Volume 1, Chapter 13 – The Demon Pool’s Principle

She had a point.

Han Li thought for a bit and said, “What we can confirm is that the Demon Pool can swallow someone without a sound, then wear that person’s clothes and blend into the group—almost no visible abnormality.”

“Almost?” Fang Wenya frowned.

“The only way to tell is: the clothing on the devoured person won’t be complete,” Han Li added.

“For example, that one just now… he should’ve been wearing long pants. After it possessed him, there were no pants—just a coat thrown over his lower body. If you pay attention, you can spot that.”

“And…” Zhao Xiaoqin spoke through clenched teeth beside him, “this Demon Pool has two modes, corporeal and incorporeal… The incorporeal are the ones that possess and eat people; the corporeal roams about as a ‘blood skull.’ They’re fast enough to dodge bullets, and monstrously strong—ordinary means won’t work…”

By the end she couldn’t help looking toward her left shoulder.

That horrific wound had come from a blood skull grabbing her entire arm and tearing it straight off at the shoulder.

She might be a standard Inspector, but she was at least Nurture the Spirit, seventh stage—her strength and reactions far beyond an ordinary person’s.

For a blood skull to overpower her so completely—she’d never seen a Demon Pool like this in her life.

“And one more thing!” Instructor Li added, “Anyone who hasn’t entered the Dao can’t even look at them!”

He glanced at the scant dozen students left in the room, his expression tinged with pity.

“Lian Di… Kong Sheng… They had no heart-aspect. They looked straight at the filth, and who knows when it possessed them and ate them…”

“Corporeal and incorporeal: the corporeal are lightning-quick and overwhelmingly strong; the incorporeal can’t be met head-on, and the two seem to sense each other—we’re not sure if it’s by sound…”

Chen Jing pulled a long face, helping summarize the Demon Pool’s traits, while Fang Wenya grew paler by the sentence.

Demon Pools, as a rule, have principles and weak points.

If you pierce the Demon Pool’s principle, sometimes even ordinary people can survive a demon disaster.

With the right targeted measures, even someone like her might be able to break a Demon Pool.

As the saying goes: the Great Dao is fifty; Heaven evolves forty-nine—the one withdrawn leaves a way out. Many Daoist schools hold that Demon Pools have rules and weaknesses precisely because they accord with Heaven’s workings.

Some Demon Pools are purely illusory—close your eyes and don’t look; feel your way by touch and you can walk out of range.

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Some forbid the sound of fear—let so much as a tremor of fear slip from your throat and the Demon Pool pounces and kills in an instant.

Fang Wenya had read many such cases since childhood. So her first thought was to pool everyone’s minds to find this Demon Pool’s weak point—or at least figure out how it spread outward from a single thermos of water.

But this Demon Pool was absurdly complicated!

A weakness… Do the incorporeal fear electricity?

Unclear. Tentative at best.

But the corporeal blood skulls were flatly unmanageable! Even Han Li at Nurture the Spirit, ninth stage, with standard police gear, couldn’t last a single exchange!

How were they supposed to target that?

Close your eyes… That only keeps the incorporeal from possessing you.

Were they really going to feel their way out like that?

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried—but the blood skulls still found them.

They’d run into blood skulls twice; the first time eight students died, the second time four more—plus Zhao Xiaoqin’s left arm torn away.

There was no pattern to grasp at all…

Where, exactly, was Heaven’s so-called “one withdrawn” showing itself…

Fang Wenya racked her brain and still couldn’t find a way to break the deadlock.

What she couldn’t understand even more was why someone would go to such lengths to target her.

Coming at her father?

She wasn’t a sword student and had always hidden her identity here; she carried no powerful escorts or treasures. Any way you looked at it, they were using her to make trouble for her father.

Then all the more reason I can’t die.

Fang Wenya’s breathing quickened slightly.

If the plan was to kill her to force Fang Xiaochun’s hand, then she must not come to harm.

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So long as she lived, that was the best counter.

So long as she lived, their plot couldn’t succeed!

Only… the Demon Pool…

Back to reality, Fang Wenya sagged a little.

Fine vows were useless; if you couldn’t solve the problem in front of you, vows meant nothing.

