The soldier, who had been closing in with a savage grin, realized he was mere inches from this bewitchingly beautiful demon—and froze stiff where he stood, as if plunged into a pit of ice, a cold spreading outward from the very center of his chest.
Just as an ordinary man would feel spotting a tiger in the wild, the fear of demons that mankind had accumulated over a thousand years—a terror seeped into the marrow—swallowed him whole. His earlier arrogance and bluster vanished without a trace, leaving only thick regret and dread.
The soldier gave Li Fei a smile so twisted it was almost comical, a plea for mercy, and staggered backward, trembling, begging in a quavering voice:
"Lord Lü, save me...."
Lü Zhengchun gripped the saber at his waist, his smile fading.
The waist tokens issued to members of the Demon Suppression Bureau were all meticulously refined magic tools, capable of perceiving demons. Save for a rare few skilled at disguise, ordinary demons had nowhere to hide before the Demon Suppression Bureau.
Yet faced with Li Fei, the token gave not the slightest reaction.
A scorpion demon? No, that's not right... A fox demon? No, not that either...
Lü Zhengchun's face darkened as he kept guessing at Li Fei's "true form," while the soldier, who had waited in vain for a reply, finally sank into despair.
The woman before him remained radiant and lovely, but facing an intelligent demoness with a long tail sprouting from her back, fear beat against his heart like a rising tide.
The Demon Suppression Bureau's ill fame preceded it—he had long heard that they used civilians as cannon fodder, to test the habits of demons and divert the attention of ghouls... His heart had truly been clouded by lard, that he'd gone out of his way to curry favor with the most terrifying, most cold-blooded demon in all the Great Song!
Frustration and unwillingness brought feeling flooding back into his numbed legs; the will to survive drove his heart to pound furiously, blood surging and gushing through his body.
"Aaaah!"
The soldier suddenly let out a hysterical, bizarre shriek, his features contorted and ferocious, and spun to bolt into the crowd, seeking a sliver of a chance at life.
But before he'd gone a few steps, his body suddenly felt light, and his upper half toppled heavily into the dust.
"...?"
The soldier lifted his head in a daze, only to find that his lower half—blood spurting endlessly—was still lurching forward under its own momentum, a few staggering steps, before it flopped to the ground with a thud and twitched uncontrollably.
Instinctively he reached down toward his waist, only to touch slippery, slimy organs.
"Aaah!!!"
The soldier finally grasped what had happened. Tears and snot streaming down his face, he rolled and thrashed across the ground, wailing without end.
"Don't just lie there in a daze."
Li Fei swayed her jet-black, eerie tail—not a speck of blood on it—and, with a sweet smile, kindly reminded him: "I hear that when someone's cut in half at the waist, they can still dip into their own blood and write quite a lot of words."
"Isn't that just perfect for writing your last will?"
As she spoke, she didn't forget to raise a little fist and cheer the soldier on:
"You can do it, Mister Cut-in-Half!"
But the soldier only twitched, spreading a great pool of blood across the ground, his voice growing fainter and fainter, until at last his head lolled to one side and he died glaring with bloodshot eyes, looking like a vengeful ghost.
"Hm?"
Li Fei muttered in puzzlement: "Could it be... you have no family, or you can't write?"
The bizarre, blood-soaked, cruel scene chilled everyone present to the bone, cold sweat pouring like rain; some, sickened by the thick stench of blood, couldn't help but bend over and vomit.
These household guards had done their fair share of bullying men and abusing women in their day; killing them all might produce a wrongful case or two, but randomly picking half of them for a death sentence would surely leave the guilty slipping through the net—yet compared to Li Fei, they were, in the end, as kindly as a bunch of simple, honest commoners.
"Demoness, demoness...."
One guard, his face ghastly pale, murmured endlessly, dropped his weapon with a clang, and turned to flee.
"Don't be in such a rush to go. Lie down and let's have a nice long chat."
Li Fei unhurriedly raised her arm and lightly tapped her index finger; a dazzling beam of magic power tore through the void, instantly piercing his heart.
Wandless casting was no high-level technique, and with her Advanced Meditation Technique and the magic-control granted by the Sequence 7 [Witch of Bliss], Li Fei could already use any part of her body to unleash any first-tier spell with precision and speed.
Only after cowing everyone present did Li Fei saunter forth with a cat-like, languid, alluring gait toward Lü Zhengchun, even covering her mouth to yawn as she said carelessly:
"Lord Lü, stop rummaging around in your robes. I'm not going to give you a chance to call for reinforcements."
Lü Zhengchun said nothing, coldly staring at Li Fei, when suddenly the True Qi in his dantian erupted. His figure blasted backward, and he snatched up two nearby servants and hurled them forcefully at Li Fei, while pulling a wooden tube from his robes and raising it high, meaning to call for aid.
