Chapter Eighty-Four: The Hidden Hunter

A ceiling of dark clouds spread overhead, blotting out the sky.

Below, yellow-green demon mist churned like a vast ocean for ten thousand miles, waves raging violently.

Outside Eastward Reed County.

The King of Golden Fortune, riding a demonic wind and hurrying over, had barely touched down before he spotted the madwoman who had already come to harass him several times.

And this time, several figures stood beside her as well.

She had clearly brought help.

"Do you filthy concubine truly want to die that badly?"

He stepped forward, flesh rippling all over his body, and his copper-coin eyes fixed coldly on Jia Yufei across from him.

"Bold words. A toad that merely got lucky and picked up a magic artifact—do you really think yourself a true dragon now?

With a mixed-blood lineage like yours, at best you'd only amount to a Dao Initiate in this lifetime."

Beside Jia Yufei, a middle-aged man in a gray robe with an unremarkable face stepped out.

"Be sensible and release my young master, and we may yet spare your soul.

Otherwise, we will make your spirit utterly vanish, never to be reborn!"

"You are the mixed-blood one! Your whole family is mixed-blood!"

As though struck in a sore spot, the King of Golden Fortune suddenly went wild, croaking furiously. The shrill shockwave actually lifted a layer of earth from the ground.

"Miss, please step back. Do not let this beast harm you," the middle-aged man said with a slight bow.

"Be careful. Xing Shan is still in its hands," Jia Yufei said.

"Rest assured. We know what we're doing."

Stepping forward, waves of azure light began radiating from the middle-aged man's body.

That radiance was extraordinarily domineering. Once it flared, the surrounding demon miasma and fog rapidly scattered and faded, as though melting under blazing sunlight.

In no time, the area for several miles outside the county had returned to clarity, with not a trace of stench remaining.

Seeing the blue radiance ignite upon the middle-aged man, the King of Golden Fortune's expression changed drastically, and he cried out in alarm:

"Bone-Dyed Realm?!

Who are you?"

"The one who will send you into reincarnation."

With a faint smile, the middle-aged man took one step and vanished, instantly shifting to the King of Golden Fortune's front.

He thrust out a hand, and the azure light gathered over his palm.

Bathed in that brilliance, the King of Golden Fortune let out agonized screams, trembling madly as though he were about to melt within the light.

"A mere petty demon."

Just as the middle-aged man was about to shake his head and increase his power to eradicate this arrogant fiend in one stroke, a sudden warning rose in his heart.

Frowning, he swept his gaze across the scene and keenly detected something deeply hidden within the King of Golden Fortune's pained expression: a cruel, treacherous malice.

Not good!

Realizing something was wrong, he immediately retreated.

Boom!

The ground exploded. Countless clods of earth and shattered stones burst outward, smashing in all directions.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pity. So close."

Withdrawing a tongue absurdly long, the King of Golden Fortune had completely shed the fear and panic of a moment ago. He now sneered with a face full of cold malice.

"You..." The middle-aged man frowned at the demon before him, vaguely thinking of a very bad possibility.

"Hahahaha! If this king had no ability at all, how could I have escaped from the Zhu family?"

Laughing wildly, the King of Golden Fortune coiled his tongue and spat out a pearl shimmering with a faint silver light.

Its aura surged violently, quickly surpassing the limit of the Dao Initiate realm.

"Uncle Zhao, what is that silver pearl?" Jia Yufei asked, noticing the middle-aged man's grave expression.

"A demon treasure. Demons call it the remains of a holy ancestor. It is a flesh-and-blood pearl formed from the decomposed body of a great demon after death.

If a demon obtains one, it can forcibly raise its cultivation by one realm.

This toad may not truly be of mixed blood after all.

Otherwise it would not have such luck.

Not only did it pick up a magical item like the Essence-Gathering Treasure Pouch,

it also has a demon treasure in its possession.

Ordinary demons would never possess such fortune.

And it has even been personally pursued by the Zhu family.

It is likely that it awakened ancient blood and was discovered by the Zhu family, which is why they chased it so relentlessly.

Miss, if anything goes wrong later, you must place your own safety first.

When I tell you to run, you must run."

Hearing Zhao Shan's solemn tone, Jia Yufei's gaze grew heavy.

"Even you, Uncle Zhao, are no match for this demon?"

"It is not wholly impossible to fight, only that it still has Young Master Xing Shan in its grasp, so I am holding back.

Zhao Da, Zhao Er, Zhao San.

Later, the three of you will assist me with all your strength. We must try to capture this toad alive."

"Capture alive? Heh heh. Then this king would like to see who captures whom."

With a chilly smile, the King of Golden Fortune bent his legs backward.

His legs swelled several times over, veins bulging beneath the skin.

Thud!

The impact was deafening.

The ground caved in at once.

The King of Golden Fortune instantly smashed through the air, becoming a black streak that dragged a long tail of blazing force as it hurled straight toward Zhao Shan.

"Move!" Zhao Shan roared, and the four of them charged forward together.

...

Outside the county, battle shook the heavens.

Successive thunderous blasts rattled tiles and sent bricks and stones trembling loose, as though the entire county were about to be overturned.

Yet all of it failed to affect Qi Xiu, who was freely plundering within the city.

Holding his paulownia bamboo staff, Qi Xiu walked silently along the broad streets of the demon-occupied county. Whenever he encountered stray demons within the city, he raised a hand and sent out a streak of crimson sword qi.

He looked like a walking executioner.

