Chapter 47: Demon Sealing |
The person who had been guarding his side instinctively took action the moment he heard the sound of the arrows.
A pair of rapiers danced like blooming flowers in his hands. In the split second the arrows flew over, they were already sliced into several pieces.
On the other side, a dark shadow had already charged out.
Before the Caravan members surrounding the perimeter could even react, they were torn into pieces.
Those fleshy chunks then hurled toward Aluo like stones.
Covered in blood and looking like a demon himself, Downs joined the fray.
Aluo''s attack was interrupted by the sudden barrage of corpse fragments, giving the Watchman a brief moment to catch his breath.
Despite taking several heavy blows to the crotch, he did not collapse as the Halfling had expected.
Instead, after steadying his posture, he stopped rushing. Gathering all his strength, he abandoned wide sweeping footwork, lowered his center of gravity, and slammed his body into a nearby tree.
However, the Watchman ignored the nuisance. He directly rammed the thick tree down and charged straight toward its collapsing canopy.
Following the Watchman''s reckless charge, the dense mass of branches and leaves transformed into whipping lashes and scraping combs.
The relentless thrashing hindered the Halfling''s movements, forcing him to grip the Watchman''s clothes tightly just to hold on.
This sudden shift in the battle slightly distracted Aluo. He could not help but glance over to the other side to ensure Opper had not run into any trouble from Downs''s ambush.
Then, he charged at the Watchman once more.
Taking down the Watchman first, no matter the cost, was the absolute order Opper had given him.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Downs was immediately targeted by arrows the moment he rushed into the fight. Dozens of shafts struck his body.
But it was all a futile effort.
"You two seem to be having fun shooting me?" Downs mocked. After enduring a volley of arrows, he had already closed the distance to Opper''s other two capable subordinates.
"Now, let me have some fun too!" Downs sneered, his tongue darting out to lick the blood off his face.
Ever since the demon was sealed within his body, and after Lord Nemus taught him the Breath of Holy Precepts and Dual-Rule Synergy, he would occasionally synchronize with Krog through the dual-rule state.
Under this synergy, some of his habits had been infected by Krog''s nature.
He no longer felt such intense panic toward slaughter and gore.
On the contrary, his own primal desires were awakened. He had fallen in love with the sensation of dominating the lives of others.
Rising from a lowly shepherd to basking in the terrified gazes of those who had once despised him—this feeling left him completely mesmerized.
And all of this came from the Grace of Lord Nemus!
So, in the next instant, Downs launched himself forward like a released spring, one hand lunging for a subordinate''s throat.
A sharp, piercing power erupted from his palm, inflicting a sudden surge of pain on the man who had intended to dodge.
Discipline: Demon Sealing—Seal the inner demon, never speak of its existence, and the Demonic Power can be converted into the power of the Breathing Technique, allowing one to dance with the demon.
This was the result of Downs''s cultivation of the Breath of Holy Precepts.
As for the other supposed benefits of the Breath of Holy Precepts—sensing the world, immersing oneself in the Laws of Heaven and Earth, foreseeing the future, or receiving various forms of Revelation—Downs had acquired absolutely none of them.
He had only obtained the foundational power of the Breath of Holy Precepts—acquiring a lifebound Precept based on his physical condition and external guidance.
As for the piercing sensation radiating from his palm, that belonged to Krog''s power.
Since the Lesser Demon was in a sealed state, he could only exist internally, casting the Breath of Holy Precepts through Dual-Rule Synergy.
Through this method, Krog could not acquire a lifebound Precept, but he was, to a certain extent, immersed in the Laws of Heaven and Earth. His current heaven and earth was simply Downs, the vessel sealing him.
Krog''s strength became Downs''s strength, and through this, the demon shared a portion of Downs''s "laws"—specifically, Downs''s sensation of pain.
Krog could then follow Downs''s movements to project those sensations outward.
Downs had secured Krog''s promise to aid him in combat on the condition that he would do his best to let the demon share the sensations he experienced during his moments of pleasure.
The piercing sensations he projected were the exact pain he had felt when their arrows previously struck his body.
Grabbing the man by the throat and lifting him off the ground, Downs was in no rush to deal the killing blow.
However, this man was a desperate outlaw.
He was a murderer in his hometown, wanted by the law, which was why he had used the opportunity of the last Floating Whale mating season to escape to Azure Sky.
With no family, no future, and no dreams, he was the textbook definition of a desperado.
Taking on jobs where he could lose his head at any moment, he sought to accumulate enough wealth to indulge wildly, aiming to cram the enjoyment of a lifetime into just a few years.
This was his mindset. When faced with a lethal threat, despite his fear, a vicious ruthlessness surged within him.
Rather than clawing at the hand crushing his windpipe, he drew a dagger from his belt and thrust it straight toward Downs''s eye.
To his shock, however, Downs neither dodged nor flinched, allowing the blade to strike true.
The sharp dagger felt as if it had struck solid rock, unable to penetrate even a fraction of an inch.
Although a Lesser Demon was nominally categorized under the Black Iron Rank, that was merely an issue of its Attribute Value. Its immortal Traits were simply not something an ordinary Black Iron Rank entity could overcome.
This was why, even in sparsely populated villages where building a church was a massive expense, there would always be at least one Priest and one Holy Knight stationed as a garrison.
Without a Holy Knight and a Priest, even a mere Lesser Demon could slaughter an entire village, rapidly growing in strength until it became a full-blown calamity.
Although he had not been wounded, the sensation of a foreign object pressing against his eye was still incredibly pronounced.
"That hurts!" Downs complained, before swiftly snapping the man''s neck.
They were just two archers with an Attribute Value of six; they could not put up much resistance against him...
The next moment, however, Downs froze. He turned to look at the "corpse" that should have died from a crushed throat.
Something was rapidly squirming upon its body. Downs then watched as strands of black fur pierced out from its throat.
This fur grew at an alarming rate, clearing away the crushed windpipe and restoring airflow to the blocked respiratory tract.
The man stood back up. His entire throat had turned pitch-black, and densely packed black lines crawled beneath the skin across his body.
"To think it would itch this much," the man snarled, his hateful gaze locking onto Downs.
A Nest Beast was a parasitic Dangerous Creature. During the parasitic process, it would perform certain modifications on its host.
Opper''s Nest Beasts were controllable to a certain extent, so he had given his subordinates an insurance policy.
He had specially cultivated several Nest Beast fur embryos, forcing them into dormancy before they could fully activate.
Because these entities remained inactive during normal times and were freshly incubated, there was no need to use expensive drugs to keep them docile, unlike Opper''s own condition.
It was only when the host encountered a life-threatening crisis and the Nest Beast embryo sensed the danger that it would finally activate, initiating a symbiotic healing process.