—Trying to play this game with me?
Li Fei let out a scornful laugh. The vortex of battle qi hummed, and her whole body became a crimson phantom. Amid a sky full of raining blood, she tore through the two walls of flesh in an instant, the path before her suddenly opening wide.
Her tail, sheathed in crimson battle qi, lashed out at a cunning and vicious angle—starting later yet arriving first—and pierced clean through Lü Zhengchun's wrist before he could pull the fuse beneath the wooden tube. The tube dropped with the strike.
With crimson battle qi spinning seventy revolutions per second, paired with the Cloud Dragon Fold movement art and triple-digit agility, plus a tail that granted extra agility bonuses and could stretch out, Lü Zhengchun—whose True Qi cultivation base was roughly at the Sequence 8 level—had utterly no power to fight back before Li Fei.
"Die, you monster!"
Lü Zhengchun was no utterly useless fool. Realizing catastrophe was upon him, he ignored the bloody wrist of his right hand and forcibly channeled his True Qi, drawing his saber with his left hand in a ringing "clang" and slashing upward in a reverse strike.
At this life-or-death juncture, he swung the strongest blow of his entire life, the brilliant blade-light blazing beyond measure, like a meteor surging against the current, carrying a tragic and resolute will.
"RUA!"
Facing this blow that sought life through death, Li Fei tilted her head back, the blazing firelight lighting up her puffed-out cheeks, and then a dazzling gout of flame gushed from her mouth.
Of all the martial arts—this was Fire · Evil Dragon's Breath · Ball!
Although Fireball was only a first-tier spell, the Charm Marks on Li Fei's abdomen had already formed the [Fireball Enhancement] rune, and combined with her over-two-hundred intelligence, her Advanced Meditation Technique, her Sequence rank, her class rank, and various other bonuses, its power had grown unbelievably strong.
The Demon Suppression Bureau's dark-iron saber twisted in an instant, droplets of molten iron trickling down, and a jade pendant at Lü Zhengchun's waist shattered along with it, warding off most of the damage—otherwise, this single Fireball might well have instantly slain some Sequence 8 level Transcendents.
"H-Heaven Realm monster!"
The life-saving treasure bestowed by his adoptive father had been broken so effortlessly; Lü Zhengchun's face filled with horror.
On the Demon-Sealing Continent, cultivation realms came in three tiers: Human, Earth, and Heaven; and a great power who broke through the Heaven Realm became an Earthly Immortal, wielding the might to fly through the sky and burrow through the earth, to make waterfalls flow in reverse—the most formidable among them could even overturn rivers and seas, crumble mountains and shatter peaks.
According to Enlos's realm system, the three realms of Human, Earth, and Heaven corresponded to Sequence 9, Sequence 8, and Sequence 7, while an Earthly Immortal was a mid-Sequence Transcendent.
"Indeed it is."
A streak of blood hung on Li Fei's radiantly smiling little face, making her look bewitching and demonically alluring, like a rose flowing with poison and fresh blood—a dangerous yet dazzling beauty.
"This'll hurt a bit, so bear with it, okay?"
She stepped lightly forward; then a great slap trailing a whistling gust of palm-wind dismantled Lü Zhengchun's resistance, and a kick sent him sprawling. After that, cleanly and neatly, she stomped his four limbs apart—crack, crack, crack—the crisp snaps like withered branches breaking, chilling enough to raise gooseflesh.
This was necessary work before an interrogation, to guard against a sneak attack.
The agony of bones shattering under brute force, shards driving into blood vessels and muscle, jolted Lü Zhengchun back to lucidity. He strained to lift his neck, his forehead soaked with sweat:
"Y-you can't kill me. My adoptive father is the Nine Thousand Years of this court... If you provoke my adoptive father, then even if you're a Heaven Realm monster, you'll surely have your tendons torn out and your skin flayed, left to die without a grave!"
"I don't like killing."
Li Fei crouched down with a beaming smile: "You're the one who came to my door looking for trouble, aren't you?"
"As long as you answer some questions honestly, I'll spare your life."
As she spoke, she turned her head and waved to Lilith.
Lilith walked over with a tense face.
Kind she may be, but she was, after all, an elite cultivated by the Magic Academy. Among Enlos's two great academies, fools who showed mercy to their enemies were rare indeed—even among the sweet and adorable members of the bridal class.
Culture and history had decreed that a continent whose main theme was war could never be merciful to its foes. No matter how kindhearted a great power might be, its glory was inevitably built upon the piled-up bones beneath its feet, and upon the blood and tears of the natives within the endless Folded Space.
Even in Loxibrook, which had settled into peaceful days, back when Viranean was being developed, no one waved a banner in protest over the town hall treating the natives too brutally.
