Archfiend Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Vermillion Snow

"That's right…" Vulture glanced at him and laughed: "Why? Mr. Xu, you…"

"I just asking about it." Xu Yangyi shut his eyes to rest.

After the three left, the airplane fell into silence once again.

Forty minutes later, the airplane steadily stopped and descended. After taking a car for another hour, they finally trod into the both brilliant and famous ancient foundation of China's history — Nantong's Fengyi City.

Fengyi City was the capital of Nantong Province. It had the manpower of a major province, located in the northwest and was the heart where financial resources came together. Even if the western region couldn't compare to the development and prosperity of the eastern region, at this time and this moment, it was still like a lantern blazing brightly. 

With towering buildings and neon lights that cut across the horizon, the capital was decorated with all kinds of flashing billboards, giving it a magnificence like Heaven's palace. It was midsummer, and men and women wore attractive clothing, becoming the most vibrant footnote in the scenery of the night. Waves of moving cars performed a symphony that caused people to sleep soundly through the night.

Ten students, no, soon they wouldn't be students anymore, looked towards the bustling Fengyi City somewhat spellbound. 

Heavens Law was a militarized administration. They couldn't leave for ten-odd years, so all that they knew came from the television. When they were inducted to Heavens Law, all of them didn't exceed ten years of age.

They knew that there was city called Shanghai in the east, and it was the nexus of China's trends and financials. They knew that to the north, there was government city called Beijing. It was China's political center and where Heavens Law's central headquarters was located, as well… however, this was the first time they had seen everything.

Xu Yangyi was like this too. He was born in a small town in the north, and had long ago lost the image of a city within his memories. The only thing that remained was a vague destruction. Eight years later, he had cut straight across China to the western part of a major province, Nantong Province. In regards to everything before his eyes, he was like a sponge, silently absorbing it and swiftly adapting to it.

A group of superhumans trained by humanity, inhumans, were already standing wordlessly in the shadow of Fengyi City.

All of a sudden, his eyes suddenly flashed. His body nearly reflexively braced itself.

A gaze...

His five senses exceeded cultivators of the same realm by over a third. He had clearly felt a blade-like gaze a moment ago coldly sweeping over his body!

A sharp blade, icy-cold and penetrating, yet without the least concern. It was a like a tiger watching its prey, permeating the air with a murderous aura, something that one absolutely couldn't lower their guard around. 

Such a feeling… made his body go numb from head to toe!

It was a bone-penetrating strength… He pursed his lips and sucked in deeply, suddenly looking towards where the gaze was drifting over from.

In the next second, the towering foe stood up from where they were.

Their location was inside a place called the Triumphant Virtue Plaza. Opposite to it was a people's park where a crowd of old men and women were dancing in the square at night, draped under the spill of light. There were several pairs of men and women standing at the side of the road waving for a taxi, bearing expressions that were a tad bit impatient. Behind them, there was a building over fifty stories, the Triumphant Virtue Tower.

A building of flowing light and vibrant color. Yet the satisfied crowd were simply incapable of hiding from the gaze of the death god at the top! 

A gentle gaze seemed to make the air freeze!

At the summit of the Triumphant Virtue Tower, there was a white nine-tailed fox no less than a hundred meters in length. Beneath the illumination moon light, it was like a god overlooking the world. Its eyes were brilliant like rubies, carrying a hazy teasing and killing aura, like a monarch swiftly roaming through a crowd of officials, sweeping its eyes the crowd below!

"Swish…" The night wind gently blew, and its body of snow-white fur formed a billow of white surging up and turbulently, making it indistinguishable from moonlight or a fur coat. The nine silvery fox tails were gracefully poised at the top of the Triumphant Virtue Tower, and its sharp claws lazily propped its lower jaw, like a pure silver throne of a god!

"Thump… Thump…" In that split second where Xu Yangyi's gaze met the gigantic fox for the first time, he nearly felt the blood of his entire body roil madly! He simply couldn't control his body and shake out of it!

