Chapter 380: Meeting

Gu Qing Shan stuck close to the tunnel walls as he descended.

The cold wind filled the entire dark tunnel, occasionally air currents would even break out from beneath the walls, blowing towards the center.

Gu Qing Shan kept feeling a dark shadow over himself.

A notification telling him of his current situation appeared on the War God UI.

[Currently passing the Huang Quan tunnel]

[There are demons blocking the path ahead, please wait for reaffirm before moving forward]

[Reaffirmation complete, the highest level of demons ahead is Ascended realm late stage, prepare for battle]

Gu Qing Shan released his inner sight and moved forward with his sword in hand.

To him, there was nothing easier against those at the same realm than straight up killing them.

Even if they’re Sainted realm, with Gu Qing Shan’s abilities as a sword saint, he would still be able to put up a good fight.

Not too long after, the second battle ended.

Gu Qing Shan continued downwards.

He was holding both the Chao Yin sword and Earth sword without putting them away.

It can’t be helped, he has to maintain his guard all the way down.

Time slowly passed.

At a certain point, Gu Qing Shan suddenly stopped.

There was nothing of note within the range of his inner sight.

But Gu Qing Shan still silently took a few steps back.

It wasn’t until he felt slightly at ease again did he stop backing off.

He carefully sat down on the tunnel wall, attentively sensing any faint presence drifting about in the darkness.

The darkness seemed to have solidified, becoming deep and dead.

After a while, Gu Qing Shan finally caught a hint of an unknown presence.

This essence was what caused him to feel uneasy before.

He carefully wrapped the presence with his inner sight, meticulously studying it.

Without any warning, a terrifying presence appeared out of nowhere.

———it was the same feeling as the moment that blade of the guillotine drops.

A sudden, terrifying presence that struck his entire soul.

Even a person who was never approached by such a feeling before could easily escape.

Afterall, there was only the tiniest hint of presence here.

But Gu Qing Shan didn’t back off.

His body trembled uncontrollably.

Because it was too sudden.

And because he knew, what kind of creature was waiting for him deeper in the tunnel.

Gu Qing Shan looked down below.

Very deep in the tunnel, extremely far away from him.

Rays of extremely weak presence drifted from the body of the demonic god, following the wind back up to the tunnel.

This presence struck deep into Gu Qing Shan’s senses, reminding him of some things that happened in the past.

“Who would’ve thought” Gu Qing Shan silently muttered.

He inhaled deeply, then exhaled and repeat

After a bit, he finally regained his composure.

In his past life, the final moment where he sacrificed himself to kill that demonic god was permanently engraved in his mind.

He hasn’t forgotten that demonic god’s presence, and definitely not the terrifying feeling that the demonic god brought people around.

He forced himself to never forget anything and everything that’s related to the demonic god.

Because forgetting the past is the same as betrayal.

Gu Qing Shan woke up from his remembrance.

He started to consider whether or not to continue this investigation.

A Demon Lord was watching over the path to Huang Quan.

This is hard.

Suddenly, within the darkness not too far away, a voice could be heard.

“Save… save me…”

The voice was so faint it sounded like mosquitoes, but contained a clear desperation, as if it’ll wither away at any moment.

Gu Qing Shan froze.

From listening to the voice, he guessed that whoever is calling for help is quite far away from the Demon Lord, but quite close to Gu Qing Shan.

But Gu Qing Shan didn’t move forward, instead he backed off, flying as fast as he could towards where he came.

At the same time, two notifications appeared on the War God UI.

[Currently passing through the last segment of the path to Huang Quan]

The next notification was blood-red.

[There is a demonic god guarding the path ahead, if the user moves forward, being instantly killed is the only possible result]

Gu Qing Shan back off more and more until he finally reached a place he deemed safe.

Sitting down on the steep vertical tunnel wall, he placed the Chao Yin sword down.

“Bring that person to me, be careful not to be noticed” Gu Qing Shan whispered.

The Chao Yin sword let out a ‘wu wu’ sound, stuck close to the walls and flew down without a sound.

After an unknown amount of time.

The Chao Yin sword brought someone back.

At about 20 meters away from Gu Qing Shan, the Chao Yin sword stopped.

Gu Qing Shan released his inner sight to check that person.

The person was similar to a melted candle, only capable of crawling slowly on the ground, unable to make any movements that a normal human can.

“Ho—oiii ———oi—–o!”

The man was wheezing for breath, but his situation only got worse and worse, incapable of even speaking clearly.

“You can’t be saved anymore” Gu Qing Shan mumbled.

The sword flashed.

