"The Great Demon has arrived!!!"
Upon these words from Gu Shenzi, Business Leader City instantly erupted.
Even when Medicine King Valley besieged the town, there was never such widespread chaos.
The buildings of Business Leader City were extremely crowded, mainly because more than half the area was occupied by thirty-six Immortal Daoist Schools, leaving mortals to live only in the cramped streets and alleys.
In the eyes of mortals, the floating islands, as the [Demon Cave] that nurtures Heavenly Demons, symbolize endless worldly suffering.
And the Great Demon represents a terror that even immortals find hard to match.
Mortals banged their heads against the ground, blood staining the blue bricks, pinning their hopes for survival on the Daoist Schools, chanting the names of immortals they revered.
It was known that whenever a Heavenly Demon arrived, it was usually a single Daoist School that took action to counter it.
Now, just the two words "Great Demon" made every Daoist School feel like they’re on pins and needles, with about a hundred immortals coming out to confirm the truth.
They noticed the vast mystical phenomena of the floating islands and couldn’t help but draw a cold breath.
Those who possess Immortal Artifacts, clad in brocade robes, with cultivation reaching the Refining Void Realm, with endless lifespans, preside over a Daoist School, just like Gu Shenzi.
The numerous cultivators beside Gu Shenzi were disciples of his sect.
The so-called [Taoist Children] in the mouths of mortals.
All immortals bore terrified expressions, seemingly recalling their past encounters with Great Demons, and regardless of the occasion, began discussing countermeasures among themselves.
"Why don’t we wake up the [Dao Jun]? Otherwise, the Great Demon will again cause life to be ruined and even affect the harvest of the Conjoined Fetus."
The ruined lives wouldn’t cause immortals to worry; mortals were just livestock being reared.
But the Conjoined Fetus concerns cultivation. Letting the Great Demon rampage through Business Leader City, even temporarily abandoning the city defense, would lead to the decline in the cultivation of immortals.
Fengyang spoke up, "As long as it’s not Zu Xiuyun descending upon us, we’re not completely without a chance; if worse comes to worst, we still have four Dao Juns."
"The Dao Juns are all asleep; rashly waking them up will definitely lead to a few Daoist Schools being delisted."
"If we don’t let the Dao Juns intervene, how can we deal with the Great Demon? How many immortals died back when the Luo Fu Great Demon appeared?"
"Ha, Zeng Yin, your face is great, why don’t you go call on the Dao Juns..."
Gu Shenzi interrupted the immortals in a stern voice, speaking harshly: "Don’t forget, the Demon Cave is staring at us from high above Business Leader City."
He hesitated for a few breaths and added: "It might not necessarily be the Great Demon; haven’t you all noticed that in the previous three occurrences, the Great Demons appeared alone?"
Zeng Yin sneered and said, "Gu Shenzi, whether it’s a Great Demon is all based on your word; when the Dao Juns wake up, the first one they’ll kill should be you."
Gu Shenzi said no more and quietly closed his eyes, lost in thought.
Five hundred years ago, a Heavenly Demon was just a Heavenly Demon, and at most, a few Heavenly Demons with outstanding cultivation were called "Demon Heads," never a Great Demon.
The title of Great Demon comes from a Heavenly Demon that called itself "Zu Xiuyun."
The arrival of a Great Demon is inevitably accompanied by mystical phenomena.
Gu Shenzi still remembered Zu Xiuyun’s phenomena, which turned the town into a hell on earth, with countless mortals kneeling and shouting for immortality.
Dozens of immortals teamed up, and Zu Xiuyun directly destroyed more than half of Business Leader City.
Even Dao Juns, who are above immortals, gained no advantage, and Zu Xiuyun eventually left the small world unscathed.
"Great Demon, how could such an eerie Outer Heaven Demon exist that is unacceptable to the Heavenly Dao? Incredible, incredible."
Gu Shenzi recalled Zu Xiuyun’s four-to-five-thousand-meter body, composed of a mountain of grotesque rotten flesh, with desiccated vegetation wherever it passed.
