Chapter 104: If This Thought Is Not Eradicated, It Will Surely Become a Demonic Obsession!

"Is that old demon truly so formidable?" Elder Shou's expression was grave.

He understood his young master's talent all too well. He was only a step away from the Blood-Stained Realm. What kind of cultivation did that Qin-Sha Arhat possess to be able to wound his master so severely?

"It must be the second stage of the Blood-Stained Realm. Otherwise, the demon blood would not have eroded so deeply."

Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, Li Jiufang pulled open the collar of his robe. On his left chest, a piece of flesh the size of a bowl had been torn away. On this wound, a dense mass of Buddha-like heads were grinning and laughing, weird and chilling. As if sensing Li Jiufang's gaze, these heads lifted up one by one and began chanting those heretical scriptures once more.

"Is it truly the Blood-Stained Realm? This demon is audacious!" Looking at the horrifying wound on Li Jiufang’s chest, Elder Shou’s face turned cold. "A mere wild demon daring to call itself an Arhat. The Second Master is well-acquainted with the Da-Chan Temple. Let him ask the old master to invite a true Arhat here. It will let this wild demon know that there are some people he cannot afford to injure."

Shaking his head and waving a hand, Li Jiufang closed his collar and said softly, "It is just a minor injury; it has not reached the point of seeking help from the family. Although the Qin-Sha Arhat is strong, he dares not attack our Qingliu County openly. Once a Blood-Stained Realm entity enters the fray personally, he knows the consequences. At most, he will dispatch his minions to assist the Golden Flower Mother Cult. What we must guard against are those cultists."

"To have so many people killed and still not learn their lesson—those cultists are truly a pack of madmen."

"The one who has come this time is the Red Ling Saintess, one of the twelve saintesses of the Golden Flower Mother Cult. Although she is at the Dao-Entry stage, she has already achieved the 'Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown,' just a thin sheet of paper away from the Blood-Stained Realm. I suspect she is deliberately suppressing her cultivation to remain at the Dao-Entry stage, so she can lead the rebel cultist army to attack Qingliu directly. My injuries will take at least two months to heal. During this time, we can only hold our ground. I just wonder... if we can hold it."

With a solemn expression, Li Jiufang stroked the corner of his desk. The Red Ling Saintess who had arrived this time was completely different from the previous bishops of the Golden Flower Mother Cult. She was skilled in calculation and adept at strategy. The fall of Shengzhou County, shrouded in dense fog, was a trap she had set specifically to lure him into the city. She had intentionally staged Shengzhou County to resemble the situation in Banqiao Town. She knew that with his personality, for the sake of stability, he would certainly try to enter the city personally to investigate. Once he descended with the help of the God-Channeling Token, she would use the hand of the Qin-Sha Arhat to severely wound him. Without him, a peak Dao-Entry magistrate, the Golden Flower Mother Cult would have a much greater chance of capturing the city.

"Elder Shou, tell all the battalion commanders to wait for me in the council hall early tomorrow morning. Remember, all of them."

***

The night was heavy, and darkness shrouded the entire sky, making it impossible to distinguish direction or distance. The streets became blurred, losing their usual familiarity and warmth in the shadows.

High in the sky, beneath layers of thick clouds, countless strange insects—as thin as mosquitoes, pale pink in color, and shaped like tadpoles with wings—flew imperceptibly toward Qingliu County in the dead of night. Silently, they descended upon this large county with a population of 800,000. These bizarre insects dispersed, spreading in all directions.

Pecking through the thin paper windows, the strange insects easily entered a civilian house. In the dark and quiet bedroom, a man and a woman sleeping soundly did not notice the uninvited guest in their room. Swaying, the insect flew onto the face of the man, who was snoring softly. After a brief pause, the creature suddenly tore through the skin on the man's forehead and burrowed inside.

***

"Hiss!"

Feeling a sharp pain in his forehead, the man jolted awake and sat up. But after waking up and touching his forehead, there seemed to be nothing there.

"What’s wrong, dear?" His wife, groggy and woken by the noise, looked at her husband, who kept rubbing his forehead, and asked in confusion.

"It's nothing, I think I was bitten by some bug."

"Where would there be bugs in the middle of winter? You must have had a nightmare." Seeing that her husband was fine, the wife turned over, pulled up the quilt, and went back to sleep.

"A dream?"

Unsure if it was a dream or not, the man muttered as he lay down, and before long, he fell asleep again. But in the midst of his deep slumber, the man did not realize that one part of his body was slowly withering away, while another was gradually swelling.

***

In the Qi family courtyard, Qi Xiu, who had just finished practicing calligraphy, leaned back in his rocking chair, closing his eyes to rest. After becoming a Dao-Entry practitioner, his vitality had grown stronger, and his abundant energy allowed him to sleep only once every two or three days. Out of habit, however, he would sit in the rocking chair in the middle of the night to rest his mind, reflecting on his cultivation progress for the day while planning for the morrow.

"In another half a month or so, the 'Lesser Five-Elements Water-Patrol Evasion Technique' will reach the first stage. The progress of the 'Formless Sword Scripture' is much slower. After all, the Ink Flood Dragon can practice the 'Lesser Five-Elements' for twelve hours a day without rest, but the sword technique doesn't have that luxury. It's a pity that the Ink Flood Dragon can only practice techniques on my behalf but cannot touch the path of martial arts. If only..."

