Battle with Li Gui

Since it was merely guidance, there was no need to reveal too much of his strength.

That was what Li Gui had thought beforehand, and that was how he had planned to act.

What he could not understand now was why he had been standing just moments ago, yet in the blink of an eye, he was lying on the ground.

Staring at that unfamiliar stretch of Heaven, Li Gui still could not accept the fact that he had lost.

How had he lost again?

Oh. His punch had landed on Lin Jun, and then he had inexplicably fallen to the ground.

"Senior, are you all right?"

Lin Jun crouched beside Li Gui and asked, thoughtfully holding a bottle of medicine in his hand.

"Cough, cough. I ate too much just now, so I couldn't stretch my limbs properly."

It was not that he could not accept defeat, but losing to Lin Jun—what kind of nonsense was that?

If word got back, he would be laughed at for the rest of his life.

"Shall we continue?"

"Continue. Be careful—I won't hold back this time."

That crushing defeat had made him forget that he had come to spar with Lin Jun in order to teach him.

He now instinctively regarded Lin Jun as a battle-hardened martial artist, someone he absolutely could not take lightly.

"Come."

This time, Li Gui did not dare attack first. He intended to see exactly how Lin Jun made his move.

Then he was lying on the ground again.

No, why?

He had cultivated painstakingly for over twenty years, fought north and south with his hands drenched in Demon blood—so why had he lost to a wastrel?

He could not figure it out. He truly could not figure it out.

"Senior, again?"

Lin Jun pulled Li Gui to his feet, patted the dust from his clothes, and asked.

Li Gui silently looked at Lin Jun.

"Don't call me Senior. I should be calling you Senior."

Though he did not want to admit it, Lin Jun had indeed forged strength sufficient to defeat him in just three years.

Three years. Only three years.

In three years, Lin Jun had caught up to his twenty years of cultivation. Li Gui did not even dare imagine how Lin Jun had lived through those three years.

He must have trained through the bitter cold of winter and the blazing heat of summer, cultivating painfully by day and practicing diligently by night.

Otherwise, even if someone was a genius blessed by Heaven, they could not possibly beat him until he had no power to fight back in only three short years.

To know shame and become brave, to strive with all one's might—this must have been the best description of Lin Jun.

Who would have thought that one's environment could change a person so profoundly? Back in Brocade City, Lin Jun had looked like a good-for-nothing wastrel, yet after coming to Green Forest County for merely three years, he had gained such ability.

It had not been easy.

Looking at it this way, Yang Yan's actions had truly been correct.

"You've suffered these past years."

Lin Jun:?

What kind of nonsense was he thinking about?

Just then, Li Gui suddenly felt an unbearable heat surge through his abdomen, as though something inside him were about to catch fire.

"Not good, there's something wrong with the food!"

He immediately realized the severity of the situation and hurriedly warned everyone.

Yet Duan Yan did not care in the slightest, while Chen Feng was even more accustomed to it.

"What kind of meat was that? How could it contain such terrifying energy?"

Li Gui hurriedly sat down to meditate. That dense energy was continuously washing through his body.

Fortunately, the energy did not batter him for long, and he absorbed it with ease.

He had actually used that energy to make another small breakthrough?

Li Gui hurriedly opened the pot, which had long since been scraped clean, wanting to see what kind of meat it had been.

Instead, he saw the fox pelt Lin Jun had thrown onto the ground.

"An Origin Transformation Great Demon?"

The demon aura on the fox pelt instantly told him what he had just eaten.

No wonder it had smelled gamey. It was a Fox Spirit.

Suddenly, he thought of something and hurriedly looked at Lin Jun.

"You killed it?"

Lin Jun nodded.

Li Gui:...

He was numb.

"No, how could an Origin Transformation Great Demon appear in Green Forest County?"

Even ordinary demons were rarely seen in Green Forest County. Where had Lin Jun found an Origin Transformation Great Demon?

"Is that rare? Take a stroll around and you might find one."

Duan Yan spoke bluntly. Green Forest County was a den of demons.

After Duan Yan's explanation, Li Gui finally realized the seriousness of the problem.

Under the Demon Exorcism Bureau's jurisdiction, a place where Demons ran this rampant had actually appeared. If this matter truly blew up, it would deal a tremendous blow to the Demon Exorcism Bureau's prestige.

"No, I have to notify the Demon Exorcism Bureau to send people here immediately."

The matter admitted no delay. It had to be resolved as soon as possible; the longer it dragged on, the greater the harm would become.

At this moment, Li Gui seemed to understand why Lin Jun had gained such strength in only three years.

After three years of slaying Demons in a world packed with Demons, anyone who survived without strength would be a miracle.

"It's useless. From the moment you learned this news, you were never getting out."

Lin Jun pointed at Heaven.

"There have always been eyes in Heaven watching us."

Hands and eyes reached to Heaven.

Had the Demons of Green Forest County become this powerful already?

Li Gui clicked his tongue. No wonder he had felt that something was off and had been uncomfortable all over from the moment he entered Green Forest County.

Ever since Zhang Ju returned, the nature of Green Forest County had fundamentally changed.

He simply did not know why Zhang Ju, after pretending for so many years, had stopped acting at this moment.

"By the way, Senior, can you tell me about my uncle?"

"I heard he was arrested. What happened?"

Hearing this, Li Gui came back from his thoughts. Thinking of Yang Yan's situation, a complicated expression immediately surfaced on his face.

"Lady Yang Wan is also working hard to investigate this matter, but recently she has been entangled by a great demon and cannot get away, so he can only suffer this grievance for now."

"Don't concern yourself with this. The Demon Exorcism Bureau has already decided to make up for this vacancy from elsewhere. The thirty-year sentence was only handed down out of consideration for Lady Yang Wan's standing. Otherwise, his head would have fallen to the ground."

"I'm only a low-ranking demon exorcist. This is all I know."

Li Gui did not want to say more. Lin Jun was strong, but he had cultivated for too short a time. Demons that dared hijack the Demon Exorcism Bureau's grain supplies were no minor characters.

Lin Jun merely nodded and did not ask further.

The days that followed once again fell into calm.

Li Gui repeatedly tried to send information outside, but he received no response at all.

He finally confirmed that all news from Green Forest County had been completely sealed off.

He also tried many times to leave Green Forest County, but every time he left the city, he could sense a gaze fixed tightly upon him.

That gaze made no attempt to hide itself, yet Li Gui could never locate it.

He had a feeling that the instant he dared step beyond Green Forest County's borders, he would die.

This terrified him greatly. He was, after all, an Origin Transformation martial artist, yet he could not even find a trace of the other party.

There was only one explanation: that Demon had most likely already attained Boundary Breach cultivation.

A tiny Green Forest County had actually produced a Boundary Breach Demon.

The Demon Exorcism Bureau remained completely unaware, and that truly chilled him to the bone.

The other party refused to make a move against demon exorcists like them, yet trapped them here and would not let them leave Green Forest County.

Why did this method look so familiar?

Li Gui pondered for a long time, until a bold thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.

That thought was too shocking, and he had no choice but to find Duan Yan to confirm it.

"You mean there's a Demon in Green Forest County planning to refine the city?"