Chapter 148: You Use This to Tempt Shen?

Trash! Trash!!

Bai Lu howled inwardly — that damned woman had said one incense stick's worth of time, and she meant it to the exact second.

Bullshit little demon king — with this little ability you dare call yourself king?

He had originally been somewhat dissatisfied, having failed to receive any important post under Howling Moon Demon King, and had planned to make contact with this little demon king, so that once the latter truly claimed the throne, he might be granted the position of a founding elder of the new dynasty.

At this moment, however, Bai Lu wished he could strangle that stupid ox to death.

"..."

Watching helplessly as the youth released the bowstring, it suddenly stamped its hooves and unleashed its innate divine ability.

In an instant, dense white mist swept outward, enveloping everything within a hundred li.

The Heaven-Shattering Sun-Divine Bow fired another intense white beam that tore through the fog — and then vanished without a trace.

Shen Yi was wrapped in the white mist, but he did not panic.

A pair of eyes glinting with sharp light swept the surroundings, seeing straight through the fog.

Yet what lay before him left Shen Yi faintly puzzled.

Moments ago he had been standing in the dim Mountain Peak of Xitai; now it had become something like a celestial pool paradise — white jade paving the ground, golden branches of peach wood, even immortal cranes strolling among the clouds.

Pleasant celestial music sounded in his ears, and the fragrance of fine wine and sweet dew assailed his nose.

These things seemed to possess a bewitching effect on the heart, causing one's vigilance to slowly relax, even making one begin to forget what had happened before.

A bathing pool built of snow-white pebbles sent mist billowing through the air, as if celestial maidens were at play within.

"An illusionary realm?"

After a moment's thought, Shen Yi put away the Heaven-Shattering Sun Bow and drew his straight Yi Blade.

Since it was an Embracing Elixir Realm demon lord, having a few life-preserving tricks was only natural.

Red mist rose in his eyes; the violent, murderous impulse drove out the daze in his heart in an instant, and the thick, bloodthirsty demonic power within the Heavenly Demon Outer Core surged through his limbs and bones.

He calmly observed his surroundings.

If this was an illusionary realm, then there had to be a follow-up move.

And what Shen Yi had to do was seize that fleeting instant and deliver a fatal blow.

As if to confirm his thought, the steaming bathing pool suddenly splashed, accompanied by laughter like the clanging of iron bars.

The next moment, three figures clad only in thin gauze stepped out of the water.

Yet Shen Yi's expression instantly turned strange.

A white deer was waving a pink gauze scarf with one hand, while in the other it cradled a demon core, casting flirtatious glances his way in a half-reluctant, half-welcoming manner.

Behind it stood, respectively, a towering ox demon — its thin gauze stretched taut over a muscular, well-defined body — and a gaunt old dog; both gazed over with bashful, coy expressions, half-hiding the demon cores in their hands against their chests.

"That's not..."

A cold glint rose in Shen Yi's eyes, his expression growing ever calmer as he slowly tightened his grip on the hilt.

He had anticipated that the opponent might try a beauty trap.

But wasn't this just a bit too insulting?

At the same time, Bai Lu, hidden in the fog, was already so furious his eyes were splitting.

This divine ability of his could summon up the deepest desire in a person's heart. Since the target was a young man, how could he not be lecherous? Even if there truly were a true gentleman, somewhere deep in his heart there must surely be a figure he could never forget — which was why he had chosen this scene of celestial maidens at a celestial pool.

Fine, fine, fine... Even taking a step back, even if the fellow were a block of hard stone and this illusionary realm had no effect on him whatsoever, Bai Lu could still accept that.

But what he simply could not comprehend was — seeing himself appear in the pool?!

"You goddamn bully!"

His white mist could only cover a hundred li, and with the other party wielding a divine bow, it would be very hard for him to escape directly.

His original plan had been to wait until the youth was enthralled, then strike with a sneak attack — whether killing or grievously wounding him would be enough to let him escape before Jiang Qiulan arrived.

But now, with rage clouding his head, he charged straight in to kill!

What he feared was that Heaven-Shattering Sun Bow — it wasn't that he truly feared the wielder himself.

