Demon Bo

The bloody stench in Peach Grove Mountain was like settled baleful aura, lingering for a long time without dispersing.

The entire battlefield in the outer mountains of the Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva Temple lay in dead silence. Dried-up Buddhist Soldier corpses, like husks, carpeted the bluestone paths through the peach grove. The once-lush peach forest stretching for miles was now a mess of bloodstained petals and broken branches.

Eight hundred elite Buddhist Soldiers, meticulously trained, fearless of death, and altered by Myriad Life Sect secret arts, had all been wiped out here. Not a single one survived.

Disciples from the Hidden Heroes Alliance, Righteousness Gang, and Heavenly Righteousness Society were scattered throughout the mountains, methodically clearing the battlefield and rescuing children.

The children who had just been freed were dressed in rags, thin and sallow. Most had hollow eyes and pale faces.

The youngest among them were only three or four, while the oldest were not yet ten. They had been secretly abducted and imprisoned by the Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva Temple for a long time, exposed daily to sinister baleful aura and kept as reserves of living sacrifices for forging Evil Armaments, living day and night in utter terror and darkness.

Years of confinement and torment had long since worn away the liveliness and innocence children should have possessed, leaving behind only numbness and timidity carved into their bones.

Only now, seeing daylight again, feeling the mountain breeze and the warm sunlight, and looking upon the gentle, comforting expressions of the martial artists around them, did these children who had suffered so much finally lose control. Fragile sobs rose and fell, echoing through the mountain temple grounds.

Peng Shan, Yan Dan, and Liu Qi, the three leaders, did not dare slack off. They personally oversaw the operation, arranging people to count the children,