Volume 3, Chapter 105 – Slaughter (Two-in-One)

The sword strike was too dazzling and too fast. Before the black crystal demon even reacted, the blade had already traced a sharp angle, stabbing up through his jaw and punching out through the crown of his head.

“You… you…!” Only then did the black crystal demon finally see Bai Xiang’s face clearly. It was no longer the blackened skin and masked witch disguise. The powder on her face had shattered, the mask was gone, and her original appearance had fully returned.

“No guards downstairs, is that it?” Bai Xiang pressed him back against the corridor wall, a bloodthirsty smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Good. You are useless now.”

“Wa—” The black crystal demon’s eyes bulged as he tried to beg for mercy, but the next instant raging qi-force detonated inside his skull. It instantly turned into a tiny sword-qi tornado that shredded his whole body and clothes into dust.

Bai Xiang stared at what was left of him. Within the drifting crystal dust she sensed a thread of black crystal powder trying to slip away. She immediately raised her hand, grabbed it with qi-force and, borrowing Feixiang Heaven’s power, devoured it completely.

At once, a jumble of fragmented memories surged into the sea of her mind.

Bai Xiang quickly sorted through them and opened her eyes again. Her pair of golden pupils gleamed in the corridor’s shadows with a frightening light.

The black crystal demon’s name had been Shi Long. In the Blackrock Demon Kingdom he held the position of a “Rock Envoy.” His main duties were to link together the demon kingdom’s scattered forces in the main world, funneling resources back through those channels, and to catalyze “Saint-Stone Envoys.”

Mentioning the Saint-Stone Envoys meant she could not avoid tracing this demon clan’s origin.

The Blackrock Demon Kingdom’s history went back tens of millions of years. In the very beginning it did not exist at all. Then one day, a celestial meteor-star fell from the sky and crashed here. After that, beasts, birds, fish and insects exposed to the star’s power were gradually interfered with and changed, turning “crystalized.”

That influence and interference grew stronger and spread wider, eventually dragging human society into it as well. Thus a branch of “blackrock demons” was born, and under their support the Blackrock Demon Kingdom was formally established.

This demon kingdom did not have a “great king.”

Unlike some revived demon kingdoms that at least had a single demon king unifying them, the Blackrock Demon Kingdom was an exception. The meteor-star that should have occupied that seat had only just awakened a faint consciousness even now, far from enough to fully control other intelligent beings.

To this faintly aware being that called itself the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One, the ones under it, the kin bred from its interference and influence, were actually enemies.

The known cultivation method of this demonic bloodline was to refine the crystals in their own bodies by devouring high-concentration blackrock ore: black crystal veins. If all the kingdom’s subjects wanted to devour the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One, was that not perfectly natural.

From the moment they were born, they were natural enemies. Likewise, they had no reverence for any other living things in nature. They treated them purely as farmland, using flesh and blood as soil in which to grow black crystal veins.

In order to preserve itself, the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One had forcibly spawned and transformed a batch of “blackrock demon spirits,” using something like a bloodline secret art to control them as its protectors.

These were called Rock Envoys, the same role Shi Long had played.

By relying on this batch of Rock Envoys, the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One had defeated the Blackrock Demon Kingdom’s other forces, suppressing those kin who wanted to devour its body, and barely managed to establish a demonic orthodoxy. Then it began to scheme its growth.

It sensed the main world’s aura, which meant the demon kingdom’s Illusory Realm was already connected to the main world. It sent Rock Envoys outward, toward Luohou, to gather allies and work with Black Heaven Shinu, while at the same time preparing to further strengthen itself.

For that second aim, it needed Saint-Stone Envoys. The principle was to gather as many people or beings with demon bloodlines as possible, bring them here, and corrupt and transform them with the black crystal curse.

Under the influence of that demon bloodline, this transformation had a fair chance of skipping the black crystal disease stage and directly turning the entire body into pure black crystal.

That crystal could be devoured directly by the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One. Compared to swallowing black crystal demons and beasts with their messy, impure crystals, the Saint-Stone Envoys’ crystals were much purer and could boost its strength in one gulp.

So that was the truth behind the Blackrock Demon Kingdom secretly recruiting ancient wu.

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They had no real interest in witchcraft. They were simply reasoning backward. In their eyes, anyone with the potential to be a witch was likely to carry demon or ancient demon blood, so they launched this plan.

This was a demon clan with evil flowing in its bones.

Bai Xiang crushed the crystal dust in her hand. Her face was cold, and a faint chill lay in her eyes.

They called it interference. To her eye, it was nothing but pollution.

The Black Crystal Holy Venerated One’s true form was that meteor from beyond the sky. That thing inevitably carried intense contamination.

Or in more scientific terms, it carried intense radiation.

