Volume V: First Glimpse of Prominence - Chapter Nineteen: Demonic Spirits

That sharp cry was nothing short of shocking. In this Land of Immortal Prohibition, there were actually people other than the two of them? Panicking, the great Boss Li's hand trembled on the God-Slaying Bow, and the Meteor Sword was shot straight up into the sky with a whoosh. Immortal Grandmaster Yuan Mu was even more pathetic; his airborne body stumbled, and he almost crashed headfirst downward.

The situation felt precisely like someone sneaking up from behind and slapping your bare bottom just as you reached the climax of making love.

Boss Li almost suffered from erectile dysfunction.

After a moment of astonishment, Li Chengzhu and Yuan Mu simultaneously released their primordial spirits to peer outward. Chaotic spiritual pressure from all directions was rapidly approaching their location. The two exchanged glances, unable to conceal the shock in their eyes.

These fluctuations of spiritual pressure were not particularly intense. The highest level of cultivation among them was roughly on par with Li Chengzhu's, so the two were not terribly frightened. What surprised them was why there were so many people in the Land of Immortal Prohibition.

People! They truly were people. Could it be that they had also broken in from the outside?

Before long, that team of people had appeared within the field of vision of the two. The nine-headed demonic flood dragon was still frantically releasing spiritual qi bombs, blasting broken wood and debris everywhere, though its accuracy left much to be desired.

The great Boss Li reached out and summoned back the Meteor Sword that had flown into the sky, notched it onto the God-Slaying Bow, and raised his hand, intending to skewer the beast with a sword. At that very moment, the earlier cry rang out once more: "Please stay your hand!"

Li Chengzhu's vision blurred, and a captivating beauty as lovely as a flower was already standing before him, stretching out her arm to block the path of his God-Slaying Bow. Carved from jade and sculpted from pink, she wore a short-sleeved blouse with rhombus-patterned gauze edges. Her swan-like neck was fair and smooth, and a few strands of long hair drifted across it in the gentle breeze, adding an even greater touch of allure. On her lower body, she wore a pair of tight pink trousers that accentuated her slender and beautiful legs. She stood there prettily, panting softly as she gazed at Li Chengzhu.

A wave of fragrant wind was carried into Li Chengzhu's nose as the woman moved, sending a wave of elation through the great Boss Li's entire body, bringing an indescribable sense of comfort.

"Demon spirits?" Immortal Grandmaster Yuan Mu possessed eyes like torches and instantly recognized the true form of these people, unable to help but cry out.

The woman turned her head and smiled faintly at Yuan Mu: "Yes, we are indeed demon spirits."

Yuan Mu felt that smile was as enchanting as the wind. The woman's pair of phoenix eyes practically seemed ready to drip water, and they almost hooked away his aged soul. He hurriedly immersed his mind and looked at Li Chengzhu, only to meet the latter's inquiring gaze. His old face turned red, and he quickly turned his head away, pretending to inspect the sky and the ground.

Li Chengzhu knitted his brows and asked, "Who are you people? Why are you here?" Although he was speaking, the raised God-Slaying Bow remained unlowered. He was merely waiting for this woman to make the slightest unusual movement to shoot a sword right through her. At such close range, Li Chengzhu believed that with this woman's cultivation, she would either be dead or close to it.

The woman turned her head back once more, smiling at Li Chengzhu and revealing white teeth without the slightest bit of hostility: "Are you immortals-in-training?"

Her breath was as light as orchid fragrance, and Li Chengzhu felt that fragrance grow even more intense. It made his mind spin in a daze. Hampered by the fact that he was standing at the focal point of the array and could not easily move his position, he gave a faint smile: "Step back a bit. My hands are shaking terribly and are a bit unsteady."

The woman was taken aback, then glared at Li Chengzhu with a resentful expression in her phoenix eyes, but she still obediently stepped back a few paces, lowered her raised arm, and only then spoke: "My name is Shui Ruyan. As for who we are, your friend should be able to tell. We harbor no hostility; we only wish to plead with you not to harm the Holy Beast."

