Chapter 186 - 113: Get Down From Your Horse
Under a nearby tree.
You Dashan stared blankly at the scene, his mouth agape as if he’d seen a ghost.
He rubbed his eyes hard, then pinched his thigh forcefully.
’What just happened?’
’Am I hallucinating from blood loss?’
"Fuck!"
Jiang Mu flung the blood from his blade, then suddenly slapped his forehead, muttering in annoyance, "I was too quick. I should have left one alive to run back and report. I might have been able to lure out more of them."
’Great. The trail’s gone cold.’
He turned to You Dashan, who was still frozen in place, and asked, "Do you know if there are any Demon lairs around here?"
"Huh?"
You Dashan’s brain was still short-circuiting; he just stood there foolishly.
Jiang Mu’s brow furrowed slightly. Just as he was about to speak again...
Suddenly, his senses stirred. He noticed a faint, cyan Demon Shadow had appeared next to his Demon Slot.
The Demon Shadow took the form of the female Tiger Demon he had just killed.
Jiang Mu gently touched the Demon Shadow.
The female Tiger Demon’s Demon Shadow immediately dispersed, transforming into a wisp of cyan smoke only Jiang Mu could see. It circled once in the air before drifting off in a winding path toward the depths of the dense forest.
Jiang Mu understood instantly.
’This ability is similar to the Snake Demon’s Demon Shadow from before. It can also track the Demonic Qi of its own kind.’
Since he now had navigation, he no longer needed a guide.
Jiang Mu glanced at the still-catatonic You Dashan and waved his hand dismissively.
"Alright, you’re not needed here anymore. Head down the mountain. There’s a ruined temple there. Wait for my people from Hu State to rendezvous with you. It’s safer there."
With that, he skillfully carved open the three Tiger Demons’ corpses and removed their Demon Pills.
He absorbed all the Demonic Qi they contained into his Demon Slot.
Then, carrying the blood-reeking longsword, he sped off in the direction of the drifting cyan smoke without a backward glance.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the thick fog.
Only then did You Dashan shudder and snap back to his senses.
He stared at the ground littered with chunks of flesh and bisected corpses, and at the small tiger’s head that had rolled into the grass. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
He slapped himself hard across the face and stammered:
"What the hell... Was that even human?"
...
Following the guidance of the cyan smoke, Jiang Mu moved swiftly through the intricate mountain forest.
About a quarter of an hour later.
The smoke stopped before a well-hidden fissure in a cliff face, then slipped inside.
Jiang Mu halted and looked up, surveying the area.
It was the entrance to a natural limestone cave, surrounded by waist-high weeds and thorny bushes.
Without the wisp of smoke to guide him, an ordinary person would have great difficulty finding it.
The mouth of the cave was pitch-black, like the gaping maw of a colossal beast.
Gusts of frigid, sinister wind blew out from within, carrying the stench of blood.
"This must be the demon lair."
Jiang Mu narrowed his eyes and directly activated the Divine Abilities of the [Earth Inspection Star].
A faint starlight flashed in his eyes and was gone.
In an instant, the cave, once as dark as ink, became much clearer to his sight.
He stepped into the cave.
The moment he entered, his foot landed on something slick.
Looking down, he saw the ground was covered in dark, dried bloodstains, as well as numerous half-eaten human skeletons and the broken blades and armor of Demon Slayer Envoys.
’It seems the missing branch from Yan City likely met their end here as well,’ Jiang Mu surmised.
He didn’t venture deeper rashly. Instead, with a thought, he summoned "Demon Shadow Number One" and left it behind a rock at the cave entrance to serve as an Instant Teleportation anchor.
Once this was done, he tightened his grip on his longsword and crept along the winding passage, heading into the bone-chilling depths.
After advancing about a hundred meters, the path ahead suddenly opened up.
A massive natural cavern appeared before him.
Countless stalactites hung from the cavern’s ceiling, resembling sharp fangs.
In the center of the cavern, a huge blood pool had been dug out. Blood churned within it, bubbling eerily.
Beside the blood pool stood several thick stone pillars.
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
Chained to each pillar was a person, their body a mangled mess of flesh and blood.
Their clothes had been stripped off.
Most of them were already dead.
Only one, a burly, middle-aged man, still clung to a sliver of life. Iron hooks pierced his collarbones, his head lolled, and blood dripped from his toes into the pool below.
The cavern was not a dead end; it connected to several branching paths and smaller caves.
At that moment, from the depths of those passages, came intermittent, wretched howls and desperate sobs, mixed with the excited roars and crude jeers of Demons.
Clearly, other victims were still being tortured.
Jiang Mu’s eyes turned cold. He was about to sneak over and make his move when, suddenly—
TAP.
A small pebble rolled to a stop by his foot.
Jiang Mu’s heart skipped a beat. He whipped his head to the right.
Behind a large, broken stone tablet not far away, a head peeked out. The person was waving at him, gesturing for him to come over.
Looking closer, he saw it was a young woman.
Jiang Mu frowned. After a moment’s hesitation, he flitted over silently.
Only when he got closer did he realize two people were hiding behind the stone tablet.
Both were wearing the uniform of the Demon-slaying Bureau.
The young woman who had peeked out was rather plain, even unremarkable. She was short and had a bit of baby fat on her face.
The man squatting beside her was also young.
He was in his early twenties, with bright, sharp eyes, and was warily observing the activity in the cavern.
"Get over here! Get down!"
The young woman pulled Jiang Mu into the shadow of the stone tablet, her voice a hushed, urgent whisper.
Jiang Mu crouched down as she pulled.
The young woman looked at the Demon-slaying Bureau uniform he was wearing and asked, "Which branch of the Demon-slaying Bureau are you from?"