Rejected By The Sect, Claimed By The Immortal Jade

Chapter 4: Devouring The Demon King

The Beast Forest at night was not a forest.

It was a graveyard that breathed.

No outer disciple dared to enter after sunset. The elders said a Tier 3 Scarlet Flame Tiger King lived in the deepest part — a beast equal to a Golden Core cultivator. One swipe could crush a Foundation Establishment disciple.

Ye Fan ran straight towards its roar.

The shattered jade pieces around his neck burned hotter with every step. Inside his head, Lingxiao was cursing non-stop.

"You are insane! You are Qi Condensation Level 3! Even if you have the Devouring Root, your body will explode! That tiger has lived 300 years! Its beast core will burn your meridians to ash!"

"Then it will burn them back to life," Ye Fan panted, his ragged robe torn by branches. Behind him, he could hear faint bells — Elder Mo's signal bells. Elder Mo's men were already moving towards Su Qingxue's courtyard.

He had less than an hour.

He burst into the core of the forest. The trees here were black and charred. The air stank of blood and sulfur.

In the center of a crater, lay the king.

The Scarlet Flame Tiger King was fifteen meters long, its fur like molten lava, its two fangs like swords. It was sleeping, but its snores made the ground tremble. On its forehead was a single, cracked golden beast core, pulsing.

Tier 3 Peak. Half-step to Tier 4.

It opened one eye.

It saw the ant that dared to enter its territory.

"ROAR!!!"

The roar alone sent Ye Fan flying, smashing into a tree. Blood spilled from his ears. The pressure of a Golden Core beast made his Qi Condensation aura look like a candle in a storm.

The Tiger King stood up lazily. It didn't even need to attack. It opened its mouth and a ball of scarlet flame shot out, enough to melt a Foundation disciple.

Ye Fan didn't dodge.

He stood up, wiped the blood from his mouth, and opened his arms.

"Heaven-Swallowing Art .... First Form ...Devour!"

His Devouring Root — that forbidden black-gold vortex with nine swirls appeared behind him for the first time in full. The forest's spiritual Qi, the moonlight, the dead leaves, everything was sucked towards him.

The fireball that should have turned him to ash stopped mid-air, shrank, and was swallowed into the vortex.

The Tiger King froze. Its beast instincts screamed danger.

Ye Fan's body was the price.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

His meridians tore. His skin split open with golden-black lines, like porcelain about to shatter. Blood poured from his eyes, nose, mouth. The jade ate one year of his life instantly. Then a second year.

"STOP! YOU WILL DIE!" Lingxiao screamed.

"I HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR THREE YEARS!" Ye Fan screamed back, his voice no longer human.

He charged.

The Tiger King swiped. Its claw, enough to tear apart iron, hit Ye Fan's chest.

It should have ripped his heart out.

Instead, the claw stuck. The Tiger King's beast core pulsed violently. Its vast, 300-year cultivation was being devoured through its claw.

"ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!" The Tiger King panicked, trying to pull back, breathing fire wildly, burning half the forest.

Ye Fan held on. His hands dug into the beast's fur, his Devouring Root spinning like a black hole.

"Give... me... your... core!"

He bit down on the tiger's neck like a beast himself.

In Elder Mo's Medicine Pavilion, Liu Hao lay on the bed, his face pale. Elder Mo was drawing a blood formation on the ground, preparing to extract Ye Ling's pure Ye blood.

Suddenly, Liu Hao screamed.

"MASTER! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!"

The golden root inside his chest —Ye Fan's original heavenly root was cracking. Thin black-gold lines were spreading across its surface. It was being pulled, devoured from miles away.

Elder Mo rushed over, his face finally changing. "Impossible! That trash's root is resonating! He is breaking through!"

He looked out the window towards the Beast Forest, where half the sky was now black-gold and scarlet red, swirling.

"He went to the forbidden zone... that lunatic went to devour the Tiger King..."

In the forest, the roaring stopped.

Silence.

In the crater, the 15-meter Tiger King lay shriveled, like a dried husk. Its 300-year beast core was gone.

In its place, kneeling, was a boy covered in blood and black-gold light. His hair had a streak of white — the price. Two years of life, plus five more for devouring a Tier 3 core. Seven years gone in one night.

But his aura ..

Qi Condensation Level 9! Peak!

One step away from Foundation Establishment!

Ye Fan opened his eyes. They were no longer human eyes. One was gold, one was black. Inside his dantian, a scarlet tiger phantom roared, trapped inside his Devouring Root.

He had succeeded. But he had no time to celebrate.

He heard it. From Su Qingxue's courtyard — the sound of a formation shattering, and a little girl's silent, mute scream.

"Ling'er!"

He turned into a black-gold streak and shot out of the forest, faster than any Qi Condensation disciple should be able to move.

Su Qingxue's courtyard was in chaos.

Su Qingxue was on her knees, her white dress stained with blood, her sword broken. She had held for one incense stick as promised against three Foundation Establishment enforcers from Elder Mo's lineage.

The enforcers were carrying a small, struggling figure in a sack.

Ye Ling. Her mouth was gagged, her eyes full of tears, looking towards the forest.

"Let her go," a voice said from behind them.

It was not loud. But it made the air freeze.

The three Foundation enforcers turned. They saw a boy in rags, covered in beast blood, with mismatched gold and black eyes, and white hair at his temples.

"Qi Condensation Level 9? Hah, just a peak outer..." One enforcer laughed and threw a punch.

Ye Fan didn't even move.

He just looked at him and whispered: "Swallow."

The enforcer's Foundation Establishment cultivation — ten years of hard work  was ripped out of his body in a second and flew into Ye Fan's hand as a pure white light. The enforcer aged 20 years in an instant, his hair turning white, collapsing to the ground as a mortal old man.

The other two enforcers' faces turned to sheer horror.

"Demonic... demonic art! He is a demon!"

Ye Fan walked past them, untied the sack, and hugged Ye Ling. She sobbed silently into his chest.

He looked up at the two remaining enforcers, and at Elder Mo who had just arrived on his flying sword, his face twisted with rage and greed.

Elder Mo saw Ye Fan's eyes, saw the white hair, saw the peak Qi Condensation aura, and finally understood.

"You... you devoured the Tiger King... you are the demon my master warned about..."

Ye Fan gently put Ye Ling behind him, behind Su Qingxue.

Then he stepped forward. His aura, which had been Qi Condensation Level 9, suddenly began to crack and rise again. The huge energy from the Tiger King's core he had suppressed was breaking through.

The sky above Su Qingxue's courtyard darkened. Foundation Establishment Heavenly Tribulation clouds gathered.

He was breaking through to Foundation Establishment right here, right now, in front of the man who killed his family.

"Elder Mo," Ye Fan said, his voice carrying the roar of the tiger he had just devoured. "You wanted my jade. You wanted my root. You wanted my sister's blood."

"Tonight, I will give you something instead."

He raised his hand. Inside his palm, a scarlet flame tiger phantom roared.

"Your death."