Chapter 48 - 42: A Three-Generation Sweep
"Master Jiang..."
Wang Ershang was stunned when he saw who had arrived, and his face immediately flushed with deep shame and regret.
’If only I’d listened to him, or at least been a little more careful, my brothers wouldn’t have ended up like this. I wouldn’t have created this desperate situation for myself.’
"Master Jiang, you have to go! Don’t worry about me!"
Blood trickled from the corner of Wang Ershang’s mouth. He tried to struggle to his feet, but the movement aggravated his wounds, causing him to grit his teeth in pain.
"This demoness is Tier Four! Her physique and Demonic Power are far beyond the Third Realm. You’re no match for her. While Lord Ling is holding off that Great Demon, you need to hurry back to headquarters and get reinforcements."
Jiang Mu glanced at the distant, fierce battle between Ling Ye and the Snake Mother before his gaze returned to the handmaiden, his expression calm.
"Tier Four... I can give it a shot."
As he spoke, he gently placed the watermelon he was carrying by the wall and gave Wang Ershang a serious instruction:
"Watch this melon for me."
Wang Ershang was speechless.
The handmaiden was taken aback for a moment, then she sneered, her eyes filled with scorn.
"A mere Iron-ranked Demon Slayer Envoy who’s just entered the Third Realm dares to draw his blade before me? What, is your life too long? Are you in a hurry to become my next meal?"
SWOOSH!
Before her words had even faded, her figure shot forward like a phantom.
Her five fingers formed a claw, aimed straight for Jiang Mu’s heart!
A strike like that could tear through a sheet of iron.
But Jiang Mu neither dodged nor retreated. He brought his long saber down in a descending arc, a clear trade-of-life-for-life tactic.
"Foolish!"
The handmaiden sneered viciously as her sharp claws reached Jiang Mu’s chest first.
VMMM!
Just as the claws were about to pierce his clothes, a golden light suddenly flared from Jiang Mu’s chest.
The tips of her claws seemed to hit a barrier, unable to advance another inch.
A Protective Talisman!
The handmaiden’s pupils contracted.
In that brief moment of hesitation, Jiang Mu’s saber arrived.
Heaven-Breaking Eight Skills, Sundering Flow!
This strike had long shed the brute force of the Body Tempering Stage. The saber’s movement was fluid and harmonious, stirring the air around it.
SHLICK!
Although the handmaiden sensed danger and hastily retreated, the blade still sliced a bloody gash across her abdomen.
Dark red demonic blood gushed out.
The handmaiden let out a muffled grunt and staggered back several steps. She glanced down at her wound, and when she looked up again, her eyes were filled with venomous hatred.
"So you had a Protective Talisman. No wonder you were so fearless."
"A shame Protective Talismans can only block a few attacks. Let’s see how long this tortoise shell of yours can protect you!"
SWOOSH!
She lunged forward once more.
This time, her attack was even more cunning and vicious. A flurry of claw shadows filled the air, cutting off all of Jiang Mu’s escape routes.
Jiang Mu swung his saber to block.
Sparks flew as saber and claws clashed.
The man and the demon became a whirlwind of combat, their battle spilling from the main courtyard into an adjacent side yard.
Shattered stones flew, and plants were shredded to pieces.
During the exchange, the handmaiden landed two more vicious strikes on Jiang Mu, but both were blocked by the protective barrier.
"That’s the third time!"
A sharp glint flashed in the handmaiden’s eyes. "The Protective Talisman is useless now! Let’s see you block this!"
Her figure abruptly accelerated, becoming a cyan afterimage as she viciously swiped a claw against Jiang Mu’s horizontally raised saber!
CLANG—
The immense force sent Jiang Mu flying backward.
"It’s over, little man."
The handmaiden curled her fingers, gathering Demonic Power for the final blow.
However, in the instant before she struck—
Jiang Mu, who had been leaning against the corner of the wall, suddenly vanished into thin air!
The next moment, he appeared behind her.
It turned out that in the moment he was sent flying, he had left the Instant Teleportation anchor for Demon Shadow Number One at his original spot.
"What?!"
The handmaiden froze, a bone-deep chill suddenly rising up her spine.
She instinctively tried to turn and block,
but the blade was already there.
The sharp edge of the saber sliced directly into her shoulder blade.
"AHH!!"
A bloodcurdling scream rang out.
Overwhelmed by excruciating pain, the handmaiden’s vicious nature flared. She forcibly twisted her body and swiped a claw back toward Jiang Mu’s chest, trying to force him away.
In her mind, Jiang Mu’s Protective Talisman was spent; he would never dare to take this hit head-on.
But she was wrong.
Jiang Mu didn’t dodge at all.
VMMM!
A fourth golden light blinded the handmaiden’s bitch eyes.
"How are there still more?"
Despair finally flooded the handmaiden’s eyes.
’This is impossible!’
PUCHI!
The sharp saber sliced into the back of the handmaiden’s neck and cut diagonally downward, splitting half her torso and her head in two!
The handmaiden’s body twitched a few times.
