Slay! Level Up! Shadows Abound

As it spoke, the Bat Demon lowered its head and fixed Lu Yang in a dead stare with that seemingly tiny head of its.

"I'll remember you!"

"You were supposed to be sacrificial Blood Slaves, yet you dared resist! You've committed a grave mistake—you're as good as dead!"

Having said that, the Bat Demon actually ignored Lu Yang no longer, instead flapping its fleshy wings as it tried to flee into the distance.

"Hm?"

"Humans are cunning?"

"Wasn't there supposed to be only one Late Body Tempering warrior?"

"Sacrifice? Blood Slaves?"

Ripples suddenly stirred in Lu Yang's heart.

"I've reached the Body Tempering Seventh Level, and with the perfected Mountain Splitting Saber Art enhancing me, perhaps I'm what it calls Body Tempering peak."

"But my strength came from the system. I was never part of anyone else's calculations."

"Setting that variable aside, Captain Yan truly is the only Late Body Tempering warrior in our group."

"Could it be...?"

Thinking back to the ambush by those two Bat Demons, the timing and location had both been far too perfect.

It was as though they had already calculated that the group would enter this dense forest tonight.

If someone had not revealed their whereabouts, it would have been nearly impossible for those two Bat Demons to deliberately find such an ideal place for an ambush.

This deep night and lush forest were the most perfect hunting environment for Bat Demons.

Had it been daytime, or had they fought in open ground, those two "Big Gray Rats" would certainly still have posed an enormous threat, but they could never have wiped out the entire group.

"Our trip to Niushi Town was ordered by the Black Mountain County Yamen. It wasn't exactly a secret."

"Anyone with even a little intent could easily find out about it."

"It seems there may be a traitor among Black Mountain County's humans."

Lu Yang had lived two lives. Although his previous life had been in peaceful times, in an age of information explosion, he had read and watched no small number of works.

Compared to the "Lu Yang" of this life, trapped in a small corner like Black Mountain County, perhaps his horizons truly were broader.

Combined with the memories of this Demonic Chaos Era merging in his mind, he could more or less guess just how base human nature could become in a desperate situation.

"So long as the benefits are great enough, or the threats severe enough, forget selling out clansmen they've never met—even betraying beloved family and friends would earn, at most, the words: 'You'll have to pay more.'"

Though a hundred thoughts raced through his mind, Lu Yang's movements did not pause in the slightest.

No one knew how many more "Big Gray Rats" were hiding in this forest.

Bats had always traveled in swarms. There might be other Bat Demons nearby.

If he allowed this Bat Demon to escape and summon its friends, Lu Yang feared he would never make it out of this forest.

Therefore, this Bat Demon had to die!

As his blood and qi surged, Lu Yang kept exerting force beneath his feet, weaving through the forest as he closed in on the Bat Demon.

Fortunately, its fleshy wings had been struck repeatedly while fighting him and Captain Yan, greatly reducing its flying speed. Otherwise, if it had been determined to flee, there would have been nothing he could do.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Lu Yang's figure turned into a black shadow. Like an agile monkey, he leaped back and forth between the trees.

In just seven or eight breaths, the distance between Lu Yang and the Bat Demon had narrowed to around thirty feet.

"Not good!" The Bat Demon was greatly alarmed, and its body sped up several notches.

With a glance from the corner of his eye, Lu Yang reached out and grabbed a small tree in the forest, then kicked off with its force.

The trunk bent low beneath the pressure, then, like a slingshot, violently launched Lu Yang forward.

In a single rise and fall, Lu Yang rushed ahead of the Bat Demon.

"Rolling Stone Opens Mountain!"

Lu Yang gripped his saber in both hands and cleaved down in fury.

The Bat Demon was flying too fast to stop in time. Screeching, it plunged headfirst into the icy blade.

Its massive head rolled to the ground, while the Bat Demon's body continued to convulse.

Lu Yang opened the system panel:

[Host: Lu Yang]

[Realm: Body Tempering Seventh Level (0/7)]

[Martial Art: Mountain Splitting Saber Art (Perfect: (10/10)]

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[Experience Points: 9]

This Bat Demon had provided him with 9 Experience Points.

