Blood Butcher

Basic Info
| Character Role | Story Characters |
Character Profile
The most bloodthirsty and inhumane fighter in the Cabinet of Eleven. Blessed with terrifying martial prowess, their path is marked by utter desolation wherever they tread.
During the Ghostface Crisis, he departed for Prison Mountain outside Desolate City in the southwest, determined to settle a vendetta that had festered for over a century. Little did Blood Butcher know that an earth-shattering fight to the death awaited him there.
Ability Profile
What makes Zhu Nan's combat style distinct is the very hallmark of the Blood Blade Sect's martial art.
Diverging from the Central Plains' studies of Sha-Qi, the Blood Saber Sect relies on an ancient esoteric craft that channels and amplifies Sha-Qi through flowing blood. Consequently, its disciples revere and offer sacrifices to blood, adopting it as their primary medium for cultivating lethal martial arts.
Zhu Nan possessed a gift scarcely ever seen across the history of the Bloodblade Sect: he could forge his own blood into weapons of arbitrary shapes on the fly, rendering his offenses nearly impossible to anticipate. Even stranger, once combat ceased, he could draw every drop of shed blood effortlessly back into his body.
Its most dreadful trait lies in its blood-forged blades: every strike tears away the victim's vital essence, causing adversaries to bleed out profusely before they even notice.
Zhu Nan shapes his own blood into a devastating weapon called 'Blood of Eternity.' Swung like crashing crimson waves, its strikes leave foes nowhere to hide. Even a single cut allows the blade to aggressively siphon the victim's blood until they are drained completely dry.
Upon entering the Cabin of Eleven, Blood Slaughter underwent radical Sha-Qi grafting on his spine and heart, leaving his chest radiating like an exposed demonic reactor.
Empowered by Sha-Qi augmentation, Blood Butcher broke through the barriers that once constrained his forbidden Blood Blade arts, elevating them into an exquisite state of deadly perfection.
Background & History
Before the Tianling Tragedy
Straddling the line between good and evil, the Blood Blade Sect reveres blood as a sacred medium, offering dark sacrifices to fuel their martial prowess.
Zhu Nan and Qi Luo are the standout prodigies of the Blood Blade Sect's new generation. Raised together within the sect since childhood, their blossoming romance never escaped the watchful gaze of Sect Master Xue Antian.
Xue Qianxun, sole daughter of Xue Antian, had pined for Zhu Nan for years. Condemned to watch him and Qiluo inseparable day after day, she withered away in melancholy until severe illness took hold.
Blinded by love for his daughter, Xue Antian privately pressured Zhu Nan to marry Xue Qianxun, sweetening the deal with succession to the sect master's mantle. Driven by ambition, Zhu Nan weighed his options and agreed. With the wedding date set, Xue Antian then dispatched Zhu Nan's former lover, Qi Luo, on an arduous mission to the Southern Border that kept her away for months.
The moment Qiluo was dispatched elsewhere, Zhu Nan moved straight into Xue Qianxun's private pavilion—an arrangement Xue Antian paid no mind to. By the time guests gathered for the wedding feast, Xue Qianxun was carrying Zhu Nan's child and had visibly regained her vitality, delighting Xue Antian to no end.
On the wedding day, the great hall was filled with well-wishers who all collapsed in drunken slumber after the feast, leaving Xue Antian, Zhu Nan, and Xue Qianxun deep in sleep.
An unforeseen figure arrived at the Blood Blade Sect: Qi Luo, who had previously been dispatched away. Carrying Zhu Nan's unborn child, she returned in haste upon learning of his looming nuptials with Xue Qianxun.
Infiltrating Xue Antian's bedchamber, she butchered him during the only peaceful slumber of his life. Bursting into the nuptial suite of Zhu Nan and Xue Qianxun, she drove a blade through Qianxun's belly, taking both mother and unborn child. Before the stunned groom could react, Qi Luo tore her way out into the night, her shrill, chilling laughter echoing in her wake.
Draining her inner energy past its limit caused Qi Luo to miscarry her unborn child. Shattered, she fled into the remote wilderness, never to be seen again.
Over the following decades, despite standing at the helm of the Blood Blade Sect, Zhu Nan never slept peacefully. Spine-chilling cries of infants haunted his closed eyes, and he would often envision two babes crawling toward him, clinging to his legs and wailing for their father. Driven mad by these terrors, his nature grew warped and cruel; by the time of the Tianling Massacre, his sect had degenerated into a monstrous cult notorious for indiscriminate slaughter.
In the southern frontiers, a sinister cult bearing the sigil of twin infant faces rose to prominence. Once an ancient order that merely preached child-like purity, the Primordial Infant Society fell under the dominion of an absolute power capable of transmuting infants' primal blood into limitless Sha-Qi. Its master has never been seen in the flesh, whispered only as 'Madam Yuanying'.
After the Tianling Tragedy
Driven by the pursuit of supreme power and clues to Qiluo's whereabouts, the Blood Butcher led the core elite of the Blood Blade Sect up Tianling Peak. There, martial artists overwhelmed by Sha-Qi tore one another apart in frenzied slaughter. By nightfall, every Blood Blade officer lay dead save for Sect Leader Zhu Nan—spelling the de facto extinction of the sect.
Having survived, Zhu Nan caught the Golden Swordsman's eye thanks to his bizarre gifts and was invited into the Pavilion of Eleven. With the Bloodblade Sect existing in name only and ceaseless nightmares tormenting him day and night, Zhu Nan decided to sever ties with his past life and spend the rest of his days settling scores with that nightmare. Taking the moniker "Bloody Slaughter," he joined the Pavilion of Eleven.
Empowered by Sha-Qi augmentations, Blood Slaughter mastered the once-insurmountable forbidden arts of the Blood Blade. Yet the corruptive device warped his cruelty into pure frenzy, turning him into a blood-crazed engine of butchery living only for screams, gore, and an end to the torturous bond haunting his past.
Learning of the Infant Cult in the southern frontier and the legend of the "Infant Matron," he was seized by nervous anticipation. The tragic deaths of his two flesh and blood, a century-old blood feud, and his relentless nightmares finally seemed poised for closure.
In Year 31 of The Order, he ventured alone into the southern frontier to unearth the truth behind the Nascent Soul Society. There, he stumbled upon Ku Hai secretly stockpiling and purging Sha-Qi deep inside the Mt. Hell volcano. Ku Hai laid bare his real reason for infiltrating the Cabinet of Eleven; any other member would have struck him down on the spot, but to Blood Butcher, none of it mattered anymore, and he walked away alone once the truth was known.
Perhaps he had already died on the night Xue Qianxun, Xue Antian, and his child were butchered. Ever since, the sole reason keeping him breathing was to hunt down the woman who had forged his living nightmare...
(Later events were cut short by Phantom Blade 2's discontinuation, though broad strokes can be pieced together from Phantom Blade 3 lore)
In the end, amidst the roaring volcanic eruptions of Mt. Yushan, the Blood Butcher crossed paths with an Emissary of The Order.Anchan, sparking an earth-shattering clash from which An Chan emerged victorious, cutting down Blood Slaughter with superior martial skill.