Gazing at the fox demon's corpse, hacked into eight pieces.
The refined scholar stood frozen in place, trembling like a leaf.
No matter how hard he racked his brains, he couldn't understand
why two senior fox demons, whose strength rivaled the Demon King of Black Wind Mountain, had suddenly suffered such a crushing defeat.
And each had died more gruesomely than the other!
"Judging by the demonic baleful aura in that slash just now, and that familiar way of pursuing its target..."
"Gah—wasn't that Blood Claw's signature ability?"
"Could it be... he swallowed Blood Claw's demon core and learned Blood Claw's innate divine ability?"
"But with the frail body of a human, how could he digest it so quickly?!"
The refined scholar's brain overloaded. He was so terrified that he was practically losing his mind.
When Gu Cheng looked his way,
he didn't even think of running. He stood stock-still and gave a miserable laugh.
"Just what the hell are you, human or demon?"
"..."
His answer came in the form of a Blood Fiend Slash, cleaving through the air toward him.
Pfft—
Demonic blood sprayed everywhere!
The two halves of his body toppled in opposite directions.
Then they slowly reverted to their true forms, becoming two fat pig-demon corpses, just like the fat pigs slaughtered in the village for the New Year.
His death was much the same as his younger brother's.
Killed a peak Qi Blood Realm pig demon. Gained lifespan: two hundred and thirty-three years
Once everything had settled,
Gu Cheng waved away the blood blade in his hand, and the vicious, murderous aura around him faded with it.
He took off his beggar's clothes and pulled a fresh set from his storage pouch.
A rare trace of fatigue showed on his stern face.
Lately,
Gu Cheng had slain quite a few demons, but these two fox demons had been the strangest and most troublesome by far.
The sisters hardly seemed like demons at all. They were more like human cultivators, with a whole bag of flashy abilities.
If that white-clad fox demon hadn't been caught by that lightning talisman,
Gu Cheng would have had to work a lot harder to win in the end.
"But the talisman she used was strange..."
"Why does the intent of wind and thunder in it resemble the Wind Thunder Blade Technique so much?"
Ever since he had poured resources into the Wind Thunder Blade Technique until it reached Extreme Intent Realm,
Gu Cheng had vaguely sensed that this blade art was less a martial skill and more a spell.
What he'd heard from the fox demon this time only confirmed it further.
"Lightning arts? The Xu Family?"
"Judging by the fox demon's reaction, could the fox-demon lineage behind them be enemies of Xu Nianxue's family?"
Gu Cheng pondered for a moment, then decided to go back and ask Miss Xu about it.
After killing monsters, looting their corpses was key.
Gu Cheng carefully searched the battlefield.
He dug a demon core out of each fox demon and seized their storage pouches.
The two storage artifacts had little capacity, not even a fifth of the one Xu Nianxue had casually given him.
But they were packed with all sorts of things.
Aside from an assortment of odds and ends, the most valuable items were the talismans left over from the white-clad fox demon, along with various healing and restorative pills.
Even more delightfully,
Gu Cheng also found two Star Cloud Flowers in the yellow-clad fox demon's storage pouch. It seemed the vixen really wasn't the brightest.
On top of that, he'd also taken the yellow-clad fox demon's magic sword.
The sword was slender and elegant, its blade shimmering like a pool of autumn water. At a glance, it was clearly no ordinary weapon.
Gu Cheng sent his divine sense into it, and a keen sword aura immediately condensed along the blade, ready to strike. The young man couldn't help but marvel.
"As expected of demons from the heartland of Yunzhou. They've got so many good things on them."
"Meanwhile, that country bumpkin of a pig didn't even yield a demon core. What a disgrace..."
Gu Cheng looked thoroughly unimpressed, and his longing to leave the little backwater of Changle County grew stronger.
Then he packed all his spoils into his storage pouch and hurried away from the scene.
A gust of noisy autumn wind swept past.
The scattered corpses, the blood flowing freely, and the ruined buildings set ablaze by fireballs, belching thick smoke—
every one of them testified to the brutal battle that had taken place here.