Countless tiny sword phantoms appeared, dicing the man into a puddle of blood.

A figure escaped from the blood.

It was a soul.

As soon as the soul appeared, he first looked down at his own body.

When he found out that he was dead, he appeared incredibly glad.

This soul immediately thanked Gu Qing Shan: “You’ve helped me so much, I’ll be transported away by the pre-programmed spell soon, so we’ll have to keep it short”

“There’s no need to thank me, why are you here? And with your body no less?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

The soul answered: “For the last few months, at regular intervals, I would always come here to study the demons”

Gu Qing Shan couldn’t believe what he was hearing: “There are so many different species of demons, why did you even try to do such a thing? Aren’t you afraid you’ll meet a demon that you can’t win against?”

The soul sighed: “It wasn’t until the last moments until my death did I know I was so immersed in studying the unknown that I didn’t notice the danger hidden within”

“Thank you for killing me and not letting me become a part of that demonic god, this is such a huge favor that you did for me, how could I ever repay you?”

“How did you come here with your own body?”

“Hm? This is a very crude method” the soul made a complicated expression.

“It’s because I don’t have a way to eject my soul from my body that I had to use my own body to come here”

“Truthfully, using the body to come here is much more dangerous, because the body is weak and easy to be killed, as you saw”

Gu Qing Shan nodded.

The soul seemed to sense something and spoke: “I’ll have to return to my world soon, I already prepared a secondary vessel for my soul over there”

“As repayment, I’ll tell you a secret before I go”

“Please go ahead”

The soul then arranged his words a bit and spoke: “After countless years of study, I believe that a certain unique ‘thing’ is supporting the demons”

“A unique ‘thing’?”

“Yes, an inexplicable existence that’s helping the demons grow quicker”

“This thing differs completely between different levels of demon species”

“If it’s as you said, then what exactly is that thing?”

“I don’t know either, but I know that it exists”

The soul appeared frightened.

“Yeah, it definitely exists, definitely”

He then started chanting a long incantation.

Clang!

There was a sound of metal hitting the ground.

Gu Qing Shan looked down to see a small metallic badge rolling on the ground.

The badge then jumped up by itself, hovering in front of the soul.

“I’ll have to go now, this is our Spire Association insignia, we don’t give this to anyone except those that gives us a lot of support”

“Take it, later on, if you meet one of our people, just give this to them, they’ll definitely help you”

“I really have to go now, farewell”

With a tiny ‘pop’, the soul disappeared without a trace.

The metal badge slowly hovered over to Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan received it.

Printed on the badge was a towering spire standing tall on a red hill.

Gu Qing Shan felt this spire to be a bit familiar.

It almost looked like a lighthouse that he saw during one of his trips through the space vortex.

Does that mean they are a group that builds their roots within the space vortex?

Gu Qing Shan put the insignia away and started thinking about what the person said before he left.

“Helping the demons grow quicker ——” Gu Qing Shan muses.

Something flashed through his mind as he recalled a certain conversation they had in Bai Hua sect not too long ago.

Before the semester examination, Bai Hua sect’s master and disciples once spoke about the demons.

Qin Xiao Lou sighed: “A new Sainted realm demon beast appear every once in a while, but our humanity only managed to cultivate a total of 3 Sainted realm even after all these years”

“I really don’t understand, is it that easy for demon beasts to cultivate and reach Sainted realm?”

Qin Xiao Lou was very confused about that.

At the time, Bai Hua Fairy told them: “The Sainted realm demons beasts have an advantage purely from being more numerous, each one of them isn’t even enough for me to fight with one hand”

“Sorrow and Xuanyuan also feel the same”

“We’re also really annoyed ——-we’re clearly much stronger, but because there are so many of them, we can’t kill them all. We can’t even fight with all our power, because once we slip up and any one of us dies, the overall power of humanity would decrease, putting us in an extremely dangerous position”

“This is also why we won’t arbitrarily act”

This was what Bai Hua Fairy originally said.

At the time, Gu Qing Shan had only just joined the sect, and he didn’t think much of it so he just put it at the back of his head.

But now, deep in this dark tunnel, he heard a soul from another world mentioning a different mystery that explains said phenomenon.

Gu Qing Shan finally had to look at this problem face on.

“Demons… there is something helping them…” he muttered.

Then what would that be?

Note:

Demon Lord vs demonic god: This is a part of the author’s writing that is very confusing since the same character is called both the “Demon Lord” and “demonic god”. For the sake of consistency, and from clarifications of later chapters, “Demon Lord” is a type of demon, while “demonic god” is the power level of said demon.