Demoness's Art of Vengeance

Not long after the intense wave of oppressive aura swept across Jun Xiaomo and the rest, a fiery-red figure appeared in the horizon and grew larger and larger as it slowly but surely made its way over towards them.

That figure was intensely red and eye-catching. It presented itself with such an overbearing disposition as though it were a roaring inferno that were quickly encroaching upon their location.

“Mar-…martial sister, what’s that?” Wei Gaolang stammered. He could feel that the object approaching them was something well beyond the ordinary.

At the very least, this creature was vastly different from any other creature that they had encountered in these marshlands.

“I don’t know either.” Jun Xiaomo spoke earnestly, “But we’ve got to remain vigilant. Maintain our present formations.”

Their present formation was exactly the formation that Jun Xiaomo and the rest had come up with over the last two days of practice. They were able to both attack and defend with this formation, and it was most suitable when faced with the approach of an unknown danger.

Everyone’s hearts constricted with anxiety as they watched the figure draw closer to them. Yet nobody realized that the Eternal Summit Sect’s disciples remained completely calm and unfazed. Du Yongxu’s lips had even curled into a vicious and scheming smile.

As the figure in the horizon drew closer and closer, Jun Xiaomo and the rest were finally able to make out the features on this quickly approaching creature –

This was a massive spirit beast that looked similar to the wolves in the mortal world. However, its ever-burning fur and its colossal and intimidating body revealed that its true identity were hardly even close to the relatively harmless wolf of the mortal world.

“Scarlet Heavenly Wolf?! It’s a Scarlet Heavenly Wolf?!!!” Some of the audience members immediately recognized the identity of this spirit beast, and they couldn’t help but exclaim aloud.

“Scarlet Heavenly Wolf? What’s that?” Those who were unaware of such a creature stared vacantly at the audience members who had cried out earlier.

“This is a spirit beast that thrives in extreme environments such as in the mouth of a volcano. Generally speaking, once they matured, they would claim the volcano and its surrounding areas as their territory. It’s an extremely territorial creature as well, and any creature or cultivator that enters its territory would immediately be killed by it.” Just then, the person explaining shivered as he began to speak with a hushed voice, “I hear that these spirit beasts hate humans. There was once where a cultivator inadvertently encroached upon its territory. Within moments, it was eaten up by the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf, and not a single bone of his body was left. It’s simply horrifying!”

“Volcano? Since it thrives at the mouth of a volcano, what would it be doing appearing at the marshlands?”

“Who knows? Perhaps the organizing committee intends to increase the difficulty of these group battles slightly, so they’ve introduced the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf to the battles.”

“Huh?! Do you think that this constitutes ‘slightly increasing the difficulty’? Why does it seem like the organizing committee’s after the lives of the participants!” The ones who had heard his conjecture drew a cold breath.

The person who had described the characteristics of the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf shrugged his shoulders – he could not understand the point of introducing this to the battles either.

But their sect’s representatives were not in that part of the marshlands. Thus, no matter how vicious and savage the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf was, these members of the audience merely continued to watch the group battles with a keen interest in seeing how things would play out.

I wonder if the Dawn Sect or the Eternal Summit Sect would be able to turn the odds in their favour right now.

If the organizing committee could hear what these audience members were discussing right now, they would almost certainly feel wronged by them – their role only extended to the organization and planning of this competition. They certainly did not want to invite trouble upon themselves.

If the organizing committee had truly been the ones to introduce the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf into the group battles, and then something happened to the Dawn Sect disciples or the Eternal Summit Sect disciples, not to mention the Dragontiger Sect and the Purple Hut Sect, the resultant interrogation from any one of these sects would be enough of a headache to all of them.

In the competition grounds, Jun Xiaomo immediately furrowed her brows and grimaced when she noticed the true identity of the massive creature approaching them.

Scarlet Heavenly Wolf?! Why would a Scarlet Heavenly Wolf appear in the marshlands?!

Jun Xiaomo had witnessed the powerful abilities of this spirit beast before. Even a Scarlet Heavenly Wolf puppy would possess incredible combat abilities from the moment it was born.

