Chapter Eighty-Two: Purgatory (Seeking First Subscription)

The vile concubine’s voice rang out from afar in a cold warning.

“If you dare keep pestering me, I will seize you first, play with you for three days and three nights, then strip your skin, break your bones, and serve you as sashimi.”

“Come and try, if you’ve got the nerve. I’ll be right here waiting.”

Hands on her hips, blood at the corner of her mouth, Jia Yufei showed no fear and shouted back brazenly.

“Come into the city and see whether I deal with you or not.”

“You come out!”

“You come in!”

...

Leaning by a tree and watching the two of them cursing at one another from afar, Qi Xiu rubbed his brow.

Enough with the insults already.

Why not just start fighting?

He had been waiting for Jia Yufei and King Jin Cai to clash so he could reap the benefit in the end.

Instead, the pair of them spent a full quarter of an hour hurling abuse at each other in this bone-dry fashion.

It ended only when King Jin Cai roared a final curse and fell silent.

“You dead toad, just you wait.”

Seeing the other side finally quiet down, Jia Yufei spat softly and clutched her lower abdomen.

That Yuan Gathering Treasure Pouch was clearly a righteous magical artifact.

Why had it fallen into the hands of that damned toad?

If not for concern over the artifact, I would have long since captured him and made him into sweet snow frog stew.

Lowering her gaze, Jia Yufei looked at the hand pressed to her belly. Dark green fluid was seeping between her fingers.

This toad demon was not especially formidable in battle, but his body was thick-skinned and hardy, and he was poisonous all over.

A close fight was out of the question. She would need to find a way to kill him from afar.

With a faint frown, Jia Yufei rose on a cloud of scarlet light and prepared to leave.

...

“Should I kill that madwoman here?”

In the dim corner beneath the trees, Qi Xiu had fully hidden his aura. His eyes gleamed, while a strand of multicolored radiance flowed slowly about his wrist.

Jia Yufei was clearly injured now.

If he struck with thunderous force and shattered her protective true essence with [Primordial Unity], he was ninety percent certain of killing her in one blow.

That madwoman had a capricious temper. Though she claimed to have come to save some younger brother, who could say that was not merely an excuse?

Could she too be after the Yuan Gathering Treasure Pouch?

If so, then she could not be allowed to live...

Spreading his fingers, the multicolored light seeped into his palm, and the killing intent in Qi Xiu’s eyes grew denser.

The Yuan Gathering Treasure Pouch concerned whether he could enter the Dao at the earliest possible moment.

Whoever dared covet it—

Would die!

Just as Qi Xiu, like a hunting snow leopard, began to move his feet and prepared to land a strike upon the unsuspecting Jia Yufei, boom boom boom—

Several scarlet signal flares burst suddenly in the sky, bright as blood.

The abrupt detonations made Jia Yufei snap instantly to attention.

“Hm?”

Her eyes narrowing, Jia Yufei immediately changed direction and, transforming into a brilliant red streak of light, rushed toward the source of the flares.

What luck.

Silently watching her depart, Qi Xiu slowly withdrew the power of primordial unity and drew the multicolored cord back in.

That sudden commotion had put Jia Yufei on guard.

If he forced the attack now, he might still have a sixty or seventy percent chance of killing her.

But he could not be certain she would not wound him in a deathbed counterattack.

After all, she was a cultivator who had entered the Dao; he could not afford to take her lightly.

His main objective this time was still the Yuan Gathering Treasure Pouch, and he had to preserve peak condition without the slightest mishap.

Looking once more in the direction Jia Yufei had gone, Qi Xiu tightened the backpack on his shoulders and changed his appearance.

In an instant, he became a sinister sorcerer, wreathed in chill energy, his face deathly pale and marked by heavy dark circles beneath his eyes.

“Cough, cough... King Jin Cai is holding a feast for the nearby demons and fiends to celebrate his birthday.

“I can slip into the city and look for an opening.

“But before that, I need to find a way to get an invitation.”

Pretending to cough twice, Qi Xiu glanced left and right, then quickly ducked into a dense thicket.

...

On a narrow mountain path, two monsters came quietly along.

Night had fallen, and the grim shadows of the trees made the surroundings seem eerie.

One monster was tall and broad, with pale skin, a pair of red eyes, and horns growing from his head.

The other was short and stout, with green skin and eyes yellow as dawn.

The two monsters walked silently along the forest path.

From them emanated a gloomy, terrifying aura, made all the more uncanny beneath the moonlight.

“Hey, do you think King Jin Cai really invited us this time just for a banquet?”

With a kick, the red-eyed, horned half-demon sent a roadside pebble flying and grumbled.

“Why else? King Jin Cai is riding high now. With that magical artifact in his hands, his cultivation grows by the day.

“Maybe before long he’ll step into the Bone-Staining Realm. If we go this time and butter him up properly, we might even get a couple of Yuan Gathering Pills to eat,” said the green-skinned, yellow-eyed half-demon.

“You’re talkin’ so long your mouth’s gone numb... Huh, why does my tongue feel so weird...”

The red-eyed half-demon touched his lips in confusion and was just about to call to his companion ahead when he looked up and saw, to his shock, that there were now four green-skinned, yellow-eyed half-demons before him.

Bad.

I’ve been hit!

The thought had barely formed when a tremendous wave of dizziness surged through him. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed straight to the ground with a loud crash, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Mm, the effect of my Fish-Scented Muscle-Softening Powder 5.0 really is excellent.”

Qi Xiu emerged from the nearby brush with his sleeves folded calmly, smiling and nodding in approval.

Ever since obtaining the Fish-Scented Muscle-Softening Powder, he had been steadily and persistently improving the formula.

