Zhiqiu and the middle-aged swordsman suspected of being a Reincarnator cleared out a spot and raised a fire with a spell. Warming his hands over the flames, Zhiqiu let out a comfortable groan. "It's been so long since I slept inside a building! Fellow Daoist Zhou, I must thank you again for stepping in to help out of righteousness! What a pity we didn't expect those monsters knew the art of earth-burrowing. Far from finding the fiends' lair as you suggested, we ended up losing their trail entirely!"
"Still, I've passed through Heavenly Baleful Peak quite a few times. How come I've never seen this temple before?"
Daoist Zhiqiu glanced left and right, sizing up this freshly built hall, and remarked with a touch of perplexity, "Yet it looks somewhat familiar. Ah! Chasing those monsters blindly like that, we must have lost our way!"
With that, he even warned Qian Chen and the scholar, "We were pursuing a pack of monsters, but lost their trail upon arriving here. I fear their lair may not be far from this place... If you two fellow Daoists travel through here often, you must exercise great caution."
The tall scholar in white asked in a resonant voice with a smile, "What kind of monsters were they?"
Daoist Zhiqiu had likely not seen another soul in ages and proved quite talkative. Hearing someone ask, his spirits lifted immediately. "Those monsters are no ordinary beasts! They frequent Heavenly Baleful Peak. This place was sparsely populated to begin with, but after years of rampant demonic havoc, there are scarcely any living people left within hundreds of li around!"
At that moment, the Reincarnator grew slightly nervous and whispered to Daoist Zhiqiu, "Their origins are suspicious. We shouldn't reveal too much to them!"
"They're fellow cultivators, so what's the harm?" Daoist Zhiqiu said casually, continuing his explanation:
"My master heard about the demon trouble here and sent me to subjugate the evils and slay the monsters!
"For the past two months, I labored day and night before finally uncovering the movements of that pack. Turns out they're a pack of wolf demons who hide by day and come out by night hunting people to devour... So I spent a month figuring out their movements, and finally set an ambush at a mountain pass, hoping to wipe them out in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, those wolf demons actually know the art of earth-burrowing! Four of them pretended to be caught in my trap, while two others tunneled behind me to launch a sneak attack. Thanks to Brother Zhou happening by to lend a hand, disaster was averted."
Thanks to Zhiqiu's loose tongue, Qian Chen grasped the situation as he listened.
This Zhiqiu was a wandering Daoist cultivator of Kunlun in this world, and likely an important plot figure for this mission. Based on Qian Chen's experience, the clues for the Blood Demon main storyline were bound to lie among the nearby fiends and demons. If one wished to join the camp of the righteous path, one naturally had to follow Zhiqiu to uncover the truth behind the demonic activity in the area.
If one wanted to join the Blood Demon camp, one would have to find a way to make contact with that pack of monsters.
Thus, the key to the next step of the mission was that pack of monsters... Finding their lair would allow formal contact with either of the two major factions.
No wonder that Reincarnator guarded Daoist Zhiqiu so jealously. Still, aside from Zhiqiu, there had to be other clues leading to the righteous storyline. No matter how one looked at it, the righteous path could not have dispatched only Zhiqiu.
According to Zhiqiu, within several hundred li around, the only building was this very hall Qian Chen had just erected.
In that case, if Miaokong arrived a bit later, wouldn't the plot characters and Reincarnators from the righteous path all converge here?
Qian Chen had not expected his unintentional arrangement to serve such a marvelous purpose...
Just then, Qian Chen twitched his nose, catching a faint, foul stench. Within his spiritual sense, he also perceived four demon wolves steeped in thick demonic qi tunneling underground from the south. Qian Chen noticed that the scholar in white was the first to press his hand against his soft pouch. Only after that did Zhiqiu's ears twitch as he stared warily at the ground.
The Reincarnator dressed as a swordsman was actually the last to notice something was amiss.
Zhiqiu stood up and stared at the ground. "My Demon-Startling Bell stirred! Those fiends have definitely reached the vicinity..."
