"Reporting—!"
"Reporting to the Commander, Mianzhou City is ahead. The demons within the city... have all been executed!"
Those same words again.
Xu Xiao took a deep breath, feeling a tightness in his chest.
He urged his horse into the city.
On the long street, the scene was exactly the same as before.
Demon corpses lay on the ground, their deaths gruesome.
The surviving commoners let out long-suppressed wails and cheers.
Xu Xiao pulled an old man over and asked in a low voice, "Who did this?"
The old man trembled with excitement, pointing at the sky incoherently. "It was... it was an immortal! A golden light flashed across the sky, and those man-eating beasts... they all died! They're all dead!"
"..."
An immortal?
To hell with your immortal!
That was Her Highness the Grand Princess!
But... at such an age, with such methods.
It seemed... there really wasn't much difference from an immortal.
He let go, looking south with a complex gaze.
Heading south from Baxi Commandery, it had been like this all along the way.
The city was full of demon corpses; not a single one was left alive.
Among them were several Mountain Gazing Great Demons with powerful auras, but now they were just piles of cold, rotting meat.
Thinking of this, a bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
The Deputy General beside him frowned and suddenly asked, "Commander, Mianzhou is already in the heart of Jiannan Circuit. Further south... is Yizhou Prefecture."
"..."
The bitter smile on Xu Xiao's face slowly froze.
"Dammit!"
He mounted his horse abruptly and roared, "All troops, hear my command! Target: Yizhou Prefecture!"
...The sky was colorless, and the ground was a mire of blood.
On the wide street, the banners of the restaurants and teahouses on both sides hung limply, soaked in long-dried black blood.
"This way, this way."
A man bowed his waist, leading several tall demons behind him, and stopped in front of a group of commoners huddling in a corner.
"My Lord, look at this one."
The man reached out and grabbed a young girl about twelve or thirteen years old.
The girl trembled all over but didn't dare to cry out, only biting her bloodless lips hard.
The man took out a handkerchief from his robe and, with some disdain, wiped the mud off the girl's face, revealing a youthful but quite pretty face.
"This one is tender."
He turned around and said flatteringly to the demons behind him, "This little fledgling hasn't fully grown yet; her meat is the smoothest and finest, with no gristle at all when chewed. Whether swallowed whole or chewed slowly..."
The Pig Demon exhaled a breath of foul heat and reached out a large, black-haired hand to pinch the girl's arm.
"Snort... Not bad."
Hearing this, the man's smile widened.
He turned back around, his gaze wandering through the crowd.
Everywhere his gaze fell.
Those commoners, whether seven-foot-tall men or elderly women, all lowered their heads and curled up their bodies.
No one dared to run.
No one dared to resist.
Those who had dared to run earlier had their legs hanging from the flagpoles.
Those who had dared to resist had their hearts and livers already in the stomachs of these beasts.
They were like a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered, numbly waiting for that hand to fall upon them.
"And that one."
The man pointed to a young man who looked like a scholar.
"This scholar doesn't do manual labor, so his meat is soft. Though it's a bit sour, it has a good chew to it. If paired with two jars of good wine, it would make a fine dish to go with the drink."
The scholar trembled but didn't dare to move.
A woman beside him, likely the scholar's mother, finally couldn't take it anymore. She fell to her knees with a thud. Not daring to beg the demons, she hugged the man's leg and kowtowed incessantly.
"My Lord... Lord Governor! Please, I beg you to show mercy! He is our only child!"
"Get lost!"
The man's face turned cold as he kicked the woman in the chest.
"Who are you to cry out?"
"If it weren't for the Kings' picky appetites and their lack of interest in your old flesh, I would have thrown you in to fill the bottom of the pot long ago!"
The woman was kicked to the ground and spat out a mouthful of black blood, but she still struggled to reach for the hem of her son's robe.
The scholar's eyes were red, and he gritted his teeth, but in the end, he didn't dare to make a sound.
The man straightened his wrinkled robes and spat.
"Ungrateful wretch."
"Great King, shall we take these two back first?"
The Pig Demon nodded in satisfaction and was about to say something.
