BOOM!
Under the dark, heavy night, Song Ciwan opened her Spiritual Eyes, focusing her vision.
She saw a black figure amidst the distant, rolling sand dunes suddenly explode from head to toe.
As the black figure exploded, the Red Lantern it had been holding collapsed as if it were a clump of fine sand, suddenly trickling down from its previously solid, cohesive state.
The red sand fell onto the yellow dunes, instantly blending in and vanishing without a trace.
It all happened so fast that Song Ciwan barely had time to react. A moment later, she realized something was wrong!
[Demon Heart, Celestial Pride Level Demon Core Stage Deceitful Demon, the Deceitful Book Insect’s horror, trepidation, hatred, and fury. Four catties and seven taels, eligible for trade.]
[Death Qi, Celestial Pride Level Demon Core Stage Deceitful Demon, the Deceitful Book Insect’s Death Qi. Two taels and three maces, eligible for trade.]
The Demon Scholar’s true form was not an ordinary Demon, but a Deceitful Demon!
This point had actually been described on the Ten Thousand Spirits Celestial Pride List.
Demon Scholar’s Night Traveling Lamp: Eleventh on the Ten Thousand Spirits Celestial Pride List!
If Song Zhao and Lu Bell hadn’t made the list, and if Lu Wen of the Golden Crow Race hadn’t been killed by Mo Yinghuai, the Demon Scholar’s Night Traveling Lamp would have been tenth on the Celestial Pride List according to the original rankings.
Therefore, the Night Traveling Lamp’s strength was beyond question.
Of course, that wasn’t the main point. The main point was the Celestial Pride List’s description of a Deceitful Demon: a demon of deceitful nature, not born of flesh and blood, but bred from thousand-year-old decaying bone-and-corpse insects from the Endless Sea, combined with the hateful and malevolent thoughts of all living things.
By nature, it enjoys mimicking humans and reading books, growing stronger by collecting humanity’s demonic thoughts.
—In other words, the fundamental nature of the Demon Scholar’s Night Traveling Lamp was, on some level, similar to a ‘grotesquerie’.
Furthermore, its characteristic of absorbing humanity’s demonic thoughts to grow stronger made it resemble a natural Divine Dao Treasure!
This thing was different from normally-born humans and demons, whether live-born or egg-born. It was a creature formed from the convergence of malicious thoughts and did not experience life and death in the conventional sense. Thus, while it appeared to be dead, as long as the malicious thoughts of all living things did not cease, it could be resurrected from the Endless Sea at any time.
That was why its Death Qi was worth only two taels and three maces!
Song Ciwan figured this out in a flash. At the same time, her feet moved, and she used Shrinking Inches. Within a breath or two, she arrived at the spot where the Red Lantern had just vanished.
The path where the Red Lantern had turned to sand and disappeared was perhaps the path to the Night Traveling Lamp’s rebirth.
Song Ciwan floated in the void above the vast yellow sand, carefully probing the area with her Spiritual Sense. She raised a hand, formed a seal, and cast the Great Derivation Birth Skill!
A moment later, she opened her palm and drew in.
Her Qi Absorption Technique, which she had brought to the level of Mastery, was unleashed. The yellow sand below formed a sand dragon that coiled upward, rushing into her palm.
WHOOSH—
In the blink of an eye, the sand dune on the ground became a deep pit!
The yellow sand that rushed into her palm and disappeared never actually made contact with her skin; she had transferred all of it into the Heaven and Earth Scale.
A moment later, an immeasurably heavy pile of yellow sand appeared inside the Heaven and Earth Scale.
This included the sand-like remains of the Night Traveling Lamp’s body left after it exploded, as well as scattered fragments of its black clothes.
In the pit, a swarm of sand scorpions had also been churned up.
The panicked swarms of sand scorpions scurried about in a frenzy, bursting out from the sand one moment and hastily burrowing back in the next.
Song Ciwan turned her palm over and let out a soft sigh.
‘No, I couldn’t catch it.’
‘Or, to be more precise, it wasn’t that I failed to catch anything, but that its rebirth isn’t happening here.’
The Deceitful Book Insect’s resurrection occurs within human hearts, amidst malicious thoughts. It follows no specific path, and it certainly wasn’t happening here and now. Naturally, Song Ciwan couldn’t have caught anything.