As she frowned and thought, she suddenly sensed something off in the room.

She’d said to pool everyone’s ideas—yet so few had responded, and among the students only Classmate Chen spoke up.

Looking carefully, the experimental class’s survivors had flickering eyes when they met hers; most turned away when her gaze fell on them.

Ah…

Fang Wenya stared.

Right—I ignored how my classmates must feel…

At death’s door, a noble title doesn’t go far.

Knowing they were dragged into a demon disaster because of me—of course there’d be resentment…

……

Elsewhere, Bai Xiang gave up on the elevator and chose the stairs up to the fourth floor.

The stairwell was a horror show, scarlet stains splashed over steps and landings. Some were like prints from skeletal feet; others were smears from bodies dragging along the floor.

Where the blood was thickest, heaps of human remains lay piled; every third step or so there were torn shreds of clothing.

The stench of blood was choking—an ordinary person would be heaving after a few breaths.

Bai Xiang showed no reaction. She moved in fits and starts, crouching now and then to inspect remains and scraps of cloth, and made no sound throughout.

On the mid-landing of the third floor, her gaze sharpened: under the glare of a white incandescent bulb lay a severed arm in the corner.

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The arm and a wholly scarlet skeleton lay together. Bai Xiang went over, nudged the arm with her wooden sword, stared at the black cloth wrapping it and the slender fingers, and concluded it belonged to Zhao Xiaoqin.

Whether Zhao Xiaoqin was competent was another matter, but as a full-rank Inspector her sword-dao cultivation was at least Nurture the Spirit, seventh stage.

And in her pairing with Han Li it was clearly the latter who led. Han was older, longer in the sword path—likely ninth stage, perhaps even tenth at completion.

Even with a combination like that—and weapons with some restraint over Demon Pools—she’d still had her arm ripped off…

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes and ratcheted the “poisoned-water Demon Pool’s” threat level up another notch.

Suddenly, sensing a shift in the air, she snapped her head up toward the top of the stairs—just in time to glimpse a pale girl in a white shirt, hair loose, watching her.

Clothes…

Bai Xiang’s gaze settled on the shirt and confirmed that aside from that piece, the girl likely wore nothing else.

Even if there were undergarments, it wasn’t normal dress.

She kept the girl in view, but her peripheral vision slid to the blood skull in the corner.

She had indeed seen many bloody footprints just now—like prints from bony feet…

“Are you here to save us?”

The girl looked excited, glancing about as she waved to Bai Xiang. “Come quick… those monsters might be upstairs!”

Bai Xiang paused, said “All right,” and stepped up.

As the distance closed, she began to feel an anomaly within.

It was the heart-aspect seed in her inner vista—normally almost imperceptible—but the closer she came to the girl, the more it burned like a blazing sun.

Not severe, but it sent her blood surging, as if some defense mechanism in her body were waking on its own, already mustering against the threat.

“Hurry!”

Only a step away, the girl thrust out her arm, urgent.

“Grab my hand! I’ll hide you!”

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Her answer was a flash of white.

Bai Xiang didn’t even dignify it; she slid the sheathed wooden sword to brush that hand aside, snatched Dingbo with her right, drew in one smooth line, and chopped a snow-bright arc straight into the girl’s brow!

“Splurt!”

Short as it was, Dingbo’s blade was wider than most; its weight was true to the ounce. The girl’s head split like a melon; the edge ran down to the root of her neck with a ringing crack!

But the spray of red and white never came.

As the cut finished, Bai Xiang felt the follow-through fall into emptiness.

A blink later, only a white shirt was fluttering down in front of her—no trace of the girl at all.

With a scene this eerie, who had she just been looking at?

On instinct, Bai Xiang turned back to the blood skull in the corner of the lower landing.

On closer look, the skull’s legs still wore the tatters of long pants.

And among the many shredded scraps beside it, the only thing missing seemed to be a top.

Clack-clack…

The blood skull stirred, rose under Bai Xiang’s gaze, and stared at her with two ink-black sockets.

So that’s it.

Bai Xiang replayed the scene just now, then thought of the Luo Yu report the school had provided.

She had a good idea now of the Demon Pool’s principle.