The setting sun was like blood, casting the murky pool into a strange dark red.
Everyone held their breath, their sword hilts soaked slippery with sweat.
Gurgle... gurgle...
The mud churned ever more violently, and a massive shadow slowly rose beneath the murky surface.
The first thing to break the water was an enormous head.
It was hairless, covered in a slick layer of blue-black mucus.
Two lantern-sized eyeballs bulged from its skull. They had no eyelids, only a cloudy white film, as they coldly swept across the shore.
Then its immense body emerged from the water.
It was a monster beyond description.
It resembled both a loach and a catfish, its entire body covered in slimy scales. Dozens of pairs of tiny legs grew from its belly, wriggling through the rotten mud.
A dense demonic aura exploded outward, and a reeking gale swept over them.
"Bone... Bone Resonance Realm..."
Zhao Hu's voice trembled.
Only a Bone Resonance Great Demon could possess such might!
"Don't move!"
Liu Chen's voice came from nearby.
The demon seemed not to have noticed the people hiding in the shadows. It merely stared blankly at the dead-silent mire before it.
An indistinct whimper rose from its throat.
The sound was mournful, like weeping and pleading.
It slowly crawled ashore, its dozens of legs gouging deep furrows through the mud.
Beneath its massive body was a woman's corpse, long soaked beyond recognition.
The corpse's belly was swollen high, while her limbs had wasted away until nothing remained but skin over bone.
The demon carefully placed the corpse on the shore, then extended its slick head and gently rubbed it against her icy face.
"Xing'er..."
"Xing'er, I brought you something to eat..."
It opened its blood-filled maw and spat out a pile of fish and shrimp, still coated in mucus and long since rotted foul.
"Why... aren't you awake yet..."
"Wake up... look at our child... he'll be born soon..."
Everyone's hearts were filled with a tangled mix of emotions.
For a demon to be so devoted—how absurd.
Yet this absurd scene was truly unfolding before their eyes.
Liu Chen's heart tightened, and he hesitated no longer.
Even if it was a Bone Resonance Great Demon...
They had no reason to retreat.
Besides, compared to the Pig Demon in Gold City, the demon before them was clearly somewhat weaker in presence.
They had eight Demon Suppression Guards, including a warrior as formidable as Jiang Yuechu...
They had a chance!
"Attack!"
With a furious roar, eight figures charged out simultaneously from different directions.
Blade light flared in the dim dusk, descending upon the monster's head!
"ROAR—"
The demon let out an earthshaking bellow. Sound waves rolled outward, making several weaker Demon Suppression Guards' blood and qi churn as their movements stalled.
It violently swept its tail. The thick appendage carried the force of ten thousand jun, accompanied by a foul wind as it lashed across them!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The three Demon Suppression Guards at the front had no time even to react before the giant tail struck them. They screamed as they flew backward, smashing viciously into distant rocks, blood spraying from their mouths. Whether they lived or died was unknown.
"Damn it!"
Zhao Hu's eyes turned scarlet. Rather than retreat, he charged forward. A faint earthen-yellow aura ignited around his Horizontal Blade, and without dodging or evading, he brought it down upon the sweeping tail!
Clang—
Sparks flew everywhere.
An irresistible force surged through the blade. Zhao Hu was sent stumbling back seven or eight steps before dropping onto the ground on his backside, his face deathly pale.
Such tough hide!
Liu Chen and Old Wang attacked from both sides, their Horizontal Blades chopping viciously into the demon's spine. Yet they only left two shallow white marks, unable even to break its scales!
How were they supposed to fight this?!
Just as a thread of terror rose in everyone's hearts—
A blood-red tiger phantom shot into the sky.
Roar—
The tiger's howl stirred wind and thunder, shaking the four wilds!
Jiang Yuechu did not attack its back. Instead, she targeted the relatively soft legs beneath its belly!
A savage flash of blade light vanished in an instant!
Splat! Splat!
Blood mixed with blue-black mucus shot skyward!
Several legs snapped off in response!
