“Kid, aren’t you even a little afraid of me, following me around like this?”
The man in the black robe sneered and suddenly flung out his demonic robe.
In an instant, terrifying Demonic Qi swept across a hundred miles of wasteland.
Sure enough, He Qiu had known it.
This Demon Sect big shot was no good!
But why had He Qiu followed Mo Qianjun despite knowing that?
Because if he refused to go, Mo Qianjun would become suspicious, and he’d die.
If he went along, perhaps the big shot would be in a good mood and spare his life.
But now, He Qiu was still trapped in a dead end.
This man in the demonic robe had a cultivation base no weaker than Rank 10, a whole level above his Senior Sister, An Lingran!
They weren’t even in the same league.
Mo Qianjun was seven or eight ranks above He Qiu.
It was a complete dimensional beatdown.
Even the protagonist of a power fantasy wouldn’t face a boss this many levels above him, would he?
“Kid, will you hand over the treasure chest and kill yourself, or should I kill you and take it?”
Mo Qianjun sneered casually, enjoying the increasingly uneasy look on the boy’s face.
He found it quite amusing.
He Qiu’s mouth twitched.
In the end, he decided not to waste his breath and immediately summoned the Sword Spirit, Can Xue—
“How do you know I’ll definitely lose?”
The boy held the Demon Sword and smiled as he challenged him.
Mo Qianjun chuckled, his dark pupils filled with amusement.
“Your Sword Spirit is pretty good. Give her to me, and I’ll spare your life.”
“If I give her to you, you’ll kill me anyway.”
“Heh, kid, you really understand me. Guess we’re two of a kind, huh?”
Mo Qianjun licked his lips, then flashed another appreciative, sinister smile.
“It’s just a shame you were born in the wrong era. You haven’t even had time to grow, and you’ve already run into me.”
“All right, I’m tired of talking. Die!”
At last, Mo Qianjun stopped playing around.
His Demonic Qi erupted, dark energy shooting into the sky and transforming into dozens of black Abyss rings that revolved around him, displaying his status as a Rank 11 Demonic Venerable.
At that moment, with Mo Qianjun’s true body at the peak of his strength, even if the Primordial Saintess appeared and suppressed him by four ranks, she still wouldn’t be his match.
That was the confidence that had led Mo Qianjun to attempt to overthrow the Demon Sect and seize the title of Demonic Venerable!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
He raised his hand, and endless demons from the Abyss surged forth, blotting out the sky.
At a thought from Mo Qianjun, six of the eleven rings circling him floated up and slowly transformed into black spears.
They spun faster and faster, each one as terrifying as a black hole.
“Come on, kid. I’ve got eleven demonic rings and six demonic spears. Let’s see how many rounds you can last!”
With that, Mo Qianjun sneered and raised his hand, sending one of the black spears around him hurtling toward He Qiu.
Rumble!
Space accelerated.
In the blink of an eye, the black spear appeared right in front of He Qiu.
‘Oh no…’
[Master, be careful.]
Two voices rang out in He Qiu’s mind.
Almost instinctively, the boy raised his hand and used Sword Flight.
He had no time to dodge and took Mo Qianjun’s black spear head-on.
The next second, a terrifying dark tornado erupted around He Qiu, as if it would swallow everything nearby into a black hole.
Above, Mo Qianjun watched the dark tornado below with his arms crossed and a sneer on his face.
When the Demonic Qi dispersed, the boy in white was still standing in the same spot, though his sleeves were in tatters and his body was covered in wounds.
“Oh?”
Mo Qianjun’s dark eyes widened, and his smile faded a little.
“Kid, do you know what level of cultivation this one black ring represents?”
“…”
While the man in the demonic robe chatted leisurely, He Qiu gasped for breath and met his gaze steadily, a hint of coldness lurking beneath his eyes.
Then, in the next instant, the boy’s figure became an afterimage and vanished from where he stood.
Clang!
Mo Qianjun’s dark eyes widened.
He spun around and blocked a sudden assault of a hundred sword shadows from directly above.
He Qiu was above him, with countless sword feathers raining down behind him, their sharp edges bared as they pierced toward Mo Qianjun, who was pinned beneath him.