Clearly, it was several degrees stronger than the one that had died earlier.

"Ding! Detected that the host's Experience Points meet the conditions for a cultivation increase. Consume 7 Experience Points to raise cultivation?"

For someone as weak as he currently was, every bit of strength mattered greatly, so he did not hesitate for long.

"Raise it!"

A mass of invisible crimson light rose from the Bat Demon's corpse and merged into Lu Yang's body.

Lu Yang felt a warm surge within him, and his cultivation had already risen to the Body Tempering Eighth Level.

The stamina he had lost in the earlier battle had also been restored to its peak state.

Lu Yang was certain that, with his current strength, if he encountered that previous Bat Demon again, a few slashes in a head-on fight would be enough to kill it, leaving it no room to flee.

He quickly returned beneath the large tree from before and carefully checked with a glimmer of hope.

Unfortunately, the corpses of the three colleagues who had fallen earlier had all gone cold.

Even worse, crimson corpse spots were beginning to emerge all over their bodies. They had clearly been corroded by demonic energy; there was no saving them.

Whoosh!

Night hung low as torrential rain began to pour down.

Braving the downpour, Lu Yang searched through the muddy forest for a long while before finally finding Captain Yan.

Fortunately, the man had merely been wounded and exhausted, then fallen unconscious.

Lu Yang took out a Heart Protecting Pill issued by the County Yamen and fed it to Captain Yan.

A short while later, the man's chaotic, feeble pulse finally grew somewhat steadier.

Clop-clop!

Clop-clop!

Lu Yang vigilantly drew his blade and turned around, only to discover in delight that it was the horses that had been startled and scattered earlier. Seemingly having caught the scent of their masters, they had returned nearby.

Lu Yang tied the corpses of those colleagues onto the horses' backs, then gently patted their rumps.

"Go on, take your masters back to the county seat!"

They said old horses knew the way, and the government's horses were all carefully selected fine steeds, more spirited than ordinary mounts.

The horses immediately carried their masters away, trampling through the mud and splashing water as they clip-clopped off amid the endless roar of rain.

Lu Yang promptly placed the unconscious Captain Yan onto a horse as well, then mounted up and hurried toward Black Mountain County.

As for Niushi Town, there was no longer any need to go there under the present circumstances.

The next day.

Lu Yang and the government horses returned beneath the walls of Black Mountain County one after another.

After he showed his constable's badge, the soldiers guarding the city quickly opened the gates and let them through.

Yet when those soldiers saw the constables' corpses on the horses' backs, their faces were filled with worry.

As Lu Yang led the horses through the gate, he could vaguely hear the guards talking.

"More constables are dead."

"These times are getting more and more unsettled."

An old soldier sat on a bluestone block beneath the gate tower, shaking his head as he tapped out his pipe.

Beside him stood a young, sturdy soldier.

"Isn't that the truth? Demonic Calamities have been breaking out around Black Mountain every year lately, and they've become even worse these past two years. There's practically one every month."

"This time was considered lucky. I heard the previous group of constables went out and never came back. There wasn't even anyone to collect their bodies. To save those few miserable coins in compensation, the County Yamen simply listed them as missing."

"The wives at home of those missing constables are so poor they can't even afford food. Some have remarried, some have sold their children—what a miserable sight."

The old soldier looked despondent as he blew out a ring of smoke. "Isn't that so?"

"In our Black Mountain County, the ones who become soldiers or constables are all desperate men who can't afford a meal."

"Those wealthy masters and landlords all hide in the city enjoying their easy lives. They won't step outside even once in ten years or eight, clinging to their lives something fierce!"

The younger soldier said, "Exactly. Once you leave Black Mountain County, if your luck is bad, you might run into a demon after only three or five li. If you've got food to eat, who would willingly go out there?"

Hearing their conversation, Lu Yang quietly began turning something over in his mind.

"The Demonic Calamities of these past two years really have been much more frequent than before."

"And constables... seem to be dying in especially great numbers too."

Thinking it over carefully, if not for so many constables dying that there was no way to replenish their ranks, a poor boy with no connections like him would never have become a constable of Black Mountain County so easily back then, even with martial cultivation at the Body Tempering Fourth Level.

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