Chapter 53: Goodbye, Mirage Demon

Yun Jiao knew very well that she was fragile, so from the beginning she had deliberately left herself a safe zone. She just hadn’t expected Elder Jiao Heng to pull her out of it.

“Quick, over there!”

Hall Master Xu was the first to react, shouting for everyone to move.

Elders Shen and Jiao immediately understood and dashed toward the one safe patch of ground. Finally, they avoided the chains that could crush a person into pulp at any moment.

But the shaking around them only grew more violent. Even the massive chains binding the Mirage Demon at the center began to snap apart with sharp crack-crack sounds that made their hearts clench.

The three men were frantic, no longer able to waste time scolding the girl who had broken their arrays. All eyes stayed locked on the collapsing seal.

“Hall Master, is there any way to stop the Mirage Demon or re-seal it?”

Elder Shen asked, voice tight with fear.

“The Mirage Demon is formless and shapeless. Back then it took the combined strength of the entire cultivation world to seal it here. With just the three of us…”

Xu Qingfeng gave them a grim look — it was obvious they were not enough.

“Then what do we do?”

Shen grew even more desperate, scanning the fiery cavern for an escape.

“We can’t just stay here. We need another way out — we must warn the others!”

He was just about to risk a run when a cold, strange voice suddenly echoed above them:

“Trying to run?”

A wild, chilling laugh followed, booming through the Fire Prison.

“Hahahahaha…”

It was thick with unrestrained glee, hoarse from ages of silence, yet sharp and piercing — an inhuman sound that scraped against the soul.

Crap.

All three men’s hearts sank at once. So fast — the Mirage Demon had already broken free. Blood-red mist seeped out from the shattered cocoon of chains, carrying an overwhelming stench of blood.

In an instant, the chains melted away like snow. The red mist thickened rapidly, swallowing the cocoon until at last a figure emerged.

A young man stood there — clothed entirely in blood-red, reeking of gore as though drenched in countless barrels of blood. Even his hair dripped scarlet strands. His face was unnervingly beautiful yet neither male nor female, his eyes brimming with murderous bloodlust. He looked every bit the perfect villain.

“Three hundred years… this lord has finally returned to the world!”

The Mirage Demon gazed at his hands, trembling with ecstatic excitement. Taking a deep breath, his mouth curled into a grin so wide it nearly split his face.

“At last… I can taste human blood and flesh again!”

“Mirage Demon!”

Xu Qingfeng stepped forward, voice ringing with defiance.

“Don’t think you can harm the mortal world again. If we sealed you once, we can seal you a second time!”

“Cultivators?”

The demon’s vertical pupils flared as he slowly turned his gaze on them. Murderous intent slammed down like a physical force. He gave a low, mocking laugh.

“Hmph! Just you?”

He swept an arm, sending a massive wave of blood mist surging toward them.

Xu’s eyes widened in alarm. He whipped out a violet talisman, throwing up a protective barrier just in time to block the devouring mist.

But only for a moment. The talisman crumbled into ash the next second — even a high-grade charm could withstand just one strike.

“Hmph! If not for my own carelessness back then, how could mere humans ever have trapped me?”

The Mirage Demon’s grin widened, his voice dripping with contempt.

“You mortals exist only as my food.”

His gaze swept over each of them like looking at ants, finally pausing on Yun Jiao. Something seemed to click; he gave her a wicked smile.

“Oh yes… I should thank you for releasing me. Without you, it might have taken me hundreds more years to break this seal.”

“……”

Everyone’s faces turned black — including Yun Jiao’s, who instinctively tried to frown but failed. Seriously? Are all demons this arrogant? No wonder the Grandmaster hates them.

The Mirage Demon continued with a cruel chuckle.

“As thanks for setting me free…”

His grin stretched even wider, voice low and mocking.

“I’ll start my feast with you.”

He raised a hand; a blade of condensed blood energy formed instantly and shot toward Yun Jiao.

“Careful!”

Xu Qingfeng and the two elders all cried out at once. Though furious that this girl had inadvertently unleashed the demon, her talent with arrays was undeniable — she might be their only hope to seal it again. They could not let her die.

The three leapt forward, weapons flaring as they formed a protective wall before her. Together they barely deflected the blood blade, then hurled violet talismans in retaliation.

Thunder cracked like war drums. Three bolts of heavenly lightning smashed down on the demon, filling the Fire Prison with blinding white light.

“Hehehehehe…”

The Mirage Demon’s body shuddered briefly — then reformed unscathed, laughing even more wildly.

Even heaven’s thunder couldn’t touch him.

Fear tightened in all three men’s faces; their complexions turned ghastly pale.

“Futile. I was born formless and untouchable. None of you can even touch me. Just die quietly here!”

Snapping the last thread of patience, the demon’s figure blurred into a storm of blood mist and lunged at them.

“No one in this world can harm me!”

“Really?”

Just as it seemed he would swallow them whole, Yun Jiao — who had been silent till now — tilted her head slightly and spoke, voice calm and curious.

“Are you sure about that?”

Before anyone could react, she pulled out a slender silver needle and swiftly stabbed it into a puddle of the demon’s dripping blood nearby.

At once, a blinding white light burst forth, surging like a tidal wave back toward the Mirage Demon.

Caught off guard, he tried to retreat but was too slow. The light struck him full force, and a terrible scream ripped from his throat.

“Aaaahhhh!”

He was hurled backward, forced into the prison’s center as the whole Fire Prison flared with brilliant white. One by one, dormant arrays all over the cavern lit up like stars, spreading until they filled the entire space.

“Th-This is…”

Others might not recognize it, but Xu Qingfeng did. He came here every year to check the seals and knew these formations by heart — they were the original sealing arrays of the Fire Prison. He turned to Yun Jiao in stunned disbelief.

“The seal… it wasn’t broken?”

“Did I say it was broken?”

Yun Jiao tilted her head in mild curiosity.

“Then… those chains earlier?”

Xu hadn’t spoken yet when Elder Jiao blurted the question.

They had clearly seen the chains shatter — those symbolic restraints that kept the demon locked.

Meanwhile, the Mirage Demon’s screams grew sharper. He glared at Yun Jiao with blood-red fury.

“Y-You… what have you done?!”

“I just made a few adjustments to the formation.”

Yun Jiao replied lightly. She wasn’t illiterate; of course she could recognize a demon-sealing array. Books said only world-ending demons were locked with such formations. And the Celestial Master Hall was a disciplined, righteous organization — no way would they ever design an exam that required releasing a monster.

So obviously, things weren’t as simple as they seemed.

And after that borderline death-trap of a first test, she couldn’t help but overthink.

“W-What did you change?”

The Mirage Demon’s eyes went wide, dread dawning.

“Oh… I just turned the Demon-Sealing Array into a Demon-Extermination Array.”

“Wha—”

Before he could finish the word, the white light surged again. Countless array cores flared as blood-red ice spears erupted everywhere, shooting straight toward the demon.

He didn’t even have time to scream properly before he was skewered into something like a honeycomb. His blood mist shredded and dissipated like smoke.

Within three breaths, the thousand-year-old Mirage Demon was… utterly annihilated.

(⊙_⊙)

Elder Shen: “……”

Hall Master Xu: “……”

Elder Jiao: “……”

Yun Jiao: The Celestial Master Hall exams really aren’t simple… They even have a ‘mid-test sudden boss fight’ option. Luckily, I managed to hold on!

(End of Chapter)