Demon

Demon

Mei seemed utterly unaffected. Even with its entire body aflame, it maintained its original pace, making everyone feel as though Sorcery Arts had no effect on it at all.

But after a few breaths, the situation changed.

Wrapped in flames, it suddenly collapsed, shattering into sand scattered across the ground. Sparks flew in all directions, and its humanoid outline vanished. One moment it had been a threatening Evil Spirit; the next, it was nothing more than a true empty shell.

"This... worked?"

"The enemy doesn't seem all that scary..."

"Let me try!"

That immediate, visible success greatly bolstered the examinees' morale.

Flying Flower Flame was no profound Sorcery Art. As one of the introductory Li Techniques, many people could perform it; they simply lacked Fei Nian's range and power.

But they were standing atop the "city wall," which stood five or six meters high even at its lowest point. Combined with Mei's incomparably sluggish movements, it had no way to deal with them as they slowly performed their arts. Once they gained the psychological advantage, everyone's movements as they took out medicinal ingredients became much smoother, and the tense atmosphere eased considerably.

Fei Nian did not linger either, heading straight for the North Wall—his purpose was clearly to break the deadlock and demonstrate to the examinees how to eliminate Evil Spirits.

"Not bad at all, that guy," Xia Fan praised. Though the two were competitors, he had to admit that this move had been beautifully executed. In the Proctor's eyes, it would undoubtedly earn him major points.

"Taking half the day over a single Li Technique—what's so impressive about that?" Seeing that Mei's threat was limited, Zhang Yan became more animated as well. "What he can do, my arrows can do too."

With that, he drew an Iron Arrow, pulled back his bow, and fired at a more distant Mei—

Xia Fan realized that was no empty boast. Though each target needed to take several arrows before falling, the short bow excelled in speed. In the time it took to perform one Triple Technique, Zhang Yan could fire four or five arrows. In terms of efficiency alone, he was not much worse than Fei Nian.

The others followed suit, launching their counterattack against Mei. For a time, the West Wall was bustling with activity.

The sheer number of Li Techniques filled the air with a scorched stench. Mei continued to appear in an endless stream, yet not one could reach the foot of the "city wall."

At this rate, enduring one night did not seem so difficult.

"So this is the Great Desolation Evil Night? I'd say it's nothing much," someone said.

"Don't underestimate it! This used to be a catastrophe that turned thousands of miles into red earth."

"You said it yourself—it used to be. Not to mention how much Sha Qi has dispersed over the past century, Sorcery Arts alone have advanced by more than a little."

That argument immediately won the agreement of quite a few people.

"Exactly, exactly. They're so slow that even without this wall, there's no way these things could catch up and bite me, right?"

"After all, the great families' records are decades old. A few discrepancies would be perfectly normal."

"If we'd known this earlier, we wouldn't have needed to build this damned fortress at all. At most, a Bonfire Platform would have been enough."

Laughter immediately rippled across the West Wall.

Xia Fan did not take it to heart. He even smiled along—so long as he passed the examination, the process did not matter to him. But when he looked toward Luo Tang, he found her expression frighteningly grave.

"What's wrong? Isn't everything going smoothly? Dealing with Evil Spirits from atop the wall is better than hiding beneath a Dry Well, isn't it?"

She was silent for a moment before replying, "Your plan is indeed good, but I've been wondering why Luo Qingqing stressed so strongly that we had to fight within the range covered by firelight, and what she meant when she said, 'Once they lose the illumination of firelight, Mei's danger will rise sharply.'"

"You don't know?" Xia Fan asked in surprise. "Aren't you a disciple of the Luo Family too? If so, what you learned should be more or less the same."

Luo Tang gave him an incredulous look. "Who told you that? Luo Qingqing is one of You Province's rare geniuses. How could the Luo Family possibly teach her alongside ordinary disciples? No matter how great a family's background, its manpower and resources are limited. How could every disciple be treated equally? Not even the Bureau of Military Affairs can manage that."

All right, it seemed he had made another common-sense mistake. Xia Fan coughed twice. "Uh... then what did you notice?"

Luo Tang did not answer immediately. Instead, she asked, "The place where we found the pile of bones was five li farther than the location you mentioned. At Mei's speed, how long do you think it would take them to reach Qingshan Town?"

The answer was self-evident.

Even Sorcerers needed most of a day to cover that distance. For this pack of Evil Spirits, it would probably take four or five days. Considering that they could not move during the day, the time would likely have to double again.

"They don't necessarily have to revive where they died, do they? They're not Earth-bound Spirits." Xia Fan pondered. "Since Evil Night is formed from malignant qi, it seems reasonable enough that Mei within an Evil Night would leave no trace and appear wherever they please."

"Wherever they please?" Luo Tang's serious expression seemed to waver for an instant. She barely managed to control it. "Fine, let's say you have a point. But look over there."

As she spoke, she raised her finger and pointed toward a house in the northwest.

It stood at the end of the street. Since it was far from the "fortress," the demolition team had not completely leveled it, leaving it roughly one story high. Its diagonal position from the town's well meant the torches could not illuminate it completely, and a broad swath of shadow stretched behind and beside it.

