Chapter 747: Father and Son

Dad, I want to advance.

No one knew why the Demon Child had deliberately kept suppressing the pace of his own recovery.

One Grade would have been one thing.

He had held himself back by two.

He was the very definition of being closest to the source and therefore first to benefit. Even Siniang did not believe she could advance faster than the Demon Child... provided he actually competed.

How had he endured watching the other Demon Kings recover their strength while he himself remained rooted in place?

Just look at the way Xue San watched A'Ming.

Even Fan Li, the most simpleminded of them all, had failed to wait long enough in Yanjing for Li Liangshen to stab him once. He had been so disappointed his face had practically turned green.

Precisely because they had once stood at the summit... being below it now was all the more painful.

All the more tormenting.

All the more unbearable.

They desperately wanted to climb back up.

Back to where they had once stood.

But the Demon Child endured it.

Endured.

Endured.

Again and again, Zheng Fan had proactively tried to have heart-to-heart talks with him and deliberately create opportunities for him.

And every time... the stone was moved... then firmly refused.

But now... the reason no longer mattered.

Because Wei You's wife... with those words... had stepped squarely onto the Demon Child's reverse scale.

Perfectly.

Precisely.

Right where it hurt most.

There were no "ifs" in reality.

But one could still imagine one.

Perhaps originally... the Demon Child genuinely would rather lose, die, and drag his biological father along with him than advance.

Perhaps he truly could have accepted that result.

Because... for a proud, tsundere little stone... calling out one word, "Dad," was an obstacle as vast as Heaven itself.

Embarrassing.

Truly humiliating.

Better to drag his own father along to the Yellow Springs than lose that much face.

But the woman's words before "carrying out the execution"... pierced straight into the deepest place in the Demon Child's heart.

When the emotion called fury was completely ignited... everything else could be thrown aside.

Only one thought remained.

Tear apart... the woman who had hurt him.

Dad.

He had finally said it.

In truth, that completed the threshold left over from his previous advancement... opening his heart.

For the other Demon Kings, they needed to explain themselves, lay bare their hearts before Master, mutually recognize one another, and reach true acceptance.

It was difficult.

Complicated.

The Demon Kings were all frighteningly clever people, yet even they had spent enormous mental effort crossing that threshold.

For the Demon Child... one word was enough.

A biological son simply had that kind of confidence.

That kind of special treatment.

And that was not all.

When the woman's foot was about to stomp down on Zheng Fan's head, the same mechanism that had been triggered in the capital when others advanced by taking a blow for their Master was activated again.

Which meant... in that single instant... the Demon Child jumped two Grades.

It was simple arithmetic.

Marquis Zheng was presently an early Fifth Grade Martial Artist.

The Demon Child... was now Fifth Grade as well.

Here, one plus one was unquestionably greater than two.

Back when Zheng Fan and the Demon Child had been at the same Grade, possession had effectively produced power beyond that Grade, allowing them to kill upward across ranks several times.

In other words... the union of Marquis Zheng and the Demon Child now possessed something roughly resembling Fourth Grade strength.

Of course, differences between Grades, and finer distinctions within each Grade, could not truly be calculated with arithmetic this crude.

But broadly speaking... that was the idea.

The woman's realm had just fallen.

She was wounded.

Her blood and qi had already been depleted before this, and now that deficit was even worse.

On Zheng Fan's side... there was roughly Fourth Grade strength.

Plus the Demon Child's combat experience.

Plus... the innate abilities that had become available after advancing two Grades in one burst.

The balance of strength... had already shifted.

And every bit of it... came from the woman's pursuit of that so-called "satisfaction."

She... had gotten her satisfaction.

And now... pain was coming right behind it.

Her foot... stomped down.

But the woman immediately lowered her gaze.

Her foot had landed solidly.

Yet the expected scene of shattered bone and exploding flesh never appeared.

Because a layer of black membrane had appeared around Zheng Fan's body.

Resentment merged with blood and qi... forming a protective aura.

Just as earlier, when Zheng Fan kicked the woman in the head and she had endured it behind her blood-and-qi defense... now...

Zheng Fan could do the same.

