A gust of demonic wind howled through the mountains, carrying a rolling stench of blood. The sky darkened until it was impossible to tell east from west.
Three demons appeared before Lu Bian. When they saw the strapping man, their eyes lit up and their breathing grew heavier.
A feeling told the three demons that if they ate Lu Bian, their cultivation would advance by leaps and bounds. They might even become demon kings ruling over their own territory.
Feelings like that were worth trusting for gods and demons. They could very well be Heaven's will, a hint from the Almighty.
Lu Bian silently studied the three demons, comparing them with the trio the Water God and Earth Deity had described.
Tiger Demon General Yin had a vicious appearance and wore a suit of battered armor. Bear Monster Lord Bear Mountain was a towering, dark-skinned man, half human and half bear, with a thick coat of fur. Ox Spirit Master Te was a fat man with two horns on his head and a hunched back. He wore a green robe, but his feet were still hooves.
There were supposed to be three demons, and only three had come.
Lu Bian took the Green-skinned Old Gourd from behind his waist, twisted off the stopper, and took a hearty swig of Wild Fruit Wine.
He smacked his lips. The fruit wine was sweet, with a slightly bitter aftertaste.
He took three more swigs, draining the Old Gourd.
Gradually, Lu Bian began to feel the battle-enhancing effects the Earth Deity had mentioned. His face grew warm, and his body began to burn with heat.
Lord Bear Mountain reached for Lu Bian. Lu Bian caught the bear's paw with one hand.
Sensing something amiss with this mortal's strength, Lord Bear Mountain immediately reached out with his other hand to crush Lu Bian's head.
"Hah!!"
Lu Bian yanked the bear's paw downward, making Lord Bear Mountain stumble. The bear threw out a hand to brace himself, and Lu Bian drove his knee straight into his face.
"Raaah!" Lord Bear Mountain wailed. Lu Bian followed up with a punch to the back of the bear's head, smashing it into the ground.
"What?" Tiger Demon and Ox Spirit finally reacted. Their prey had turned around and attacked them.
"How dare you!!"
General Yin, the eldest of the three, drew the Ring-pommel Sword from his waist and thrust it at Lu Bian.
The Tiger Demon was skilled in swordsmanship, and not the kind practiced by ordinary wandering swordsmen. He wielded the battlefield swordplay soldiers used to slay their enemies.
The ancient sword was sharp. Lu Bian simply hoisted the dazed Bear Monster up and used him as a shield and weapon to fight the Tiger Demon.
"Ah?!"
"What a despicable man!"
Lu Bian kept turning Lord Bear Mountain in his hands toward the Tiger Demon's blade. Before long, the bear was covered in bloody gashes.
"Put my brother down!!"
Lu Bian obediently set down Lord Bear Mountain, whom he had been using as a weapon—but then he planted the bear headfirst in the ground, like a rice seedling.
"I'll take you on—!!"
Ox Spirit had thick skin, astonishing defenses, and incredible strength, but he wasn't very agile. And when you weren't agile, it was easy to become a punching bag.
Ox Spirit struck first, but Lu Bian always countered a beat later, dismantling each move—fist against fist, palm against palm.
Master Te raised a hoof and stomped the ground, making the earth tremble. Lu Bian leaped up, grabbed the pair of horns atop Master Te's head, and snapped them off. Then he returned the broken horns to Ox Spirit by shoving them into his nostrils, straight into his brain.
"You lout! I'll have to kill you!!" the Tiger Demon roared.
After what Lu Bian had done to his two brothers, General Yin no longer cared about eating him. He only wanted to kill Lu Bian by any means necessary.
What a miserable fall from grace.
Back in the day, General Yin had been the first trial Tang Xuanzang faced on his Journey to the West. The holy monk of the Tang Dynasty had called him a demon king, and a single casual order from him could summon fifty or sixty lesser demons. Now all that remained were him, the Bear Monster, and the Ox Spirit, banded together just to eke out a miserable existence.
Demonic energy surged from General Yin, and the stench grew so foul it was nearly impossible to breathe. His eyes could barely make out anything, either.
Within the foul, black demonic energy that blotted out the sky, Tiger Demon General Yin unleashed every sword move he knew against Lu Bian.
But amid the demonic energy, a dazzling bolt of lightning suddenly flared.
It was Lu Bian himself, glowing, arcs of blue-white electricity flickering over his body.
"Ultimate Arhat Fist: Arhat Subdues Demons!!"
Lu Bian narrowly dodged General Yin's blade, then hammered the Tiger Demon with an unrelenting barrage of fists and elbows.
The battered armor protected parts of the Tiger Demon's body, but the magnetic force of Lu Bian's Ultimate Arhat Fist pierced straight through it. Before long, the armor fell apart, too.
"You... I... ngh... ugh..."
General Yin could no longer speak. Blood streamed from all seven orifices.
After a few moments of whimpering, the Tiger Demon, the eldest of the three, breathed his last and fell to the ground.
The demonic energy that had blotted out the sky gradually dispersed. Lu Bian had taken down the Tiger Demon, Bear Monster, and Ox Spirit.
Panting.
Catching his breath.
Regaining his composure...
A plume of white smoke suddenly rose from the ground. The Earth Deity had emerged.
"Thank you, hero Lu, for ridding us old-timers of these three scourges!!"
The Earth Deity bowed and kowtowed in gratitude.
"...What was that? The fight was pretty easy. I hadn't even used all my strength before they were all down," Lu Bian said.
Lu Bian's entire face was flushed. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, the smell of wine wafted out.
The Shepan Mountain Earth Deity had said that his homemade Wild Fruit Wine wasn't very intoxicating. But it was the kind that got you drunk the easiest.
Lu Bian had never drunk before, and the first taste of the Earth Deity's fruit wine had left him thoroughly drunk. When he fought the three demons, it wasn't that he had held back from using all his strength—he had used a hundred and twenty percent.
Who knew what kind of power nine hundred thousand units of Magnetic Rotation could unleash? Only the three demons Lu Bian had beaten to death with his bare hands knew.
"Hero Lu, please accept this little trinket as a gift."
"What is it this time?"
The Earth Deity presented Lu Bian with a square, blue-green jade token in both hands.
"This is a Green Earth-Shrinking Talisman. With it, hero Lu, you can use the Earth-Shrinking Technique whenever you wish, quickly arriving at the nearest Earth Deity temple."
"So the Earth-Shrinking Technique only takes you to Earth Deity temples." Lu Bian examined the Green Earth-Shrinking Talisman in his hand. It was a small, finely crafted jade token.
"This talisman uses our power as Earth Deities. You need only activate it with your divine sense, hero Lu, and you can use the Earth-Shrinking Technique."
"I'll take it." Lu Bian tucked the Green Earth-Shrinking Talisman safely into an inner pocket.
"Your donkey is over there. This old-timer will take his leave."
The Earth Deity hopped into the ground and vanished into it as if diving underwater.
Lu Bian went where the Earth Deity had pointed to find his donkey, then continued on his way east.
As they traveled through the lands to the east, Lu Bian's donkey balked. Lu Bian had to drag the stubborn donkey forward by force. The three demons were dead, but their presence still lingered over their territory. The stubborn donkey could sense the demonic aura and couldn't understand why its master, Lu Bian, insisted on dragging it toward certain death.
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