Suddenly, it noticed that the expressions of the crowd in front of it had changed.
It instinctively wanted to turn around.
Boom—!!!
An extremely dull explosion erupted on the long street.
The massive, ugly pig head was kicked clean off its neck.
The head, carrying foul black blood, flew dozens of yards and smashed into the blue brick wall in the distance.
Bang!
The wall collapsed, and dust rose everywhere.
The tall demons nearby only reacted at this moment.
Roar—
The roar had just begun when it came to an abrupt end.
Several bolts of Purple Lightning Yin Thunder exploded out of thin air.
"..."
The man's body stiffened as he slowly turned his head.
What met his eyes...
...was a pair of black silk boots with cloud patterns.
His gaze moved up the long legs.
A blood-red cloak and menacing dark gold beast-head pauldrons.
Although the man had never seen this person before...
...with this outfit and this level of Evil Qi...
...who else could it be but the Demon Suppression Division?
Thud.
The man's knees buckled, and he fell directly to the ground.
He kowtowed while wailing incoherently.
"This lowly official... this lowly official was also forced into this!"
"These beasts have no humanity. If I didn't go along with them, the people of this city... all the people in the city would have suffered!"
"I did it to protect the people; I had to endure humiliation and play along with the tigers..."
Jiang Yuechu lowered her eyes, quietly watching the spineless dog wagging its tail and begging for mercy at her feet.
There was neither pity nor anger.
She simply reached out slowly, grabbed his collar, and lifted the man off the ground.
The man's feet left the ground, and he kicked desperately.
"Don't..."
"I am an official of the court! I am the Governor of a prefecture! You cannot kill me! You cannot kill me!"
Before his voice had even faded...
Jiang Yuechu clenched her hand into a fist.
Boom—!!!
A punch smashed into his face.
His nose collapsed, and his teeth flew out.
His relatively fair face caved in instantly, blood gushing like a fountain.
Next.
She reached out again, lifted him, and punched.
Boom!
This punch smashed into his jaw.
The sound of bone cracking was crisp as his jaw shattered.
Boom!
The third punch.
Boom!
The fourth punch... On the long street.
Only the sound of dull thuds remained.
Until the nineteenth punch.
His face no longer looked human at all.
Jiang Yuechu finally stopped her movements.
She slowly exhaled.
Then, she stopped holding back.
She threw another punch.
Bang!
Red and white matter splattered all over the ground.
The commoners stared blankly at the scene.
The fire-red cloak and the menacing dark gold beast-head pauldrons.
The commoners recognized this outfit.
The Great Tang Demon Suppression Division.
But in just one night...
...from the fall of their city and the loss of their homes to becoming food, and then to witnessing their local official kowtowing and offering his people up like pigs and dogs...
They were just a group of walking dead who had luckily survived, waiting for death to arrive.
But now, the figure that once gave them peace of mind had finally appeared before them again.
They didn't dare think it.
They didn't dare ask.
They didn't dare believe it!
They truly didn't dare believe it... fearing it was just a dream before death.
Jiang Yuechu's gaze swept over everyone as she leaned down slightly to help the girl on the ground up.
The girl's body was stiff, and the moment she was touched, she shuddered as if struck by lightning.
She slowly looked up, her eyes, which had long since run dry of tears, reflecting the young woman's calm face.
"My Lord..."
Jiang Yuechu let go and straightened her messy hair.
"Find a place to hide for now. No matter what happens outside, do not come out."
With that...
...she stayed no longer.
The black-clothed figure turned around, her red cloak fluttering and kicking up a strong wind.
She looked up.
Looking toward the thick Demonic Qi rising into the sky from deep within Yizhou Prefecture.
She took a deep breath and slowly stepped forward.
Her footsteps grew more distant.
...until they completely vanished at the end of the long street.
The people huddling in the corner remained in their original positions, motionless.
After a long time...
...the scholar suddenly raised his hand and slapped himself hard.
Slap—!
It hurt.
It wasn't a dream.
It really wasn't a dream.
He slowly turned around, looking at the commoners around him who seemed to be waking from a dream.
"The Great Tang... The Great Tang is back!!!"