Demon Subjugation

Night fell.

As the sun's last wisp of afterglow sank beneath the earth, a frigid winter night descended upon the remote Wu Village.

Every household had long since bolted their doors and windows, retreating into their homes and wrapping themselves in quilts. The entire village lay silent, without the faintest glimmer of firelight. Aside from clan head Wu Qu's family, practically no one could afford to burn charcoal for warmth, and even Wu Qu's household rarely indulged in such extravagance.

After seeing his mother, Liu Shi, settled down to rest, Wu Ming returned to his own room. He removed his old clothes and wrapped himself in his quilt. There was not much cotton in it, and it could hardly be called thick; even beneath it, he could still feel threads of cold seeping through the winter night.

"If I cultivated a thread of Pure Yang Blood Qi, I wouldn't have to suffer this cold."

Wrapped in his quilt, Wu Ming exhaled a breath, then lay down to sleep.

In a haze,

he did not know how much time had passed when he suddenly heard someone calling his name.

"Brother Wu Ming, Brother Wu Ming..."

Wu Ming shifted groggily. The voice grew clearer and clearer, and his consciousness quickly sharpened. His expression tightened slightly. He knew that voice well and recognized it at once.

Wu Zhong?

What was he doing here in the middle of the night?

Almost no one went outside on a freezing winter night, especially when it was likely already deep into the night. Wu Zhong coming to find him at such an hour was highly unusual. Where there was something abnormal, there had to be a Demon. Without showing it, Wu Ming grabbed the firewood cleaver from beneath his bed, his body gradually tensing.

Wu Ming had not intended to answer, but after calling out twice, the voice outside began shaking the door. Though the door was braced from behind with a piece of wood, the rotten old wooden door could not stop much of anything. Even an eighty-year-old woman could have forced her way in.

"Wu Zhong, what are you doing?!"

Listening to the commotion, Wu Ming finally snapped in a low voice.

"Brother Wu Ming, you're awake."

Wu Zhong's delighted voice came from outside. "Get up, Brother Wu Ming! A roe deer slipped into the village. I can't catch it alone. Help me corner it, and we'll have meat to eat tomorrow!"

Hearing Wu Zhong's familiar tone and voice, Wu Ming detected nothing unusual and relaxed slightly. Yet he still gripped the cleaver tightly and asked in a low voice, "Tell me first—how old were you when you still wet your pants?"

"Brother Wu Ming, why are you asking that?!"

Wu Zhong's startled voice came from outside.

"Say it."

"Ei... eight."

Wu Zhong's tone was sluggish, as though he found it terribly embarrassing, but he still answered quietly.

Hearing Wu Zhong's reply, Wu Ming finally relaxed inside. He went to the door and peered outside through the crack. Beneath the moonlight, everything outside was silver-white. Wu Zhong stood in the doorway, and nothing appeared amiss.

"It snowed a few days ago. That stupid roe deer must have had nothing to eat in the mountains, so it ran into the village."

Wu Zhong continued speaking outside.

Wu Ming finally opened the door, hiding the cleaver behind his back with one hand as he asked in a lowered voice,

"Where's the roe deer?"

"It's... it's..."

Wu Zhong stood in the silver-white courtyard. Seeing Wu Ming open the door, his honest-looking face abruptly twisted and warped beneath the moonlight. His entire body rapidly shriveled, as though all moisture had been drained from it.

"...Right here!"

His skin was withered, and his mouth split open toward both sides as he lunged at Wu Ming.

Wu Ming reacted swiftly. He immediately stepped back and slammed the door shut, blocking Wu Zhong outside. But with a thud, Wu Zhong crashed into the door, and his shriveled body snapped apart and fell to the ground.

At the same time,

a surge of black qi burst from Wu Zhong's crown, passed through the rotten wooden door, and shrouded Wu Ming.

"What kind of ghostly thing is this?!"

A trace of horror appeared on Wu Ming's face. He had seen the miserable state of people attacked by Demons, and he had heard Wu Qu speak of them before. But in Wu Qu's descriptions, those monsters had merely been beasts with stronger bodies.

This thing before him, which had disguised itself as Wu Zhong, suddenly transformed, and poured out strange black mist, was far beyond his understanding.

Swish.

Though it had happened suddenly, Wu Ming moved quickly. He immediately gave up bracing the door and retreated, flipping out the cleaver in his hand and hacking wildly ahead.

Yet the cleaver was utterly useless against the black qi. Despite his slashing, the black qi remained unhindered as it rushed toward him, seemingly intent on burrowing into his body.

At that perilous moment,

countless thoughts flashed through Wu Ming's mind. At the brink of life and death, he ruthlessly forced his Blood Qi throughout his body into motion, bit through the tip of his tongue, and sprayed a mouthful of blood forward.

"Pure Yang subdues Demons, shatters evil, and slays delusion!"

