0090 Orders

The transformation seemed slow to tell, yet in truth it came with astonishing swiftness.

In no time at all, the flesh sacrifice was complete. A black demon nearly ten feet tall stood in the alley and stretched long and leisurely.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. What a waste,” it said in a voice so strange it sounded as though ground over with sand, hoarse and grating to the ear. “A flesh sacrifice I prepared for so long, and I never imagined I would use it on you. But you were right. Your disciple is a bit peculiar. One against two is a little much, so I suppose I’d better be safe.”

Cracking pops rang through its body, and in an instant it seemed to grow another half foot taller.

Then it clenched both fists and struck downward with a heavy blow. “Come again!”

Hua Su’s expression was grave beyond measure. A certain aura was slowly rising from within him.

The demon blood had not yet finished affecting Jiang Feng. His head throbbed with wave after wave of pain, and a thin veil of blood mist hung before his eyes. Under the impact of the golden vital force, his mind was far less calm than usual.

He shook his head hard and reached out to grip Hua Su’s arm. “Teacher Hua, you can’t—”

Hua Su rose on the branch and, with a reverse motion, pressed a hand to Jiang Feng’s shoulder. At that moment, Jiang Feng saw a radiance bloom across the face of this languid man, suddenly alive with brilliance and vigor, as though a treasured blade long dulled by dust had at last been drawn from its sheath.

He said in a deep voice, “Jiang Feng, I am a Demon Guard!”

He lifted his chin and looked down at the demon below, his eyes bright with a startling light. “My wish is to die in battle against the demons!”

He let go of the iron staff and spread his right hand. From his palm, a long azure blade gradually rose into view, hovering in the air.

The longsword was slender and elegant, its edge like a clear mountain spring—save that countless black specks swam within that clear stream. Those were the bloodstains left by the demons who had once died upon it, stains that could never be ground away.

A county-rank treasured weapon.

The blade appeared, and Hua Su reached out to take it into his hand. Jiang Feng looked up at it, feeling that this treasured longsword was part of Hua Su himself, inseparable from him. Only with that blade in hand did Hua Su become a complete warrior.

“Clear Wave Blade!” The fox-headed demon narrowed its eyes when it saw the sword, its face revealing both fear and delight. It snarled, “This blade has killed countless of my kin. Today, it shall be broken!”

A mass of black demonic qi surged out from its body. The demonic qi condensed in the air and transformed into countless black demonic beasts. They were no illusion; they were real, solid beings.

With a wave of Huang Gui’s hand, the beasts gave shrill, piercing cries and rushed wildly toward Hua Su.

Hua Su gave a long shout. Sword light flashed, and more than ten demonic beasts were cut to pieces. His entire body shot out like an arrow, momentum unbroken, straight toward Huang Gui at the very center of the battlefield.

Jiang Feng crouched half-on the tree. The branch swayed violently under the force of the surging energy, and he forcefully steadied himself. More important than anything else was stabilizing his own condition, his eyes never leaving the battle below for a single instant.

The struggle escalated abruptly. Huang Gui had used the flesh sacrifice to raise his strength a full tier. Hua Su, in turn, had drawn out the Clear Wave Blade and, relying on the power of the treasured weapon, barely managed to fight Huang Gui to a standstill.

Jiang Feng’s heart hammered wildly. He forced it down, making himself think normally.

The situation was far worse than what could be seen at a glance.

The Clear Wave Blade was indeed powerful, and in the past it may well have been Hua Su’s indispensable aid. But now Hua Su’s Heartseed had suffered grievous injury, his strength was greatly diminished, and he was simply no longer capable of fully commanding such a treasured weapon.

His vital force surged into the Clear Wave Blade, roiling the air around it, cutting down one demonic beast after another, and at the same time leaving wound after wound on Huang Gui’s body.

But his vital force was not enough to form a cycle; it was, in essence, a one-way expenditure. Before, he had been fighting with his life. Now, he was dying even faster.

Compared with the crisis looming ahead, however, Hua Su in this moment was frighteningly exhilarated.

Only now could Jiang Feng faintly glimpse the figure of that Demon Guard thousand-man commander who had once roamed the northern desert. Every one of Hua Su’s movements was concise and effective, as though honed through endless tempering.

He shouted long and loud, flashing in and out around the massive demon, cutting it so often that it continued to cry out in pain.

Jiang Feng clenched his fists. His heart seemed about to burst from his chest, and even the muscles there were trembling violently.

He stood close to the fighting. From time to time, he was splattered with demon blood. Each drop was like a stimulant to the golden vital force, making its circulation quicken by another degree.

Gradually, the golden bloodline beneath the Heavenly Heart Seed, long silent and motionless, seemed to undergo some subtle change as well.

With a bang, one of the demonic beasts was severed in two by Hua Su and crashed down before Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng instinctively reached out and caught it, lifting it before him.

This demonic beast was strange. Though formed from Huang Gui’s demonic qi, it was like a living creature in every way, flesh and blood real.

Black demon blood flowed from its huge wound and ran over Jiang Feng’s hand. He shifted the beast to the other hand and raised it to examine it carefully.

The demon blood streamed across his skin, and the golden vital force was swiftly drawn toward it, surging beneath the skin of Jiang Feng’s palm.

