Pale moonlight fell across the bull demon’s powerful, sharply-defined body. Vast demon qi spread outward until it had stained the whole of Xitai Mountain a deep red.
This was the first time Shen Yi had heard a demon call itself this king.
But the shape in front of him didn’t connect with the name Howling Moon in any way — and the qi coming off it wasn’t a level above Jiang Qiulan’s. This was something else.
Regardless — what was unfolding in front of him was not something he had a place in.
Then he noticed what was standing at the base of the great stone throne. An old dog demon, holding a long spear. Easy to miss against the bull demon’s massive frame.
The qi coming off the dog demon — clearly another core-nurturing demon lord.
“…”
He looked quietly behind him.
The bull demon had also noticed him by now. A casual wave of one hand, with the air of someone uninterested.
“Go deal with him.”
The old dog rolled its neck and stepped forward.
The White Deer spoke up first. “Why bother the Junior Demon King’s people for this? I can’t do much, but I run fast. Let me handle it.”
Demons had their own divisions of power. Everything outside Qingzhou’s twelve prefectures was the Howling Moon Demon King’s territory. The core-nurturing demon lords here answered to it. The Junior Demon King was an outsider — an upstart.
The White Deer had already overstepped by making private arrangements with the Junior Demon King. It had no intention of being used as cannon fodder to bring down Jiang Qiulan.
The Junior Demon King didn’t seem particularly invested in any of this. Its attention stayed on the woman.
“Do you want to catch up first?”
In the interior.
Jiang Qiulan’s dark robe moved slightly in the air. Sleeves lifting. Both hands hanging loose.
An expression of complete stillness — as if confirming what she’d just said.
In Qingzhou, except for the Howling Moon Demon King.
Everything else was the same.
Needle after needle left her body and rose into the air, condensing into ice-forged swords the length of a person, and there were easily thousands of them by the time the last had gathered. In the air they formed a jade dragon that coiled around her body.
“I need one incense stick’s worth of time.”
“Please hold on.”
The Junior Demon King let out a self-deprecating sound. Its motion of rising made the entire mountain and forest tremble in rhythmic pulses.
The great ring-headed broadsword, bright as flowing silver, came into its grip.
“This is exactly why I came before the real breakthrough. Being treated this lightly — I’ve been lying awake over it.”
Jiang Qiulan had already stopped paying attention to it. She looked back at the young man from inside the jade dragon.
“One incense stick. Can you manage?”
Shen Yi raised an eyebrow, watching the White Deer approaching him.
“Should be — not a problem.”
He’d come planning to deal with the mountain lord. The White Deer was a core-nurturing demon lord, and there was some pressure in that — but not enough to frighten him.
Before the words were finished, his form dissolved into the night and became wind moving into the distance.
Watching that — the White Deer’s casual expression sharpened. It had assumed this would be simple. It just wanted to push the young man away and create space to exit cleanly. That assumption was now under revision.
No more hesitation. All four hooves launched from the ground.
Its speed was exactly what had let it escape from Jiang Qiulan repeatedly.
Xitai Mountain, red mist everywhere.
A white shape crashed to the ground with enough force to punch a large crater. Trees in the surrounding area were ground to nothing by the impact.
The White Deer slammed an angry hoof and watched the wind drift away again.
Nothing in Qingzhou moved at speeds comparable to its own — that had always been true. But this young man seemed to be deliberately toying with it. He kept stopping to wait.
Far off on a tree branch—
Shen Yi yawned quietly.
He hadn’t expected this himself. The Unfettered Wind-Riding Art at Perfection, with the Heavenly Demon external pill behind it — a core-nurturing demon lord couldn’t come close.
If it stayed like this — forget one incense stick, with enough demon cores to replenish from, he could run the White Deer back to Qingzhou city.
What if I actually tried to kill it?
The body was now at the edge of Condensate Perfection equivalency. The external pill was one step from full. Idle as he was—
He disappeared again and pulled a demon core from the bell on the way.
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 3,862 years】
The demon lifespan began dropping quickly. Shen Yi kept one eye on where the White Deer was, glancing at the panel when he had a moment.
Erasing the peacock’s consciousness took around three hundred years this time.
The bird-cry in his mind. The core dissolved into force pouring through the body.
He took out the Solar-Splitting Bow. Since the fourth transformation, he’d been able to draw it to about ninety percent. One more breakthrough and the full-moon draw would send arrows that made core-nurturing demon lords think twice.
【Year 1,302 — the purple marten core is spent—】
The further along the Nine Transformations, the more power each step consumed. As for which demon’s consciousness ultimately dominated, that depended on which was strongest.
These cores had come too easily. He felt no particular reluctance. He pulled another one out and put it in his mouth, and slowed his pace deliberately to give the White Deer some hope.
【Year 2,600 — the mountain lord core is spent—】
Shen Yi’s eyelid twitched. Body refinement had always felt like the most reliable and comfortable cultivation path. Lately it was becoming more demanding by the step.
Only the golden eagle core left. He swallowed it.
Three kinds of demon force mixing inside, the life-essence gradually grinding them into one, the residual consciousnesses tearing at each other — like the ancient practice of cultivating a dominant parasite from many.
Finally, a long eagle cry rang through his mind, announcing the outcome.
Wings sweep up a thousand layers of cloud. The broken-gold cry shocks the celestial halls. Divine pupils see ten thousand li. Two ears hear eight directions. Heaven-ranging flying general, hunting across the great wilderness, soul-seizing talons leave nowhere to hide.
【Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations: Fifth Transformation】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 372 years】
The cultivation of three Condensate Perfection demons had become part of his body.
Shen Yi stood slowly. Both eyes had taken on a penetrating clarity.
The red-mist forest spread out in his vision with extraordinary sharpness.
He raised the Solar-Splitting Bow. A casual pull — full moon. The great sun pattern on the bow arm erupted with an almost violent white light, as though someone were genuinely holding the sun, about to split open the infinite sky.
The White Deer, surging forward in pursuit, seemed to sense something.
All four hooves locked.
Too late.
A vast white arc crossed the distance in an instant and drove into its body.
Under that edge that could break things to the core, the entire frame was sent hundreds of zhang through the air. Where the arrow had passed — a bottomless trench had opened in the earth.
When the dust settled, the White Deer staggered back to its feet, every part of the body in tearing pain. It looked up at the second white arc already descending to swallow it from above.
Something appeared in those eyes that it couldn’t control.
Fear.
No more carelessness. Every last piece of strength thrown sideways.
Boom!!
Even the arrow’s aftershock lifted it from the ground again.
At the same moment — the incense stick’s time had elapsed.
In Xitai Mountain’s interior, half a mountain range gave way all at once. A red demon-cloud erupted skyward and fled outward at a speed that defied easy description, gone in a breath.
The White Deer, internal organs already shifted from the first arrow, had just finished spitting blood — and saw this.
The whole body went still.
Its gaze snapped forward.
The wind that had been evading it this whole time had taken shape again. A tall figure holding the bow, aimed directly at the White Deer’s heart.
(End of Chapter)