Power… A power that was incapable of being imagined! It was a kind of situation like leisurely strolling through a tempest on the ocean surface. Already, it made his heart unable restrain itself from frantically speeding up! It was like a drum beating at the side of his ear!

His intuition informed him that if he moved, he wouldn't live longer than three seconds!

"Huh?" The fox's vision had originally shifted away, but it seemed to have sensed something. It turned back again to a place no one could see, and the luxurious silver hair of it's throat gently moved: "A bit interesting…"

"Look." In Xu Yangyi's eyes, the fox moved and one of its tails lazily stuck up. Bored senseless, it faced towards the place where Xu Yangyi was standing and waved its tails, spitting out an vague syllable. 

In the next second, a wind edge no less than ten-plus meters in length wildly raced towards Xu Yangyi like gushing mercury to decapitate him! It carried a silver light brilliant to the eye that made even the surround air tremble!

In this wink of time, Xu Yangyi's scalp numbed!

He couldn't dodge...

This was his first physiological response, an attainment in combat he had gained from his long training at Heavens Law that made him initially feel that the wind edge was extremely light, yet extremely dangerous, revealing a mortal danger!

It wasn't a level he could contest.

A demon with a body of a hundred meters… It was an old Foundation Establishment monster!

"Stay your hand!" At the same time, Zuo Lun roared, but he simply didn't dare to charge forth!

Xu Yangyi's pupils suddenly needled; in a breath, the wind edge was pressed to his throat! He seemed to have already saw the wretched scene of his head soaring into the sky!

But in the blink of an eye, it dispersed. 

The wind scattered like it had never come to decapitate him. In the space roughly a centimeter apart from Xu Yangyi's throat, it suddenly dissipated.

"Drip Drip…" The sweat on his forehead quietly pitter pattered onto the floor, and Xu Yangyi pursed his mouth. A moment ago, he had felt his entire body grow ice-cold, that at this moment, he could sense the hot blood within his body slowly make its way back into his arteries. 

The violent beat of his heart was a kind of life or death feeling. This was truly the first time he had experienced it.

In this split second, he had deeply felt the disparity between Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation. It could be said it was the difference between the Heavens and Earth that couldn't be crossed!

A casual pinch of the fingers, willfully sent out, as to so far that the other didn't even use a secret pinching art. Such control over strength and precision was representative that its degree of perception regarding spiritual energy wasn't only completely above a single level!

If the other wanted to, it wouldn't need three seconds to grant him a certain death!

"Swish…" His jacket was originally fine, but it split open in two parts from the center.

He lowered his head. Not because of fear, but to conceal the eruption of killing intent within his eyes.

He had never been a well-mannered person, as to so far that in this kind of face-to-face provocation, even… a sneer caused his murderous will to grow madly in his heart like a wild, spreading vine. 

"Whoosh!" At nearly the same time, the sound of a wrist-mounted crossbow suddenly broke the air. Five seconds later, someone had caught clear sight of the monster atop the Triumphant Virtue Tower that made the entire body tremble. The immense pressure had made him simply unable to think, so he had immediately fired his weapon.

"Bang!" Just as the wrist-mounted crossbow was about to fire, it was wrest away into a hand. Zuo Lun stared unwaveringly at the student whose forehead was covered with a cold sweat and fiercely spat on the floor, suppressing the roar in his throat: "Rookie! Take a good look for me! Where is this!" 

"This is Fengyi City! A major provincial capital in the west that has appeared in the news in the last day a good few times! Where do you think you are? Your home? You say you want to do something, so you'll do it?"

It was then that the student seemed to regain his wits. A moment ago, it wasn't that he wanted to act, but this atmosphere… It was the kind that if one didn't make a move, they would die. A physiological instinct that was fundamentally incapable of being controlled!

Only two people hadn't moved.

Xu Yangyi and Chu Zhaonan.

