Slaying a Genius Demon

The goat demon slashed open a large water vat with one claw and found a new person in hiding—a fat little boy.

The goat demon used the same method, swallowing his heart whole once again.

In the blink of an eye, one person after another hiding in the shadows was found.

It was as if it possessed heavenly sight; no matter where people hid, it could find them at once.

Every movement it made meant another person's death.

After killing five people in succession, it stopped. It seemed to think there was no one else hiding here and slowly began leaving the courtyard.

Inside the hidden space behind the wall, a woman around thirty and an elderly man in his sixties did not dare make the slightest sound.

Even though they knew there was no movement outside and that the demon might have already left, they still did not dare emerge from the hidden space.

Still, compared to before, the tight knot in their hearts had loosened considerably.

Suddenly.

A strange laugh drew near from afar.

Bang!

The wall shattered, exposing the two people in the hidden space.

"I almost forgot there are still two bugs here!" The goat demon withdrew its claws and licked its lips.

The two stared at the demon in terror, feeling as though their entire bodies had been frozen in place.

"Mother!"

The cry drew the goat demon's gaze toward Chu Jiang and the girl rushing over.

"Yan'er, don't come over!"

The woman cried out anxiously. Seeing Chu Jiang beside the girl, her face filled with despair.

She had told Yan'er to escape in secret, yet Yan'er had fled the tiger's den only to enter the Wolf's Den.

In her eyes, Chu Jiang was in league with the demon.

He had captured Yan'er and brought her here as an offering to the demon. At the thought of her daughter's fate, her heart twisted as if carved by knives.

The goat demon's expression turned cold, though a flicker of doubt rose in its heart. That guy should have been dealt with by that slovenly pig—how was he still alive?

Very quickly, its pupils contracted.

"Chu, did you kill that slovenly pig?"

Chu Jiang's silence made the goat demon even more certain.

"I admire your courage. In all these years, you are the first!" The goat demon slowly turned its head, its gaze settling on Chu Jiang.

"Then, that is my honor?" Chu Jiang replied coolly, impossible to tell whether he was praising or mocking it.

Hmph!

The goat demon leisurely lifted the two people, a sly smile curling across its lips. "Do you want them to live? I can hand them over to you!"

"But..."

Chu Jiang said blandly, "What do you want?"

The goat demon said excitedly, "Very simple. Let us play a game!"

"If you win, I will let them go and leave the village."

"How about it?"

Chu Jiang looked at the goat demon. The original owner of this body had dealt with it several times.

He had reached one conclusion.

The goat demon was deceitful by nature. It loved nothing more than to toy with humans, making them play games of its own design.

Watching humans struggle was its greatest pleasure.

The more humans struggled and resisted, the more excited it became.

"I do not care in the slightest whether those two live or die, but..."

"I am quite interested in your game!"

Chu Jiang sheathed his long blade, a faint, nearly imperceptible smile on his face.

Yan'er's pupils shrank at Chu Jiang's words, and countless thoughts sprang up in her heart.

She was very smart.

Rather than scream and shout, she carefully retreated to one side.

This was Lord Chu and the demon fighting wits.

The goat demon cried out excitedly, its eyes sinking into madness. With a toss of both hands, it casually flung the two people away like rag dolls.

"I appreciate you. At last, someone is interested in my game."

"I like people who join the game willingly. Those forced to participate can bring me pleasure too, but how could that compare to the pleasure brought by willing participants?"

"If the game succeeds, it may not be impossible for me to let you advance another step!"

Chu Jiang showed a doubtful expression. "I just killed a demon—your kind—and you still want to let me advance another step?"

The goat demon said carelessly, "I had long found that slovenly pig unpleasant to look at. Such a crude fellow, eating people without the slightest elegance. His death only proves he was trash, fated to die."

"Enough. Now let us talk about the game!"

Right now, its eyes held nothing but the game. Clearly, it did not want to say more on that subject.

Its eyeballs spun wildly, and a strange smile appeared on its face, as though it were brewing a terrifying game.

"Listen carefully. The rules are as follows. I will say them only once..."

"First..."

"Second..."

"..."

The goat demon was immersed in the game it had created and could not help sighing. Such a magnificent game was something that herd of pig-headed fools would never understand in their lifetimes.

Before they knew it, the goat demon and Chu Jiang had their arms around each other's shoulders. Anyone unaware of the truth might have thought they were blood brothers.

Just as the goat demon's eyes grew unfocused and it was about to state the final rule, its pupils suddenly contracted, as though gripped tight by an invisible force.

In an instant, a long blade streaked through its brow like lightning and plunged deep into its goat head, as if it would tear its soul apart as well.

Hiss... crack...

Yet that goat head was abnormally hard, more than three or four times tougher than the pig head.

Chu Jiang gripped the blade with both hands and twisted it wildly. Brain matter gushed from the goat demon's brow and the back of its head, while black-red blood sprayed everywhere.

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

Though the long blade had pierced straight through the goat demon's brain, it strangely had not died. It struggled desperately without pause, fighting back with every ounce of strength.

Blood bubbled from its mouth as it repeated two words in broken fragments.

"Ga... me..."

After struggling for several full minutes, the goat demon died with its eyes wide in fury, consumed by extreme unwillingness.

It had to be said that the goat demon's vitality was truly tenacious.

That was also why Chu Jiang had been cautious. The goat demon was far stronger than the pig demon.

He had to strike when it was unprepared, catching it off guard.

After the goat demon died, a dense mass of black qi drifted from its corpse and swiftly vanished.

"Resentful qi!"

Chu Jiang stared fixedly at that mass of black qi, one brow lifting slightly.

Just how unwilling had this demon been to produce such dense resentful qi?

Though the original owner had been scum, during his first few years of cultivation, he had behaved normally enough and read some records on demons in the Demon Hunting Office.

Once a demon's head was destroyed, it was generally considered completely dead.

The emergence of resentful qi was an extremely rare phenomenon.

It did not mean that resentful qi signified a demon's resurrection. After several decades or even a century, the resentful qi might cultivate into form and become a new demon.

Whether it would awaken memories of its previous life, however, was left to fate.

The books recorded that only one out of ten would awaken memories of its former self.

Chu Jiang smiled. This goat demon had truly been obsessed with the game it had created for him. Before death, it did not care about its own life at all; it only cared about its game.

For this goat demon, it could be said that it died with eyes that would not close.

Still, putting that aside, this goat demon really was a genius.

That game it had just described was, upon careful consideration, truly brilliant.

It could exchange some ideas with the designers of Blue Star's escape rooms.

Killing this goat demon had been an absolute windfall.

[Void Rank goat demon, one foot into Nether Rank, extremely intelligent, genius-type demon, cultivated for twenty-three years, remaining lifespan: one hundred and eighty years]

[Demon Lifespan: one hundred and eighty-nine years]

[Own Lifespan: ten years]

This goat demon was vastly stronger than that pig demon.

The pig demon's talent was nowhere near this goat demon's. After cultivating for only twenty-three years, it was already several times stronger than the pig demon. It was unquestionably a genius-class demon.

And with the death of the final demon, the village fell into deathly silence, as though time itself had stopped at that moment.