Chapter 227: The Heavenly Demon’s Admiration
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BOOOM!
An explosion that made the entire island tremble. The Heavenly Demon immediately flew off his palace, looking down from above at the scene below him. Several cracks on the ground opened, where black and white light surged and then slowly dissipated, raining like small petals of heavenly essence.
“She killed… She killed that thing!” He gasped. “This is also Heavenly Essence of the highest quality…!” His greedy red eyes pointed his hands towards the petals. “Absorb!”
The petals all swirled around his hands as his Demonic Ki shaped itself into a monstrous maw, devouring it all. His exhaustion and the pain he felt all over his body due to the infestation of nanomachines inside his body became much lesser, making him sigh in relief.
“Hahhh… Wait, that girl!”
Somehow, and maybe even inexplicably so, he worried about her, Anna. He flew down to check on her after seeing that big explosion. Not even he could understand why he was caring about her, but something inside of him was telling him he had to save her.
Perhaps the last remaining hope to save this world, or maybe the lingering sense of empathy that the white crane woman infected his mind with. Whatever the reason, he wanted to check if she had survived.
Using his black wings, he descended rapidly, and with a simple kick of his sharp, black-scaled crow talons, the ground below him shattered. He hovered in midair, appearing right in front of Anna.
The third mechanical factory was already destroyed; his eyes widened as he saw that briefly. The way he thought about this girl had completely shifted.
From looking down on her as a ridiculous person to admiring her strength and perseverance.
“Anna, are you okay?!” Fang Shuan panicked, looking at Anna, who had fallen unconscious.
Her body seemed fine, although her energies were fluctuating negatively. The Heavenly Demon noticed her Meridians were a mess after using her powers, and the explosion of Heavenly Essence had only weakened her even more.
“She has the Hero Title, so she can’t die so easily. She seems to have fallen unconscious after overusing her powers; that’s all.” Agares spoke. “Should we carry her outside- Ah!”
“Huh?” Bael glared where Agares was looking. “You?!”
The two Demons quickly stepped forward, protecting Anna, Fang Shuan, and the rest of the familiars from the almighty presence of the crow-beast man that had appeared behind them. They could swear they had heard not a single noise from him coming here, and his presence had only become clearer a few seconds ago.
“Have you come to finish the job, Heavenly Demon?!” Bael asked.
“I am sorry, but that girl’s our little master now. We can’t let you harm her, crow head.” Said Agares with a smirk.
“…” The Heavenly Demon ignored the flies as he flew forward, his presence quickly forcing the two to fall down. “Kneel.”
“Ugh?!”
“Gah!”
The intense pressure of the Heavenly Demon could not be overcome. The two Death Apostles immediately fell to their knees in forced reverence. Unlike the Heavenly Empress, who was gentle when exerting her powers, the Heavenly Demon was the complete opposite.
Arrogant, selfish, and prideful!
He exuded such an aura of arrogance and pride that his mere words were like a deadly curse. The Death Apostles had never been in the presence of such an almighty being that wasn’t a Constellation before.
They realized that, despite their amazing abilities and the privileges they enjoyed as Death Apostles, which were pretty much candidates to take over the Archdemon Thrones, in front of a Venerable, they were nothing.
“…”
The Heavenly Demon hovered towards Anna as Fang Shuan quickly confronted him, his spear glowing with his last amounts of Ki. Anna’s powerful specialization buff had already run off, and there was a long cooldown, so he couldn’t use his abilities unlimitedly anymore.
However, he stood in front of his young master, protecting her from the malicious being that approached. Unlike the two Death Apostles, he was somehow able to bear the weight. Anna’s Familiars was in a similar situation to the Death Apostles, however. Violet, Shiro, and Snow were unable to move.
“What do you want with Lady Anna?! Was giving her such an impossible task not enough?! Was your plan to kill her all along?!” Fang Shuan roared.
“So you’re the warrior that was fighting before. Yes, you are indeed an incredible cultivator.” The Heavenly Demon ignored his words, analyzing Fang Shuan’s body. “Unfortunately, it seems you’ve lost your ability to cultivate alongside obtaining that strange body... But your showcase of strength was formidable, without a doubt.”
“What?! What are you talking about?!” Fang Shuan muttered. “I can’t cultivate anymore…?! No, wait, that’s not it; don’t you dare take another step!”
“You are brave, but fear not.” The Heavenly Demon patted Fang Shuan’s shoulders, as the young master was unable to realize when the crow-beast man appeared behind him. “I have no ill intentions.”
BAAAM!
Fang Shuan’s metallic body was immediately dug into the dirt below; stuck down there, he was unable to move out. And with no Ki left to use his techniques, he was just a big piece of metal for the Venerable to handle.
“Hey! Stop! STOP!” Fang Shuan screamed as he saw the crow-beast man’s claws reach Anna’s unconscious body. “Are you seriously going to kill her?! After giving her your word?! You coward!”
“I told you already, you arrogant child!” The crow-beast man roared back. “I would NEVER go back on my word! And I would NEVER harm my disciple either, FOOL!”
“D-Disciple?!” Fang Shuan’s eyes widened, alongside everybody else in the vicinity.
The Primordial Yang Cat remained looking in the distance, yawning and wagging its tail calmly. If it had detected that the Heavenly Demon would inflict harm on Anna, it would have protected her, but from the very beginning, this beast trusted the Heavenly Demon.
“You heard that right.” The crow spoke, holding Anna in his arms and gently carrying her. “Now come; we shall carry her to my palace. She needs to be quickly healed, or her Meridians will be left completely useless, and he will be unable to continue cultivating her physique and her inner core.”
