Chapter 220: The City Gate Guard Moves at the First Sign of Trouble

The alley was deep and secluded, receiving no sunlight year-round; the ground was damp, slippery, and sticky underfoot.

The air was filled with a mixed scent of moss, rotting wood, and mushrooms! Shan Xiongdi led the way in front, heading toward the location of the trap set by his two companions.

Zhou You followed silently behind him, the sound of his soles rubbing against the ground clearly audible!

The atmosphere was somewhat deathly silent!

……

Fearing that his cover would be blown, Shan Xiongdi was just about to say something to ease the tension.

But he heard Zhou You say, "That's enough."

Enough of what?

Shan Xiongdi wanted to remind him that they had only walked halfway, had not reached the destination, and it was not yet time to stop.

The next moment, two sharp pains pierced into his back.

Two completely different types of damage—one icy cold and the other scorching hot—fused into one without any conflict as they poured into his body.

The icy cold came from the iron weapon, while the scorching heat was damage from Qi-blood.

"A Qi-blood divine weapon, he's ambushing me!"

Shan Xiongdi reacted instantly; it was Zhou You stabbing him from behind with something, and he had stabbed him twice at that.

His rage meter maxed out instantly; I haven't even taken a bite out of you yet, and you're already turning on me and attacking.

Do you really not consider us Huasheng Mei as people? Without even turning his body, Shan Xiongdi's neck gave a *crack* and rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, his face directly confronting the one behind him.

His face, limbs, and torso swelled, bursting through the human skin as he transformed into his true form as a demon.

*Boom*, a hammer struck down on his head; with a dull thud, his entire skull sank into his chest cavity.

"Die!"

Zhou You put away the Martial Master Skull, gripped the sharp sword and dagger to twist and lock them, and then pulled them out violently and horizontally; in an instant, Shan Xiongdi's body, which had just mutated, was decisively cut in half at the waist.

The vitality of a demon far exceeds that of a human; even with a shattered head, being cut in half, or having one's heart pierced, it is possible for them to remain active even in death.

Zhou You delivered follow-up strikes, hacking the corpse that had been broken into two pieces into fragments before he finally stopped.

Poor Shan Xiongdi, he didn't even know how he had been exposed before he died. "Target count +1, friendly reminder, the remaining 2 targets are approaching rapidly."

On the panel, two red dots, one large and one small, perhaps having sensed something abnormal, departed from their original positions and moved quickly toward the alley.

The distance between the two red dots increased at a speed visible to the naked eye.

From this, it was evident that the strength gap between the remaining two Huasheng Mei was immense.

Since that was the case……

Huasheng Mei Laoda rushed into the alley a step ahead, smelled the familiar scent, and the next moment saw the scattered remains of a corpse everywhere.

He had failed, been seen through by the opponent, and even lost a companion.

Could the target be a Weapon Master in the late stage of Qi-blood? In his eyes, Shan Xiongdi was just trash, but even trash could not be hacked into such pieces in a short amount of time.

So the answer was obvious: late-stage Qi-blood, Weapon Master.

……

Huasheng Mei Laoda's heart stirred, and just as he was about to call out to his remaining companion, a scream suddenly came from his ear……

He looked back and saw a scene that made his fury boil over.

It turned out that Zhou You had deliberately bypassed him, picking the soft persimmon to squeeze, and launched a sneak attack on the other Huasheng Mei.

Ever since the panel revealed the movements of the Huasheng Mei, the battlefield had become unilaterally transparent to Zhou You; the roles of prey and hunter had been reversed.

This Huasheng Mei had been rushing over, originally intending to rendezvous with the leader.

Suddenly, a person lunged out from his blind spot, holding a gleaming sharp sword and stabbing toward him.

*Heh heh*, doesn't he know that the body of a demon is as hard as steel and impervious to blades and spears!

The sharp sword touched his body and *squelched* as it pierced in; *damn it*, a Qi-blood divine weapon, I was careless, I didn't dodge! The Huasheng Mei responded viciously, sliding directly along the blade; his body was gashed open by the sword edge, but he managed to break free.

