Is Lady Shen Dead?

"Devil!!"

Tang Biao cried out in alarm, his heart jolting.

"How could a devil appear in the Divine Strategy Manor of the Great Cang Holy Land?!"

In an instant, hundreds of Divine Strategy students sprang to their feet, every face changing color.

This was the Divine Strategy Manor!

The devils' insolence had once again crossed their bottom line.

"Prison Devils?"

Qi Lin was so close to the monstrous devil fog that its sinister, savage presence affected his mind, making his expression change at once.

A devil had come!

And not an ordinary devil, either. It had to be an extremely powerful one!

How would an ordinary devil dare set foot in the Divine Strategy Manor?

This was more than insolence.

It was yet another humiliation!

Bang!

At that instant, the young empress beside him sprang to her feet and headed for the platform.

Qi Lin saw at a glance that her eyes were bloodshot, her face filled with boundless hatred!!

She hated them so much that her whole body trembled!

But in the next instant, the two women in black and white behind her seized the young empress by the shoulders, one on either side.

"Kill them!"

The young empress stared at them, hatred in her eyes as well.

And that hatred finally made Qi Lin understand: neither of these two women was a trusted confidante of hers.

"Divine Grace has given an order."

"We are only to protect you."

The two women in black and white spoke one sentence each, their emotionless words surging into Qi Lin's ears like a cold wave.

Hum!

Instead of advancing, they retreated.

In a single instant, they dragged the young empress in her fiery-red imperial robe out of the Hall of Law Enforcement and vanished.

"Save..."

The echo of Huangxi's voice, laden with boundless hatred, still lingered in Qi Lin's ears.

There was so much fury and unwillingness in that echo!

"Protect the students!"

Martial instructor Xiao Mo let out a thunderous roar, shaking all four walls of the Hall of Law Enforcement.

"Get out of the Hall of Law Enforcement!"

There was no need for the warning. The Divine Strategy students near the entrance had already rushed out.

Devil Qi filled the sky. Who knew how many devils had come?

The Divine Strategy Manor was the future of the Great Cang Kingdom. Geniuses of every clan studied here, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong. Thus, this was the most heavily guarded place in the country, and outsiders were rigorously searched on entering and leaving.

"Who on earth was deranged enough to bring the Boundless Flag into the Hall of Law Enforcement?"

Qi Lin was closest to the platform. The devil fog swept over his face, as though countless venomous insects were gnawing at his flesh.

"Xiao Qian of the Xiao Clan, a punishment master of the Law Enforcement Hall!"

Qi Lin saw a woman in a white dress standing near him. She was not afraid of the devil fog at all... With Prison Devils attacking, she was smiling!

Her smile was so smug, so mocking.

She must have been the one who placed the Boundless Flag!

A member of the Xiao Clan, a major devil-exterminating clan, and a punishment master who enforced the kingdom's laws in the Divine Strategy Manor, had openly committed this most forbidden act, luring Prison Devils into the Hall of Law Enforcement!

Fire suddenly blazed in Qi Lin's eyes.

No wonder the young empress had been so full of hate just now.

"Qi Lin, hurry!"

In that terrifying moment, a large hand suddenly seized Qi Lin's arm and pulled him toward the exit.

It was Tang Biao!

All the other Divine Strategy students were fleeing for their lives. He alone was going against the flow.

"Lady Shen is still on the platform!"

As Tang Biao dragged him along, Qi Lin looked back, his eyes trembling.

Amid the raging devil fog, he saw a figure in pale yellow heading down from the platform.

Rumble!

But just as she was about to break through the encirclement, streaks of purple lightning erupted along the edge of the platform, forming a wall of lightning.

"A forbidden spell!"

Tang Biao dragged Qi Lin to the entrance and looked back, crying out in alarm.

The figure in pale yellow struck the lightning wall and was hurled back onto the platform, where the devil fog raged. Electric currents ran over her body, tearing open her flesh in bloody wounds.

"Who cast that forbidden spell?!"

Smoke seemed to rise from Tang Biao's eyes.

