Elder Chen was the one remaining Inspector at the Demon Suppression Division’s central offices.
Zhang Xuan had wanted it to be him more than anyone, but now had no choice but to shake his head. “The one I brought back this time is the newly appointed Inspector, Shen Yi.”
Shen Yi?
Yang Qianxiang went quiet for a moment, searching his memory without finding even the faintest trace of that name.
“Commander Shen comes from Qingzhou, and is a War Temple disciple.”
Zhang Xuan knew exactly what was on the man’s mind, and pressed urgently ahead. “The Flower Leopard demon lord has already been killed by Commander Shen. General, please deploy your people at once, retake South Peak City, and then come with me to find the Inspector.”
Yang Qianxiang listened, and the words hit him like a great hammer to the skull — his whole world went slightly off-kilter, and he said, dazed, “A War Temple disciple — that means a divine-spirit cultivator. Why didn’t you discuss any of this with me before just going ahead and doing it?”
The War Temple’s divine-spirit cultivators were all of profound cultivation, that much was true.
But even with a jade token in hand, even able to draw on any province’s accumulated faith — don’t forget that Song Prefecture had lost four prefectures, leaving only this much faith remaining. Whether that went to him, as General, or to some stranger named Shen — what difference would it make in the end?
Song Prefecture had paid in lives beyond counting to barely manage to hold the two demon kings in check.
Yes, collapse was imminent — but at least there had still been a little time left.
Every extra day, for them, meant one more day to hope Elder Chen might come back. And now someone had gone and shattered the balance outright — to what end?
“Discuss? An Inspector goes about his business — when has he ever needed to discuss anything with the likes of you and me?”
Zhang Xuan bit down hard, and reached into his chest to draw out the skull he’d been cradling there. “At the very least, Commander Shen brought this man back to us. I couldn’t have found it in me to object.”
He fixed his eyes ahead, something reckless surfacing in them. “General, please don’t hesitate. The Inspector is at this very moment in the middle of the demon masses in South Peak Prefecture — send the Demon Suppression Generals and Gold-bell demon-hunters at once, and come with me to back him up!”
“…”
Yang Qianxiang clutched his thinning hair with both hands, then turned back to the Deputy Commander behind him and sighed, “Pass the order. Have everyone move to converge on the four lost prefectures as quickly as possible.”
With that, he swung, stone-faced, up onto the demon-horse. “Lead the way.”
“You’re going in person, rather than sending your divine spirit ahead?”
Zhang Xuan was startled. There was no precedent for a provincial General riding out physically into danger.
“What would be the point?”
Yang Qianxiang glanced sideways at him, his gaunt face entirely without expression.
Song Prefecture had done everything it could do.
He was only a Martial Immortal — not an actual immortal. He had no way to face off simultaneously against two demon kings who both far outstripped him.
In a way, this was almost a relief.
The Inspector had made the choice for Song Prefecture. This worn-out old man wouldn’t have to do any more worrying.
As for provoking the Red-Eyed Demon King into turning its attention away from its rival and back toward the Demon Suppression Division… it was done. There was no point thinking about it anymore.
“Please take good care of my old friend.” Zhang Xuan passed the skull in his hands carefully over to a Deputy Commander.
The next instant.
The black-scaled flood dragon horses leapt into the air, carrying the two men away from Song Prefecture City.
“Is this the direction of South Peak City?” Yang Qianxiang suddenly felt something was off.
“Commander Shen has probably already moved on to the county towns below.” Zhang Xuan said quietly. From the way things had looked in the city earlier, this young Inspector was only quiet and cool-seeming on the surface — in truth, he was careful down to the smallest detail, and cared just as much about ordinary people as anyone else.
“Just what kind of person did you go and bring back…”
Yang Qianxiang knitted his brow hard, and finally couldn’t hold back one muttered complaint.
For a divine-spirit cultivator to go into demon-occupied prefecture cities alone, without anyone at his side to guard him — that was beyond reckless.
“Commander Shen said he… has some familiarity with body-tempering methods.”
Zhang Xuan was worried too, but still offered the reassurance.
He didn’t know exactly how much “some familiarity” amounted to — but at least the man didn’t seem like the reckless sort.
