Chapter 3 Chapter Three — Shrinking the Earth, the Divine Stride

Inside his home, Squire Wang kept burning incense and offering prayers. He had done this many times before, yet each time his heart hammered, terrified that misfortune might fall on him as well.

A panicked clamor rose beyond the courtyard wall.

"The monster's here!"

"Run! The demon's eating people!"

"Help! Master, help!"

…

Squire Wang trembled where he stood. When he had heard the thunder earlier, dread had already taken root.

The night had been clear, stars thick across the sky — no storm. Yet thunder had rolled anyway. One of those three masters must have summoned it. Someone with real skill was out there.

Bang bang bang!

The door was struck. Squire Wang's whole body jerked; he was about to dive under the table when he heard his wife and son.

"Husband, open the door, quick!"

"Father, save me, I'm scared, sniffle…"

Squire Wang's heart clenched. Gritting his teeth, he went to let them in — but the instant he reached the door, lamplight revealed an enormous shape beyond it, wings beating, a devil crawled up from hell.

The knocking of wife and son grew more frantic.

Squire Wang crawled under the table, arms wrapped around his knees, and wept — yet clamped both hands over his mouth, not daring to make a sound.

Two short screams from wife and son, and then silence.

…

By the time Li Daoxuan reached Squire Wang's house, the place was a scene of carnage — corpses everywhere, drained of blood.

The demon was healing itself this way. And among all in Xiaosha Village, none had more servants and concubines than Squire Wang — which was precisely why the bat had come here to kill and to drink. The wealth Wang enjoyed had come from this creature's help; now the creature was collecting.

The bat had not yet left.

In the courtyard only one living soul remained: Squire Wang himself. Perhaps out of some lingering scrap of incense-devotion, the demon had chosen to kill him last.

It was drinking his blood. Feeling it drain away at speed, despair flickered in Squire Wang's eyes.

The moment he saw Li Daoxuan, a last spark of hope flared in his dimming gaze.

The author's NovelPhoenix publication is the proper source for this chapter, which was copied here without consent.

"Save me… Daoist master… save me!"

Never had he imagined that the young Daoist he had thought least capable was the true threat here.

Li Daoxuan only watched him coldly, then flung two Five-Thunder Talismans at the bat.

Mid-feast, the demon had lost all awareness of its surroundings, and never noticed the two talismans now stuck to its back. Once it fed, it forgot the world.

"Save… me…"

Seeing Li Daoxuan's move, Squire Wang thought rescue was at hand, and pleaded all the harder.

Li Daoxuan did not call the thunder. He watched, unmoved, as Squire Wang was slowly drained to a husk.

He had done his homework before answering the demon-subduing proclamation. Wang had kept that poster up for three years; at least a dozen masters had answered it, each told the same coffin story — a demon forcing child-sacrifice, masters hired at high price, the need to hide in a coffin to draw it out. Plausible on its face. Pressed, it fell apart. A man who hired master after master and somehow survived every failure was not a victim. He was a partner.

The elder's granddaughter, coaxed with candied fruit, had said three years ago Wang was a broken-down pauper — until a hoard of antiques appeared and he grew rich overnight.

Li Daoxuan had still come. The pay on the proclamation was real silver, and the Scripture paid better for real demons than for alley ghosts. Before coming he had spent nearly all his money on cinnabar and yellow paper, and close to a month painting twenty Six Ding Six Jia Protective Talismans and ten Five-Thunder Talismans. The caution had been warranted.

Squire Wang's breath grew faint. With his last strength he glared at Li Daoxuan, eyes thick with venom. To his dying moment he dared not blame the demon — only hated the Daoist for not saving him.

Li Daoxuan met that look without heat. A man who feeds neighbors into coffins does not buy mercy with a scream.

The blood-gorged bat finally came back to its senses. Seeing Li Daoxuan, terror flashed in its eyes; it spread its wings to flee anew.

Too late.

Li Daoxuan had already pinched the thunder seal and finished the incantation.

The two Five-Thunder Talismans on its back burned to ash together. Two great booms — two bolts struck down at once, square upon the bat.

Dust billowed; the ground lay scorched black.

Li Daoxuan sank weakly to the earth. His mana was spent. Each Five-Thunder pulled hard at what little he had; lasting this long at his cultivation was no small feat. Sweat stung the claw-cut on his scalp.

He gasped for breath, watching the bat.

The creature was blackened all over, still smoking; the air carried the smell of roasting meat. It lay motionless, as if dead beneath the heavenly thunder. Four thunders in all tonight — a century of cultivation torn apart in an instant.

Li Daoxuan still did not approach.

For the Heaven-Subduing Demon Scripture had stirred not at all — which meant the bat was not truly dead. Demons could play dead. He sat quietly, regulating his breath, recovering mana, replaying the fight. He should have burned all twenty protective seals in the coffin. Paper could be redrawn; a skull could not.

Mana slowly returned. The bat lay still a full quarter-hour. Li Daoxuan glanced at it and kept cultivating.

Roughly another quarter-hour passed before the charred husk loosed an unwilling roar, threw back its head and bellowed at the sky — then fell utterly silent.

At that moment the Heaven-Subduing Demon Scripture in his mind blazed, and lines of script appeared.

"Early Zhenguan, fifth month — slain a century-old bat demon at Xiaosha Village, Hongzhou, Great Tang. Reward gained: the spell 【Shrinking the Earth, Divine Striding】!"

"Shrinking the Earth, Divine Striding — simplified from broken fragments of 'Shrink the Earth to an Inch.' One step becomes a hundred; ridges and peaks flatten underfoot. Not ten-thousand-mile vanishing, but a day's hard march cut to hours — and at the peak, silent departure."

"The method of cultivation is as follows…"

Li Daoxuan's pulse jumped. Footwork. Escape. Exactly what tonight had proved he lacked.

Then a colder thought cut across the glow.

The bat had not lived alone. Five-Tong meant siblings. If the others could sense a century-kin's death, Xiaosha's quiet would not last the night.

He looked from the smoking corpse to the dark beyond the walls, and listened for wingbeats that were not this one's.