Chapter 34: Pursuing the Fox Demon

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Yi Qing and Lonemoon were not so much pursuing the fox demon as pursuing Shen Ying who had left them trailing far behind. They followed her right up to the entrance of a cave before stopping.

Shen Ying stood upright at the entrance of the cave… looking like she was mulling over something?

“Is the fox demon hiding in the cave?” Lonemoon flew down and asked. “Why don’t you chase after it?”

Shen Ying turned to look at him impassively. Her face did not convey any expression yet to Lonemoon, there was a hint of disdain behind it. “Don’t you see the words written on this cave?”

“Words? What words?” Lonemoon was baffled.

She reached out her hand and pointed at the cave entrance. “Trap inside. Please enter quickly!”

“Er…”

Indeed, the fox demon clearly knew that it was being pursued. Why of all places would it choose this cave which was obviously a dead end? It was obvious that the fox demon had planned a trap here in advance.

“Then what should we do? There’s no other way in.” Frowning, Lonemoon countered, “We can’t let the fox demon refine a neonate formation pill, otherwise it’ll become a Demon Monarch after consuming it and then it’ll be even harder to deal with.”

“Master.” Yi Qing stepped forward with a proposal. “This cave doesn’t look deep, so why not let me force it out using a sword array?”

Huh? Sword array?! Is there such a sword array?

Shen Ying nodded her assent. Yi Qing immediately formed a hand seal and the sword in his hand suddenly transformed into thousands of swords, all of which started flying up into the sky following the Spirit Qi he released. Immediately, the entire sky was covered by a dense rain of swords. Yi Qing then formed another hand seal and the rain of swords began to gather and condense in the air. Within moments they had turned into a gigantic, golden sword that reached up to the sky. Yi Qing made a huge leap into the air, his entire body seemingly merging into the golden sword. The whole sky was covered in a dense cloud of Sword Qi.

Lonemoon was stunned. Such surging Sword Qi was something even he might not be capable of summoning forth. In just a few days, Yi Qing had mastered and become one with his Sword Intent.

Lonemoon’s heart leaped in excitement. He saw that Yi Qing was changing his sword move. Lifting his right hand, a solemn expression on his face, Yi Qing let out a formidable roar. “Break!” The gigantic sword immediately slammed itself down directly onto the cave. There was a resounding bang and the cave in front of them was sliced in two. The giant sword did not stop there, but instead attacked in different directions: making a side chop, a vertical chop, an oblique chop. It was like chopping vegetables. One chop here… another chop there… yet another…

Lonemoon, who had been eagerly looking forward to an awe-inspiring move from Yi Qing: “…”

(╯‵□′)╯(┻━┻

I’m gonna flip out! This is just plain smashing. You call this forcing it out? This is obviously a demolition operation! Don’t think that I can’t recognize an excavator when I see one, asshole!

Wait a moment!

Why did he feel that this move looked a little familiar?

Bloody hell, isn’t this the sword move that Shen Ying used to part the sea? It seems like you’re really applying what you’ve learned!

“Master…” Seeing that the cave had been diced into a pile of gravel, Yi Qing had flown back. “Okay!” No more traps.

“Good job.”

Good job my foot! Where’s the fox demon? You said you would force it out! It hasn’t bloody come out yet!

The civet cat: “…” These people are really terrifying. Kitty wants to go home.

It was only after taking a few deep breaths… that Lonemoon managed to suppress the curses in his heart. He activated his Divine Perception and started probing for the fox demon among the mountain of gravel in front of him. The strange thing was that the demonic aura which had been very pronounced until just now had suddenly vanished without a trace.

“Hey?” Puzzled, Lonemoon stepped forward and announced, “The fox demon is gone.”

Yi Qing, who was just as baffled, used his Divine Perception to probe around and did not find any trace of it either. “I was scanning the surrounding area just now and did not see it escaping, so it must still be here.”

