A divine spirit severed from its body was no different from a lost, wandering ghost.
With nowhere left to anchor itself, it could only wait for its own dissolution.
There was a solution — breaking through to the Spirit-Transformation realm, condensing a golden dharma form from accumulated faith to serve as a substitute body.
But clearly, with Qingzhou lost, Jiang Yuanhua had already lost that resource.
Which meant he had no way back, either.
“Go on, then. Fight for your life.”
The Howling Moon Demon King gave a teasing smile and retreated slowly out of the county town.
After all these years of dealing with him, it knew this man’s character through and through — however arrogant it acted, the only thing on his mind would be how to hold Qingzhou.
Compared to this expendable border county, Qingzhou City was naturally the far more important thing.
Provoking him step by step was only to ensure that when the moment came, Jiang Yuanhua would let himself go entirely — more frantic, more vicious!
The wolf king planted itself at the edge of Qingzhou and curled its fingers into its mouth, letting out a sharp whistle!
Then it laughed. “If you make it back fast enough, maybe you’ll manage to save part of it.”
The whistle’s note was shrill.
Time crept slowly by.
And yet the three towering surges of demon power that should have answered never came — not a stir.
Jiang Yuanhua watched the wolf king in silence, his grip tightening on the sword in hand.
The Howling Moon Demon King frowned and let out another whistle!
Outside Qingzhou.
The three demons led by the elephant demon stood armed and ready, weapons in hand, the moment they heard the whistle.
A vicious grin crept onto their lips.
The elephant demon, most eager of the three, surged forward first, its massive body leaping more than ten zhang into the air, with the other two preparing to follow close behind.
In the next instant, a dull, thunderous boom exploded in their ears!
The elephant demon was hurled backward by some overwhelming force, slamming straight through and shattering half a cliff face.
The two remaining Core-Nurturing demon lords froze for an instant — and a streak of red cloud abruptly appeared in their sight.
The surging red mist swiftly dispersed.
A tall figure dropped down out of the sky, the hem of his neat black robes fluttering.
“Who are you?!”
A leopard demon, its fur golden all over, gripped its twin long blades and roared on reflex, “I am—”
A whipping kick lashed out through the air.
It sheared straight through both blades in its hands — and through its breastbone along with them.
“Quiet down. I’m in a hurry.”
Shen Yi seized the leopard demon by the throat, path infant and the eighth transformation of the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations brought to bear together, without the slightest restraint. There was a wet tearing sound, and the leopard demon’s head came clean off in his grip.
The elephant demon had only just clawed its way up off the ground when the sight that filled its eyes was the young man opening his mouth — and his leopard brother dissolving entirely into a stream of blood, pouring straight down the young man’s throat.
The sheer horror of the scene made that calm, untroubled face seem, somehow, all the more terrifying.
“…”
Shen Yi caught the demon core in passing, popped it into his mouth, and shot toward the other demon.
The goat demon had already been struck dumb watching, and turned to flee — a long blade wreathed in thick mist shot out and pierced straight through it.
Shen Yi followed close behind, forcing his long fingers in through the wound, shattering bone, and crushing its heart outright.
Once again, he opened his mouth and swallowed its flesh and blood, transmuted into demon blood.
The previous demon core had just finished digesting; the second slotted right in after it.
“I—”
The elephant demon shook its head, trying to call on its innate divine ability.
After all these years as a demon, when had it ever seen a scene this horrifying?!
“Come here.”
Shen Yi became a gust of wind, landing beside it, and swung a palm strike down at its skull.
There came a dull crack.
The elephant demon’s skull split open instantly.
Shen Yi frowned slightly and followed with a second strike, finally smashing it to pieces.
The elephant demon’s flesh and blood went the same way, transmuted into demon blood and swallowed down. The three demons together yielded nine drops of demon blood; with the panel’s boost, spending just over ten years of lifespan, the demon cores and demon blood were entirely absorbed by his path infant.
Before a path infant on the very verge of Perfection and the eighth transformation of the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations, this trio of demons, roughly on par in strength with the blue-faced lions, had no capacity to fight back at all. The elephant demon, though somewhat stronger than the others, had only needed one extra strike to put down.
There was not the slightest pause.
Shen Yi sat cross-legged and sank into inner vision.
