The wind blew leisurely, and yellow sand drifted everywhere.
A young woman dressed in ordinary jianghu attire rode a horse, slowly appearing at the end of the post road.
Her skin, delicate as jade, clashed utterly with the dim, yellow dust all around.
Jiang Yuechu frowned, urged her mount onward, and leisurely entered Jincheng County.
Though she had been mentally prepared beforehand, knowing that the cities in this world could certainly not compare in prosperity to her past life,
the scene of desolate, ghost-like stillness right before her still exceeded her expectations.
The street was utterly deserted, and the doors and windows of the shops on both sides stood wide open.
If not for the two characters "Golden City" outside the county town, she would truly have thought she had found the wrong place.
Could it be that the demonic entities had already left?
This thought had just arisen,
when an angry shout, accompanied by the clashing of metal, came from deep within the long street.
Jiang Yuechu's pupils constricted, and she dismounted from her horse, casually tying the reins to a pillar nearby.
Pressing her hand against the hilt of her blade, she followed the sound and quietly crept over.
Clang—
A blade rang out, clear and piercing as a dragon.
Xu Nian did not say another word, leaping down from the horse's back. The horizontal blade in his hand carved an arc under the dim, yellow daylight.
Qi and blood surged, pouring into the blade.
Seeing this, the pig demon sneered viciously, reaching back with a counter-hand to pull a rusted longsword from who knows where.
"Court of death!"
The blade arrived.
The sword met it.
Clang!
Sparks flew in all directions.
The next instant, that rusted longsword snapped right in two.
Half of the blade flew out, embedding itself with a thud into the distant wall.
Xu Nian landed, his horizontal blade pointing diagonally, his posture completely motionless.
"Good!"
"Mightily done, Lord Xu!"
At the corner of the street, several Demon Suppression Guards who had rushed over upon hearing the commotion happened to witness this scene. Their expressions shook violently, and they could not help but cheer in Gao voices.
"Is this the might of a Bone-Resonance Realm Gao expert... Ordinary demonic entities are simply not a match for a single blow!"
Yet on Xu Nian's face, there was not the slightest trace of joy.
He raised a hand, halting the others behind him who wished to rush forward.
"Don't come over!"
The crowd froze, the excitement on their faces not yet fading.
"This demon is not your ordinary Bone-Resonance..."
Xu Nian took a deep breath and sternly ordered.
"Liu Chen, you immediately lead the others to withdraw! Return to Liangzhou Prefecture and report to the Great General. The demonic entity in Jincheng County is no longer something we can handle!"
"You come when you please, and leave when you wish?"
The pig demon split its mouth, emitting an ugly laugh, its scarlet eyes filled with mockery.
"Do you really take me, Zhu Yan, for something molded out of mud?"
The words fell.
It slowly tossed the hilt of the broken sword in its hand onto the ground.
The next moment, the fat all over its body began to surge in a bizarre fashion. Its already massive torso expanded by another circle, splitting the tattered clothes on its body.
A sticky, foul-smelling bloody mist slowly oozed from the pores all over its body, filling the air.
Within the bloody mist, the stench was piercing.
Only at this moment did Liu Chen and the others finally understand why Xu Nian, a Gao expert of the Bone-Resonance Realm, had given the order to retreat without the slightest hesitation.
"This... This is..."
When demonic entities cultivate and step into the Bone-Resonance Realm, their tendons and bones resonating together, they can awaken an innate Divine Ability.
Yet though the demon race was favored by heaven and earth, not every one of them was a chosen child of heaven.
Those who could attain a Divine Ability were one in ten thousand.
Either they carried the legacy of an ancient great demon with a noble bloodline,
or they had encountered a monstrous stroke of fortune.
Ordinary demonic entities, even if they were fortunate enough to enter the Bone-Resonance Realm, were merely beasts with slightly thicker hides.
And the pig demon before their eyes...
The bloody mist spreading across its body was clearly that one-in-ten-thousand bizarre Divine Ability!
Looking at this group of Demon-Suppression Guards treating him as a formidable enemy, the pig demon let out a self-deprecating laugh.
"I learned to wield swords and recite poetry like humans, and after a long time, I actually forgot..."
"My pig demon clan is born to tear flesh apart with claws and chew tendons to pieces with tusks."