“What, she what?!” Fang Shuan screamed, quickly pulling himself out of the dirt and following the flying Venerable. “F-Follow him!” He led the entire party of familiars as they rushed out of the caves.
The barrier protecting the Demonic Sect’s village allowed them all to enter as the Venerable carried the girl on his arms while flapping his big, black-feathered wings. The people of the sect glanced in awe as their master carried his new disciple.
“From today onwards, this child is my disciple!” He roared. “All of you must treat her with the utmost respect, and if I catch any of you daring to harm her, you will meet with my wrath!”
Ruthless!
Not even gentle with his own people, the Heavenly Demon made things clear.
The people bowed before him and then kneeled, prostrating before his eminence.
“Good.”
He flew inside his Dark Palace, as he noticed something glowing on top of Anna’s hair, his eyes slightly showing some shock. The thing he had believed to be a fancy-looking hairpin in the shape of a cicada ended up being an actual insect.
And not a normal one. The cicada, which seemed to have been sleeping until recently, while channeling its powers with Anna to make her a bit stronger, opened its big eyes, glaring at the Venerable silently, and then closed them again.
“A Heavenly Golden Time River Cicada?!” He muttered, gently placing Anna over a bed. “Where did she go? Could it be that she is also a disciple of that old lizard?!”
By old lizard, the Heavenly Demon meant nobody else than the Heavenly Golden Dragon, whom most Venerables have met and talked to through their long lives.
The existence of such a Martial Beast as the Heavenly Golden Time River Cicada was well known amongst the strongest Immortals and Venerables of many Murim Worldlines.
While some Worldlines possessed these beasts naturally, others didn’t.
Bestia was one of such unfortunate worlds, unable to give birth to such a mystical creature. The Heavenly Demon, in his brief interview with the Heavenly Golden Dragon, had seen many of them flying through the endless rivers of time across the dragon’s Realm.
Such a Martial Beast is not only capable of manipulating time but also expanding it, accelerating it, or even regressing it! It was such a valuable being that many Venerables and Immortals across all Murim Worldlines coveted it.
Yet mostly all of them were never able to get a single one!
And now, right in front of him, Anna has one.
This could only mean one thing.
Those chosen by these mystical creatures born from the Essence of Time itself are not normal people.
“Could she be Fate’s Chosen?”
The Heavenly Demon resisted his greed as he decided not to snatch the insect away from Anna. He had already given her an utterly impossible task, yet she did it in time at the expense of her own life.
This already showed him how strong she was and how much perseverance she possessed. This girl was someone admirable—someone not even the despicable Heavenly Demon would dare insult any longer.
“I’ve promised you I would make you my disciple if you completed such a hellish task, and you did so. I will keep my promise.” He sighed. “Because I have a strong sense of pride, I never go back on my words. However, before we begin, you’re too tired and too damaged.”
As he glanced at Anna sleeping, he walked through his palace, and in a few seconds, he brought over several black and red boxes full of all kinds of medical tools, herbs, concoctions, and pills.
“Young disciple, I will first heal your almost broken Meridians before it is too late. The amount of different energies that you let flow through your body has become harmful as they clash against one another and cause internal damage that you don’t seem to notice because you are constantly healing yourself.”
He grabbed a dozen golden needles and made them float by imbuing them with his Demonic Ki, slowly walking towards Anna.
“However, all of that wear and tear accumulates over time, and it might cause irreversible damage to your Physique, and even your Inner Martial Core…” He looked down at her, his eyes channeling their ancestral powers, as he could see Anna’s pathways and Meridians. “We’ll first begin with a session of acupuncture, not the normal one that actually doesn’t even work. But true Acupuncture Arts melded with Heavenly Medicine Techniques I’ve sharpened for the last thousand years.”
Despite being a ruthless warrior on the battlefield, the Heavenly Demon had learned a variety of techniques and arts. Most of them so he could become more self-sustainable without having to rely on the help of others to heal himself and the wounds he would leave over his body as he battled for his ascension.
One of them was Acupuncture, which allowed the body to not only breathe out and remove impurities but also lessen the damage and pain of the Ki Pathways and even alleviate weakened or exhausted Meridians.
As the needles slowly flew towards Anna and lightly pierced her skin in various areas of her body, they started channeling his Demonic Ki, which then became completely colorless, becoming a pure Ki.
The gray-colored Ki spread through her body, resembling a tattoo over her own skin, which was only interconnected by her golden needles.
“Hmm, you do have many impurities.” He sighed, touching her forehead as the tattoos grew over there and then formed the shape of a mouth, which expulsed all the impurities, resembling a black cloud.
POOF!
The Heavenly Venerable grasped the cloud with his hands, and as the same “Devouring Technique” he had used before activated, the entire cloud of impurities, which would be a terrible toxin to mostly everyone, was devoured by his powers.
“Across all of our world, only I have forged a completely indestructible physique... Or well, almost indestructible, until that blasted mechanical abomination injected me with that needle.” He sighed, feeling his strength slowly fading away. He had to hurry. “However, we will do something similar here. We will take advantage of your strange body and physique, and the many energies that fluctuate through them, and create an even more Unique Physique for you. One that can take the pressure you put it through and even develop from it.”
Several treasures floated around him, of all kinds. Mystical herbs, ancient scales, dried bones and bird legs, old pelts—all of them Martial Treasures used mostly in medicine and other things.
His Ki formed a domain around the girl, with many nodes, and he placed every ingredient in each node, creating a Formation.
The formation flashed with bright red light; the materials were absorbed and turned into different rivers of colorful essence, flowing inside Anna’s body.
“As the first and perhaps last disciple I’ll ever take, you will receive the privilege of inheriting a part of my legacy upon your physique.” He smiled. “Now, be reborn!”
FLASH!
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