Clashes between demons were the most brutal of all — aside from innate divine abilities, most came down to raw, hardened bodies smashing against one another.
Strong was strong, weak was weak; there was no reasoning around it.
And here, now, in this desolate stretch of land, Shen Yi stood with a foot planted on the Howling Moon, fist following fist, giving it a true taste of what a fight to the death actually meant.
“Awooo!”
The Howling Moon Demon King’s counterattacks grew steadily weaker — where it had once been able to tear Shen Yi’s flesh open, it was soon left feebly slapping at his arms.
Until, at last, the wolf demon’s skull was smashed to powder.
A demon king once renowned far and wide, beaten to death beneath someone’s heel, fists pounding the life out of it, in some backwater corner of nowhere that didn’t even have a name worth shouting.
Every one of its calculations had come to nothing.
Because the man across from it had never once answered a single word it said, from start to finish.
Shen Yi grabbed a fistful of fur at its neck and hauled it up, red light flickering in his eyes. He opened his mouth slightly, and the withered carcass slowly shriveled away.
A full forty-six drops of demon blood gathered into a single mass and poured into his mouth.
Shen Yi wiped at the corner of his mouth, casually picked up its demon core, called up a flare of peacock-bright crimson light to mend the wounds across his body, and sat down cross-legged on the ground.
His spiritual sense returned to his original body.
The path infant shrank rapidly, returning to its former size, settling quietly back within his qi sea.
Its consciousness had already been fused with Shen Yi’s own; now it was nothing more than an empty shell.
After the battle just past, every scrap of demon power that had been spilling off him had been spent in full.
“Hah.”
Shen Yi opened his eyes; the red mist in them had vanished, and he was back to his ordinary self.
This was precisely where Mixed Origin and Martial Immortal diverged.
Both lodged their spiritual sense within a vessel — one to send a divine spirit out beyond the body, the other to take the form of a path infant and reinforce the flesh. Neither could really be called superior; they were simply different roads.
【Mixed-Origin-realm Howling Moon Wolf Demon slain — total lifespan 14,700 years, 840 years remaining — fully absorbed】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 19,820 years】
The three demons from earlier had brought in roughly seventy-eight hundred years’ worth between them, and with this old wolf added on top, his demon lifespan reserve had come within a hair of breaking the twenty-thousand mark.
Shen Yi placed the Howling Moon Demon King’s inner core into his mouth.
He drew on his banked demon lifespan and poured it into the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations.
This body-refinement method, originally pegged to the Condensate realm, was now about to be forced, by sheer brute will, up to the level of the Mixed Origin realm.
A Mixed-Origin-tier powerhouse, paired with a refined body to match that very realm.
“…”
A flicker of killing intent rose in Shen Yi’s eyes as he looked toward Qingzhou City.
Sure enough — even with the shelter of some greater power behind you, that was no guarantee of safety.
The world held far, far too many ways for things to go wrong.
Forging iron still demanded a hammer of your own.
As the banked demon lifespan drained away, the Howling Moon Demon King’s overwhelming demon power gradually began condensing into shape within him.
Shen Yi stared at the panel’s prompt.
Bolstered by the first eight transformations already completed, even forcibly subduing a demon king’s power was no longer some impossible dream.
His skin split open again and again, only to be swiftly mended by the red glow each time.
He’d only experienced something like this once before, when subduing the White Deer — and that had meant pushing past his limits.
Except that time, it had been his body that wasn’t strong enough. This time, it was clear the strain had gone beyond what the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations technique itself was meant to handle.
【Year 6,700 — Your practiced technique seems to have lost its effect this time. The vitality you carry is far too meager set against a demon king’s lifetime of cultivation. Too much wild, vengeful resentment lingers within its demon power, and it instinctively batters against your body…】
Shen Yi sank his spiritual sense down into his qi sea.
He took the form of the path infant, rising slowly to his feet, and looked over indifferently at the raging demon power. “Come on out, then — where exactly do you think you’ll go?”
The divine spirit, huddled in a corner of the qi sea, nodded along in deep agreement.