At that moment, demon qi had already begun spilling off the blood-red path infant, as though it were wrapped in a thick, viscous slick of blood.
Shen Yi took on the form of the path infant and rose swiftly to his feet.
Buoyed by that overwhelming demon power, he turned to the smooth shell beside him and threw a single, ferocious punch!
Crack!
A dense web of cracks spread out instantly.
Beneath the press of demon power, the divine spirit huddled in a corner, knees drawn to its chest, not daring to move a muscle. “…”
The path infant slammed out another punch!
The inner core, already riddled with cracks, finally split apart entirely. The path infant reached out, wrenched it apart down the middle with a thunderous crack, and devoured every last fragment in great mouthfuls!
The divine spirit watched with naked envy, reaching out to scoop up a stray fleck of debris.
The instant its hand reached out, the path infant’s foot came stamping down at it. The foot couldn’t actually touch it, but at the sight of the path infant’s vicious glare, it yanked its little hand straight back.
Every last trace of the inner core was devoured clean.
The path infant raised its head toward the dark red veins above, and with a casual wave of its hand, slammed the full weight of its suppressive force down onto the divine spirit. “Behave yourself.”
In the next instant—
—the path infant’s body abruptly swelled, growing until it matched the size of his physical form, as though he were pulling that skin on like a garment.
“…”
Shen Yi slowly opened his eyes. Across skin refined white as jade, a faint red glow flickered just beneath the surface.
His consciousness had not returned to his original body.
Body and path infant had merged into one, now — both of them were him.
Red mist swirled in his eyes, though without the old menace to it — this was simply pure demon power, nothing more.
A Mixed Origin demon body.
Shen Yi rose to his feet and looked toward Qingzhou.
There was no need for the Unfettered Wind-Riding Art anymore.
He stamped forward with a thunderous tread, his form streaking across the open sky. Crimson filled the heavens in his wake, like a thick wash of sunset light spread across the entire sky, painting everything in sight into a boundless purgatory.
Outside the county town.
The Howling Moon Demon King had already abandoned any hope of calling back those three fools, and was steadily retreating out of Qingzhou’s territory.
It stared coldly at the longsword ahead, unable to fathom what madness had seized this Martial Immortal today, pressing forward step after step in pursuit.
Outside Qingzhou’s borders, he was no match for it. But the Howling Moon had no wish to fight. All those preparations hadn’t been made to throw itself into a death match with Jiang Yuanhua — and if it took so much as a scratch, it had no confidence it would survive whatever the Lady from the Thousand Demon Den had in store for it.
“Have you lost your mind? Someone’s tearing apart your Qingzhou City right now!”
“…”
Jiang Yuanhua glanced back at the silhouette of the county town, a faint smile rising on his face.
It had been too afraid to come out all this while; now that it actually had, it didn’t seem to be running into any trouble at all.
A single Martial Immortal couldn’t hold off two demon kings at once.
Especially when one of them had come straight from the Thousand Demon Den.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine how she’d crossed several prefecture cities without a trace, all the way to Qingzhou City, and walked straight into the Demon Suppression Division’s offices and his own courtyard.
And he himself hadn’t received so much as a single word of warning.
All he knew was…
Qingzhou was gone. His Qingzhou was gone…
Well then.
Jiang Yuanhua’s smile only grew warmer — and yet, to the Howling Moon’s eyes, it looked all the more terrifying for it. After all their years of dealing with each other, even standing squarely on its own territory, it had never once felt this lacking in confidence.
“With the sword in my hand, I will protect the one before my eyes.” Jiang Yuanhua brushed two fingers along the blade, then turned his gaze back to the Howling Moon.
In that instant, crimson surged across the sky, and a figure in black robes came crashing down to the ground with brutal force.
Jiang Yuanhua froze for a moment; the Howling Moon’s eyelid twitched.
The young man in black robes slowly straightened, glanced up at the divine spirit hovering in the air, and said flatly, “Let’s head back.”
The red glow beneath the young man’s skin wasn’t harsh to look at — and yet it left a sudden dampness at the corner of Jiang Yuanhua’s eyes. He was a divine spirit; he had no way to perform many of the gestures only mortals could, weeping among them.
Out of the depths, fortune turns—
Qingzhou had, at last, its first Mixed Origin Grandmaster!
(End of Chapter)