Devouring demons, I attain immortality.

Just after midnight, Lin An and Lu Xiuwen met at the back wall of the City God Temple.

Lu Xiuwen changed into coarse cloth clothes, and blood was still seeping from his left shoulder.

"The night watchmen patrol every half an incense stick's time."

Lin An tossed him a black cloth to cover his face.

"The guards at the west gate ate the pancakes I laced with sleeping pills."

The two walked briskly along the shadows of the wall.

As they approached the city gate, the old beggar, who had been squatting in a haystack, suddenly reached out his hand: "Travel permit."

Lu Xiuwen pressed his sword sheath against the old beggar's throat, but then he saw half a red lotus copper coin protruding from the old beggar's palm.

Lin An's pupils contracted slightly, and he took out Su Wanyun's jade pendant and shook it.

"Come with me."

The old beggar crawled through the dog hole.

They emerged from a hole in a willow tree by the moat, having passed through a stinking drainage ditch. A wrecked boat was moored on the riverbank, and a fisherman wearing a straw hat sat at the bow.

"If you travel thirty li downstream, you can reach Bailudu before dawn."

Just as the boat left the shore, torches suddenly lit up in the direction of the city gate.

Lin An lay on the stern of the boat and saw more than a dozen people from the Demon Suppression Division chasing after them along the river with torches in hand.

The fisherman calmly poled the boat, and suddenly the boat tilted to the left—something was pulling the boat underwater!

Lu Xiuwen's sword flashed into the water, lifting a chain entangled in water plants.

As Lin An pulled out a copper coin and cut the iron chain, the bottom of the boat slammed into a reef with a "thud".

The fisherman's straw hat was blown off by the wind, revealing half of his burned face.

"careful!"

Lin An pushed Lu Xiuwen away, and three crossbow bolts were embedded in the cabin.

Seven or eight dark figures emerged from the reeds on both banks, carrying crossbows capable of killing cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage.

The fisherman suddenly jumped out of the boat, and in the instant the water splashed up, an iron shield popped out from the boat's awning.

The crossbow bolts clanged and clattered against the shield, and Lin An took the opportunity to throw out his last three copper coins.

The screams came from the reeds on the left.

Hold on tight!

Lu Xiuwen cut the mooring ropes. The boat, now out of balance, was swept downstream by the rapids towards the waterfall, and the shouts and curses of the pursuers gradually faded into the distance.

As the two clung to the driftwood and drifted to the shallows, the sky began to lighten with the first light of dawn.

Lin An wrung out his soaked clothes and suddenly stared at the rocky beach on the opposite bank—three corpses dressed in the uniforms of the Demon Suppression Division had been pushed into the crevices of the rocks by the tide, and all of them had red lotus tattoos on their wrists.

"A fake." Lu Xiuwen used his sword to pry open the corpse's collar. "The tattoo was just done three days ago."

"I never imagined that the supervisor and the higher-ups of the Demon Suppression Division had long been puppets of the extraterrestrial demons... No wonder they didn't come to support us even though the situation in Jinzhou City was so serious!" Lin An squatted down and rummaged through the pile of wax pellets, prying them out from the sole of the leader's shoe.

Crushing the wax ball revealed a blood-written message inside: "On the seventh day of the seventh month, the goods will travel through Black Wind Gorge."

Today is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

Lu Xiuwen gazed at the smoke rising in the distance.

"That should be Niujia Village ahead."

At noon, they disguised themselves as farmers and sneaked into the village.

Five men dressed as farmers sat in a teahouse at the east end of the village, with six nailed wooden boxes piled up at their feet.

Lin An noticed that dark brown liquid seeped from the corner of the box when they lifted it.

Would you like some tea, sir?

The proprietress came over carrying a copper kettle, with a fresh whip mark on her wrist.

Lu Xiuwen suddenly knocked over his teacup: "There's a rat!"

While everyone was looking down at the ground, Lin An flicked his finger and sprinkled the powder into the gap of the nearest wooden box.

A muffled thud immediately came from the box, and the five porters' expressions changed simultaneously.

"Unpack and inspect the goods!"

Lin An revealed the Demon Suppression Commander's badge. Suddenly, the porter chief overturned the table and pulled out two curved knives from under it.

Lu Xiuwen's sword was faster than his, and in the blink of an eye, he knocked away three weapons.

The remaining two porters picked up the wooden boxes and ran, but were tripped by Lin An's Binding Immortal Rope.

A crack appeared in the wooden box, revealing a pale human hand. Lin An cleaved open the box and gasped – inside were three unconscious children, each with a red string tied around their wrist with their birth dates written on it.

"These are materials for the Soul Refining Technique."