He had assumed that once Zu Xiuyun disappeared, no Great Demon would emerge again.
But over the next three hundred years, another two Great Demons appeared in succession, both repelled by Dao Juns, preserving the peace of the small world.
Gu Shenzi took a deep breath, "The second Great Demon, Luo Fu, the third Great Demon, Qu Ai."
All three Great Demons, without exception, had bodies exceeding four thousand meters and were indescribably mutated, posing a challenge to immortals.
So when Gu Shenzi saw the enormous object on the floating islands, his first reaction was that a Great Demon had arrived, given that even the largest ordinary Heavenly Demon was only about three to four hundred meters.
"The only good news is that it’s not the previously appeared Zu Xiuyun."
Gu Shenzi scrutinized the floating island; the third Great Demon barely exceeded two thousand meters, but its phenomena were no less significant.
The sky suddenly erupted with a substantial Sword Intent.
The floating island belonging to the Heavenly Sword Sect had stones continually falling from it, and faintly visible were thousands of illusory flood dragon shadows circling the island.
On the ground, there were myriad beasts worshipping, their roars incessant.
"Why... is something missing?"
When Gu Shenzi came back to his senses, he sensed that the aura of the fourth Great Demon fell far short of the previous three Great Demons and had not even reached the Void Refining Stage.
A beautiful woman in a white robe, with hints of crow’s feet at her eyes, descended by his side.
"Have you discerned anything?"
"I’m not sure of its authenticity."
The beautiful woman lightly brushed her sleeve and said, "Gu Shenzi, as a disciple of Lord Chaoxi Dao Jun, having experienced three Great Demon appearances, you should be able to tell the reality of a Great Demon, right?"
"Junior Sister Qing Tan, the Great Demon exists in form and formlessness, with methods beyond imagination."
Gu Shenzi swung his horsetail whisk, capturing more than a dozen mortals around him.
Their screams were endless, but the relatives of the mortals considered it a blessing, with everyone scrambling for the few blood-stained pieces of "Blessed Clothes."
The horsetail whisk retracted, and the bodies turned into elixir pills that Gu Shenzi ingested.
"Taiqing Three Qi, for my use, Eye Aperture... Open!!!"
Gu Shenzi’s forehead split open, revealing a jade-like eye pupil, with faint clouds shrouding his body, making him appear immortal and ethereal. Official source ıs 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁
The jade-like eye pupil gazed toward the floating islands.
Gu Shenzi released the horsetail whisk again, and more and more mortals were consumed into his belly.
"It should be... Oh, the aura of the Great Demon suddenly disappeared."
The floating islands again became shrouded in dense fog, and the two-thousand-meter Great Demon vanished, with the grand mystical phenomena gradually receding into the array.
"Return to the Daoist Temple; perhaps it was merely a trick by the Heavenly Demons to confuse people’s minds."
Gu Shenzi led his disciples back to the Daoist School, with Qing Tan following closely behind. The remaining immortals, seeing the sudden end to the Great Demon’s emergence, gradually dispersed.
However, the watch over the Demon Cave was noticeably more frequent.
The news about Li Mo coming to the Demon Cave was already known to the Five Great Sects.
Except for the Great Sun Sword Cultivators from the Heavenly Sword Sect, all cultivators were coldly observing, not thinking that the rumored Thirteen Immortals held any particular significance.
The Twelve Immortals were all figures from ten thousand years ago who reincarnated, and even in the No-Life Sect, each was at least in the Divine Separation Stage.
Before the Divine Separation Stage, Li Mo’s reputation was not prominent; seemingly, he hailed from a medium or small sect.
In nearly five hundred years, the Twelve Immortals have made their mark in their respective sects, almost overwhelmingly showcasing what it meant to have an Innate Immortal Seed to the world.
He had only recently entered the Divine Separation Stage, barely comparable.
As for the title of Chief of the Great Sun Sword Tomb, it still couldn’t gain their recognition, even suspected to be due to Yu Xiao’s shade.
After all, the performance of the Great Sun Sword Tomb stationed at the Demon Cave was too pathetic.
