“You better use your head before you speak. If you don’t need it, I can help you remove it,” Li Qingshan raised his head and said in annoyance.
“Woman!”
The beetle demonfolk let out a furious roar, and his skin turned blue. The crown on his head protruded, extending into a huge horn that rammed towards Li Qingshan viciously.
“Venerable, be careful! He’s demonfied!”
Duoge called out. If Li Qingshan died, then only death would await him too. He would not be able to escape the fate of being eaten.
Li Qingshan casually caught the horn. The beetle demonfolk continued to advance, but he felt like a mountain was standing before him, utterly immovable.
Li Qingshan pulled gently, and the beetle demonfolk felt an irresistibly tremendous force pull him over against his will. Afterwards, he felt his neck tighten, and Li Qingshan had already wrapped his other arm around his neck.
Li Qingshan pulled gently with both hands, ripping his skin and flesh open, revealing pale-white bone. Blood spurted out like a geyser. He forcefully ripped off the beetle demonfolk’s huge head and tossed it into the air like a basketball.
With a thud, it landed against the gilded door, smashing to pieces and becoming stuck there.
The several dozen demonfolk roared furiously, all demonifying and killing their way over.
……
A while later, the corpses of demonfolk were scattered across the ground, and the blood had even formed a thin layer. Only the two demonfolk left with the top half of their bodies continued to tear at each other mindlessly.
Li Qingshan walked over to the gilded door and kicked them aside. They slammed into the golden walls with a splat, reduced to mincemeat. They merged as one as they slowly slid down.
“Duoge, what’s behind the door?”
“A lot of very powerful demonfolk, but no Demon Generals. Demon Generals can’t seem to come up?” Duogo rummaged through the beetle demonfolk’s chest excitedly.
Demon General? They’re probably equivalent to Corpse Generals! Li Qingshan pondered for a moment. “Can’t come up? You mean there are more prisons down below?”
“Yeah, I fled my way up from down there, or I would have been eaten long ago.” Duoge buried his head in there as he searched, without even minding when his face became caked in blood. “Hmm? Why isn’t it here?”
Li Qingshan thought of the Unraging monk’s warning again—Don’t go too deep or too far.
I see now.
The Demon Suppression hall did consist of only a single floor. According to what Duoge said, the weaker demonfolk would all flee to the top floor out of a fear of being eaten, while the strongest demonfolk were probably all suppressed as low as possible.
“How many floors are there?”
“Nine. Ah, so it’s here!” Duoge exclaimed in joy. He found something in the beetle demonfolk’s head that was stuck to the wall and offered it up to Li Qingshan with both hands. “Venerable, please enjoy.”
“What’s this?”
Li Qingshan only saw a black, tumour-like object in Duoge’s hands. There was a hint of green, and at first glance, it resembled a hideous, shrunken head. It gave off a strange aura with a hint of sweetness within the stink.
He could not help but feel disgust as if he had just witnessed blasphemy, rot, and filth, smelling the very embodiment of sins.
“This is a demon heart.” Duoge licked his lips.
“I don’t want it.”
Li Qingshan had no interest in eating some unknown object removed from someone’s head. Although it contained power, the power would bring him no benefit at all. If he ate it, he would probably require the power of the spirit turtle to suppress and purge it.
“Can you award it to Duoge, venerable?”
“Eat it if you want!”
“Thank you, venerable!”
Duoge was overjoyed. As if he was afraid Li Qingshan would change his mind, he shoved the demon heart into his mouth in a hurry and gulped it down. He almost even choked, only managing to force it down by thumping his chest.
The Dauntless monk and the Unraging monk both saw this. The Dauntless monk said, “How foolish. This will only strengthen this little demonfolk’s demonic nature.”
Li Qingshan pressed one hand against the gilded door and slowly drew the Heavy Water sword. “Little Duoge, what’s the most offensive curse word among demonfolk?”
“You’re a good person!” Duoge said after some thought.
Li Qingshan’s face stiffened. “Alright then!”
Pushing hard, the gilded doors opened extremely quietly.
The first thing that Li Qingshan saw was a pair of widened eyes, glaring right at him. His heart lurched violently, and all of his hairs stood on end. He was truly alarmed.
There’s actually such a dangerous enemy here!?
However, once he settled down, he discovered it was not a living person, but the statue of a demon male in his prime, standing over a dozen meters tall. He was bare-chested, revealing his sturdy body. He wore a pair of shorts below.
The statue was not looking at him. Instead, it gazed upwards, looking at the sky.
However, it was far too life-like. The emotions that it contained were so intense that it seemed to spring out vividly, which was why Li Qingshan was put under a false impression.
The demon male spread his arms as hard as he could. His face was viciously twisted, his veins bulged, and his teeth protruded. His ten fingers turned into claws as if he was undergoing “demonification”, about to take on an invisible opponent in a great battle.
“Who are you?” “He’s not a demon! He’s a human!”
Li Qingshan’s attention was completely drawn away by the statue. Only when he heard the sounds in the surroundings did he return to his senses. Around the statue was a huge, circular square. Including the doors behind him, there were a total of nine gilded doors around the square.
As it seemed, this was the very centre of this “maze”.
Looking at the square, over a dozen demonfolk stood around here and there. The aura every single one of them gave off was even greater than the beetle demonfolk from before. They maintained their distance from one another, all focusing on the statue of the demon.