Qian Chen noticed the armor horse amulets on his feet were vibrating faintly, seemingly conducting and amplifying the subtle movements underground for Daoist Zhiqiu to perceive.
*It seems after suffering a setback once, he immediately came up with a countermeasure. The cultivators of this world aren't stupid after all! Their spells and combat methods are fairly rich too!*
Assessing the methods of this world's cultivators, Qian Chen simply tightened his grip on the long banner in his hand and stepped beside a pillar.
Soon, the sound of digging reached everyone's ears. Leaning against the pillar, Qian Chen heard a crunching, gnawing sound and understood at once. Then he heard Zhiqiu shout nervously, "Not good! These demon wolves are excavating the hall's foundation! They want to bring the hall down and bury us underneath! Everyone, get out of the hall quickly!"
How could Qian Chen allow these demon wolves to ruin his ambush? Shaking the Seven Baleful Banner in his hand, he condensed a surge of black baleful qi into a drill that plunged into the ground. Yet from his lips, he said, "These demon wolves want to force us out of the hall, which proves there is something inside that they fear. Where the enemy attacks, we defend! We must protect this hall!"
"Makes sense!" Zhiqiu readily took the advice. The magic sword at his back cleared its scabbard, and he took up a position in a corner of the hall.
Treading the Pace of Yu, his feet shifted and crossed continuously as he measured the demon wolf's position. At the same time, a copper-cased compass appeared in his hand. "Wearing nine and treading one, three to the left and seven to the right... Returning Maiden yields to Innocence, Innocence yields to Fellowship, Fellowship yields to Great Possession... Jia turns to Bing, Bing turns to Geng, Geng turns to Gui... Transition of Zi and Chou, transition of Chen and Si, transition of Wu and Wei... Haha, you are right here!"
With that, Zhiqiu pinned down the spot beneath his right foot, and the magic sword in his hand thrust down like lightning, sinking into the earth.
A wail arose from the demon wolf underground...
When the magic sword was pulled from the earth, it was smeared with wolf fur and copious demon blood.
Seeing that one demon wolf had already been dealt with, Qian Chen shook his black banner, sending out two more streams of baleful qi that burrowed into the ground like giant pythons. Before long, faint vibrations traveled up from beneath their feet. Infused with baleful qi, that patch of soil turned hard as iron, trapping the demon wolf inside and crushing it to death. In the blink of an eye, two of the four demon wolves were dead.
Meanwhile, the scholar in white merely gave a light stamp of his foot, and the ground beneath his spot went completely silent an instant later.
The last demon wolf could no longer care about digging the foundation and fled in frantic haste...
"Where do you think you're going!" the Reincarnator dressed as a swordsman roared. With a wave of his hand, he sent three fiery sparks plunging into the ground. Following a mound of raised earth fleeing toward the outside of the hall, the three sparks pursued in sequence, detonating one by one. The swordsman bolted out the doors, returning shortly afterward with an unsightly expression, dangling a severed gray tail.
He tossed the tail onto the ground and said in a low voice, "The beast severed its tail and escaped!"
To anyone in the know, not even a ghost would believe him. The man had surely set his sights on the wolf demons' lair and deliberately let the creature escape, having likely used the three bursts of fire to plant a covert tracker on the wolf demon.
At this moment, through the temple doors, indistinct shadows could already be seen outside, and numerous green eyes appeared.
Those eyes, gleaming like ghostly fires, appeared in the darkness from all directions, faintly encircling the hall. Qian Chen swept his eyes across them and counted nearly a hundred pairs. Just as everyone stood on guard, watching in all directions against the wolf pack, the sound of claws scraping against walls echoed from other parts of the hall.
"Watch out, they're digging through the walls!"
No sooner had Zhiqiu's words fallen than a burly black shadow pounced down from the roof beams with incredible speed. Its demonic qi was tightly restrained, and as it pounced, it moved as though possessed by a malevolent spirit...
Chapter 81