The potency of this super sedative had increased day by day.

By now, even those tough-skinned demons and monsters could not withstand the 5.0 version.

After searching the two paralyzed half-demons, Qi Xiu found two invitations carved from bone, each bearing the imprint of a copper coin on the front.

Looking at the sleeping half-demons on the ground, Qi Xiu’s eyes flickered. He took out his bamboo staff and casually swung it.

Sshk—

Dark green blood sprayed several yards.

One of the red-eyed half-demon’s arms rolled away with a gurgle.

Though the paralyzed half-demon groaned, he still did not wake.

“It’s even more effective than I estimated. If that’s the case...”

His eyes turning slowly, Qi Xiu’s mouth curled little by little, and a mad plan gradually took shape in his mind.

...

East Reed County.

The city walls, shrouded beneath thick miasmic fog, were broken and ruined, as though some enormous thing had forcibly pushed them down.

Yet upon these shattered remains, red silk banners hung everywhere today, bright as blood, as if the entire city had been dyed crimson.

The scene gave off a strange and wicked atmosphere.

When the wind passed through, the red streamers, arranged as though they were flying or scattering in all directions, swayed gently, exuding a chill that crawled under the skin.

At the gate, more than a dozen half-monsters played drums and reed instruments in a human fashion, welcoming the demons and sinister cultivators invited to the banquet by King Jin Cai.

Qi Xiu mingled behind a group of demon cultivators in Daoist robes, narrow-eyed, constantly flicking their tongues outward.

These Daoist monsters came from a place called White Dew Temple.

Like Wu Changqing, who coveted the property of the Qian family, they had once been human, but through cultivating dark arts their bodies had become warped and their minds twisted.

Little by little, they had fallen into depravity and become evil cultivators who kept company with demons and monsters.

“White Dew Temple’s Longmingzi, bringing the disciples here to celebrate King Jin Cai’s birthday. This is our gift.”

At the city gate, the leader of the Daoist monsters produced that bone invitation.

Then, from his robes, he drew out a white porcelain bottle.

“These are Golden Blood Pills refined from the heart blood of ninety-nine prime men.”

The toad half-demon greeting them took the invitation and porcelain bottle, examined them, then turned and said a few words to the half-demon behind him, who recorded everything in the register.

And there was to be a birthday gift as well?

As the Daoist monsters began filing into the city, Qi Xiu had a flash of inspiration and took a porcelain bottle from his own bag.

“A lone cultivator named Empty Voidzi has come to offer King Jin Cai his birthday congratulations. This is our gift: Heaven-Standing Golden Spear Pills.”

Taking the invitation and porcelain bottle, the half-demon gave Qi Xiu a suspicious look, opened the bottle, and sniffed once.

“Mmm!”

Feeling a surge of virility rise through him, the half-demon could not help but exclaim in a low voice:

“Good stuff! Go on in, please.”

“Much obliged, much obliged.”

Passing through the city gate, blackened as though scorched by a raging fire, Qi Xiu saw the scene before him and frowned, unconsciously clenching his fists.

The county town was a pitiful sight.

Thick smoke drifted through the streets; houses had been burned down or collapsed, and ruins were everywhere.

The shops on both sides had vanished without a trace.

Only a few broken signboards remained, swaying precariously.

What had once been a bustling city now held only screams and the low growls of demons and monsters.

The residents were forced to hide, their lives completely overturned.

No one dared set foot in the streets, for there the demons and monsters ran wild.

And on the street corner directly opposite Qi Xiu, a monster with a round belly and a body covered in rotting sores sat cross-legged on the ground, gnawing on half a corpse.

He laughed as he ate, with severed limbs and blood caught between his teeth.

He seemed to be having the time of his life.

Suppressing the urge to blast the half-monster into minced flesh with one palm strike, Qi Xiu stepped forward.

Beneath his feet came the constant sticky hiss of something wet.

A living hell!

Though he had imagined the county seat of East Reed would be a gruesome sight, seeing it with his own eyes still filled Qi Xiu with such shock that he felt sick.

“Honored guests, this way please. Today is the early feast. By order of the king, the guests are to sample the fresh offerings first. Tomorrow, when the main banquet begins, everyone will be able to feast to their hearts’ content.”

As he reached a long, crowded row of shacks, an enthusiastic call rang out. The moment Qi Xiu stopped, an eerie, meaty aroma hit him so strongly it almost made his nose grease over.

Inside those crude thatched shelters, dozens of toad half-monsters wielded knives and rapidly dismembered corpses, sending the carved meat to the back.

They fried, sautéed, simmered, braised, and stewed.

Using all manner of methods, they turned the flesh into dishes that made the gathered demons and fiends salivate uncontrollably.

Behind those shacks, fur and bones mingled with the discarded scraps; countless green-headed flies danced happily, white maggots writhed freely, and streams of blood gathered into a small brook, blending with the filth on the ground and spreading in all directions.

Silently watching those demons who laughed wildly, cursed incessantly, and snatched at the bloody food, Qi Xiu’s face remained expressionless, though the energy within him roiled fiercely.

Dragon and tiger roared; yin and yang surged.

Several times he even reached toward the pouch at his side, tempted to take out the whole basketful of talisman slips and iron plates.

Forcing down the multicolored cord on his wrist as it strained like a horse gone wild, Qi Xiu turned and left, doing his utmost to calm the storm in his heart.

Just wait a little longer. Just a little longer.

If he acted now, he could only kill a portion of them. It would be a drop in the bucket.

If he was going to strike, then not one must be left alive.

Yes.

Not one left.

...

End of chapter.