The Demon Child's consecutive advancements had brought enormous changes.

Yet no violent burst of aura had erupted.

Because the Demon Child had deliberately restrained it.

He was a refined little child.

Especially... when he decided to become cruel.

He liked to approach cruelty as though savoring a toy.

No.

As though performing a ritual.

Carefully.

Completely.

How did one vent rage?

By forcing the object of that rage... little by little... step by step... toward true death.

Like the curtain of an opera stage.

It rose.

The performance began.

A chain of developments followed.

And at the end, there had to be a meticulous curtain call... with the curtain itself descending at exactly the proper moment.

That sense of refinement... was something Marquis Zheng had loved in his previous life.

Something he himself had given the Demon Child.

In other words... the Demon Kings' aesthetic.

The red whip braided from umbilical cords around Zheng Fan's neck quietly slipped loose.

His body slid out from beneath the woman's foot in a ghostlike manner.

Then... ten meters in front of her... he seemed to glide upward again and stand.

It looked almost as though invisible hands were lifting him from behind.

Once upright...

Zheng Fan's shoulders remained hunched.

His elbows were raised.

Below... the toes of one foot barely touched the ice.

The other foot hung off the ground.

The posture... resembled a man nailed to a cross.

His neck tilted forward.

The wildly exaggerated smile from before had vanished.

In its place... was a faint, gentle smile.

Gray and white began alternating through his pupils.

Like whispers from an abyss... coaxing you to step inside... then swallowing you little by little... without you noticing a thing.

Facing this Zheng Fan... the woman felt confusion.

But more than that... she felt exhaustion.

She was so tired.

Never before had she imagined killing one isolated military commander could become this troublesome.

But she had no choice.

She had to kill the man in front of her.

Because her husband was still over there... entangling the strongest swordsman beneath Heaven.

She picked up her whips once more.

The long one in her right hand.

The short one in her left.

Blood and qi circulated through her body again.

Kill him.

She had to kill him!

She clenched her teeth.

Charged.

At the same time, the whip swept horizontally across.

But... it passed straight through Zheng Fan's body.

A chill rushed through the woman's spine.

She suddenly realized... she had already been bewitched.

The Zheng Fan pierced by the whip began to distort.

Then dispersed.

The real Zheng Fan... had already appeared beside her.

An illusion.

Without even realizing it... the woman had entered the Demon Child's illusion.

But in the next instant, blood and qi gathered outside her body again, forming a defense against the incoming attack.

Zheng Fan did not strike.

He merely opened his mouth... and released a piercing shriek directly at her!

A blood-and-qi defense could disperse blows from fists and feet.

But it could not block sound.

Nor could it block a spiritual wave stabbing directly into the soul.

The woman's body shuddered.

Blood began leaking from her nostrils and ears.

By instinct, she spun and swept one whip horizontally.

THUD!

A muffled impact sounded.

Zheng Fan kicked off the ice with both feet... and plunged straight beneath the surface.

Immediately afterward... a pair of hands reached up from below... and seized the woman's ankles.

Her whip stabbed downward again.

Straight through the water like an arrow.

But Zheng Fan below merely shifted sideways.

He dragged the woman beneath the surface while simultaneously avoiding the pursuing whip.

Gurgle...

Gurgle...

The sound of water filled her ears again.

Darkness suddenly swallowed everything.

But this... was absolutely not the darkness beneath the river.

The woman forcibly steadied her mind.

Bit the tip of her tongue.

Spat out a mouthful of blood.

Her spiritual awareness cleared again.

The whip wrapped around her protectively.

Her body shot upward.

She successfully leapt back onto the ice.

The Demon Child's illusions were exquisitely subtle.

The woman could not remain vigilant enough to prevent herself from entering them every time.

But once trapped inside... she could react quickly and wake herself.

Again.

And again.

And again.

She never truly sank into the illusions.

Yet each escape ground her spirit down further.

"Get out!"

"Get out!"

"GET OUT!"

The woman went almost mad.

Her whips lashed violently in every direction, smashing sheet after sheet of surrounding ice apart.

Zheng Fan merely stood quietly not far away.

