Chapter 65: Toward Henan (5)
Chapter 65: Toward Henan (5)
Things were turning out more entertaining than expected. I'd planned to ambush them and chop all their necks with knife-hand strikes, but since Chi-chi showed up, I decided to let her have them.
Who knows—I might have to wreak havoc at Shaolin Temple later. Getting some practice against the Eighteen Arhats beforehand wasn't a bad idea.
Seol Yu-ran's ice arts were one thing—I'd have to brute-force my way through regardless of compatibility. But Chi-chi was different. Unless she went out of her way to use Sacred Flames, her demonic energy wouldn't work properly against Buddhist energy with its demon-subduing nature.
So facing the Eighteen Arhats now would serve as good preparation before taking on the full 108 Arhat Formation. With her Heavenly Killing Star, Chi-chi might even gain some enlightenment against their anti-demonic techniques.
—KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!
Unwrapping the bandages, Chi-chi gripped the Asura Demon Spear and took her stance. As the spear, saturated with Chi-chi's demonic energy, unleashed its Ghost Wail, the surrounding small creatures simultaneously perished.
Unable to withstand the sheer terror radiating from the demonic pulse, they chose suicide.
In this place that had become a mountain of death, only Shaolin's Eighteen Arhats remained standing firm.
However, the monks' faces paled as they realized Chi-chi was no ordinary opponent.
Chi-chi was, in effect, an artificially created Returned Heavenly Demon, forged from the memories and experiences of the First Heavenly Demon. Her demonic energy, true to its origin, was pure.
Yet she spoke of defying heaven—making its lethality all the more terrifying.
My Thunder Qi was suppressed by her demonic energy, and even my Divine Lightning couldn't match Sacred Flames in potency. That alone spoke volumes of how fearsome she was.
Just how long could the Eighteen Arhats—all First-rate, if not Peak Realm—hold out against the Bunny Heavenly Demon?
"Kyahahah!"
Chi-chi struck first.
In typical martial arts duels, masters would grant their weaker opponents three moves—but this was no duel. It was nothing more than a hunt where the current Heavenly Demon, bearing the cruel and vicious star of the Heavenly Slaughter, tore into her prey like a beast.
Chi-chi, who had no need to adhere to the principles of a martial artist, stamped down on the ground.
BOOM!
The Heavenly Demon Dominating Step unfurled.
"The Heavenly Demon Dominating Step?! Amitabha Buddha!"
First-generation disciples for a reason, huh. The Eighteen Arhat Formation trembled under Chi-chi's Heavenly Demon Dominating Step, yet it held firm. But though they'd blocked it handily, Hu-si had gone pale, and he chanted a Buddhist invocation and shouted:
"Kill the enemy with the resolve to die! Lift the precept against killing! The foe is an heir of the Demonic Cult Leader!"
"Amitabha Buddha!"
Even as they coughed up blood under the pressure of the Heavenly Demon Dominating Step, the Shaolin monks maintained their formation and encircled Chi-chi. Without pause, they coordinated their movements and began striking relentlessly with their staffs.
Thrust. Swing. This simple action, amplified by the harmony of the Eighteen Arhat Formation, created a compounding effect.
Even a master who had broken through the limits of martial arts would find it difficult to endure this storm of divine light through sheer brute force—especially for someone like Chi-chi, who wielded demonic arts.
But—
"Pathetic tricks, but you strike well enough."
With the profound principle of the Absorption Art, she entangled every staff aimed at her vital points—
CRACK!
—and then slammed a monk's bald head straight into the ground, crushing it like a watermelon.
"What the—?!"
"Amitabha Buddha!"
The sight of three monks dropping dead in an instant made me let out a hollow laugh. Even though I wasn't fighting this time and was merely watching from the sidelines, I still couldn't follow what had happened.
She had executed Heaven-Earth Reversal—using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art's Qiankun Great Shift and the Peerless Divine Might Spear to overturn the very heavens and earth.
It was a god-tier technique, one where even I, a supreme master, couldn't perceive anything before their skulls were smashed into the ground.
Those bald monks were undoubtedly skilled enough to earn admiration, but it seemed they were still far from capable of withstanding the full might of the Heavenly Killing Star, who had absorbed all the techniques of the First Heavenly Demon.
With three of them gone, the Eighteen Arhat Formation began to falter. If I wanted to exploit that opening, I'd have to calmly observe or carefully analyze it mid-battle.
But perhaps thanks to the Heavenly Killing Star, Chi-chi seemed to have already grasped it.
WHOOSH!
Six small orbs of Intent-Shaped Aura, each the size of a bead, coiled around the Asura Demon Spear like rings.
The Yama's Wheel, a technique that temporarily amplified power, had been unleashed. As the linked Intent-Shaped Aura orbs circled, Chi-chi swung the Asura Demon Spear in a frenzy—yet within that wild flurry lay the profound principles of Softness, Swiftness, and Illusion.
With Swiftness, she instantly caught the Arhat monks' staffs. With Softness, she entangled and deflected them.
Within the flowing current of the Arhat Formation, she became a greater current, forcibly overwhelming it all.
'Insane. She's pulling off Softness Overcomes Hardness with a technique built on hardness?!'
