You Were Too Impatient

Clang—

Sparks flew.

Shen Changqing turned to look at Zhang Long, who held a longsword in hand, his face filled with terror. A trace of regret showed on Shen Changqing's face.

"Constable Zhang, you were too impatient!"

He had originally planned to have some fun with the specter in the illusion, but Zhang Long's attack had directly pulled him out of it.

There was no helping it.

The specter casting the illusion was not very strong. Without outside interference, Shen Changqing would still have needed some time to break the illusion.

But with an external force interfering—

The illusion was shattered outright.

"How is that possible? How could you be completely unharmed—" Zhang Long cried out in disbelief. He knew very well just how powerful that strike of his had been.

Even a Meridian Passage Realm expert—

If caught completely off guard and forced to take his strike head-on, would absolutely have no chance of surviving.

Not to mention—

The place he had struck was the neck, a vital spot.

Yet—

What Zhang Long had never expected was that Shen Changqing had mastered the Thirteen Guardians Body-Hardening Art to perfection. No, it was beyond perfection—he had broken through to the unprecedented fifteenth level.

The fifteenth level of the Thirteen Guardians Body-Hardening Art.

It might not make one impervious to water and fire, but one had reached the point of being invulnerable to blades and spears.

Against a martial artist of the Body Tempering Realm, even if Shen Changqing stood there and let him chop away, he would suffer no harm aside from vulnerable areas such as his eyes.

"I told you, you were too impatient."

Shen Changqing shook his head and slowly walked toward Zhang Long.

An invisible pressure forced Zhang Long to retreat step by step.

All of a sudden—

He slashed through the air.

The frigid saber light, imbued with Pure Yang True Qi, severed Zhang Long's saber-wielding arm with the speed of a thunderbolt, while the scorching aura even charred the wound.

"Ah—"

The excruciating pain drew a scream from Zhang Long, and his face instantly turned deathly pale.

Just as Shen Changqing took his second step, the surrounding illusion suddenly changed, returning them to the courtyard.

The appearances of those dark figures could now be seen clearly. They were several small children.

But unlike ordinary children, their faces were as pale as corpses, their lips blue-black. Parts of their bodies had rotted to the point of breeding maggots, and the stench of decay rushed straight at them.

"Get lost!"

Shen Changqing roared as Pure Yang True Qi erupted.

Eight layers of Pure Yang True Qi, coupled with the Seven-Kill Saber Art, tore the figures before him apart in an instant.

Bodies ripped apart.

A shriek that sounded nothing like a human voice rang out, and the children scattered like black mist.

The next moment—

The scene vanished.

The severed arm still clutching the saber remained on the ground, but Zhang Long himself had disappeared without a trace.

Looking at the bloodstains on the ground, Shen Changqing's expression turned cold as he strode after him.

Within the desolate, silent village—

Zhang Long clutched his severed arm as he staggered away. From time to time, he looked back, terror still lingering on his face.

Even now—

He could not believe he had fallen to such a state.

"Impossible—"

"I clearly poisoned the pastries. By now, the poison should have taken effect. Why can he still wield such strength?!"

Zhang Long could not believe it.

To calculate the timing precisely and ensure nothing went wrong, he had not attacked at once even after Shen Changqing fell into the illusion. Instead, he had silently waited for the poison to take effect before daring to strike and kill him.

And yet—

He had still failed.

Moreover—

He had truly failed.

One slash had severed his arm before he could make any response. That level of strength was far beyond what an ordinary Meridian Passage Realm martial artist could compare to.

Just then—

A fierce wind swept in from behind.

Years of combat experience made Zhang Long dive to the left. At the same time, he saw a scorching saber aura slash into the ground, leaving a mark neither shallow nor deep.

Shen Changqing approached with his saber in hand.

Looking at Zhang Long lying on the ground with little strength left, killing intent rose in his heart.

"Why?"

He did not understand.

Why had Zhang Long tried to harm him?

Since arriving in Lin'an City, Shen Changqing had come to understand many things. Yet he could not understand Zhang Long's reason for attacking him.

"If I tell you, can you spare my life?"

Zhang Long panted heavily, his eyes revealing a desire to live.

Shen Changqing considered it for a moment. "If you tell me and cripple your own martial arts, I can spare your life."

"Fine!"

—

Shen Changqing still stood where he was. Blood mottled the drawn saber in his hand, while Zhang Long's corpse lay on the ground, head separated from body.

He had broken his word.

The moment Zhang Long revealed the truth was the moment his life ended.

Back in Lin'an City, when Zhao Fang said all the villagers had been relocated, Shen Changqing had not noticed anything wrong.

But afterward—

He noticed that the atmosphere in Lin'an City was different, and only then did he sense the problem.

Quiet!

Peaceful!

It did not resemble a place where demons and evil spirits had appeared at all.

For ordinary people, the appearance of demons and evil spirits should have stirred panic and fear. Yet the people of Lin'an City showed none of that.

Clearly—

News of the demons and evil spirits had not spread.

This already contradicted what Zhao Fang and Zhang Long had said.

Furthermore—

When Zhang Long gave him those pastries today, Shen Changqing had noticed something wrong with them from the first bite.

Unfortunately, although the poison in the pastries was not weak, it could not contend against his Pure Yang True Qi.

Before eight layers of Pure Yang True Qi—

The poison in the pastries was silently neutralized.

For all these reasons—

Shen Changqing had basically determined that the demons and evil spirits in Lin'an City were far more than merely demons and evil spirits. Both Zhao Fang and Zhang Long had problems, but he simply could not understand what their purpose was.

Only after Zhang Long confessed did he truly understand.

"The villagers had died long ago, all buried at the hands of demons and evil spirits. But Lin'an City only falsely reported a few deaths and sent the news upward in order to draw people from the Demon Suppression Bureau here.

"A specter barely judged to be Nether Level would certainly not cause the Demon Suppression Bureau to dispatch any particularly formidable Demon Suppressors.

"The greatest possibility was that they would send trainee Demon Suppressors here and issue it as an assessment mission."

"Several trainee Demon Suppressors might be in the Meridian Passage Realm, but their strength would definitely not be too great!"

"A powerful Nether-Rank Specter, after devouring several Meridian Passage Realm experts, could very likely transform into a Grievance-Rank Specter—"

That was Zhang Long's purpose.

To quietly cultivate a Grievance-Rank Specter.

After all, to cultivate a Grievance-Rank Specter normally, it would need to devour an enormous amount of living flesh and blood. The people of one or two villages could never satisfy it.

By that point—

Once too many people had died, the Demon Suppression Bureau would certainly take notice.

If an expert from the Demon Suppression Bureau turned their attention toward Lin'an City, then before that Nether-Rank Specter could advance, it might already be buried at the hands of the Demon Suppression Bureau.

Therefore—

They could only use high-quality essence blood to nourish that Nether-Rank Specter, allowing it to successfully advance before the Demon Suppression Bureau fully detected the problem.