Chapter 1496: Wretched Beast

Yin Ji gave a miserable smile through her tears. “So all those years as husband and wife mean nothing. This was your trap. You were willing to kill your own disciple and son-in-law because you are determined to put me to death. Is that it?”

“You speak to me of the bond between husband and wife?” Luo Qiu shot back. “When people seek my death, why do you not think of me?”

Then his voice rose sharply. “It is not as though there is no chance left. It depends on what you choose. You can give me a chance, and give yourself one as well. Abandon the Demon Fox Clan. Cooperate with us. Help us sweep clean the demons and specters stirring behind our backs!”

Yin Ji shook her head. “I made my choice all those years ago.”

Luo Qiu’s face twisted. “Do not force me!”

Yin Ji said no more. Her figure flashed as she fled.

Since Luo Qiu had already made clear that he intended to preserve their daughter’s life, there was no reason for Yin Ji to remain.

After going to such lengths and even killing Sha Rulai, how could Luo Qiu possibly allow her to escape? He flashed after her immediately.

The two collided in midair with a chain of thunderous impacts.

Yin Ji fled desperately.

Luo Qiu clung to her without letting go.

Her strength was inferior to Luo Qiu’s. She quickly found herself unable to break free, completely tied down by him, though Luo Qiu did not seem to be striking with full killing intent.

The moment fighting erupted, three heads emerged from the swamp below.

Hei Yun was one of them.

The other two were Kunlin Shu and Ao Feng, whom Hei Yun had dragged along.

Hei Yun had had no choice but to bring them.

He feared Yin Ji would encounter danger. Earlier, several of them had restrained her and refused to let her go out casually. Only after Yin Ji saw Sha Rulai killed and her daughter seemingly on the verge of death had she thrown everything aside and rushed out regardless of the consequences.

Now, seeing Yin Ji trapped and in danger, Hei Yun anxiously pleaded with the two beside him. “Gentlemen, if I go up there, I won’t withstand even one blow. I cannot help the former Clan Chief and may only become a burden. I beg you both—please lend her your strength.”

Battle intent rose in Kunlin Shu’s eyes.

Ao Feng immediately grabbed his arm. “Clan Chief, be rational! It isn’t that we don’t want to help. Even if we act, it will be useless. The three of us together are still no match for Luo Qiu!”

Hei Yun was beside himself with anxiety.

He desperately wanted to say: then hold Luo Qiu back long enough for the former Clan Chief to escape.

But how could he ask them to disregard their own lives so openly?

All he could do was plead, “At least support her from the side!”

Suddenly, the sound of bodies tearing through the air at tremendous speed came from above.

The three heads protruding from the mud all looked up.

Two figures appeared from within a cloud high in the sky and plunged downward.

Du Wuxu and Lan Daolin.

The two had been hiding in the sky for a long time.

They had come covertly and had arrived no more than half a day later than Luo Qiu. Ever since, they had remained concealed inside the cloud, using their arts to keep it under control.

Only experts of their strength could remain suspended in the sky for such a long period. The overwhelming majority of cultivators could not.

They had stayed so high that they could not clearly make out what was happening below, only vague human figures.

But they had agreed with Luo Qiu beforehand: the moment fighting broke out, they would intervene immediately.

That arrangement also prevented Luo Qiu from deliberately letting someone escape.

With Luo Qiu’s cultivation, it would be difficult to explain how a target could simply get away without creating any commotion.

From the sheer manner in which those two figures came plunging down from Heaven, there was no need to see their faces clearly to guess that Sacred Venerables had arrived.

Once Ao Feng saw that one of them was Du Wuxu, years of fear before Du Wuxu’s oppressive might made his heart seize.

He grabbed both men and immediately pulled them beneath the mud to hide.

Hei Yun disappeared with despair written across his face.

Three Sacred Venerables were acting at once.

How could the former Clan Chief possibly survive this calamity?

Bang!

Corpse-Rot Vines burst from the swamp.

