Clearing the Mountain!

In the days after the mountain-clearing order was issued, the various families finished forming their teams...

Shi Jian was assigned to the second clearing team on the left wing. Besides the Sun Clan's party, the team included two small Qi Refining clans, bringing its numbers to seventy.

The eight small Qi Refining clans that had originally served under him, because of the shortage of cultivators,

were temporarily placed under the command of other teams and could only be left to fend for themselves...

The man leading the team was a Foundation Establishment Early Stage deacon from the White Cloud Temple named Lü Fangzhi, who looked to be twenty-five or twenty-six.

He was handsome, with sword-like brows and starry eyes, but he looked at people with his nose in the air, putting on the airs of a man who thought he was number one under heaven...

"Attention, all families. Advance southwest. Our clearing area is the left side of the Great Maple Mountain Range's outskirts. Kill any Demon Beast below level three on sight."

"If you encounter a level-three Demon Beast, send a signal immediately and wait for reinforcements."

Lü Fangzhi glanced at Shi Jian and added, "Although Fellow Daoist Shi is at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, he was injured in a hard fight the night before last."

"On this expedition, you should focus on providing support. There's no need for you to charge ahead."

The polite words sounded nice enough, but the meaning was clear: you're a damn Demon Beast, so stay in the back and don't get in the way.

Shi Jian narrowed his eyes and gave an honest-looking smile. "I'll leave everything to your arrangements, Fellow Daoist Lü."

Sun Bo'an followed behind Shi Jian, taking it all in. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing...

When the force against you was stronger, you had no choice but to bow your head.

The team entered the mountains.

Shi Jian could have walked through the woods on the outskirts of the Great Maple Mountain Range with his eyes closed.

He remembered every detail: which gullies held water, which slopes faced the sun, and which rocks concealed snake dens...

After all, this place had once been his home, too.

Back then, he had made his way through these very woods, gnawing on tree bark and drinking from streams.

He had lain low for over ten years before he chanced upon the Enlightenment System and awakened his intelligence. Then he had lain low for another thirty-five full years, cultivating all the way to become a Foundation Establishment great demon.

Familiar scents drifted into his nose.

Rotting leaves, moss, beast droppings, spirit herbs... and a faint smell of blood. It was the scent of a fellow bear demon.

Shi Jian's steps faltered for an instant, then returned to normal...

The clearing went smoothly. Most of the Demon Beasts on the outskirts were level one.

Packs of spirit wolves, horned deer, and ironback lizards were crushed beneath the seventy-person team. It was no different from cutting grass.

Spirit materials filled more than half a cart.

Sun Bo'an directed the immortal slaves to skin the beasts and strip their bones while sending the Spirit-Seeking Rats out to keep watch. They worked together with practiced ease, having already developed a well-established division of labor.

Lü Fangzhi cleared the way at the front, his sword light fierce. He was clearly caught up in the killing, a bloodthirsty smile playing at the corners of his mouth...

On the first day alone,

they slew sixty-seven level-one Demon Beasts and one level-two Demon Beast!

There were no casualties.

Early the next morning, the team pushed deeper into the left side of the mountain range...

The woods grew denser, and the light dimmer. The canopy blotted out the sky, and the moss on the ground was thick enough to swallow their ankles.

The unseen Yao Qi grew denser as well!

The Spirit-Seeking Rats suddenly bristled as one.

All thirteen spirit rats let out piercing cries and bolted backward like mad, every one of them trembling all over...

"Stop!"

Sun Bo'an raised a hand, his expression changing drastically.

Just as everyone focused their gazes on the area but still found nothing,

a giant python covered in azure scales poked its head out from between the treetops, its tongue flicking in and out and its vertical pupils cold...

It was none other than an Azure-Scaled Python!

Judging by its Qi, it was at least a level-three Demon Beast. Lü Fangzhi's expression changed, and he was just about to signal for help when a voice stopped him.

"Fellow Daoist Lü, there's no need for that."

Shi Jian walked out from the back of the team at an unhurried pace. He came to the very front, blocking everyone's view.

Lü Fangzhi frowned. "Fellow Daoist Shi, your injury..."

Before he could finish, Shi Jian moved.

He planted his front paws and kicked off with his hind legs, his whole body launching into the air like a small mountain charging straight at the Azure-Scaled Python's weak point!

The Azure-Scaled Python reacted with astonishing speed.

Its tail swept across, whipping up a gale that snapped the trees on either side in half...

The tail struck Shi Jian, sending him tumbling once through the air. He smashed a deep pit into the ground when he landed, then grimaced and forced himself to spit out a mouthful of old, stagnant blood.

The blow didn't hurt much, but he had to make the others think it did!

"Roar~!"

Shi Jian let out a heartrending bear roar and lunged to bite again, looking as though he were fighting for his life, ferocious beyond compare!

They clashed again.

His claw swept precisely through a gap in the scales on the Azure-Scaled Python's neck. There was an extremely narrow slit there, where the scales didn't overlap tightly enough. It was an old flaw of the Azure-Scaled Python...

He had seen too many snakes like this in the mountains. It was a common flaw among snake Demon Beasts.

Demon blood spurted out, falling like rain.

The Azure-Scaled Python writhed in pain, coiling wildly around him. Shi Jian was caught in half a coil before he broke free, then struck three times in succession with his claws, each blow landing on a vital spot.

It looked like a wild barrage of brute force, but every move was deadly!

The Azure-Scaled Python struggled for less than twenty or thirty breaths before Shi Jian smashed its head to pulp with a single paw. Its carcass crashed to the ground, twitched a few times, and went still.

Shi Jian panted heavily, covered in snake blood and looking thoroughly battered.

"Phew, that was a tough one."

The corners of Lü Fangzhi's mouth twitched. After a long while, he managed to squeeze out a sentence:

"Fellow Daoist Shi... impressive skills."

He could think of nothing else to say. The fight just now had looked brutal, but the result was plain to see: a level-three Demon Beast had been killed in less than twenty or thirty breaths.

That was a tough one?

Lü Fangzhi said nothing, and the team continued onward.

Shi Jian walked at the very back, his gaze sweeping over a thicket more than ten zhang to the left.

Three bear cubs were hiding there.

Their fur was dark brown, and they were about the size of dogs. Their spiritual apertures had yet to open, so they didn't even count as pseudo-demons. They were just ordinary mountain bear cubs.

They were of the same kind as him, though.

The little ones huddled at the base of the bushes, shivering, dried blood staining their bodies. The corpse of an adult mother bear lay beside them.

A gash had been torn in her belly, and her intestines trailed across the ground...

She was clearly cannon fodder caught up in the beast tide. Mortal beasts were like mortals: in the eyes of Demon Beasts, their lives were cheap!

Shi Jian didn't stop walking, but the Yao Qi within him fluctuated slightly, and an exceedingly faint trace of Qi seeped into the ground from beneath his feet.

It spread along the tree roots to the ground beneath the bushes.

It was a soothing signal unique to bear Demon Beasts, silent and undetectable to any living creature except cubs of their own kind.

The three bear cubs stopped trembling.

They were no longer afraid, but they didn't move either. They lay there obediently without making a sound.

Shi Jian walked away.

The clearing team wouldn't pay attention to a few ordinary bear cubs that had yet to gain intelligence. They were too small, had no value as spirit materials, and killing them wouldn't count toward their battle merits.

But if the cubs ran around and cried out in fear when the team passed by, that would be another matter.

Over the next few days, Shi Jian used the same method to quietly "soothe" eleven bear cubs he encountered along the way.

No one would pay attention to these weak little creatures.

This was the only way Shi Jian could preserve a sliver of hope, as best he could.