Chapter Fifty-Eight: Locusts of the Great Dao

Far off on the horizon, a muddy yellow-brown smoke streaked across the sky like a flash of lightning.

Within that haze, Huang Hao was drenched in sweat, terror etched on his face. His left leg appeared to have been severed at the root by some sharp blade or axe, yet no blood spilled forth. Instead, there was an eerie sense that his life force had been sucked dry, a sinister aura hanging about him.

“Help, help me…”

From a distance, he spotted Chen Heng and stumbled desperately toward him, nearly sobbing in his panic.

“Hahaha!” The young girl in azure robes found this amusing.

She glanced at the painting of Qing E floating in Chen Heng’s hand, then at the fleeing Huang Hao, and placed her hands on her hips with delight.

But before she could utter a mocking remark, the fabric of the void was drawn aside like a curtain, and a colossal hand gently seized Huang Hao!

It was a withered, dark hand, its thin membrane stretched over bone, so frail it seemed it would tear at any moment. Yet the thunderous sound it made as it rent the air belied its strength, as if even a block of black iron could not surpass it.

Huang Hao was snatched up like a helpless chick, powerless to resist.

The hand, like a mass of black cloud, had fingers so unnaturally long that they resembled five giant serpents, coiling tightly around him.

Huang Hao screamed, struggling furiously, unleashing all manner of spiritual light and energy in a wild barrage. Yet to the withered hand, these attacks were utterly insignificant.

With a sinister chuckle, the owner of the hand parted the void once more, revealing its full form at last.

It was a massive demon shrouded in shadowy mist, eyes blazing like golden lanterns. Three faces adorned its head, each expressing anger, resentment, and joy. At this moment, all six eyes were locked hungrily upon Huang Hao, radiating a surge of ravenous malice.

In Huang Hao’s despairing gaze, the demon exhaled lightly toward him, and his limbs instantly withered and drooped.

Only his abdomen swelled grotesquely, all his essence and blood converging there, making him look as though he were carrying six children.

He was now like a ripe, bursting fruit, ready to drop from the branch...

“Aaaaah!” Huang Hao shrieked, his limbs snapping one by one. As his neck grew heavier, Chen Heng made a swift gesture, sending the Thunderfire Lightning Pearl streaking like a rainbow toward the demon’s eye!

Yet the blow rang out with the sound of clashing metal.

The demon merely closed its eyelids, and the Thunderfire Lightning Pearl could advance no further. It was even repelled several yards, barely stabilizing itself in midair.

Witnessing this, Chen Heng’s expression changed slightly. He tucked away the Qing E painting and turned sharply to leave.

It all happened in an instant.

From Huang Hao’s flight, to the demon’s appearance, to Chen Heng’s attack, mere seconds had passed.

The demon cast only a glance, showing little interest. It waited until Huang Hao’s head finally drooped, then leisurely swallowed his broken body in a single gulp, all three faces erupting in gleeful laughter.

The ghastly and bizarre scene chilled every onlooker to the bone.

“What is that? A demon? How could such a thing appear in the Southern Domain?!”

The scattered cultivators cried out in panic, fleeing in all directions, caring nothing for their sects or allegiances.

Even Huang Hao, nearly perfected in refining Qi, was utterly powerless, devoured alive like a beast.

What chance did these novice Qi refiners, all wandering cultivators, have? None dared remain.

“A celestial demon... and a Force Demon, at that...”

The woman’s pupils contracted.

Long ago, in ancient times, the immortals and gods had established the “Taiyi Nine Palaces Inverse Grand Array” over the heavens of Xudu, to shelter countless beings and repel invaders.

After the collapse of the Dao Court, the Eight Sects and Six Clans inherited the array, further reinforcing it with a layer of astral energy that covered the entire sky.

With these protections, not even a celestial demon, nor the likes of demon lords or gods, could enter Xudu’s heavens.

The “Taiyi Nine Palaces Inverse Grand Array” was renowned.

It was a formation passed down from the Dao Court. During the wild beginnings of creation, when the myriad ways were in decline, the immortals wielded this array to slaughter countless shadowy beings, separating the clear from the turbid, forging worlds, lands, and heavens, and perpetuating virtue.

Even the astral layer laid by the Eight Sects and Six Clans was formidable.

It insulated against chaos, initiated myriad phenomena, existed outside the five elements and yin-yang, filled with golden winds, thunderfire, nether water, and red sand.