Massive tentacles coiled toward the sky, trying to lend Yin Ji a hand.

Du Wuxu, who had descended first, flashed forward and swept out one broad sleeve.

His body seemed to erupt with ten thousand rays of black light.

Boom after boom!

The gigantic tentacles whipping toward him were instantly torn into pieces by the exploding black radiance, disintegrating into fragments that scattered through the air.

Kunlin Shu, hidden underground, did not stand idle either.

Bang!

A fire dragon erupted from beneath the marsh and roared upward.

Du Wuxu descended through the black radiance like a heavenly god.

One foot stamped down with the might of subduing dragons and tigers, his entire body driving toward the earth like a demon-subduing pestle.

Black light collided with the fire dragon.

The dragon’s head shattered.

The black radiance swelled violently and completely suppressed the collapsing flames beneath it, as though Du Wuxu had forcibly pressed the inferno straight back underground.

Bang!

Black light crashed down from above.

The flames were suppressed and seemed to vanish completely in an instant.

Du Wuxu landed with both feet planted firmly on the marsh.

Black radiance seeped from his body into the swamp below like a tide.

The marsh surface began bubbling violently, as though it were boiling. Wisps of black smoke rose from each bursting bubble.

Du Wuxu stared coldly at the ground.

He was casting a profound art to search for the people hiding beneath the swamp.

Luo Qiu flashed back onto the rocky ground and landed in silence.

He stopped fighting and watched coldly.

Lan Daolin had taken his place.

Lan Daolin’s movement art was even stranger and more elusive, and he completely entangled Yin Ji.

Unlike Luo Qiu, Lan Daolin showed no mercy.

In the blink of an eye, Yin Ji took a solid palm strike and sprayed a mouthful of blood.

She could not escape.

Against him, she was reduced almost entirely to defense.

Even so, Lan Daolin plainly intended to capture her alive. Yin Ji still possessed considerable value.

Yin Ji, however, fought with the desperation of someone ready to die rather than be captured.

That made it impossible for Lan Daolin to subdue her quickly.

“Ahhh...!”

Luo Fangfei suddenly let out a shrill scream.

The violent fighting, the tremendous crashes, the earth shaking beneath her, and the astral winds sweeping wildly through the grass and trees finally dragged her out of her dazed stupor.

It was not a dream.

Senior Brother lay before her with his eyes still open in death.

The bloody hole blasted through his chest was horrifying to behold.

She broke down completely.

Dropping to her knees before Sha Rulai, she clutched her head in both hands and let out a heart-rending wail.

Lan Daolin and Du Wuxu merely glanced at her.

They had seen too many dead people to care, and this dead man belonged to Luo Qiu anyway.

Their hearts did not stir.

Each continued with his own business.

Yin Ji saw it too.

Blood filled her mouth and stained her clothes.

Tears welled in her eyes through grief and fury, but she was powerless to do anything and already struggling to preserve herself.

Luo Qiu slowly turned his head and glanced back.

He stared for only a moment before turning away again to watch the fighting, unwilling to look any longer at his daughter’s state.

His jaw remained tightly clenched.

He could imagine it clearly.

From this day forward, he had lost this daughter.

She would probably never again regard him as her father.

She would never forgive him.

But just as he had told Yin Ji: so long as his daughter lived, even if she hated him for the rest of her life!

Amid Luo Fangfei’s heart-rending cries of endless despair, changes began appearing in the ten fingers clutching her head.

Her fingernails rapidly lengthened.

They grew sharper and sharper.

Her black hair spilled loose in the violent astral wind.

As it streamed wildly around her, its color began changing.

The black gradually turned white.

A faint blush of pink appeared within the white.

The alluring corners of her eyes slowly stretched farther toward both sides.

An eerie quality began emerging in her features.

Two sharp fangs gradually pushed from her mouth.

Fur began growing along her ears.

The ears themselves slowly lengthened and sharpened, becoming less and less human until they took the shape of fox ears.

