Chapter 29:Demon outbreak.

Chapter 29: Chapter 29:Demon outbreak.

The laughter continued to echo beneath the pale blue sky, spreading throughout the gathering place until it became difficult to distinguish one person’s voice from another.

What had once been a completely formal and normal gathering between cultivation families had completely lost its original atmosphere.

Chen Guanshan stood among the Chen Family members, his expression becoming increasingly solemn as he looked across the gathering.

The faces before him were no longer simply representatives of other cultivation families. Now, these faces felt foreign despite the countless encounters they had shared before, people whose families had been in the region for generations.

At this moment, they stood alongside Zhao Mingyuan and Sun Qian, laughing together with them. The realization made his heart sink further and further into his stomach.

The suspicion he had felt earlier was already gone. Everyone here could tell that something was terribly wrong.

"Elder Guanshan, I think we should retreat."

One of the old clansmen spoke from the back. Notably, most of them were already holding their weapons in their hands.

"This current situation is already out of hand."

"I know," Chen Guanshan replied.

However, before he could make sense of the situation, Zhao Lianyu moved first. She slowly removed her hand from beneath her chin and placed it upon the armrest.

Her expression remained calm as she rose from her seat beneath the gazes of Zhao Mingyuan and Sun Qian beside her.

The two did not take action immediately. Instead, they waited for her to make whatever move she intended, like predators watching their prey.

Her movement immediately attracted everyone’s attention. Even the laughter from the surrounding families gradually became quieter as their eyes turned toward her simultaneously.

Strange.

Eerie.

Silence.

Zhao Lianyu stepped down from the platform beneath everyone’s eyes, her white robes moving gently with each step. Her chin remained tilted high, completely uncaring about the unknown threat surrounding her.

She did not look toward the people around her, nor did she show the slightest hesitation despite standing among those who had now openly revealed themselves as demons.

She simply stopped a short distance from the platform and looked across the gathering.

Her voice was cold when she finally spoke.

"Under the High Lord’s order, I will now cleanse this city of you, demon."

Zhao Mingyuan’s smile widened in response as her words reached everyone’s ears. It was no longer the restrained expression he had worn earlier.

No.

The corners of his lips twitched upward, then continued rising long after a human smile should have stopped, leaving his face frozen in a grotesquely wide grin.

Beside him, Sun Qian’s head began to tilt to the side.

It moved slowly at first, then continued past the limits of flesh and bone, his neck bending in a manner that made several cultivators instinctively recoil.

There was no cracking, no pain, not even a change in his expression. His face simply remained there, impossibly angled, staring at Zhao Lianyu with the same quiet smile.

"Oh... but we can’t... have you do that... can we?"

He spoke softly, almost playfully, but the words came out strangely stretched, each syllable lingering a fraction too long.

His voice carried an unnatural wavering quality, rising and falling in places where no ordinary speaker would, as though he were imitating the rhythm of a human conversation without quite understanding it.

The smile on his face remained fixed throughout, widening slightly whenever he paused.

"I’m afraid... we will have to bury the whole city with... you... today... Your Excellency."

The moment his words fell, something strange happened among the surrounding crowd. The cultivators who had been laughing along with the two began to turn toward Zhao Lianyu.

One by one, their bodies went still for a brief second before they moved.

Their heads turned first, slowly, but the movement did not stop when it reached the natural limit of their necks.

Their chins continued dragging around until their faces were angled far too sharply, some tilting farther than others, as though the bones beneath their skin had suddenly caved in.

A few of them twitched.

Another’s shoulders jerked upward before settling back into place.

Fingers curled and uncurled at their sides, each movement slightly out of rhythm with the body they belonged to. One cultivator’s arm even bent briefly in the wrong direction before snapping back with a wet, almost imperceptible sound.

However, above anything else, their smiles remained. But these smiles were no longer the ones they had worn moments ago.

The corners of their mouths began to stretch, almost painfully slowly, as some of the nearby cultivators paled at the sight.

Flesh pulled at the sides of their faces as their smiles widened beyond anything a human expression should have allowed.

Some mouths opened farther than their jaws should have permitted, revealing rows of teeth that seemed unnaturally long and crowded together. Others simply hung open, their lips trembling while strands of saliva slowly slipped between their teeth.

Their skin had begun to change as well.

The healthy color drained from their faces, leaving behind a sickly, corpse-like pallor. Dark veins slowly surfaced beneath their skin, spreading from their necks toward their cheeks like roots growing beneath soil.

On some, the skin around their eyes sagged unnaturally, while on others their cheeks seemed to twitch as though something underneath the flesh was moving.

Then their eyes shrank, their pupils changed, and their proportions altered.

The irises faded with them until their eyes became pale, milky orbs staring blindly into the gathering.

