After devouring the oaf, the shadow excitedly acknowledged Xu Qing’s subsequent orders. It was like an extremely obedient but vicious dog who, in its extreme longing, suddenly received its master’s approval to go wild.

The buildings in the village now realized that Xu Qing was someone not to be trifled with. Their legs immediately appeared, and they turned to flee. It was too late.

Xu Qing’s shadow spread out rapidly, whereupon agonized shrieks rang out from the buildings. The shrieks didn’t last for long, though. After the shadow covered the buildings, the shrieks were replaced by chewing sounds.

“Yum… yummm… yummmm…..”

The shadow was clearly very excited. It even sent out black tendrils, like tentacles, to capture all the fleeing buildings.

It was a very gruish scene. Anyone who happened upon it would be astonished. After all, Xu Qing’s method of giving orders to a grue made him more gruish than the grues themselves. The trees vanished. The buildings collapsed. The shadow was essentially devouring everything including the flesh and bones.

Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior suddenly appeared. He blinked a few times, and his eyes shone with excitement. Apparently, he was trying to remind Xu Qing of the things he had done in the past. 𝒊𝓫𝓪.𝓬𝓸𝙢

Xu Qing ignored him.

Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior suddenly felt the need to be more vigilant than ever, as he realized that his own sense of existence was fading. He had read a lot of books in which the main character had a pet who, because of matters relating to their sense of existence, gradually faded away, never to be seen again. In the past, the patriarch had always assumed it was because the author just forgot about the pet. But based on his current experiences, he realized that wasn’t the case. It was instead a situation in which the pet didn’t work hard enough. It didn’t have anything to do with the author.

I have to break through soon! Very soon! I have to get Nascent Soul power before the Fiendish Xu! That way my sense of existence will be much stronger!

As the patriarch stewed in such thoughts, the shadow gorged itself. Apparently, the flavor really was delicious, as the shadow even materialized a tongue that it used to lick every last bit of flavor out. But then, an angry shout rang out.

“You’re going too far!”

Some tentacles appeared that resembled the shadow’s tendrils, except they were made of flesh and blood. As they burrowed out of the ground and whipped around wildly, the shadow stretched toward them excitedly. However, the tentacles then used some unknown method to spit out some black mist which blocked the shadow.

But the shadow wasn’t picky with food: it just started devouring the mist, which got it even more excited. Then, it got closer to the tentacles, looking like it was very pleased to have found something so interesting.

When they clashed, chewing sounds mixed with cries of agony. The tentacles were quickly being ripped to shreds. Only a moment later, the surviving tentacles self-detonated, and the resulting explosion shoved the shadow backward and caused it to shatter. Then the countless chunks of bloody flesh converged in the distance, forming a strange beast that looked like a qilin, except that it was covered with tentacles.

The beast looked grimly at the shadow, which was already back in one piece and clearly unharmed. What kind of grue is this?

“Hurry up and eat it,” Xu Qing said coolly.

The shadow glared malevolently at the beast, then blurred toward it. Halfway there, it turned into a huge coffin with countless eyes covering its surface.

“You command grues? Very interesting. It seems that during my two hundred years of confinement in the Corrections Division, some very unusual magical techniques have been developed. In that case… allow me to devour you first, fool!”

With a roar, the beast exploded again, causing a host of bloody flesh chunks to rush forward. In the blink of an eye, they were right in front of Xu Qing, and were clearly about to surround him.

“Corrections Division?” Xu Qing murmured, his eyes turning cold. He shoved his hand out into the middle of all the chunks of flesh and grabbed a small, slippery object from within. He yanked it out.

A bloodcurdling scream shook the area. The chunks of flesh dissolved into ashes, and Xu Qing was left holding a trembling, pitch-black imp. It was dripping wet and had only one eye. What was more, the back half of its head was missing, and the interior of its skull was empty. Someone had apparently dug out most of its brain. The wound had not yet healed over.

It all seemed very strange. Xu Qing knew that not all jailers in the Corrections Division liked to just kill prisoners. Many of them were fond of experimentation and research. Many had grand aspirations that would lead them to perform vivisections on nonhumans. This imp most likely had been an experiment subject at the moment of the prison break.

Xu Qing’s shadow approached and swirled around him, looking curiously at the little imp that was the same color as itself.

“You wouldn’t dare kill me!” the imp shrieked. “My bosses are Patriarch Muddlesky and Stonefiend Seacrusher! They’re from D-132! You’ve probably heard of D-132, haven’t you? That’s the most brutal and mysterious location in the Corrections Division. If you dare do anything to me, they’ll definitely put you to death!”

