Everything Was Under Control

In the cramped, windowless space, the dark-faced man, bare from the waist up, crushed the communicator in his hand. He gently stroked the scarlet python coiled around his body, hissing softly, with the tenderness of someone caressing his own child.

After kissing the fierce, sharply contoured snake head, Snake Demon said softly, "Stay obediently in the bamboo basket. Don't show your head."

Scarlet revealed an almost human expression, licked Snake Demon's palm, then twisted into the bamboo basket and coiled up inside.

Carrying the tightly black-cloth-wrapped bamboo basket on his back, Snake Demon left the dilapidated house and raced toward the outskirts of Changmen Commandery.

He knew that his refusal had undoubtedly enraged that [Martial Momentum] expert. For his own safety, he had to leave Changmen Commandery as quickly as possible and find another place to feed it until it entered maturity.

Once Scarlet Python entered maturity, he could drink its blood and rise to the [Martial Momentum] level. By then, if that [Martial Momentum] expert came looking for him, he might have to exchange a few moves with him.

Breathing in the stench formed from the mingled odors of the slums, Snake Demon's peripheral vision swept over bachelors passed out drunk on the ground and vagrants lying on straw mats who had long since stopped breathing. His heart did not stir in the slightest.

He had grown up in the slums, and he had become accustomed to such scenes from a very young age.

The world of the slums was utterly different from the world displayed elsewhere in the city.

Great Abyss had not failed to consider eradicating the slums entirely, but after making an effort for a time, it found that the costs far outweighed the possible returns. In the end, the matter was simply dropped.

"Move aside,