In the pitch-black depths underground, Li Qingshan embraced Xiao An as his heart was at peace. As long as she was here, as long as they worked together, they could deal with anything no matter what they encountered.
The Dark Queen could just go and die. No one could take her away from his side.
However, he discovered a horrible problem very soon.
With the current fourth layer of the Spirit Turtle Transformation, he was unable to suppress the fifth layer of the Ox Demon Transformation.
In other words, unless he also reached the fifth layer with the Spirit Turtle Transformation, he could not turn back into human form and return to the academy. However, the difficulty in this would definitely be greater than reaching the fifth layer with the ox demon or the tiger demon.
The ox demon and tiger demon determined the strength of his body, while the spirit turtle determined his cultivation. Once he broke through to the fifth layer, he would be standing firmly in the realm of Daemon Commanders. He would even gain a footing in this world.
Sigh, what was he supposed to do? He still had many ties in the society of humans.
Qiongzhi should be very sad over losing her uncle! I even once considered taking him on as my master. I didn’t think the first time we met would also be when death takes him.
Although he was connected to Han Anguo in a certain way, they had never met after all, so there were not exactly any deep emotional ties between them. If he could save him, then he would save him. If he could not, then there was nothing he could do. He could only leave it up to fate. After all, if Li Qingshan died, Han Anguo would not feel miserable for him either. However, he was worried about Han Qiongzhi becoming overly sad. Fortunately, the people the Dark Queen had killed were not the Han father-son duo, or he would truly become conflicted to death.
This was the difference between being close and being distant. He could go as far as to risk exposing himself to save Hua Chengzan, but if it were Hua Chengzan’s parents or siblings instead, he would have to give it some consideration. At most, he would do what was within his means. After all, reasonless affection did not exist in the world.
I wonder if Hua Chengzan is going to divulge my identity. Probably not, right? I saved his life after all.
Li Qingshan said to Xiao An, “You should return to the dwelling first and handle any situations that may arise. If no one comes looking for us, just say I suffered some internal injuries and am healing in seclusion. I’ll return to Moon Court lake and try and see whether I can use the power of the Water God Seal to suppress the ox demon. If I can’t, then I probably won’t be able to return to the surface any time soon.”
Xiao An left reluctantly. Li Qingshan noticed she had changed slightly after recovering her memories, but he had no idea whether that was good or bad.
Li Qingshan rested his head on his arms as he leaned against the boiling-hot stone wall. He gradually recovered his daemon qi as he tidied through his thoughts, considering what he should do next.
“Northmoon!” An enchanting, curvaceous figure walked out of the darkness. Lolth licked her bright-red lips. Her absolute beauty was mesmerising as she asked with a smile, “Are you injured?”
After a tough battle, Li Qingshan seemed to be in a rather horrible shape, and he had only recovered twenty or thirty percent of his daemon qi.
And, after breaking through to the fifth layer of the ox demon, he was unable to conceal his aura anymore, so he was obviously discovered by the owner of this territory, Lolth. She had come to investigate.
Noticing his current shape, Lolth’s eyes lit up. She felt like this was a heaven-sent opportunity to redeem her pride.
Li Qingshan shot a glance at her. “Yeah, do you want to take care of me?”
“Sure!” Lolth said with pleasure before looking around. “Where’s that skeleton friend of yours? Why isn’t it taking care of you?”
“She’s busy, so she left first already.”
“You mean, it’s just us here?” Lolth smiled as she approached him slowly.
“Yeah, just us.”
Li Qingshan finished speaking and the poisonous whip whistled through the air like a bolt of black lightning. He extended his hand and grabbed the whip, so the whip coiled around his arm.
Lolth’s red lips curled. She tugged the whip backwards and it became taut.
Li Qingshan did not budge at all. He maintained his sneer as he pulled backwards. “Come!”
Lolth felt an unbelievably great force pass through the whip as she was pulled over helplessly. She went with it by lunging at Li Qingshan, waving her spider legs about as her fangs protruded.
Li Qingshan casually threw a punch. He did not even look at Lolth. Shockwaves surged out in all directions.
Lolth’s skin became silver in colour. She had experienced this move from him countless times already. Even if he landed a direct blow on her, she would not care, let alone when it landed on empty space.
However, the moment she came into contact with the shockwaves, she immediately sensed that something was amiss. It was already too late for her to dodge. Every single bone in her body and every inch of her skin shook. Even her daemon qi showed signs of being shaken apart. She was thrown away helplessly, smashing into the stone wall and sinking over thirty meters deep.
Wherever she passed by, shockwaves emerged from her body, shattering all of the rock and creating a huge, funnel-shaped cavity. She lay at the bottom of the funnel.
Lolth’s jaw trembled as she was unable to say anything. Her face was filled with shock. The part of the poison suit over her chest had been ripped apart, exposing her voluptuous breasts as well as a deep gully. Cracks appeared on her silver skin.
Even her strongest defensive ability was unable to block the power from the Tremors of the Ox Demon. If the punch had landed on her, the outcome would have been unthinkable.
At the very beginning, the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine did not seem particularly powerful. When Li Qingshan reached the first layer of the ox demon, he was merely a master of the jianghu. However, the growth that came with each layer afterwards became more and more startling.