"ROAR—"
The searing pain drove the demon completely mad. It spun around sharply, opened its blood-filled maw, and sprayed a water arrow straight at Jiang Yuechu's face!
Jiang Yuechu's pupils contracted. She pushed off with her feet and, at the critical instant when there was no room for a hair's breadth, darted aside.
Boom—
The water arrow missed and blasted into the rock behind her, directly shattering the half-man-high boulder into pieces!
Broken stones flew in every direction!
Jiang Yuechu spun through the air and landed steadily. Looking at the devastation all around her, she felt a lingering chill of fear.
If that had hit her, with her flesh alone, she would be crippled even if she did not die.
"A mere String-Hearing Realm dares come to subdue me?!"
"How... dare you?!!!"
After all, demons had their own customs.
Many demons even treated the Demon Suppression Bureau experts pursuing them as material for bragging.
If two Great Demons happened to meet on a mountaintop—
One demon might ask, "Brother, which road are you traveling?"
The other could stroke his beard and sigh deeply. "Ah, don't mention it. I am unworthy. A few years ago, I merely ate the people of several cities, yet I provoked the Demon Suppression General himself into hunting me down. I escaped with my life by a thread, only to flee to this godforsaken place where not even birds shit."
Once he said that, the other party would surely regard him more highly and stand in awe.
But now, a mere String-Hearing Realm dared to come and subdue a Bone Resonance Great Demon?
Just saying it aloud would be humiliating.
But what was even more humiliating?
More humiliating was that he, a dignified Bone Resonance Great Demon, had actually been wounded by a String-Hearing Realm warrior!
"Good! Very good!"
"It has been a hundred years since I last tasted such a feeling!"
The demon slowly exhaled.
Long-suppressed emotions made the piercing pain from the rupturing wounds beneath its slick skin bring a sickly pleasure instead.
It involuntarily opened its mouth and released a piercing, prolonged cry.
"ROAR—"
Its scarlet eyes locked tightly onto Jiang Yuechu, and its enormous body suddenly sank.
The entire Backwater Bay seemed to tremble.
Mud shot into the sky, surging in every direction like walls of black!
"Watch out!" Liu Chen roared, raising his Horizontal Blade before him.
But he had ultimately underestimated the might of a Bone Resonance Great Demon fighting with all its strength.
The mud wall crashed into his blade. Liu Chen felt as though he had been struck head-on by a mad bull. He flew backward, sweetness rising in his throat before he spat out a mouthful of blood.
If even he fared so badly, the others were in even more miserable condition.
For a time, screams and the sounds of cracking bones rang out without end.
Only one figure, like a lone boat amid a raging gale, twisted and darted through the gaps in the mud that covered the sky and earth.
Jiang Yuechu gripped her Horizontal Blade tightly, her eyes as still as an ancient well, her entire focus fixed upon the charging monster.
Clearly, this demon's methods had already surpassed those of monsters that relied solely on their bodies to wreak havoc.
Not only was it thick-skinned and immensely strong, it could also manipulate this watery marsh, claiming both favorable time and terrain.
Meeting it head-on was seeking death.
"ROAR—"
Seeing that its strike had failed, the demon opened its giant mouth and spat out another water arrow!
The water arrow tore through the air with a piercing shriek.
Jiang Yuechu did not dare receive it head-on. She pushed off the ground, her body rising once more as she narrowly evaded it.
But before she could catch her breath—
The demon's huge body suddenly swung. Its legs frantically clawed at the mud, propelling its massive bulk forward at a speed utterly at odds with its size as it charged straight toward her!
The reeking wind struck her face. That momentum alone was enough to make an ordinary warrior's liver and gallbladder split with terror.
"Miss Jiang! Watch out!"
Not far away, Liu Chen, struggling to rise from the ground, cried out in alarm.
But he himself was already badly wounded and had no time to rescue her.
Just as that blood-filled maw was about to swallow Jiang Yuechu—
At that very moment—
A trace of resolve flashed through Jiang Yuechu's eyes.
Instead of retreating, she advanced, charging straight at the demon!
Black River Water Monster
Before you continue