Lu Xiuwen pressed the tip of his sword against the porter's foreman's throat. "Which way to Black Wind Gorge?"

Suddenly, a whistling arrow pierced through the curtain of the teahouse.

Lin An dragged Lu Xiuwen towards the stove, and the oil can attached to the arrowhead exploded with a loud bang.

When the thick smoke cleared, the five porters were all charred corpses, but the children were nowhere to be found.

"A diversionary tactic." Lin An stomped out the sparks from his clothes. "Chase!"

They followed the drag marks to a dilapidated temple on the back of the mountain, where they heard a child sobbing inside.

The temple door was ajar. Just as Lu Xiuwen was about to push it open, Lin An suddenly grabbed him: "There's blood on the threshold."

Before the words were finished, the sound of a mechanism rang out from inside the temple.

Eighteen poisoned needles shot out from the crack in the door, but were all blocked by the Xuan Tian Seal.

When the two broke through the window, they witnessed the man in black robes stuffing a child into a secret passage.

"Keep alive!"

Lin An's copper coin struck the man in black behind the knee.

The man slapped the top of the skull with his other hand, and the corpse quickly turned into a pool of black water.

The faint sound of metal clashing could be heard from deep within the secret passage. Just as Lu Xiuwen was about to give chase, the entire tunnel suddenly collapsed.

As evening fell, they found an unconscious girl by a mountain stream.

The child clutched a torn piece of cloth in his hand, the fabric embroidered with strange runes.

Lin An wiped the runes with water, revealing the words "Black Wind".

"The Black Wind Cult was wiped out twenty years ago."

Lu Xiuwen used tree branches to draw a topographic map on the ground.

"But the old hunter said that black fog rises in the valley on the seventh day of each month."

At midnight, they found their way to the entrance of Black Wind Gorge.

The cliffs on both sides looked as if they had been cleaved open, and a foul-smelling mist hung from the bottom of the valley.

Three dark figures carried wooden crates into the fog. Lin An silently took down the last one, changed his clothes, and caught up with the group.

At the thickest point of the fog stood a dilapidated village gate, with seven skulls nailed to it.

The leader took out a bone flute and blew it three times, and suddenly a hole appeared in the ground.

After descending a hundred stone steps, you'll find yourself in a brightly lit cave.

Inside the cave were nine bronze cauldrons, and in front of each cauldron knelt a monk wearing shackles.

On the central platform sat a black-robed man wearing a ghost mask, throwing children into the cauldron.

"The time has come."

The masked man raised his hand to form a hand seal. Lin An suddenly sprang into action, raining down copper coins upon the nine fire-controlling cultivators.

Lu Xiuwen's sword light went straight for the masked man, but was bounced off by a suddenly rising light barrier.

In the chaos, Lin An ripped off the mask of the masked man and stood there stunned—this man looked seven parts like Su Wanyun.

"elder sister..."

The masked man suddenly let out a shrill scream, and black smoke billowed from his body.

The flames inside the cauldron surged, and the trapped cultivators screamed in agony.

Lin An gritted his teeth and pressed the five fragments of the Chaos Bell onto the cauldron. The sound of the bell reverberated, causing rocks to fall from the top of the cave.

"Walk!"

Lu Xiuwen dragged him out. Behind them came a deafening roar, as the entire cave collapsed into a deep crater.

As the two rolled down the hillside, they saw countless vengeful spirits rise from the bottom of the pit and dissipate in the moonlight.

Lu Xiuwen pulled a piece of charred cloth from his pocket, on which half an address remained: "Demon Abyss...Soul-Severing Cliff..."

Lin An was panting heavily, the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade stuck in the scorched earth.

The dark red patterns on the blade lit up, completely absorbing the remaining demonic energy at the bottom of the pit.

[Slay 7 extraterrestrial demons and gain 83 Yin Sha Points]

A semi-transparent light screen flashed before his eyes, and he silently added points. A surge of heat rose in his dantian, and the wound on his left shoulder inflicted by the masked man healed at a visible speed.

Lu Xiuwen came over, leaning on his sword: "Your knife..."

"I found it." Lin An flicked the black blood off the blade. The Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade suddenly trembled and pointed towards the Soul-Severing Cliff in the northwest.

The skull's eye sockets on the hilt glowed red—a high-ranking demon lurked there.

The two reached the edge of the cliff before dawn.

Lin An's pupils contracted as he saw three members of the Red Lotus Cult pouring human blood into the bronze cauldron.

Behind the cauldron, in an iron cage, were more than twenty young men, their wrists bound with spirit-locking ropes.

"Fellow Daoist Lin, I'll go left, you go right." Lu Xiuwen's sword flashed three inches, releasing purple energy.