Chapter 131: Demons and Evil Spirits Clash Outside the Crimson Flame Cave

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“Clang…”

The sound of weapons colliding came from not far below the mountain. A moment later, several flashes of light flickered before Bai Mu’s eyes, and three living figures materialized a dozen or so meters to his left.

There were two men and one woman. The woman wore a green gown that fell all the way to the ground and appeared to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Her tender, slightly chubby face was exceedingly adorable.

She now held a radiant sword in her hand and stood shoulder to shoulder with a tall man clad in golden armor. He did not look much older than she was—at most, a little over twenty.

With thick brows and large eyes, he was strikingly handsome. Clutched in his hand was a hooked blade, its curved tip forged with a rounded elegance, as pure and bright as a newly risen crescent moon.

Sweat covered both their faces. The green-clad girl’s long skirt was even soaked through, revealing the graceful contours of her figure.

Opposite them stood a compact, sturdy middle-aged man. Though his build was unremarkable, his appearance was far from plain. He was not handsome in the conventional sense, but his face possessed a resolute, unyielding quality.

What surprised Bai Mu most, however, was the gray aura that seemed to emanate from the man’s body.

That aura was all too familiar to Bai Mu.

Several days earlier, Fan Sheng had been rendered unconscious by this very aura. When Bai Mu had confronted Guige and Chunyu Ji outside Fuxi Village, both of them had carried the same gray aura as well.

Clearly, this compact, powerful middle-aged man in blue was a member of the Southern Wasteland’s Evil Clan.

While Bai Mu examined them one by one, the three combatants resumed their battle.

The hooked blade traced a graceful arc beneath the sunlight before stabbing toward the blue-clad man’s abdomen like a streak of silver. A dense demonic aura surrounded the blade, giving it an exceptionally cold and sinister appearance.

The adorable girl seized the opportunity to thrust her sword as well, aiming like a bolt of thunder at the man’s upper body.

One attacked high and the other low. Their coordination was undeniably flawless; they were clearly longtime partners.

The blue-clad man, however, was evidently no easy opponent. As the sword and hooked blade thrust straight toward him, he neither dodged nor retreated. Instead, he remained where he stood and let out a cold laugh. He then swept his palm upward, sending two streams of sinister energy surging forth. Though launched later, they arrived first, forcing the golden-armored man and the adorable girl to stagger backward.

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The green-skirted girl bore the brunt of it. Since her sword had been driven forward with such urgency, she was thrown into an especially frantic retreat when she tried to evade the sinister energy.

After flying backward several yards, she was on the verge of falling into the formation that had previously attacked Bai Mu.

Even a stone, with all its hardness, had been roasted by the invisible waves of heat within that formation until it was reduced to dust. If the girl’s flesh-and-blood body fell into it, would she not be left without even a corpse?

At that critical moment, Bai Mu slammed both feet into the ground. His body transformed into a fleeting shadow and shot toward the girl as she fell.

Just as she was about to drop into the formation, Bai Mu’s powerful arm swept around her and pulled her into his embrace. With a twist of his waist in midair, he flew swiftly back beyond the formation.

Before he could loosen his hold, a sharp slap rang out against his face. His cheek immediately began to burn with pain—it was the girl’s hand that had struck him.

“You… Why did you hit me?” Bai Mu darkened his expression and demanded angrily, staring at the girl in his arms.

“I…”

The girl awkwardly glanced at her own palm from the corner of her eye, her face filled with bewilderment.

It seemed that she had reacted instinctively just moments earlier and slapped him without thinking. Yet after striking him, she realized that she had acted improperly and froze in Bai Mu’s embrace, unsure what to do.

This charming green-clad girl was none other than Qingluo, princess of the demon race. The golden-armored man wielding the hooked blade was naturally Nal’an, heir to the demon throne.

As for the middle-aged man in blue, he was the famous Chi Yan, one of the Eight Trees of Guilin.

The three had originally been fighting fiercely in the forest. But sharp-eyed Chi Yan seemed to notice that someone had already reached the mountaintop. He therefore pretended to be unable to withstand Qingluo and Nal’an, using the opportunity to flee toward the mountain.

Unfortunately, the demon prince and princess possessed no real combat experience. Believing that they had defeated the renowned ancient giant fiend He Yan, they took advantage of their apparent upper hand and pursued him up the mountain with all their might.

In truth, given Nal’an and Qingluo’s cultivation, even if they studied under the Demon Saint for several hundred years, they would still have no chance of defeating any one of the Eight Trees of Guilin.

Sadly, the two had grown accustomed to being pampered within the demon race and had no understanding of the principle that one should never pursue a retreating enemy too far.

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In their competitiveness and pride, the princess and the heir resembled the once-renowned princess of the demon race, Her Highness Xuan Qiu. Yet Xuan Qiu had possessed tremendous strength to back up her arrogance, and besides, since making her debut, she had suffered defeat only twice.

The first was at Floating Jade Mountain, where she was utterly defeated by the God of War Fan Xian and lost her treasured weapon, the Jade-Cooled Flute.

The second came after she emerged from seclusion and intended to return to Floating Jade Mountain to avenge her humiliation. However, midway there, she insulted Fairy Liuli and was brutally beaten by her, then driven back to the Wilderness of Cangwu, where she dared not show herself again.

Though both defeats had been devastating, she had lost with honor. After all, ordinary people did not even have the qualifications to stand before the God of War.

For Xuan Qiu to be successively tormented by two Gods of War, one male and one female, was itself no small achievement.

The demon prince and princess, on the other hand, were simply overestimating themselves. Of course, this too was related to the environment in which they had grown up. They had been confined within Pimu Earth Mound since childhood and knew nothing of the outside world, which was why they had been foolish enough to pursue the ancient giant fiend Chi Yan.

As for Qingluo, after slapping Bai Mu, she seemed to realize that her behavior had been somewhat rash. Thinking it over, she understood that although the white-robed youth’s attempt to save her had been a little reckless, he had harbored no ill intent.

Realizing that she had struck him only because she had been flustered by the impropriety of physical contact between men and women, her face flushed crimson. She stood there in a daze, unable to utter a single word.

Bai Mu was a broad-minded man. Seeing the embarrassment on the girl’s face, he quickly released her with his left arm and calmly reminded her, “You nearly burned to death just now.”

“I did?”

Qingluo stared blankly at Bai Mu, then looked toward the place where she had almost fallen. Confusion filled her eyes.

“But that’s just an empty patch of ground. How could it possibly have burned me to death?”

“You don’t believe me?”

Bai Mu shrugged helplessly, bent down, and picked up a small stone. Under the watchful eyes of the three combatants, he threw it onto the open ground before the cave entrance.

The stone traced a graceful arc through the air and landed firmly on the ground. A sizzling sound immediately rang in everyone’s ears. White smoke rose from the stone, and in the blink of an eye, it crumbled into ash and vanished.

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