*Hum—*

Suddenly, a golden light shone brilliantly in the middle of the night. Sensing that something had triggered the "Suppression Talisman Barrier" he had set up, Qi Xiu’s eyes snapped open. His form instantly distorted, shifting between the visible and the invisible, and riding the water-patrol light, he arrived at the spot where the barrier had been triggered in an instant.

"This is..."

Pinching his fingers together, a strange insect, its body shattered in half by the suppression talisman, fell into Qi Xiu's hand.

"This bug contains an extremely malevolent and supernatural aura. Why are there so many of these things flying all over the place in the middle of the night? Could it be..."

His expression shifted slightly. Qi Xiu channeled his energy, and the Purple Tiger sleeping in his Dantian's Purple Mansion woke up, its eyes glowing with purple radiance slowly opening. The next instant, Qi Xiu's pupils transformed into the likeness of the tiger's eyes. Slowly turning his gaze, he scanned the pitch-black, deep night sky.

Qi Xiu's brow furrowed. Bugs! Sparse, yet covering the entire sky—there were at least thousands of these strange, freakish insects.

"It seems trouble is coming."

Having discovered the strange insects descending upon the city, Qi Xiu returned to his room, intending to pack his things and leave, when an indescribable feeling suddenly welled up in his heart. There were six or seven hundred thousand civilians living in this city. In his year of cultivation, he had witnessed countless cruel methods used by demons against the living; those sounds of bitter, mournful crying and those glances of despair were all etched into his mind.

Realizing the source of that indescribable feeling, Qi Xiu's gaze turned heavy. To sit by and watch hundreds of thousands of his compatriots suffer and be tortured by demons, only to remain silent and leave indifferently... he was no saint, but if he couldn't pass this hurdle, it would surely become his inner demon in the future.

"Born as a human, I must remember how to be human. Helping them is impossible, but giving them a warning shouldn't take much effort."

Nodding to himself, he put down his luggage, donned a hundred-faced mask, and leaped up, transforming into a wisp of faint cloud, heading straight for the Qingliu County Magistrate's Office.

***

In the back hall of the Qingliu County Magistrate's Office, Li Jiufang, draped in a fur robe, was hunched over his desk, brow furrowed, supporting his forehead with one hand. He was deep in thought about how to respond if the Golden Flower Mother Cult were to attack.

Suddenly, the candlelight flickered. Li Jiufang glanced at the flame as it returned to normal and slowly set down his brush.

"Since you've come, why hide?"

"Magistrate Li, please forgive the intrusion. I have urgent information to share."

The faint mist dispersed, and a distorted, illusory figure stepped out from the shadows. The person had long, disheveled hair, a tall frame, and wore a dark red demon mask, his voice thick and resonant.

"Oh?" Looking at the masked stranger, Li Jiufang remained calm. This person had snuck into the back hall of the magistrate's office and reached his study without a sound, all just to tell him something. "If it is truly urgent, I will naturally not blame you."

"Heh, then please take a look at this, Magistrate."

With a flick of his finger, the half-bodied monster insect shot straight toward Li Jiufang.

"This is..."

Catching the insect and looking down, Li Jiufang's expression changed instantly. "The Female-Bone Demon Insect? Who exactly are you?"

He stood up abruptly, the aura around him roiling; the terrifying amount of *gang* energy within a peak Dao-Entry practitioner threatened to destroy the entire room.

"Don't be excited. I'm just here to tell you that these monster insects are everywhere in Qingliu County right now."

Feeling the terrifying power erupting like a volcano or a bursting flood from Li Jiufang's body, Qi Xiu, behind the mask, secretly clicked his tongue. This Magistrate Li was truly not what he appeared to be. Such a massive amount of *gang* energy—at least a thousand units. Could he be a peak Dao-Entry practitioner who had achieved the "Three Flowers Gathering"?

"Everywhere?"

His pupils constricted. Li Jiufang waved his hand, and the window shattered instantly. Divine radiance erupted from his eyes as an ancient pattern faintly formed within them. It was clear he had used some form of ocular technique. Seeing the Female-Bone Demon Insects dancing across the sky, Li Jiufang turned his hand, took out a bronze bell, and crushed it in his palm.

The next instant, at the military garrison in the north of Qingliu County, a bronze gong sounded loudly. The deafening roar shocked half the city awake in an instant.

"What's happening? The gong is ringing—are bandits attacking the city?"

"I don't hear any commotion?"

"Could it be an accidental trigger?"

"Impossible! The bronze gong and mysterious bell are only held by Li Jiufang; he would never trigger them by mistake."

"Battalion Commander! Look at that!"

"Hmm? No! Female-Bone Demon Insects! Beat the drums and blow the horns! All troops, listen up: do not let these insects crawl into your bodies! Use boy's urine—use boy's urine!"

In an instant, throughout the garrison, every soldier who was still a virgin unbuckled their belts, and buckets of orange-yellow, steaming boy's urine were brought out. The Female-Bone Demon Insects, which could not be killed by ordinary means, lost all strength upon smelling the urine, falling to the ground like rain. Once splashed, they shrieked and turned into dregs.

"That was truly perilous... This time, I owe it all to you, sir. May I ask the name of this righteous hero..."

Not expecting the Golden Flower Mother Cult's move to come so quickly, Li Jiufang, still lingering in shock, turned around to thank the righteous hero who had come to warn him. But in the time it took to turn, the man was already gone.

Truly, he had accomplished his deed and brushed off his robes, hiding his merit and fame.

***