Finally, it transformed into a green, patterned snake, severed in two.
"Another Snake Demon."
Jiang Mu frowned, flicking the blood from his saber.
Recalling Ling Ye’s earlier mention of "skinning snakes," he understood.
This master and servant pair came from the same source as the Snake Demons in Heitu Village. The woman must be the escaped Tier Six mother snake.
Jiang Mu skillfully dissected the snake’s corpse and removed a Demon Pill.
A wisp of pure Demonic Qi was absorbed into his Demon Slot.
Unfortunately, no new Snake Demon Shadow appeared this time.
Carrying the Snake Demon’s corpse, Jiang Mu walked out of the side yard and back to Wang Ershang, casually tossing the body on the ground.
"Do you have any Healing Elixirs on you?"
he asked.
Wang Ershang stared blankly at the Snake Demon’s corpse on the ground as if petrified, his face a mask of disbelief.
"It’s... dead?"
Although he had heard the Demon’s screams just moments ago, he still couldn’t believe that Jiang Mu had actually solo-killed a Tier Four Demon.
After all, there was a whole realm of difference between them.
"Forget it. I’ll lend you some. Remember to pay me back."
Seeing the other man standing there dumbfounded, Jiang Mu took a Pill vial from his robes, tipped out two Pills, and stuffed them into Wang Ershang’s mouth.
They may have had their differences, but right now, as comrades-in-arms fighting demons side-by-side, they were allies.
He then fed Pills to the other two heavily injured Demon Slayer Envoys.
At this moment, the sounds of the battle between Ling Ye and the Snake Mother in the distance began to fade.
Jiang Mu picked up his watermelon and said to Wang Ershang,
"I’m going to check on Lord Ling. Once you’ve recovered some strength, head back on your own. Oh, and—"
He pointed at the Snake Demon’s corpse on the ground.
"This thing isn’t for you to scavenge. Watch it for me. If you snatch it this time, I’ll be genuinely angry."
With that, he dashed off in the direction of the fight.
Wang Ershang opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but the other man’s figure was already distant.
He looked down, staring blankly at the snake corpse, and muttered to himself, "That guy... just what kind of monster is he?"
...
The street was dead silent.
A human and a demon faced each other from a distance.
The Snake Mother clutched a crimson Blood Saber. Only half of a beautiful woman’s skin mask clung to her face, looking exceptionally bizarre under the moonlight.
Her aura was in disarray from having forcibly halted her breakthrough.
Across from her.
Ling Ye’s veil was long gone.
Revealing a delicate, arrestingly beautiful face that was slightly pale.
Her dress was torn in several places, revealing hints of jade-white skin underneath, stained with specks of blood.
Strangely, despite their fierce battle, the surrounding houses and streets had suffered little damage.
A closer look would reveal several faint golden Talismans hovering in the air and on the ground.
These Talismans were linked, forming a massive barrier.
It sealed the area off from the outside world.
"Hmph! Splitting your attention to protect these ants from the fallout, using your power to maintain the Barrier, and still trying to fight me to the death..."
the Snake Mother sneered.
"Ling Ye, do you still think you’re that chosen one from all those years ago? That arrogant Phoenix?
Wake up. You’re nothing but a pathetic pheasant now."
"Pheasant or Phoenix,"
Ling Ye’s expression was icy, her presence chilling. "It’s enough to kill you!"
"Enough?"
The Snake Mother laughed as if she’d heard a joke.
"Three years ago, I might have feared you a little. But now... I’ve touched the threshold of Tier Seven! What are you going to use to kill me? That broken body of yours?"
Ling Ye said coolly,
"A pity you only made it halfway through your breakthrough. Believe me, if I’d arrived a moment later, you might have actually succeeded."
But now... this half-baked state of yours will only make you die faster."
Those words struck a nerve with the Snake Mother.
She had borrowed the Innate Divine Abilities of a Painted Skin ghoul and, after great difficulty, had finally found the chance to break through to Tier Seven.
Everything had been going smoothly.
Who could have known this old nemesis would come knocking at her door?
All her efforts, ruined at the final step!
"Surnamed Ling, what will it take for you to let me go?"
The Snake Mother ground her teeth.
"All I did was eat a few people and slaughter a village. These worthless peasants under your Great Qing’s rule can’t survive anyway. Whether they die sooner or later, what difference does it make?!"
Ling Ye slowly raised her ice sword, its tip pointing forward.
"As long as you are a Demon Fiend, I will never let you go."
"Stop pretending to be a saint!"
the Snake Mother jeered. "Wasn’t your master, the one hailed as the ’Great Qing’s Number One Beauty,’ suppressed beneath the Divine Lake for falling in love with a Demon Fiend and willingly debasing herself?
What right do you have to stand there and put on such a self-righteous act!"
Ling Ye’s sword hand trembled slightly.
"Oh, right, what was the name of that Great Demon who drove her so wild she lost her Divine Soul?"
The Snake Mother’s smile was taunting. "He’s called Jiang Chaoxi, isn’t he?"
—
PS: That’s right, a three-for-one.