Chapter 418 – Waking Up (2/2)

“Someone’s beat us to it. They’re from the Fire Cloud sect,” Qian Rongzhi said.

“What are they doing?”

“Purging daemons, obviously. It’s fine. Once they succeed, we’ll just kill them too. We can even get our hands on a few hundred treasures pouches. Don’t look at me like that. If they have the opportunity, they won’t show any mercy either. The academy’s lost a lot of disciples, but it’s not like they only died to the fangs and claws of daemons.”

The threat of the daemons had not united the humans. Instead, it broke the original order, making all conflicts even more violent. The Rock of Slaughter was not present, but killing one another had already become the norm. No one would mind obtaining a few hundred treasures pouches without facing any danger at all. It was not like anyone would look into the matter with the current chaos anyway.

Before Qian Rongzhi had finished speaking, Li Qingshan already flew down.

“Oh no. Senior brother, we’ve let it escape!”

The racoon-like daemon was extremely nimble. It turned around a corner and vanished. When the disciples of the Fire Cloud sect rushed over, all they saw was a small hole in the corner of the walls. They could not help but feel overcome with dismay. That was a daemon core!

At this moment, Li Qingshan descended from the sky. The disciples of the Fire Cloud sect immediately became vigilant. However, all they saw was Li Qingshan wave his hand and conjure a few water dragons, lunging into the fire and putting out the firestorm.

These techniques immediately made the disciples of the Fire Cloud sect change in expression. This definitely was not someone they could handle.

“May I ask which senior brother you are? How come we’ve never seen you before?” The leader of the group was an eighth layer Qi Practitioner, gathering his courage to pay respects to Li Qingshan. Seeing how Li Qingshan had appeared in the eye of the public, he did not immediately behave like he was about to kill and rob him.

“Did you catch the daemon?” Li Qingshan stood on the roof and asked them from above.

“We didn’t, or we’d definitely offer it up to you.”

“Do you know how many people you’ve just killed?” Li Qingshan gazed at the city. Plumes of smoke still rose up into the sky. With his superhuman hearing, he could clearly hear the many sobs and moans, rising up into the night sky in a playful manner.

In the blink of an eye, countless families had been destroyed. Even with the heart of steel that Li Qingshan believed he possessed, he was unable to remain indifferent to all this.

“If we don’t kill the daemon, it’ll just lead to even more deaths!” That disciple of the Fire Cloud sect sure was righteous. He clearly possessed much more resolve than Li Qingshan. Afterwards, he feigned pity. “Oh, we didn’t want to do this either! We were just careless, letting the daemon take advantage of us.”

Most of the battles between humans and daemons would not occur in the wilderness, but in cities. Powerful daemons would massacre cities in anger, while weaker daemons would make use of the complex layout of human cities to hide and prey on humans. This was commonplace. Whenever they began fighting, they would cherish their own lives the most. Why would they care about the lives of regular people?

Li Qingshan waved his hand, and as if spared, the disciples all flew away from the city, gradually turning into specks of firelight before suddenly going out.

“Another mission.” Qian Rongzhi walked over from where the firelight had been extinguished. Her collection of corpses had increased yet again.

Li Qingshan turned a deaf ear to her. He stood with his arms crossed, sinking into his thoughts. He was like a statue in the darkness.

“What, after three years of seclusion, the vicious tiger’s become a cowardly cat?” Qian Rongzhi smiled faintly. Originally, she thought there would be even more opportunities for her to collaborate with him, but his behaviour had left her slightly disappointed or even angered. Perhaps she should risk her life to anger him!

Xiao An glanced at Qian Rongzhi. Qian Rongzhi raised her hands and shrugged, no longer saying anything else.

“Thank you, great immortal! Thank you!” The common folk gathered over beneath the roof, lowering their heads, thanking him and asking for help. Li Qingshan ignored all of it, and the crowd dispersed.

Before he knew it, a night had passed. The many stars receded, and the east lit up.

In a corner, Qian Rongzhi, who was currently holding Xiao An’s hand and speaking with her, suddenly raised her head, looking at Li Qingshan. Gradually, a familiar feeling began to awaken from him, which made her tremble slightly. The rising sun in the east coated him in a layer of gold.

“Time to go, Xiao An. Let’s go back.” Li Qingshan opened his eyes, no longer lost or confused. It was filled with composed determination.

Xiao An leapt up, arriving beside him and grabbing him by a finger.

“The mission!” Qian Rongzhi said.

“You’d better just handle these boring missions yourself!” Li Qingshan behaved like he had just woken up, slightly lazy. He abandoned Qian Rongzhi and took off with Xiao An.

The three years were like a dream. He had woken up now.

Qian Rongzhi raised her head and watched him disappear into the horizon. She suddenly smiled. You have some more value of use when you’re like this!

In the windy sky, Xiao An cast a questioning glance at him.

“I’m not you. I can’t help neither. I can’t cut off everything. I will bear my responsibilities, my responsibilities as a human, my responsibilities as a daemon.” Li Qingshan stared at the glimmering horizon, and his lips curled up. His smile was slightly exuberant and naive, as if he was still that high-spirited, young, gallant wanderer.