“Yes, matriarch.” Ye Liusu closed her eyes, but she still refused to accept it.
“My good daughter. I’m doing all of this for your sake. You will understand in the future.” Ye Mingzhu let go of her and rubbed Ye Liusu’s face gently.
After completing the deal, Li Qingshan immediately set off. After being circled a few hundred times by Bloodshadow, most of his daemon qi had already been depleted. If he wasted too much time, he might not be able to maintain his mirror clone.
Blacklustre city completely vanished into the darkness behind him, and the sound of the waterfall grew closer and closer. The three of them travelled upstream. Li Qingshan suddenly halted an hour later.
“What’s wrong, master?” Ye Liubo asked. Ye Liusu frowned, as if she had sensed something too.
“Hmph, he sure likes to haunt people. Let’s go!” Li Qingshan picked up Ye Liubo and sped up.
Bloodshadow unfurled his cloak and whistled up the waterfall like a huge, black bat. His teeth protruded from his mouth, which made his handsome face seem very vicious. “Northmoon, are you bold enough to fight me? Show me what you’re capable of. Show me how you killed the three elders.”
He did not speak loudly, but it was like an invisible sword, piercing through the cavern and reaching Li Qingshan’s ears, which made them buzz.
“How dare you tail me? Aren’t you afraid of being punished by ma’am Spider Queen?” Li Qingshan said loudly. Wild gusts of wind and wind blades shot over with his voice.
“I won’t kill you. I’ll just suck you dry so that you understand the consequences of offending me.” Bloodshadow swept his cloak and smashed apart the wind blades. He did not slow down at all.
“I don’t have the time to play these games with you.”
As this conversation unfolded, the distance between them had halved. Their movement speed was far too slow compared to Bloodshadow.
“You go first! I’ll take him for a spin!”
Li Qingshan stopped and turned around. He passed his hundred treasures pouch and blade to Ye Liubo before tossing Ye Liubo to Ye Liusu.
“Master!” “I can assist you.” Ye Liusu gripped her curved dagger.
“It’s rare of you to be so devoted. However, his target is me. Keep Liubo and yourself safe. This is an order!”
Ye Liusu said nothing more. She immediately took off, while Li Qingshan turned around and flew into a cave to the side. Bloodshadow also turned and entered the cave with a flash. He basically moved with no hesitation at all, chasing after Li Qingshan. However, Li Qingshan’s aura suddenly vanished at this moment.
“Puny tricks!” Bloodshadow sneered. A sound wave expanded like a dense filter, covering every inch of space there. Li Qingshan’s figure immediately appeared in his senses.
As Li Qingshan fled, Bloodshadow closed the distance between them rapidly.
The wind whistled as their figures drifted off swiftly. The gloomy caves made Li Qingshan feel like he was on a rollercoaster, rising and falling constantly. They also seemed like the writhing guts of a beast.
Suddenly, he stopped. The cave ended in front of him. It was actually a dead end.
Li Qingshan exhaled. This should do! He placed his hand on the wall.
Bloodshadow had already found out about the dead end from his echolocation, so the corner of his lips curled up into a smile. He turned into the cave and saw Li Qingshan a few hundred meters away. He could cover this distance in a single breath.
Rumble! Tremoring booms filled the caves as cracks immediately riddled the wall. Thousands of tonnes of rock and soil collapsed down.
Li Qingshan’s sneer was blocked by a huge stalactite. Dust filled the air, and the echolocation probing was immediately disrupted.
“Don’t even think about escaping!” Bloodshadow advanced instead of retreating. He revolved rapidly, turning into a drill of red and black that pierced the layers of rock and soil. The huge boulders disintegrated into dust-like loam.
However, by the time he arrived in the depths of the cave, Li Qingshan had already disappeared; it was like he had vanished into thin air.
Unleashing the shockwaves had already depleted his final bit of daemon qi. He was unable to maintain his mirror clone anymore, so it automatically dispersed.
“Very impressive. I’ve already remembered your name and your smell. Northmoon, I will taste your blood sooner or later!” Fury flashed through his eyes. Bloodshadow raised his head and took a gentle sniff, revealing his sharp teeth as he smiled viciously. With a sweep of his cloak, he turned around and left.
………
“Is master going to be fine?” Ye Liubo asked in worry.
Ye Liusu remained silent. He had lured away the enemy while getting his servants to escape. She had never seen a daemon, no, person, like this.
Li Qingshan opened his eyes in the sea of Blue Butterfly flowers. The sneer lingered on his face. If he had been there in person, he definitely would have wanted to fight Bloodshadow.
Li Qingshan glanced at Xiao An, who was concentrating on forging artifacts, before closing his eyes again. All the pills in the hundred treasures pouches of the Lone Grave Elder and the Golden Pheasant Elder had already entered his belly. He had polished off everything the two sects had accumulated over the years.
After becoming a Daemon General, his ability to digest pills had grown. The pills turned into pulses of spiritual qi, pushing him towards the third layer of the Spirit Turtle’s Method of Sea Suppression.
Li Qingshan suddenly opened his eyes. He extended his hand into his clothes. The Scarlet Wolf tablet was flashing urgently.
This was an emergency summoning from the Hawkwolf Guard!
Li Qingshan touched it gently with his finger, and the tablet stopped flashing. If he did not answer it, he would be presumed dead, which was why Li Qingshan had always carried it on him. Of course, it was unable to track his location.
“Just what is going on? Has it got to do with the three elders? Whatever, I’ll worry about it once I break through with the Spirit Turtle’s Method of Sea Suppression. I need to wait for them to return too.”
