The demon soldier seized Yuan Qingshan by the collar and lifted him straight off the ground. Yuan Qingshan's feet dangled in the air. His face was deathly pale, and broken gasps caught in his throat. Instinctively, he tried to struggle, both hands clutching at the demon soldier's thick wrist, but that hand was like an iron clamp around his collar. No matter how he kicked or thrashed, it did not loosen in the slightest.
Firelight reflected in his pupils. The village was burning. He saw familiar eaves collapsing into the flames. He saw wooden carts by the roadside blackened into skeletal frames. He saw blood running along the muddy road into the ditches. He saw villagers who had once laughed and spoken with him lying on the ground, never to rise again. Everything had happened too quickly. So quickly that Yuan Qingshan had no time to understand how the quiet village of only an evening ago had become this in the blink of an eye.
He wanted to scream, but something seemed to block his throat. Only a broken whimper came out. The demon soldier split its mouth open. Its fangs were white and sharp, scraps of flesh still caught between them. It lowered its head and looked at Yuan Qingshan without rage, without urgency, only with a cold, mocking amusement. Like a man watching an insect he was about to crush.
Wu Chensi lay in the rubble, his chest hurting as if it had split open. That kick had been too heavy. Since childhood, he had fought beasts for his life in the mountains. He had fallen from cliffs, broken bones, been bitten by wolves and struck flying by bear paws. But compared to this pain, all those seemed almost light. When the demon soldier's foot landed on his chest, he had even heard a dull sound from his bones.
He tried to get up. His palm pressed against the broken earth, his fingers digging into the mud. But the moment he used strength, tearing pain surged through his chest. Blackness flashed before his eyes, and a metallic sweetness rose in his throat. His short knife lay not far away. Its blade was smeared with mud and blood. Wu Chensi reached for it, but only caught a handful of loose dirt.
Yuan Qingshan hung in the demon soldier's grip, kicking wildly, his voice thick with tears. "Wu Chensi…" He was not begging Wu Chensi to save him. He was simply afraid. So afraid that he could only call out that name.
Wu Chensi clenched his teeth, dragging his fingers forward across the ground inch by inch. The demon soldier seemed to hear the movement. It turned its head and looked at Wu Chensi in the rubble. Then it laughed. The sound was low and hoarse, like stones grinding in its throat. "Still not dead?" Wu Chensi could not understand the demon soldier's garbled speech, but he could hear the mockery in its voice.
The demon soldier was in no hurry to kill Yuan Qingshan. It seemed to find new amusement. Slowly, it raised its other hand. Its gray-black palm opened, five fingers sharp as hooks, and a dark-red flame flickered faintly in its center. The air around it began to grow hot. Not with the heat of the village fires. The village flames burned fiercely, but they only burned wood, beams, and straw roofs. The fire rising from the demon soldier's palm carried a charred, cold stench, as if a rotting corpse had been buried underground for many years and then set aflame again.
Dark-red flames coiled around its arm little by little. Yuan Qingshan's eyes widened. He was closest and could clearly feel the burning pain radiating from the fire. Though it had not yet touched him, his cheeks already stung, and tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. The demon soldier laughed softly and raised its burning claw. It seemed to want Wu Chensi to see clearly. To see how it would tear Yuan Qingshan apart.
Wu Chensi's eyes reddened at once. At last, his fingers closed around the handle of his short knife. The instant he gripped it, he threw himself up from the ground on sheer breath and stubborn will. "Let him go!" His roar tore at his throat.
The demon soldier did not turn back. It only swept a hand casually. A heavy force slammed toward him, like an invisible log smashing into his body. Wu Chensi was hurled away again. His back struck a charred wooden post, and he rolled into a patch of ash. Sparks landed on his clothes, burning small black holes into the fabric, but he had no time to brush them off. He braced himself against the ground, trying to rise again. This time, he truly could not stand.
The demon soldier raised its claw. Yuan Qingshan shut his eyes and cried out in despair. At that very instant, the night brightened. Not with firelight. With cold light.
A blade of radiance tore across the burning eaves, swift as moonlight sharpened into a thread, like winter water in the mountains frozen into an edge. It arrived in silence. By the time Wu Chensi saw it, it had already cut across the demon soldier's shoulder. Black blood sprayed. The demon soldier's raised arm was severed at the shoulder, flying away together with the dark-red flames coiled around it. The broken arm crashed into a nearby pile of burning debris with a dull thud.