It was only ever a question of who’d end up eating you. What was even the point of struggling…
【Year 9,600 — The demon power within you, cowed into submission, has grown far more docile. Its wild, vengeful resentment has gradually dispersed. After years of effort, you have successfully tamed it — a true demon king now subdued within your body.】
【Your hard-tempered body has crossed into an entirely new realm】
【Immortal and Demon, fully gathered — the Nine Transformations: Perfection】
In the instant those two lines of text flickered past, every immortal-demon pattern etched across Shen Yi’s body surfaced one after another in turn: flood dragon, mountain lord, cold toad… all the way to the savage wolf of the Howling Moon, last of all!
The torn flesh knit itself back together at once, then, tempered further by the demon power, grew steadily firmer and tougher still, until not a single flaw remained across his skin — flawless, as though born that way.
A mortal frame standing shoulder to shoulder with Mixed Origin!
He hadn’t called on the path infant at all, and yet, feeling the overwhelming power now coursing through his frame, Shen Yi didn’t sense himself as weaker than he’d been just moments before, not in the slightest.
Both body and cultivation alike had broken through to a new realm.
Red cloud gathered beneath Shen Yi’s feet, carrying him off and vanishing once more into the sky.
Qingzhou City. The Demon Suppression Division offices.
The woman walked straight in. Beneath the cover of that black cloak, not a single soul could sense her presence at all.
Her stride was steady, and yet with every step, her figure covered dozens of zhang in distance.
A few passing officers rubbed at their eyes, thinking they’d caught a flash of some dark shadow, but when they looked back there wasn’t so much as a trace of it left.
“…”
She closed her eyes and felt around for a moment, as though she’d found something.
She turned and made her way to a secluded courtyard.
The woman walked slowly into the courtyard, coming up behind the two figures within.
Even with her this close, Bai Ziming still showed no reaction whatsoever.
The woman’s gaze fixed on the figure seated on the stone bench.
A pale, delicate arm slipped out from beneath the cloak, slender fingers reaching slowly down toward the seated figure’s shoulder.
Just as her hand closed in—
Raaagh—
—from within the courtyard hall, a Mysterious Ice Jade Dragon came roaring to life, surging out to strike, blanketing the entire courtyard in frost.
The woman’s outstretched hand rose without the slightest urgency, closing around the head of the dragon woven from condensed Mysterious Ice sword intent. With a sudden surge of force, the dense lattice of sword intent shattered all at once.
All it managed, in its last instant, was to use its tail to send Bai Ziming and Jiang Yuanhua flying out of the courtyard.
Her hood slipped back, baring a face of unspeakable, noble beauty, utterly devoid of feeling. She turned her eyes sideways toward Jiang Yuanhua, still airborne, her red lips parting slightly.
In the next instant, the General’s body abruptly shriveled.
It dissolved into a single droplet of blood and slipped into her mouth.
“…”
Jiang Qiulan stood at the doorway, taking the entire scene in.
She stood with her hands at her sides, both fists slowly clenching tight.
Bai Ziming, knocked clear of the courtyard by the ice dragon’s tail, had only just scrambled up, his face a mask of terror, when he heard Senior Sister’s voice.
“Go. Now.”
“Go?” Bai Ziming gasped for air in great heaving pulls, turning to run toward the distance, meaning to seek help — only to realize, lost, that he had no idea where to even run. Senior Sister and Master were already Qingzhou’s strongest. Who else was left who could possibly help them?
“Decent cultivation. I’d wager you had some part in my son’s death as well.”
Lady Qinghua turned her eyes sideways toward the girl.
Jiang Qiulan closed her eyes, expression calm, a thread of blood seeping at the corner of her lips.
Crack! Crack!
As though something were slamming wildly against something else.
Lady Qinghua’s brow lifted slightly, and in an instant she appeared directly before the girl, her hand closing around her throat.
The flesh tore open with ease — and yet, contrary to expectation, the head didn’t come off.
Jiang Qiulan opened her eyes, a chill white mist surging within their dark, clear depths.
“You haven’t only just broken through, have you?” Lady Qinghua said flatly.
“It’s been a little while.”
A cold light flickered across Jiang Qiulan’s skin. The moment Shen Yi and Jiang Yuanhua had left, she’d begun forcing her own breakthrough — though it seemed she’d still come up just a touch too late.
“You think you can hold me back?” Lady Qinghua slowly released her grip, her fingertips already sheathed in frost.
“Try me.”
Jiang Qiulan raised her hand, her long, slender fingers like blades of Mysterious Ice jade, radiating endless killing intent.
(End of Chapter)