Chapter 4
“You’re Ji Fufeng, the Demon Lord.”
Ji Fufeng pauses, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “You know who I am?”
I rub the storage ring on my finger. “Red robes, a vermilion mark between your brows, and a face beautiful enough to topple kingdoms. It isn’t hard to guess.”
As I speak, I try to estimate how far the Demon Lord’s cultivation has fallen. Judging by how badly his spiritual root was shattered in my sister’s world, there is no way he has retained his Soul Transformation cultivation. At most, he should be at peak Nascent Soul.
But pitting a newly advanced middle-stage Golden Core cultivator against someone at peak Nascent Soul would be a fantasy even for a genius capable of fighting several levels above her own.
As the cherished only daughter of the Heavenly Way Sect’s master, my host naturally carries a great many powerful treasures. Escaping shouldn’t be a problem.
Yet fighting spirit blazes in my eyes. How often does an opponent like this come along?
Cultivation is a struggle against the heavens themselves. If you’re timid and terrified of death, you might as well give it up!
The Demon Lord raises a hand and lays down a formation. He laughs softly. “You’re a clever little girl, and your talent is truly heaven-blessed. Unfortunately, have you ever heard a certain saying?”
I tilt my head. “Which one?”
Demonic energy flickers in his palm and takes the shape of a razor-sharp claw, which lunges straight for my abdomen. “The heavens envy exceptional talent!”
I twist out of the way and scatter the demonic energy with a blast of spiritual power. “That peerless face of yours brings another saying to mind. It’s usually reserved for beautiful women, but it suits you quite well.”
The Demon Lord looks at me as if I’m already dead. “And what saying is that?”
Lightning flashes and thunder crashes outside the cave. I smile meaningfully as an ice sword materializes in my hand.
“Why, that… beauties die young!”
My blade flashes as I rush him with incredible speed. The Demon Lord’s expression changes. He dodges swiftly, but the ice sword still slices his cheek, leaving a shallow line of blood.
The Demon Lord is enraged. Perhaps he never imagined that a Golden Core ant—someone he could once have reduced to ash with the twitch of a finger—could actually injure him. A fallen tiger bullied by a dog, he throws back his head and laughs three times. “Good! Good! Good!”
His gaze turns vicious. “Beauties die young? Let’s see if you have the ability to make it true!”
But the exchange has let me test his cultivation.
Middle Nascent Soul!
He hasn’t even retained late-stage Nascent Soul cultivation!
That is very good news.
He is the Demon Lord, so his practical combat ability is formidable.
But I come from the Strong Female Lead Division, and I have a wealth of battle experience.
With a flick of my hand, a pill that can forcibly raise my cultivation for a short time appears. I swallow it. Spiritual power surges through me in a flood, stretching my meridians until the burden brings searing pain. My aura gradually rises to peak Golden Core.
The Demon Lord sneers. “Even at peak Golden Core, you are no match for me.”
I answer with a cold smile and drive my sword at him.
The battle erupts.
The Demon Lord is utterly ruthless. Even with my ice sword through his chest, he forces out one final breath and lands a palm strike that leaves me gravely wounded.
Blood spills from the corner of my mouth. My body abruptly freezes, and I can no longer control the ice sword in the air. A strange presence closes in behind me from a vicious angle, and my expression hardens.
I plunge the ice sword through my own abdomen. The point bursts out behind me and shatters the swarm of skulls rushing toward my back!
Frowning, I pull the sword free. Blood has nearly dyed my skirt red. I toss several pills into my mouth, press a hand over the wound, and seal it in ice. Spiritual power slowly returns to my depleted body, and I regain the ability to move.
The skulls summoned by the Demon Lord have failed in their ambush. When he sees how mercilessly I can treat even myself, a peculiar appreciation enters his gaze. “As expected of a fourteen-year-old Golden Core cultivator… Ruthless enough. Given time, you would certainly become a mighty expert. It truly seems a pity to kill you and steal your spiritual root.”
“How about this? I’ll take only your spiritual root and spare your life. What do you say?”
I give him a smile that never reaches my eyes. “Am I supposed to thank you, Your Excellency?”
You goddamn bastard!
In this cultivation world where the weak are meat for the strong, losing my spiritual root and cultivation would leave me helpless before anyone who wanted to bully or butcher me. A clean death would be better!
I raise my sword and attack him again.
It is the most exhilarating battle I’ve fought in ages. I gulp down pills while throwing out formations, spiritual arts, magical artifacts, and talismans as if my life depends on it—which it does. I even set a series of devious traps designed to catch him completely off guard.
Somehow, I manage to fight the Demon Lord to a near standstill. In fact, I slowly begin to suppress him.
His vicious methods come without end—the Soul-Stealing Bell, Netherworld Chains, Demonic Sound Zither, spatial confinement… An ordinary Golden Core cultivator would have died long ago. But after countless missions across the Strong Female Lead Division, I know every kind of cultivation technique. I wield magical artifacts with skill, draw talismans in the air with my bare hands, and lay formations on the fly, dismantling every one of his attacks.
At last, the Demon Lord realizes he underestimated me. By then, he has also realized that I know far too much and am just as ruthless as he is, but it is too late. Shock crosses that beautiful face before I knock him from the air and pin him to the cave wall with my ice sword.
Seeing defeat, the Demon Lord abandons his body and tries to flee as a soul. Instead, he slams into an invisible wall.
The “wall” contracts rapidly around him, trapping his soul inside. At last, it becomes a glass bottle the size of my fist and drops into my hand.
With my current Golden Core strength, I naturally can’t destroy the Demon Lord for good. But that is what the elders of the Heavenly Way Sect—and my host’s dear father—are for.