Although the woman before him spoke in a gentle tone that faintly carried a bewitching and captivating effect, her expression still retained a trace of panic and anxiety.

"Holy Beast?" Li Chengzhu asked, frowning.

"Yes." Shui Ruyan raised a slender, jade-like finger and pointed at the nine-headed demonic flood dragon. "That is our Holy Beast. We beg you not to hurt it anymore." Before she finished speaking, she had already bowed gracefully to the ground.

When this woman bowed, the score and more people who followed closely behind also bowed down along with her.

The great Boss Li was stunned for a moment. The Holy Beast? The nine-headed demonic flood dragon was a Holy Beast? Then they... He looked at the slender, snake-like waist of the woman kneeling on one knee before him, and a thought suddenly flashed through his mind. He raised his head to look at Yuan Mu, but that fellow was still inspecting his own fingernails, acting as though it were some kind of ninth-grade immortal artifact.

"Please do not harm him anymore. If the Holy Beast is gone, we will also..." As Shui Ruyan spoke, her voice choked up, and a few teardrops fell patter-patter. This woman could cry on command; her skill was truly formidable.

At that very moment, a sudden change occurred. The nine-headed demonic flood dragon, bound by the Long-Rainbow Rope, had been continuously releasing spiritual qi bombs. One of the people kneeling over there hadn't managed to dodge in time and was hit squarely by a spiritual qi bomb, turning into a puff of dust and vanishing. Yet the surrounding crowd remained utterly unmoved, kneeling there like wooden stakes.

"Damn it!" the great Boss Li cursed. Regardless of who these people were or where they had popped out from, for the nine-headed demonic flood dragon to dare commit murder right under his eyelids was simply showing him too little respect.

Li Chengzhu decided to release the Meteor Sword.

Shui Ruyan suddenly stood up, spread her arms, and once more blocked Li Chengzhu's path. Two trails of tears streamed down her flushed cheeks as she frantically pleaded, "Do not hurt it anymore, I beg you."

"Step aside!" Li Chengzhu roared in anger.

Shui Ruyan was gripped by panic, but she still stood firmly in place: "We can agree to your demands, only pleading that you do not attack the Holy Beast again." The woman spoke through clenched teeth, looking as heroic and tragic as if she were sacrificing herself for the truth.

"Huh?" Li Chengzhu's expression relaxed, his demeanor softening as he weighed in his heart whether the physical body and immortal core of a lower-tier eighth-grade immortal beast were more important, or the conditions these people were offering.

"Forget it, stop fighting," Yuan Mu said, slippery and experienced as an old fox, chiming in from the side.

"Hmm?" Li Chengzhu cast his gaze toward Yuan Mu, and the old fellow blinked at him.

"Ahem..." The great Boss Li gave a dry cough, lowered the God-Slaying Bow, looked at Shui Ruyan who was weeping like rain- beaten flowers, and found a diplomatic out for himself: "But it has gone mad. What do we do now?"

Hearing that Li Chengzhu had relented, Shui Ruyan hurriedly wiped the tears from her face with her small hand, her captivating eyes curving into crescents: "Don't worry, we have our own methods." Then she turned around and shouted to the score and more people: "Cast the spell!" That demeanor was completely unlike the frail woman of a moment ago, leaving Li Chengzhu privately clicking his tongue in amazement.

Hearing their holy maiden's call, those twenty-odd people immediately dispersed, surrounding the nine-headed demonic flood dragon and taking up positions in formations Li Chengzhu and Yuan Mu had never seen before.

At Shui Ruyan's command, an unknown language simultaneously sounded from the mouths of the twenty-plus people. This language was neither quite speech nor quite song, bearing some similarity to rap on Earth. The pitch soared endlessly at times, then dropped into deep murmurs at other times, causing a faint feeling of warmth to spread through one's heart.

Gradually, the frenzied nine-headed demonic flood dragon calmed down, and even the violent impulses in the hearts of Li Chengzhu and Yuan Mu, who had been fighting until now, subsided.