Still holding that uncanny posture.

Still wearing that faint smile.

Watching... as repeated spiritual intrusions pushed the woman, little by little, toward hysteria.

Watching prey struggle desperately inside its cage... was itself a kind of pleasure.

At last... the woman stopped.

One hand pressed against her forehead.

She forcibly dragged her consciousness back into clarity.

And saw Zheng Fan standing not far away.

This time... she tasted fear.

The illusions stopped.

Because they had only ever been the appetizer.

The woman charged again.

Zheng Fan began dodging.

He was faster than before.

Again and again, the woman's attacks missed.

And Zheng Fan showed no hurry at all.

It was as though he were keeping her dangling on a string.

Confident.

Composed.

...

"Stop playing around! Keep this up and you're going to screw yourself over!"

Deep inside their shared consciousness...

Marquis Zheng finally spoke.

The Demon Child's possession itself placed pressure on Zheng Fan's body.

He was no longer the weakling of years ago, but the body still had a limit.

Continue like this for too long... and the possession state might naturally collapse.

When that happened, Zheng Fan would probably be completely numb, lying on the ice unable to move... waiting to be killed.

So he had no choice but to remind the Demon Child.

The woman's mind had already been torn open.

Now was the time to strike.

But the Demon Child ignored him.

He continued evading the woman's attacks without launching even a probing counterattack... despite clearly having the ability to attack now.

The woman knew she was endlessly squandering blood and qi.

But she had no other method.

Again and again, she blasted power outward, hoping one strike might finally land.

No matter how faint that hope became.

Because somewhere inside her subconscious... she believed that if she allowed the Yan Marquis to stop moving, he would immediately try dragging her into one illusion after another.

In truth... all she had to do was stand still.

Either Zheng Fan would be forced to attack... or they could simply stare at one another until the Demon Child's possession expired.

But who could possibly know that?

If the Regent of Chu were standing here... as someone who could likewise merge with a spirit... he might have recognized the weakness.

This woman... obviously could not.

...

On the Sword Saint's side... the clash between Longyuan and the Lilong Spear had reached white heat.

In truth, the Sword Saint had always kept some attention on Zheng Fan's battlefield.

At first... when Zheng Fan remained steady, the Sword Saint fought steadily.

Then Zheng Fan was smashed away.

The Sword Saint's sword immediately became fiercer and more forceful.

Then... another aura arrived.

Familiar... yet unfamiliar.

The Sword Saint knew the stone had acted.

So he stabilized the rhythm again.

After that... came reversal after reversal.

One moment the Sword Saint grew anxious.

The next...

Wei You did.

Their hearts rose and fell in turns.

One thing could no longer be faked.

The woman was now wildly venting blood and qi.

That meant her situation was unquestionably bad.

The spear point moved like a net.

Earlier, the Sword Saint had been dismantling the dense weave.

Now... the weave itself had begun to become disorderly.

A sign that the wielder's mind was wavering.

Wei You's expression grew increasingly solemn.

They were not trained assassins.

Nor were they deathsworn raised from childhood and indoctrinated with the belief that the mission mattered more than life.

They were simply... a married couple.

In a confrontation at this level, once the state of mind cracked, the opponent would inevitably seize the flaw.

Only Kong Shanyang's presence prevented the Sword Saint from fully exploiting those openings.

Again and again, the Qi Refiner consciously patched holes in the Lilong Spear's defense.

Even so... the Sword Saint felt he was very close to breaking through.

He only hoped Zheng Fan could continue holding on.

Hold on... until his sword returned.

Both he and Wei You could only infer the movement of the other battlefield through shifts in aura.

Neither could see it with his own eyes.

But the people they cared about most... were both over there.

"Steady your mind!" Kong Shanyang shouted at Wei You. "Trust her."

Wei You did not have time to answer.

The Sword Saint answered first.

"Exactly."

...

"Hah... hah... hah..."

The woman stopped.

Her breathing was already disordered.

She shouted:

"What are you hiding for? What the hell are you hiding from?"

Earlier, you wanted to run.

Then underwater, you refused to run.

