Chapter Forty-Three: Li Mo'er Takes Action

After Shi Bufeng roared his words, the cultural energy around him began to surge wildly. At the same time, the originally pure white energy emanating from his body began to change. Blackness started to appear within the energy, seething and gradually corrupting everything it touched. Even Shi Bufeng’s face started transforming; most noticeably, the flesh on his face began to peel away, revealing specks of blackness beneath.

Not only that, but his clothes began to tear as well, his entire body expanding rapidly. As the blackened aura surged ever more powerfully, the pressure he exuded grew stronger and stronger.

In the blink of an eye, Shi Bufeng had entered the Scholar’s Realm!

“Absorbing Lord Zhang’s scholarly force is truly a pleasure. You scholars only know how to read books to death,” Shi Bufeng boasted smugly.

“To draw energy and fall into devilry! When did you become a corrupted scholar—a remnant of the Demon Sect?” Jin Changwu exclaimed in horror. The cultural energy around his own body surged, but the great formation beneath his feet kept draining his power, suppressing his scholarly force.

He hadn’t fallen for the devil’s seed like Registrar Zhou, and yet he’d still walked into their trap.

As Shi Bufeng’s demonic aura grew stronger, the henchmen at his side began to change as well. Demonic energy swelled around them, and each began to undergo the same transformation.

Shockingly, every one of them now radiated the scholarly aura of a Licentiate!

“These people all know how to draw energy and fall into devilry!” Registrar Zhou gritted his teeth, struggling to suppress the turmoil of the devil’s seed within him, enduring the agony as the formation sucked away his power. His face twisted with anger as he turned to Jin Changwu, his gaze resolute.

“Jin Changwu, things have come to this—we must join forces and break the formation!”

“I know!” Jin Changwu roared, but immediately Shi Bufeng’s laughter rang out.

“What use is joining forces? Do you think only us from the Demon Sect are present tonight? I’ve plotted for years to capture you. Tonight, I’ll shake the world and let that man in the imperial palace know—the thing he fears still holds incomparable power in this world!”

“Elder Ju Fan’s Devouring Breath Technique is truly marvelous. Once I devour you two, we’ll have two more Scholars in our ranks!”

As his words fell, more demonic energy billowed from his body, plunging the area into darkness. Several servants in the courtyard collapsed, dead.

Jin Changwu and the others trapped in the formation desperately rallied their scholarly force to resist.

All around the city, the sounds of explosions and chaos filled the air—evidence of a great crisis befalling Shiyang County, heightening their desperation.

“Registrar, so the murderer we’ve been seeking was him all along!” At this moment, Pan Shun, also wracked with pain, stared fixedly at Shi Bufeng, terror and despair warring in his eyes.

“The four demonic highwaymen, the corrupted scholar, and the madman on Chenghuang Temple Street—it was all him! No wonder I was completely at a loss!”

Pan Shun finally pieced it all together. His face turned ashen, recalling how he’d once aided evil himself.

But all the while, right under their noses, this villain had orchestrated everything, ensnaring them all in his schemes.

While Shi Bufeng laughed heartily, Jin Changwu’s expression grew grim. He glared at Registrar Zhou and Pan Shun, his anger boiling over.

“What did you do, Zhou Zhiyun, Pan Shun? What did you do with the lives of the town’s people?” Jin Changwu shouted.

Registrar Zhou gritted his teeth, glaring at Shi Bufeng, equally furious.

“What could we have done? Yes, we used some underhanded tricks—but only to bring you down! I never once thought of plunging the townsfolk into devilry, nor of destroying Shiyang County!”

He spoke the truth. With his official career going smoothly and everything under his control, he’d had no reason to commit such a monstrous crime.

But now he recalled how Shi Bufeng had urged him to impeach Jin Changwu with such zeal.

Beside him, Pan Shun’s eyes trembled. He seemed to realize the enormity of his mistake—a mistake that had placed everything in danger.

“County Magistrate, it was I who acted against Song Mu. The four bandits then were let into the city by me, but from start to finish, I never saw them fall into devilry.”

