Chapter 114: Chapter 22: Beheaded to Consecrate the Blade (Part 2)
"Die!"
But just then, Su Zhou flew into a battle frenzy. He raised his great spear like a blade, preparing a mountain-splitting cleave to shatter the Demon General. His spear technique wasn’t particularly refined; due to his immense talent, he mostly practiced alone, as no one dared to spar with him. As a result, his technique lacked the finesse of the Demon General’s, which had kept him tied up for some time, preventing him from landing a decisive blow.
But brute force trumps skill. With enough power to shatter a man-sized stone statue crashing down, how could the Red Land Demon General possibly block it head-on, no matter how superior its martial arts were?
And indeed, the Red Land Demon General couldn’t block it. But it was no ordinary human. The seven-foot length of the spear had kept it from getting close to Su Zhou. Now that Su Zhou was going for a single, decisive blow—raising his spear with both hands and leaving himself wide open—it had its own ultimate technique to counter!
"HUUAH!"
In an instant, the Red Land Demon General swung its blade-wielding arm, which was the length of a normal human’s. The arm, formed from twisting wooden tendrils, suddenly stretched out like a spring. It had turned its own limb into a whip, whipping the broken blade at its tip straight toward Su Zhou’s neck!
’If I can just force this monster onto the defensive, I can use the chance to escape!’
The wind shrieked as both sides revealed their inhuman nature.
Spiritual Light flared in Su Zhou’s eyes; of course he could see the broken blade hurtling toward him. But he paid it no mind. Laughing, he swung the long spear with both hands as if it were the legendary Cyan Dragon Crescent Blade. He completely ignored the Demon General’s slash aimed at his neck, brought his spear blade vertical, and chopped straight down at the creature’s helmet.
It was a clear attempt to trade life for life. Even the Red Land Demon General was stunned, unable to comprehend why Su Zhou would make such a choice.
—It was used to relying on its own immortality to trade blow for blow, but it had never considered one thing.
SQUELCH! CRACK!
The first sound was the Red Land Demon General’s blade sinking an inch and a half into Su Zhou’s neck. It was a Grandmaster, after all, and a strike infused with Yang Flame Internal Power was certainly able to pierce Su Zhou’s defenses when he wasn’t fully focused on them. It could not, however, sever his spine.
The second sound was Su Zhou’s spear blade chopping down and cleaving the Red Land Demon General’s helmet in two. But it didn’t stop there. The blow, carrying the force of several tons, shattered the Demon General’s four eyeballs, its Red Land Demon Flower, and the armor on its torso. The strike cleaved it straight through from head to hip, splitting it into two pieces!
For a moment, both staggered back a step.
Although the Red Land Demon General had been sliced in two, before its upper body could even slide off, wooden roots began to churn at the edges of the wound, reattaching the torso. It was crooked and misaligned, but it should still be able to fight—or at the very least, it could run...
But for some reason, the Spiritual Energy in the wound left by the Cross Spear Blade seemed damaged. A bleak, spirit-devouring presence was corroding the Spiritual Energy at the site of the cut, weakening its body and slowing its regeneration, preventing it from healing completely.
[Dark Earth Vein Crystal Spirit Attachment]!
Confused, the Red Land Demon General regenerated its eyes to inspect the wound, but what it saw made its non-existent hair stand on end. It was utterly dumbfounded.
Before its very eyes, Su Zhou—who should have been on the ground, bleeding profusely from his neck wound—was instead grinning savagely as he placed a hand on his neck.
It watched as he simply wiped a hand over the gash—an inch deep, right down to the bone, a cut that had severed his artery—and the wound vanished as if by magic.
Not a single drop of blood had been spilled!
"What kind of monster is he?!"
It couldn’t help but cry out in shock. The Red Land Demon General, which had defeated so many opponents by relying on its own extraordinary regeneration, had never imagined it: its enemy could regenerate too!
And his regeneration was even faster than its own!
"That kinda hurt—but I’m wide awake now!"