On one hand, due to the calamity at the Fire Spirit Hall, the Great Sun Sword Tomb only had barely a hundred disciples left, with Outer Disciples yet to be promoted to the Inner Sect.
The lingering taboo left by the Night Patrol Deity was still present, back then, the Copper Mirror quietly devoured several Heavenly Palace Stage Sword Cultivators.
Among them were formidable Sword Cultivators.
And Zeng Yin, who was a candidate for Chief, was killed with a single sword strike by Li Mo.
As a result, the Great Sun Sword Tomb found itself in an embarrassing situation of a generational gap. Yet they were ordered to the Demon Cave; it was simply a scattered mess.
On the other hand, the Heavenly Sword Sect truly wasn’t adept at cultivation techniques.
The floating islands refined by Zhibai Dao were fairly decent Low Grade Magical Treasure, specifically for accommodating the disciples of the Five Great Sects.
As long as complementary arrays were arranged and certain refinements made, the floating islands could become a fortress that could be advanced or defended.
In the end, the Heavenly Sword Sect were a bunch of mountain savages who only understood swordsmanship.
Forget artifact refining; they couldn’t even understand the structure of the floating islands, barely controlling the magical treasure after basic refining.
Fortunately, Li Mo informed Ye Zhuo and the others about the details of the Nine Curves Chain Formation.
They barely set up a makeshift Nine Curves Chain Formation, often needing repairs, with resources having to be provided by the Sword Cultivators themselves.
The farming method of the Heavenly Sword Sect was too peculiar, purely relying on deceitful objects to mass-produce resources.
The disciples of the Four Sects have already become self-sufficient on the island, while the island of the Heavenly Sword Sect remained barren, appearing unsustainable.
The performance of the Great Sun Sword Tomb was decisively inadequate.
In fact, the disturbances in the Demon Cave were not severe; it was an experimental cooperation between the Daoist and Demon sides, incidentally selecting suitable disciples for cultivation.
In the ancient Cultivation World, it was akin to the Inner Sect’s grand comparison, deciding the spots for the true disciple.
True disciples could receive resources tilted in their favor from the sect.
All the Void Refining Stage Elders were hidden within Zhibai Dao’s Mid-grade Magical Treasure [Heavenly Observation Palace], and their appearances were even more grotesque and deformed.
The Heavenly Observation Palace magical treasure was similar to a speck of micro dust, suspended among the clouds.
Within it were thirty-six Void Refining Stage Elders, primarily placed to guard against the Dao Jun, while ordinary immortals were left to be handled by disciples of the sect.
The Great Sun Sword Tomb, led by Luo Yang, was constantly feeling the mocking gazes of others.
If it weren’t utterly necessary, the Elder wouldn’t step in; Luo Yang even considered taking action himself.
Luo Yang understood that he couldn’t blame the disciples of the Great Sun Sword Tomb, clearly seeing Zhibai Dao’s small ploys to highlight his own worth.
He could only rely on Li Mo; even though temporarily calling on someone might appear disgraceful, the Heavenly Sword Sect had no other option.
Moreover, with the entire Great Sun Sword Tomb participating in the Demon Suppression Cave, how could the Chief remain uninvolved?
When Li Mo confirmed his ten-year impending arrival at the Demon Cave, Luo Yang belatedly realized the special rules of the Demon Cave.
Within the Demon Cave, the deceitful objects would gradually take on the appearance of ordinary people and regain their rationality.
Cultivators, conversely, would have their bodies transformed into unspeakable evil spirits, with their minds constantly subject to the mutation invasion of the Demon Cave.
If unable to withstand the invasion, cultivators would regress to the form of ordinary people, representing that they could never transcend the small world in their lifetime.
The degree of mutation in a cultivator’s body was entirely dependent on their Taoist Body and cultivation level; it was said that the Twelve Immortals were four to five thousand meters in size inside the Demon Cave.
Luo Yang deeply doubted if Li Mo’s mutation might also be extraordinary.
Li Mo, in the Five Qi Period, had a body of two thousand meters inside the Demon Cave.