Lilith took out a slender, thin awl and stabbed it into the spot over Lü Zhengchun's heart.
"First question: how many women have you forced yourself upon?"
Li Fei asked with a kindly, pleasant expression.
"Demoness, more than one Heaven Realm monster has died at my adoptive father's hands! And besides, the guards will be here any moment—"
Lü Zhengchun growled, harsh in voice and face, still trying to trot out his backer to cow Li Fei.
But Li Fei wasn't buying it in the least. She simply layered a Sensitivity Aura onto him, then picked up the Demon Suppression Bureau's standard-issue saber—still red-hot and warped—and stabbed it into his kidney a few times, neither deep nor shallow. Sprays of blood spurted with each squelching sound, and the excruciating pain left Lü Zhengchun convulsing and shrieking without end.
"I'll ask again: how many women have you forced yourself upon?"
Li Fei's smile didn't waver as she repeated her question in a patient, gentle tone.
"Th-three...."
Lü Zhengchun, his face like gold paper, answered in a stammer.
The sharp awl driven into his heart abruptly turned red, indicating that Lü Zhengchun was lying.
On the Continent of Enlos, where mind-type magic was highly developed, lie-detecting items were far from rare. Even Yusura, back then, had been able to produce a lie-detector to judge the truth of the claim that "Li Fei was the adopted daughter of the Magic Academy's dean," so naturally Lilith had prepared one as well.
"Liars have to swallow a thousand needles, you know."
Li Fei snapped her fingers, summoning several Moonlight Wolves, and jerked her chin.
With low growls, the Moonlight Wolves shook their heads and tore into the skin of Lü Zhengchun's face. Unable to move, Lü Zhengchun roared again and again, yet could not drive off these beasts and could only keep rolling about. The pain, deepened by the Sensitivity Aura, soon turned his roars into shrill, miserable wails—a horrifying sight that made every member of the Wang household's hair stand on end.
Li Fei folded her arms across her chest, her gaze deep and dark.
She hadn't asked those questions to uphold justice, but to break through his psychological defenses, so as to swiftly extract accurate intelligence.
After a moment, Li Fei waved the Moonlight Wolves back and, gazing at the mangled, unrecognizable Lü Zhengchun, said in a soft, gentle voice:
"Dare to lie to me again, and it won't be your face they bite. My good children will send you into the palace to serve the emperor."
At these words, Lü Zhengchun looked in terror at the vicious wolves that had already turned and were now eyeing him hungrily. Ignoring the pain of his broken leg bones, he forcibly clamped his legs together, then lifted his ghost-like face, eyes bulging, and said with a fierce front over inner cowardice:
"You demoness..."
"If I weren't a demoness, my fate might be even more wretched than yours is right now, Lord Lü."
Li Fei took no offense, saying gently:
"I'll ask you once more: how many women have you forced yourself upon?"
Blood streamed down Lü Zhengchun's face, pooling with his sweat beneath him, as he glared fixedly at Li Fei with a sinister, man-eating stare.
Yet facing that still-gentle, still-brilliant smile, an inexplicable chill struck his heart, and fear welled up from within.
Lü Zhengchun finally realized that this touchingly lovely, breathtaking beauty before him was more terrifying than any demon he had ever encountered.
"A few hundred... about fou—no, around five hundred. The exact number... I really can't remember, I swear I'm not lying to you."
Lü Zhengchun broke out in cold sweat, glancing now and then at the restless Moonlight Wolves, answering in a halting tone.
"Very good."
Li Fei nodded and moved on to the next question:
"How many men have you forced yourself upon?"
"...Sixteen."
Lü Zhengchun gave his answer after a moment's thought.
Seeing that he'd lost the will to resist, Li Fei got down to the main topic.
"What's your position in the Demon Suppression Bureau?"
"Duty Chief, and also a squad leader, in charge of..."
This time, Lü Zhengchun hesitated little, laying out the whole situation in full detail.
"What was your purpose in coming here? Who gave you your orders?"
Li Fei's pace of speech kept quickening. While probing for intelligence, she would abruptly ask questions she'd already asked, interspersing private, personal questions, and combined with the effect of the lie-detector, this ensured the reliability of the information.
"The elixir of longevity...."
Two hours later, Li Fei curled her lips, murmuring the most crucial piece of intelligence, and at the same moment slit Lü Zhengchun's throat with a single stroke.
"You, you..."
Lü Zhengchun's eyes nearly burst from their sockets, a mix of venomous hatred and terror in them, yet tears fell unstoppably from their corners—he didn't want to die.
In his dying moment, Lü Zhengchun had meant to demand why Li Fei hadn't kept her word, but amid gasps like a broken bellows, blood clogged his throat. He clutched desperately at his neck, choked on several mouthfuls of blood, and at last collapsed into the half-congealed pool of it.
