The wind soughed bleakly, the bamboo grove swaying like a mild expanse of green sea. But before this refreshing, soul-easing scene lay three whole corpses, their ragged husks bristling with sharp bamboo. Their interiors were hollow — the path infants, it seemed, already picked away by someone.
Dignified Mixed Origin Grandmasters, dead beneath seemingly ordinary green bamboo. Utterly absurd.
Zhang Mingyang stood with his hands behind his back, the black-and-white robe on his body swaying faintly. But the smile from his time outside was gone from his face now. His eyes were sunk in gloom, enough to make others shudder with cold.
The Xuanguang Cave disciple standing at his side, seeing his uncle-master’s expression, could only pour his fright and fury out upon others. “A pack of useless trash! We gave you the route map, and to this moment there’s not the slightest progress — what are you all good for?!”
Before the bamboo grove, two Mixed Origin Grandmasters held jade slips, their eyes bloodshot. What route map! Seventy-odd different variations, all of them guesses pulled from thin air — what damned use was this?! The three men before them had, all told, tested out twenty-odd wrong routes. And the two of them, if they wanted to live, had to find from the remaining routes that one path of survival that might not exist at all.
But they could only advance, never retreat. Because the bamboo grove ahead might still hold a way to live, but behind them lay certain death, ten times over. An unbridled Spirit-Transformation-realm expert was far more terrible than this bamboo grove.
“Where is Chen Zhong? Why hasn’t he come.”
Zhang Mingyang finally spoke, his voice cold as black ice. He’d had enough of this useless lot — not only low in cultivation, but wholly without formation-breaking experience, purely wasting time. Set against the well-trained Grandmasters of Great Qian, it was a bitter disappointment.
“Uncle-Master, he’s probably hidden himself away.” The Xuanguang Cave disciple said softly, “Fleeing before battle — once we’re out, we’ll have to teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”
“And I need you to teach me that?”
Zhang Mingyang shot him a glance, and the disciple hurriedly lowered his head. “This disciple wouldn’t dare!”
Fellow disciples they might be, but between the Spirit-Transformation realm and the Mixed Origin realm there simply existed no fellowship at all. The other had utterly cast off the mortal frame of flesh, a creature born of heaven-and-earth’s own workings. In his eyes, there was likely no difference between the disciple and the other Mixed Origin Grandmasters.
“Worthless thing.”
Zhang Mingyang glanced backward, a measure of killing intent rising in his eyes.
Just then, the two Mixed Origin Grandmasters noticed his mind was wandering elsewhere. They exchanged a glance, resolve welling in their eyes. Rather than be forced to their deaths, better to seize the moment now and make a run for it. Each to one side, life and death left to fate.
No words were needed. In an instant, radiance blazed across the two, and they fled toward the south and north respectively!
Their cultivation was low only by comparison to Xuanguang Cave. Placed out in the world, two entry-level Mixed Origin were enough to count as powers that could overawe a region. Now, fleeing with all their strength, in the blink of an eye they’d vanished without a trace.
“Ha?”
The Xuanguang Cave disciple looked over with a touch of surprise, then a flicker of derision surfaced in his eyes. Fleeing before a Spirit-Transformation-realm cultivator? Frightened out of their wits, surely.
Sure enough, Zhang Mingyang didn’t so much as lift an eyelid, only waved his sleeve slightly, and the qi of heaven and earth abruptly ran riot. The next moment, two figures were smashed flying back almost simultaneously. Their wounds each differed, but the path infants laid bare were already spidered with cracks. The light in the two men’s eyes swiftly dimmed — plainly they’d lost their lives.
“This…”
The disciple didn’t know why his uncle-master had suddenly struck to kill, but still praised him respectfully. “Truly worthy of Uncle-Master Zhang — a great advance in cultivation…”
Zhang Mingyang’s face was cold and grim as he slowly lowered his palm and shot the disciple a glance. “Shut up.”
This was not his doing.
As though to verify his words, in that instant two figures unhurriedly revealed themselves, from ahead and behind. When they saw the newcomers’ appearance clearly, the disciple fell silent at once, his back already soaked with cold sweat.
In the grove, very far off, the black-cloaked young man stood with his hands at his sides, a flicker of something strange passing through his clear eyes. Behind him, the hand with which Aqing gripped the formation-plate trembled. “This is…”
Before he’d finished, Chen Zhong beside him waved a hand hard, signaling him not to speak.
The old man forcibly pressed down the turmoil in his heart, struggling to keep his composure. He was Great Qian’s Inspector, and had fought demons beyond counting alongside Xuanguang Cave — yet that snow-white figure before him still set his heart racing beyond stopping.
Apart from the snow-white of its feathers, it looked only like an ordinary crane. Not quite a man’s height. Its two slender long legs paced elegantly closer — yet made the Zhang Mingyang opposite instinctively fall back half a step. By comparison, the burly wild-boar demon on the other side seemed rather unremarkable too.
“Den Forty-Two. The White-Feather Demon Emperor.”
Chen Zhong used a voice-transmission secret art, then looked toward Shen Yi.
The Thousand Demon Den, as the undisputed overlord of this region, resisting Wutong Mountain, Xuanguang Cave, and Great Qian’s War Temple all three at once, still held the upper hand. That the White-Feather Demon Emperor could rank forty-second among them meant it already stood among that topmost tier of the strong.
Aqing hurriedly rifled through his storage treasure, then took out three cobblestone-like objects, arcane formations carved upon them. He stuffed the things into the two men’s hands.
“Can the Xuanguang Cave people best this demon emperor?”
These cobblestones seemed much like a silver bell, yet carried no aura-fluctuation at all.
“Best it? With what…”
Chen Zhong looked at Aqing helplessly. When had the Xu family produced so guileless a junior? Every item the other took out — let anyone with the least discernment see it, and they’d know his background at a glance. His own Great Qian identity was one thing. But that prodigy Senior up ahead — who knew the man’s true nature; with the slightest wicked intent, he could make the Xu family suffer a great loss!
He sighed. “Zhang Mingyang is strong, but among Spirit-Transformation cultivators he’s nothing of the first rank — at least half a grade below the White-Feather Demon Emperor. Escaping with his life would be a fine outcome.”
Just as he’d anticipated. The Thousand Demon Den had come this time straight for Xuanguang Cave.
“Senior, let’s go first!”
He dared not offend Shen Yi, but things having come to this, he had no choice but to speak up in reminder.
“Let’s watch a while longer.”
Shen Yi gazed quietly ahead.
At these words, the two of them showed astonishment at once. This… this too was something to be watched for sport?
While the group talked, the white crane had already walked up before Zhang Mingyang. From beginning to end it wore that same leisurely air. But Zhang Mingyang hadn’t the slightest intention of turning to flee, and the look on his face was much like the two Mixed Origin Grandmasters’ from before. To turn was to lose the initiative. And the outcome of losing the initiative was death, here and now.
“Surprised to see this emperor?”
The white crane finally stood still, a measure of laughter in its voice. “Was it good?”
“What?” Zhang Mingyang looked over coldly.
“I ask you — those several demon kings under this emperor’s elder brother, were they delicious and toothsome?” The White-Feather Demon Emperor gave its wings a flap.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Zhang Mingyang lowered his eyes slightly. “I went to the Eight-Direction Dining Hall and ate nothing… If you mean Nie Jun, I was on the third floor and he on the ninth; we never met. If you want to avenge your elder brother, you should go find him.”
(End of Chapter 266)