Chapter 20 : Chapter 20
Chapter 20: Demon Beast Realms
There had been three Demon Beasts at the Aperture Opening Realm within the rat tide.
Lu Zhan had just slain one of them. There were still two left, but neither of them was the Rat King.
Had the Rat King really escaped?
Both Lu Zhan and Zhou Hong looked rather grim. If the Rat King truly got away, the mission reward would likely be heavily reduced.
They had gone to such lengths for this. If everything fell short at the final moment, how could they possibly accept it?
Bzzz... bzzz... bzzz...
Zhou Hong’s phone suddenly began to vibrate.
He pressed the answer button.
Taking advantage of the moment, Lu Zhan quickly counted up his gains from this trip.
He opened the Slaughter Points section.
【Slaughter Points: 6000】
Lu Zhan looked at his personal panel and froze slightly.
He had not expected a single D-rank mission to yield this much. Slaughter Points alone had reached a full 6000.
On top of that, six Talent Fragments and three Aperture Opening Pills had dropped as well.
Lu Zhan flipped back through the history log again.
“And that is not even the full harvest from this trip. If I kill the Rat King, I can still gain at least another two thousand or so Slaughter Points.”
“And more importantly, there is the system mission reward. That is the Immunity to All Poisons talent.”
“So the Rat King...”
“Must. Die.”
A cold killing intent filled Lu Zhan’s eyes.
After Zhou Hong hung up, his expression turned somewhat ugly.
“Sister Tao?”
Lu Zhan guessed.
“Yes.” Zhou Hong gave a bitter smile. “She just killed a Demon Beast at the Aperture Opening Realm, but it was not the Rat King. So that Rat King must have headed toward Chen Qing’s side.”
There was no doubt that Chen Qing’s side was the weakest link.
Lu Zhan frowned.
Had Demon Beasts really become this troublesome after developing intelligence?
“Call Chen Qing and ask what is happening over there.”
Lu Zhan gave the order at once.
Zhou Hong immediately dialed the number. A moment later, he lowered the phone and shook his head.
“Brother Lu, Chen Qing did not answer.”
Lu Zhan did not hesitate in the slightest.
“Come on. Let us go take a look at Chen Qing’s side.”
The two of them launched into motion and sped toward the area Chen Qing was responsible for.
But Lu Zhan kept feeling that there was something strange about all of this.
As for what exactly felt strange, he could not quite say.
On Chen Qing’s side, he had just finished clearing out the rat swarm and was about to call to check on Lu Zhan and the others.
Then Lu Zhan and Zhou Hong arrived.
“Brother Lu, Zhou Hong, why did you two come over here?”
Seeing the two of them arrive together, Chen Qing was clearly startled, and quickly put away his phone before greeting them.
He was rather surprised. Lu Zhan’s direction had contained the largest rat swarm and the strongest enemies.
Yet he had somehow cleared it even faster than the three of them had.
“Hm? You did not run into the Rat King?”
Zhou Hong was puzzled.
“No. I thought the Rat King had gone to your side.”
Chen Qing shook his head.
When the entire apartment building collapsed earlier, the dust had been so thick that none of them had been able to tell where the Rat King had gone.
“Back!”
Lu Zhan turned around abruptly.
“The Rat King never intended to escape at all. It scattered the rat swarm in all directions to create chaos, just so we would misjudge the situation and think it was trying to slip away in the confusion.”
“In reality, it pulled a Cicada Slough stratagem.”
“Interesting. That rat is actually playing the Thirty-Six Stratagems against humans.”
Lu Zhan’s eyes were deep and dark, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“Huh? Brother Lu, you mean we actually fell for the Rat King’s scheme?”
Chen Qing was dumbfounded.
As he ran, Zhou Hong thought it over briefly.
The more he considered it, the more reasonable Lu Zhan’s analysis seemed.
“Perhaps we underestimated the intelligence of Demon Beasts. No wonder the first Demon Beast realm is called the Spirit-Awakening Realm. Now that I think about it, the name truly is fitting.”
Zhou Hong explained while running.
“Oh? Demon Beasts have their own realms too?”
As Lu Zhan raced back toward the collapsed apartment building, he asked the question.
Zhou Hong kept close behind and replied at high speed, “In the past, people classified Demon Beast realms the same way they classified human realms.”
