The figure before him was exceedingly illusory, yet the Demonic Qi around it was exceptionally dense.
"You're that demon?"
Zhao Huai narrowed his eyes, bent his sword fingers, and a Treasure Sword shot straight out.
Whoosh! The nameless Treasure Sword became a bolt of lightning, piercing toward the figure.
The gathered Demonic Qi dispersed, only to reappear before Zhao Huai.
Sword Flight was fast, but only in a straight line. Whenever it needed to turn, it required concentrated attention.
The battle suddenly shifted into close quarters. A furry, massive hand reached toward his crown.
Black Qi surged before his eyes and burrowed straight into his mind. Clearly, this Fox Demon wanted to use an Illusion Technique to control him.
"Hmph."
Zhao Huai sneered as the Soul-Subduing Mind Technique in his sea of consciousness abruptly activated.
His spiritual power turned into a great bell that rang dong, dong, instantly clearing his mind and making his heart as lucid as a mirror.
The black Qi could not come anywhere near him.
Only then did he clearly see the figure's appearance.
It was a monster with a fox's face and a human body, enormously brawny and covered in distinct muscles.
"Smash!"
Zhao Huai roared, clenched his fingers into a fist, and punched the monster.
The Ten Thousand Jin Strength in his arm erupted, and the power brought by Peak Intent was unmatched.
Competing in strength? He had nothing to fear.
A piercing sound tore through the air.
Boom! Boom!
Dong! Two waves of air blasted outward from the center, shaking the pair of stone lions standing at the entrance until they shattered.
"Peak Intent, activate!"
Zhao Huai muttered inwardly. His strength immediately doubled, and the force in his arm surged once more! Eight times the strength of his physical body was more than the other side could bear, and the fox-faced, human-bodied monster was sent flying with a single blow.
Whoosh! Just then, the Treasure Sword happened to sweep back. Zhao Huai flipped onto it and rode the sword forward. As the sword light turned, he became a streak of light and sped toward the fox-faced monster.
He sensed that the monster's strength was roughly at the eighth level of Qi Refinement, yet it was like an empty shell, devoid of life.
"Roar!"
The fox-faced monster grabbed shattered rocks from the ground and hurled them at Zhao Huai's face one after another. Its terrifying brute force made every stone fiercely lethal.
Zhao Huai stood atop his sword and flew forward. With Swift Walker's enhancement, his speed doubled. He could see every stone's trajectory with perfect clarity and easily evade them all.
The next moment, Zhao Huai leaped into the air and caught the sword in his hand.
As he turned, an imposing force suddenly formed before him.
In that instant, time itself seemed to freeze.
Sheathe the sword.
Zhao Huai gripped the cold iron. Heart, spirit, and Qi became one, condensing his Sword Momentum into a single point.
A wild gale instantly rose around him. Even the trees swayed, and everything on the street stirred as though frightened. This was the true Sword Drawing Technique.
"Slash."
A whisper, too faint to hear, sounded.
From the street corner ahead, the gale howled past like a locust plague sweeping through the land. A streak of Sword Qi shot skyward, bright as day.
Clang!
The sword's cry was crisp and pleasant. A white flash slashed across at waist height, stretching no less than ten meters, its commotion shaking the heavens and earth.
Even Yan Jing, within the Prefect's Residence, could sense this move as he watched the gale outside his window.
The wooden door rattled in the wind as an aura soared outside.
"What formidable power."
Yan Jing gazed into the air and muttered.
At that moment, an enormous, deep ravine appeared in the middle of the alley, impossible to ignore.
The monster at the center of the ravine slowly went still, its head separating from its body.
Only its torso remained, swaying precariously in the wind.
With a bang, it exploded into dust and scattered across the ground.
Zhao Huai silently sheathed his sword, without any joy on his face.
Because in his eyes, although the Demonic Qi on the monster before him was dissipating, it gathered again and left this place, vanishing from sight.
In other words, this was not the Fox Demon's true body, but another avatar.
The Fox Demon was not dead.
"A fox is still a fox—crafty to the bone. Every time she can't win, she changes tactics to confuse me."
Zhao Huai could basically conclude that this Fox Demon was no match for him.
But she was highly cunning. Rather than confront him head-on, she wanted to fight him with all manner of strange methods.
As the Demonic Qi dispersed, the human body before him was merely a Human Puppet Skin.
That so-called fox head was nothing more than something woven from straw.
Zhao Huai discovered something strange.
It was that every one of these Human Puppet Skins had no eyes.
The eyes on their faces were all kneaded from clay pellets.
Their gazes were hollow, their expressions devoid of light.
Seeing this, a flash of inspiration struck Zhao Huai.
"I think I know what Demons and Monsters' Many-Faced Divine Eyes means."
Zhao Huai suddenly understood.
After exchanging blows step by step, he had also figured out some of the Fox Demon's tricks.
Though this Fox Demon had a thousand faces, many puppet skins, and countless tricks, able to change skin and face at will, finding her would indeed be no easy task.
But there was one thing she could not imitate: eyes.
There was only one pair of real eyes.
Perhaps her eyes were her weakness.
As Zhao Huai pondered this, he checked the Divination Sign again.
At some unknown moment, misfortune and fortune had quietly reversed.
Divination Sign Three: At the greatly ominous residence, encounter demons and monsters. Demons and Monsters' Many-Faced Divine Eyes. On this journey, the guidance you receive is "fortune."
"So that's how it is. This is the key."
Zhao Huai smiled.
Seeing the fortune and misfortune before him finally reverse meant that his general direction was not wrong.
Suddenly.
A cloud of black mist swept swiftly through the sky, followed closely by a ball of azure light.
Moments later, the two lights collided, erupting with astonishing force.
The black and azure lights resembled two glowing stars, illuminating the firmament.
But very quickly, the azure light dimmed and fell like a shooting star.
"What is that?"
Zhao Huai looked toward the sky. Through the light, his eyes seemed to see a person.
The black mist high above did not linger. It turned into a gust of wind and swiftly vanished into the sky.
A thud sounded from the ground, as though something had fallen.
Zhao Huai rushed to the place where it had landed, which happened to be nearby.
As the smoke and dust cleared, he saw only a woman covered in blood, lying within a deep crater.
"It's her?"
Zhao Huai stepped forward and was greatly surprised when he saw the woman's face.
Because she was the green-clad woman he had encountered at the pawnshop! She was a disciple of an immortal cultivation sect and also a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator.
At that moment, the green-clad woman gripped her longsword tightly in her palm. Her brows were slender, her lips thin, and her exquisite face was deathly pale. Her eyes were closed, her delicate brows furrowed, and she wore an expression of immense pain.
Blood trickled from her mouth. Her green dress was torn in many places, and drops of blood stained her snow-white legs like blood-stained lilies, making her a heart-wrenching sight.
She was still weakly muttering.
Zhao Huai leaned closer, only then hearing what she was saying clearly.
"Demon... die..."
"Demon, die?"
Hearing those words, Zhao Huai murmured to himself and recalled the black mist from earlier.
He then looked at the green-clad woman's shattered body and sighed.
"I can't just stand by and watch her die."
He picked up the green-clad woman and slowly walked toward the prefect's residence.
Before you continue