‘Still, after this death, the Deceitful Book Insect might not be reborn for another ten years, or perhaps even a hundred.’
‘By the time that much time has passed,’ Song Ciwan believed, ‘with my rate of progress, I won’t have to fear even ten or a hundred Deceitful Book Insects.’
Song Ciwan had only one feeling about this battle: ‘The Mythical Realm has too many strange and bizarre things. I should just expect the unexpected; the weirdness defeats itself.’
She flicked her sleeve, leveling the sand dune, and turned to head back to the camp.
Shrinking Inches, Close But Far Away.
Song Ciwan’s steps seemed slow and gentle, but her speed was incredible. She returned to the camp in just a few breaths. By then, most of the West Wind Army’s soldiers had awoken from their state of confusion and demonic possession.
Under the combined Water Magic of the Medical Cultivators, the wildly flickering bonfires were being rapidly extinguished.
TSSSSS!
White steam billowed up.
Amidst the hazy white mist, the pools of blood on the ground were also being quickly washed away.
Cai An’s headless body lay by the bonfire. His head had rolled among the toppled tents, his eyes wide open, unable to rest in peace.
Of the more than seventy tents, over forty had collapsed. Among those still standing, ethereal projections of various weapons flew above one particular tent.
Those blades, spears, swords, and halberds were clashing with one another. DING! CLANG! The killing intent was chilling.
As Song Ciwan approached, she heard several West Wind Army soldiers anxiously shouting, “General!”
After listening for a moment more and putting the pieces together, Song Ciwan understood. The occupant of this seemingly ordinary tent was none other than General Yu Wenxu!
Yu Wenxu had not left the camp; he had been here the entire time.
Because he had the highest Cultivation of anyone present, the Demon Scholar’s Night Traveling Lamp had targeted him first when it launched its sneak attack.
The Night Traveling Lamp’s sneak attack was formless and traceless, designed to stir up all the malicious and demonic thoughts in a living being’s heart. The effect of this Dharma Gate was actually quite similar to the Void Illusion Demon Sword. The difference was that Song Ciwan’s Void Illusion Demon Sword was a top-tier Qimen Taoist Skill, while the Night Traveling Lamp’s Demonic Thought Slaughter was an Innate Divine Technique—a part of its demonic instinct.
Furthermore, the Night Traveling Lamp’s demonic thoughts were focused more on slaughter, while the Void Illusion Demon Sword was intended to interrogate the heart.
Both were paths of the Heart Demon, so it was difficult to say whether the Night Traveling Lamp’s Demonic Thought Slaughter or Song Ciwan’s Void Illusion Demon Sword was stronger.
But while the Dharma Gates themselves had no inherent hierarchy, the human and demon who used them were different.
Song Ciwan had cultivated the Void Illusion Demon Sword to the Mastery Realm, and the Heart Demon Seed in her Sea of Consciousness had already sprouted into a small seedling. This seedling was not to be underestimated; it grew by using demonic thoughts as nutrients, which naturally gave Song Ciwan the upper hand in intense Heart Demon battles.
The Night Traveling Lamp was defeated, and it died.
However, Yu Wenxu, who had been the first one lured into demonic thoughts, had already Fallen into the Demon Realm. Even though the Night Traveling Lamp was now dead, he could not easily break free from the invasion of demonic thoughts.
This was different from the ordinary soldiers of the West Wind Army, who had only been temporarily bewildered by the demonic thoughts.
Several soldiers stood guard by the tent, anxiously shouting, “General, General, wake up!”
“General, the camp is in chaos! We need you to wake up and take control!”
“General…”
From within the tent, various pained roars could be faintly heard.
It sounded as if a Fierce Beast wanted to charge out and begin a massacre, but some other force was binding it tightly, absolutely preventing it from crossing the line!
One could imagine that the Night Traveling Lamp’s original plan might have been to provoke Yu Wenxu into personally slaughtering everyone else in the camp.
But Yu Wenxu had been restraining himself the entire time, so the Night Traveling Lamp’s plan had not succeeded.
Song Ciwan understood. She walked lightly to the side of the tent.