For a breath, the demon soldier froze. Then it threw back its head and let out a shrill roar. Yuan Qingshan fell from the air as well. He thought he was about to slam hard into the ground and flailed in terror. But in the next instant, a hand caught him steadily by the back.
It was an old hand. The back of it was lined with clear wrinkles, the knuckles thin, yet it was as steady as mountain stone. Yuan Qingshan opened his eyes. Between firelight and thick smoke, a white-haired old Daoist had appeared.
He wore a washed-out gray-white Daoist robe, its hem stirring gently in the night wind. His hair and beard were both white, his features gentle, his figure neither tall nor imposing, even somewhat lean. Yet as he stood there, the rolling flames, the cries, the slaughter around him all seemed to lower beneath some invisible force. One hand held Yuan Qingshan. The other rested behind his back. His expression was calm, as if he had walked in from a clear wind beyond the mountains and accidentally stepped into this sea of fire.
Yuan Qingshan's lips trembled. "Old… old immortal…" The old Daoist looked at him and gently set him on the ground. "Can you stand?" Yuan Qingshan's legs were so weak that he nearly knelt the moment his feet touched earth. He nodded in panic, then shook his head, not even knowing what answer he was giving.
The old Daoist asked no more. His gaze fell on Wu Chensi in the rubble. Wu Chensi was looking at him too. The old Daoist had come too suddenly. Like a gust of wind. Like thunder falling at the most dangerous moment.
Wu Chensi had never seen such a person. Traveling Daoists occasionally passed through the village below the mountain, most of them dressed in ragged clothes, carrying bells or wooden swords, trading exorcisms and fortune-telling for a meal. But this old Daoist was different. He carried no exaggerated ritual tools and made no mysterious display. Yet just looking at him, Wu Chensi felt the panic in his chest settle slightly.
The demon soldier clutched its severed arm. Black blood poured between its fingers. It stared fixedly at the old Daoist, and for the first time fear appeared in its crimson eyes. It seemed to want to flee. In the next instant, it opened its mouth and spat out a cloud of black smoke. Its body retreated violently, growing blurry within the smoke.
The old Daoist merely raised his hand. He extended one finger. "Thunder." One word fell. The sky exploded. In the night above, veiled by smoke, a pale-white crack of light suddenly tore open. Thunder rolled down from deep within the clouds, shaking the entire village. A bolt of lightning descended from the heavens.
The demon soldier had only just turned into black smoke, not yet managing to escape over the courtyard wall, when the thunder struck it squarely. Blinding white light swallowed its body. The demon soldier did not even manage a full scream before it burst apart within the lightning. Black blood, shattered armor, and charred fragments of bone scattered outward, only to be burned into ash by the thunderfire.
For a moment, the courtyard was silent. Only the crackling of flames remained. Yuan Qingshan's mouth hung open. He was completely stunned. Wu Chensi also stared blankly at the scorched patch of ground left by the lightning.
He had seen hunters shoot beasts. He had seen the old hunter set traps for mountain wolves. He had also seen himself smash a maddened boar to death with stones. But he had never seen power like this. One finger calling down thunder. One instant to destroy a demon. That was not brute strength. It was not a blade. It was something he had never truly understood.
A cultivator. Perhaps the people Yuan Qingshan had once spoken of — those who could fly, summon thunder, and cut mountains apart with a sword — had not been mere tavern boasts after all.
The old Daoist slowly lowered his hand. He did not look at the ashes left behind by the demon soldier, but turned his gaze toward the edge of the village. Firelight reflected in his eyes. There was no panic there, only deep gravity.
"The demons have entered the outer reaches of Mount Daoyuan." His voice was not loud, yet it cut clearly through the sound of fire. "This is not all of them."
Yuan Qingshan's face went pale. Wu Chensi held onto the broken wall and forced himself to stand. "There are more?" The old Daoist looked at him. Wu Chensi's chest still hurt. His face and arms were covered in blood, and he could barely stand steady. Yet his eyes remained fixed on the village outskirts, like an injured beast that refused to retreat. A trace of something unreadable flashed through the old Daoist's eyes.
"Some villagers fled toward the northern high ground," he said. "The demons are hunting them."
Yuan Qingshan jerked his head up. "My father and mother… they might be there!" Wu Chensi said nothing. He only tightened his grip on his short knife.
The old Daoist's sleeve moved lightly. "Come with me." As his words fell, a clear wind suddenly rose within the courtyard. At first, it was gentle, stirring only the ashes and sparks on the ground. In the next breath, it grew swift, circling around the three of them. Yuan Qingshan was so frightened that he grabbed the half-burned wooden post beside him, but his body had already begun to lift from the earth.
