Chapter 24: Black Beast Demon

……

"Bear with it, I'm going to see if your bone is dislocated."

Lv Cheng placed both hands on Ye Chang's ankle and probed the bone.

Impressive!

You really know how to be ruthless to yourself!

You actually dislocated your own bone! No wonder it swelled up so fast!

"Do you like onions?"

"Onions... ah~"

Taking advantage of a moment when Ye Chang wasn't paying attention, Lv Cheng snapped her bone back into place.

"All done." Lv Cheng picked Ye Chang up, "Keep your lower leg raised a bit."

"Oh." Ye Chang raised her lower leg, looking at Lv Cheng with some resentment.

"Couldn't you have warned me before you did it?"

"I think the distraction method is more practical." Lv Cheng carried Ye Chang and headed back the way they came toward the factory gate.

"Rest well when you get back, don't move around, don't rub it, use an ice pack yourself, but don't give yourself frostbite..."

"Wait a second." Ye Chang's expression was a bit strange.

"Don't move around, yet you're telling me to use an ice pack myself?"

"If I don't move, how am I supposed to apply an ice pack?"

"Have someone else help you," Lv Cheng said.

"Is there no one at your place?"

"No." Ye Chang hugged Lv Cheng with some sadness.

"I'm all alone now."

"Oh." Lv Cheng nodded.

"I still have a younger sister; she should have already made dinner and be waiting for me."

"..." Ye Chang.

Your ability to say such heart-stabbing things really hasn't regressed at all!

"Boom!!"

Just as Ye Chang was preparing to act spoiled and play the victim to get Lv Cheng to take care of her tonight, the wall in front of the path suddenly collapsed, and a huge black shadow rushed out.

A ghost-monkey face, a deformed human body, eyes of forest green, the whole body pitch-black as if wearing a tight-fitting leather suit, hideous beyond compare, with forelimbs exceptionally long and sharp, like two scythes.

Black Beast Demon!

"Watch out!" Ye Chang shouted.

Swish!

The sharp forelimb tore through the air, slashing straight toward Lv Cheng's head.

Lv Cheng felt a chill in his heart, kicked off the ground with all his might, and shot backward while holding Ye Chang, putting over ten meters of distance between them in an instant.

Looking at the Black Beast Demon before him, Lv Cheng's expression was extremely ugly.

Almost lost his head!

Playing for such high stakes?!

Did Ye Chang really want to kill him?

Where is Xiaotian?!

Boom!!

The sound of a building collapsing rang out again. Lv Cheng looked over and saw Xiaotian being surrounded by over ten Black Beast Demons. The lead Black Beast Demon had a grayish-black body and eyes that were extremely bright, making one afraid to look directly at them.

Cursed Beast Demon!

Warrior-level!

Damn it!

Playing for such high stakes?!

Using this kind of lineup to deal with a lowly Initial Stage Mage like him?

What exactly does Ye Chang want to do?

"Are you okay?" Ye Chang asked with concern.

"To be honest, I'm starting to suspect you lured me here on purpose because you want to kill me." Lv Cheng looked at Ye Chang in his arms, his voice faint.

Playing with rats is one thing, but you're even using a Cursed Beast Demon?

I can't take this as a joke.

"I didn't!" Ye Chang's heart tightened.

"You didn't?" Lv Cheng took a deep breath.

Damn! It's the truth!

What is going on?!

Can Salang not even control the dogs under her command anymore!

Lv Cheng placed Ye Chang on the ground, "If I leave you here to draw fire and run away by myself, will you hate me?"

"I..." Ye Chang's face turned pale.

Still acting?

Lv Cheng understood less and less.

He was just an Initial Stage Mage now, and the only thing he could rely on was this Warrior-level sub-dragon, but now Xiaotian was being held back by that Cursed Beast Demon and those dozen-plus Black Beast Demons, unable to attend to him.

Under these circumstances, Ye Chang wondered what ability he had to face a Black Beast Demon?

"Sorry, it's my fault for dragging you into this." Ye Chang looked up, a small ball of light brightening in her hand.

"You run, I'll help you hold it off."

"..." Lv Cheng.