Enduring the intense pain, he raised his sharp claws to retaliate, but his wrist was pierced by a dagger, and Zhou You pinned him to the nearby wall like a wall calendar. "Treat yourself to some Tiger Bane!"

Zhou You rubbed his palms together, the dark gray Iron Tiger Bane kneaded like dough, and he shoved it directly into the Huasheng Mei's mouth.

When Tiger Bane met a demon, the reaction was like Mentos hitting cola; in an instant, heaven's thunder ignited the earth's fire, and it became uncontrollable.

The Huasheng Mei's mouth, nose, and internal cavities were directly dissolved by the explosion of Tiger Bane, melting like a heated candle.

In the blink of an eye, his upper body shriveled and collapsed!

Yet, something even more ruthless followed! "Thud, thud, thud!"

Zhou You reached out and hooked his jaw, gritting his teeth, and raised the Martial Master Skull to smash and hammer away at his head with a *clang-clang-clang*.

Today, either the skull would shatter, or the Huasheng Mei would shatter; there was no third outcome.

The scene Huasheng Mei Laoda saw was his companion being smashed into a pulp of meat by Zhou You.

"I recognize you, you are Zhou You, the stray dog expelled by the martial arts hall."

He roared, stretching his human skin to transform into a monster three people tall, his entire body covered in black fur like steel needles.

Facing him personally, Zhou You realized that this Huasheng Mei was more than twice as strong as his companion; the two Huasheng Mei he had killed were not even a match for him alone.

Therefore, he had gone from weak to strong, solving the opponent's lackeys before facing him one-on-one.

At the same time!

At the City Gate Guard barracks……

Zheng Qing sat cross-legged in front of a water clock, arms folded.

This was a massive bronze vat filled with clear water, with a piece of yellow paper marked with an arrow floating on the surface.

The yellow paper bobbed up and down on the water, rotating or remaining still according to the ripples, the arrow constantly changing direction.

The arrow was drawn with the Qi-blood of a strong martial artist; it hated evil with a passion and was incredibly sensitive to the aura of demons.

As the City Gate Guard's primary tool for investigation, once a demon appeared in the city, the yellow paper would spin rapidly to pinpoint the target's location.

However, the charm-creatures are incredibly cunning; they fuse with human bodies and employ various means to conceal their aura.

Only when they burst through human skin to reveal their disguise, with their thick aura unmasked, can they trigger the warning of the water clock.

"That Transformation Charm is incomparably cunning; it eats people without leaving a trace, deliberately leading us by the nose."

The water clock occasionally catches a trace, but by the time the City Gate Guard rushes to the scene, it is already a scene of total devastation.

Zheng Qing thought intensely, wondering how he could capture the opponent? Suddenly, the water clock splashed, the yellow paper sank sharply, and it began to spin frantically.

This was an unprecedentedly massive disturbance.

Zheng Qing was so shocked that he could not move his hands or feet, and it took seven or eight breaths for him to recover his senses.

"All brothers on night duty, come over here."

"I am going to report to Captain Chang; this Transformation Charm is definitely at the Near-Latent level."

Charm-creatures are also graded; Transformation Charms correspond to Blood-Qi Warriors, and the level above that, comparable to Martial Masters, is called a Latent Charm.

The so-called Near-Latent level means that this Transformation Charm has not yet upgraded to a Latent Charm, but it possesses power approaching that of a Latent Charm.

Relying on them alone is no longer enough to deal with it; one of the Eight Great Ghost-Catching Captains at the Martial Master level must be summoned.

It was not just his side; the stations of the other 7 City Gate Guards were also stirred into a commotion because of this.

"Shi Yu, you do not go; stay at the station and guard the gate."

Captain Ye explained to his foster son, "That is a Near-Latent level Transformation Charm; if a real fight breaks out, your foster father cannot protect you."

Zhang Shiyu looked into his foster father's eyes, which were serious and grave as never before, and nodded, "This child obeys."

This night, 4 of the Eight Great Ghost-Catching Captains were dispatched, along with nearly half of the City Gate Guard forces.

(End of this chapter)