The willows and poplar trees around Calm Wave lake were verdant. It was the height of spring, so many people moved around the lake. There were young masters and misses on spring outings, as well as travelling merchants and vendors carrying out business.
The ground suddenly shook. Many people lost their footing and fell to the ground, and a small carriage almost rolled into the lake.
“What’s going on? Is it an earthquake?” Someone pointed at the sky and exclaimed, “What’s that?”
Everyone in the surroundings gaze over. A straight streak of scarlet light pierced through the air and vanished into the surface of the lake. Some people said it was a meteor, but they were immediately rebuked. Were there any meteors that traveled with such a trajectory?
As they discussed, a great boom rang out from the distance. Because it was overly far away, the boom was not particularly startling.
Afterwards, everyone saw it. Wherever the scarlet light passed by, the clouds parted, vaguely forming a circular hole. A thin, white line rose up on the water, rapidly growing in size. A terrifying wave that no one had ever seen before rushed over.
Everyone cried out in alarm and scattered like birds and beasts.
In the centre of Calm Wave lake, the water over a hundred meters deep had been forcefully parted, forming a huge pit in the water.
At the very bottom of the pit, Li Qingshan was upside down, having punched Sha Bie on his shell. The turtle shell flashed with light and produced totemic patterns filled with a primitive, simple, and indestructible will.
This was the innate ability that Sha Bie took the greatest pride in. He was not a divine beast like the spirit turtle, but the turtle shell was still a lifebound item of his, something he had developed over a thousand years. He did not hold back with his spiritual qi, pushing his innate ability to the limit.
The only way to kill him was to burst through the turtle shell, but unless he ran out of daemon qi, his shell could not be destroyed. Right now, he had the Water God Seal in his body, so his daemon qi was virtually endless. He was basically undefeatable.
That was unless a Daemon King attacked him and used overwhelming strength to smash apart his shell, but how could a mere Daemon General achieve that?
Crack!
The sound of something breaking rang out, and his back ached. Sha Bie’s eyes bulged out. “Impossible!”
Under Li Qingshan’s punch, the totemic patterns only remained for a split second before twisting and shattering. The indestructible turtle shell caved in and shattered like paper.
When he reached the fifth layer of the ox demon, he could rival a Corpse King in strength. Now that he had become a Daemon Commander and stood over a hundred and twenty meters tall, just how much strength did he possess? Amplified by the terrifying speed when he descended from above, what might could he unleash? All of this combined was not something a Daemon Commander could contend with!
And, what if Li Qingshan’s most powerful method of attack was added into the equation too? His fist was pitch-black, wrapped in the power of the Tremors of the Ox Demon. Even the Corpse King had once suffered against this attack, and it had become even more lethal now.
The so-called powerful defence and being in an undefeatable state was no different from a pretence to Li Qingshan.
He directly pierced Sha Bie’s colossal body. The power of tremors tore apart his flesh, shattering his last bit of fighting will.
The mountainous islands on Calm Wave lake obstructed the tsunami-like wave. When it reached the shore, it had already subsided by a lot, but it was still several meters tall. It slammed against the banks.
The power behind that attack had actually made the largest lake in the Ruyi commandery surge, only settling down after a very long time.
The mortals all thought it was the might of the heavens, but even the cultivators cultivating near the lake became dumbstruck as their hearts shook.
In the depths at the centre of the lake, water crashed down like an avalanche, stirring up the sand and grit on the bottom of the lake. The sediment only settled after a very long time.
Li Qingshan shook his right hand viciously. He felt like the bones in his hand were about to break earlier. He said to Sha Bie’s huge head beside him. “Even I can’t really withstand that strike of mine, so do you really think you can still withstand it?”
His words were completely unwarranted. If he had not used his innate ability and immobilised Sha Bie, who would be stupid enough to stay put and try to block it forcefully?