About an hour later,
a group of people followed the smoke and cautiously made their way here.
At their head was a tall, strikingly beautiful woman in silver-white official robes.
It was none other than Lin Qingyan.
With the wolf demons no longer running rampant lately,
the patrol led by Centurion Lin had pushed its range of operations all the way to the vicinity of Black Wind Mountain.
But she had never expected
that a courtyard like this would be hidden at the foot of Black Wind Mountain.
Lin Qingyan led several subordinates over the fallen courtyard wall and into the yard.
As soon as they entered, they saw the pitifully mangled corpses of several demons.
"Th-these are fox demons?"
"Judging by their size, these two fox demons must be far above the ordinary Mortal Breaking Realm!"
"Besides the two great demon clans' Demon Kings, how could there be demons this powerful on Black Wind Mountain?"
Several Demon Suppression Bureau officers were instantly aghast.
But when they remembered that the two fox demons were completely dead, they couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
"Uh... could this have been the work of that 'Demon Hunter' again?"
one of the Demon Suppression Bureau officers asked quietly.
At that, the others paused.
Looking at the fox demons' gruesome deaths, which felt all too familiar, they swallowed nervously and nodded in unison.
Every person who accompanied Lin Qingyan on demon-slaying missions was an elite of the bureau, exceptionally skilled and courageous.
Yet when they sensed the lingering Blood Fiend blade aura on the fox demons' corpses, even these elites felt dread rise from the depths of their hearts!
If the residual force was this frightening, just how terrifying must the blade technique itself have been?
"It's only been a few days. How does that mysterious Demon Hunter seem even more savage and bloodthirsty now?"
The two female adjutants exchanged a glance, their eyes full of confusion and wariness.
Earlier, their superior had tasked them with investigating the Demon Hunter, but they hadn't managed to uncover a single useful detail.
Even Chen, the only person who'd ever had contact with him, had clammed up, refusing to reveal anything. He seemed deeply reluctant to discuss the man's identity.
Now that they thought about it,
could this benefactor, who had avenged Centurion Lin's father, be a demonic cultivator who had turned over a new leaf?
Had he chosen to slay demons and exterminate evil as a way to redeem himself
for the sins he had committed while serving the demonic sect in the first half of his life?
"..."
Lin Qingyan's willow brows knitted together as she stared at the two fox-demon corpses. Her delicate face was wreathed in frost, her expression as still as water.
After a brief silence, she gave her subordinates a stern order.
"Take these two fox demons' heads back and report this to Centurion Zhao!"
"Yes!"
The Demon Suppression Bureau officers answered in unison and sprang into action.
They placed the two fox heads on the accompanying cart and departed in a grand procession.
After the group had gone far away and vanished from sight,
two mysterious figures in black robes slipped out of a nearby thicket.
They looked around, first turning their gaze toward the direction Lin Qingyan and the others had gone,
then staring at the ruined, smoke-filled stronghold.
Their dark eyes were full of shock and bewilderment.
The two had been sent by their family head to bring a message to the two fox-demon ladies: their younger brother had fallen victim to the Demon Suppression Bureau.
Who could have guessed that as soon as they arrived,
they would witness people from the Demon Suppression Bureau carting off the heads of the two fox-demon ladies.
Well, that saved them the trouble of delivering the message.
The three siblings had reunited down below!
"Was the leader of that squad Centurion Lin? Did she really kill the two fox-demon ladies?"
"Damn it! I told the master ages ago that Lin Qingyan was trouble!
Unlike that old fox Centurion Zhao, she doesn't know how to keep her head down. Leaving her alive was bound to cause problems!"
"Can't be helped... hasn't the second young master always been infatuated with her?
Besides, the master said there was something strange about that woman. Even he couldn't see through her. If we made a move carelessly, we'd only alert the enemy."
"What do we do now? The two fox-demon ladies are dead. Who'll maintain the formation?"
"Ah, we'd better hurry back and report everything honestly. The plan has reached its most critical stage. We absolutely can't delay the master's great undertaking!"
The two men in black whispered among themselves.
Then their figures flickered and vanished like ghosts, as if they had never been there at all.
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