedingly difficult unless they intentionally concentrated all their strength and vitality into a single point, such as the heart or the head. Once that core was obliterated, all vitality would vanish—just as when Ye Chen once presented his heart to Bai Yijun, concentrating all his life force and power into that single organ, causing rapid aging and death once it was removed.

Yao Di’s life force, however, had been distributed throughout every cell of his body. Even though his body and heart were shredded, powerful vitality remained within his brain, delaying death for the moment.

"Die!!" Shun roared, hurling forth an energy light-slash with all his might. This slash shot toward the little child in the crimson bib like a white seabird, carving a graceful arc through the air before swiftly splitting into three as it neared its target, enveloping the child from the left, center, and right.

The little child in the crimson bib smiled faintly, observing the fierce, pure white light-slashes. As the slashes approached within two feet of him, they abruptly halted, as if suddenly grasped by an unseen force, unable to advance a single fraction. The strong, cold wind generated by the slashes lifted a few strands of the child's black hair near his temples, but his eyes remained utterly undisturbed. He smiled slightly and asked, "Do you also wish to kill me?"

Emperor Shun's mouth parted slightly, intending to speak, but the three pure white light-slashes instantly reversed their course, slicing through the air with a hissing sound, hurtling back toward Shun with even more aggressive momentum.

And then, they pierced straight through his chest...

A single drop of blood slowly dripped down the fabric covering his flat chest. In that instant, it felt as though even the wind held its breath, leaving only that single drop of blood falling slowly, slowly...

"Do you want to leave me?" The child in the crimson bib pouted, like a favorite toy being snatched away, his delicate black eyebrows furrowing slightly. He remained seated atop the pure white silver wolf, unmoving. A sudden gale swept toward a spot a dozen zhang behind him, where an almost transparent figure materialized from the wind, frozen rigidly in place as if acupoints had been struck.

Emperor Shun, standing before the child, dissolved into the wind like swirling smoke.

The little child in the crimson bib turned his head back toward the stiff figure behind him, shrugged, and sighed with mock sadness and helplessness. "If you must leave, you should have told me. I dislike impolite people..."

Emperor Shun's body remained locked in position. If one looked closely, one could see his body trembling minutely, as if struggling. His mouth was wide open, his eyes filled with terror, as if witnessing something profoundly dreadful, yet no sound could escape his throat. Then, the world before him suddenly inverted, slowly pulling upward like torn silk.

Then, he saw his familiar hand and body, but at the neck, a continuous stream of fluid-like blood poured out, yet the head was gone...

Next, he felt a crisp voice materialize beside his ear, and an ice-cold little hand gripped his cheek. It was so chilling it caused discomfort. He felt the world before him sway, now realizing he was held in the arms of the little child in the crimson bib. He could see the crimson light shining down from the child's head, dazzling and blinding. This crimson hue seemed to wash over his face like a curtain of water. Then, he saw the child grin, revealing a row of teeth as white as shells, smiling: "I'll use your body for my Little White to eat first, okay? I'll give you one back later."

Emperor Shun's hairs stood on end, his heart choked with absolute fear. Beside his ears, he seemed to hear the ghastly, piercing sound of bones being chewed.

Then, he felt a sharp pain in his mind, and the world went dark.

Pffft!

Fu Xi, wielding the Eight Trigrams Mirror, radiated divine might, charging left and right amidst a siege of dozens of savage beasts. He looked upward, unleashing torrents of divine light, his mirror churning out waves of energy that shot out like dazzling beams of aurora, striking into the undead legion and driving back the beasts closing in around him.

At this critical moment, he spared a glance toward the little child in the crimson bib, anxious to see why Yao Di and Shun Di had not yet retreated, as he himself was on the verge of collapse.

But that single glance caused a thunderous boom in his mind, freezing him momentarily in space. He stared blankly at the center of the beast horde, where the little child sat atop the pure white silver wolf, holding two heads covered in thick frost—Yao Di's and Shun Di's, discernible faintly beneath the ice. The silver wolf beneath him was currently chewing on two legs; most of the limbs were already inside its mouth, leaving only two small shanks and bare feet dangling outside...

Crunch... His heart convulsed violently. Then, suddenly, he felt a wind rushing toward his face. He was surrounded by a dozen vicious beasts lunging forward. A searing, hot pain struck the center of his back, an agony so intense it threatened to tear his body apart, shattering his sense of centrifugal force and balance, forcing him to stumble forward several steps involuntarily.

Just then, a dark shadow shot up from below in front of him, slamming upward like a sharp spike into his chin. His teeth clashed together with a sickening crunch, shattering into fragments. The teeth from his lower jaw were embedded into the flesh of his upper jaw's gum line. Blood sprayed from his mouth, trickling out from his nostrils as well.

Before the numbness in his jaw and brain could subside, he felt impacts striking him from the left, right, above, and below—countless brutal collisions that sent his body reeling from side to side, as if he had fallen into a stampede of wild buffalo being gored and trampled.

His consciousness became hazy amidst the blur. Summoning the last vestiges of his strength, he managed to raise the Eight Trigrams Mirror to shield his chest, but a massive force slammed into him, numbing his hands and forcing a mouthful of blood from his lips, hurling his body straight away into the distance.

His blurred vision was dyed crimson; the entire world seemed veiled in a bloody, misty luminescence. He tried to raise his hand to wipe away the hot blood from his eyes, but as he moved to bring his hand up, he realized it wasn't there. He involuntarily turned his head to look, only to discover that his arm had vanished at the shoulder, from which blood now poured forth like a spring.