Even if he wasn't known for close combat, Bai Lu was still an Embracing Elixir Realm demon lord!

His hard, sharp antlers swelled into the wind like two steep Shanfeng, crashing down toward the youth with a thunderous roar!

There was no earth-shaking impact as one might have imagined.

The massive antlers failed to reach the ground; the slender figure stood below, his black robe fluttering wildly, his left hand thrust out to brace them, and two vast forces slowly canceled each other out between his palms.

The antlers sank toward the ground inch by inch, at a pace like a tortoise crawling.

Clearly, the two were evenly matched in strength; even if there was a difference, it wasn't a large one.

A mortal flesh-and-blood body, taking on a demon's physique head-on?

Bai Lu gritted his teeth, his heart filled with shock and uncertainty; as his fury surged, he increased the force behind his descending antlers by another fifty percent!

Shen Yi had never expected that the body of his fifth Heavenly Immortal-Demon Transformation could crush a true Embracing Elixir Realm demon lord; suddenly, a green light flared on the Yi Blade in his right hand.

He slashed upward!

An invisible ripple some ten-plus zhang wide seemed slow, but in truth shot outward like an arrow leaving the bowstring.

A fine line silently appeared atop the beautiful, magnificent crown of antlers; then came a muffled crack, and roughly a third of the antlers split off at an angle, sliding down to slam into the ground.

Bai Lu hurriedly raised his head, but before he could even feel sorry for his antlers, he had just shrunk them back to their original size when he saw Shen Yi charging at him with blade in hand.

The blade's aura was an utter mess of contradictions.

There was fierce, murderous demonic power, there was bone-chilling green light, and even... Bai Lu caught a whiff of deadly poison.

Its front hooves struck heavily, but the youth neither dodged nor evaded, taking the full brunt of the heavy stomp on his shoulder before suddenly slashing his blade toward its back.

"Trading injury for injury?"

The strength of an Embracing Elixir Realm demon was so overwhelming it could leave even Outside Qingzhou martial artists in despair; the youth's shoulder caved in instantly, but with the aid of the green light, he succeeded in driving the long blade into Bai Lu's flesh.

Just as expected.

The instant the icy blade sank into its body, Bai Lu sensed a fierce poison flooding into its muscles and bones; amid a hissing sound, the violent burning and corroding pain made its face change drastically.

Looking again at Shen Yi, it saw that the force capable of blasting apart most Core-Formation martial artists with a single hoof had only managed to shatter his bones…

The next moment, a streak of red light swept across Bai Lu's line of sight.

Nurtured by that red glow, Shen Yi casually shook his hand, and his shoulder recovered to its original state at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Then he pounced forward once more.

The two figures crossed in the air three times; three horrifying gashes swiftly appeared on Bai Lu's body, the potent poison having eaten clean the tender pink flesh, turning it into green liquid that seeped toward the bones and organs.

It had just raised its head to look at the youth when it discovered that the wounds on his body had already been healed by the red glow.

"Your fucking whole body is full of sinister poison tricks—you weren't cultivating martial arts at all, were you?"

Bai Lu was finally getting a little anxious. Its confidence in escaping with its life under Jiang Qiulan was because that woman never wasted time on useless things—any lightness techniques or footwork, any breath-concealing methods, she had never dabbled in any of them.

Ever since her Core Formation, she had only the Mysterious Ice Seven Sha Sword Intent used to nourish her inner core.

It could be said her entire being existed for the sake of breaking through to Grandmaster of Slain Hunyuan.

Yet the kid before her eyes was clearly weaker than itself, yet kept producing one trick after another, and wielded a powerful treasure, running even faster than this Demon Lord renowned for speed.

Simply impossibly hard to deal with!

"……"

As if reminded by Bai Lu, Shen Yi lightly tapped his chin, raised his left hand before his heart, and skillfully formed a sword gesture.

The Outer Heavenly Demon Core suddenly trembled, the demonic power within surging and pouring out.

A sword of crimson Dao, condensed as if solid, gathered before him, the slowly rotating yin-yang fish radiating an aura of fierce savagery.

(End of this chapter)