“Heaven is my witness! I never meant harm to my hometown or its people!” Pan Shun’s voice shook as his face turned even paler.

“Haha, that’s right. It was all me!” Shi Bufeng shouted from within the black mist, which had grown even more condensed. Jin Changwu and the others’ pupils constricted—this scene meant that Shi Bufeng had likely stabilized at the Scholar’s Realm.

“I planted the seeds of inner demons in those four men, and in that scholar, and I orchestrated the event at Chenghuang Temple. Without these, Registrar Zhou, could you have impeached Jin Changwu? Without these, could I have kept you all so busy and distracted?” Shi Bufeng’s face emerged from the darkness, twisted and monstrous.

“If not for the appearance of the Heavenly Guard, I would have struck the day Jin Changwu lost his power.”

He sneered, his aura swelling as the vast black mist blotted out the sky.

“Scholar!” Jin Changwu and the others cried out in alarm as Shi Bufeng formed his hands into claws, fixing them with a chilling gaze.

“It matters not now. You’ll die all the same. With the Demon King of the Clear River aiding me, you haven’t a hope! Once I’ve mastered Elder Ju Fan’s technique, you may wait in the underworld for your emperor!”

“The Demon King of the Clear River!” Jin Changwu’s eyes widened, his face murderous as he demanded, “You actually enlisted that greedy monster? What did you promise him?!”

Shi Bufeng laughed wickedly. “Only the blood of a city’s people.”

“The blood of a city…” Jin Changwu and the others felt as if struck by a heavy blow. Pan Shun, most distraught of all, collapsed to his knees, his scholarly force in utter chaos.

His family was still in the city. At that moment, Pan Shun bitterly regretted everything he had done.

Shi Bufeng grew even more sinister. “With the blood of an entire city, I can absorb the scholarly force of three Scholars—attaining the Hanlin Realm will be at my fingertips! With two more Scholars as my arms, you can die in peace!”

As he finished, the Demon Sect followers around him burst into laughter, their black energy surging outward to envelop Jin Changwu and the rest.

Jin Changwu mustered a shield of scholarly energy, but he was so tightly suppressed that he could barely fight back.

Registrar Zhou, beset from without and within, spat a mouthful of blood.

Seeing their plight, Shi Bufeng only laughed more wildly. At that moment, Shiyang County was awash in blood and misery, and the power to grant life and death made Shi Bufeng feel intoxicated with madness.

“Hmph, I knew it was you.”

Just then, a crisp voice rang out. Shi Bufeng whipped around, yelling, “Who’s there!”

He saw, atop a rooftop not far from the post station, a slender figure in fluttering robes. Her delicate face was icy, her gaze sharp.

“Heavenly Guard, Li Mo’er!”

Li Mo’er’s lips parted, her voice drifting forth with a hint of killing intent. The surging pressure she wielded far surpassed Jin Changwu’s, sweeping across the post station in an instant.

The force of it made everyone groan. Shi Bufeng’s eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of Li Mo’er.

“You…”

He’d heard a powerful Heavenly Guard had appeared in Shiyang County, but had never expected it to be the daughter of that official once brought by the Kong family—nor that she’d stayed so long in the city.

Li Mo’er gave a faint, cold laugh. With a turn of her hand, a long sword appeared. She stepped forward, actually treading on air.

“At last I’ve found you. Let us settle the matters of the Central Plains and Qingzhou now.”

“You, a mere fallen scholar dabbling in the forbidden arts of that traitor, really think you can overturn the scholarly dynasty?”

As she spoke, a line of verse spilled from her lips.

“Generals rise to dance with long swords, warriors’ shouts shake the nine heavens.”

...

“Returning triumphant to see the wise lord, immortalized in painting upon the Kirin Terrace.”

It was Li Bai’s “Song of General Sima.”

As her voice faded, the white scholarly aura around her suddenly turned azure. From the blue mist surged countless armored warriors, blades and halberds in hand. They became beams of light, converging into a majestic golden kirin that roared forth.

...