Chapter 189 — An Old Wooden Box

Long Jiaonan hesitated as well. The vortex above Tianbo City had by now become a passage linking to another world; the demons emerging from it grew stronger by the moment, and a dense black mass of the demon horde poured down from the sky like a tide.

"Leave, my people of Dutian!

Leave our ruined, dark world and go to the new world! " The Dutian Demon King stood atop the altar, eight arms spread wide to welcome the demons descending from the sky, and his voice boomed, shaking heaven and earth: "Come, my people. This new world is not as desolate as Dutian.

It holds beautiful women and endless food, and those who guard it are all weaklings—let us trample them!

" Long Jiaonan saw her father pinned beneath the Demon King's foot, and the flood dragon her father had raised lay fallen on the ground, unable to move.

Another being of the sect-master level had already lost his head; the Dutian Demon King had plucked it off and held it high in one hand.

"Is the Yulong School truly finished? " she thought, desolation in her heart.

The demon horde in the sky descended like rain, laying into the soldiers and officers fleeing in every direction.

Shen Mu, too, was blasted from the air by several demons and slammed to the ground; with a series of heavy thuds, six or seven demons landed not far from him and slowly rose to their feet. Shen Mu was no stranger to the demon horde.

Once, when he and Li were roaming the desolate ruins at night in search of Wuyou Village, he had met the horde and killed many of them. These demons had powerful bodies and grotesque forms, unlike humans, and they cultivated demonic qi; they excelled at close combat and spellcraft, with uncanny divine powers, though their arts were not as fine as human spells.

The moment these demons landed, Shen Mu flashed to the side of one, raised his blade and brought it down, beheading the thing; then he dodged the scorpion tail another demon swept at him, its glossy black barb nearly catching him on the hook. Pressing two fingers together, he thrust forward, and the Chubao sword ran through the demon that had not yet withdrawn its scorpion tail; with a backhand he formed the Dark Demon Unfettered Seal, dragged out the soul of a demon creeping up behind him, and shattered it outright.

"Younala!

" A bull-headed demon in the distance pointed at him and shouted, "Younala, ma a bu lu ji nao di di na jia hong (Warrior, I challenge you)!

" "Come on, who's afraid of you!

" Shen Mu bellowed, primal essence exploding as he drove the Mystic Body Three-Elixir Art. The bull-headed demon roared, charged forward at a run, dragging a huge blade more than three zhang long behind him, its edge scraping the ground, trailing sparks of lightning and fire as he came; suddenly he gave a thunderous shout and swung the blade down at Shen Mu! At that very moment, a giant serpent crashed down from the sky, crushing the bull-headed demon to powder.

Long Jiaonan rode the serpent to the ground; its tail lashed out in a sweep like a rolling iron beam, crushing dozens of demons that rushed in. Shen Mu flashed away.

Long Jiaonan was about to press the attack when suddenly a vast dark mass of demons descended from the sky; even though her cultivation exceeded Shen Mu's by two or three realms, she too was drawn into a bitter fight. Shen Mu was likewise surrounded.

Xue Hu'er promptly summoned a tornado to spin around them, but some demons still cut their way into it and lunged at them.

More and more demons poured in from the other world; seen from afar, they were like countless flies flying in from Dutian, blotting out the sky and the earth.

"The Patriarch said that when you stir up trouble yourself, you have to be able to settle it yourself.

This time, I can't settle it.

" Cold sweat broke out on Shen Mu's forehead. Suddenly, a brilliant light came from the south, a light that moved through the air and flooded heaven and earth with radiance.

Brighter and brighter it grew as it sped closer from the south, and everywhere it passed countless demons fell from the sky, heads severed from bodies.

Shen Mu looked up, and his heart shook violently.

The light was a host of swords.

A host formed of countless flying swords! How many swords there were, no one could possibly count.

And within the host, thousands upon thousands of sword pills were spinning at dizzying speed, each sword pill like a round bright moon; as they turned, flying swords constantly shot out from them—thrusting, slashing, shaving, cutting, circling, flicking—slaying every demon in the air. The host of swords was vast beyond all measure, every sword blazing with blinding light; there must have been several million of them, and their radiance gathered into a spectacle of staggering splendor.

Though the demons surging from Dutian had covered the sky like a black flood, once that dazzling host of swords swept through, the sky was soon clear again, leaving only countless corpses plummeting from the heavens. In Tianbo City, the Dutian Demon King's face changed drastically.

With a roar, he hastened the summoning of his true body; the hundreds of demons around the altar chanted in mighty voices, calling down the Dutian Demon King's true body with demon-speech and countless bones. The sky shook violently, and a gigantic foot reached through from the other world; around it billowed demon fire, blazing fiercely, burning that stretch of sky to a fiery red.

The host of swords in the air suddenly wheeled about and howled toward Tianbo City, its scale nearly as immense as the city itself. In the city, the Dutian Demon King roared and raised all eight arms.

With a single hum, a vast black screen appeared above Tianbo City, covering the sky.

In an instant a deafening clamor rang out, so grating that countless people's eardrums burst and bled—the sound of flying swords smashing against the Demon King's black screen, clang upon clang erupting almost simultaneously, more than any ear could bear.

Shen Mu's ears went deaf; he could hear nothing else. Around him, countless demons squatted on the ground clutching their ears, miserable beyond measure. In Wuding Commandery across the river, countless Jingping soldiers were resisting the demon horde's invasion before the city walls, fighting in a battle that turned heaven and earth upside down; the grating clash of sword-light against the black screen tormented these soldiers terribly as well, though at a greater distance they could still endure it.

From the river came splash after splash—demons flying toward the far bank, shaken from the sky, tumbling into the water. On the gate tower of Wuding Commandery, an old general with white hair showed a startled expression.

"Imperial Tutor of Jingping, a truly great master has appeared on the far bank! " "Duke Weiguo, that man is far more than a great master. " The Imperial Tutor of Jingping stood in front, gazing at the scene across the river.

"His skill is not far from mine—a shade stronger even than those three old monsters who once surrounded me.

" Duke Weiguo looked doubtful, studied the Dutian Demon King as he fought the host of swords, then raised his head to the sky, where half a leg of the Demon King's true body had already stepped into this world.

Perplexed, he asked, "Who summoned this Demon King?

Isn't that going too far? Have these Southern Wilderness folk truly stopped at nothing to win?

" The Imperial Tutor of Jingping shook his head. "As long as I am here, the Dutian Demon King cannot descend into this world. On the contrary, the one who summoned this demon god has rendered Jingping a great service.

Has Tianbo City not fallen precisely because of it? It spares our soldiers their blood. Were it I, I would have chosen the same to save our soldiers' lives.

" Duke Weiguo sighed.