A purple imprint slipped into Liu Wuxie's soul sea. Nightmare City's artifact spirit transmitted a complete map, and the imprint detonated as it unfolded into a vast diagram.

Liu Wuxie ignored the evil spirits rushing at him and let the Heretic Blade take care of them. When the map fully opened, he drew a sharp breath.

"I didn't expect Nightmare City to be this enormous!" he exclaimed. Back when he had gone missing with Han Feizi and Qiao Bian, what they had seen had only been the tip of the iceberg.

In truth, Nightmare City surpassed his imagination. It could swallow the entire Heavenly Dragon Sect and Mount Dragon City, with the Heavenly Dao Society piled on top. And still, it would have room to spare. It could serve as both a massive city and an offensive artifact, a fortress where the Heavenly Dao Society could live.

The Heretic Blade flashed like lightning, cutting down hundreds of evil spirits in an instant. The growing heaps of corpses finally intimidated the ones behind, and their charge faltered.

If Liu Wuxie wanted to resolve the problem completely, he had to break the Seven-Fiend Netherworld Chains, and it was another headache. Those chains were so tough that ordinary weapons couldn't even leave a scratch.

That part didn't worry him, though; his immortal arts could crack them sooner or later. What troubled him was the sheer number of evil spirits. Even he couldn't guess how long it would take to clear them out at this pace.

The best solution was simply to decapitate their leadership. Once he wiped out their upper echelons, the ordinary evil spirits would scatter on their own.

With a flick of his finger, the Heretic Blade shot out and carved a bloody path through the crowd. The map had already marked the evil spirits' main base, where their true experts gathered, and he could even sense an aura at the Quasi-Immortal Realm lurking there.

The evil spirits lining both sides of the street scrambled into shops, refusing to face him head-on. Only after he passed did they creep back out, trailing him like starving shadows.

Since the map gave Liu Wuxie the layout, he didn't fear getting lost. He slipped through the streets without hesitation, and after about fifteen minutes, a massive palace rose before him.

The evil spirits lived beneath that palace. They hated light, and Nightmare City offered none. No sunlight pierced this place, so the city served as a perfect den for them at any hour.

"Come out, or I'll burn this place down," Liu Wuxie said, his tone flat and emotionless.

Everyone knew evil spirits feared fire. If he truly set the palace ablaze, they would have no choice but to crawl out.

A few minutes later, several terrifying auras surged out of the palace.

A monstrous figure emerged with two heads, each larger than the heads of ordinary evil spirits, like massive vats mounted on a single torso. Three arms spread like giant fans, each strong enough to pulverize a mountain, and four heavy legs shook the ground with every step.

The Evil Spirit King had arrived. He was the leader of the evil spirits, equivalent to a patriarch.

Over the years, the Evil Spirit King had attempted to refine Nightmare City more times than anyone could count, yet every attempt had failed. He had never managed to seize control of the artifact spirit.

Without an artifact spirit, Nightmare City would have been far easier to refine. Even so, among all the quasi-immortal artifacts Liu Wuxie had seen, Nightmare City was closest to the threshold of an immortal artifact.

The Heavenly Deity Monument was powerful, but it couldn't compare to Nightmare City without an artifact spirit. Since the monument had fallen to the rank of a quasi-immortal artifact, it still had a long road to climb back to its peak.

The Heretic Blade possessed an artifact spirit, too, but it couldn't match Nightmare City's. Nightmare City had existed for millions of years, and time itself formed a kind of accumulation.

"Human, you're courting death!" the Evil Spirit King's left head spoke the moment it appeared.

The left head was male, and the right was female. Unlike other races, evil spirits carried both sexes in a single body, allowing them to split and reproduce with ease. They didn't need childbirth, and reproduction resembled a ruthless form of division.

"Enough. Do you want me to kill you, or do you want to get lost?" Liu Wuxie asked. He didn't have time to waste here, and he intended to end everything quickly.

If he took Nightmare City, his combat strength would surge again. He already held tens of thousands of immortal runes inside the desolate world, which meant he could reforge Nightmare City into an immortal artifact.

That advancement wouldn't happen overnight. It required constant nourishment with immortal runes, and the process could take anywhere from a month to a full year.

"What arrogance!" the Evil Spirit King roared, blasting a crushing aura toward Liu Wuxie.

Liu Wuxie released his domain and dissolved the assault before it could even touch him.

The Evil Spirit King's eyes narrowed at once. This young man looked barely grown, yet he carried terror in every breath. Even if the king ignored Liu Wuxie's cultivation, that domain alone was horrifying. The mysterious axe suppressed every evil spirit present as if it were a colossal mountain.

"King, this kid is Liu Wuxie. He came to Nightmare City last year and slaughtered many human cultivators."

During his previous visit, many evil spirits had watched him from the shadows. They recognized him the moment he stepped into the city again.