He vaguely remembered Wu Qu once saying that although Demons ran rampant in this world, the Pure Yang martial path could cut down every Demon. Pure Yang Blood Qi was the bane of Demons and ghosts.

Sizzle, sizzle!

As Wu Ming's mouthful of blood sprayed out and splattered across the black mist, it finally had some effect. The entire cloud of black mist hissed like water dripping into a pan of boiling oil.

"It worked."

"But... it doesn't seem to be enough..."

Watching the scene before him, Wu Ming felt no joy at all. In his sight, that mouthful of blood merely stalled the black qi for an instant before it rushed at him again as though ignoring it.

Pure Yang Blood Qi could clearly deal with this strange black mist, but his realm was far too low. He had not truly condensed Pure Yang Blood Qi and had not even entered the first realm of martial cultivation. No matter how he stirred his Qi and Blood, he could not release it outward.

The next instant,

the black mist finally enveloped Wu Ming and drilled into him through the space between his brows.

Wu Ming's vision went dark, and he immediately lost control of his body. At the same time, the entire world in his sight abruptly changed. As heaven and earth turned upside down, he seemed to arrive in a boundless void. Before him, black mist roiled and spread, continuously expanding before transforming into a fiend with a green face and fangs!

The fiend towered between heaven and earth, its feet treading upon the sun and moon. A single glance at it brought suffocating pressure, making resistance nearly impossible. Even Wu Ming's thoughts slowed to a crawl.

"This is bad..."

Wu Ming felt every thought becoming immensely difficult to turn over. He instinctively realized that this evil thing formed from black qi likely intended to devour his soul and seize his body, yet he had no strength to struggle.

But,

just as Wu Ming's heart sank rapidly, a sudden change occurred.

Within that vast and endless void of consciousness, the enormous fiend, whose form was majestic and whose feet trod upon the sun and moon, suddenly froze in its savage green-faced, fanged visage. Then, a black sun abruptly rose within the void of consciousness, casting out ten thousand rays of black light!

"It's that?!"

Wu Ming's consciousness could not move, but when he cast his thoughts into the boundless nothingness, he saw an immense, limitless scroll covering the heavens and obscuring the earth, sweeping across the river of stars like a curtain of heaven hanging above the firmament.

It was none other than the Black Emperor's Demon Subduing Diagram, whose power he had never been able to borrow no matter how he tried!

At this moment,

with the invasion of the black-qi fiend, the diagram that had long rested silently in the depths of his mind seemed to awaken at last and finally changed. Upon the diagram, the Black Emperor's divine form, like a god or Buddha, had already been lifelike, but now it seemed to truly come alive, containing boundless majesty.

Its pair of eyes hung high in the ninth heavens and suddenly flickered, as though turning their gaze toward the enormous fiend in the void.

An incomparably human expression of terror and horror abruptly appeared on the fiend's huge green-faced, fanged visage. Its previous savagery and violence vanished in an instant. In extreme fright, it suddenly broke apart into rolling black qi, trying to flee this place.

Whoosh!

But the next moment, ten thousand zhang of dim light descended from the Demon Subduing Diagram, enveloping the black qi.

Outside.

Inside Wu Ming's room.

Swish! Swish!

A figure moved as swiftly as thunder, entering the courtyard after only several leaps. It was Wu Qu, clan head of Wu Village. With a single sweep of his gaze over the courtyard, his expression changed at once. Then he saw Wu Ming lying stiff and straight inside the house.

"Not good!"

"Pure Yang True Blood, shatter evil and subdue Demons!"

Wu Qu's expression was exceedingly grim. With a long howl, his body suddenly shook, and blazing Blood Qi surged from him, rushing into his right palm. His entire right hand immediately swelled and thickened, turning scarlet-red, with faint threads of blood even seeping from its surface.

With a flash, Wu Qu rushed into the room and pressed his large hand against Wu Ming's forehead.

Sizzle, sizzle!!

In an instant, hissing filled the air, accompanied by a shrill scream spreading from the void. Visible to the naked eye, a wisp of black demonic qi rapidly collapsed and dissipated upon touching Wu Qu's blood.

"Good, good..."

Seeing this, Wu Qu let out a slight breath of relief.

Though the evil thing had entered Wu Ming's body, not much time had passed. Moreover, Wu Ming practiced martial arts. While he had not condensed Blood Qi or crossed the threshold into martial cultivation, he had constantly trained in techniques to guide his Qi and Blood, so he was not entirely without resistance. He could still be saved.

Then,

Wu Qu turned his head and saw Wu Zhong's corpse outside the door, curled into a ball as though all its essence and blood had been drained, completely shriveled. His expression became ugly again.

Just then, another scream rang out. Wu Yu, having heard the commotion outside and finally unable to resist opening her door to look, saw the corpse in the snow before Wu Ming's door. She screamed in terror, finally waking the entire village.

Wu Village beneath the night was thrown into complete chaos.