Chapter 174: Victory

The buildings in the town were mostly around five storeys tall. Like most rural towns, each structure housed a single family. This was the kind of place where the household register listed two or three residents per house, while the house itself stretched four or five floors high, with a spacious courtyard out front. It was the sort of living comfort that city apartments could never match.

Clack!

The Demon Eye Heavenly King landed on the rooftop of a three-storey residential building. The moment his feet touched down, he spotted the Slaughter Cessation Palace Master bursting out of a building diagonally across from him, her crimson dress blazing like a wound against the night. She alighted atop the roof, silver mask gleaming, her skirt billowing in the wind and her hair whipping around her shoulders.

The two faced off against each other, several dozen meters apart. Above them hung the weight of a sunless sky, and around them, the evening breeze drifted lazily past.

The Demon Eye Heavenly King let a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. "If you wanted to know the truth about what happened to the Chu family all those years ago, you could have just asked me. Hand over some evidence of official corruption, bribery, anything really, and I'd have traded it to you in a heartbeat. It could have been such a simple arrangement. Was all this really necessary?

"Well, you still have a chance. Give me a list of corrupt officials in Songhai or Jiangnan Province, and I'll tell you everything about what happened back then. Of course, this time you'd definitely have to rejoin the Spirit Realm's official ranks."

The palace master matched his smirk with one of her own, her crimson lips curving upward beneath her mask. Her voice came out soft, almost gentle.

"Are you finished? Good. Then let's begin. I don't enjoy wasting words on madmen."

The Demon Eye glanced down at the small town below and raised an eyebrow.

"You want to fight me here? Tsk, tsk. Isn't this exactly the same method I used against the Songhai Branch? Honestly, there's no real technique to it. It’s easy enough for someone to turn my own trick against me."

As the words left his mouth, both of his eyes blazed with sudden crimson light. His smirk stretched wider, then wider still, twisting into something feral. His handsome face flooded with battle lust and unbridled malice.

"Tell me, how many moves do you think it'll take me to kill you? And will the townspeople below survive the crossfire?"

Boom!

A mass of red threads erupted behind the palace master, thousands upon thousands of silken strands fanning out like living tentacles, swaying lazily through the air. Her laughter rang out across the darkness, melodic as silver bells.

"A town? Are you quite sure that's what this is? Open all three of your eyes and take a good look. Oh wait, I forgot. Your eyes can't see through an illusion crafted by a Nihilist."

The expression on the Demon Eye Heavenly King's face went rigid, and his twisted grin slowly collapsed.

The palace master continued, savoring every word. "Demon Eye, the prey you've been tracking was nothing more than a puppet I created. A puppet of flesh and blood. The agent you sent to follow it? I killed him too. So tell me, why do you think I didn't bother erasing your tracking mark? Why am I standing here chatting with you instead of running?"

Every trace of battle lust and malice on the Demon Eye's face froze solid.

"Hahaha!" The Palace Master threw her head back and laughed, her body shaking with delight. "Even you have days like this, Demon Eye. The moment I snap my fingers, your death sentence begins."

She raised one pale, elegant arm and snapped.

As her fingers clicked, the Demon Eye Heavenly King felt his heart lurch. His vision blurred for just an instant, and a wave of despair, hopelessness, and crushing defeat surged through him.

The most dangerous Musicians never needed elaborate techniques. Sometimes the simplest form of hypnosis was the deadliest. A few carefully chosen words woven into the fabric of a real situation, and the target's mind could be nudged without them ever noticing. Emotions could be manipulated, and resolve could be shaken.

The snap was also a signal. The instant the Palace Master's fingers cracked, a blazing streak of liquid flame tore across the sky from the horizon, radiating terrible heat, and slammed into the Demon Eye Heavenly King.

The Crimson Fire Gang elder had arrived first.

The torrent of flame struck Demon Eye dead on, and the building beneath him collapsed floor by floor under the impact. The illusion shattered in an instant. What the Demon Eye had been standing on had never been a three-storey tall brick building. It was a towering tree.

The tree had been reduced to charcoal by the blast, and a deep crater had been gouged into the earth where it had stood. At the bottom lay the Demon Eye Heavenly King, pinned beneath a towering, powerfully-built old man with a wild mane of red hair, eyes like a tiger, a square jaw, and blade sharp brows. An aura of ferocity radiated off him like heat from a forge. It seemed as though some ancient general had stepped straight off a battlefield.

The red-haired elder knelt with both knees planted on Demon Eye's chest, gripping a spear forged entirely from condensed flame. Its tip hovered over the vertical eye in Demon Eye's forehead, poised to strike.

Burns carved ugly, ragged patterns across Demon Eye's chest, leaving the flesh raw and ruined. But his hands gripped the spear tip with iron certainty, and no matter how much force the red-haired elder poured into the weapon, it refused to advance so much as an inch.

Beneath them both, the soil had melted into glowing, eye-searing magma.

"Among all the Flame Plunderers I've encountered," Demon Eye said calmly, "you're still not quite there."

The vertical eye in his forehead rolled once, then it fired a beam of gold and crimson light.

