Chapter 269 - 266: Patrolling the Four Directions
Having been rivals with them for a time,
Shen Changchuan naturally knew a thing or two about the Family Protection Mutual Aid Alliance.
At the very least, he had heard of their base, Bai Shi Village.
’They can repel a Ninth Layer Peak Demon Beast?’
’Don’t tell me the Family Protection Mutual Aid Alliance has some hidden master behind them?’
Such a thought flashed through Shen Changchuan’s mind.
He glanced sideways at the white-haired old village chief and the group of people behind him.
His gaze was pensive, his thoughts unreadable.
Seeing this, the old man, whose hair and beard were both white, had no idea what Shen Changchuan was thinking. He could only bow even lower, his figure appearing more stooped.
Though the man before them was merely at the Qi Introduction Ninth Layer Realm,
he was someone who had once slain a True Cultivator of the Soul Emergence Realm!
To them,
there wasn’t much of a difference between him and an existence at the Soul Emergence Realm.
"Does the Upper Immortal have any other instructions?"
the white-haired old man asked respectfully.
Shen Changchuan shook his head slightly and waved his hand.
"It’s fine. You may all leave."
Whether they were remnants of the Family Protection Mutual Aid Alliance, or another faction that had occupied this place after the Alliance’s destruction,
it held little meaning for the present Shen Changchuan.
The heights he now stood at
had long ago put him in a different league from that faction.
Never mind that the former Alliance Leader of the Family Protection Mutual Aid Alliance had already died by his hand, and the organization itself had long since fractured and dispersed.
Even if they still existed,
for the man he was today, he only needed to make his stance known,
and that faction, which had once put considerable pressure on him, would collapse in an instant!
’We are long since... no longer on the same level!’
Shen Changchuan mused internally.
It had clearly only been a year or two,
yet it felt like a lifetime had passed.
When he first arrived in Dawan Village, his Heart Spirit was filled with unease,
a precarious feeling of not knowing if he’d see the next day.
And now,
there was likely no one left in the entire Border Desolate Forest who he needed to be wary of.
’Perhaps now, with a single thought, I could annihilate my great enemies of the past...’
While this made Shen Changchuan feel a slight sense of emptiness,
it also made his Dao Heart all the more resolute.
After taking the intelligence report, Shen Changchuan didn’t linger in Bai Shi Village.
Instead, he went directly to the site of the Demon Beast attack.
After a brief survey of the scene,
Shen Changchuan had a rough idea of the Demon Beast’s power level.
Judging by the shattered state of the surrounding Spirit Fields, the Demon Beast’s strength was indeed around the Ninth Layer Realm Peak.
’Good.’
’Killing a Ninth Layer Peak Demon Beast gets me three hundred Contribution Points.’
For Shen Changchuan,
his concern wasn’t that the Demon Beast would be too powerful,
but that it wouldn’t be strong enough, causing him to waste his time.
’Are these traces left by an Array, or from the clash of a Magical Artifact?’
Besides finding traces left behind by the Demon Beast’s battle,
Shen Changchuan also discovered a few oddities at the scene.
They related to the people from Bai Shi Village.
’It seems,’
’this Bai Shi Village is more than meets the eye...’
However, Shen Changchuan had no intention of getting to the bottom of it.
His mission on this trip was to clear out the surrounding rampaging Demon Beasts, not to investigate secrets.
And so,
without waiting for the old man from Bai Shi Village to approach and say anything more,
Shen Changchuan mounted Xiaofeng and soared high into the sky.
High above, he had Xiaofeng activate its True Seeing Eyes and directly followed the trail left by the fleeing Demon Beast.
What Shen Changchuan didn’t know, however,
was that after he left,
the old man with the white hair and beard exchanged a glance with a burly Han man behind him, both of their expressions showing relief.
"Thank goodness, that person didn’t probe any further..."
"I know, otherwise our secret would have been exposed!"