Wherever he passed, demons fell screaming, bursting apart into slick, stinking heaps of severed limbs and organs.

"So this is that toad's lair."

He stopped before the King of Golden Fortune's old den.

Looking at the muddy, foul-smelling quagmire before him, thick with flesh and viscera and even two floating lengths of intestines, Qi Xiu prudently took two steps back.

After a moment of silent thought, he turned and dragged over two frog half-demons from a corner.

Pointing at the mire before him, he said, "Go. Fish out anything valuable in there, and I'll spare your lives."

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Having witnessed Qi Xiu slicing countless half-demons into pieces, the two frog half-demons nodded frantically and turned to dive into the quagmire to search for loot.

Under the threat of death, their efficiency was astonishing.

Before long, two copper chests, along with a pile of random objects already soaked and rotten from the mire, had been hauled up.

"Nothing else?" Qi Xiu asked the two frog half-demons, eyeing the retrieved items.

"Nothing else. We got it all," one of them said hastily, terrified.

"Very well. You've worked hard."

Smiling, Qi Xiu raised his hand and flicked out two blazing crimson sword lights.

Splat!

A nauseating spray of blood and gore burst through the air.

Two red lines ran from the crowns of the frog half-demons straight down, splitting them cleanly in two.

"You... you're breaking your word!" they cried in hatred and unwilling fury.

"I never swore anything, you idiots."

Ignoring the two half-demons, Qi Xiu turned his attention to the pair of copper chests before him.

He drew water from the dragon pool to wash the filth from their surfaces clean, then tapped the lid open with his bamboo staff.

Clang.

"Damn..."

Seeing what lay inside, Qi Xiu's pupils widened, and he could not help but exclaim in amazement.

The copper chest was packed full, neatly arranged with nearly fifty scrolls.

He casually picked one up and unrolled it.

Blazing Radiance Threefold Samadhi True Art.

He picked up another and opened it.

Heart Sutra of the Bright Zen Chant.

"A whole chest of true arts and scriptures. Did this toad rob the scripture library of some great sect or noble house?"

Not expecting such a massive harvest, Qi Xiu no longer wasted thought on it. He shut the copper chest, forcibly channeled his magic to widen the entrance of the dragon pool to its limit, and dumped the chest inside in one go.

"Hm? There are characters carved on the bottom of the chest. Zhu?"

Outside the county.

Boom!

The earth quivered violently. An utterly terrifying force caused dozens of meters around to collapse and split at once.

Broken ground surged like waves, while rising dust engulfed the four directions.

On the scarred earth, the King of Golden Fortune was left with only one arm. He panted heavily, one eyeball having been gouged out alive.

His bloated, corpulent body had been pierced with more than ten blood holes the size of bowls.

Half his intestines were spilling out through the ruined openings.

By contrast, Jia Yufei and the others were in no better condition.

Among the three young men, only Zhao Da was still standing.

The other two had already fallen. One had lost the lower half of his body, the other both hands.

All of them had more breath out than in, and were clearly on the brink of death.

Zhao Shan's entire body had been bathed in poison.

Not a single patch of good skin remained across his upper body.

A huge lump of flesh had swollen up on his back, and something seemed to be thrashing faintly inside it.

At this point, the only one still relatively intact was Jia Yufei.

Even so, her lower abdomen had been pierced through by the King of Golden Fortune's long tongue, and one could faintly see her pale spine and beating organs.

A mutual grievous loss.

"Heh heh heh. You human cultivators are nothing special after all. This round, I still win," the King of Golden Fortune said with a cold laugh, a triumphant look spreading across his bloodied face.

"You win? What, can you still move?" Zhao Shan said coldly.

His face had been completely ruined, leaving him ghastly as a demon, but he had fought the King of Golden Fortune the most and knew full well that this demon was already at the end of its strength. Forget fighting; it likely could not even take two steps.

"Heh heh heh, you fools. Have you forgotten where this is?

With a single order from me, over a hundred half-demons in the city can eat you alive!"

A cruel light rose in its lone eye, and the King of Golden Fortune mustered its strength, croaking loudly.

"Not good! Miss, you leave first!"

Seeing the change in expression on Zhao Shan's face, and knowing they had no strength left to fight, and that if a hundred half-demons truly swarmed out they would be helpless, Zhao Shan hurriedly urged Jia Yufei to flee.

"But Uncle Zhao, you..."

"Miss, have you forgotten what I just told you?"

"...All right."

Jia Yufei looked deeply at Zhao Shan, who stood blocking her path, then sighed softly. She turned, forced up a ray of red light, and swiftly departed toward the distance.

Seeing Jia Yufei retreat, Zhao Shan let out a breath of relief, then prepared to gather his final strength and perish together with the demon before him.

"Croak, croak, croak..."

"Croak your sister, you noisy beast."

A sudden slap landed hard on the back of the King of Golden Fortune's head as it screamed.

Qi Xiu, sleeves rolled up, walked unhurriedly into this battlefield, which looked as though it had been bombarded by heavy weapons.

"Who are you?"

Still dazed, the King of Golden Fortune rubbed the back of its head and stared blankly at the grim-faced man before it.

Faced with the demon's question, Qi Xiu smiled gently.

"Have you ever heard of the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind? I am but a humble oriole.

Also..."

His smile vanished in an instant. Sweeping the bamboo staff sideways, Qi Xiu unleashed a streak of sword light that severed the King of Golden Fortune's legs at once.

"You beastly bastard. When you're talking to me, get on your knees."