Behind her skirt came the sound of cloth tearing.

A white tail tinged faintly pink burst out.

Spiritual qi seemed to gather from somewhere between Heaven and Earth and pour into Luo Fangfei’s body as she wailed in agony, as though driving and completing the transformation taking place within her.

Standing with his back to her amid the rampant astral wind, Luo Qiu did not notice the change.

Du Wuxu and Lan Daolin did.

Both were shocked.

Yin Ji noticed her daughter’s transformation as well.

Disbelief filled her face.

Du Wuxu, whose hands were comparatively free at the moment, instinctively shouted a warning.

“Luo Qiu!”

Alerted, Luo Qiu suddenly noticed where the spiritual qi between Heaven and Earth was flowing.

He whipped around.

But reacting only now seemed already too late.

A figure had appeared directly before him.

A claw had already pierced into his chest.

Luo Qiu’s eyes widened.

He stared at the daughter before him, now neither fully human nor fully demon, unable to believe what he was seeing.

He could not understand how his daughter had transformed into such a monstrous form.

Nor could he understand how Luo Fangfei suddenly possessed this degree of strength.

Even if his response had been delayed, with his speed of reaction she should never have been capable of injuring him under normal circumstances.

He remembered perfectly well that he had placed restrictions on both Luo Fangfei and Sha Rulai.

Neither should have been able to use spiritual power.

There was clearly only one explanation for this impossible scene.

It had to be connected to the unnatural transformation now overtaking his daughter.

Luo Fangfei’s eyes were icy.

She struck again.

Her other claw stabbed straight toward Luo Qiu’s face.

Luo Qiu seized her wrist with one hand.

At the same time, he circulated his cultivation and locked down the arm already buried in his chest, preventing the claw from driving any deeper.

The grief and fury in Luo Qiu’s eyes were beyond words.

He shouted harshly, “You would kill your own father for a man? Wretched beast!”

His other palm blasted out.

Bang!

The strike landed squarely on Luo Fangfei’s chest.

Blood sprayed from her mouth as she was hurled far backward through the air.

Luo Qiu staggered as well.

One hand immediately covered the wound in his chest.

That strike had badly injured him.

In the instant just now, it had very nearly taken his life.

But the deeper wound was in his heart.

His grief and fury had nowhere to go.

He had gone to such lengths to protect this daughter!

He had brought Sha Rulai precisely because he did not want to kill her.

He killed Sha Rulai to show Yin Ji his determination precisely so he would not have to strike at this daughter.

If Yin Ji had still refused to appear, then at most Luo Qiu would have held Luo Fangfei hostage and let her suffer some flesh wounds.

If Yin Ji stubbornly refused to show herself even then, what use would there have been in killing Luo Fangfei?

Killing Sha Rulai had also given Luo Qiu an explanation to offer the others.

He could show them that if even this could not force Yin Ji to appear, then killing Luo Fangfei would be pointless as well.

Keeping her alive might still prove useful in the future.

All that painstaking effort had been fed to the dogs.

This daughter had actually tried to kill him.

How was Luo Qiu supposed to bear it?

Luo Fangfei landed and steadied herself, blood filling her mouth.

She stared at the blood on her claws.

Her father’s blood.

Then she slowly looked up at Luo Qiu again.

For an instant, she seemed to regain a little clarity.

Pain and struggle filled the way she looked at him.

Luo Qiu took several steps backward and glanced around.

In his present physical condition, he could already feel danger closing in thick around him.

Without another word, his figure flashed away.

Du Wuxu quickly looked back.

His eyes flickered.

Then he suddenly shouted to Lan Daolin, “Keep them tied down!”

With that, he vanished as well, chasing after Luo Qiu.

Lan Daolin glanced in that direction and cursed inwardly.

He knew exactly what Du Wuxu intended.

Du Wuxu was going to seize the opportunity to kill Luo Qiu.

[End of Chapter 1496]