Demonic bandits?

Three Harmony Tower bustled with activity, but the cluster of buildings behind it presented a different scene altogether.

Autumn sunlight spilled over the bricks and tiles. Several servants busied themselves in the water room, while the residence where the proprietor lived lay utterly silent.

Following the brief sound from earlier, Xie Jinhuan headed deeper into the residential compound and soon reached a courtyard.

With its white walls and blue tiles, the compound was separate from Three Harmony Tower. But the voice of the servant fetching medicine had come from inside, and a bloody smell drifted out as well.

The smell was faint, almost impossible to detect amid the damp, rainy air, but Xie Jinhuan was certain it was human blood, mixed with something unpleasant.

Brow tightly furrowed, Xie Jinhuan slipped into the courtyard. The place was not a residence, but a small Medicine Workshop.

Empty crates were piled beneath the surrounding eaves, along with unidentified medicinal ingredients laid out to dry. Medicine grinders, small scales, and other pharmaceutical implements were visible in the side rooms, but not a soul was in sight. The bloody smell came through the gap beneath the main room's door.

Hugging the wall, Xie Jinhuan slowly approached the building. At the window, he heard faint chewing from within, like a wild beast gnawing on meat.

"Crunch... crunch..."

?

Xie Jinhuan's brow tightened. With a hand on his Heavenly Gang Mace, he edged along the wall to the door and peered through the crack.

The room appeared to be an accounting office, furnished with a desk and bookshelves. Several large crates stood against the wall, filled with rows of small black bottles-most likely all packaged Ascension Powder.

A corpse lay beside the crates. Judging by the clothes, it was probably an adviser. His head was shattered, his brains spilled across the floor, and his body had been gnawed into a mangled ruin.

As for the servant who had just run over to fetch medicine, his throat had been torn open and blood streamed everywhere. A figure had dragged his body into a corner.

Disheveled hair hung over the figure's shoulders, and blood covered his brocade robe. Squatting in the corner with his back to the door, he held one of the servant's hands and bent his head to tear at it with his teeth, making sickening swallowing sounds.

"Gulp... glug..."

Abruptly confronted with a man eating another man, Xie Jinhuan frowned. Realizing the situation had exceeded his expectations, he quietly retreated, intending to summon Yang Dabiao and the others. Unexpectedly, a rush of air came from behind him.

Whoosh-

Xie Jinhuan frowned and glanced toward the wall out of the corner of his eye, only to see a coldly beautiful figure land atop it and look inside in puzzlement.

"Shh."

Xie Jinhuan hurriedly raised his index finger and signaled with his eyes.

Linghu Qingmo had come looking for Xie Jinhuan and had only come here to investigate after catching the faint smell of blood. Seeing his gesture, he immediately quieted his breathing and asked the reason with his eyes.

But the figure squatting inside possessed extraordinary senses. He raised his head and sniffed like a stray dog, then planted both hands on the floor and turned toward the courtyard wall.

Only when he turned did Xie Jinhuan discover, to his shock, that the face was completely misshapen. Only two vertical holes remained of the nose. Yellow hair more than an inch long covered the protruding cheekbones, the eyes were scarlet without any visible whites, and canine teeth grew inside the bloodstained mouth.

The hands braced against the ground had thick, twisted knuckles. They looked somewhat like an ape's arms, no longer resembling human hands at all.

Holy shit...

Xie Jinhuan had thought the man had suffered cultivation deviation and gone mad, turning to cannibalism. Only now did he realize this thing seemed on the verge of becoming a demon.

Having known the terror of demons since childhood, Xie Jinhuan dared not take the slightest chance. He shot backward.

"Get clear!"

Boom-

At that very moment, a tremendous crash erupted inside the room.

The disheveled demonic man drove both legs against the ground and leaped like a frog. The movement seemed utterly unstructured, but its force was horrifying. His feet gouged two pits in the packed ground as he smashed through the window and hurled himself straight at the courtyard wall.