With that it had poisoned a vast region of earth and environment, turning every living thing here into crystal monsters. Before it could truly awaken from its slumber, it had been ravaged by the Void Tribulation. Most of the demon kingdom had been sliced into Illusory Realms and scattered, only to be found again recently as the connection between main world and Illusory Realms deepened.

So that was the principle behind demon kingdom “revival.”

Strictly speaking, it was not revival at all. It was that the Illusory Realm it occupied would periodically reconnect with the main world after a certain cycle.

Thinking it over, Bai Xiang went back into the side room, shrugged off the long robe and dug her Moyuan battlesuit out of the worn pack to put it on.

After she suited up, she tied her white hair into a slightly high ponytail, pulled the elastic mask up from under her collar, then threw a new windbreaker over it and strode out into the corridor.

There was no longer any need to hide.

The Blackrock Demon Kingdom was a very peculiar demonic power. The rules here were upheld purely by that handful of Rock Envoys. The demon residents at the bottom of the food chain were barely holding together something like a small society.

Why.

Easy. Once you knew that devouring your own kind would greatly advance your strength, you could never look another clansman in the eye the same way again.

A market-town like Jingwu Village was already considered open and enlightened within the demon kingdom. Countless demonfolk who called themselves black crystal cultivators were willing to obey rules here and trade goods for goods.

But once they left this place and the few major settlements within the kingdom’s borders, if they ran into each other in the wilds, they did not have many choices left.

Bai Xiang found it interesting. It came very close to the dark societies in cultivation novels that were full of ambush, plunder, and mutual slaughter.

It was just that here there was no glossing it over. It was the most direct kind of “eating people.”

“Plunder on the road” meant plundering the other person’s body itself.

This black crystal line did not undergo Body Tribulations. They had long since been polluted, their true forms no longer human, so there was no such thing as crossing a tribulation. They cultivated purely by devouring crystal ore and refining it.

Shi Long had been middle rank among the Rock Envoys in terms of strength. She had not really given him room to perform, but now that Bai Xiang had a basic grasp of Taishang Perception, she could infer a rough level from his manner of speaking and acting. He had likely reached the Divine Fetus realm.

Relations between Rock Envoys were poor. They were competitors. It was not rare for someone who botched their work to be “rewarded” to a colleague by the Black Crystal Holy Venerated One, or even devoured back on the spot. Naturally there was no such thing as friendship between them.

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Shi Long’s memories contained several colleagues he did not get along with. They were scattered at other bases, secluded in their cultivation, living off the human ore resources collected from markets like this one.

Demons had little sense of time. One bout of cultivation might last more than ten years. The last time Shi Long saw them had been many years ago, which meant they likely had also improved with the market’s resources.

In other words, there were Rock Envoys stronger than him, perhaps a notch above the Divine Fetus realm.

But not by much. In all likelihood, none of them were a match for Bai Xiang.

“My main goal right now is to find the Burning Drool Demon Kingdom, then go in to search for a new Zhenyuan sword embryo and the Tongmai Method. I really do not have time to play spy games with them here.”

With that thought, Bai Xiang’s steps grew firmer.

She walked to the end of the corridor and shoved open the folding wooden door. The market street sprang into view outside, a crashing wave of noise washing over her.

“Mm?”

Chief Steward Cai was standing at the entrance smoking. He turned and froze for a moment when he saw her.

White hair, black face mask, and that sword.

Not good.

He clearly recognized Bai Xiang. His mouth opened to shout.

Bai Xiang’s sword moved faster than his vocal cords. She casually slashed diagonally with Feixiang Heaven, and Chief Steward Cai’s head flew up with a wet pop. In midair it was caught by a surge of sword-qi and shredded into a spray of crystal-laced meat.

What.

Someone was killing in broad daylight.

The stall keepers and passersby around them were stunned. The whole market boiled over at once. Countless demons shouted that there had been a murder and fled backward, the scene turning into utter chaos.

But they were not ordinary folk. As they retreated and shouted, their eyes shone with greedy light. Some took advantage of the confusion to overturn nearby stalls and steal goods. Others slipped through the crowd, striking from the shadows to drive a blade into old enemies.

Another group of black crystal cultivators stared at Bai Xiang like tigers, watching as a squad of black-crystal-armored guards burst from the four sides of the tower, wielding longswords and halberds. Their eyes shifted between Bai Xiang, the armored guards, and the tower itself, clearly plotting something.

The armored guards swung their blades and halberds as they closed in on Bai Xiang, forming an encirclement in an instant.

Bai Xiang calmly sheathed and stood straight. She flicked her wrist, making her sword hum. A translucent flower of sound waves bloomed from her center, blocking the incoming weapons and brushing them aside.

Squelch, squelch.

Then the flower changed again. It suddenly shattered. Each fragment of petal became condensed sword-qi, spraying out like a rainstorm and riddling the guards’ bodies like sieves.