[You have killed Lü Zhengchun. Gained 1,047 experience points.]
Li Fei turned a blind eye to the dead man's grief-stricken, indignant gaze and leisurely stretched.
Are you kidding? Setting aside the fact that this young lady's short on experience points, given the enormous grudge between us, was I supposed to keep you around to celebrate New Year's?
As for the Nine Thousand Years' revenge—Li Fei touched the Soul Gem in her bosom and wasn't the least bit worried.
With the intel in hand, this young lady's about to bail. Can the Demon Suppression Bureau track me by satellite? And even if I really do get caught... the one the Demon Suppression Bureau has on its wanted list is Li Fei. What's that got to do with me, Kaname Madoka?
Li Fei casually summoned several Children of the Jungle, ordered them to loot the corpses, then walked over to Squire Wang, who was mopping his brow without cease, and greeted him politely:
"Forgive the presumptuous visit; sorry to intrude."
"F-for Your Excellency to grace this place, my humble abode shines with radiance...."
Squire Wang bowed and scraped, his manner even more respectful and humble than when he'd dealt with Lü Zhengchun.
Seeing that Li Fei's attitude remained unclear, Squire Wang wiped his sweat again and, face piled high with smiles, launched into his lies:
"I'll hide nothing from you—I'd long heard that demons in this world come both good and bad. One as fine as Your Excellency is plainly a good demon who clearly distinguishes good from evil... It's only that that dog-thief Lü Zhengchun held such power, and out of concern for my aged parents and my wife and daughters, I had no choice but to feign compliance...."
On an ordinary day, Squire Wang—even were he handing over his wife and daughters—would never have dared, before the eyes of the crowd, to breathe half a word of ill against the Demon Suppression Bureau.
But now that Lü Zhengchun, the Nine Thousand Years' adopted son, had died in his own manor, Squire Wang knew full well that even with a hundred mouths he could never explain himself. Once the Demon Suppression Bureau's investigators arrived, the inevitable outcome was a ruined household and lives lost. Notorious sayings like "Better to run into a demon than provoke the Demon Suppression Bureau" and "They scrape the very heavens three feet lower" were not mere idle talk.
Right now he wanted nothing more than to send off this Heaven Realm demoness as soon as possible, then pack up his valuables and flee with his whole family in tow.
"Your Excellency may rest assured—not half a word of today's affair shall ever get out. If it does, may demons devour me and my soul never find rebirth!"
Squire Wang swore a solemn oath.
Li Fei smiled without a word.
While interrogating for intel just now, she had kept her eyes and ears open in every direction, lest someone slip away to alert the authorities and cause her trouble.
And Li Fei had also keenly noticed that when Lü Zhengchun answered "four or five hundred," those who showed indignation and sympathy—Lilith and Qiao'er included—numbered fewer than the fingers of one hand. The rest, the vast majority, showed envy, drooling desire, jealousy... looking as though they wished they could take his place—some had even gotten aroused!
Disgusting! Bah, disgusting! Even I don't do the whole forcing-myself-on-people thing, right, Miss Grace?
Counting on this bunch to keep their mouths shut would be even less reliable than believing a sow could climb a tree.
Not to mention, even an upright gentleman couldn't necessarily hold out while his wife, children, and elderly kin were all being tortured together.
Li Fei shot a regretful glance at Lilith.
Killing and torturing enemies was one thing—reasonable enough—but if she pulled off the deed of murdering to silence witnesses and then making off with the money, this girl would probably cut her hair and sever their bond for good.
"Squire Wang, it's not that I don't trust you, but you see, ever since I was little I've had scarcely any sense of security, and I must always be cautious and careful in everything—no?"
Li Fei whispered something to Lilith, and then the golden-haired girl, puzzled, drew a phone from her spatial ring and handed it to Li Fei.
Amid the uneasy expressions of Squire Wang and the others, Li Fei waved the phone about, then opened the camera function and gave a brilliant smile:
"I've got a magic tool here, and its function is recording. How to explain exactly what it does... well, it can record everything that happened—both image and sound—exactly as it occurred."
Li Fei demonstrated it herself, sweetly flashing a 'yay' peace sign at the lens, then played it back for them in front of everyone.
Then Li Fei aimed the camera at them and said cheerfully:
"Would everyone please deliver a speech of at least a hundred words about that Nine Thousand Years of the Demon Suppression Bureau, his ancestors, and his female relatives? That way, we'll all be in the same boat."
"Anyone who's unwilling wants to report me—and wanting to report me means wanting to kill me..."
In that soft, melodious tone, every last one of them broke out in cold sweat.
They realized that the domineering, do-any-evil Demon Suppression Bureau had, in the end, provoked a monster more sinister, more vicious, and more batshit insane than they were.
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