Chapter 61: Meng Chuan and the Demon King

The Demon King of Poison Pool held a token, instantly sensing the locations of the other eighteen tokens. Nine of these tokens were now without owners, indicating that those nine great commanders were dead.

"Hmm? Blazing Sun Academy?" The Demon King of Poison Pool pinpointed a location. "Two great commanders are here; one is dead, but the other, the Ox Demon Commander, is still alive. That newly promoted, weaker Godfiend must still be at Blazing Sun Academy, continuing to hunt the Ox Demon Commander."

"I must get there as soon as possible."

The Demon King of Poison Pool knew clearly that the hidden Godfiend was hunting. Once a demon great commander was successfully killed, the Godfiend would leave to find new prey. Therefore, only by finding a living great commander could he hope to follow the trail and locate the hidden Godfiend.

He transformed into a phantom within Dongning Prefecture. A black mist permeated the ten-zhang area around his body. Wherever the black mist passed, bodies dissolved into pools of blood. Even human experts hidden in various places, when affected by this black mist, turned into blood and died. Although the Demon King of Poison Pool didn't particularly care about mortals, he was willing to step on these "little ants" if they happened to be in his way.

"Ridiculous humans," the Demon King of Poison Pool muttered, observing the human mortal experts he encountered along the way. "If it weren't for the need to quickly find that weaker Godfiend, I alone could exterminate all humans within an entire prefecture."

Once power reached a certain level, a fundamental difference emerged. If hundreds of thousands, even millions, of mortals were to fight the Demon King of Poison Pool, the Demon King would not suffer a single scratch, while the human mortals would be annihilated. Of course, in a real war, mortals would scatter and flee if the situation turned dire, and even the most powerful demon king couldn't be everywhere at once. This is where the role of the demon army became apparent. Human mortals served in the army and at city gates to resist the locust-like demon armies. As for demon kings? Those were for the Godfiends to fight.

The Demon King of Poison Pool moved with terrifying speed, heading towards Blazing Sun Academy.

At Blazing Sun Academy, the demon forces' morale was shattered, and they were even at a disadvantage. This led many demon commanders to order a retreat. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—demons leaped out of windows and fled, with the demon commanders escaping even faster.

"Kill them!"

"Kill these monsters!" Inside Blazing Sun Fort, the humans' fighting spirit soared. Short spears were thrown, piercing through demon bodies, and ballista bolts shot out, skewering multiple demons in a line like gourds on a string. The people inside Blazing Sun Fort seized the opportunity to pursue the retreating demons, beating them while they were down!

The demons were intelligent; they could see that the Flood Dragon Commander was dead, and the Ox Demon Commander was likely not far from death. Even if the Ox Demon Commander managed to escape with his life, that human expert would then turn to slaughter their demon horde, and they would die even faster. The situation was irrevocably lost. Therefore, it was better to escape as quickly as possible while the human expert was still fighting the Ox Demon Commander. No matter how powerful that human expert was, he was only one person. As long as their large group of demons fled far enough and scattered in all directions, how many could that mysterious human expert possibly pursue?

"They can escape, but I can't," the Ox Demon Commander thought, having already used a Godfiend forbidden art, drawing upon the power of heaven and earth to conjure rolling waves around him. He wielded a trident, swinging it to block Meng Chuan's incoming saber flashes.

Meng Chuan's figure was extremely fast, but as he approached the Ox Demon Commander, the hindrance of the rolling waves reduced his speed by 30%, and his saber strikes also slowed considerably. The Ox Demon Commander swung his trident so tightly that it blocked Meng Chuan's saber completely.

"Without using my Soul Force, I'm only evenly matched with this demon commander," Meng Chuan secretly shook his head. "I can't waste time; I need to check on the ancestral home as soon as possible." His great-aunt had also instructed him to protect it as much as possible.

Although the Eight Great Academies were the primary targets for the demon army's attacks, the government offices, military armories, and the five great Godfiend families came later. But ultimately, the safety of the three thousand members of the Meng family was at stake. Below the Godfiend Demon Kings, he still possessed some deterrence and was confident in protecting his family. Of course, if the Godfiends at Yu Yang Palace were defeated in their battle against the demon kings, as his great-aunt had said, he would have no choice but to immediately flee for his life.

"Palace Lord Yu Yang, Great-Aunt, they will surely win," Meng Chuan could only hope.

Many thoughts flashed through his mind, but the battle did not pause. After his previous two saber strikes had failed, Meng Chuan once again integrated his Soul Force into every part of his body. Every bone and muscle in his body coordinated much better, his True Essence circulated with greater precision, and combined, the burst of power and speed instantly increased significantly, elevating his strength by an entire level.

"His speed," the Ox Demon Commander's eyes widened. This human expert had displayed the same terrifying speed when killing the Flood Dragon Commander. Even with the heavy waves obstructing him, the lightning-fast figure remained unbelievably swift. The Ox Demon Commander barely had time to react mentally; his trident was only halfway through its swing when a flash of saber light pierced through his brow, through his ox-head skull, and his consciousness instantly plunged into darkness.

The Ox Demon Commander was also dead. His massive body crashed down, shaking the ground and raising dust.

"The Ox Demon Commander is dead too!"

"Run!"

"Run!" The demons who were already fleeing wished they had more legs, scattering and escaping frantically in all directions.

Meng Chuan glanced around. They were all scattering and fleeing; if he pursued in one direction, he'd kill at most three to five ordinary demons. It truly wasn't worth his time. Meng Chuan headed directly towards Blazing Sun Fort; he wanted to check on Liu Qiyue's condition.

"Beautiful!"

"Amazing!"

"Senior Brother Meng, you are the senior disciple of our Eight Great Academies!" Blazing Sun Academy disciples shouted excitedly.

"Young Master Meng is incredible! He killed two demon great commanders by himself!" Imperial guards and retired veterans also praised him, smiling broadly as they watched Meng Chuan speed towards Blazing Sun Fort from afar. Of course, they recognized Young Master Meng, renowned throughout Dongning Prefecture.

Suddenly, their expressions changed. Each of them looked into the distance. Liu Qiyue, who was leaning weakly against a wall, had been smiling as she watched Meng Chuan approach. But suddenly, she saw the scene unfolding behind him, and her face filled with terror.

"Senior Brother Meng, be careful!"

"Young Master Meng, look out behind you!"

"A-Chuan, be careful!"

A chorus of shocked cries erupted.

Meng Chuan hadn't noticed at first, but his sensing range extended for a full li. When the opponent closed within one li, he immediately detected a terrifying aura, an aura far stronger than his great-aunt's had been when he 'saw' it before. (Of course, his great-aunt had been severely wounded and weakened at the time.)

"Such a terrifying aura," Meng Chuan murmured, turning his head to look.

Whoosh! Behind him, half the sky was shrouded in a vast black mist. By the time the terrifying entity was one li away from Meng Chuan, the black mist had already spread for a hundred zhang, leaving less than a hundred zhang between it and Meng Chuan.

Whoosh—that entity approached with astonishing speed, far faster than Meng Chuan. The vast black mist, which obscured half the sky, reached Meng Chuan almost instantly. Within Meng Chuan's ten-zhang sensing range, he detected countless tiny black snakes, as small as dust motes, within the mist. Wherever it passed, the many corpses previously lying in Blazing Sun Academy swiftly dissolved into pools of blood. Now, this black mist, formed by countless tiny black snakes, was engulfing everything.

"To think that the one who killed two great commanders is merely a mortal! This truly surprises me," a hoarse, cold voice emanated from deep within the black mist.