Chapter 558
Chapter 558 – Above the Marsh
The rain fell thick and fast . Li Qingshan gazed at the marsh that was even larger than Moon Court lake in the distance as the bodies of water reflected the dark clouds in the sky .
Overall, it was a little more shallow, but its advantage was its vast area . If he could refine it, then the benefits he would receive might even exceed the Clear river . Perhaps he would be able to accumulate enough power to suppress the ox demon .
“Is this marsh your territory?”
Li Qingshan reeled in his gaze, directing it at the burly Daemon Commander before him . He refused to believe any Daemon Commander was bold enough to move around on the surface . The Ruyi commandery neighboured the Dragon province, which was the nucleus that ruled over the Great Xia empire . It was not a place remote like the Mist province .
“Piss off!”
The burly Daemon Commander bellowed, giving no explanation . How dare a measly Daemon General question him!
At the same time, he opened his mouth to an unbelievable degree and spat out a half-transparent gas . It rapidly moved through the air, stretching into an oval as it flew towards Li Qingshan .
Li Qingshan raised his hand, spread his fingers, and grabbed the gas . He felt a tremendous force applied to his palm, actually causing it to ache slightly . “You really are a Daemon Commander . All of you are quite capable . ”
“That’s impossible!” The Daemon Commander’s eyes popped out all of a sudden . The gas was one of his innate abilities . It was so powerful that even Daemon Commanders dared not receive it directly, yet this Northmoon had managed to block it with a single hand .
He caused Li Qingshan quite the surprise . “There’s no need for you to respond as exaggeratedly as a cartoon character!”
The Daemon Commander had no idea what he was saying . The gas pushed hard, but it refused to budge anymore . He suddenly sneered, and the gas distorted violently .
Li Qingshan felt that an explosive power was about to erupt in his hand . He suppressed it momentarily with the spirit turtle, tossing it behind him casually .
Boom!
With a great rumble, a huge pit was created in the marsh from the blast . The fierce wind surged like a typhoon, and muddy water shot off like bullets .
A tree became riddled with holes before being uprooted by the fierce wind . It flew into the air, rushing past Li Qingshan .
Li Qingshan patted his hands and continued with the topic from earlier . “Since this territory isn’t yours, it’s mine . Please piss off, alright?”
“I’ve changed my mind . You better stay here so Lolth can offer up a piece of territory to pay off your ransom!”
The Daemon Commander immediately flew into a rage . He leapt up with his two feet, slamming towards Li Qingshan .
No different from before, Li Qingshan simply raised a hand like normal .
The Daemon Commander opened his great mouth and spat out balls of gas again and again, but they all followed different trajectories, flying randomly through the air .
Li Qingshan became completely surrounded by the gas .
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
When the gas exploded, the Daemon Commander rushed into the centre of the explosion against the wind with a sneer, only to see Li Qingshan maintaining the same posture as before . His arm was raised and his scarlet hair fluttered about . While his body was riddled with many wounds, it was nothing compared to how tough a daemon’s body was .
After breaking through to the fifth layer of the ox demon, his innate abilities were not the only things that had strengthened . His ox hide had truly become much tougher than before . For the first time, it had surpassed the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell, becoming his strongest defence .
The Daemon Commander’s eyes suddenly popped out again . He felt like the battle was going extremely badly . He wanted to halt himself, but there was a flash of scarlet and it arrived before him, only inches away . A hand pressed down on his huge, bald head as an overwhelming and terrifying power was applied down .
“I said to stop behaving like a cartoon character! If you make me laugh while fighting, what am I supposed to do if I ruin the atmosphere?”
Li Qingshan roared . He gripped the Daemon Commander’s bald head and spun around three times in the air before throwing him at the ground .
With a boom, the Daemon Commander was thrown deep into the marsh .
The marsh suddenly swelled . Something seemed to be rapidly growing beneath the marsh, reaching the size of a hill .
A pair of eyes the size of ponds bulged out, lifting up the mud . It opened its fissure-like mouth and let out a thunderous cry .
“Croak!”
Li Qingshan exhaled . “Looks like it’s my mistake . ”
Within the drizzling rain, a small village sat peacefully between two mountains . The chaotic sound of galloping hooves broke the peace . A group of bandits arrived in the valley and the only one-eyed rider drew his blade and pointed it at the village .
“Brothers, you wanna do this?”
“We do! We do! We do!” the mountain bandits called out together .
“Steal money, steal food, steal women! We’ll kill anyone who blocks our way!” the bandit leader called out as his horse reared .
“Kill them all! Kill them all!”
At this moment, there was a rustle in the bushes . The bandit leader’s ears caught the rustle, and he called out, “Who’s there!” He swung his hand and a caltrop flew out . He was a master of the jianghu who used throwing knives .
Clang! The caltrop seemed to strike something, flying back out of the bush . The mountain bandits huddled over and swung their weapons wildly . The bush collapsed, but no one was there .
“Hmm? What’s this? It seems like a letter!”
A short, small bandit knelt on the ground and blinked his eyes . Sure enough, a letter laid on the grass . They had no idea what kind of paper it was, as it remained dry even in the rain . A series of words, “For Qingshan; Private and Confidential”, were written on it . He extended his hand to grab it and the letter moved, and it moved extremely quickly .
Only then did the mountain bandits notice what was beneath the letter .