“The Dragon King of Ink Sea sent me. Northmoon, how dare you try to kill your clansmen and disobey sir dragon king’s orders!?”
Sha Bie laid on the bottom of the lake, lingering on his last breath. Even his head was riddled with terrifying cracks. Before he could even understand what was going on, he was already heavily injured, on the brink of death.
Fortunately, upon reaching his realm of cultivation, all daemons possessed extremely great life force. As long as they did not lose their daemon cores, they could even survive damage to their vital points. He mobilised his daemon qi to heal his wounds as he tried to use the dragon king’s name to frighten Northmoon.
Li Qingshan smiled. “I’ll just lop off your limbs and then take away your daemon core. Oh right, the Water God Seal too!”
“Sir dragon king bestowed the Water God Seal upon me. I’m bold enough to give it to you, but are you bold enough to take it? I will give up on this water territory and leave here!”
“If you mention the dragon king again, I’ll butcher you. Right now, this is just between the two of us!”
Li Qingshan smiled. He hated being threatened very much, but what he hated even more was the fact that he really was rather fearful of the Dragon King of Ink Sea. The more time he spent together with the Great Banyan Tree King and the Golden Cicada Spirit King, the more he understood about the terrifying strength of these older, reputed Daemon Kings.
If he were a Daemon King who had just undergone the third heavenly tribulation, Li Qingshan would be confident enough to take him on in battle right now, but the Dragon King of Ink Sea had been crowned as one of the Ten Daemon Kings several thousand years ago. In an open confrontation, it was no longer an issue of victory or defeat. Even escaping with his life intact would be very difficult.
“Alright, alright. Since you’re bold enough to take it, I’ll give it to you. However, my daemon core is off-limits. If you want to coerce me into it, I’ll blow up my daemon core, and that’ll be that. You won’t even obtain the Water God Seal. If you kill me, sir dragon king…”
She Bie suddenly realised he had slipped up. Violent murderousness erupted beside him. His black eyes clearly reflected a handsome and twisted face. He thought, Oh no!
“Do you really think my words mean nothing? You better just die!” Li Qingshan slammed down with both hands.
Sha Bie bellowed out and tried to blow up his daemon core so that he could destroy the Water God Seal too.
“The Spirit Turtle Suppresses, Tremors of the Ox Demon!”
Li Qingshan slammed down on Sha Bie with his left hand and produced a ring of azure light, enveloping Sha Bie in the blink of an eye. He forcefully suppressed the daemon core. His right hand was enveloped in black cracks that rapidly spread across Sha Bie.
Sha Bie’s huge body shattered violently, only leaving behind a cyan daemon core and a Water God Seal that hovered in the water. With a swing of his hand, Li Qingshan stowed both the daemon core and the Water God Seal away.
However, this was not over yet. He opened his eyes as wide as possible and let out a deep tiger growl.
Sha Bie’s figure appeared once again in the rippling lake water, fading in and out with the undulations. However, under Li Qingshan’s gaze, he gradually consolidated. It was Sha Bie’s soul that was supposed to have moved on into the afterlife. Meeting Li Qingshan’s eyes, his head blanked out. Suddenly, he began lowering his head towards Li Qingshan, showing great respect.
Li Qingshan smiled. “That’s a pretty good effect!”
The third innate ability of the tiger demon—Subservience to the Tiger.
Why were ghosts subservient to the tiger? Legends had it that tigers possessed the power to control a myriad of ghosts, while those that a tiger ate would turn into a subservient chang ghost, or a haunt, following the tiger around to do evil and create even more haunts.
Li Qingshan’s innate ability could convert the souls of the creatures he killed, whether they were human or daemon, into subservient ghosts, serving him with devotion. It was like a ghost control technique.
PS: After all sorts of hardships, Qingshan has finally become a Daemon Commander, obtaining three more innate abilities. The book is close to crossing two million characters too. There’s one more release today, so I need to gather my energy and beg furiously for monthly votes.