The boy’s sword technique was impressive, but his cultivation was limited.
His counterattack held Mo Qianjun down for less than a few seconds before the latter swept his sleeve and sent a dark gale crashing into him.
Several black rings then trapped him in midair, leaving him unable to dodge.
“Fine afterimages, fine swordsmanship. Kid, you really are my kind of person…”
“And I never expected you to have the nerve to stab me in the back, either.”
Looking at the boy in white who had appeared above him at some point, Mo Qianjun’s gaze turned vicious.
He truly admired the boy more and more.
A Rank 4 Sword Cultivator facing a Rank 11 Demonic Venerable hadn’t run or begged for mercy.
Instead, he’d dared to play dirty and launch a sneak attack on Mo Qianjun?
This kid had even less sense of his own limits than I did back then…
After praising him, Mo Qianjun stopped playing around.
He flashed forward and struck with one palm.
In an instant, he appeared above the boy and drove a palm full of terrifying Demonic Qi into his chest.
A second black ring unleashed a terrifying tornado, sending the boy crashing into the ground and raising a cloud of dust that stretched for miles.
This time, though, a petite, snow-white figure suddenly appeared in Mo Qianjun’s sight—
“Young Hero, are you okay? Wake up!”
…
At some point, the treasure chest sealing Bai Muxue had cracked, allowing her to see the outside world again.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the boy in white standing alone with his sword before her, holding back the terrifying Demonic Qi.
She was behind him and couldn’t see his face.
But as the darkness threatened to annihilate everything, he took the full force of it for her.
Even as it nearly crushed the breath from his lungs, he still didn’t fall.
At the time, Bai Muxue was terrified.
She hid behind the boy without daring to make a sound, completely at a loss as to what was happening.
She knew that the previous night, some Demon Cultivators had kidnapped her.
But she’d soon been locked inside a sealed chest.
From within it, Bai Muxue could hear and sense the world outside, but that was all.
There was nothing else she could do.
She knew that somehow, someone had picked up her chest and carried her a long way…
Bai Muxue didn’t know anything else.
She could only guess and imagine.
She thought her father had sent someone to rescue her from the evil Demon Cultivators.
Her benefactor was desperately running away, likely trying to escape their pursuit and bring Bai Muxue to her father.
So Bai Muxue had thought that when she awoke from the seal, she would see her father’s familiar face.
But Bai Muxue had guessed wrong.
When she tumbled out of the chest, she stumbled upon the fierce battle between the boy and the dark demon lord.
It was like a battle between demons and vengeful spirits, with darkness swallowing half the sky.
She saw the boy stand before her like a hero, taking the demon lord’s entire black spear attack head-on, then flashing behind him to counterattack.
In that moment, Bai Muxue thought he was just like a hero: handsome and strong.
He’d saved her and protected her at a crucial moment, and he was even fighting the vicious demon lord all by himself!
Young Hero, you can do it!
She thought he was amazing.
She admired heroes like him and hoped the boy would defeat the demon lord, win the heart of the maiden, and take Bai Muxue home.
She even imagined her father arranging for her to marry the young hero…
But that sweet admiration had only just begun to rise in her heart when Bai Muxue saw the boy lose to the demon lord.
One palm sent him crashing into the ground, raising a cloud of dust miles high and shaking the earth.
“Huh?”
In that moment, Bai Muxue froze.
She seemed to understand reality.
He had saved her.
He was a Young Hero, and he was her hero.
But he wasn’t invincible like the heroes in fairy tales.
His strength was limited.
He was terribly weak before the demon lord, and he was even… overestimating himself.
But even though he wasn’t strong or invincible, he’d still risked his life to take a fatal blow for her.
So when she saw the boy fall into a crater in the distance, something inside the girl’s heart finally snapped—
“Young Hero!!”
Her eyes reddened.
She wouldn’t let him die.
She couldn’t accept that this was a tragedy.
She hadn’t even… hadn’t even seen what the Young Hero who saved her looked like!
Rumble!—
The seal shattered, and a golden beam shot into the sky above the wasteland.