This time, even I was astonished.
The technique Chi-chi had just displayed was executed with strength, yet the result manifested as softness. The Arhat monks, who had maintained unwavering focus while wielding their elegant staff techniques—believing they were facing a purely forceful attack—were swept away in an instant.
In a way, what Chi-chi had just done was no different from devising a method to dismantle the 108 Arhat Formation while simultaneously breaking through the 18 Arhat Formation.
The Arhat Formation was a perfected, near-flawless defensive array, refined through Shaolin's long history.
Yet before my eyes, the result was the Bunny Heavenly Demon's spearwork shattering that very history head-on.
Even now, with Ice Wolf Body Transformation learned and my Lightning Qi output raised, I was confident I could defeat Chi-chi in a direct fight—but I had no certainty I could dismantle the Arhat Formation that swiftly.
Truly, she lived up to her role as the final boss of the original story.
'Is she not using Sacred Flames because she thinks the Peerless Divine Might Spear is enough to handle them?'
Her refined spearplay shattered the immovable staves of Shaolin one after another. Before the six rings of her technique had even fully dissipated, her fluid yet ferocious spearwork began claiming the lives of the Arhat monks one by one.
"Kyahaha! Not as tough as Master's body, are ya, baldies?"
"Ghk! To wield such formidable martial arts while dressed in clothes even a courtesan wouldn't wear…! Just who are you people—?!"
Thunk.
She flicked his staff up with her spear, spun, and drove the butt-spike straight through the chest of the last Arhat monk, Hu-si.
The wound was unmistakably fatal—a direct heart strike. Not even a Great Luo Immortal—not even a Great Luo Immortal's grandfather—could save him now. The light of life faded from Hu-si's eyes as the shock of his heart rupturing ended him.
With a single flick of her wrist, Chi-chi shook the blood from her Asura Demon Spear before turning to me with a radiant smile.
"Master, that was the finest feast."
"Oh? They were just first-rate martial artists, though. Did killing them really feel that good?"
"The fact that they weren't mere martial artists but monks made it all the more exquisite. It felt like Mara slaying the Buddha—as if the Heavenly Killing Star was satisfied more easily than usual."
"No urge to kill even more?"
Just like how a monk who's tasted meat can't easily give it up, I wondered if the Heavenly Killing Star might develop a taste for slaughtering monks.
But her answer was something else entirely.
"Well, there is one, but it's hardly an issue."
"Huh? Why's that?"
"The only violent urge I feel right now is to kill that cow-girl and monopolize Master's King Cock. Compared to that, any other trivial impulses are so negligible I wouldn't even notice them unless I focused."
"…That doesn't mean you can kill Teacher, got it? No hurting her either!"
Petty squabbles between wives were one thing, but I absolutely couldn't tolerate serious harm inflicted on one another.
I didn't take anyone but female masters as wives to begin with, so if they ever seriously fought, it would rival a civil war inside a major sect.
At that point, even I wouldn't be able to stop them. It wasn't about killing—how could anyone possibly subdue that many female martial artists through sheer skill alone?
"Hmph! Don't worry. As a cocksleeve, I know my place. Do you really think I'd do something my master genuinely despises?"
"Then don't goad them into picking fights with you just so you can retaliate with lethal force under the guise of self-defense."
"I'll do my best to restrain myself. Be satisfied with the fact that I won't kill them, Master."
She didn't promise there wouldn't be any aftereffects.
Anyone else hearing this would get a headache so bad it felt like their skull was splitting, but I could tell Chi-chi was doing her absolute best right now.
For a Heavenly Killing Star to hold back from killing the one she most desired to slaughter—that alone spoke volumes. I had no idea how much inner turmoil she must have endured to make that declaration for my sake. But I knew full well that every Heavenly Killing Star in history had gone mad with bloodlust.
Noble masters from prestigious orthodox sects, virtuous wives who had never known violence, even saintly scholars raised in esteemed households—
The setting made it clear: every single one of them had succumbed to the Heavenly Killing Star and committed massacres.
And Chi-chi, of all people, was someone whose demonic energy should have made her act purely on instinct. The fact that she was restraining her murderous intent toward Seol Yu-ran and engaging in a fair competition was entirely for my sake.
Having such a woman as my first wife was nothing short of a blessing.
After rewrapping the Asura Demon Spear in bandages, Chi-chi approached me and pulled me into a tight embrace, pressing herself against me.
The firm, bouncy sensation transmitted through our clothes was downright—
Honestly, Chi-chi's body was like a drug. Like sex incarnate.
To abstain from lusting after such a body was a sin. No wonder the original protagonist, Namgung Gang-o, had subdued the final boss, Chi-chi, through sex and made her his heroine.
Something stiff wedged its way up between us.
The scorching heat radiating from my lower abdomen—Chi-chi must have felt it too, pressed so close against me.
"How about it? A little taste?"
Her gaze smoldered with allure as she teasingly flicked her crimson tongue.
"One round with your cocksleeve?"
"...One round."
After hitting Mu-jeong's sleep point hard so he wouldn't wake, I indulged in the pleasures of the clouds and rain with Chi-chi.
…It ended up being about three rounds, not one.