Flame Fist: Fireworks

A spider demon king swiftly reverted to his true form. His eight legs spun so fast that they began to leave afterimages.

As he fled toward the rear, the eyes on his head watched the sky.

With the sound announcing the Blazing Flame Fist, an inexplicable pressure suddenly descended upon his heart.

The next second, the spider demon king stopped in his tracks, overcome with despair.

"No!" An unwilling roar burst from his mouth. He then desperately spat out webs as tough as steel cables, trying to stop the Great Yang that was about to fall from the sky.

That was right! To these demon kings, Jiang Zhe's so-called Flame Fist was a falling Great Yang.

Scorching flames gathered around Jiang Zhe's fists. At the same time, the fiery red crystal in the center of his belt began projecting a Demon-Sealing Seal engraved with the character for fire.

Golden flames burned around the Demon-Sealing Seal, which contained terrifying energy.

Most terrifying of all were Jiang Zhe's two tightly clenched fists. Cyan flames shaped like a lotus gathered around his left fist, while spinning orange flames gathered around his right.

His legs bent slightly in midair, and he suddenly leaped downward like a frog.

He raised both fists and passed through the Demon-Sealing Seal engraved with the character for fire.

Energy wreathed in the character for fire gathered around his fists. The flames that had only wrapped around his fists seemed to swell a hundredfold in that instant!

From a distance, it looked as though two flaming suns were descending from the sky. Most importantly, though they were still more than a thousand meters from the flames, the heat they gave off was already more than they could withstand.

Whoosh!

His fists swept downward in midair, and the ten-meter flames instantly flew from his hands!

They smashed straight toward the center of the fleeing demons.

An instant before they struck, the two balls of flame collided. Like blazing fireworks, they exploded in midair, scattering into countless smaller flames, each one like a homing missile.

The moment they scattered, they fell straight onto every demon, whether they were mountain-patrolling lesser demons, demons who had only just gained intelligence, or the Seventy-Two Cave Demon Kings.

They were all on the same footing.

Anyone touched by the flames would have their entire body engulfed and, with a wail of unwillingness, be reduced to charcoal.

Jiang Zhe landed steadily, flames beneath his feet. His scorching armor burned the soil beneath him black as he gently let out a breath of turbid Qi.

His breath was almost like smoke.

Jiang Zhe looked around. It was as though a meteorite had plowed through the area, leaving flame-scorched craters everywhere.

The demons' wails reached his ears, one after another.

Jiang Zhe, however, was filled with joy. His merit was increasing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Starting with the 5,000 merit he had gained for slaying the Demon King of Havoc, then adding the many lesser demons and other demon kings, his merit had climbed to 8,000 before he knew it.

If anything, 3,000 was actually a little low. But after killing some demons, he had received only ten or twenty merit. He didn't know whether it was because of their strength or because they had rarely killed people.

Even a mosquito was still meat, however small, so Jiang Zhe didn't pay it much mind.

Coming back to his senses, Jiang Zhe turned his gaze to the Water Filth Cave before him.

Hopefully there's something good in the Demon King of Havoc's collection.

A fiery red light flashed over his body, and the Flame Dragon Armor covering him instantly dissipated, revealing Jiang Zhe standing there with a deathly pale face.

Two big moves, a Demon-Sealing Slash and a Flame Fist, had looked immensely powerful, but they had also taken quite a toll on him.

The magic power in his body had been almost completely drained.

Still, they had achieved their effect. The wails in his ears were gradually fading.

Very good. Jiang Zhe felt an eager urge stirring within him. Should he use all that merit to improve his cultivation, or enter the lottery?

Before Jiang Zhe could give it much thought, Gray Monkey appeared, trembling.

Gray Monkey looked at Jiang Zhe with admiration.

"Benefactor, you're incredibly strong!"

Gray Monkey couldn't help being excited. Ever since their king had left, the Demon King of Havoc had suddenly appeared and harassed them from time to time.

Who knew how many young monkeys had been carried off? To the Demon King of Havoc, their monkey clan was little more than a snack, and he would capture them from time to time.

Even the other demon kings on Flower-Fruit Mountain had begun doing the same. Their monkey clan had suffered terribly these past years.

Less than a fifth of the monkeys were young now, because most of the young ones had been eaten.

The monkeys would never forget how, when the demon king first appeared, he had cleanly split open the head of a monkey less than a year old with the great saber in his hand, then grabbed a handful of its brains and stuffed them into his mouth.

It had been a nightmare for every monkey.

Now that the human before Gray Monkey had utterly destroyed that nightmare, how could Gray Monkey not be excited?

The only slight regret was that their benefactor had acted too decisively. Even the weakest demons had died in the flames.

As a result, the other demon kings had not learned what happened here.

If word got out, the other demon kings would all know that the monkeys of the Water Curtain Cave had gained a new protector.

"All right, from now on, you monkeys of the Water Curtain Cave should be safe. Tell me, did the Demon King of Havoc have any well-known treasures?" Jiang Zhe asked the local monkey curiously.

"The Demon King of Havoc was most famous for the dark iron chainmail he wore and the beheading saber he carried," Gray Monkey said, looking at Jiang Zhe expectantly.

Jiang Zhe froze. So the chainmail and beheading saber he had been carrying were his most treasured possessions.

But those two precious things had already been melted down to molten iron in Jiang Zhe's flames.

So he was a pauper too.

A trace of disappointment flashed in Jiang Zhe's eyes.

"Don't worry, Benefactor. If I heard the earlier rumors right, the Demon King of Havoc wanted to unite the Seventy-Two Cave Demon Kings of Flower-Fruit Mountain into a major force and take complete control of the mountain. And aside from his strength, the main reason the other demon kings came was that there seemed to be a special heavenly treasure in his Water Filth Cave, one that would be of enormous benefit to living beings if consumed," Gray Monkey said hurriedly.

Jiang Zhe's eyes lit up at that, and he fixed his gaze on the Water Filth Cave. "You mean there's something good in there?"

"There should be," Gray Monkey said after a moment's hesitation.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go take a look." Without the slightest hesitation, Jiang Zhe immediately stepped inside.

He had slaughtered all the demons anyway, so wasn't the Water Filth Cave his to do with as he pleased?