Its scarlet eyes swept across the crowd.
"You lot, as lackeys of the Demon Suppression Office, act as accomplices to evil. This is crime number one."
"You killed my child without cause and cut off my bloodline. This is crime number two."
"The two crimes shall be punished together."
"Today, all of you shall die!"
The words fell.
The bloody mist pervading the long street surged backward with a roar.
It condensed into countless thick, blood-colored tentacles, covering the heavens and earth as they swept toward the crowd!
"Ah—"
A Demon-Suppression Guard failed to dodge in time, and his limbs and torso were entangled by several blood-colored tentacles, hanging him in mid-air.
He struggled desperately, his horizontal blade slipping from his hand and falling to the ground with a clang.
"Save..."
Before a single word could be shouted out,
the pig demon split its bloody maw wide and bit down in a single gulp.
Crack.
The head detached from the body, and fresh blood spurted forth.
With blood-red eyes, Liu Chen let out an angry roar. His horizontal blade lashed out, severing several incoming tentacles.
Yet those tentacles grew back as soon as they were severed, endless and inexhaustible.
"Damn it!"
Xu Nian cursed inwardly. The qi and blood within his body surged violently, and the bones all over his frame emitted a buzzing sound like clashing metal and stone.
The Bone-Resonance Realm, unleashed with all one's might!
He took a step forward, and a faint layer of golden spiritual flame ignited atop the horizontal blade in his hand.
"Hell-Suppressing Blade!"
With a violent roar, the blade light cut like a streak of silk, sweeping horizontally.
This blade technique was an untransmitted secret of the Longyou Circuit Demon Suppression Office, created specifically for slaying demons and subduing devils. Its blade intent was fierce, domineering, clearing away evil and cleansing impurities.
The golden blade light flashed past, and dozens of blood-colored tentacles broke in response.
At the severed ends, a sizzling sound actually rang out.
Like boiling oil poured onto ice and snow, wisps of black smoke rose, refusing to heal for a long time.
Yet even so, facing those blood-colored tentacles sweeping across the sky, it was still a drop of water in a blazing fire.
Even with Xu Nian struggling so bitterly,
the Demon-Suppression Guards behind him, who were merely in the Mortal Realm or String Hearing Realm, found it even harder to resist.
In the blink of an eye, two more guards were swept up by the tentacles.
Grinning hideously, Zhu Yan repeated the act, biting off the heads of the two men alive, chewing them with a crunch-crunch sound, its entire mouth stained with blood and filth.
"When you killed my child, did you ever think about today?"
Xu Nian's face was ashen, and he uttered not a word, merely frantically driving the qi and blood within his body. The blade light grew increasingly blazing, protecting the few remaining subordinates.
Yet in the end, he was only a single person with a single blade.
The bloody mist was endless and inexhaustible.
A demonic entity's Divine Ability was simply this unreasonable.
And precisely because it was this unreasonable,
it only highlighted just how scarce demonic entities possessing a Divine Ability truly were.
With all his might, Liu Chen slashed open a blood-colored tentacle with his blade, only to have three or five others exploit the opening to bind him tightly.
A massive force struck, and his entire body was yanked off the ground.
A blood-fozed maw yawned right before him.
Stinking saliva dripped onto his face, mixed with blood that belonged to god knows who.
Despair was all that remained in his eyes.
It was over.
Yet at that very moment.
The Pig Demon's movements abruptly jerked to a halt.
The bloody tentacles binding Liu Chen loosened along with them.
Bang—
Liu Chen crashed heavily to the ground, his wits scrambled, and he violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
He couldn't care about the pain and instinctively looked up.
To his shock, the Pig Demon was ignoring them entirely, its pair of scarlet beastly pupils locked in a fierce stare behind the crowd.
Xu Nian also sensed the anomaly and forced himself to turn his head back.
The end of the long street.
Somehow, an extra person had appeared on the street.
The wind whipped up her long hair, revealing her complete face.
Pretty as the peach blossoms of late spring, delicate as the chrysanthemums of deep autumn.
How could such a young girl appear in a place like this?
The doubts in everyone's hearts had yet to disperse.
A blade-light rose.
A bloody tiger phantom soared into the sky from behind her.
Roar—
The tiger's roar carried wind and thunder, shaking the long street to its core!
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