"Look clearly! This is an old Foundation Establishment monster! A hundred of you aren't enough to get stuck in between its teeth!" Zuo Lun waved his right hand, and with a thud, not a single one of the crossbow bolts had not fell onto the street. Afterwards, he brought everyone over to the front of the people's park and then bowed deeply towards the Triumphant Virtue Tower: "Senior… hasn't this joke gone too far?"

No one answered him. Or perhaps it could be said they disdained to.

Zuo Lun's expression didn't have a shred of embarrassment and he nodded, straightening his body. He looked at everyone and said loudly and clearly: "Remember it clearly, newcomers. This is the capital of the province, the heart of the northwest. Any demon living here and any demon that dares to take form openly in public has a life expectancy of over two hundred years! If you don't want to die, then don't fucking go picking fights with them!"

He laughed coldly and walked in front of the student from a moment ago and raised his chin: "You know it, don't you?"

"Heavens Law's wanted list, A-rank, code name: Vermillion Snow, bounty: 7.235 billion. Great Circle of Foundation Establishment. It's been alive since the reign of Emperor Dao Guang of the Qing Dynasty. It's over two hundred years old, and during the final years of the Qing, it caused a great upheaval by murdering enough people to fill a field in Hegu Province. Rivers of blood flowed, and it even massacred three prefecture-level cities. You won't find things like this in the history books at all! Several hundred thousand people were used as its Foundation Establishment blood sacrification for its dried-up bones! It was only a foot shy from becoming China's eleventh Core Formation Greater Demon… Don't fucking tell me all of you don't understand what the significance of Core Formation is. You wanna die… how about sending another arrow to that beast?"

He neared the student and dangerously narrowed his eyes: "You really believe… they're called living fossils in vain?"

Xu Yangyi didn't speak. He only deeply memorized this name.

Today's event was the other's "joke". There would be a time where he would come back to find it.

The student's face was already ashen. His entire body was coldly trembling.

Xu Yangyi swept his gaze over without word or movement and discovered that within a radius of a hundred li of its surroundings, there wasn't a single other demon.

Already, it had turned back to its own hunting ground… His eyes narrowed, and he carefully gazed into the distance to discover that there was another tremendous shadow at the end of the city. However, the distance was too far, and beneath the darkness of night, he wasn't able to see a thing clearly, but… its aura seemed far, far weaker than Vermilion Snow's, yet it made him tremble within his heart in kind.

It was still an old Foundation Establishment monster.

Was the present situation within the provincial capital? He stuffed his hand inside his pants pocket and leaned against the side of a tree in the park.

His eyes gradually turned from red to black, and the form of the silver nine-tailed fox slowly dissipated in a ripple. It was still more vulgar than in his imagination...

Sure enough… only strength could serve as a protective amulet to move freely without obstruction!

"Let's go." Zuo Lun nodded and brought the crowd away from the park.

"Instructor." A student took a look at the surroundings and furrowed his brows: "Aren't we… going to the branch?"

"Of course." Zuo Lun glanced puzzledly at him: "If not, what do you think?"

Could it be it wasn't this skyscraper? Or perhaps it was established in a deserted lot?

"What do you think?" Zuo Lun looked at the student's expression and sneered: "Follow closely, rookies. Today, your eyes will open to the world!"

At night, the park was lonesome. Following Zuo Lun, all of them walked below a pavilion that that had a sign hung up on the outside that said "no trespassing" and ceased their steps.

With half-lidded eyes, a sixty-plus-year-old man had a radio by his side that was in the middle of playing the Beijing opera piece, The Battle of Changban. His face was covered in wrinkles, and he wore a white singlet that already has a good couple holes on it and was slack on his body. Clad in shorts and flipflops, and with a thermos by his side, the old man rocked a palm-leaf fan in his hand, idly swatting at mosquitos. The pavilion behind could accommodate fifteen people at the most...

This was the branch of Heavens Law?

Chapter end