Demon-Subduing Bustling Market Painting

An hour later, in the bustling southern market of Demon-Subduing City.

The teahouse, and the stage in front of it.

There were no living actors on the stage.

A thick, dark thundercloud hung low over the platform, churning and occasionally revealing glimpses of menacing purplish-red lightning within.

From the clouds, hundreds of silver threads, finer than spider silk and brighter than steel wire, hung down.

These threads pierced through the puppet's joints, head, and torso.

That was a storyteller sculpted to lifelike detail.

Below the stage, a dozen or so cultivators sat sparsely on the dozens of tables and chairs, with fruit and tea served in front of them, making it a perfect place to listen to storytelling.

However, these monks all wore smiles and nodded from time to time, seemingly immersed in the world of storytelling, yet their eyes betrayed unease, and they were not as relaxed as they appeared.

More importantly, despite the torrential rain, this group of Rogue Cultivator listened to the storyteller, drank cold tea, and shivered in the downpour, yet they dared not leave their jujube wood chairs for even a moment.

A flash of lightning illuminated the sky, revealing the faces of three people in the daylight. Their eyes were vacant, their faces were deathly pale, and they were lifeless. Their limbs were visibly swollen, as if they had been dead for some time and had been bloated by the rain.

The storyteller had just finished recounting a tale of the Thunder God's battle against the descending demon when he slammed his gavel and abruptly changed the subject, starting a completely new story.

"Oh dear, there are countless demons and monsters in this Demon-Subduing City, many of them unruly and even more disobedient to divine decrees. Worse still, there are those who try to substitute one thing for another, those who switch places with another! These scoundrels are utterly lawless and vicious, clearly just sly foxes who have shed their fur, yet they wear the skin of 'Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier' to swindle and deceive. They are utterly inhuman! Utterly inhuman!!"

"Smack!"

The gavel slammed shut, like an invisible thunderbolt, striking everyone's hearts.

The audience members were taken aback; they had never heard of this story before.

Two or three of the tea drinkers exchanged glances, their expressions shifting from relaxed to serious.

The Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier didn't die?

Was that the Devil-Slaying Bladesman who died?

Is this a story, or is it true?

"That celestial soldier was wicked and extremely vicious, yet he was a master marksman! His target was the city's lifeline— the Dark Lightning Puppet-Control Hub!"

"Think of that 'Dark Lightning Puppet-Control Hub,' originally created by the previous city lord to compensate for the city's insufficient military strength. He used the art of puppet skinning to skin the demons and evil spirits suppressed in the city that could be skinned, and gouged out their eyes, embedding them into these puppets to control them through force and to subdue evil with evil."

"Pah, pah, pah! No, no! These puppet warriors are the incarnations of heavenly soldiers and generals from within and outside the city. They possess the might of thunderbolts to subdue demons and the courage of ten thousand men. What can mere human-skinned demons do, even if they wield the Shattering Thunder Weapon of the city's number one warrior?"

"Divine weapons possess an awe-inspiring righteousness and are untamed; how could they be enslaved by demons? Those demons would certainly not be able to wield this spear!"

"Huh?" The puppet suddenly changed its tone, becoming high-pitched and eerie, "This Immortal Weapon is actually being controlled by this fox demon like an extension of its own arm? Oh no! Fox demons are skilled at bewitching minds, could it be that they've even bewitched this divine spear?!"

The monologue escalated, the puppet's speech becoming so rapid it sounded like a spell:

"Danger! Danger! Danger! The situation is critical! A demon wielding a gun has stormed into the Lightning Hub. Can the Dark Lightning Puppet-Control Hub be saved? Will the demon-slaying mechanisms in this city still have the power to subdue demons? To find out what happens next—"

The puppet suddenly stopped, its sharp voice piercing the rain:

"--Let me explain immediately!!"

Almost at the same moment the storyteller's puppet struck the gavel, a burst of applause, cheers, and shouts erupted, all blending together.

If it weren't for the thunder in the sky and the torrential rain in the city, it would have been quite a lively scene.

However, even after so many times, some people still haven't realized it, or rather, they misunderstood it.

As is customary, the concluding words of a storytelling session are "To be continued" rather than "To be continued immediately," so one or two cultivators were a beat slow to react and hesitated slightly when clapping.

"Snort!"

The storyteller puppet snapped its paper fan shut, the fan ribs sharp as knives, pointing directly at the two stunned cultivators.

"Boom! Boom!"

Two blinding purple bolts of lightning shot out from the churning black clouds, striking the two men squarely on the top of their heads with such precision that it seemed as if they had eyes!

The next moment, the two charred corpses slumped in the chairs, their bodies washed by the rain, their faces blank.

Before the echo of "Tell me immediately" had faded, the sound of gunfire truly came from behind the screen at the back of the stage.

Behind the screen, it was as if a skilled ventriloquist had appeared, vividly simulating the sounds of gunfire, footsteps, fighting, and even thunder.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! This skinning fox demon is incredibly fast. Before the puppets in the puppet array ahead could even be activated, the fox demon rushed in, its spear flying like arrows. Wherever it passed, the puppet warriors snapped in two."

The puppet danced and swayed to the rhythm of the ventriloquism; its voice no longer sounded like a machine, but more like the lament of a vengeful ghost who had witnessed the whole thing.

The puppet suddenly pointed to the sky, and as if in response, the thunderclouds around the stage cast down a blinding bolt of purple lightning.

"Excellent! This is truly heaven's help!" The puppet's voice was filled with ecstatic joy. "Thunderclouds are rolling in the sky, Demon-Subduing Divine Lightning is falling like divine punishment! It is the time to act on behalf of heaven!"

