“Demon!”
The leader of the Abstruse temple went on about grievances, but Li Qingshan went on about women with him, which left him furious.
“Look at how furious you are. Your senior brother asked to die himself. I gave him so many benefits, only for him to turn around and try to screw me over. He’s basically an insatiable dog. And with you, you monk, your junior brother was technically an ascetic, yet he still fucking spouts dirty curses. Has he ever heard of the precept to abstain from curses? If I didn’t punish him in place of the buddha, how can I still regard myself as a secular disciple of buddhism?”
Then Li Qingshant lifted up Hu Xian’er and said to the Suffering Subduing abbot, “You’re the abbot, yet you don’t even ensure your disciples adhere to the precepts strictly. That alone is punishable by death, but you still praise her virtues? As long as you accept her as a disciple and make her one of the Ten Great Beauties of the World, I’ll spare you life. And you. Hurry up and offer up that whoever, or you’ll have to die as well.”
Hu Xian’er shut her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. She was a weeping beauty, truly a sight that incurred sympathy.
“Demon, release lady Xian’er!” “Let’s get him!”
The young masters and young heroes were furious. With these two seniors of the martial arts community around to support them, they immediately became much bolder.
Li Qingshan smacked the back of her head. “Fake crying!”
Even more tears poured out as Hu Xian’er choked through her sobs, “I’m not.”
It had already been many years since someone treated her like that, so she felt extremely aggrieved inside. On top of that, she discovered this man was not someone she could control, so she felt slightly afraid as well.
“Then keep it in!”
Li Qingshan shot her a glance, and Hu Xian’er immediately lost the courage to keep crying. With her lips pursed, she looked at Li Qingshan pitifully.
“That’s more like it. Today is a day of great joy for you.”
Li Qingshan rubbed the back of her head with a smile. Hu Xian’er lowered her head and fell silent.
“Die, demon!”
Right when the young masters and young heroes were about to run out of patience, the Suffering Subduing abbot assumed a horse stance and extended both arms, erupting with a great bellow that sounded like a booming bell. His voice reached several kilometers away as a golden light slammed into Li Qingshan.
“It’s the Lion’s Roar!”
This roar could directly shake the enemy to death. The Seven Demons of Yan Mountain had died to this move. It was known as “Seven Demons Perishing in a Roar”.
But it only made Li Qingshan shake his head. “More like a dog’s bark!”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Hu Xian’er clutching her ears with a face full of pain, which left him wondering. He did not use her as a meat shield. She was merely affected by some of the collateral damage, so she should not have been like this!
Then he glanced down. There seemed to be something moving around under her fiery-red dress, like a great tail. He lowered his head and sniffed her neck forcefully. Through the thick perfumes and the faint body fragrance, he actually caught a hint of a daemon qi. “That’s strange!”
She had not undergone the heavenly tribulation, so why could she transform?
And after transforming, it was impossible for her fox tail to simply appear unless she was unable to maintain the entire form. However, he soon understood everything. This Hu Xian’er was probably the same as Gu Yanying, a cross between a human and daemon. Fox daemons were naturally skilled with charms and illusions, so she had not truly transformed.
“So you’re a vixen!”
“What did you say?”
Hu Xian’er shuddered and turned pale. She hid her tail in a hurry.
Everyone only felt like Li Qingshan was out of his mind. How dare he still tear and molest lady Xian’er at a time like this? However, they could not help but feel he was truly worthy of his title of hero king. He could remain so composed even when facing two great masters of the current age.
At this exact moment, a flash of lightning illuminated the entire Myriad Flower parlour. The leader of the Abstruse temple let out a bellow and performed a series of ritualistic daoist gestures, unleashing the Abstruse temple’s supreme art, the Palm Style of Five Lightnings. Electricity arced between his two hands, hissing and crackling loudly.
“Hah!” The Suffering Subduing monk destroyed his kasaya with a shudder, revealing a body rippling with muscle. He seemed to be gilded with gold.
However, Li Qingshan did not even look at them. He said to Hu Xian’er, “I said you’re a vixen!”
In the ears of others, they thought he was flirting with her, but Hu Xian’er was dejected. She knew he had seen through her, but she was too afraid to rebuke him at the same time. Her lips trembled as she communicated secretly, Since you already know I’m not some beauty, why won’t you let me go, king?
