209: key

Countless sharp fragments rampaged through his mind, as if someone were chiseling at his skull with rusty nails, strike after strike.

The veins on Li Dong's forehead bulged, and the intense pain made his vision go black in waves. The phrase "the forgotten Demon Suppressor" echoed repeatedly like a curse.

He stared fixedly at the blurry figure made of yellow sand, his voice squeezed through his teeth: "What exactly are you? What have you done to me?"

"Me?" The sand shadow let out a harsh laugh, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other, so sharp it made one's scalp tingle. "I didn't do anything. I just... pushed the door open a crack for you, letting you see your original appearance."

"You were once the sharpest blade of the Demon Suppression Division. It's a pity, though. A hundred years ago, you and your companions were all swallowed whole by 'The Boss'." The sand shadow's tone carried a sick, fanatical fervor. "Now that you've returned, aren't you 'The Boss's' most outstanding masterpiece?"

Before the words even faded, it waved its hand violently.

Whoosh— The yellow sand in the entire cave instantly came to life, transforming into a monstrous tidal wave, carrying countless twisted roars and desperate wails, crashing down upon Li Dong.

This was not a simple physical attack. Within every grain of sand was wrapped a shard of broken negative emotion, a malicious mental imprint. They scrambled to bore into Li Dong's brain, determined to tear him apart and assimilate him completely.

"You want to overwhelm me with this trash?"

Li Dong did not retreat but advanced instead. Facing a sandstorm capable of causing any Soul Transformation Cultivator to suffer a mental breakdown, he simply opened his arms as if embracing a storm.

The Perfect Dao Body within him operated at an unprecedented speed, and a bottomless black vortex emerged behind him.

Those divinity-filled sandstorms, brimming with pollution and malice, plunged headfirst into the vortex. They didn't even bubble up before being instantly decomposed, purified, and absorbed.

What was originally a lethal poison had now become the purest of tonics.

Li Dong could feel his power climbing at an inconceivable speed.

"Roar!" A growl suppressing endless fury exploded from the depths of his throat. He gripped the air with his left hand, and streaks of pitch-black electric arcs appeared out of thin air—the Void Demon Suppression Lightning. In the palm of his right hand, a miniature Void Realm vortex rotated quietly.

He slammed his hands together.

"I am not a masterpiece; I am a hunter!"

Crackle—! The black lightning and the vortex collided violently. There was no intense explosion; instead, they fused perfectly into a single... a single bolt of pure black lightning that tore through space!

Wherever this black lightning passed, space itself took on an irregular, fractured appearance, as if it had been gnawed away.

It was too fast! The sand shadow couldn't react in time, and the black lightning had already pierced through its chest.

"Ah—!" With a shrill scream, the yellow sand on its body was instantly dispersed, revealing the flesh-and-sand body beneath, eroded by sand grains.

It was a face. A face... one that was incomparably familiar within the shattered memories in Li Dong's mind.

Once upon a time, the owner of this face would laugh and pat his shoulder, calling him "A-Dong," saying that once this mission ended, they would go drink the best "Three Bowls Down" in Qingzhou City.

Li Dong froze in place.

"You..."

"You remembered? You actually still remember me?!" The sand shadow, or rather, the former Demon Suppression Division Cultivator "Sha Xie," let out an incredulous roar. That sand-covered face was filled with pain and jealousy. "Impossible! 'The Boss' erased everything! It said you would be transformed into the most perfect 'key', without any superfluous emotions!"

It acted as if it had gone mad, pointing at itself, then at Li Dong.

"I, too, was a swallowed Demon Suppressor! But I chose to submit! 'The Boss' gave me a new life, making me the guardian of this 'Weeping Sand Sea'! And you! You were transformed more thoroughly, more perfectly than me! Why! Why can you still remember!"

It was jealous, resentful. It resented that Li Dong had undergone a deeper level of transformation yet still seemed to retain a trace of "self."

"key... guardian..." Li Dong chewed on these two words, and the images in his mind became increasingly clear.

Sha Xie seemed to be stimulated by Li Dong's reaction. It abandoned all defenses, letting its body continuously collapse under the erosion of the black lightning, and instead transformed all its remaining Mental Energy into a torrent of information, brutally pouring it into Li Dong's mind.

"You want to know the truth? I'll let you see enough of it!"

Boom! Li Dong was forced to "see" everything.

He saw that a hundred years ago, the elite of the Demon Suppression Division had all been deployed, confronting a Void Realm rift that had just torn through the world deep within the "Weeping Sand Sea."