Xia Fan narrowed his eyes and stared for a long while before adapting to the darkness.

And at that very moment, every hair on his back stood on end!

When Mei passed through the shadows, their speed suddenly increased severalfold. Their originally stiff motions became like a scene fast-forwarded; in the blink of an eye, they moved from behind the house to the open ground in front of it. Only upon reentering the illuminated area did they return to their "normal" advancing posture.

No—how Mei moved in the shadows was their true normal speed!

The torchlight was like nails, pinning them in place.

In an instant, Xia Fan understood Luo Shang's gravity.

Their advantage rested entirely on flickering, unsteady firelight. As Evil Night continued, the illuminated range would inevitably shrink further. Once they lost the protection of firelight, it was hard to say whether the examinees could even perform one complete Sorcery Art before Mei. And if the defensive line opened even a single breach, the consequences would be unthinkable.

He finally understood why Yong State had been so badly devastated by a single Great Desolation Evil Night.

In an age without electricity, no matter how prosperous a city was, most of it would be swallowed by night once the sun set. Faced with Mei moving without obstruction, ordinary people likely would not even have room to fight back. If the interior could not be defended, towering city walls were nothing but decoration. Remote villages and small towns were even less worth mentioning; oil lamps and candles were not necessities of life, and one could scarcely see a glimmer of light at a glance. Their fate was easy to imagine.

In other words, the less developed society was, the stronger these Evil Spirits became.

As for this place, Xia Fan could only hope that every group would take good care of its own torches.

"Qingshan Array was said to be the most difficult Scholar Examination, and when it was last opened, it claimed thirty percent of the participants, forcing the Bureau of Military Affairs to admit fault. Is this all it amounts to?"

On the roof of a house at Qingshan Town's outer edge, two members of the Examination Supervision Group and a Proctor stood against the wind, gazing toward the firelit center of town. Their figures seemed hidden within the night, difficult to distinguish from even a slight distance away. Though Mei occasionally passed beneath their feet, not one ever noticed the three of them.

The first to speak was still the short man. Since receiving news that the Wooden Kite had been burned and all examinees had been forced to remain behind, he had requested to observe the candidates' performance at close range. Shen Chun knew, however, that the other man had mainly come for the examinee named Xia Fan.

To be honest, Shen Chun was also astonished that things had suddenly turned out this way. The string of reports that came back on the sixth day had nearly left him unable to take them in, even overturning his understanding of events—for his own ends, Xia Fan had dared risk falling out with the Luo Family and set fire to the Wooden Kite; when all examinees were stranded in town, he had then cooperated with the Luo Family to propose a plan to jointly defend against the Great Desolation Evil Night; Qingshan Town had been remade, the houses built by the Bureau of Military Affairs demolished almost to pieces, and a small fortress had risen in its center overnight. Every one of these changes had stemmed from a single person. Most absurd of all, the Luo Family had actually accepted Xia Fan's approach instead of pinning all blame on him.

If Shen Chun had not known this man's origins like the back of his hand, he might have suspected that this Scholar Examination included another great family surnamed Xia, besides the Fei, Luo, and Fang families.

Judging by Lord Ba Xingtian's rather emotional yet deeply appreciative expression, such twists and turns probably had not appeared in the Scholar Examination for a very long time.

Only the short man still seemed somewhat dissatisfied. "I thought such a large group of Evil Spirits would at least have them running around like headless flies for a while. But after watching this long, that Xia Fan does not seem to have made a move at all?"

"Qingshan Array is not limited to this level. Rather, he made Qingshan Array become this level." Ba Xingtian stroked his beard with satisfaction. "The Bureau of Military Affairs has also designed several examination grounds requiring cooperation to clear, but the results were never ideal. We have never seen all the examinees huddle together as one like this. Such calculation and decisiveness, such a grasp of human hearts—he absolutely deserves to be called one in ten thousand. If he can achieve this much, why would he need to act personally? The Bureau of Military Affairs has as many people skilled in arts and Talismans as it needs."

"That makes sense, but you know as well as I do that what I intend to do hangs by a thread. There will inevitably be times when I must personally brave danger. Calculation alone may not be enough for the job."

Those cryptic words immediately stirred Shen Chun's curiosity, but the icy look Ba Xingtian cast his way quickly made him abandon any further thoughts.

At least one thing was now certain to him.

This short man was absolutely not a Proctor in the true sense.

His identity was likely far more complicated than Shen Chun had imagined.

What Shen Chun could not understand was that although the short man spoke of a matter that could send a thousand junks hurtling down a single thread, there was not the slightest heaviness in his tone. Instead, he sounded remarkably lighthearted, as though he were enjoying it.

"Testing him is not difficult." Ba Xingtian took a peculiar Talisman from his robes. Unlike the Curse Talismans written in cinnabar, its strokes were purple and emitted a faint, lustrous glow, as if it were alive. "Proctors have the authority to control and adjust the examination process. Adding some difficulty naturally falls within that authority."

As his words fell, the Talisman turned into flying ash and scattered away. The distant mist abruptly thickened, and then the more than ten newly appeared Mei no longer advanced blindly. Instead, they gathered into a single mass, forming a black shadow whose body swelled several times larger!