A skeleton the size of an index finger held the letter . It seemed rather hideous, but with how small it was, there was nothing frightening about it .
“What is this strange thing!?” the bandits called out .
“It might be a treasure! Capture it!” the bandit leader ordered .
Swish!
The skeleton turned into a streak of white light and vanished . The short bandits suddenly froze up and a bloody hole appeared on his forehead . What spurted out was neither blood or brains, but white flames .
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! The white light shot through the bushes and the bandits froze up one by one .
Within the whinnying sound of a horse, the bandit leader held the reins and slowly backed away . He waved his blade around madly, only to see the tiny skeleton stop right before him .
“This one has offended the great immortal! Even death cannot atone my offence! Please punish me, great immortal!”
The bandit leader fell off his horse with a thump . He knelt on the ground and bowed his head constantly .
The skeleton began to swell, becoming a Skeleton Demon several meters tall . It held the bandit leader in its hand with a strange cackle and did not refine him with the Samādhi Flames of White Bone, shoving him into its mouth instead . It chewed with a series of crick-cracks, sputtering blood everywhere .
“Aaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaargh!” The shriek alarmed the tiny village between the mountains .
Thump!
As it was feasting, the Skeleton Demon’s head tilted and fell to the ground heavily as if a huge, invisible hand had flicked its head .
The Skeleton Demon climbed back up . Its head spun around a few times and it rapidly shrank, turning back to the size of an index finger . It picked up the letter and dove into the bushes .
Xiao An gently brought her thumb and middle finger together . Her hand resembled a lotus flower as she sat in the main hall of the Anāsravāṃ temple, gazing at the statue of buddha while listening quietly to the bells . Hidden within her sleeve, the string of shiny, white prayer beads on her wrist was missing a bead .
Once it got too far, it would take her even more effort to control the Skull Prayer Beads . However, with the Skeleton Demon’s strength, delivering a letter was nothing difficult .
After recovering her past memories, her thoughts had become even more nimble . In particular, she understood the codes of conduct much better, but with it came many distracting thoughts and mental afflictions .
In terms of “the ability to comprehend”, she instead paled in comparison to the old Xiao An now . Although she had been rather muddle-headed, the pureness of her thoughts were better for comprehension than her newfound cleverness and sensibility .
She had come before the buddha to purge the cleverness and sensibility and consolidate her will to destroy buddhism .
She did not want to be her past self . She wanted to forget her past name and only be his Xiao An .
However, she was lacking something for the second layer of the Path of White Bone and Great Beauty, preventing her from breaking through . She needed an even deeper comprehension of the buddhist dharma .
Xiao An murmured to herself, “The Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga . ”
A huge bullfrog had flipped over, lying on the marsh with its white belly up as if it were a lone island in the endless swamp .
Li Qingshan laid on the lone island, basking in the sun as he gradually recovered his daemon qi .
The bullfrog Daemon Commander was a little weaker than the Spider Queen, but he did have an innate ability that could reflect foreign powers . It took him quite the effort to deal with him .
The bush rustled, and the Skeleton Demon leapt out, flying over to him .
“Hmm?” Li Qingshan cleared away his messy, scarlet hair to the back of his head and accepted the letter from the Skeleton Demon . Looking at the words, he recognised them . “Qiongzhi!”
He immediately opened and read it carefully . His mood gradually grew heavier .
The letter was not long, but it was written in bits and pieces . There were traces of tears at the bottom . He reached the last sentence .
“Qingshan, I really want to see you!”
Li Qingshan blanked out for a moment . He felt rather ashamed inside . He had underestimated this uncle Han’s position in Han Qiongzhi’s heart .
His parents had died long ago, and he had grown up in loneliness . He had never experienced any so-called “family affection” from his elder brother and sister-in-law . Underestimating the weight of those two words was unavoidable .
He stood up and imagined her teary, sorrowful face . He was tempted to rush to the Ruyi commandery immediately and stand by her side, but when he looked at himself, all he could do was let out a long sigh . Right now, he could not even suppress his daemon qi . Thinking up to there, he suddenly made up his mind . His gaze became resolute .
The Skeleton Demon circled around the huge bullfrog as the fire in its eyes shone brightly . It was very interested in such a large chunk of quality flesh . Finally, it could not help itself anymore and swelled to several meters tall, biting down viciously .
“Croak!” The bullfrog let out a frightful cry and leapt several dozen meters into the air, fleeing into the distance in a panic .
Just when the Skeleton Demon wanted to chase after him, Li Qingshan grabbed its neck and shoved the letter back into its hands .
He gazed into the horizon and said to himself, “I’ll rush over as soon as I can . Wait for me!”
In the Umbral Yin sect, the Dark Queen took out the souls she had captured . She ignored the pleas and curses from the Marquis of Ruyi and everyone else . They had plenty to enjoy later .
This was probably the misfortune of cultivators . If mortals died, their souls would return to saṃsāra, which instead made them almost immortal .
Cultivators seemed to possess lengthy lives, but that was only if they died from old age . If they were killed in battle, their souls might not necessarily have the opportunity to return to saṃsāra .
If their cultivations were higher, then it also meant the cultivations of the cultivators that killed them were higher too . Their souls were basically unable to escape the fate of being captured and killed . This was the so-called true destruction, dooming them eternally .
The Dark Queen was slightly surprised . She noticed that one was missing . She rubbed her forehead and remembered that final spear thrust . “Did his soul escape?”