“Haha, I for one think I’ve made the right choice in coming here today.”
Hu Xian’er saw no disgust on his face at all. Instead, his round eyes shone with interest, which captivated her slightly. Was there really a man who did not care about her identity?
The Suffering Subduing abbot rose up from the ground, smashing apart the floorboards and throwing out a string of prayer beads. They turned into golden specks and whistled over.
The string of ?arīra prayer beads amounted to a hundred and eight in total. It was refined from the ?arīra left behind by the past monks of the Salvation temple. Not only did it possess startling might, able to pierce rock and metal, but it could even freely change its trajectory mid-air, making it undodgeable. Who knew how many demons had died to it throughout history.
The leader of the Abstruse temple waved his arms around and wielded the lightning, arriving beneath Li Qingshan with a flash. They wanted to hit him with a pincer attack from above and below.
“Hero king, just release me first! I’ll only drag you down like this!” Hu Xian’er said frantically.
Looking at the lightning and prayer beads from afar filled her with more fear than she had ever experienced in her life. If they hit her, even if it was not the full brunt of the attack, she would probably revert to her true form.
“If these two pieces of trash can even touch a hair on you, I’ll write my surname backwards.”
Li Qingshan’s gaze pierced the thick floorboards as he pressed down with his right hand.
The leader of the Abstruse temple was about to unleash the lightning when his right hand suddenly became immobilised, frozen mid-air. The lightning exploded in his hand.
“Lightning is not that easy to play around with!”
The leader of the Abstruse temple suffered from the same problem as Xue Hanfeng. They both tried to use their ultimate move to finish him off instantly, pushing the might of the technique to the limit regardless of the consequences. On top of that, lightning was powerful, but it was inherently the most difficult to control. Having been momentarily affected by the ability, it immediately lost control and made him suffer a backlash.
Then Li Qingshan looked at the incoming prayer beads. “It’s merely a set of subpar spiritual artifacts!”
Right when he was about to counter it, there was a gust of wind from behind. The leader of the Five Poisons cult, who had remained on the floor the entire time, suddenly leapt to his feet, producing a strange croak that resembled a toad’s. Surging true qi condensed into a scorpion’s tail that shot towards Li Qingshan’s back.
“The Demonic Arts of Five Poisons!”
Tie Xiong paled in fright. He had participated in the expedition against the Five Poisons cult, but he never managed to recognise that the old man on the ground was actually the leader of the Five Poisons cult.
The leader of the Five Poisons cult had suffered an absolute beating at Li Qingshan’s hand, such that his face was black and blue. He had even lost all of his teeth, truly beaten to a point where even his mother would not be able to recognize him. On top of that, who would have thought a great demon who once rampaged through the world would curl up under a table like a dog? He carefully hid his face from view too. If Hu Xian’er had not been thinking about him the entire time, she definitely would not have recognised him either.
The leader of the Five Poisons cult was at the tenth layer of the innate realm, so his current cultivation surpassed even Li Qingshan’s. He had broken free from the seals on his acupoints a long time ago, but after learning Li Qingshan’s identity, he did not have the courage to act rashly. He lay on the ground the entire time. He waited until an opportunity arrived and was about to flee immediately.
But for some reason, when he recalled the beating, it filled him with resentment, leading him to launch this lethal strike.
He did not even stick around to see how his move would pan out. He unleashed his ultimate movement technique, the Centipede’s Walk, and fled from the parlour.
“Li Qingshan, this is what you get for disrespecting me!”
“I almost forgot about you! Get back here!”
Li Qingshan reached out without even looking back, and the leader of the Five Absolutes cult halted. Power of belief turned into a huge hand, pulling him back and bringing him in front of Li Qingshan as a shield.
The leader of the Five Absolutes cult widened his eyes. Golden light glistened in his eyes as the prayer beads filled them.
He could only power the Demonic Arts of Five Poisons with everything that he had, releasing his true qi externally in defence.
However, how could his frantic actions contend against a full-powered strike from the Suffering Subduing abbot?
In an instant, his protective true qi shattered, and the one hundred and eight prayer beads slammed into his body.
