Demon Suppression Ceremony

After leaving Yan Li and Yuan Yao, Lu Shang weighed his options repeatedly and decided to sign up for the Demon Suppression Ceremony first.

His purpose in going was still to observe.

Lu Shang was not sure whether he would encounter Wen Qiang at the beginning, but he would definitely find him at the center of the formation after chaos broke out.

If anything went wrong then, Lu Shang could rush over immediately.

If he happened to run into Feng Xi hiding in the spectator stands, however, things would become troublesome.

As the Feather Race's strongest current member in the Chaotic Star Sea, Feng Xi undoubtedly possessed extraordinary power. Lu Shang had no desire to attract his attention just yet.

Arriving outside the Demon Suppression Ceremony venue, Lu Shang examined the noticeboard.

"I never expected the rewards to be so generous. No wonder people sign up every time. Even if the risks are immense, how could the danger here possibly compare to the Outer Sea for low-rank cultivators?"

As he spoke, Lu Shang shook his head.

Although the rewards were indeed generous, Lu Shang found them nothing special. They might tempt Foundation Establishment or Qi Refinement cultivators, but to him, they were rather underwhelming.

"Ah, all for a few worldly possessions!" Lu Shang could not help shaking his head with a sigh.

Lu Shang went to register, then looked at the numbered token in his hand. "Such a coincidence? Or is it...?"

With all these coincidences, Lu Shang could not help wondering whether he had become another Han Li.

Lu Shang stepped aside.

"Could this be no coincidence, but instead...?"

Lu Shang shook his head in denial. "Perhaps it really is just a coincidence. I simply happened to arrive at the right time."

"Forget it. I'll have some tea first."

In an instant, Lu Shang appeared downstairs at an inn.

"This inn is the closest to the Demon Suppression Ceremony. I'll rest here a while before going over."

"Waiter!"

A moment later, a young man in plain clothes appeared before Lu Shang. "Bring a few dishes up to the second floor."

"Right away!"

With that, the waiter went to make the arrangements.

Lu Shang went upstairs and sat at the outermost table, watching the bustling sights of Kuixing City.

What a pity. Before long, it will all vanish like smoke and clouds, Lu Shang lamented inwardly once again.

A moment later, the waiter finished serving the dishes, then brought over a teapot and a tray of cups.

Just then, a carriage flanked by several Foundation Establishment cultivators caught Lu Shang's attention.

Thin purple gauze veiled both sides of the carriage, allowing faint glimpses of the figures inside.

But it was not this grand display that caught Lu Shang's attention. It was the cultivation levels of those inside.

"Core Formation, Core Formation, Qi Refinement!"

"So she really was reborn after all."

"There truly is no escaping the cycle of life and death!"

Lu Shang stared at the young girl in purple leaning by the window.

He had met her only once in the Chaotic Star Sea, but this mortal had left quite an impression on him.

What Lu Shang did not know was that he, too, had left a deep impression on this mortal. He had simply departed too hastily back then.

Through the gauze, Wang Ling also noticed Lu Shang's gaze from the second floor.

Their eyes met briefly before the moving carriage carried them out of each other's sight.

"That man is..." Wang Ling murmured.

"What is it, Ling'er?" Beside her, Wang Ling's mother noticed her daughter gazing upward and could not help asking.

"N-nothing." Wang Ling's expression shifted slightly at the question, and she shook her head, answering bashfully.

"All right, all right. Our Ling'er has grown up and has secrets of her own!"

At that, Wang Ling blushed even more.

Once they had gone into the distance, Lu Shang could not help sighing. "Ah!"

"If an eighth-stage demon beast weren't involved, I really would like to have a hand in this."

Before long, Lu Shang drank a little tea and left.

Lu Shang entered the stone chamber and released his divine sense, first examining the layout of the passages inside.

That way, if anything went wrong, he would not have to waste precious moments navigating these passages.

Lu Shang probed his surroundings as he walked, reaching the waiting room a short while later.

As Lu Shang entered, the cultivators waiting there turned their eyes toward him.

"Another one!" a male cultivator muttered.

It took only a moment for them to discern Lu Shang's cultivation level.

"Fellow Daoist, I am Third Madam. Your cultivation is impressive. Why not come over and discuss how to fight the demon beast with us?" The only woman among them spoke in a fawning tone.

"Foundation Establishment? All of them are at Foundation Establishment."

"Not interested," Lu Shang refused bluntly.

At his words, one of the male cultivators angrily slammed his fist onto the table.

A cold glint flickered in Lu Shang's eyes.

The female cultivator immediately restrained the man.

"Can't you tell that false core cultivator is no kindly soul?"

"So we just let him carry on like this? There are so many of us. Are we really afraid of him, Third Madam?"

