Cold sweat rolled down Senior Brother Chu's forehead. His voice was hoarse. "No wonder these treasures have sat here all this time and no one has ever taken them. Junior Sister Qing, these treasures have gained a spirit of their own—whoever is not their rightful master will only bring ruin upon himself."

Senior Sister Liu shuddered to the bone and nodded again and again.

Shen Mu said coldly, "These treasures have been here all along. No one has ever dared take them—not even the strange beasts dare. There must be deadly peril in them. You knew the danger, and still you sent your own junior brother to risk his life. Your heart is vicious and poisonous. You are the true demon!"

"The fiend comes again to poison our hearts!"

Grief and anguish contorted Senior Brother Chu's face. He shook his head. "How could you possibly understand the bond between us brothers? A little mongrel is a little mongrel. You measure my heart with a demon's heart, so of course you think my heart is a demon's heart. For now I will not stoop to quarrel with you. When dawn comes, I will send you on your way."

Shen Mu frowned. This Senior Brother Chu was treacherous and venomous, cruel and ruthless—a man who would use even his own junior brother. He would never let Shen Mu leave this place alive.

But the man's strength was formidable. Shen Mu was no match for him at all—and beside him stood Senior Sister Liu, formidable in her own right.

Just then the earth lurched. The whole ruin shook violently. Muffled roars of strange beasts echoed one after another. The beasts in the ruins trembled and shrank back, retreating step by step, staring in frantic terror at the gateway of the ruins, their manner utterly stricken.

"What are these beasts so afraid of?"

Hardly had the thought crossed Shen Mu's mind when a darkness of inconceivable density came surging through that towering gateway like a tide!

Shen Mu was shaken to the core. He saw that the gateway seemed to hold an invisible barrier that blocked the darkness—while the darkness hurled itself madly against that barrier, striving to break through and be free!

The barrier warped and deformed under the darkness's assault, yet it never broke. And the darkness warped along with the barrier's contortions—now like sharp talons, now like smoke stretched taut by the wind, now like countless spikes—a thousand transformations, ten thousand shifts.

Suddenly the darkness ceased its assault, and the invisible barrier at the gateway grew still. After a moment the barrier slowly bulged outward, pressed ever further back.

The darkness forced the gateway's barrier into the shape of a face—a colossal face, its brow pressed against the sky above the canyon, its chin resting on the earth.

Every strange beast in the ruins lay prone on the ground, not daring to move, still less to lift its head and look upon that face.

That face had three eyes of pure black. At the sight of those three eyes, Shen Mu went cold all over, as though his very soul would be drawn away into the darkness!

The face suddenly opened its mouth. Its voice was deep and humming, speaking a language no one understood.

"Qikedo, samaya, bore bore samaya, qikedo bore samaya..."

That humming voice seemed to be countless voices blended into one, filled with an uncanny power that made the earth of the ruins tremble without cease. The palaces were shaken until their walls crumbled, their stone pillars toppled, their cracks and fissures ever widening.

Even the gateway trembled, shedding showers of stone dust—it clearly could not hold out much longer.

Just then a brilliant light blazed forth from the plaza. The pearl in the skeleton leader's hand shone with ever-growing radiance.

Shen Mu hurried to look back. The pearl had actually risen into the air, its brilliant light like a rosy cloud, its multicolored hues seeming somewhat viscous.

The viscous glow enveloped the two hundred-odd skeletal remains in the plaza, and one by one the skeletons suddenly came alive within that radiance.

Shen Mu was utterly stunned. The skeletons in the glow were no longer skeletons, but living, breathing young women!

Girls with rosy cheeks and red lips, in garments brighter than fire!

Those girls sat in the plaza. At their head was another woman, one hand holding up the pearl as it rose slowly into the air.

From the girls' mouths came a strange language, equally obscure and difficult to fathom.

"Yipo xiupo sanan junhe xi, guanming duanjing wusi jiangyou..."

The voice in the darkness gradually grew louder and more vast, shaking the canyon. The darkness invaded the ruins from all directions, while the girls' voices grew ever clearer and more resounding. The pearl's radiance burst outward in wave after wave, shining upon the darkness until it dispersed like smoke!

These two voices were like the voices of god and demon, locked in ceaseless combat, now one prevailing, now the other. And darkness and light clashed and collided without end!

It was a battle, a duel beyond all comprehension, and it shook Shen Mu to his soul. Though he had lived his life in the wastelands, never before had he witnessed such an uncanny spectacle.

"This voice..."

Shen Mu was frozen. The girls' voices bore some resemblance to the voice of the god he had heard when he struck against the Primordial Fetus Wall. They shared the same flavor. In a haze he felt that though the two voices used different words, their essence seemed to be the same.

When he had tried to use his primordial qi to strike the Primordial Fetus Wall, he had dimly heard a voice that seemed to come from beyond the nine heavens—holy, solemn. Whenever that voice sounded, his primordial qi would retreat of its own accord, unable to break through the wall.

The two voices were still locked in fierce combat, gaining and yielding ground, each winning and losing, yet neither able to fully suppress the other.

The demonic voice in the darkness was powerful, terrifying. The girls' voices carried divinity—clear and pleasing, tenacious and holy. Always, when the demonic voice gained overwhelming advantage, they would rise in sudden counterattack and break its demonic sound.

And always, when the demonic voice had lost all advantage and sunk to its lowest ebb, it would suddenly erupt, like a river of stars pouring backward, like a flood bursting forth—magnificent, sweeping, utterly unrestrained.

Each of these two voices had its own subtlety, its own extraordinary quality.

Shen Mu listened, entranced. Then abruptly he gave a start, stirred to excitement. "The demonic sound and the divine sound attack each other. This divine sound resembles the divine sound that blocks my wall-breaking. So can I use the demonic sound to break the divine sound that blocks me?"

He grew more and more excited. This was absolutely a good idea!

If he could learn this demonic sound, then when he broke the wall and the divine sound rang out, he could chant it to counter the divine sound from beyond the nine heavens, and let his primordial qi burst through the Primordial Fetus Wall!

Once the wall was broken, with his Tyrant Body and the Three Elixir Art of the Mystic Body, he would no longer need to fear this Senior Brother Chu and Senior Sister Liu!

At this thought, he suddenly froze, as though a basin of cold water had been poured over him, chilling him to the bone.

The voice beyond the nine heavens was the voice of a god. If he used a demon's voice to break a god's voice, did that not mean he was a demon sealed away by the gods?

Could it be that Senior Brother Chu and Senior Sister Liu were not mistaken—that he really was a little mongrel?

"No, no!"

Shen Mu shook his head. If he were a demon, did that not mean all other Tyrant Bodies were demons too?

Then why call it Tyrant Body at all? Would it not be better to call it Demon Body?

"Demon Body, Tyrant Body—who cares! Break the wall first and think later!"