He settled down once more. After who knew how long, all the pills were completely digested and converted. Pulses of spiritual qi rampaged through Li Qingshan’s body. If his body had not been tough enough, just this power alone would have been enough to blast him to pieces.
The spirit turtle’s daemon core revolved rapidly. It turned into a huge vortex above his sea of qi, sweeping up the spiritual qi and absorbing it strand by strand into the vortex.
The spiritual qi decreased while the spirit turtle’s daemon core became brighter and brighter. When it absorbed the final strand of spiritual qi, the daemon core had already become so bright that it was like a blue sun, shining with unprecedented luminance.
The light was powerful but not dazzling. It was filled with an aura of peace, as if it could remain without moving for millennia on end.
Li Qingshan shuddered in the cave. His red hair danced like fire as blue light that was like water ripples filled the entire cavern. Tremendous daemon qi rose up.
Xiao An stowed away the prayer bead she had finished forging and turned around. The slumbering Milliped had woken up too.
According to human standards, the tiger demon and ox demon were cultivation methods for the body, while the spirit turtle was for qi. It was the true basis of Li Qingshan’s cultivation as a daemon.
The daemon core bobbed up and down in the sea of qi. Suddenly, a series of fractures appeared on the surface as a cracking sound rang out. Then, it burst apart loudly, kicking up huge waves and making the sea of qi toss and turn.
Li Qingshan peered into his body, and he discovered the perfectly-round daemon core had actually turned into the shape of a turtle’s shell. The top swelled towards the heavens, while the bottom was flat like the ground. The back of the spiritual turtle rose and fell like hills; it was layered in profound inscriptions of all kinds of colour, constantly at work.
There seemed to be something trying to break through the shell.
Suddenly, he understood. They were the spirit turtle’s head, tail, and limbs. However, due to his insufficient cultivation, it was still a blur within the shell. It had yet to condense into its actual form.
However, even with that being the case, his daemon qi had reached an unprecedented peak.
His senses became several times stronger. The world was now vastly different in his eyes.
Tremendous amounts of disorderly, unorganised information rushed into his head. He did not know what it meant, but they seemed to give an indication for the variations in omens and the fluctuations of fate.
Xiao An had once described what she felt when she performed divination. He understood he was currently in that state.
Another world seemed to exist within the everchanging kaleidoscope, a profound world that regular cultivators struggled to come in contact with.
Spirit turtles foretold the good and bad and understood the omens with utmost confidence.
Emerging from this state, Li Qingshan suddenly became convinced that Wang Pushi was calling him back so urgently exactly because of the three elders.
His certainty was completely groundless, but it was unwavering.
Li Qingshan smiled. Finally, he had taken another step forward!
……
“It’s master’s daemon qi.” Ye Liubo beamed.
Ye Liusu found it slightly strange. Why had he returned before them instead? However, she did not think too much about it with everything he was capable of. She eased up for some reason and sped up.
“Master!” Ye Liubo flew into Li Qingshan’s arms. Li Qingshan patted her back. “You’ve returned.”
Originally, Ye Liubo wanted to give him a deep kiss, but when she was met with his clear, unwavering eyes, she became afraid to do anything for some reason. She just remained in his arms obediently.
Ye Liusu was much more sensitive. She could feel that some of Li Qingshan’s violence and restlessness had vanished, now replaced by maturity and wisdom. She seemed to feel much less pressured by him too. However, he only seemed even more unreadable and powerful. Afraid to come off as rude, she also said,
“Master… Bloodshadow…”
“I’ve shaken him off. I don’t have any time to waste on him. Oh right, I need to go out and complete the mission the Spider Queen gave me. You’ll still be in charge of this territory, great king Ye Liusu. Don’t let anyone disturb Milliped’s cultivation, uhh, rest.”
“What? No! It’s too dangerous above ground!” Ye Liubo paled in fright. Above ground was a world filled with human cultivators. It was a place filled with murderousness in her eyes, extremely dangerous. She treated it just like how the cultivators above ground treated the underground world.
“I have my plans. Alright, here’s your hundred treasures pouch that I promised.” Li Qingshan took out a hundred treasures pouch, not too big or small, and passed it to Ye Liubo.
“Thank you, master, but…”
“No buts!”
“Yes,” Ye Liubo replied pitifully.
“You’re welcome to try out this pill. It might allow you to undergo the heavenly tribulation.” Li Qingshan took out a True Spirit pill from his hundred treasures pouch and placed it in Ye Liubo’s palm. Although he had no idea just how effective pills refined by humans would be on Night Roaming folk, they were still technically “people” after all, so it should have some effect.
Apart from increasing his cultivation, he could not go without a few capable subordinates either. The mirror clone was nice, but it could not cover every aspect he required. If Ye Liubo could undergo the heavenly tribulation, then she could take care of the trade underground. He would not have to worry about it himself.
Ye Liusu’s gaze was drawn away by the True Spirit pill’s lustre. She was amazed. There’s actually such a wondrous pill in the world!
Ye Liubo had already become touched to the bottom of her heart. She could understand the value of the pill even if no one told her.
“What’s wrong?” Li Qingshan saw the rims of Ye Liubo’s eyes redden. He was rather surprised.
“No one has ever treated me so nicely in my entire life. I won’t let you down, master!”
Li Qingshan became rather embarrassed. Most of the time, the main thing he considered were still his own interests and benefits. Though, there were no relationships in the world that completely neglected personal interest after all. Even if they did exist, they were fragile.
People would be bound to one another because of each other’s needs, and they would abandon this tie when there was no need to maintain it anymore. This had always been how the world worked.
He did not want to be a master who only considered for his servants, but a master trusted and required by his servants. As a result, he accepted her loyalty calmly.
