Spare me, Grandpa!

As Yue Wen used the Demon-Detecting Mirror, the ball of ghostly fire caught the scent of a living person. Its flames roared up, and it hurtled straight at him.

Yue Wen instantly summoned the Flying Sword Bracelet, gripped the sword in his hand, and swung it through the air.

Hiss-

The sword qi sliced through the ghostly fire from several meters away, extinguishing it. Two severed pieces of ragged lantern skin fell to the ground.

"I'll probably have to kill a dozen or more of these little things to scrape together one piece of Evil-Suppressing Money." Yue Wen briefly checked what he had gathered and said indifferently, "Quantity over quality, then."

With that, he strolled onward.

Fortunately, Lantern Monsters are territorial and keep a considerable distance from one another. No matter how many there are, they won't swarm him, so they couldn't cause Yue Wen any trouble.

Fortunately, Lantern Monsters were territorial and kept considerable distances from one another. No matter how many there were, they would never swarm him, so they posed no trouble whatsoever for Yue Wen.

When it came to fighting Lantern Monsters one-on-one, his attitude was naturally the more, the merrier.

Wherever he went, nothing could stand in his way.

That was also why the cemetery management only required someone in the second realm. Dealing with Lantern Monsters really did not call for any supernatural abilities or arcane techniques. Even the Lantern Monsters themselves probably would never have imagined that a late-third-realm cultivator would be willing to spend so much time hacking them down.

Had he come here to stomp on weaklings?

Just as Yue Wen was enjoying the stress relief of cutting them down, he suddenly spotted a trace of something different in the Demon-Detecting Mirror.

A few faint wisps of crimson mist had appeared among the strands of hazy gray yin energy.

Demonic energy?

Yue Wen immediately grew cautious. Nightmare Wraiths could arise naturally in the cemetery, but demons definitely came from outside.

I need to be careful.

He sprang onto a tree branch, suppressed his aura, and carefully watched for the source of the demonic energy.

Three furtive, feline figures approached from ahead.

All three had human forms and wore clothes, but their exposed skin was covered in varying amounts of fur. Cat ears sprouted from their heads, and long tails stood up behind them.

Three partially transformed cat demons?

Yue Wen pondered what could have brought them here in the middle of the night.

A black cat demon led the way. His face resembled that of a young man, and he surveyed his surroundings as he walked, as though inspecting his territory.

Beside him was a large, fat white cat demon who looked rather good-natured. He carried a large sack on his back and wore sunglasses.

Following the two was a slender, light-footed orange cat demon with the appearance of a human girl. Her features were pretty and her eyes blue, but her gaze was timid as she walked.

As they neared the edge of the woods, the fat white cat in sunglasses pulled a disc-shaped object from inside his clothes and chanted, "To seek the dragon and divine the gold, look to the winding mountains; each mountain is another barrier..."

Before he could finish, the black cat raised a hand and smacked the back of his head.

Smack!

"What are you doing?" the black cat asked.

"I..." The white cat rubbed the back of his head innocently and said meekly, "That's what I've seen tomb raiders do."

"Wearing sunglasses in the dead of night? What are you, a rapper?" The black cat knocked off his sunglasses, then slapped the object out of his hand. "Which car did you rip that dashboard out of?"

"I'm just worried we'll run into a zombie..." The white cat backed away as he took the blows.

"You look like a big fat zombie to me!" The black cat smacked his head again. "Who told you we were here to rob tombs?"

"Aren't we?" The white cat grimaced in pain.

"We're only here to carry out the cult leader's orders, dig up these graves, find what's inside, and take it back!" the black cat said.

"Isn't that the dictionary definition of tomb raiding?" the white cat asked, puzzled.

"Get over there and start digging!" the black cat snapped.

"Keep your voice down. What if you alert the grave keeper?" the orange cat girl behind them urged quietly.

"What's there to be afraid of?" the black cat declared arrogantly. "How strong could a grave keeper in a place like this be? If anyone dares get in our way, I'll punch him so hard he calls me Grandpa!"