Without permission from the Eight Sects and Six Clans, not even the Golden-Winged Roc, which could fly ninety thousand miles with a single flap, could escape its confines.

Indeed...

The astral layer had even trapped several Buddhist venerables in the past. When the pure-yang true lords moved the layer upon them, they simply went home and left it be.

Though the venerables, possessing diamond bodies, could resist for a time, eventually they succumbed, sitting in extinction within the astral layer...

If even Buddhist venerables could be trapped and perish, what hope had the celestial demons, ubiquitous in outer void, likened to locusts and wild beasts?

Though some worlds called them “locusts of the great Dao,” in Xudu they were nearly extinct.

Unable to breach the astral layer, no matter how ferocious, they were like vicious dogs chained behind iron bars.

Unable to bite, their malice was impotent.

But now, here, a celestial demon had appeared—a mid-ranked Force Demon.

The woman quickly formed a hypothesis.

“It seems that after my aunt’s Evil Anger Yin Victor Demon escaped years ago, it hid in the Southern Domain, right around the mortal land of Dansu, and raised many offspring...”

She thought to herself.

Turning to Chen Heng, she was about to kindly advise him to flee; his earlier attack with the Thunderfire Lightning Pearl might have already angered the Force Demon.

Celestial demons were infamous for their vindictiveness, regardless of their tribe.

Even the slightest grudge could be remembered for centuries, always seeking revenge.

Stories circulated in some worlds: a cultivator once mocked a female Yin Demon disguised as a prostitute, and thereafter, every male descendant died at twenty, drained of essence, until the demon’s eight-thousand-year lifespan ended and the world itself collapsed.

But before she could speak, she found herself surrounded by emptiness—everyone had already vanished.

In the distance, she saw Chen Heng produce a Concord Carriage.

He leapt into it, soaring skyward in a streak of light, outpacing even the fleeing cultivators.

“...”

Even the woman, skilled in nurturing her Qi, was momentarily stunned, lost for words.

“This creature looks so plump and delicious; if my true form were here, I’d capture it and fatten it up...” The girl in azure robes had been drooling over the Force Demon, but seeing her mistress fall silent, she turned confusedly and caught sight of Chen Heng’s wild flight.

Realizing she was alone, the girl flew into a rage, her eyes blazing.

“Damn it! He’s so disloyal! He didn’t even say a word before fleeing, like a thief!”

She wiped her mouth, about to curse, when the woman scooped her up and soared skyward, vanishing in an instant.

Meanwhile, in the clouds—

The Force Demon, having devoured every drop of Huang Hao’s essence, finally raised its head, savoring the moment. After a few breaths, all three faces broke into laughter.

It parted its hands and slipped back into the curtain of the void. A few miles away, a Qi refiner’s flying shuttle was suddenly crushed.

He turned in panic, only to see three faces—anger, resentment, and joy—staring back.

“Hehehe!”

...

“How can there be so many?”

Within her purple-clear light, the woman’s face turned grim. She changed direction, stimulating her prenatal breath, transforming into a sharp rainbow that instantly sliced dozens of celestial demons into blood mist.

Everywhere she looked, the sky was thick with celestial demons of all kinds.

They swarmed like locusts in a disaster year.

Celestial demons generally had no distinction between male and female. They fed on flesh, soul, and magic—all things infused with spiritual energy—to nourish their powers.

They reproduced by splitting their primordial spirit when they absorbed too much spiritual energy, creating new demons to contain the excess, thereby continuing their line.

Such insatiable greed earned them the Dao Court’s scorn, branded as “locusts of the great Dao.”

In ancient times, if the demon gods had not knelt in submission, behaving docile as house pets, and if they had not been an essential part of the cosmic balance, they would have been exterminated for their “only intake, no output” nature, wiped from existence like those shadow beings.

...

“So many damned things!”

Everywhere, demons of all shapes and sizes.

Even the girl in azure robes had to restrain her drooling and cried out, “Is someone from the Six Demon Sects conducting a summoning here, cultivating some power? There are so many—I couldn’t eat them all, even in my true form!”

The woman casually struck the air, summoning six fire dragons that tore through the demons, vaporizing hundreds.

But after a hundred paces, the fire dragons were shredded and devoured by the relentless swarm, utterly fearless.

“There’s no one from the Six Demon Sects summoning here. These demons are all the result of my aunt’s past sins... No wonder Master Junyao of the Jade Palace chased her for three thousand miles.”