"There will be plenty of opportunities once we're fighting the demon beast."

After a few whispered exchanges, the two stopped paying attention to Lu Shang.

"Next match!"

"It's time."

As the stone door opened, the cultivators immediately rushed inside.

Seeing this, Lu Shang followed at a leisurely pace.

With Lu Shang's entry, this round of demon suppression officially began.

While the other cultivators were still basking in the joy of the sudden increase in rewards, Lu Shang watched the people in the stands intently.

"Not here? Or are they farther back, where I can't see them?"

Lu Shang stood by the entrance and scanned his surroundings. Just then, cries resembling an infant's wails suddenly rang out.

Lu Shang still paid them no heed, carefully examining the surrounding spectator stands.

Afraid that releasing his divine sense would expose him, Lu Shang could only scrutinize them with his eyes.

As his gaze swept across the stands, it actually fell upon Wang Ling again.

Lu Shang immediately resumed surveying the surroundings.

Yet in the brief time Lu Shang had spent looking around, three cultivators had already died at the Crying Carp Beast's hands.

To fight the demon beast, they immediately divided their duties, planning for some to engage the beast while the others took the opportunity to set up a formation.

Clearly, however, they had underestimated the Crying Carp Beast's strength.

In mere moments, with only the beginnings of the formation taking shape, almost all the cultivators sent to hold off the demon beast had perished.

"Fellow Daoist! Why haven't you acted yet? Do you think you can defeat this fifth-stage demon beast alone?" Third Madam demanded as she set up the formation.

"Heh, heh!" Lu Shang chuckled softly.

"This demon beast seems to belong to the same species as that eighth-stage demon beast I finished off last time, but its strength..."

To Lu Shang, this demon beast's strength was merely average. If he revealed his full cultivation now, he could kill it in an instant.

But with his cultivation concealed, Lu Shang naturally could not do that.

To maintain his disguise, Lu Shang merely flew swiftly toward the demon beast.

He drove the demon beast back with a punch.

"I'll hold it off for a while. If you don't want to die, finish that formation faster," Lu Shang urged.

With that, Lu Shang took out an ordinary magical artifact and continued fighting the fifth-stage demon beast.

To keep the Core Formation cultivators watching from noticing anything suspicious, Lu Shang deliberately faltered, letting the Crying Carp Beast drive him steadily backward.

"I wonder whether you aren't ready yet, or whether you have something else in mind!" Lu Shang demanded as he fought.

"You misunderstand, Fellow Daoist. This formation is troublesome to prepare in the first place. It's almost ready now," Third Madam explained.

Hearing this, Lu Shang immediately withdrew and stopped fighting.

Perhaps the demon beast found Lu Shang too troublesome, for instead of chasing him directly after he retreated, it spat out a watery mist that blanketed the entire arena.

"Troublesome."

"But this is good, too. It blocks the view from outside."

Lu Shang condensed several finger-sized strands of sword qi in his hand and quietly waited for an opening.

Lu Shang intended to strike the instant the formation attacked, or the instant he drew close.

These strands of sword qi were tiny, and from any distance, they were almost impossible to sense.

Their power, however, was only at the early Foundation Establishment level.

Golden light shone in Lu Shang's eyes.

"Found you!"

As the demon beast attacked the formation with a thunderous crash, Lu Shang seized the opportunity to close in instantly. While no one was looking, he unleashed several sword strikes together, sending them straight toward the beast's most vulnerable point-its eyes.

The moment the strikes landed, the demon beast let out an agonizing, heart-rending scream.

The Foundation Establishment cultivators inside the formation thought they had struck the demon beast's weak point and were smugly congratulating themselves.

"It really worked! Keep attacking!" someone inside ordered.

"Since that's the case, I might as well finish it off!"

In an instant, Lu Shang appeared behind the demon beast and drove a blade straight through its chest.

"So weak. One casual strike with some mere magical artifact I pulled from who knows which unlucky soul's storage bag, and it died. How dull."

But only Lu Shang knew that, to finish it in a single strike, he had still used Core Formation-level power for that fleeting instant.

Perhaps the Core Formation cultivators above could not detect it, but green light flashed in the eyes of someone in the crowd. "Oh? An interesting junior!"

With the demon beast dead, the watery mist steadily dispersed.

Since the demon beast could no longer attack, everyone inside the formation stopped as well.

As the mist cleared, those inside the formation were the first to see the demon beast standing motionless in place.

"It's dead!"

"That's right, the demon beast is dead!"

They realized that the demon beast did not seem to have died from the formation's attacks, but from a sharp blade piercing its chest.

As the demon beast collapsed, Lu Shang's figure came into view.

"It's him!" the people inside the formation exclaimed in shock.

At that moment, waves of cheers also rose from the spectator stands!