Furthermore, she could see that the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf approaching them right now had a blue rhombus on its forehead. This meant that the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf had already attained at least the Golden Core stage of cultivation. In fact, there was a good chance that it had already broken through the Golden Core stage of cultivation.

Jun Xiaomo was unaware of the exact strength and abilities of a Scarlet Heavenly Wolf that had broken through the Golden Core stage of cultivation. The only thing that she knew was that even if the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf were in the Qi Mastery stage of cultivation, it would still be incredibly difficult for the entire Heavenly Peak faction to join hands and subjugate it.

Thus, Jun Xiaomo knew one thing – things were going to be extremely bad for the Heavenly Peak faction if they did not carefully plan their strategies against the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf.

ROAR! The Scarlet Heavenly Wolf looked straight towards Jun Xiaomo and the rest as it roared ferociously. Its eyes were completely bloodshot, as though blood were going to spill from its eyes in the very next moment.

There was also a trace of bitterness and pain hidden in the depths of its eyes. Unfortunately, because Jun Xiaomo and the rest were too far away from it, and the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf was also too tall, nobody could see this in its eyes.

Du Yongxu lay there on the ground as he painstakingly retrieved a talisman from his Interspatial Ring and applied it on the palm of his hands.

The talisman immediately disappeared into his palm and disappeared. Then, he made some hand seals and murmured some mnemonics that was inaudible to anyone else.

ROAR! The Scarlet Heavenly Wolf howled in rage once more. In its eyes, the figures of Jun Xiaomo and the rest had twisted and faded away, before they finally transformed into a group of people that it hated the very most.

These were the ones who had made me like this. Kill them!

The Scarlet Heavenly Wolf immediately lunged at Jun Xiaomo and the rest, and the disciples of the three sects immediately scattered in different directions. At the same time, they began to focus their attacks on the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf’s nose, eyes, abdomen and other places that were slightly more susceptible to attacks. However, the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf simply avoided every single one of these attacks.

The Scarlet Heavenly Wolf’s speed was incredibly quick. With the raging inferno emanating from its fur, Jun Xiaomo and the rest looked like they were being attacked by a blazing inferno that swept about menacingly – one misstep and they would fall straight into and be consumed by the sea of flames.

Everyone in the audience watched with bated breaths. Profuse sweat ran down their foreheads, and they found themselves incredibly anxious and nervous for Jun Xiaomo and the rest.

“Damn! This spirit beast’s speed is just too quick. It clearly possesses a fire-based spiritual root, so how can its speed be so quick?!” Wei Gaolang hurriedly extinguished some flames on his body as he complained aloud.

“This is the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf’s unique feature. Even though it doesn’t possess a wind-based spiritual root, yet from the moment it’s born, its speed is already comparable to a wind-based cultivator at the sixth level of Qi Mastery. Furthermore, its speed will only increase as it grows older and its cultivation level increases.” Jun Xiaomo continued to avoid its attacks as she explained.

“My goodness! That’s far too heaven-defying!” Wei Gaolang scrunched up his face in disbelief, “How are we supposed to fight against this thing then?! There’s no way we can do this! None of our attacks are hitting it to begin with!”

Jun Xiaomo’s heart was sullen as well. Her only goal was to bring her martial brothers away from this place safely – she hardly wanted to see any one of her martial brothers perish in this place.

Just then, Du Yongxu calmly suggested to Jun Xiaomo who happened to have retreated to his side, “I’ve got a suggestion. Why not let us go? This way, we can join hands, and we might have a chance of defeating this creature.”

Du Yongxu and the others were still afflicted by the Thousand-Eyed Spider’s poison, and its effects would not wear off for some time. But the fact that Jun Xiaomo and the rest had touched the Thousand-Eyed Spider’s poison yet be completely unaffected by it meant that they possessed the antidote to this poison with them.

Thus, Du Yongxu planned to obtain the antidote from Jun Xiaomo. He hated the feeling of laying helplessly where he was right now.