As he shouted in anger, Qi Lin saw ten powerful Xiao Clan elders standing in a row beneath the platform. Electric serpents surged from their hands and struck the lightning wall.

It was plain to see who had cast the forbidden spell!

At that sight, the world before Qi Lin's eyes fell deathly silent in an instant!

Xiao Qian, Xiao Mo, and the others wore crazed smiles.

Yet Xiao Qian put on a mournful voice. "Quick! Seal this place off! Don't let the devils harm the students!"

"Lady Shen is still inside!" Xiao Mo said "piteously."

"There's no time..."

Xiao Qian cried out mournfully even as she laughed wildly, her face utterly twisted.

How could Qi Lin and Tang Biao fail to see through such a deranged performance?

"Xiao Clan!!"

Blood-red veins surged through Qi Lin's eyes.

This clan's ugliness had long since made him hate them to the bone. Seeing their despicable conduct again today, he found they had crossed yet another bottom line.

"Don't go! They've harmed Lady Shen, so they'll deal with you right away. Hurry and leave!"

Tang Biao had no choice but to hold him back with both hands.

And in the next instant!

Wave after wave of suffocating, fiendish devil presence descended upon the Hall of Law Enforcement.

On the platform, amid the spreading devil fog,

towering black-and-red figures emerged from its depths.

Scales, bone spurs, blood-red eyes, fiery mist... and hideous blue faces with fangs!

There were more than ten of them!

Each stood half again as tall as a person, their bodies of flesh and blood fierce and violent. An adult looked like a child before them.

Every devil in the group exuded a terrifying presence. There was not a weakling among them.

"Yang Devils..."

Shen Xintang rose to her feet, the forbidden spell's electric currents still lingering on her body.

She looked impassively at the dozen or so towering, bloody black-and-red figures, and at the cold, mocking smiles beneath their hideous fangs.

Then she looked back at the ten Xiao Clan members below the platform, who had joined forces to trap her there with a forbidden spell!

"Xiao Qian..."

Through the devil fog, Shen Xintang and Xiao Qian met each other's eyes.

Xiao Qian smiled a radiant smile and said, "What a pity. Just like the late emperor, you're going to become a disgrace to the human race of Great Cang."

Shen Xintang looked at her calmly, then suddenly gave a cold laugh.

"Waiting for Fu Yun?" Xiao Qian's smile grew even more mocking. "That man has no background and no ability. You're willing to wait for a man like him? You really aren't picky about what you eat."

Shen Xintang laughed coldly again.

"Lady Shen is a devil-banishing master. She has the Demon-Slaying Blade, Begonia. She can surely hold out until reinforcements arrive..."

Tang Biao said this to persuade Qi Lin as well: they really had to leave!

But...

Just as he finished speaking...

Puchi!

A devil blade stabbed into Shen Xintang's abdomen and pierced through her back.

Blood spilled all over the ground!

The one who struck was the tallest Yang Devil.

"Lady Shen, why aren't you fighting back?"

the Yang Devil asked with a sinister grin.

"Shen Xintang, the great Ten Thousand Demon Slayer, is this useless?"

Below the platform, Xiao Qian stared at the pale-yellow dress now dyed completely red with blood and froze for a moment.

Rip!

The Yang Devil pulled out the devil blade. Shen Xintang spat out a mouthful of blood, and the light vanished completely from her eyes!

But no one saw the trace of mockery that still lingered on her face...

"Let all the devil-banishing masters of the Great Cang Kingdom understand: this is what awaits them!"

The Yang Devils roared with laughter inside the Hall of Law Enforcement.

Thud!

Tang Biao collapsed to the ground, his face devastated.

"Why?"

"Why didn't Lady Shen fight back?!"

"She has a Demon-Slaying Blade! With her temperament, no matter the circumstances, she would have fought the devils to the death!"

"Why was she so strange today...?"

Tears poured down Tang Biao's face as he wept aloud.

"Let's go."

Qi Lin turned and walked out through the gates of the Hall of Law Enforcement.

Rumble!

Outside, countless thunderbolts were already flashing across the dark sky.

Rain poured down like a waterfall,

swallowing the mortal world.