After dealing with the bear demon, Li Hao noticed some movement in a nearby cave. When he sent out his spirit to check, he saw seven ragged survivors, both men and women, all around twenty to thirty years old. There were no children or elderly among them.
The seven were chained up, their hands and feet bound, with the other end of the chains threaded through a gap in a large rock. Unless they could somehow drag the rock away, they were trapped. They looked dazed, as if they had gone through something terrifying, their faces filled with fear. Some appeared completely blank, lost in their thoughts.
Li Hao sighed quietly. He wasn't used to comforting people and thought it would be better to give them some time to regain their senses. Meanwhile, he decided to clean up the situation outside. With a wave of his hand, he gathered the bodies of the demons and piled them neatly into a high platform.
"Uncle Lin, I’m sorry for my incompetence. I can only offer these demons as a tribute to your spirit!" Li Hao turned his palm over and took out a wine gourd from behind him. He opened it and poured some wine over the makeshift altar of demon bodies.
In front of him lay a sea of blood, but in his mind, he saw a courtyard bathed in the glow of the evening sun. He remembered the night when that man sang poems while drinking. He recalled the afternoon when the man, saddened by his inability to absorb the foundation-building potion, hung his head low. He also remembered the autumn day when leaves fell onto the chessboard as they playfully argued over a game.
Li Hao shook the wine gourd, finding just a sip left. He tilted his head back and drank it, softly saying, "Uncle Lin, cheers." Afterward, he put the gourd away, picked up his demon-slaying sword, and walked toward the woods outside.
In this vast mountain range stretching for hundreds of miles, there were still countless demons. Just in the surrounding area, there were tens of thousands gathered.
With a swift motion, Li Hao stood on the tip of a tree branch, sending his spirit out to control the demon-slaying sword, weaving through the green forest and sweeping away everything in sight. Various demons, whether crawling, sleeping, foraging, or playing, were all cut down by a streak of dark light.
The dark light darted through the mountains like a flying needle, piercing through the bodies of the demons. When they sensed danger, they panicked and fled in all directions, but the dark light was faster.
If it were a typical fifteen-mile radius, it wouldn’t be so easy to kill them, but Li Hao’s control and speed were several times greater than that of an ordinary fifteen-mile range, and he hadn’t even used any special techniques yet.
The tens of thousands of demons gathered at the foot of the mountain were terrified, unsure of what was happening. They instinctively ran for their lives, some even rushing up the mountain to ask their king what was going on, but they were met with severed heads before they could reach the summit.
The entire mountain shook violently, like an earthquake. The demons that managed to escape for more than ten miles were all slaughtered. Blood stained the bushes and the ground, flowing like a river, following the land's wrinkles and pooling in low-lying areas, forming the mountain's tears of blood.
As Li Hao's spirit returned to his body, the dark light fell into his hand. He took a glance. He had slain thousands of demons, and the blade was still sharp. If it weren’t for his spirit covering it, the sword would have broken long ago, unable to pierce the tough bodies of some demons.
He didn’t stop there. Holding the dark blade, he sped off toward a spot several dozen miles away, where some demons were still unaware of the situation and were wandering near their nests. Since he was there, he might as well wipe them out.
...
“Indeed, there are demons gathering!”
High above the Black Wind Mountain Range, a faint golden light zipped through the clouds. It was Song Yueyao’s spirit. She herself was sneaking along the mountain's edge, using her spirit to survey the entire mountain range.
Along the way, she had already spotted several demon tracks. In the part of the mountain closest to the city, there were only a few demons, and the demon energy was weak, consisting of newly formed little demons that posed no threat. Some hunters with crossbows could probably scare them off.
But as she went deeper, she saw large areas shrouded in thick demon energy, with numbers increasing rapidly.
“The city guard wasn’t wrong; there are indeed demons gathering here, and it’s very obvious!” Song Yueyao frowned. “But why hasn’t the city guard reported this confidently to the Xia family for assistance?”
She couldn’t understand. Was the city guard not afraid of the demons attacking the city? Or did the Xia family refuse to help due to past grievances? But if Cangyu City fell, the casualties among the people would be severe, and both the city guard and the Xia family would be held accountable.
She felt something was off and complex about the situation. As she continued deeper into the mountain, it wasn’t long before she reached the heart of the Black Wind Mountain Range.
Along the way, she encountered only low-level demons, which she easily avoided without revealing herself. Suddenly, a foul wind wafted through the woods.
Song Yueyao's expression changed slightly. She stopped and cautiously sent her spirit forward to investigate. Soon, she witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Blood flowed like a river in the forest, with nearly every water source stained red, and nearby lay the bodies of demons.