"Perhaps he simply doesn’t care... After all, he possesses a Treasure Artifact. And not long ago, it was rumored that he defeated Mo Lingfeng, the prodigy of the Heisei Domain, in a direct confrontation. With his level of strength, something we consider a great treasure is probably not even worth a second glance to him."
"...A peerless prodigy. SIGH. It truly makes one envious!"
Several pairs of eyes watched the direction of Shen Changchuan’s departure,
their hearts filled with deep emotion.
...
"Found it!"
「One day later.」
High in the sky,
Shen Changchuan, using Xiaofeng’s Eye Power, finally located the Iron Tiger Demon. It was hidden amidst a jungle of ancient trees and was suspected to be at the Qi Introduction Ninth Layer Peak Realm.
"ROAR!"
Before Shen Changchuan could even make a move,
the Iron Tiger Demon below sensed the killing intent from high above. It raised its dark head toward the sky and let out a heaven-shaking roar.
A shockwave visible to the naked eye erupted, sweeping out in all directions.
The surrounding trees bent low under the force of this air current, their leaves making a violent RUSTLING sound.
The aura of a king of the forest,
could be faintly felt even from a thousand meters up in the sky!
’Impressive! With might like that, an ordinary cultivator at the Qi Introduction Ninth Layer Peak would truly be no match for you!’
’But unfortunately for you, you ran into me!’
Shen Changchuan was in a good mood.
He wasn’t afraid of the Demon Beast being strong.
He was only afraid of it hiding so well he couldn’t find it at all.
WHOOSH!
Shen Changchuan leaped from Xiaofeng’s back,
plummeting toward the Iron Tiger Demon like a sharp arrow loosed from its bow!
The Iron Tiger Demon sensed the danger.
It raised its head and opened its massive, ferocious maw. Inky Demonic Power gathered within, condensing into a black sphere before being suddenly blasted forth.
BOOM!!!
A terrifying black pillar of light shot into the sky, tearing through the air as it rocketed toward Shen Changchuan.
In the face of this attack,
the light of heaven and earth seemed to be blotted out by the black beam.
And Shen Changchuan, the beam’s direct target,
was currently in mid-air with no way to change his trajectory,
looking as if he was about to be struck head-on by the black beam.
But at that very moment,
SWOOSH!
Shen Changchuan’s figure split in mid-air, dividing into three afterimages that darted away in different directions like great birds.
The black beam of light struck empty air, soaring into the heavens before vanishing from sight.
In the blink of an eye, the three afterimages landed a dozen meters away from the Iron Tiger Demon.
Before the Iron Tiger Demon’s brain could even process what had happened,
SHING!
A clear sword light suddenly flashed in the void.
Three Sword Shadows crisscrossed, seeming to slice space itself apart. In an instant, they traversed dozens of meters of empty air and flashed across the Iron Tiger Demon’s body.
The next moment,
Shen Changchuan’s three afterimages vanished,
and the sword light, as if branded into space itself, gradually faded away.
As for Shen Changchuan, as if using Instant Teleportation,
he suddenly appeared behind the Iron Tiger Demon.
SCHLICK!
The Iron Tiger Demon’s body froze. A thin line of blood appeared on its neck, and its head slid to the ground.
It was as dead as dead could be.
With a beckoning wave of Shen Changchuan’s hand, the Iron Tiger Demon’s head flew into his grasp as if weightless. He then placed it into his Storage Bag.
After a moment’s thought,
Shen Changchuan also collected the headless corpse of the Iron Tiger Demon from the ground.
He then leaped up,
landing on Xiaofeng’s back,
and his figure vanished over the horizon.
With the matter of the Bai Shi Village attack resolved,
Shen Changchuan didn’t return.
Instead, without a moment’s rest, he began flying toward the next location to clear out the Demon Beasts there.
He began his patrol of the four directions,
a journey of slaying Demon Beasts and eliminating evil.