“This old man has held Song Prefecture for years, and never once behaved rashly.”
Yang Qianxiang gave a self-mocking sigh. “Didn’t expect the first time would cost us half of what’s left.”
The black-scaled flood dragon horses poured on the speed, moving no slower than any translocation technique.
The two of them quickly arrived in the sky above a county town.
Yang Qianxiang looked down.
He hadn’t dared so much as glance at the four lost prefectures in a long time — not even a glimpse through his divine spirit. When those cities had fallen, the bodies had been strewn everywhere, and so many young people in black robes had collapsed at his divine spirit’s feet — even now, the wailing echoed in his ears.
He forced himself to take in what was happening in the streets below.
Yang Qianxiang’s expression shifted.
The streets were packed with people, all of them running in wild abandon — some weeping, some laughing, some on their knees beating the ground with their fists. But looking out across it all, there wasn’t a single demon to be seen anywhere.
The two of them exchanged a glance, reined in their questions, and set off again for the next location.
They even split up and covered separate ground for a stretch.
When they came back together, the shock in both pairs of eyes was past concealing.
“Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong!”
Everywhere they’d been, not a single demon remained — not even a corpse.
If someone had killed them all… this was unambiguously the work of a divine spirit.
“Commander Shen sent out his divine spirit outside the city?”
Zhang Xuan had lost his composure entirely. He couldn’t understand why the man would take on a risk this enormous — Shen Yi had come from the capital, a War Temple disciple, and yet here he was more urgent about it than even the local Demon Suppression Division officers themselves.
“What concerns this old man is…” Yang Qianxiang swallowed hard. The answer, by now, was self-evident.
“He’s gone to the Red-Eyed Divine Lord’s temple!”
Across all four of the lost prefectures, every county town had been given a Red-Eyed Divine Lord temple.
But the place they were both thinking of was where the demon king itself truly dwelled.
At a point equidistant from all four prefectures.
A crude stone statue had been carved into a sheer cliff face, some ten-odd zhang tall — a beast-faced, human-bodied figure wearing a plumed helmet and fish-scale armor, seated within the mountain, a long halberd in its left hand, its right resting flat on its knee.
The direction of its gaze was toward Song Prefecture City.
Both feet planted on the ground, surrounded at the base by dense rows of incense stands, coiling smoke drifting lazily upward, as though a cloud of auspicious mist had gathered at the statue’s feet.
Behind the statue was a cave entrance, equally tall.
From within came the sound of breathing like rolling thunder, making the entire mountain tremble faintly.
Passersby had long since grown accustomed to the sight.
They came with blank faces, made their way to the base of the statue, burned their incense, and kowtowed — not a trace of devotion in their eyes, but their movements flawless, practiced ten thousand times over, without a single allowable error.
A streak of red cloud swept past overhead.
Quietly, a figure in a black robe appeared among the crowd.
The young man walked at a calm, unhurried pace toward the stone statue.
Among all the worshippers, his tall, straight frame stood out with conspicuous oddness.
Quite a few people noticed him.
Several of the bowing movements went faintly wrong, and fear flickered over those faces.
Shen Yi walked up to the dense rows of incense stands, crouched down, and took up a handful of ash in his palm. He raised his eyes and looked evenly at the towering statue.
He gave a small nod.
At his side, the condensed divine spirit waved a hand, and the invisible accumulated faith gently nudged the confused crowd clear, pushing every one of them dozens of zhang back.
Lady Qinghua withdrew the divine spirit back into Shen Yi’s qi sea.
Boom!
In the next instant, he surged upward, driving a foot straight into the statue’s chest. The towering figure cracked clean apart from the shins upward and came crashing down into the cave entrance behind it.
In the midst of that thunderous collapse, Shen Yi’s figure vanished from where he’d stood.
The breathing inside the cave — that deep, thunder-like rhythm — stopped abruptly, turning in an instant into a bellow of rage.
“GRAAAH!!”
Before the echo had even faded, the roaring cut off just as abruptly.
The black-robed young man leapt back out of the cave entrance, dragging the enormous shape behind him by brute force, and slammed it down onto the mountainside — and amidst the dull crack that followed, a tremendous fissure tore open along the entire ridge of the mountain.
(End of Chapter)