Back then, neither side had made a move. As long as the evil spirits stayed in their nest, Liu Wuxie had no reason to start trouble with them.

Liu Wuxie's recent feats hadn't reached Nightmare City yet, so their knowledge of him still stopped at last year's events. Even so, their recognition didn't surprise him in the slightest.

"Since you know who I am, you should also know my methods and what happens to those who offend me," Liu Wuxie said.

If they left Nightmare City of their own accord, so be it. If they remained stubborn, they could only blame themselves for what followed.

Nightmare City had no owner, which meant anyone could fight for it. The evil spirits were nothing more than squatters who had seized it as their nest.

"I don't care who the fuck you are. Anyone who enters Nightmare City ends up dead!" the Evil Spirit King retorted. He had no interest in Liu Wuxie's identity. He wouldn't have spoken so boldly if he had been aware that Liu Wuxie had slain multiple quasi-immortals and nearly destroyed the Immortal Slaughter Palace.

The Evil Spirit King swept its gaze over the experts at his side, each one a pinnacle figure. More than a hundred evil spirits at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm formed a tight encirclement around Liu Wuxie.

The evil spirits had lived and reproduced there for nearly a million years; their numbers alone felt endless.

As he faced over a hundred pinnacle Heaven Gaze experts, a faint smirk tugged at Liu Wuxie's lips. And beyond them, countless more low-level Heaven Gaze evil spirits waited in the shadows.

"Since you're all courting death, don't blame me for being ruthless," Liu Wuxie said. He never intended to start a massacre, but he didn't mind granting their wish once they insisted on it. As he spoke, his domain expanded without limit.

Ordinary cultivators at the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm could only stretch a domain to a thousand meters, and only those at the pinnacle could cover ten thousand.

The instant Liu Wuxie released his domain, it swallowed ten thousand meters and still kept expanding.

The Evil Spirit King's eyes tightened, a hint of gravity finally surfacing. Yet it knew retreat wasn't an option now, so it roared, "Attack!"

Since ancient times, every human who had entered this place had died. How could he possibly spare Liu Wuxie?

They traded only a few lines before the battle ignited in full swing.

"What impudence," Liu Wuxie commented. He put away the Heretic Blade, formed seals with both hands, and summoned the Great Five Elemental Immortal Art. As his cultivation rose, the immortal art's power rose with it.

The moment the colossal palm formed, every evil spirit's expression hardened.

"You wield an immortal art?!" The Evil Spirit King's eyes flared with madness and a thread of fear. It hungered for Liu Wuxie's immortal art, yet it dreaded the very power it coveted.

Even at the Quasi-Immortal Realm, few could comprehend an immortal art. The Evil Spirit King had tried for countless years and failed, so greed naturally ignited the instant he saw Liu Wuxie cast it.

A strand of light pulsed from Liu Wuxie's domain and pressed down on the hundred-plus strong experts, greatly restricting their movement.

"Great Five Elemental Immortal Art!"

The palm fully took shape, its heaven-defying force making all of Nightmare City tremble violently.

If Liu Wuxie had cast this outside, an ordinary city would have vanished in an instant. Yet Nightmare City stood infinitely close to an immortal artifact. Perhaps even a battle between immortals wouldn't easily damage it.

Long ago, two immortals had clashed, and that clash had sealed the city. After the owner's death, the city had remained sealed there.

"This is bad!" the evil spirit experts shouted as they retreated, desperate to avoid the strike. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Too slow," Liu Wuxie said coldly. Even at the eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm, he could already slay pinnacle Heaven Gaze experts. Now that he stood at the third-level Heaven Gaze Realm, he could butcher them like livestock.

Crackling sounds exploded through the air as blood splashed and rose, forming a violent shockwave that churned overhead.

The moment Nightmare City's artifact spirit sensed blood, gore seeped into the city through its stone fissures, as if it were drinking it. The more blood it absorbed, the stronger it became, and the easier it would be for Liu Wuxie to refine it.

In less than a thousandth of a heartbeat, the colossal palm smashed down. It instantly killed more than a hundred Heaven Gaze experts, reducing them to vast puddles of blood. Their energy and laws poured into the desolate world, and the Evil Realm within it expanded again.

The Evil Spirit King and the surrounding evil spirits drew sharp breaths, stunned by the carnage. Those had been their elite, yet none of them survived even a single exchange.

"How is this possible?!" the ordinary Heaven Gaze evil spirits muttered, staring at the fallen with disbelief.

Even after slaughtering so many, Liu Wuxie's expression didn't change. The desolate world had grown larger than before, and his immortal energy showed barely any exhaustion. At this point, only the Evil Spirit King could still pose a threat.

As for the rest, they amounted to little. If he wished, he could erase them in great swaths with the Heavenbound Immortal Finger.