The county town was thick with the smell of blood. It had soaked into every street and alley.

The old flood dragon’s body was simply too vast, its hide too hard — axes and blades couldn’t scratch it. Even Liu Yuchuan, a Condensate Perfection personal attendant Deputy Commander, had a go and found he couldn’t pry off so much as a single scale.

In the end, they had to ask the old general to cut it into cart-sized chunks and haul them out to the prefectural city one load at a time.

The terrifying commotion from the Yangchun River earlier — the thunderous noise, the piercing dragon’s cry, loud enough even inside the town walls to feel like the sky was splitting — had already sent the townspeople into a panic. They whispered to each other that the Division lords had offended the River Dragon King, and that Linjiang Prefecture was about to be swallowed whole.

But the commotion hadn’t lasted long.

Within half a day, great slabs of flesh and bone were being carted past them, hauled out through the town gates.

Then the flood dragon’s head — the size of a small mountain — was hoisted up into the air, casting the entire main street into shadow. The dragon’s face was a grotesque snarl of bared fangs. Only its eyes had gone dull, and in them, if you looked closely, lurked a trace of terror.

It was the kind of thing that made your heart clench just to glance at. The townspeople couldn’t help themselves — heads poked out from door-gaps, watching, growing more frightened by the second, which only made it more thrilling.

Someone started a story. The River Dragon King of the Yangchun had accumulated a terrible weight of sin, and had enraged Heaven itself. The River God had cast off his fine black robes, donned armor, and come riding the waves with an edict from the Celestial Court in his hands. Above in the clouds, the Thunder Lord and Rain Mother had lent their power — wind and storm — and together they had struck down this beast.

The personal attendant Deputy Commander from Yushan Prefecture did not believe a word of it.

He sat reining in his horse, staring blankly at the old flood dragon’s head, privately wondering when Old Master Chen had become capable of something like this. Almost without thinking, he murmured: “Has General Chen broken through again?”

In the carriage behind him, a girl in black armor quietly lifted the curtain and looked at the dragon’s head as well.

If he had broken through, the old man wouldn’t keep sending letters to Yushan Prefecture every time something went wrong.

Jiang Qiulan stepped down from the carriage. Every Division attendant nearby stopped in their tracks. Liu Yuchuan, who had been overseeing the transport of the dragon’s head, crossed to her in a few quick strides, his expression apologetic. “General Jiang — if we’d known, we wouldn’t have troubled you with the journey.”

If we’d known?

Jiang Qiulan glanced sideways. Her gaze settled on the web of fracture lines spread across the dragon’s skull.

The wound pattern was consistent with a blunt iron halberd.

The cultivation level was not.

With General Chen’s strength, there was no way he could have broken through the hardest part of a Core-Nurturing Perfection demon’s body. And You Longtao and Jiang Yuanhua would never lend each other their weapons.

She withdrew her gaze. “Where is he?”

“General Chen is still resting.” Liu Yuchuan answered with a helpless look — the one who had actually killed the dragon had emerged without so much as a disrupted breath, while the old man tasked with cutting up the corpse was heaving and gasping for air.

Jiang Qiulan shook her head. “I mean Shen Yi.”

Liu Yuchuan clearly paused at that. He had sent the urgent letter himself — written in haste, describing only how dire the situation was, without mentioning Shen Yi at all. “How did you know—”

“I guessed.”

Jiang Qiulan couldn’t think of anyone else in Qingzhou with that kind of strength. But strange events like this — lumping them all under Shen Yi’s name was almost certainly correct.

After all, ever since he had arrived in Qingzhou from Baiyun County, strange events had become considerably more frequent.

“…”

Liu Yuchuan suddenly noticed something. General Jiang had always kept a cool and measured manner — at least courteous toward everyone. Just now, she had dropped even the title, using his name outright. The two of them had only taken one trip to the capital together. Had they really grown that familiar?

“General Shen finished with the dragon and is still out searching for stragglers.”

He said it with a note of something like awe.

The shore belonged to the Great Qian dynasty. The river-tribes of the Yangchun had existed far longer than the dynasty itself, and a large portion of them had probably never once set foot on land in their lives.

General Shen wasn’t just holding a single prefecture.

He was expanding the empire’s territory.

“Thank you. I understand.”

Jiang Qiulan inclined her head slightly and walked toward the riverbank outside the town.

The great river rolled on without pause, swiftly washing away the dark red that had been floating on its surface.

Shen Yi vaulted out of the water and made his way back to the village.

There was a faint look of disappointment in his eyes.

Perhaps things had gone too smoothly before. It had given him the impression that demons were everywhere — and it was only when he actually went into the water to look that he discovered how truly needle-in-a-haystack the search was without qi-tracking to help him.

“If Old Chen were a Yangchun River demon…” Chen Qiankun started, then noticed the young man’s eyes sharpen with interest and glance over at him.

“I mean hypothetically… demons have brains too. If something feels wrong, they know to run.” The old man wiped his brow. He had absolutely no idea where Shen Yi found the drive for this.

Peace and quiet. A prefecture at rest. This was as good as things could get — so why did Shen Yi look faintly dissatisfied?

“The Howling Moon now has only fifteen Core-Nurturing demon lords left.” Chen Qiankun’s expression was easy. Qingzhou had thirteen Demon Suppression Generals and three Gold-bell demon-hunters — the number of capable fighters now clearly exceeded the demons.

“Twelve,” Shen Yi said, and sighed.

Chen Qiankun blinked. Had his Shen Yi arrived a little late precisely because he had dealt with three more on the way?

Extraordinary.

But — what exactly was there to sigh about?

If the situation was as described, this wasn’t merely a matter of a few fewer demon lords. The entire balance had shifted. The Howling Moon would no longer dare press into Qingzhou. The remaining great demons would pull back entirely.

Now the only thing left was the game being played between Jiang Qiulan and the Junior Demon King — and no, that wasn’t quite right either. Shen Yi would have to be added to that.

Until one of those three made a breakthrough, Qingzhou would enjoy a stability it hadn’t seen in centuries.

“I never imagined,” Chen Qiankun said, staring out at the river with a depth of feeling, “that one person could appear from nowhere and resolve Qingzhou’s demon crisis by himself, leaving the rest of us old bones with nothing to do.”

He was quiet for a moment, then: “Thank you.”

He pulled his gaze back. “What are you planning to do next?”

Shen Yi rested a hand lightly on the sheath at his hip. “I’d like to ask you to send word to the other prefectural cities — see if there’s any demon activity to report elsewhere.”

Chen Qiankun was silent for a long moment.

All these years he had been the one sending to Yushan for help. He hadn’t imagined there would come a day when Linjiang Prefecture had capacity to spare for the other prefectures — and not just one or two, but all eleven at once.

The thought was enough to get the blood moving.

Still, though…

“Old Chen has something he’s not sure whether to say.”

“I’m not a river god.”

“That’s not what Old Chen was going to ask.”

Chen Qiankun rubbed his brow. “I only feel that you’ve been pushing yourself so relentlessly, your nerves pulled so taut — won’t something give eventually? Have you considered settling down? Finding a woman you get along with, someone to take the edge off a little.”

He turned his head. “Anyone in mind? Old Chen has a bit of free time now — I could even help you look. What do you think of the Qiulan girl? She comes across cold, and she’s not the doting type — but she really is the most beautiful woman in Qingzhou.”

“I think you’re about to get hit.”

Shen Yi gave him a sideways look and slowly turned around.

A girl in black armor, poised and composed, stood in silence at the edge of the village.

(End of Chapter)