Indeed, if the fox demon could slip away right under their eyes, it would not needed to have sacrificed its two tails to escape. The cultivation of a Blood Fox lay in its tails, so losing two tails at once was very damaging to its cultivation level.

“What’s that?” The two of them were planning to search again when Shen Ying suddenly asked them, her hand pointing to a particular spot.

Looking in the direction she was pointing to, Lonemoon saw a pile of gravel there which looked just the same as the rest; he could not spot anything special about it. But out of trust in Shen Ying, he walked over quickly and glanced at the pile of gravel. “Huh?”

“These stones are floating up.” Cats having the best night vision, the civet cat had spotted the discrepancy.

But because the stones did not float up much, they had not spotted it just now. Alarmed, Lonemoon immediately formed a hand seal to sweep away the surrounding gravel. A completely intact stone slate could be seen at the bottom. Despite Yi Qing’s battering, it had not suffered the slightest crack. And this stone slate…

“This is an array formation!” Lonemoon cried out loudly. The lines on the slate were clearly the imprints left by an array formation. He had not made the association earlier because his Spirit Qi was not activated.

“What is the use of this array formation?” asked Yi Qing. He and Shen Ying were laymen when it came to array formations.

Lonemoon looked at the array formation closely before replying, “It looks like an isolating array formation, but the Dharmic talisman on it is different from normal ones. This looks ancient.” Wrinkling his brows, he added, “But the fox demon is definitely hiding underneath it.”

After he finished activating his Spirit Qi, Lonemoon pressed his hands directly on the stone slate. As if being lit, the markings on the slate shone brightly, the lights spreading wider and wider until it covered the entire pile of gravel. Both big and small pieces of gravel floated up. The stone slate under Lonemoon’s feet shook and then began to move apart slowly.

“It’s opening!” warned Lonemoon, signaling everybody to move back.

Within moments, a huge pit had appeared in the ground. The pit was so deep that one could not see to the bottom and there was a pungent smell emanating from within.

“Demonic aura!” Yi Qing looked up at the other two. “It belongs to the fox demon.”

“It really is hiding underneath. After it!” cried Lonemoon, jumping in. This fox demon was so cunning. No wonder it had decided to hide in this cave; the darkness in the cave meant that there was no way they could have detected the array formation, so naturally they would not have been able to locate it as well. It was just that the fox demon had not counted on them dicing apart the cave.

The pit was so deep that they had to fly down for two minutes before they reached the ground. It was pitch black down there. Lonemoon raised his hands to summon a fire. Now they could see that there was nothing around. The whole place was silent. Although the demonic aura was still prominent, there was no sign of the fox demon.

“It’s so stinky here!” The civet cat had covered his nose as soon as he landed, reflexively hiding behind Shen Ying.

Looking around, Shen Ying reached out and touched the mountain wall. Her hand came back covered in a red gloop. “Huh. Is this mountain bleeding?”

Blood? Puzzled, Lonemoon immediately walked over and looked at the dripping mountain wall. He had attributed the redness to the soil here being reddish. But upon closer examination, he realized that the stuff covering the wall was not red soil at all—it was blood.

Could it be…

“Only this side of the mountain wall has blood stains.” Yi Qing informed them after having taken a sweep of the surroundings.

Lonemoon frowned, and a terrible suspicion formed in his mind. Pulling aside Shen Ying, he said, “Get back. There may be something behind this mountain wall.”

Lonemoon formed a hand seal and the jade flute in his hand at once transformed into a sword. Numerous beams of Sword Qi struck the stone wall. There was a huge bang, and the mountain wall in front collapsed instantly to reveal a wider area.

They were suddenly assailed by the pungent stench of blood. Blood was everywhere; the walls and the ground were all splattered with blood. There were even a few decaying limbs lying scattered on the ground. A square platform stood right in the middle of it all. A red light from an array formation lit up the platform brightly, making the whole place appear even redder.

Lonemoon blurted out, “Blood Sacrifice Array!” It had turned out as he had suspected.