Now you neither flee nor fight!

The woman felt this Marquis of Yan was even harder to "serve" than her most troublesome youngest son.

"I'm thinking about how I can make you... even more desperate."

The woman's gaze tightened.

"Now... I've thought of it."

Yes.

That was why the Demon Child had refused to attack earlier.

Simply striking her... merely injuring her body... felt too cheap.

A person at this level could endure bodily injury.

Peel off her skin one layer at a time and she would hurt, certainly.

But she would not truly break.

The Demon Child wanted revenge.

He wanted to watch the woman... through his own eyes... fall into despair.

Then into genuine madness.

"I want you to watch... your man die before your eyes."

Zheng Fan's hands began weaving seals.

Obscure, incomprehensible incantations flowed from his mouth.

Why had the Sword Saint been unable to break the other battlefield?

Because a Qi Refiner had severed this area from the celestial phenomena above, preventing the Sword Saint from borrowing Second Grade power and shattering the deadlock with one sword.

Then... he would simply pierce through the severed celestial field.

Woman... the rage you gave me...

I return to you... twice over.

Perhaps... that was simply a child's revenge.

No calculation of benefit.

No grand objective.

Only the absolute conviction that this was how things ought to be.

A child's... adorable innocence.

Qi Refiners.

Mystic cultivators.

People of those paths observed, contemplated, and manipulated principles of Heaven and Earth through methods ordinary people could not understand, creating phenomena mysterious beyond explanation.

The Demon Child... was himself... a ghost.

Anything ghosts could do... he could do too.

Perhaps he had been unable to before.

Now... after advancing two Grades... he could.

Countless cultivators beyond the mundane world pursued feathered ascension.

Casting off the flesh that shackled them.

Allowing the spirit to roam freely through Heaven and Earth.

Put plainly... was that not exactly the Demon Child's natural state?

The woman's expression shifted from confusion... to incomprehension... to surprise.

Then... when she clearly sensed the atmosphere around Zheng Fan beginning to change... terror finally appeared on her face.

"You... you're a Qi Refiner too?"

Once...

Great Yan had possessed a man who stood at the summit of martial cultivation and had defeated the Sword Saint in single combat.

During the burning of Ying Capital, he had personally slain the Fire Phoenix spirit.

On the night of the Barbarian Royal Court, he killed the Right Guli King, destroyed the sacrificial rites, and seemed capable of nearly anything.

He had overturned the world's narrow understanding of what a powerful man was supposed to be.

And today... on the frozen Wang River... that spectacle seemed to be appearing again.

When people confronted something outside common sense... they instinctively tried to explain it using the knowledge they already possessed.

The woman remembered.

The Marquis Pingxi of Yan before her... was the Southern Prince's final disciple.

Everyone beneath Heaven said the Southern Prince had taught him the art of war.

But now... it appeared that was not all.

Faced with the woman's terrified question...

Zheng Fan's expression suddenly twisted.

The Demon Child sensed it.

His father...

Marquis Zheng... desperately wanted to say one particular sentence right now.

But the Demon Child hated that sentence.

It would ruin his current image.

His father, however... stubbornly believed the sentence would perfect that very image.

Father and son currently shared one body.

In theory, as the body's true owner, Marquis Zheng could launch a struggle at any moment to seize back control.

And as his father's insistence grew stronger and stronger... the Demon Child finally... reluctantly... yielded.

He agreed to say the line.

To satisfy his father's present need for melodrama.

Otherwise... the Demon Child truly suspected his father would become even more reckless than he himself had been earlier, forcibly seize control of the body, and blurt it out anyway.

The Demon Child suddenly thought Fan Li had always been right.

A Master this damn troublesome... really ought to be finished off with one swing of an axe.

How else could anyone explain that at a moment like this... this was what filled his mind?

The Demon Child continued holding the hand seals.

But the incantation stopped.

He spoke.

"Woman... what did you just ask this Marquis?"

The woman gripped her whip tighter.

"You... you actually cultivate both martial arts and Qi Refining?"

Zheng Fan shook his head.

"This Marquis merely... knows a little mystic art."

[End of Chapter 747]