"Not good! This fiend drew his spear and pierced the sky, causing a meteor to erupt from the ground. It was the Heavenly Star Falls from the Earth, one of the Three Devil-Subduing Forms! The lightning in the sky was split in two!"

"Bad, bad, bad! Evil, evil, evil! Hurry, hurry, hurry! The lightning was shattered by this fanged spear technique, and the remaining lightning power turned into dark clouds. The evil fanged claws flipped, and wherever it passed, dark clouds rolled. It even circled its body nine times, turning into a protective thundercloud, further increasing its ferocity!"

As the storyteller began to explain, the entire teahouse started to rumble, and fine lightning bolts appeared from the eaves to the pillars.

Wherever the lightning passed, charred marks appeared.

A hint of shock appeared on the storyteller's face.

The onlookers were no longer intimidated by the other party's fierce threat, but instead secretly exchanged glances.

"Good!!!"

The storyteller slammed his gavel and hysterically exclaimed:

"Since ancient times, there has always been a way out and a place to punish evil. Suddenly, a string of heavenly soldiers patrolling the city appeared from the southeast. It was the fake raccoon dog who encountered the real emperor. This demon is doomed!"

Inside the teahouse, the ground shook as if a small earthquake had occurred, and one after another, dragon roars came from the source of the tremors.

Cracks began to appear at the base of the pillars and on the threshold.

Several onlookers' chairs exploded.

"Damn it! Damn it again! This fiend's spear technique has actually opened his Heavenly Eye! From within the rolling dark clouds, one Thunder Heavenly Eye after another emerged, swirling and flashing, sweeping across all directions. Alas! The heavenly soldiers' formation hadn't even been deployed before they were slaughtered in pieces. Truly, one mountain is higher than another, and one demon is more ferocious than another!"

"A moment later, a rumble echoed from the ground. The earth vein lightning power of the Dark Lightning Puppet-Control Hub was finally activated. In an instant, thousands of lightning threads shot out, binding the demon fox tightly. The demon-subduing lightning power swept in from all directions. Although this city is a city of demon subduing, its demon-subduing skills are quite impressive."

However, the puppet's voice became hesitant the next second:

"How strange! With such intense lightning strikes, how come this demon shows no reaction at all? Could it be deliberately putting on a show of strength?"

The storyteller puppet slammed his gavel, angrily rebuking its lack of respect:

"Heaven is blind, Buddha is blind, yet this demon's skin possesses Body-Protecting Buddha Light?"

"Huh? Huh? Huh? This fiend opened its demonic eyes, and its gaze is fixed on where we are. Why is that?"

A deafening rumble of thunder echoed across the sky.

The storyteller looked up, and the audience around him also looked up.

The rolling thunderclouds split open to the left and right, revealing a thunderous eye that rose high above, its gaze indifferent, looking down upon all living beings.

In an instant, everyone with a sense of perception, whether inside the teahouse or within the Demon-Subduing City, noticed this strange phenomenon, and their expressions varied.

"The Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier are still alive?!"

"So, this generation of Devil-Subduing Heavenly Soldier won?"

"How strange! Devil-Slaying Bladesman isn't alive unless he's driven mad by it. What could be more insane than sacrificing oneself?"

"Or rather, who can gain that crazy woman's approval?"

"This generation of the Heavenly Eye actually possesses Demon-Subduing Divine Runes; has it already reached this level of mastery over divine duties?"

"It's as if the heavenly soldiers responded in kind, and their divine eyes were naturally sharp. If the divine dynasty were still standing, this generation of heavenly soldiers might all have been promoted to generals."

Compared to the previous generation of "Heavenly Eye", the biggest difference in this generation of Heavenly Eye Technique is that the upper and lower eyelids above and below the Thunder Eye are composed of Demon-Subduing Divine Runes.

As the "thunder-patterned eyelids" snapped shut, the city went dark.

Once his vision returned, the storytelling puppet stared blankly at his abdomen, when a spear as black as burning iron emerged from behind the screen and pierced through it.

The puppet did not bleed.

It just stared blankly at the gun in its abdomen, then its stiff lips slowly twitched, letting out a final laugh.

The laughter rose from a low murmur to a high pitch, finally transforming into a long, drawn-out chant that drifted away in the downpour.

"A three-foot gavel startles the dream of dust, a half-cup of cool tea laments the calamity. A thousand thunderbolts have all vanished into silence, a mound of yellow earth buries the heroes."

After speaking, it fell into pieces.

Not only was Lei Mu's body shattered into pieces, but the "Lei Gui" hidden inside the body also turned into smoke and dissipated.

This ghost was originally a fierce and malevolent spirit that was struck dead by heavenly lightning. In life, it was locked in a puppet by a talisman to serve as a mechanism. Now that the play is over and the strings are broken, it no longer even has the qualification to have its soul scattered and enter the cycle of reincarnation.

Hu Mang slowly lowered his gun, staring at the "Demon-Subduing Bustling Market Painting" on the screen on the wall.

At first glance, the painting depicts a bustling and prosperous scene in the southern part of the city, with all kinds of trades and industries.

But if you look closely, what hangs in the butcher shop is clearly the skinned torso of a demon; what is served on the table in the restaurants is the soft, stewed head of a ghost soldier; and what is displayed in front of the fortune teller's stall is a divination using human bones.

In the center of the picture, in a teahouse, there are a dozen or so onlookers, four or five tea drinkers, and a storyteller who has disappeared.

He smacked his lips lightly.

"To recite poetry even in death, that's tasteful, I admire you."

I want to recite a poem when I die!