Madness flashed through the red-haired elder's eyes instantly. Beneath his skin, muscles began to knot and spasm in waves, bunching and releasing as though swarms of insects writhed beneath the surface.

His body's internal power was being interfered with, and was rebelling against him. Even a Sovereign-tier Fire Sage couldn't fully resist the Demon Eye Heavenly King's gaze. His influence always found its way in.

The Demon Eye clenched his palms, and the flame spear shattered. He slammed both palms flat against the red-haired elder's chest.

ROAR!

A dragon's cry, crystalline and ancient, split the heavens, banishing all corruption in its path.

The red-haired elder snapped awake. His body dissolved instantly into ten thousand streams of liquid flame, scattering away from Demon Eye's attack. The streams flowed back together a distance away, coalescing back into the old man's form. There was still a trace of madness in his expression, but the dragon's cry had settled the chaos raging through his body.

The Demon Eye Heavenly King sprang to his feet, and his body became a dark blur shooting toward the Zoo's entrance. He needed to escape.

He barely made it three steps before a tide of red threads surged at him from all sides, a tidal wave of silk that wrapped around him from every direction. At the other end of those threads stood the devastatingly beautiful palace master.

The Demon Eye harbored no sentimentality whatsoever. He raised one arm, caught a thousand threads at once, wound them twice around his wrist, and wrenched.

Snap!

The red threads broke all at once. The palace master's fingers flew through a rapid series of hand seals, and the severed threads sprang back to life, whole and unbroken, lashing toward Demon Eye once more.

But he had already escaped their range. The Zoo's entrance loomed just ahead.

A wailing wind rose outside the Zoo, sudden and violent. Sand and debris whipped through the air, while trees snapped like matchsticks.

The second elder to arrive was Luoshen, from the Water God Palace. She wore a black dress that cascaded in layered folds like lotus leaves, paired with a black leather jacket. Her hair hung loose, and a thin black veil covered her face. She rode the howling wind straight into the Zoo.

Demon Eye Heavenly King, moments from clearing the exit, felt a sudden itch clawing at his throat, and he began to cough. Weakness flooded his limbs, and the color drained from his face in seconds.

He was sick.

The wind carried bacteria potent enough to kill a Saint on contact. It wasn't enough to slay the Demon Eye, but it threw him off just long enough.

Luoshen seized the opening. Her body came apart, dissolving into a vast, surging ocean that spread across the sky and the earth. These were real waves, genuine and thundering.

With a resounding crash, layer upon layer of water hammered against the Demon Eye, swallowing him whole.

At the same instant, a blinding arc of light ignited outside the Zoo's entrance. It first appeared beyond the gates, but by the time the eye registered the curve of its motion, it was already right on top of the Demon Eye, crossing the distance in a heartbeat.

Shhk!

The arc sliced through the waves and carved deeply into Demon Eye's chest, sending great sheets of blood spraying through the water. He staggered backward.

Outside the Zoo's entrance, a man in fishscale armor strode through the gates with measured, ringing steps. His face was smooth and composed, almost too perfect, and he carried a bronze sword in one hand.

A curly-haired poodle came bounding through behind him, raising one paw high and slamming it down.

"Seal!"

At the command, a shimmering green barrier erupted upward, enclosing the entire Zoo within its light.

The ocean waves danced and spiraled as they surged away, coalescing into the figure of a woman in a black dress and black jacket, her face hidden behind a fine mesh veil. She took her position to the Demon Eye's left.

The palace master descended on the wind and settled to his right.

Behind him, a pillar of fire crashed down from above, and the red-haired elder materialized within the flames.

Further out, a hazy yellow figure clawed its way up from the ground. Its body was composed entirely of stone. It had no hair, no features, and no face at all. Raw, crushing presence radiating outward from it like the weight of a mountain.

Demon Eye looked around at the circle of enemies closing in, and a smirk tugged at his lips.

"Well, isn't this interesting."

***

The air conditioner hummed steadily, blowing cool air across the room. The curtains swayed. It was late at night, but Zhang Yuanqing lay in bed, too wired to sleep.

If even this isn't enough to take down the Demon Eye Heavenly King, then I've got no choice but to pack my bags, abandon everything, and apply for a transfer to Jiangnan Province. As for explaining that to Grandma and the rest of them... Explain what? There's nothing to explain.

When your life was on the line, everything else was just noise.

He pulled his thoughts back and felt something tugging at his attention. He turned toward the bedroom door. A pudgy little infant spirit came crawling in, beaming with joy, a blue bra perched on top of his head like a hat.

After days of failed attempts, Little Goofball had finally managed to steal another one. The bra sat on his head like an oversized sleep mask, covering his wispy baby hair, the shoulder straps dangling down past his cheeks on either side.

He looked ridiculous. Absolutely, impossibly ridiculous.

"Abba, abba..."

The infant spirit scrambled up onto the bed with practiced speed and presented the underwear to his master like a knight offering tribute to his king.

You really never lose sight of the mission, do you? Would it kill you to steal Uncle's wallet instead? Zhang Yuanqing pressed a hand over his face, then tossed the bra onto the pillow beside him and went back to waiting for news.