Crash-

Linghu Qingmo was still assessing the situation when something neither human nor ghost suddenly burst from the window. His hair stood on end in alarm. His sword left its sheath in a dazzling streak of lightning and slashed toward the attacker's neck.

Swish-

But Linghu Qingmo was already injured, and the attacking demon was inhumanly powerful. Its claws caught the lightning-wreathed blade without losing its hands. Its brute strength threw Linghu Qingmo off balance, shoving him into a fall toward the passage.

Facing the unknown demon's hideous features, Linghu Qingmo was horrified. He immediately tried to abandon his sword and escape, but just then, a sharp rush of air came from the side!

Whoosh-

The instant the demonic man attacked, Xie Jinhuan had charged at full speed. He practically collided with Linghu Qingmo in midair, caught him around the waist, and swept past the demon's face.

Thud!

The disheveled demon missed its pounce and crashed among the bamboo trays of drying herbs. It slid more than ten feet and struck the wall before barely stopping its momentum. Immediately, it rolled upright again, scarlet eyes glaring as it gave a low roar, dropped onto all fours, and wheeled around to pounce.

"Raaagh-"

The demon was astonishingly fast. Xie Jinhuan had only just landed with Linghu Qingmo in his arms when that bloody maw was already bearing down on his face.

Xie Jinhuan reacted with incredible speed. Bracing the Heavenly Gang Mace with both hands, his entire body shuddered with power. His feet rooted into the earth in the stance of Coiling Dragon Spans the Ridge!

The demon appeared mindless, but the force of its charge was inconceivable.

Having felt that force himself, Linghu Qingmo expected Xie Jinhuan to be knocked over and braced a hand against his back the instant they landed.

Yet when the demonic man's full-force pounce struck the Heavenly Gang Mace, Xie Jinhuan stood like a cast-iron statue. The paving bricks beneath his feet cracked from the impact, but he remained steady as bedrock. Even his arms did not waver.

Bang-

The recoil threw the demonic man backward and slammed him to the ground, as though he had run headfirst into a city wall!

The sight of this supreme technique resisting such overwhelming force left Linghu Qingmo impressed despite himself. But in the emergency, he had no time to think of anything else. He quickly steadied his stance and formed a thunder seal. Azure light visibly coursed along his arm before he slammed his palm toward the ground.

"Quake!"

Boom-

A muffled thunderclap instantly rang through the courtyard.

A twisting serpent of lightning as thick as a wrist shot from his sleeve, tore through the ground, and struck beneath the demonic man's feet.

The demonic man, whose face was as hideous as a savage beast's, instantly stiffened. But it lasted only a moment before he scrambled upright and lunged at Xie Jinhuan again, clawing and biting.

But Xie Jinhuan was not foolish enough to stand rooted in place. After knocking the demonic man down with Coiling Dragon Spans the Ridge, he followed through with a long step forward and an elbow strike to the heart.

Thud-

The heavy elbow blow struck the demon's chest like a battering ram. Its bloodstained brocade robe exploded apart, and its ribs instantly broke and caved inward.

Under that crushing blow, the demonic man, who had only just climbed upright, became a cannonball fired from its barrel. He flew straight backward amid a storm of debris, smashed through the main room's wall, and shattered the tables, chairs, and wooden crates.

An ordinary person struck like that would have had all their internal organs crushed even if they did not die on the spot, with no possibility of getting back up.

But the demonic man's physique was exceptionally powerful. After crashing into the room and rolling once, he swiftly scrambled up, dropped onto all fours, and pounced outside again with a low roar.

"Raaagh-"

After blasting the demonic man with Palm Thunder and finding it had done nothing, Linghu Qingmo had intended to seize the opening Xie Jinhuan created by driving him back and unleash a killing move.

But Xie Jinhuan's explosive power was even more outrageous than the demon's. As he sent the demonic man flying, his feet had already slid apart and his left hand swept over the Thirty-Six-Section Heavenly Gang Mace. His body was like a bow drawn taut, his true qi gathering to its utmost limit.