Jun Xiaomo glanced at Du Yongxu and noticed the discreet smirk on his face.

“Sorry, I can’t accept your suggestion. I don’t intend to make a deal with you people. Who knows whether you will end up backstabbing us?”

Jun Xiaomo responded dispassionately.

“Jun Xiaomo! Don’t you go too far! Do you want all of us to perish here?!” Another one of the Du Clan disciples lying on the floor cried out with indignation.

He wanted to stand on his moral high ground and smear Jun Xiaomo and the rest with a bad reputation.

This way, when Jun Xiaomo and the rest perish to the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf, the Du Clan disciples would hardly draw any flak from the rest of the audience members. Everyone would think that Jun Xiaomo and the rest simply deserved what they got.

However, Jun Xiaomo refused to take this lying down. She glanced back at the Du Clan disciples indifferently before a smile crept up the corner of her lips as she chuckled contemptuously, “You’ll perish here? Why do I get the feeling that the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf won’t be attacking you guys at all?”

In other words, she was insinuating that the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf might very well be related to the schemes of the Eternal Summit Sect’s disciples. Otherwise, why would the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf coincidentally appear in the marshlands, and why would the Heavenly Peak faction coincidentally become the target of the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf?

As soon as Jun Xiaomo spoke her mind, several members of the audience immediately connected two and two and revealed a look of realization on their faces.

A lump swelled up in Du Yongxu’s throat, and he glared back at Jun Xiaomo with indignation in his heart.

The appearance of this Scarlet Heavenly Wolf was indeed linked to the Du Clan disciples. Back when they first encountered it, the entire Du Clan had expended an incredible amount of energy to subdue the young Scarlet Heavenly Wolf pup. Then, they attempted to subjugate the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf to do their bidding with a series of forbidden spells.

These spells were a type of refinement magic similar to the ones used by Situ Cang on the little packrat, and they could be used on most spirit and demonic beasts to erase their spiritual awareness so that they would become like no more than a living corpse.

However, this Scarlet Heavenly Wolf evidently possessed an incredible spiritual awareness and a powerful soul. Despite three complete attempts with the forbidden refinement technique, the Du Clan found themselves unable to completely refine and subjugate it.

At that time, the Du Clan’s Third Elder declared that they could no longer attempt to refine it. If they did so, this Scarlet Heavenly Wolf would become completely crippled and useless to them. Thus, they changed their strategies and decided to use other methods to control this Scarlet Heavenly Wolf.

Du Yongxu had never intended to use the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf during the course of these group battles. It had earlier been planted in these marshlands more as an added layer of insurance than anything else.

As to what it insured – this naturally referred to the off chance that the Du Clan disciples were unable to take the lives of the Heavenly Peak disciples.

Du Yongxu was practically certain that these one-in-a-hundred odds would never come to pass. Yet such a worst-case scenario had indeed come to pass. After all, how could they have known that Jun Xiaomo’s head could be stuffed with so many ingenious ideas in that little head of hers?

It’s best if we dispose of Jun Xiaomo here and now. Who knows what she will become if we let her live right now? A layer of frost grew over Du Yongxu’s eyes as he glared at Jun Xiaomo with a cold, frigid gaze.

Even though he was curious about the layers upon layers of secrets hidden within Jun Xiaomo’s body, he knew that the sense of danger that he got from Jun Xiaomo’s body far outweighed what little curiosity he had towards her. Thus, his heart was filled with an avid killing intent towards her right now.

That said, Du Yongxu simply couldn’t understand why he suddenly felt so threatened and afraid of Jun Xiaomo, a cultivator at only the sixth level of Qi Mastery.

Nevertheless, he made a series of hand seals discreetly, and the heat and intensity of the flames of the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf’s fur burgeoned to a whole new level. It practically looked as though the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf were now completely doused and immersed in a raging inferno.

This was the foreboding sign that the Scarlet Heavenly Wolf was going to explode with fury.

ROAR! It bellowed once more, before it cocked its head menacingly and stared with intense hatred at its next target, Jun Xiaomo!