Chapter 189 — An Old Wooden Box

"Imperial Tutor of Jingping, this is exactly why they fail to understand you and call you a demon. " The Imperial Tutor of Jingping stepped out of the gate tower and walked toward Tianbo City on the opposite bank, smiling. "They say such things only because I have infringed upon their interests.

My merits and faults are not for the people of this age to judge—they can only be settled by people a thousand years from now! Besides, in my eyes, they are already dead.

" In Tianbo City, the Dutian Demon King let out a muffled groan. The eight palms of his hands were a blur of mangled flesh; the onslaught of those countless sharp swords was appalling to hear, and the force transmitted to him was more than this body of his could bear. Had his true body come, he could naturally have withstood it; but this body was no more than a wooden vessel.

Shen Mu had summoned him through the demonic sound, and Shen Mu was far too weak—the energy that passed through him was too meager for the Demon King to contend with this powerhouse who commanded countless flying swords. Just then, he saw a middle-aged man walking over from the other side of the river.

The Dutian Demon King's heart chilled; he was about to muster some power when, abruptly, he saw a flash of sword-light rushing at his face.

What a breathtaking, peerless stroke it was! That stroke held the profoundest mysteries of the sword way, bringing the sword way's transformations and killing intent to their fullest expression—like the most exquisite painting unfurling before his eyes.

To have seen that painting, death was worth it.

And so he died.

His head, the head with four faces and twelve eyes, was severed by that one stroke of sword-light and tumbled from his neck. The Imperial Tutor of Jingping sheathed his sword and stepped up into Tianbo City.

The demons in the city, who had been tending the altar, saw this middle-aged man, and at once a swarm of them, no one could say how many, rushed up and hurled themselves at him.

Then the Dutian Demon King's enormous corpse toppled over, and the black screen shattered and came apart in midair. The countless flying swords battering the black screen suddenly withdrew as one, darting back into the sword pills; several thousand finger-sized sword pills floated in the air, spinning round and round.

At that moment, a wooden box flew over from afar, its lid open, and countless sword pills clattered and clinked into the box.

The Imperial Tutor of Jingping watched the wooden box, lost in thought, and did not stir; behind him, the great army of Jingping was crossing the river, storming into Tianbo City, slaughtering freely as it joined battle with the demon horde. With no one tending the altar, the breathtaking summoning stopped short; the ever-growing vortex in the sky ceased its growth at once, then slowly shrank.

The Dutian Demon King's true body, which had already got one leg through, was forced to withdraw the leg, and from the depths of the sky came a faint roar, as if bitter beyond endurance. Outside Tianbo City, Shen Mu was also looking up at the wooden box in midair, a puzzled expression on his face.

"This box looks very familiar—it seems to be the one in the village smithy. That wooden box was also packed full of little silver pellets.

Grandma Zhu also told me they weren't sword pills, just ordinary silver pellets, and that Grandpa Mo the smith could never have been that rich. . . " He saw that all the sword pills in midair had gone into the wooden box, and the box was slowly descending; he broke into a frantic sprint toward the place where it would land.

The wooden box came down and vanished into a stretch of woodland. Shen Mu shot over and saw an old man in coarse cloth, a blacksmith's furnace strapped to his back and a wooden box in his hand, his face weathered and etched with the wrinkles the years had left.

Seeing him run up, the old man in coarse cloth grinned broadly—and there was no tongue in his mouth.