Song Yueyao was stunned. She initially thought the foul wind was caused by demons capturing and harming humans, but it turned out to be the blood of the demons themselves!
Her face showed confusion. What had happened here? After hesitating, she sent her spirit forward cautiously. Before long, she reached some demon bodies and quickly examined them, finding fresh wounds, with death occurring less than an hour ago.
Someone was slaying demons!
The thought struck her, sending a shock through her heart. Could it be another inspector from the Demon Suppression Office?
There was only one inspector in the Cangyu City’s Demon Suppression Office, a spirit traveler, who worked alongside the city guard to protect this border town. She was a temporary recruit, so her position wouldn’t last long in Cangyu City.
Feeling puzzled, Song Yueyao sent her spirit ahead to scout. If she could meet this person, they could assist each other and figure out the situation.
However, as she continued deeper, her expression grew more and more shocked.
The path was littered with demon corpses!
Everywhere she looked!
In her spirit’s survey, she saw at least ten thousand!
The density of demons gathered here was definitely like a small-scale demon tide, but what shocked her most was that all these demons were dead!
The one who could command so many demons must be a powerful demon!
But where was that powerful demon?
Song Yueyao had never fought with that inspector, but seeing the situation before her, she questioned whether she could have accomplished such a feat. She certainly didn’t have the courage to do so.
As her spirit moved forward, she saw more and more demon corpses, even larger ones among them. Some showed signs of transformation, clearly approaching the spirit traveler level, but without exception, they were all dead, and their wounds were strangely consistent, all pierced through vital spots by sharp objects.
Soon, Song Yueyao arrived at a large mountain.
She could vaguely see thick, cloud-like demon energy brewing at the mountain's peak!
Such terrifying demon mist could only belong to powerful demons, and judging by the colors, there was more than one!
She felt a surge of fear and an impulse to turn back, but the demon corpses scattered at the foot of the mountain and the eerie silence at the summit stirred an incredible thought within her.
Suppressing her fear, she let her spirit quietly rise, concealing her presence, and looked down at the demon clouds on the mountain top.
What she saw left her expression blank.
At the peak stood a platform made of the bodies of over twenty powerful demons, stacked neatly.
A gentle breeze passed, revealing some of the demons' frozen eyes, which still held the terror and shock from before their deaths.
Song Yueyao felt her body stiffen, shocked into silence.
The number of powerful demons was even more than she had expected, but they were all… dead!
These were all powerful demons at the spirit traveler level; who could have killed them all?!
That inspector? Impossible; they were only a spirit traveler too.
To accomplish such a feat would be difficult even for the top spirit traveler prodigies, unless it was a strong warrior at the fifteen-mile level!
Was it a general sent by the Xia family? Or a passing expert from a sect?
Snapping back to reality, Song Yueyao suddenly noticed several figures slowly emerging from a cave at the mountain top. Upon closer inspection, they were humans, looking ragged, seemingly survivors.
She quickly rushed up the mountain to meet the survivors.
“Were you all captured by the demons?” Song Yueyao asked immediately upon seeing them.
She thought the survivors would feel safe seeing her demon suppression outfit, but to her surprise, they trembled at the sight of her, their eyes filled with fear as if they had seen a demon.
“Please, don’t take us!”
“Please, let us go!”
Several survivors collapsed to their knees, banging their heads on the ground and crying desperately.
Song Yueyao was taken aback.
She couldn’t process what was happening at first, but after a moment, she shouted angrily, “What nonsense are you talking about? I’m the inspector from the Demon Suppression Office, here to rescue you!”
“Spare us, please!” the survivors continued to bow and plead.
Song Yueyao was at a loss for words. Did they really go mad from fear of the demons?
If that was the case, she probably wouldn’t get any useful information from them. The powerful figure who had slain the demons was likely long gone, having seen that these survivors had already lost their minds.
However, it was clear that these powerful demons had just died not long ago.
Thinking of this, Song Yueyao didn’t bother with the survivors any longer. She quickly urged her spirit to survey the area.
Before long, she spotted a blood trail, lined with demon corpses.
She hurriedly followed it.
Not long after, as Song Yueyao jumped onto a tree branch, she stopped.
In front of her, in a clearing of the forest, were countless demon corpses, all of them ape demons, seemingly from a single clan.
But now, they were all slain.
Blood pooled on the ground, and in the center of these demon corpses stood a young man.
He wore the most ordinary uniform of the Demon Suppression Office, holding a damaged and tattered demon-slaying sword.
(End of chapter)