The god-figure on the offering platform sat in solemn, killing-edged dignity, wrapped in incense smoke.

The slightly lean young man stood without hurry, blood-threaded fingers resting on the scabbard.

A blade that appeared to come out at an easy pace drove into the flood dragon fifth prince’s abdomen in the same instant. Then a flash of cyan light.

Clothes and flesh opened without a sound.

Shen Yi pulled out the flood dragon core, and used his other hand to throw the body out of the temple.

The middle-aged man’s large frame expanded as it flew — in the span of a few breaths he had become a hundred-zhang flood dragon, crashing to the mountainside and writhing there like an injured eel.

“Everyone carry on.”

He gave a small nod. He didn’t believe in river deities, but he understood what drove people to this. Even in his previous life, places like that had people praying — and this was a world genuinely overrun by demons. As long as it wasn’t the kind of thing that Shuiyun Township’s river demon had been, he had no interest in interfering.

He turned and walked out of the river god temple.

The long line of worshippers had become a scattered, frightened mass. Even though he’d thrown the flood dragon considerably further away, the impact had knocked quite a few people off their feet.

But the moment the dark-robed young man walked out — the panic on their faces shifted to bewilderment, and then to a collective blank stare.

Dozens of demon-hunters were also staring at the barely-alive flood dragon in something like stunned disbelief.

They watched Shen Yi walk toward it, give a casual swing, and put another cyan arc through the massive, twisted head.

【Full-Core Flood Dragon slain — Total Lifespan: 5,100 years. Remaining: 1,500 years. Absorbed.】

Two silver-bell demon-hunters steadied themselves and walked over.

“May we ask which personal attendant under General Chen we have the honor of addressing?”

Even with Demon Suppression Generals, demon-hunters didn’t typically need to be so deferential — but what they’d just watched had the word sir appearing behind his name of its own accord.

“Shen Yi.”

He collected the flood dragon’s blood qi into the bell in full view.

Both demon-hunters’ expressions went immediately strange.

A colleague — when did we get one like this in our ranks?

“The other two — which direction?” A polite question. The connection from the young flood dragon core and Zhang Hengzhou’s bloodline must have been closer, because the sense that had let him track flood dragons before was considerably fainter now.

“…”

One of the demon-hunters exhaled. They’d seen perfectly well — translocation. This matter was beyond their involvement.

No point being petty about it. They simply passed across the two flood dragon qi traces they’d worked hard to collect.

“We’ll leave it to you, Commander Shen.”

Credit was credit — but before the General returned, fewer deaths was always better.

“Thank you.”

Shen Yi took the qi, grabbed the flood dragon by its whiskers, brought the enormous carcass along, and dissolved into the wind again.

After he was gone, the mountainside became loud again.

Every worshipper from inside the temple surged out, staring wide-eyed at the sky where he’d disappeared, and then turned and shoved their way back under the god-statue, pressing their heads to the floor in urgent competition.

“The river god has appeared!!“

Linjiang Prefecture. Shuiyun Township.

The river was nothing like it used to be. The water heaved and rolled, like a bottomless maw choosing who to swallow, frightening to stand beside.

Countless cloud-patterned dark uniforms snapped in the river wind that carried the smell of water and something animal.

This was the middle stretch of the Yangchun River.

The old man in black-gleaming armor stood at the riverbank’s edge, mixed-iron halberd in hand, crimson cape somewhat muted. Silent.

Against the vast Yangchun River, even a core-nurturing Demon Suppression General with a divine spirit in cultivation seemed to have a certain helplessness about him.

Chen Qiankun didn’t know whether the old flood dragon was alive or dead, or whether it was even still in the Yangchun River.

But as long as it hadn’t surfaced, he could only stay here.

Because outside of him, there was no one else in all of Linjiang Prefecture who could hold it in check.

The person standing closest to the old General wasn’t a Deputy Commander — it was a solidly built young man in three-band Commander’s uniform.

“You finally had some time off, and then you came back to this — a flood dragon clan with a core-nurturing practitioner at its back. Annoyed at me?” Chen Qiankun spoke with a lingering smile.

“No. It’s just that I can’t do anything useful here. That’s a bit uncomfortable.” Fang Heng slowly closed his fist.

“You’re still young. It’s us old ones who aren’t good for enough. We couldn’t buy the younger generation more time.” A note of something faintly wistful. “When I was your age, my cultivation was behind what you lot have now.”

He offered something that was meant as consolation. “You’re already someone your peers need to look up at. No need to measure yourself against a group of old people.”

“Look up at.” Fang Heng smiled at himself without disagreement. Inexplicably, a particular figure crossed his mind.

Then a demon-hunter arrived at a fast pace.

Chen Qiankun’s smile settled. “Have they been caught?”

More than ten senior silver-bell demon-hunters had come out for this. Three to five days, and there should have been some result.

“No — but—” The demon-hunter stopped mid-sentence.

“But what?” Fang Heng asked with concern.

He found that Old General Chen had already turned his gaze upward.

Under every Division person’s eyes — three enormous flood dragon bodies appeared through the foggy sky, dark scales reflecting a cold light. Each one no smaller than the flood dragon from Qingfeng Mountain had been.

They plunged downward at speed.

Boom—

Commanders and Deputy Commanders reacted with alarm, arms half-raised to block the rush of wet, animal-smelling air.

When the dust cleared — a young man was stepping down from between the flood dragon carcasses.

Some of the faces there were unfamiliar with him. Others knew him far too well.

“…”

Fang Heng held his breath and reached up to scratch his hair.

Chen Qiankun raised one eyebrow slightly, looking at the three flood dragon princes of the Yangchun River — all without any remaining life, abdomens opened, the manner of their deaths immediately recognizable.

Then his gaze came to rest on the young man’s face.

“Shen Yi greets General Chen.”

The young man in the dark robe stepped forward and clasped his hands in a small bow.

The emblem at his collar was Chen Qiankun’s mark alone. By rights, the two of them should have been old friends with years of history.

Right now, both of them looked completely businesslike — and as if they weren’t particularly well acquainted.

“But he’s already killed all three flood dragon demons.” The demon-hunter shrugged and completed the sentence.

Chen Qiankun’s expression became somewhat layered.

He had glanced at this young man once when leaving Qingfeng Mountain. Seeing him again now — the same composed, contained manner on the surface, and yet something that had changed entirely.

“I’ve been waiting for you all along.”

The old man let out a breath, and a smile touched his lips. “But I was also afraid you’d come to me.”

The General had five disciples of extraordinary talent. He, Chen Qiankun, had lived eight hundred years, and had always wanted something like that — a younger person to carry on what he’d built.

But he also felt that someone like this being kept at his side was a waste. For someone like this, joining the demon-hunters was the more challenging and ultimately more suitable path.

He held the young man’s gaze for a moment.

“The one thing I truly never imagined—” the old voice was quiet, “—was that this would be how we finally met properly.”

Three flood dragon lords, none weaker than Zhang Hengzhou, as a greeting gift.

That was somewhat excessive.

Excessive enough that even this old general’s heart — settled and still for so long — had become something like the Yangchun River in front of him. Waves rising.

(End of Chapter)