The Chen Family members instinctively tightened their grips around their weapons, their gazes sweeping across the gathering as they tried to determine just how many of these people had been replaced.

"The Chu Family... The Li Family..."

One of the old clansmen muttered, his expression turning grim.

"When did they become demons?"

Another clansman glanced around cautiously.

"If even entire cultivation families could hide themselves for so long, then we can’t know who else here is one of them."

The realization made several of them grow tense.

They had come here expecting to meet other human cultivators.

Now, they could no longer tell who among them was human.

Over the platform, Zhao Lianyu did not respond to the demon’s words. She didn’t even bother to bat an eye.

Her hand moved instead.

A faint glimmer passed through the air beside her fingers, and a slender sword appeared in her grasp as naturally as though it had been there all along.

"Ohh?"

"A sword?"

The two laughed simultaneously, standing still on the spot without a care for their safety.

"What are you trying to do with that, Your Excellency? You can’t possibly think you can kill all of us here today?"

Zhao Lianyu didn’t care. She held the sword loosely at her side, the blade reflecting the pale sunlight above the gathering.

The two demons closest to her barely had time to react.

She stepped forward and swung the sword.

The motion was so clean that several cultivators did not even see the blade leave her side. In their eyes, the blade didn’t even move.

And in an instant, a thin line appeared across the waist of Sun Qian, followed almost immediately by another on Zhao Mingyuan.

The two bodies remained standing for a brief instant before their upper halves slid away from their lower bodies and fell onto the stone platform.

Blood spread across the ground, slowly flowing from the two fallen bodies.

And despite all of that, the two’s laughter did not cease, not even slightly, despite already being severed at the waist.

At first, it was faint, almost indistinguishable beneath the uneasy silence that had settled over the gathering. Then it grew louder as a low chuckle came from one of the severed bodies.

Another followed from the other.

The crowd’s expressions turned grim as they realized that the two bodies that should have already been lifeless were still laughing.

The upper half of one demon twitched slightly before its fingers pressed against the stone. Its smile remained intact while something dark and slender slowly emerged from the wound at its waist.

"God has not forsaken us..."

A tendril emerged, then another. Within seconds, hundreds had crawled from the severed flesh, twisting around the stone platform before reaching toward the lower half of the body.

"The world decays..."

Similar tendrils emerged from the second demon, spreading across the ground and intertwining with one another.

"Flesh decays..."

The surrounding cultivators watched in horror, their bodies trembling at the sight.

The tendrils wrapped around bone and flesh before suddenly tightening. The two halves were pulled toward each other, flesh began to merge, and bones shifted back into place.

"And when flesh has rotted away..."

The wounds slowly closed as the tendrils burrowed into their bodies, stitching the severed halves together with unnatural speed. Even the blood that had spilled onto the platform began flowing backward, returning to their bodies.

"We turn to divinity."

Within several breaths, the two demons were standing once again. Their clothing remained stained with blood, but their bodies were completely intact.

"God has not forsaken His children."

One of them lowered his gaze toward his waist and casually brushed away a strand of black tendril that was disappearing beneath his skin.

Then he looked back toward Zhao Lianyu.

A strange smile slowly spread across his face.

"Oh, Miss Imperial Envoy..."

His voice carried the same amusement as before.

"Do you truly think it would be that easy to get rid of us?"

"Have the wars of the past few decades not taught you humans anything about us? How foolish."

The second demon laughed quietly beside him. The laughter lasted only a few breaths before both demons gradually stopped.

Their expressions remained still. However, their spiritual pressure changed almost instantly.

Boom!

An immense wave of spiritual pressure erupted from their bodies.

The air itself seemed to tremble as two powerful auras swept across the gathering place. Several cultivators staggered backward, their faces turning pale as they struggled against the sudden pressure.

Chen Guanshan’s pupils contracted as he hurriedly ducked beneath the shockwave.

Behind him, several Chen Family cultivators stumbled backward, some nearly losing their footing.

A few immediately raised their swords in front of themselves, while others instinctively moved closer together, their faces pale as they stared at the two demons standing ahead.

"What... what kind of pressure is this?"

One of the clansmen struggled to breathe, his hand tightening around his weapon.

Another swallowed nervously.

"That isn’t Qi Condensation..."

Chen Guanshan gritted his teeth and peered ahead toward the two demons.

"It can’t be..."

His expression became grim.

"Foundation Establishment demons?"

Silence fell among the Chen Family cultivators.

The words alone were enough to make several of them stiffen. And there were two of them.

The realization left Chen Guanshan’s mind momentarily blank.

Yet Zhao Lianyu did not seem concerned.

The violent spiritual pressure swept past her white robes, causing the fabric and her long hair to flutter behind her.

