Turns Out I'm the Real Monster?!

The clifftop was a wreck, littered with the signs of battle. Shattered rocks and patches of scorched earth were everywhere, along with pools of blood that had yet to dry.

Jiang Mu peered over the edge of the cliff.

A blast of scorching air rushed up to meet him, carrying the pungent stench of sulfur and burning, as if the chasm below opened into a furnace.

Jiang Mu immediately activated the *True Art of the Profound Gang*.

A faint golden Protective Gang Qi emerged from his body, warding off the searing wave of heat.

He focused his gaze and tried his best to see into the depths.

Below him was a roiling, surging miasma of dark red fog, like vapor rising from magma, its depths bottomless.

Occasionally, crimson sparks or flakes of ash would drift up from the fog.

Ji Hongyuan’s figure appeared beside him.

She stood at the cliff’s edge, glanced down, and narrowed her dark golden eyes. "Don’t bother looking," she said faintly.

"This is a Great Demon’s blood-refining ground, and it contains the lingering aura of a Demon Dragon.

Forget a Fifth Realm Cultivator—even an Eighth Realm expert would surely perish without a trace if they fell in, eroded by this blood-refining Evil Qi and the toxic miasma of earthfire."

Jiang Mu stared blankly into the abyss, not saying a word.

The mountain wind swept past with a mournful cry.

After a long moment,

he crouched down.

From a sharp rock at the cliff’s edge, he picked up a bloodstained scrap of cloth.

It was a piece from Tang Guixin’s clothes.

Jiang Mu clenched the scrap tightly in his palm, the coarse fabric chafing his skin.

"Aunt Tang..."

He closed his eyes, his expression still cold and detached.

But on closer inspection, one could see his tightly pressed lips trembling slightly, the muscles in his jaw clenched taut.

He and Tang Guixin had actually known each other for a very short time.

It wasn’t as if they had a deep, unforgettable bond.

But because he resembled her son who had died young, the cheerful, warm-hearted woman had shown him nothing but kindness. She treated him like a close junior, fussing over his well-being and even giving him a protective Jade Pendant.

That kind of selfless, purely familial warmth and care was something Jiang Mu had rarely experienced since transmigrating to this world.

It was a warmth that felt almost like "home."

He had never enjoyed it, neither before nor after his transmigration.

Though fleeting, it had genuinely warmed a lonely corner of his heart.

He had once solemnly promised that if he ever married, he would have her sit in the seat of honor and receive a cup of tea from his wife.

But now...

Jiang Mu slowly opened his eyes. Within them, it was as if a deep pool had frozen solid, and yet as if molten rock was churning beneath.

He tucked the scrap of cloth into his robes.

Then, he turned and walked toward Ming Cuicui and the others.

"Where is Du Yuanfei?"

Jiang Mu came to a stop before Ming Cuicui, his voice calm.

Ming Cuicui wiped away her tears and sobbed,

"There... there were over a hundred Demons surrounding us, led by two Tier Five Great Demons.

After Sister Tang was knocked off the cliff, we were no match for them at all.

They killed who they could and captured the rest...

Master Du was also captured by a Demon. It looks like... he’s probably done for, too."

’Captured?’

A cold, mocking glint flashed in Jiang Mu’s eyes.

’What a piece of work, that Du Yuanfei!’

’Still putting on an act, even at a time like this.’

’Even people on the brink of death like Ming Cuicui were kept in the dark, truly believing he’d been abducted by Demons.’

’You Dashan probably only realized in the moment he was stabbed in the back that he had been betrayed by the superior he trusted most.’

"Du Yuanfei is a traitor," Jiang Mu said flatly. "The so-called rescue was just a pretense he set up."

"What!?"

Hearing this, Ming Cuicui, Zhu Chang, and the others looked as if they had been struck by lightning.

Jiang Mu didn’t explain further.

He turned, walked over to the Demon that had been maimed into a limbless torso, planted a foot on its chest, and looked down at it.

"I heard you mention a stronghold earlier. Where is it?"

The Demon leader grimaced in pain, baring its teeth. It was about to say something defiant.

SHINK!

Jiang Mu’s long saber stabbed into its abdomen. With a twist of the blade, he lifted a flap of skin and flesh, then began to slowly peel it upward.

As if he were skinning it alive.

The Demon let out a heart-rending scream.

His face devoid of expression, Jiang Mu flicked his wrist, and the blade continued its upward path.

"Don’t waste my time. For every moment you delay, I’ll peel off another strip of your skin."

"AAAAAH! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!"

The Demon leader had never encountered such a ruthless person before. Scared out of its wits, it lost all bravado. Trembling, it raised its only remaining, severed hand and pointed toward the silhouette of a distant mountain valley.

"It’s over there... Red Forest Valley... Just keep going... keep going straight and you’ll see it..."

SHLICK!

A flash of the blade, and the Demon’s head rolled to the ground.

Jiang Mu absorbed the Demonic Qi from all the Demons there, then said to Ming Cuicui:

"You all go and rendezvous with Hall Master Xu Fu first. It’s safer there.

When my two subordinates arrive with the carriage, go back to Yan City with them directly. You don’t need to wait for me.

I will find you when I’m finished here."

"Lord Jiang, where are you going?" Zhu Chang asked anxiously.

Jiang Mu didn’t turn back. He simply hefted his saber and began walking, step by step, toward Red Forest Valley.

"To kill some beasts."

"And to collect a debt."

Ming Cuicui watched the man’s resolute and lonely back disappear into the vast darkness of the night, and her tears began to fall uncontrollably again.

...

...

Traveling at high speed, Jiang Mu arrived at Red Forest Valley about an incense stick’s time later.

Demons patrolled the valley entrance, and from within, the faint light of fires and a clamor of noise could be perceived.

Jiang Mu hid on a high slope outside the valley, focusing his gaze to get a better look.

Inside the valley, numerous crude wooden huts and stone caves had been built against the mountainside. It was clearly a Demon stronghold of considerable size.

The flickering shadows of Demons were everywhere; there were many of them.

And in a clearing in the middle of the valley sat an enormous Pig Demon.

Its appearance and aura were extremely similar to the Pig Demon Leader that Ji Hongyuan had slain in Li Family Village, but it seemed a size larger, and the fluctuations of its Demonic Power were far more savage and violent.