He saw himself and Sha Xie fighting side by side, engaging in bloody combat.

He saw despair. Endless monsters poured out of the rift, impossible to kill completely.

Then, he saw Sha Xie's wavering. In a near-death predicament, the grand and cold will of "The Boss" descended, promising him eternal life and power.

Sha Xie surrendered.

At the most critical moment, it was Sha Xie's betrayal that caused a fatal flaw to appear in the Demon Suppression Division's Seal array.

In the end, everyone was swallowed by that rift.

The truth was far more cruel than imagined. It wasn't just the disparity in power, but also the betrayal from a companion, and "The Boss's" despicable manipulation of the human heart.

"So... that's how it was..." Li Dong whispered to himself, his voice devoid of joy or anger.

Just as these memories poured in, he also clearly perceived something.

At the core of Sha Xie's body, which was about to collapse, something was hidden. A "divinity anchor point" that was purer and more massive than the fleshy tumor at the bottom of the Demon Suppression Tower.

This anchor point was like a beating heart, completely bound to Sha Xie's life force. Once Sha Xie died completely, this heart would instantly detonate.

What a vicious scheme. This was a trap set by "The Boss," a double trap.

Using an old friend to impact his mind, then using a massive lure of perishing together with that old friend to force him to make a choice.

"Hahahaha..." Sha Xie's flame of life was already weak to the extreme, yet its eyes flickered with vengeful pleasure. "Come on, Li Dong! Swallow me! Swallow me along with all our past memories!"

"Become 'The Boss's' most perfect tool! This is your destiny! You cannot escape it!"

It was frantically driving that anchor point, trying to drag Li Dong with it to be completely annihilated beneath this yellow sand.

Should he swallow this massive power, and in doing so, be completely polluted by the painful memories contained within? Or should he give up, watching helplessly as this power exploded, turning the entire ruin into nothingness?

"A tool?" Li Dong suddenly laughed.

The black crystal key mark on his forehead suddenly lit up at this moment.

No, it was no longer a mark.

That black crystal seemed to come alive, slowly opening to transform into... a vertical pupil that was indifferent, cold, and seemed capable of piercing through the essence of all things!

[Void Eye]!

Under the gaze of the [Void Eye], the entire world changed its appearance.

Sha Xie's body became transparent, and that frantically beating "divinity anchor point" was clearly visible. Li Dong could even see an extremely obscure, almost imperceptible thread of energy connecting the anchor point to "The Boss" in the distant Void Realm.

So that was it.

This anchor point's self-detonation was not simply about perishing together.

At the moment of the explosion, more than half of the core energy would flow back to "The Boss" along this thread, becoming a part of it.

From beginning to end, both he and Sha Xie were just a minor nuisance in its process of reclaiming assets.

"Your destiny is not mine."

Li Dong let out a thunderous roar, his voice resounding throughout the entire underground cave.

"I am not a tool! I only devour, I am not controlled!"

The [divinity core] within him erupted with a boom. Thousands of black crystal threads, finer than a strand of hair, shot out from his body, instantly piercing into Sha Xie's body, bypassing its fragile Soul, and precisely wrapping around the "divinity anchor point" that was about to explode!

Sha Xie's pupils dilated sharply; it felt that irresistible, terrifying will that belonged solely to devouring.

"No—!"

In the split second before the anchor point self-detonated.

Li Dong, in a nearly savage, unreasonable way, used those thousands of black crystal threads to forcibly sever the connection between the anchor point and "The Boss"!

Then, he gave a violent tug!

Hum—

That anchor point, which had condensed infinite divinity and despair, was ripped alive from Sha Xie's body and dragged into his own.

Sha Xie's roar stopped abruptly, and the last trace of resentment and madness on its face transformed into relief. After losing the anchor point, its body completely turned into a handful of ordinary yellow sand, which fell down with a rustle.

Inside Li Dong's body, a sound like a landslide and a tsunami roared!

The [Perfect Dao Body] shattered and reformed once again!

An unprecedentedly massive power surged through his limbs and bones. His Realm barrier was instantly broken through, and he stepped steadily into the peak of the Soul Transformation Middle Stage, only one step away from the Soul Transformation Late Stage!

More importantly, with the influx of this power, those memories belonging to "Demon Suppressor Li Dong" were no longer fragments but, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, completely merged with him.

Who am I?

I am Li Dong.

Also... a Demon Suppressor.