Hiss-

The sound of gathering qi flashed past!

As the demonic man burst through the doorway again, Xie Jinhuan had already moved with his mace, unleashing an earthshaking roar within the courtyard!

Boom-

Wrapped in boundless sharpness, the Heavenly Gang Mace swept the scraps of fabric into a vortex, its force like an unrivaled tornado!

Utterly bereft of reason, the demonic man showed no fear before this mace strike that could level cities and shake mountains. He still charged straight into it.

But having no fear of death did not mean he could not die.

The instant the Heavenly Gang Mace touched the demonic man's chest, his knotted muscles caved in and burst apart, blasting a washbasin-sized hole through his back!

The shock wave struck the building behind him. Walls and bookshelves shattered instantly, and even the rear wall was punched through. The demon's fearless charge came to an abrupt halt.

Bang-

Clatter...

His strike successful, Xie Jinhuan immediately flew backward to stand before Linghu Qingmo, shielding him behind his back.

Before Linghu Qingmo had even finished reciting the Five-Thunder Demon-Slaying Incantation, Xie Jinhuan had battered the demon to pieces in one seamless sequence. Shock inevitably filled his eyes!

But to be safe, he still formed seals with both hands, then slammed them toward the ground.

Crackle...

Azure radiance instantly surged from his hands and transformed into two bolts of blue-white lightning. They tore through the ground, spreading forward to converge beneath the demon's feet.

Boom, boom, boom...

Thunderclaps exploded through the courtyard in succession, sounding like a string of firecrackers. Their flashes made the entire courtyard flicker between light and darkness.

With its chest and spine completely shattered, the demonic man's flesh burst under the lightning. Its brocade robe turned to ash, and its body was charred black in a blink. It fell stiffly backward onto the ground, its expression still that of a hideous, vengeful ghost even in death!

Thump-

After the dull sound of its fall, the compound sank into deathly silence again.

"Huff... huff..."

Linghu Qingmo panted softly, watching the charred demonic corpse warily. Only after seeing that it had stopped moving entirely did he quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

Xie Jinhuan knew a little Thunder Magic too, though its power was at most useful for bedroom amusement. His ears were ringing from the blasts, and amid his envy, he could not resist a quip.

"It was already dead. Did you need to work that hard flogging its corpse?"

Linghu Qingmo withdrew his hands and straightened. He answered the teasing seriously.

"Martial artists can't kill ghosts. Who knows whether something sinister was hiding inside it?"

Xie Jinhuan did not dispute that. He stepped forward to examine it closely.

"What happened to this man?"

Linghu Qingmo had not gotten a clear look either. After a brief inspection, he noticed the brocade robe on the body. It had clearly transformed from a human, and his brow furrowed deeply.

"He probably came into contact with something unholy and was tainted and corrupted into this state. We'll need an autopsy to determine the specifics. You weren't hurt just now, were you?"

The thing, neither human nor ghost, had indeed startled Xie Jinhuan. But the fight itself could hardly be called dangerous. He patted his bloodstained sleeve.

"A mere little demon. Not worth mentioning."

"..."

Linghu Qingmo opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond.

They had exchanged only a few words when rushing sounds rose above the surrounding buildings.

Whoosh, whoosh...

Liu Qingzhi and Yang Dabiao had been waiting outside for orders. Hearing the commotion, they had already raced over. They landed on the rooftop and saw the scene in the courtyard, their expressions both shifting slightly.

"Lord Linghu, what happened?"

"There may be something demonic lurking here. Notify the Yamen and the Prefectural Guards to come over. Watch the surroundings. Don't let anything demonic escape."

"Yes..."

Liu Qingzhi immediately accepted the order and began inspecting the surrounding area.

Yang Dabiao took a signal firework from his waist and pointed it skyward.

Whistle-

Bang-

Trailing flame, the firework shot straight into the sky, visible throughout the city...