Clearly, this little imp didn’t know who Xu Qing was….

It made sense considering how many prisoners had been kept in the Corrections Division. It wasn’t as if Xu Qing had visited all the cell blocks. What was more, the majority of prisoners who laid eyes on him ended up dead.

Xu Qing had been planning to just crush the imp out of existence. But then he started talking about D-132, and it caused Xu Qing’s eyes to glitter. Next, he threw him down in front of Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior.

“Get a location,” Xu Qing said quietly.

“Yes, sir!” the patriarch said. He flashed a vicious smile as he stalked toward the little imp.

Before long, screams rang out in all directions. They didn’t last for very long. After enough time passed for half an incense stick to burn, the extremely pleased-looking patriarch got the information out of the imp.

Once they knew the direction to go in, Xu Qing blurred into motion.

About an hour later, they caught sight of an illusory mountain made of black mist. A pitch-black aura pulsed out from it in all directions, making it seem extremely malevolent. Anyone who looked at it would feel instantly uneasy, and wouldn’t dare to approach it.

“Milord, based on the information from Little Imp, this mountain has a lot of grues on it. All of them were recruited by the two bosses he mentioned. They began recruiting after the swordsages left for war.” Keeping a firm grip on the gasping imp, the patriarch respectfully continued, “What if I go with Little… Shadow to scout ahead? Once these two bosses appear, we can—”

“There’s no need for that.” Xu Qing didn’t want to waste any more time, so he flew toward the misty mountain.

The concealment magic he was using didn’t just hide his aura, it also concealed his cultivation base. As he entered the mountain, he waved his hand to part the mist.

A moment later, howls erupted from within the mountain as ghostly shadows surged out. But before they could even get a sense of where Xu Qing was, they screamed and exploded.

Seeing that, the little imp in the patriarch’s hand grew increasingly terrified.

Xu Qing didn’t slow down at all. He strode through the mist, causing any gruish entities to vanish before they could even get within thirty meters of him. Thus he climbed closer and closer to the summit of the mountain.

It was only at this point that whatever entities controlled the mountain started to realize that something was going on. A piercing cry erupted, full of wild arrogance.

“What blind dog dares to cause a scene in my presence?”

It was a familiar voice. As it echoed out, a head appeared, rising up from the summit of the mountain. And beneath it was the extremely impressive body of a stone guardian lion. The head and the stone lion didn’t really match, but they emanated an impressive aura that weighed down viciously on everything.

Xu Qing looked up without a scrap of expression on his face.

Meanwhile, the imp being held by Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior suddenly got extremely excited.

“Bosses!” he screamed. “Bosses, help!”

A vicious gleam appeared in the eyes of the head, and its expression was equally ferocious. Looking down through the mists, it bellowed, “Whoever dares cause problems for one of my subordinates is courting… huh?” Before the head could finish speaking, its eyes came to rest on Xu Qing. “What? What?”

The head’s eyes went wide and its pupils constricted. It started trembling. It seemed it couldn’t believe what it was seeing, and it even blinked seven or eight times.

All the while, the imp was yelling more and more loudly. “Bosses, it was this bastard! You have to kill him!”

The head unleashed a piercing scream of terror that caused everything to tremble violently.

“Holy crap!!” Massive tidal waves of shock pounding the head’s mind as it turned to flee.

However, the stone lion reacted even more quickly. All four of its legs pumped wildly, and its tail swished back and forth as it threw the head off it and started running away at top speed.

After being thrown off the lion, the head flipped end over end a few times before righting itself and fleeing after the lion.

“Y-y-you? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at war? Aren’t all the swordsages off at war? Goddammit! What are you doing here??”

Remaining completely calm, Xu Qing strode after them in pursuit.

Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior hurried after Xu Qing, keeping his grip on the imp, who was completely stunned. Its two bosses were supposed to be illustrious and terrifying figures from D-132, but now they were fleeing like mad.

“Bosses… the two of you—”

“Shut up!” wailed the head. “He’s the boss! He’s the freaking guard in charge of D-132!” The head really wished it could just devour that imp. “I just got free! You little bastard! I can’t believe you brought this heaven-damned killer here! Do you know how many times he’s stomped me to death?”

The m𝑜st uptodate novels are published on 𝑙𝘳𝘦𝘢.𝒸𝑜𝘮