Regardless of what Ye Chang wanted to do, her goal was certainly not to kill him; otherwise, there would be no need for such trouble.

Could it be that she wanted to capture him in the name of the Black Vatican to force him to join?

Then why didn't she just take him away ten years ago?

Wouldn't loyalty cultivated from childhood be better than forcing someone onto the path halfway through?

Can't you even handle basic childhood grooming?

"You're going to stop this thing? Forget it."

Lv Cheng took a deep breath and took off the Wooden Sword Pendant from his chest.

No matter what Ye Chang wanted to do, whether it was testing his background or forcing him to join the Black Vatican, she had already released the Cursed Beast Demon; it was clear she would not stop until her goal was reached.

If he kept holding back, there would only be more trouble ahead.

Furthermore, what Ye Chang was clearly trying to test now wasn't his sub-dragon, it was him!

In other words, even if he didn't bring out the sub-dragon, Ye Chang would still have come after him!

But he didn't understand, what was there to test about him?

How much ability could an Initial Stage Summoning Element Mage have?

"Alright, put your Illumination Spell away."

With a thought from Lv Cheng, the pendant in his hand instantly transformed into a three-foot-long sword, shimmering with a faint golden light.

To use the terminology of this world, this sword of his counted as a Slaying Magic Tool; as for its grade, that was uncertain—perhaps it was just a small, broken sword, or perhaps this thing was a hidden divine weapon.

"Roar!!"

Seeing that Lv Cheng not only didn't run but instead walked toward it, the Black Beast Demon was clearly enraged. It let out a loud roar, then swung its scythe-like arms and charged rapidly toward Lv Cheng.

A gust of wind rushed toward his face, followed by the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground.

"What?!"

The person in black standing on high ground looked at this scene in disbelief.

In the moment of close contact, the Black Beast Demon had been cut in half at the waist by Lv Cheng's understated sword strike!

"What kind of joke is this..." The expression under the black robe of the person in black was extremely shocked.

Even if that sword was a Spirit-Grade Slaying Magic Tool, that kid was only an Initial Stage Mage!

An Initial Stage Mage facing a Black Beast Demon at close range would only be killed in seconds!

And just now, facing the Black Beast Demon's sneak attack, not only did he dodge it, but he also leaped more than ten meters away from the spot! And he was still holding a dead weight in his arms!

How the hell could an Initial Stage Mage be capable of this?

Something is wrong! This kid really does have a problem!

"This..."

Ye Chang, who had been planning to secretly intervene and destroy this Black Beast Demon, was also stunned.

This kind of reaction speed could no longer be explained by Spiritual Power; being able to perceive something didn't mean the body could keep up...

"Xiaotian!" Lv Cheng retracted the Pure Yang Sword and hung it back on his chest.

"Stop playing around!"

A normal Juvenile Stage sub-dragon would indeed be temporarily held back when facing a Cursed Beast Demon leading a dozen or so Black Beast Demons because it wouldn't want to get hurt and wouldn't attack randomly before testing the opponent's situation, but Xiaotian was no normal sub-dragon!

It is a Demon!

Demons are not afraid of death!

The Eight Demons correspond to the Eight Trigrams, or rather, they are the dark side of the Eight Trigrams; as long as the Eight Trigrams exist, they naturally exist as well.

And as for other demons, although they lack the near-rule-like immortality of the Eight Demons, their souls are equally powerful. Even the Eight Immortals of the past found it difficult to completely destroy the souls of these demons, or rather, they dared not destroy them.

A demon's soul is rooted in the "Yin" of the world and cannot be destroyed; at most, it can only be shattered. Once a demon's soul is shattered, it wanders the human world, absorbing the malice and resentment produced by humans, gathering those vengeful spirits, and gradually forming more newborn demons, just like the Demon Qi remaining on the Immortal God Token.

The Eight Immortals chose to fight to stop evil, not to win, so naturally, they would not choose to shatter the demons' souls.

Therefore, the only way to deal with demons is to seal them.

Now the world has changed; he is Yang, and the Demon Hell is Yin. Once the physical body of a demon he summons from Hell dies, its soul returns to Hell to be reborn.

So this thing is simply not afraid of death, the same nature as the Shadow Khan.

(End of chapter)