[Juvenile cat demon: Not yet powerful enough to transform completely, but possesses a robust body and agile movements. Although it has not awakened its innate supernatural ability, beware of its sharp fangs and claws. Combat strength equivalent to one hundred healthy human grannies.]

Yue Wen used the Demon-Detecting Mirror to examine the three cat demons' strength as well. Finding that all three were within the mirror's detection range, and that even the strongest-the black cat-only had a combat strength of one hundred grannies, he relaxed a little.

He remained hidden in the tree, wanting to see what the three little demons intended to do.

Technically, his job was to clear out evil entities. Usually, there were only Lantern Monsters here, but if anything else appeared, it was still his responsibility.

At most, he would charge extra afterward.

If these little demons behaved too badly, Yue Wen would not even mind dealing with them for free and gathering some more Evil-Suppressing Money.

Below him, the three cat demons approached a patch of graves with relatively new headstones. The black cat looked them over and said, "The bodies that arrived over the last few days should all be buried here. Start digging."

The sack they had brought contained pickaxes. The black cat and white cat began swinging them, breaking through the concrete with a clatter and digging out the bodies underneath.

The orange cat girl stood watch nearby, looking around fearfully.

As a demon, she naturally feared neither corpses nor ghosts, but human cultivators.

Throughout their time living in the city, they had kept out of sight for fear of being discovered by powerful cultivators. After all, there were no laws protecting innocent little demons, so they lived every day in dread.

Of course, even that was far better than life in the wilderness outside.

The black cat and white cat threw themselves into the work, breaking open three graves in succession. Each time they opened one, the black cat inspected it carefully before moving on to the next when he failed to find their target.

Yue Wen watched for a while, then confirmed that there were no other demons nearby before deciding to act.

The orange cat girl was looking around when Yue Wen dropped down behind her and asked, "What are you looking at?"

While the orange cat girl was looking this way and that, Yue Wen flew down behind her and asked, "What are you looking for?"

"Obviously, I'm worried there might be..." The orange cat answered instinctively as she turned her head. Then she saw an exceptionally fine-looking, show-quality human without a trace of demonic energy, and her pupils shook with shock. "A human-!"

Yue Wen raised his hand and chopped her neck, knocking the little orange cat unconscious.

The black and white cats both turned at her scream.

Seeing that a human had appeared and knocked out their companion, the black cat's expression instantly turned vicious. His face twisted into a snarl as he crouched low and hissed at Yue Wen.

The white cat was even more direct, swinging the pickaxe

over his head as he charged, shouting, "Let her go!"

Yue Wen did not use his sword-control technique against a little demon like this, since he could easily kill him with a single strike.

The methods cultivators practiced generally fell into three categories: cultivation methods, martial arts, and supernatural abilities or arcane techniques.

Compared with supernatural abilities and arcane techniques, martial arts had a lower barrier to entry. Back when his cultivation was still weak, Yue Wen had purchased a martial art called Wandering Dragon Hand.

It was more than enough to deal with these little demons.

Facing the white cat charging at him with a pickaxe, Yue Wen moved like lightning. He stepped aside, deflected with his left hand, and chopped with his right. Thump!

A smack to the neck, as nimble as a wandering dragon!

The blow carried tremendous force. Despite the white cat's hefty build, it knocked him unconscious in one hit.

"Hah!" At the same moment, the black cat sprang forward in a fierce, swift charge, moving so fast he almost left an afterimage!

Judging by his charge, he was indeed much stronger than the white cat.

But faced with the enormous gap in their cultivation, he still amounted to nothing. Yue Wen twisted at the waist and swung a fist back, striking the black cat square in the face as though the black cat had run into it himself.

-Thump!

The punch sent the black cat flying straight back more than five meters, two streams of blood instantly spurting from his nostrils!

Yet the black cat had some grit. He did not utter a single cry of pain!

He fiercely wiped away his nosebleed and stared straight at Yue Wen, his eyes blazing. He raised both clawed hands, and suddenly, with a thud-

Dropped to his knees...

After sliding to his knees at lightning speed, he still held his head proudly high, his face fierce, as he shouted, "Spare me, Grandpa!"