She merely raised her eyes toward the two demons, her expression remaining as composed as it had been from the beginning.

Then her sword moved.

She stepped forward, and the blade swept toward Zhao Mingyuan.

Instead of blocking, Zhao Mingyuan suddenly dropped onto all fours.

His palms struck the stone with a sharp crack as his body twisted beneath the incoming blade. The sword passed over his back, barely missing him.

A thin line of blood suddenly seeped from his skin.

Then another.

Within an instant, countless droplets emerged from his arms and shoulders. They floated around him before shooting toward Zhao Lianyu like tiny crimson blades.

Zhao Lianyu’s sword swept through the air.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The blood struck against her blade, each droplet carrying enough force to make her wrist tremble. The wind exploded into countless tiny shockwaves as the air surrounding the platform burst apart into a thunderous storm.

Zhao Mingyuan’s limbs moved again.

Boom!

He crawled sideways across the platform, his arms and legs bending at strange angles as he moved far faster than a human should have been able to.

His limbs were unnaturally rigid, his body remaining strangely still while his fingers extended like razor-sharp claws. His head remained turned toward Zhao Lianyu even while his body moved in another direction, his neck twisting unnaturally to keep his eyes locked onto her.

Then Sun Qian came from behind.

He was crawling on all fours as well.

His fingers dug into the stone, dragging his body forward in sudden, jerking movements. Blood slowly seeped from his skin, gathering around his body in thin crimson strands.

His head tilted sharply to the side.

Then it twisted further.

The blood suddenly shot toward Zhao Lianyu.

She sensed the attack without turning around. Her wrist shifted, and her sword swept backward.

Clang!

The blade collided with the blood, scattering crimson droplets across the platform as the stone beneath them exploded into countless cracks.

Yet the droplets did not fall.

They stopped in midair before turning around and rushing toward her again.

Zhao Lianyu’s eyes narrowed.

She stepped aside as the blood passed her shoulder, then swung her sword toward Sun Qian.

Sun Qian did not retreat like a normal cultivator.

He crawled beneath the incoming blade, his body folding almost unnaturally close to the ground. His head snapped upward, his face appearing upside down beneath Zhao Lianyu’s sword.

At the same time, Zhao Mingyuan crawled toward her from the opposite side.

His fingers scraped against the stone as more blood seeped from his skin, gathering around his body before shooting forward.

Zhao Lianyu’s expression remained cold as she swung her sword.

The blade swept across both demons.

They did not block. They did not dodge normally. Their bodies simply twisted and crawled around the incoming sword, moving as though their bones had no fixed shape.

Zhao Lianyu’s eyes narrowed slightly.

At the same time, Zhao Lianyu’s voice suddenly rang across the gathering as she charged straight toward the two creatures.

"Kill the demons!"

"I order all of you! Kill the demons!"

Her voice carried far beyond the platform, cutting through the shock and confusion that had seized the cultivators.

The command finally broke the hesitation that had held them in place.

Several cultivators gritted their teeth as they looked toward the demons who had deceived them.

Hands reached toward weapons at their sides, while others opened their storage rings and pulled out swords, sabers, spears, and other weapons.

The realization that the people standing beside them only moments ago had been demons was enough to turn fear into anger.

One cultivator raised his weapon. Another gathered spiritual energy into his palm and body.

Then the first group rushed forward.

"Kill!"

"Kill the demons!"

"Kill!!!"

Across from them, the reaction was equally immediate.

The Li Family members and the Chu Family members did not draw their weapons. Instead, several of them lowered their bodies as the approaching cultivators closed the distance.

A strange sound suddenly came from one of the Li Family members.

"Ah... ahh... RRAAAH!"

It was not a battle cry.

The sound was rough and broken, almost like an animal trying to imitate a human scream.

The demon dropped onto all fours and crawled forward, its arms and legs bending at awkward angles as it dragged itself across the stone. Its head remained tilted toward the approaching cultivators even as its body twisted in another direction.

Another demon suddenly threw its head backward and released a high-pitched shriek.

"KYAAAAA!"

Its mouth opened far wider than it should have, and the sound continued until its voice cracked into a series of meaningless noises.

"Ah... KRRR... HAAAH!"

The cultivators continued charging.

Their expressions were tense, fearful even when faced with something that did not move as humans should, but none of them retreated.

A Chu Family member moved toward them with its body hunched low, one arm dragging against the ground while the other twitched repeatedly beside its chest. Blood seeped through its skin and gathered along its fingers.

Then it screamed.

"RRRRAAAAGH!"

Several cultivators flinched at the sound, but they tightened their grips and pushed forward.

The demon suddenly lunged.

Its body moved on all fours with unnatural speed, its hands striking the ground one after another as it crawled directly toward them. A sword flashed toward its head, forcing it to twist its neck sideways while its body continued forward.