When he could not even unleash the full power of the fifth layer of the ox demon, he was already strong enough to engage a Corpse King with an extremely tough body in a trial of strength. In terms of brute strength, he had probably approached the peak of this world already.
Although the Tremors of the Ox Demon could not shatter space in the World of the Nine Provinces, its power was still not something that could be endured by anybody.
He’s become even stronger yet again, countless times stronger than before. This is impossible. Is he really a daemon?
Lolth’s eyes were filled with disbelief; she was unable to accept this reality. She had clashed with Northmoon several times in the past. Although it had ended with her defeat every single time, all of them involved intense battles, with plenty of opportunities for her to prevail. Yet now, she could not even withstand a single punch from him. How was she supposed to accept this? And he was actually still a Daemon General right now!
Regardless of whether she could accept it or not, she made the most correct choice immediately—flee!
The tiger demon lunged and the phoenix danced. Wind and fire whistled, vanishing in a flash. Li Qingshan arrived before Lolth and pressed his arms right beside her. Their noses were almost touching as he smiled viciously.
“Didn’t you say you’d take care of me?”
After the battle of Burial Mound mountain, the tiger demon had not been able to break through to the fifth layer, but he did gain a deeper comprehension. His control over the wings of wind and fire had become more natural.
“Don’t you even think about it!” Lolth spat out a thread, shooting towards Li Qingshan’s forehead like a streak of white light. At the same time, she wormed into the rock behind her, wanting to escape from the range of his arms.
“Tremor!”
Li Qingshan bellowed out and grabbed her by the shoulders, unleashing the power of tremors madly.
Rings of shockwaves weaved in the air into black cracks that resembled lightning around him.
The spider silk shattered in the air. As if a bolt of lightning had struck her, Lolth shook violently in the air. Her poison suit was ripped apart, reduced to shreds. It fluttered through the air like butterflies before being reduced to dust and exposing her silver body.
A while later, even her daemon qi had been dispersed. Unable to maintain her innate ability, the silver colour receded, exposing her naked, pale body. Her chest stood plump and erect, jiggling like jelly from the lingering tremors as the two bright-red cherries danced about.
Lolth was filled with shock. Li Qingshan said, “Since you refuse to take care of me, I’ll take care of you!”
……
When the lord of the Green province arrived, he dismissed the school leaders to return to the academy. This was no longer something they could partake in.
The school leaders were all stricken with worry in the academy. If the Hungry Ghost realm truly descended, then all they could do was flee for their lives, and they still had no idea where they would flee off to.
Liu Zhangqing glanced around and asked, “Chengzan, where’s Qingshan?”
In a corner, Ru Xin lowered her gaze as she thought of something.
Hua Chengzan’s thoughts happened to be running wild. Hearing that, he was taken aback momentarily. “He seems to have returned to his dwelling already.”
Now, he knew Li Qingshan’s identity, but he had no idea what he should do. Technically speaking, he should have exposed him, but “Northmoon” had never targeted the academy, even giving them rather special treatment. He had spared him multiple times, even saving his life this time. With how much he owed him, it would be no exaggeration even if he were to give him his life. How could he sell him out?
Ru Xin furrowed her brows slightly as she became rather doubtful. There’s no reason he wouldn’t partake in something like this. Wait, don’t tell me he’s in there too!
Liu Zhangqing sighed. “He sure is straightforward. It’s probably caused him quite the impact again! After all, nothing is more important than your personal cultivation. Foundation Establishment really is just foundation establishment!”
Including him, no one present had not been impacted. In a great battle like that, the lives of Foundation Establishment cultivators were basically no different from dust.
Hearing that, Hua Chengzan instead eased up. The war between humans and daemons was not something a measly Foundation Establishment cultivator like him could partake in. If he became involved rashly and ignorantly, it would only claim his life pointlessly. I better just stick with cultivating and increasing my own cultivation! Though, I wonder how Qiongzhi would respond once she finds out.
This wait lasted for several days. Sunlight and moonlight constantly replaced one another outside the window.
Everyone felt more pessimistic than optimistic, but they refused to leave, afraid they would miss out on immediate news and thus face a great disaster.
“Fellows, there’s news. The Gate of Hungry Ghosts has been sealed.”
The puppet that the leader of the school of Mohism had left behind watched over the situation constantly. Now, he had finally spoken.
Everyone eased up. They almost could not help but cheer aloud. However, they then saw the leader of the school of Mohism’s face change, speaking only after faltering.
“I saw Gu Yanying and her highness the Dark Queen. Yep, and that cat daemon. The other cultivators have all fallen in battle!”
Crack! The cup in Han Anjun’s hand broke. Although his expression remained as resolute as before, his lips were trembling.
The room was thrown into an uproar. That was a group of Golden Core cultivators for heaven’s sake! There had been so many renowned figures, yet they actually all just died like this!
Hearing how Gu Yanying was still alive, Hua Chengzan eased up slightly. Then he asked in a hurry, “Was there anything else? Did anyone else emerge?”
“My puppet only monitors the outskirts. It didn’t see anyone else appear.”