“But later, some people discovered that Demon Beasts cultivate somewhat differently from humans, so Demon Beast realms were divided into three stages and nine realms.”
After all, the Demon Extermination Bureau had only existed for a short time.
Its various systems were still rather chaotic, but with time, they would surely become more and more refined.
Zhou Hong continued, “The three stages for Demon Beasts are Lesser Demon, Shape-Shifting Great Demon, and Transcendent Great Demon.”
“From low to high, the nine realms are: Spirit-Awakened Lesser Demon, Qi-Gathering Demon Acolyte, Form-Condensing Demon Guard, Pattern-Forming Demon Warrior, Spirit-Commanding Demon General, and Divine-Communing Demon Master.”
“Of course, for convenience, most people just shorten the realm names.”
By the time they finished speaking, the group had already returned to Building One.
Looking at the pitch-black hole in the ground, Lu Zhan turned to Zhou Hong and asked, “Wasn’t it supposed to be nine realms? Where are the other three?”
“The last three realms are actually quite similar to those of humans, so they are addressed by titles instead. For example, the Seventh Realm is called Demon King, and after that come Demon Emperor and Demon God.”
Tao Xiao’an’s face was deathly pale, and her breathing was unsteady.
She had already received Zhou Hong’s message earlier, so she had been waiting here in advance.
“Sister Tao, are you alright?”
Seeing how weak her aura had become, Zhou Hong asked with concern.
Tao Xiao’an shook her head and gave a bitter smile.
“I am fine. You know how it is—within the same realm, humans are naturally at a disadvantage compared to Demon Beasts.”
“Only after breaking through to the Yuan Gang Realm do humans truly stand on the same starting line as Demon Beasts.”
“This time, I only managed to kill that Demon Beast at the Aperture Opening Realm because I had mastered a martial art at the Major Mastery stage.”
“Otherwise, it is hard to say who would have killed whom.”
Back in the underground parking garage, when she had watched Lu Zhan slaughtering his way through everything, she had assumed that Demon Beast at the Aperture Opening Realm would not be much to speak of either.
Only after actually fighting one herself did she understand just how terrifying the bodies of Demon Beasts truly were.
“The Yuan Gang Realm?” Lu Zhan was puzzled. That was the fourth realm of Martial Artists. “Why do you say that once one reaches the Yuan Gang Realm, humans can stand on the same starting line as Demon Beasts?”
Lu Zhan leaped straight into the pitch-black hole. Every time he landed, his footing struck precisely on some protruding part of the rubble.
Zhou Hong and Tao Xiao’an hurried after him with flashlights in hand.
At the same time, Zhou Hong did not forget to explain, “Because experts at the Yuan Gang Realm can comprehend Intent.”
“That sort of power on the spiritual level can ignore part of the physical advantage of Demon Beasts and may even suppress them in turn.”
“Intent?”
“Yes. In truth, the first three realms of Martial Artists all revolve around sensing qi, absorbing it, and making a rudimentary use of it.”
“The Qi Condensation Realm is mainly about gathering qi into the body. At this stage, a Martial Artist’s use of qi is mainly to attach Spiritual Energy to a weapon and increase its killing power.”
“Once one reaches the Aperture Opening Realm and opens an aperture, Spiritual Energy can be extended beyond the weapon.”
“As for the Divine Sea Realm, I have heard that this realm involves the initial formation of Divine Sense. So a Martial Artist’s qi can leave the body to attack, and one can even glide briefly through the air.”
As Lu Zhan continued falling at high speed, a massive slab of concrete suddenly appeared ahead, slanted across his path and blocking the way.
His figure did not slow in the slightest. At some point, his right hand had already come to rest on the saber hilt.
In the next moment, crimson light flared in the black underground tunnel.
Streak after streak of saber aura carved into the giant slab.
The slab instantly exploded into a cloud of powder.
“Projecting Spiritual Energy away from the body... is it really that difficult?”
Lu Zhan’s voice drifted through the dust.
“I feel that as long as one’s foundation is solid enough, and one’s control over qi is fine enough, these applications should simply... come naturally.”
The tunnel fell into a brief dead silence, broken only by the crackling sound of gravel hitting the ground.
This was exhausting.
Every one of them had been recruited into the Demon Extermination Bureau as an elite, yet at this moment, Lu Zhan had crushed their confidence so thoroughly that not a shred remained.
“Brother Lu, do you think everyone is a monster like you?”