The blade barely missed.

The demon’s head snapped back into place.

"Ah... hah... hahahaha!"

The sound coming from its throat was neither laughter nor speech. It was a series of broken noises that seemed to carry no meaning at all.

More screams erupted throughout the gathering.

Some demons shrieked.

Others growled.

A few simply opened their mouths and produced long, wavering cries that echoed between the surrounding buildings.

None of the sounds resembled human speech.

Others moved with their limbs hanging at unnatural angles, their pale eyes fixed upon the cultivators while blood seeped from their skin and gathered into crimson strands.

The human cultivators braced themselves and met them head-on.

Swords and spiritual techniques clashed against bodies that moved in ways that made even experienced cultivators uneasy, while the gathering place filled with the sounds of battle, human shouts, and the shrieks of creatures that no longer seemed capable of remembering how humans were supposed to behave.

The gathering place, which had once been filled with hundreds of cultivators seated together beneath the banner of Great Yan Kingdom, descended into chaos.

Boom!

Spiritual energy erupted from one side.

Blood light flashed from the other. The two groups finally collided in the center as the situation exploded across the city.

Chen Guanshan watched the battle erupt around him before his gaze slowly settled upon a familiar figure near the platform.

Li Zhenyuan.

The old man stood among the Li Family cultivators, but there was nothing familiar about him anymore.

He carried no weapon. His arms simply hung at his sides, his fingers twitching occasionally.

Chen Guanshan’s expression slowly hardened.

He had never fought on the southern frontline, but that did not mean he had never dealt with demons. Over the decades, he had encountered them more than once, and every encounter had left him with the same feeling.

Disgust.

Fear.

And the uncomfortable realization that whatever stood before him had once been human.

He had almost forgotten how disturbing demons could be.

Then Li Zhenyuan began to change.

His shoulders suddenly widened as his flesh swelled outward. His robes stretched tightly against his body before tearing apart, revealing layers of pale flesh that seemed to have grown without bones beneath them.

His arms lengthened until his hands dragged against the ground.

Then his ribs began moving.

One after another, they pushed outward through his skin, not breaking it, but spreading apart as though his chest were opening like the petals of some grotesque flower.

His neck stretched forward and his head followed afterward.

The lower half of his face began sinking into his chest while his mouth widened across what remained of his face. His teeth multiplied, growing in uneven rows until they filled his entire mouth.

A nearby demon turned toward him, and almost instantly, Li Zhenyuan’s enormous mouth opened.

The demon barely had time to scream before the huge mouth lunged forward and swallowed him from the waist up.

CRUNCH!

Blood splattered across the stone as Li Zhenyuan’s jaws closed around him. The demon’s legs kicked wildly for several breaths before disappearing into the demon’s throat.

Li Zhenyuan did not swallow immediately. His swollen body convulsed once, then twice, as something moved beneath his skin.

It travelled from his stomach toward his chest as though the demon he had consumed was still crawling inside him.

His head suddenly jerked to the side. A second mouth opened along his neck, and then another appeared beneath his ribs.

Each mouth smiled.

Chen Guanshan’s grip tightened around his sword.

"Yeah... now I remember why I stopped being a demon hunter."

His gaze remained fixed on the grotesque figure before him. Li Zhenyuan had become something that could no longer be called human, and Chen Guanshan had no desire to find out what the old bastard was capable of.

He glanced toward the Chen Family members behind him.

"I’m sorry, but I’ve made a promise to keep my clansmen safe."

He turned away from Li Zhenyuan.

"Everyone, follow me. We’re leaving."

The Chen Family members immediately understood.

Although the demons had thrown the entire gathering into chaos, their primary objective was no longer to fight the enemies in front of them.

They needed to get out before the situation became even worse.

Chen Guanshan took the lead, his sword sweeping aside a demon that lunged toward them as the Chen Family members followed closely behind.

"Stay together!"

A demon suddenly crawled from the side, its body twisting as it rushed toward the group, but one of the Chen Family cultivators stepped forward and struck it away.

Another demon shrieked from behind them, its voice echoing through the chaotic gathering as blood shot toward the fleeing group.

Chen Guanshan turned and deflected the crimson strands with his sword.

"Keep moving!"

The Chen Family fought their way toward the edge of the gathering, maintaining their formation as they pushed through the chaos.

They did not attempt to chase the demons or engage in unnecessary battles. Every strike was meant to clear a path, allowing the clansmen behind them to advance safely.

Behind them, the screams and clashes continued to fill the gathering place.

Chen Guanshan did not look back. He had already made his decision.

Whatever was happening in Blue Cloud Mist City, he would not allow his clansmen to become another corpse on the ground.

"Call me a coward, but I am not dealing with these."