"Aaaah!" Yuan Qingshan screamed. "I can't fly! I can't fly!"
Wu Chensi felt his body grow light as well. The mud, broken tiles, and flames beneath his feet receded rapidly. Instinctively, he clenched his short knife, gritted his teeth, and forced himself not to cry out. The old Daoist stood within the wind, his robe snapping around him, steady as if he still stood on solid ground.
The next instant, the clear wind carried the three of them into the night sky. Wu Chensi looked down. The village beneath Mount Daoyuan had become a sea of fire. House after house burned like piles of kindling. Flames joined into sheets, and thick smoke rolled upward. Demons still ran through the village. In the firelight, figures fell from time to time, while others fled desperately toward the outskirts.
Farther away, to the north, stood a stretch of high ground. It was where villagers took shelter during floods. The terrain was higher there, shielded on three sides by scattered stones and old trees. At that moment, many surviving villagers were fleeing toward it. Old people, women, children — all stumbled together, their cries torn apart by the night wind.
And in the wasteland before the high ground, the demons had already caught up. A crowd of demon soldiers blocked the path of retreat. Torches and black energy mingled together. Broken blades flashed dark red in the firelight.
At the edge of the high ground, several strong village men stood in front with hoes, hatchets, and wooden forks, trembling as they faced the demons. They knew they could not hold, yet they dared not retreat. Behind them were their parents, wives, children, and neighbors.
Wu Chensi saw people from the blacksmith's shop. He heard Yuan Qingshan suck in a sharp breath. "Father!" On the high ground, a broad-shouldered middle-aged man was swinging an iron hammer, smashing aside a demon hound that leapt at him. But there were already many wounds on his body, and the villagers beside him were swaying on the verge of collapse.
Wu Chensi looked farther ahead. At the end of the wasteland stood two towering figures. They had not rushed into the slaughter like the ordinary demon soldiers. They simply stood quietly behind the firelight.
One carried a giant axe. The axe was taller than an ordinary man, its blade broad and thick, its edge stained with blood that had not yet dried. That demon general was massive, its shoulders and back bulging, its bare chest covered in dark markings. With every breath, gray-black mist sprayed from its nostrils.
The other held a long spear. It was leaner, but taller. Its black armor was narrow and long, and the spearpoint rested against the ground. Each slight scrape drew sparks from the stone. Its eyes were not wild like those of common demon soldiers. They were chillingly cold, as if the fleeing villagers before it were prey whose ending had already been written.
Two demon generals. Wu Chensi did not know their identities, but instinct told him that compared to the demon soldier in the courtyard, these two figures were far more dangerous. Like two black mountains standing beyond the sea of fire.
The axe-bearing demon general suddenly raised its head. The spear-bearing demon general looked up as well. They saw the old Daoist riding the wind down from the night sky.
The axe-bearing demon general split its mouth open, showing its fangs. "A cultivator." The spear-bearing demon general's voice was cold. "At last. Someone worth killing."
The wind suddenly sharpened. The old Daoist descended with Wu Chensi and Yuan Qingshan. A violent gust swept across the wasteland, scattering thick smoke and sending several demon hounds lunging toward the high ground tumbling away. Dust and sparks exploded together. The villagers cried out and staggered back, then froze when they saw the old Daoist.
He landed before the high ground. Behind him were the terrified surviving villagers. Before him stood ranks of demon soldiers and the two demon generals.
Wu Chensi and Yuan Qingshan landed behind him. Yuan Qingshan's legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed to his knees, but his eyes remained fixed on the blacksmith on the high ground. Wu Chensi gripped his short knife. His chest hurt fiercely, yet he forced himself to stand, step by step.
Night wind swept across the battlefield. Flames burned on both sides. The axe-bearing demon general slowly raised its giant axe. The blade scraped the ground, making a sound that set teeth on edge. The spear-bearing demon general lightly turned its long spear, pointing the tip toward the old Daoist.
The old Daoist's expression remained calm. His white hair stirred in the wind. Without turning back, he said lightly, "Stand behind me."
Wu Chensi tightened his grip on the short knife, his throat dry. For the first time, he understood clearly how vast the distance was between himself and true monsters. But he did not run. He stood behind the old Daoist, looking at the two demon generals, and at the old back that now stood before all the villagers.
The axe-bearing demon general gave a low laugh. "Old man, you cannot save them."
The old Daoist raised his eyes. Deep within the dark clouds, thunder rumbled faintly. "Then let us see."