His treasure delivered, Little Goofball wasted no time. He rolled off the bed with clear purpose and crawled toward the game console.

He flopped down in front of the controller, extended one tiny finger with exaggerated care, and pressed a button. Then he looked up at the screen, eyes bright with anticipation.

The screen stayed black. Nothing happened.

This was not what he had expected. Little Goofball crawled in frantic circles around the console, then headbutted it in frustration, flipping it over with a clatter. The noise startled him, and he whipped around to check if his master had noticed.

Zhang Yuanqing hadn't moved.

The baby ghost's round little face melted into visible relief.

Since Zhang Yuanqing reached Level 3, his spirit servant's intelligence had grown noticeably. There was real, measurable development. But its body would never grow. It had died in infancy, and it would forever remain an infant.

With nothing better to do, Zhang Yuanqing picked up the bra, brought it to his nose, and sniffed. There was a faint trace of perfume, and the scent of body wash.

Little Goofball had obviously swiped it from the laundry basket in the bathroom.

After the last underwear theft incident, Jiang Yu'er had become vigilant about her undergarments, making a point to hand wash them immediately after every shower.

How many days did that discipline last? Yu'er really can't stick with anything. She got lazy again, Zhang Yuanqing thought with a shake of his head. He made a mental note to sneak the bra back later.

At the same time, a puzzling thought crossed his mind. Little Goofball seemed to have a very specific preference for worn underwear. The moment Jiang Yu'er had skipped washing hers that night, he'd pounced. Meanwhile, he hadn't even bothered to touch the clean ones sitting in the wardrobe.

A clueless infant spirit wouldn't have perverted intentions. So what was driving this bizarre fixation?

And if someone tries to blame this on the master's influence, I'd like the record to show that I have absolutely no interest in—

His train of thought derailed as a sharp ringtone cut through the dark, silent bedroom. The screen lit up with the caller's name: Fu Qingyang.

Zhang Yuanqing's heart slammed against his ribs. He shot upright, grabbed the phone, and answered before the end of the second ring.

"Centurion, do we have a result?"

Fu Qingyang's voice came through the speaker, cool and measured as always.

—The elders captured the Demon Eye alive. He's imprisoned in the Zoo.

Zhang Yuanqing exhaled. A long, slow breath that seemed to carry weeks of accumulated dread out of his body. Tension simply evaporated. The weight lifted from his shoulders, the knot in his stomach unwound, and for one perfect moment, the world felt bright and full of possibility.

Then he belatedly caught the key word.

"Captured?" he repeated aloud.

Why not just kill him? If they had the strength to take him alive, they certainly could have killed him. Capturing a Sovereign-tier Walker alive was far harder than simply finishing the job.

Fu Qingyang's explanation was characteristically direct.

—The Demon Eye is one of the Bing Zhu Sect's Heavenly Kings. We can't kill him. If we did, it would be the same as letting the tiger return to the mountain.

"What do you mean?" Zhang Yuanqing didn't follow.

Perhaps because Zhang Yuanqing had joined the White Tiger Guard, Fu Qingyang had become more forthcoming, holding nothing back when it came to sharing information.

—Elder Teddy explained it to me. It has to do with that rule-type item the Bing Zhu Sect stole from the Chu family. The Sect's Heavenly Kings can each be resurrected once, and they will be revived in the place wherever that item is kept.

The Chu family's rule-type item. The one the Bing Zhu Sect took when they destroyed the clan. Zhang Yuanqing winced.

"What a waste. At least it's limited to only one resurrection. But wait. What happens if Demon Eye enters the Spirit Realm while he's imprisoned?"

—Then he dies in the Spirit Realm, and will revive at the item's location in the north.

Zhang Yuanqing swore under his breath, but Fu Qingyang continued on.

—For Sovereign-tier Walkers, the intervals between Spirit Realm dungeons are very long. It won't be an issue in the short term. And as long as he's in our custody, there are plenty of ways to handle things. We can harvest his DNA now, for future use.

Good. That's good. And when the Demon Eye eventually revives, I'll just curse him to death. Zhang Yuanqing finally relaxed and asked his next question.

"Were any of the elders injured?"

What he really wanted to ask was whether anyone had died.

—The Water God Palace elder, the Crimson Fire Gang elder, and the palace master were all seriously wounded. The other three elders sustained minor injuries. That's the cost of fighting a Heavenly King.

Zhang Yuanqing inhaled sharply. One against six, and Demon Eye had still put three of them in critical condition. And that was without any living creatures nearby to fuel his Berserk state.

Demon Eye was supposedly ranked last among the Bing Zhu Sect's Four Heavenly Kings. If that was the weakest, how terrifying were the other three? The Evil classes truly lived up to their reputation as the pinnacle of combat power. The only saving grace was that they were outnumbered by their Lawful counterparts.

—Get some rest. Focus on preparing for the Official Tournament. I'm looking forward to your performance.

The line went dead.

There's less than a week until the Official Tournament, Zhang Yuanqing thought. I hope Xiao Yuan can hunt down an Enchanting Demon for me before it starts.

He called Little Goofball back to his side, pulled the comforter up to his chin with deep satisfaction, and drifted off to sleep.