For once, there was a female demonfolk among them. Clearly, the strong were revered regardless of their gender. There was no food here, so the only way to survive was to devour one another.
Xiao An’s appearance led to a series of restlessness. Greedy and hungry gazes were cast over one by one.
However, compared to the regular demonfolk, they clearly had better control over their desires. They studied Li Qingshan as they tried to estimate his strength. If Li Qingshan were a weakling, then what awaited him would be a hellish sight.
Li Qingshan scanned around, but he looked at them like they were already dead.
He sucked in a deep breath and stressed every single word.
“You- are- all- good- people!”
There was a commotion among the demonfolk. They all stood up as if they had just been severely insulted.
Seeing how it was effective, Li Qingshan grinned and continued, “Your whole family are good people! You’ve been good people your whole lives!”
The demonfolk all sank into rage. They demonified and rushed over.
At this moment, Li Qingshan’s gaze instead skipped over them and landed on the statue of the demon again. He noticed something, He’s not demonifying. It’s the exact opposite. He’s resisting demonification.
The demonfolk arrived right before him, and the Heavy Water sword became over thirty meters long—Siege Breaking strike.
Li Qingshan gripped it firmly with one hand as it whistled out horizontally, cutting through seven powerful demonfolk. Sword qi erupted in their bodies, tearing them to pieces.
Li Qingshan clearly saw the shockwave from the sword qi being blocked by an invisible barrier when it reached a few meters away from the statue. He understood something else. The statue is probably the centre of the hall.
Li Qingshan strode forwards. With a flick of his wrist, the Heavy Water sword whistled back.
As if he had pulled a veil of blood over him, sprays of spurting blood bloomed before him. Countless bloody, dismembered corpses swept past like a storm.
Li Qingshan simply ignored all of this. He only raised his head and continued to stare. The demon’s eyes are not filled with fury, but pain.
Just what was this statue hiding?
Only the female demonfolk rushed towards the gilded door opposite of Li Qingshan. She was not under the control of lust, and her desire to survive had triumphed over her fury.
Li Qingshan tossed over the Heavy Water sword without even looking. It sailed over as a blue arc, passing through the demonfolk’s body before returning to Li Qingshan’s hand.
The demonfolk froze up and exploded.
Li Qingshan finally arrived before the stature. From this perspective, the demon male was extending his arms towards the sky.
“He’s not fighting anyone, but praying. Praying for what? To who?”
“I heard that as long as you can understand the secret in the statue, you can escape from here,” Duoge said suddenly.
“The statue possesses some kind of cultivation method.”
Xiao An arrived behind Li Qingshan and said firmly.
Li Qingshan rubbed his chin and nodded.
He was not a supreme genius like Xiao An, but the feeling that the statue gave him was far too familiar.
When brother ox had passed the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine to him, he had used a similar method. The eight demonic and divine figures still remained in his sea of consciousness, and they definitely hid an inheritance greater than what the statue before him offered.
He had already comprehended the true spirit of the ox demon and tiger demon from the figures. Now that he looked at this statue, he felt like it was not too difficult to understand.
……
“Impressive. He actually managed to notice the Demon Suppression Statuary with a single glance.”
The Unraging monk chuckled. When regular people saw the statue, they would only think it was a relatively more vivid and realistic statue. Who would have thought it would actually be hiding something else.
“Noticing it is one matter. Whether he can comprehend it or not is another.”
The Dauntless monk said without approval, but he was rather perplexed inside. Li Qingshan did not come off as a person with an exceptional ability to comprehend, so how had he managed to notice the secret in the statue at first glance?
The existence of the Demon Suppression Statuary was a secret that was no longer a secret in the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga. Among the past disciples who entered the Demon Suppression hall for trials, plenty of them had been talented and bright, noticing the existence of the Demon Suppression Statuary. However, never had anyone managed to comprehend this cultivation method. They could not even comprehend the simplest first layer.
Even with the Dauntless monk’s current level of knowledge and cultivation, he could only detect part of the statue’s very essence, unable to truly comprehend it.
It was rumored that this cultivation method was not prepared for the monks of the monastery, but for the demonic prisoners who were once locked up here. It required people with an extremely strong demonic nature to cast aside their wickedness and repent, going from the demonic to buddhism.
However, this clearly was anything but simple. Not a single demonfolk had managed to comprehend it over the past few millennia.
The Unraging monk put forward a question. “If he really comprehends the Demon Suppression Statuary, what are we supposed to do?”
Speaking of which, the Demon Suppression Statuary was the greatest cultivation method of the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga. Even the Chant of Deva-Nāga paled in comparison. However, because no one had ever managed to practise it throughout all these millennia, it was not renowned. If an outsider managed to learn it, then…
“That’s utterly impossible!”
The Dauntless monk said flatly. Over the past few millennia, whether it were the monks of the monastery or the demonfolk imprisoned here, there had been countless figures of extraordinary intellect, yet none of them managed to comprehend the Demon Suppression Statuary. How could a measly Foundation Establishment cultivator like him achieve that?
Even if he truly possessed an exceptional ability to comprehend and understand, he was a Hawkwolf guard, so what demonic nature could exist within him? If there was no demonic nature, what demons was it supposed to suppress?