Everywhere, there was only a pitch-black mass, terrifying in every direction.

After flying several more miles, still unable to find an exit,

The woman stopped, sighed, and sent forth a silvery flying sword from her sleeve. It circled once, slaying several stealthy, ambushing demons.

She formed a sword gesture, empowering the flying sword with her prenatal breath, making it even more murderous, like a polar celestial light bursting from the earth, casting a cold radiance within a hundred paces.

The demons could barely withstand a single clash before being sliced to pieces, corpses strewn about.

For a moment, all nearby demons were purged; the rest hesitated and shrank back.

Though celestial demons were mad and fierce, they were still sentient beings, with emotions even more intense than those of mortals.

The woman’s sword frightened them, but soon enough, their hunger and greed overcame reason. A few began to howl, and the others followed, charging forward.

They had been imprisoned since birth, fed only meager scraps. Now, somehow freed, they fled in ecstasy, then caught the scent of spiritual energy, splitting into dozens of groups, each hunting independently.

Cultivators’ flesh and soul, nourished by spiritual energy, were the most delicious, even their emotions more filling than those of mortals.

These half-starved low-level demons, even if briefly intimidated, could not resist for long, and soon attacked again.

After half an hour,

Even the woman’s sword skills were waning...

Her spiritual body was only at the Qi refining stage, though she practiced the top-tier “Purple Clear True Qi” of the Ai family from Shangyu, her prenatal breath was ultimately limited.

“The Dao Lord’s divination said my aunt was steeped in evil, but only survived because of the Ai family... I, having learned their Qi refining arts, am now entangled with her. Unless I eliminate the Evil Anger Yin Victor Demon she created, my cultivation will be hindered.”

With another horizontal strike, she cut several demons in half.

Panting slightly, she clenched her teeth.

The Dao Lord’s directive was not only strange but absurd...

Not only must she travel to the Southern Domain in her spiritual body to subdue the demon,

But her cultivation must remain suppressed at the Qi refining level, with no treasures or magical artifacts allowed, only three talismanic tools for defense.

If not for the special “Ten-Thousand-Mile Revealing Talisman” granted by the Dao Lord, she would have thought the eccentric old man was playing a cruel joke, sending her spiritual body to die.

But the talisman was not for attack.

She could not see how her Qi-refining spiritual body could subdue a demon on par with a Profound Alchemist.

“The Dao Lord sent me too hastily; this spiritual body has not yet mastered any Daoist arts. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in this predicament...”

With her prenatal breath running low, she dared not swing her sword wildly, instead striking with another palm to summon six fire dragons.

After another half cup of tea, her light dimmed noticeably, darting left and right, still unable to escape the encircling demons.

She gritted her teeth, resolve flashing in her eyes, but before she could act, bolts of thunder crashed down, incinerating dozens of demons.

She looked up to see Chen Heng approaching, standing on clouds, Thunderfire Lightning Pearl above his head, walking calmly toward her.

Beside him was a round, plump boy, following closely.

“Good! Good! Fine fellow! I misjudged you!” The girl in azure robes, resigned to death, was suddenly overjoyed:

“You truly are a loyal and righteous man, coming to rescue us! What spirit! Are you enamored with my mistress? Good! I’ll arrange your betrothal myself—when you become a Dao Lord, come propose!”

Chen Heng merely smiled, saying nothing.

“You...” The woman hesitated, biting her lip and glancing at Chen Heng.

In such peril, he was willing to risk his life to save her?

At the edge of death, even lifelong Dao companions might not act as decisively as he did.

Did he not hesitate, even once?

“You...” Her expression shifted, but before she could speak, she saw thousands of demons surging behind Chen Heng, like a rising tide.

“What?!”

The girl’s eyes widened.

He hadn’t come to save them—he was being chased by the demons, unable to shake them, coming to find someone to share the burden!

To put it bluntly, he was looking for a scapegoat!

“No wonder junior brother said nothing—he’s ashamed.”

The woman’s face darkened, glaring coldly at Chen Heng. “If you wish to die, so be it. Why drag me down with you, to perish together?”

“You misunderstand, senior sister.”

At last, Chen Heng spoke.

He glanced at the horde of pursuing demons, then at the woman, his expression unembarrassed, only sighing softly:

“In the face of disaster, we should stand together. There’s no ‘dragging down’—that would be far too estranged between us...”