It was as though faint golden light flickered in the pores of his hand. Then the demon blood began to seep into the pores directly, coming into contact with the golden vital force!

The moment the two touched, Jiang Feng could almost feel the golden vital force’s ecstatic delight. It devoured the demon blood in great gulps, and Jiang Feng’s palm became instantly clean and bare. All the black demon blood had been absorbed, swallowed up by the golden vital force.

“I want more, I want more!”

At that instant, Jiang Feng seemed to feel the golden vital force’s eager cry.

He held the demonic beast in his hand and watched as it slowly shriveled, until at last it turned into a handful of black ash and vanished into the air.

Jiang Feng felt as though his entire body were controlled by his heartbeat. He stood up on the branch, lightly leaped down, and landed on the ground.

At first Hua Su still spared a thread of attention for Jiang Feng, but as the battle intensified and his vital force drained ever faster, he had no strength to spare for anything else.

He knew his own condition all too well, and thought grimly, This is bad. It seems I won’t have enough to see it through to the end!

Still… he drew a deep breath, and his expression hardened.

Even if he had to perish together with Huang Gui, he would leave it here. He had to make sure Jiang Feng made it back alive.

Huang Gui seemed to have guessed what he was thinking. Having suffered countless injuries, it hissed in pain and laughed at the same time. “Humans, humans—always so softhearted. Want to protect your disciple? Dream on!”

It hammered its own chest and let out a sky-shaking howl.

The sound waves rolled outward in all directions, and the walls at last could not withstand the impact, collapsing with a thunderous crash.

It lived in the shabby house at the end of the alley, the same one Jiang Huai-ming had entered last time. Now that house was trembling violently; suddenly it tore itself free from the ground and began to transform.

In the blink of an eye, the building became two stone puppets, each six feet tall, stomping heavily as they thundered toward Hua Su.

“Demonic stone puppets!”

Hua Su’s face changed drastically. A thought flashed through his mind all at once: Just how long has Huang Gui been here? What kind of scheme has it been building? Tiancang City is a great human city. How could it even hide something like demonic stone puppets here?

As their name suggested, demonic stone puppets looked like giant stone statues. Their surfaces were riddled with countless seams, and black demonic qi flowed through those cracks.

Demonic stone puppets were a kind of demonic artifact, in some respects akin to human treasured weapons.

The two demonic stone puppets before Hua Su were on par with human rank-cultivation treasured weapons. Entirely under Huang Gui’s control, they even shared a certain degree of mutual understanding with it. With their aid, Huang Gui was like a tiger given wings, growing stronger yet again.

Hua Su’s heart sank.

They had been fighting here for so long, yet there was still no movement outside. Was it because Huang Gui had made arrangements in advance? Or had the people of the slum all been so terrified that they hid away? Or was it for some other reason?

In such a situation, could he truly protect Jiang Feng?

Vital force poured through the Clear Wave Blade and poured away in vast quantities. Hua Su could almost see the source branch within his body withering.

He feared death not at all, but Jiang Feng must not die here!

At that moment Huang Gui and the two demonic stone puppets surrounded Hua Su, and dense demonic qi darkened the surroundings into a sheet of black. In that darkness, only the radiance of the Clear Wave Blade continued to shine. Hua Su stared at that point of light, his head humming.

Since that was so, he had only one last method…

He shouted, “Jiang Feng, run!”

At the same time, light began to glow at the heart of his chest. That was where the Heartseed was located.

Faced with such a powerful enemy, he had no other way. He could only make his Heartseed self-destruct.

“No.”

Two soft words drifted over.

They sounded like an irrevocable command. The golden light in Hua Su’s chest instantly froze, and the pulse of self-destruction came to an abrupt halt.

Struck by the force that had gathered before the explosion, Hua Su’s vision went dark and he collapsed.

A hand gently steadied him and laid him flat upon the ground.

Jiang Feng emerged from the darkness, looked down at Hua Su, and gave a soft sigh.

“Hey, kid… your master is done for, and you…”

When Huang Gui realized Hua Su was trying to detonate his Heartseed, it nearly scared him out of his wits.

A Heartseed explosion was the greatest power a person could unleash. Even though Hua Su’s Heartseed had once suffered terrible injury and had still not fully recovered, the force of its detonation could flatten this entire alley, blasting both it and the two demonic stone puppets to pieces, leaving not even a crumb behind.

Hua Su’s self-detonation had been stopped. Huang Gui did not know what had happened, but it was finally able to let out a breath of relief.

Then, just as it had barely managed to snarl twice, it saw the young man before it raise his head.

The youth’s eyes were a profound, ink-black darkness, carrying an uncanny indifference and calm. They seemed lofty and distant from the mortal world, and yet also brimmed with feeling, as though they had written down every journey of this world.

Huang Gui met those eyes and, without meaning to, began to tremble. Then even its teeth started chattering, the sound growing sharper and more violent.

Jiang Feng said softly, “Kneel.”

As though it had heard a command that could not be defied, Huang Gui dropped to its knees with a thud, pressing its forehead tightly to the ground.

Its posture was that of a servant meeting the master it revered with all its heart.

Thanks to fatfox911 and Zheshan for their daily support, kisses.