What kind of monster was this.

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The watching black crystal cultivators could not help staring, stunned.

Causing trouble under the Sacred Crystal Pavilion was bad enough. But each of those black crystal guards was a subordinate of the Rock Envoys, their martial strength above that of ordinary loose cultivators, and they could not even withstand one casual strike from her. They had been knocked away like worthless chickens and dogs.

The Blackrock Demon Kingdom’s lower ranks were not strong. You could even call them weak.

Bai Xiang raised a hand and swept up the drifting black smoke, gathering the souls within into Feixiang Heaven. She still had the leisure to notice the restless stirrings among the loose cultivators.

She had already confirmed this much when she came in. As she arrived, she had seen many stalls in the market selling technology imported from outside, including mechanical prosthetics, high-energy battery packs, mechanical backpacks, and small mechs. It meant the demon cultivators’ defensive methods were very lacking. They might not even have true divine abilities, which made them especially fond of technological weapons, quick ways to boost their fighting power.

Because she had figured this out, and then learned the kingdom’s internal situation by killing Shi Long and taking his memories, Bai Xiang had decided there was no more point in hiding.

There truly was no need.

None of these creatures were good. She might as well clean them out in passing.

With that thought, she started walking toward the cluster of loose cultivators.

Riding the momentum of smashing the armored guards, she was only one person, but the more than a hundred loose cultivators were still forced back by her presence, unconsciously squeezing away.

Then, perhaps someone felt ashamed, or perhaps someone’s eyes had gone red with greed at the sight of the tower behind her with no more guards, and weapons came out as a few rushed her.

“Die!” The shout came from a yellow-robed bull demon. Chains as thick as a normal man’s arm wrapped his whole body, and a mechanical giant arm half a meter across was mounted on his right side. He swung it down toward Bai Xiang.

Bai Xiang did not even look at him. Feixiang Heaven turned a flower in her right palm, shifting from a normal grip to a backhanded oblique edge. Then she snapped her arm forward and sent a water-like crescent of sword-qi sweeping out.

Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss.

That sword-qi expanded incredibly fast. In less than a single breath, it had cut across the entire mass of several hundred gathered loose cultivators. Bai Xiang’s figure moved along with the arc of sword-qi, passing straight through. Only when she had stepped past them did the demons start falling one by one, all cut in half at the waist, writhing on the ground half-dead.

Bai Xiang glanced back once, a little surprised that so many of them were still alive.

Of course. They had long since stopped being human. Some of their bones and organs had already been replaced by crystal. This level of damage could not count as fatal.

“Spare us, immortal. Spare us, immortal!”

Seeing her pause and look back, the half bodies that remained of the demons all wriggled upright, crying and wailing for mercy.

Those sword moves, that movement.

This woman was terrifying.

Even ten Rock Envoys would probably not be her match. Why had they ever picked a fight with this calamity.

“Spare you?” Bai Xiang fully turned around, walked up to the nearest demon, and set her foot on his head. She used the tip of her sword to lift the bundle tied to his body.

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Clatter.

A cluster of black crystals spilled out. There were also two small cloth bundles. She flicked them open to reveal two baby skulls the size of fists.

Flesh still clung to these skulls. Most of it had not yet had time to crystallize. With all the memories she had absorbed, Bai Xiang knew at once that these were not skulls prepared as human ore. They were delicacies, just like those on Shi Long and Chief Steward Cai’s table.

“This… immortal…”

The demon struggled to raise his head, his smile uglier than a sob.

“I am human.” Bai Xiang’s cold voice drifted down from above. “You demons use people as ore. It is no different from eating flesh and drinking blood.”

“Spare us?”

“If I spared you, how could I face the countless wronged souls you have brought into being?”

“Immorta—!?”

Their plea was answered by a flash of white light.

Shenming Sword: Empty-Thought Thundercry.

Violent sword-qi spread out with white radiance, shredding everything in its path, whether demon loose cultivators, corpses and rubble, or beams and rafters. When it finally settled, a gigantic sphere more than a hundred meters across had been gouged from the ground. Only a single pillar of earth remained standing in the center, with Bai Xiang alone on top.

Golden light flickered. In Bai Xiang’s field of vision, a crowd of human souls drifted up from the ruins and crater.

There were young and strong, there were elders, women and children. All of them forced themselves upright to bow to her, relief and release written across their faces.

“Farewell to you all.”

Bai Xiang sheathed her sword and gave them a sword salute.

“Please.”

They bowed once more, then faded to nothing in her sight.

Feixiang Heaven buzzed in her hand, as if dissatisfied at her letting so much good food go.

“Do not worry.” Bai Xiang gently stroked the blade. She lifted her head and looked coldly toward the northwest.

“There are plenty of demons in this place.”

“You will not lack for things to eat.”