Su Zhou flashed a wide, toothy grin and laughed as he rolled his head. ’Getting my head half-chopped off feels pretty good, actually. The intense pain just makes me feel more energized, more focused.’ He even had a vague feeling that if his head were cut off completely, he could use his Spiritual Soul to control his body, pick his head up, and stick it back on without losing any combat effectiveness.
’I’ve heard of ancient humans who could do the same thing, so this must be pretty normal, right?’
As for the blood, it should have gushed out. The freezing mountain environment had significantly weakened Su Zhou’s Regeneration Power, which came from Snake Spirit Yara’s body of Perfection—a weakness stemming from his Spiritual Power cultivation not yet having reached a certain realm. But as luck would have it, the Red Land Demon General’s Spiritual Power was of the Yang Flame attribute. They had been fighting for so long that the surrounding air had grown as hot as a summer day.
Not giving the Red Land Demon General any more time to strategize, Su Zhou raised his spear and charged again. The Demon General’s courage and will to fight had been utterly shattered. It flung its blade at Su Zhou, then spun around and fled down the mountain with all its might.
"You think you can run?!"
After batting the thrown blade aside with his spear, Su Zhou saw that the Red Land Demon General’s speed had increased again and realized he might not be able to catch up. He took a tenth of a second to calculate, then instantly made his decision.
"Off you go!"
Hoisting the spear over his shoulder, Su Zhou adopted the stance of an Olympic javelin thrower. His muscles contracted, gathering all his strength. Then, with a powerful twist of his waist and a violent swing of his arm, he launched the fifty-kilogram Cross Spear like a missile.
BOOM!!
The long spear, blazing with Spiritual Light, tore through the gale, blasting snow aside with a thunderous roar. It struck the Red Land Demon General squarely in the back and, with a sickening thud, pinned it to the ground like a nail!
It was not yet dead, of course, but the Exorcism Blade and the bleak Spiritual Power had grievously wounded its Spiritual Soul. It could no longer utter pleas for mercy or defiant curses, only wail in agony.
True to his nature, Su Zhou had no intention of listening to its wails for another second. He walked over to the Red Land Demon General, grabbed the great spear, and gave it a vicious twist. The crimson armor shattered completely, revealing a humanoid mass of tangled, cyan Undying Roots. The unique shape of the Cross Spear held it pinned like a crucifix, sealing its movements.
Without a word, Su Zhou crouched, his hand wreathed in bluish-purple Demon Fire. He pressed it onto the creature’s roots... While Spiritual Fire has no physical heat, it can damage Spiritual Energy, making it an agony far more cruel and painful than any real flame.
Su Zhou could have easily killed the helpless Red Land Demon General, but he chose not to. He was going to do it bit by bit, sweeping the Spiritual Fire over every one of its roots, burning it to death in the most vicious and cruel way imaginable.
By the time the Hundred Schools’ Righteous Army had secured a complete advantage—crushing over seventy Demon Soldiers and killing sixty-two of them without a single casualty—and gathered around, Su Zhou still hadn’t finished off the Red Land Demon General.
"Stay your hand for now, Grandmaster Su."
It was Zhou Buyi who spoke. He placed a hand on Su Zhou’s shoulder, signaling for him to stop the torture.
Su Zhou, who had been intently focused on burning the creature’s spiritual roots amid its screams, looked up, puzzled. Just as he was about to ask for an explanation, Zhou Buyi continued, "The materials for the Divine Blade are gathered. Before we can forge the Blade of Annihilation, we need an offering to consecrate the forge. Why not use this fiend?"
"Excellent!"
Hearing this, Su Zhou’s eyes lit up. He recalled the divine forge, the pool of golden-red molten metal surrounding the Earth Vein Flame Iron. ’Lowering Red Land into that, bit by bit...’ He pictured the scene in his mind. Then, to the Demon General’s look of utter despair and hatred, he extinguished the Demon Fire in his hand. He hoisted its entire demonic body up with his spear and slung it over his shoulder.
Su Zhou glanced at the smiling faces of the Hundred Schools’ martial artists around him and then burst into hearty laughter himself.
"Excellent!"
And so, it was several hours later, inside the camp’s volcanic forge, when Su Zhou finally claimed the Evil Soul of the Red Land Demon General.
