Following the locations marked in the commandery office's documents, Lin Fan checked each one, searching carefully. But after two straight days of combing through hundreds of kilometers, he had found no trace of the Demon Monk.
He was faintly surprised.
This Demon Monk sure knows how to hide. Two whole days, and I still haven't found him.
But Lin Fan did not grow impatient. Since reaching the Late Transforming Force Realm, he had become steadier and more patient. Relying on senses far beyond those of ordinary people, he kept extending his search outward: five hundred li, six hundred li, seven hundred li...
At last, in a deep mountain gorge a full nine hundred li from the reported location, Lin Fan caught a faint, chilling, uncanny aura mingled with Buddhist and demonic energy.
Heh. Found you.
Delighted, Lin Fan channeled his Inner Qi and crossed more than ten li in moments, arriving at the gorge.
A brutal slaughter was unfolding in the clearing at its center.
A monk in dark robes stood there, bald and barefoot. His face was clear and handsome, his eyes carried a solemn Zen air, and he even had something of an enlightened master's dignified bearing.
In his hand was a long blade black as ink, which he hacked wildly at the man before him.
Flecks of luminous azure light rippled across the blade like circuit traces, flickering between bright and dim. It looked strikingly technological, nothing like a weapon from this martial world.
The martial artist facing him, dressed in sect robes, collapsed into a pool of blood. A horrific wound split his chest and abdomen, and his life ebbed away. He was dead where he fell.
The Demon Monk showed no expression. With an impassive gaze, he drove the Demonic Blade deep into the fallen