"So it also has the effect of soothing the mind and spirit," Yuan Mu raised his head to look at Li Chengzhu and communicated via primordial spirit.

"What on earth are these people?" Li Chengzhu kept his eyes fixed on the nine-headed demonic flood dragon and replied.

"Demon spirits. You should have heard of their other form," Yuan Mu paused and continued, "Demon immortals."

"Demon immortals?"

"Mhm. Before they achieve immortality, they are collectively referred to as demon spirits, much like your immortal-in-training practitioners."

Li Chengzhu shot him a fierce glare—this fellow just had to say "your practitioners."

However, he had indeed heard of such things as demon immortals; he had learned of them from Keba back within the Azure Blood Ring.

The immortal world was not limited to human cultivators and immortals alone; all living things possessed the right to cultivate. Even a tree, a blade of grass, or a mere stone could eventually absorb the spiritual qi of heaven and earth over a long passage of time and evolve into an immortal. Li Chengzhu even felt that these beings were simply the monsters he had heard legends of in the past.

Yet Keba had told him that demon immortals were merely a form of existence among life in the immortal world, just like immortals and wicked immortals. Those single-mindedly pursuing goodness were good immortals, while those single-mindedly doing evil were wicked immortals. It all rested in a single thought; why bother drawing such a distinct line between them? Perhaps in the environment Li Chengzhu had previously lived in, demon spirits could indeed be called monsters, but in the immortal world, they were demon spirits, and when cultivated to their ultimate extremes, they became demon immortals.

Demon spirits could be said to be the evolutionary form of immortal beasts. Immortal beasts discarded their physical bodies to take on human forms, becoming demon spirits. What Li Chengzhu could not understand, however, was why the immortal beasts he had encountered previously were none of them in human form—even the nine-headed demonic flood dragon he had just encountered, despite its formidable strength, had not appeared in its true human form. Could it be that it had concealed its strength? He threw this question to Yuan Mu, but Immortal Grandmaster Yuan Mu stammered and could not give an answer, making Li Chengzhu wish he could march right up and smash his head open.

What kind of damned immortal was this? He had lived for several hundred years in vain.

During the brief moment of mental exchange between Li Chengzhu and Yuan Mu, the nine-headed demonic flood dragon had gradually grown docile. Shui Ruyan, standing nearby, clenched her fists in tension, silently praying that the Holy Beast would not fly into a great temper and that they could simply return to Azure Ripple Lake once the sacrificial ceremony concluded.

With the Immortal-Binding Demon-Trapping Grand Array and the Long-Rainbow Rope restricting the nine-headed demonic flood dragon, Li Chengzhu and Yuan Mu had no fear that it would suddenly burst forth to harm them. Even the score and more people performing the sacrificial spell felt a great deal more relaxed, secretly wondering why this ritual had gone so smoothly when it never had before—had the Holy Beast suddenly shown great mercy this time?

Accompanied by the rising and falling cadences of the chanting spell to soothe it, the nine-headed demonic flood dragon slowly lowered its heads, though its eighteen eyes still glared with bitter hatred at Li Chengzhu. For thousands of years, it had suffered a huge loss at his hands; how could it possibly forget?

With a final, soaring cry, the faces of the score and more people flushed crimson, and they shouted out as their entire bodies trembled.

The heart that Shui Ruyan had kept hanging finally dropped back into place. She knew that this spellcasting had been a success.

She reached out to tuck a few strands of hair that had fallen across her eyes behind her ear, turned to Li Chengzhu, and said, "Could I ask you to retract your magical artifact? The Holy Beast has already calmed down."

Li Chengzhu raised an eyebrow at Yuan Mu, and Yuan Mu reached out with a wave, recalling the Long-Rainbow Rope back into his storage ring.

Not only did Shui Ruyan's eyes reveal a look of envy, but even the score and more spellcasters, exhausted to the extreme, gazed with lingering attachment at the departing form of the Long-Rainbow Rope.

A magical artifact capable of binding the Holy Beast—it was far more advanced than the one belonging to their own clan.