Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal? Chapter 740: The Abnormally Savage Demonic Beasts
Previously on Wait, How Did My Digital Girlfriend Become a Sword Immortal?...
Chen Huaian stepped out of the Cangyun Realm.
He scanned his environment with utmost caution, worried that some odd threat could burst forth unexpectedly.
Luckily, the spot was identical to the one where he'd first gone into the Cangyun Realm.
Demon Sealing Pagoda Number Four stood unchanged from before.
However, the demons that had once lurked within the pagoda had all escaped once more and now roamed freely. This served as another indicator of relative safety; should an avatar of a Demon Immortal such as Chen Niu have shown up, the overwhelming bloodline dominance would have driven these demons to scatter far away long ago.
Once more, Chen Huaian inspected his physical condition.
His cultivation level held steady at the early Unity Realm, while his Divine Soul appeared entirely ordinary.
Deep inside his Divine Soul, the gray energy persisted as it always had, showing no signs of alteration or intensification."Whew—!" Chen Huaian exhaled deeply in relief.
"It seems I haven't drawn the attention of the Celestial God Clan just yet..."
After steadying his nerves, he rushed onward toward the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda.
...
Meanwhile, over at the ruins of the Great Thunder Temple.
The former sacred site, once illuminated by radiant Buddhist Light, had devolved into a barren, eerily quiet wasteland.
Singed and irregular remnants of walls and columns thrust threateningly toward the overcast heavens. Fractured enormous beams leaned amid heaps of debris, resembling the bleached skeletons of colossal creatures.
Toppled heads from Buddha statues dotted the ground amid the dirt, their empty sockets staring blankly at the surrounding ruin.
The plaza, previously echoing with the faint echoes of Buddhist incantations, lay blanketed in a dense coat of ashen dust. Several faded, brittle scraps of sutra pages fluttered in the chill, sorrowful breeze, whispering with a faint, lamenting noise. A colossal, lifeless Bodhi tree loomed, its twisted limbs reaching out like desperate hands grasping at the sky.
In front of the treasure chamber, the featureless stone statue abruptly glowed with a subtle sheen of pale gold.
As if shedding golden leaf, motes of luminous gold detached from the statue, drawn together and whirled by the howling, somber gale.
The golden glow warped and swelled, ultimately forming a gigantic silhouette—a serpentine dragon form topped with a savage bull head.
This was none other than a fresh avatar of Chen Niu that had just arrived!
The presence of this incarnation vastly outstripped the prior one. Its immense demonic force teetered on the edge of shattering this world's limits, astonishingly wielding the power of the early Feathered Transformation Realm.
The standout trait was the odd assortment of—chicken feathers!—protruding from its sturdy lower jaw, every one gleaming with ever-changing, prismatic hues.
Every feather held untainted demonic energy along with a hint of immortal dao principles' essence.
Chen Niu lifted a massive, scale-armored claw and slashed downward, manifesting a demonic energy water mirror in the empty space.
It cocked its fierce bull head, stretched out a claw, and meticulously tallied, feather by feather, the brilliantly colorful ones dangling from its chin.
"One, two, three... early Feathered Transformation." It muttered in a deep rumble, a spark of contentment flashing in its gaze, swiftly overtaken by solemnity. "The pressing matter remains to unlock the Well of Heaven without delay, summoning greater strength... But..."
A hint of confusion abruptly surfaced in Chen Niu's enormous bull-like eyes. "Who exactly wiped out this one's earlier form?"
Though the avatar drew from the primary body's recollections, it turned into a separate being the instant it manifested.
It knew the main body had passed on pertinent memories, yet when it tried to recall them now, only a hazy silhouette in white robes, gripping a lengthy sword and standing tall with defiance, came to mind.
And that visage... it seemed veiled in dense mist. No amount of focusing its Divine Sense could pierce through to reveal it.
The primary body's directive was etched firmly into the depths of its demonic soul:
Locate that white-robed Sword Cultivator!
Seize alive, pull out the soul, and return it!
If circumstances turn dire... slay immediately!
"Curse it all!" The deeper Chen Niu pondered, the more frustrated it grew. It pounded a claw down hard on the earth, sending nearby stones rattling and tumbling. "Just handing over this fuzzy outline? Can't make out the face at all! How is this one expected to search a vast ocean for a single drop?!"
Using divination or pursuit arts?
Those demand the target's aura or some personal item to trace!
Right now, it had nothing to work with, like trying to prepare a feast without a single grain.
"Maybe... that Wu E brat holds some answers?" Ghostly green flames flickered wildly in Chen Niu's eyes.
It resolved in an instant—to head straight to the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda and stand watch.
Aiding Wu E in pursuing Fierce Beast Demonic Souls was part of it; freeing it from the Confinement Formation was another; and that would offer the ideal moment to probe for leads on the white-robed Sword Cultivator.
That Sword Cultivator's aim was obviously the Fierce Beast Demonic Souls too. Having triumphed at the fourth pagoda, there was no way they'd overlook the fifth one so close by.
With this in mind, Chen Niu's enormous frame burst into a roiling cloud of dark gray-black demonic mist, bearing the dread weight of Feathered Transformation Realm might.
Resembling a shadowed comet, it streaked fiercely toward the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda nestled deep in Shenlongjia.
...
Elsewhere.
Chen Huaian had managed to slip into the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda without issue.
Notably, the demonic beasts patrolling near the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda proved even fiercer than those by the fourth.
Where the fourth pagoda's guardians were a disorganized rabble, the fifth's formed ranks like disciplined troops.
Yet this didn't imply they were any more animated than the fourth's batch.
Their gazes remained vacant and listless, but beneath that, a turbulent urge to kill churned uncontrollably.
Not even unleashing the Ancestral Dragon's aura helped.
The Ancestral Dragon's presence only fueled these demonic beasts further, driving them into greater rage.
"How peculiar." Chen Huaian positioned himself at the threshold of the fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda, glancing back over the path he'd traversed.
The demonic beasts blanketing the hills and plains had eyes like eerie flames glowing through heavy mist, fixed unblinkingly on him.
However, the instant he crossed into the pagoda, they halted their advance.
As though something inside this fifth Demon Sealing Pagoda instilled even greater terror in them.
To the point where, despite their rationality being worn away by the insane bloodlust, they refused to draw nearer.
"These demons seem like their minds are being manipulated." Chen Huaian creased his brow.
During his journey, he'd encountered hordes of lunging demons but hadn't slain any.
To him, these pagoda sentinels felt more like potential comrades than the foes from the Ascenders.
Besides, his power greatly outmatched theirs.
He could easily deploy a barrier formation to block their assaults.
It was impossible not to wonder if the odd behavior of these demonic beasts tied back to the Fierce Beast confined inside this pagoda.
Chen Huaian shifted his gaze toward the pagoda's depths.
The interior wasn't merely dim—it was pitch black.
Dense, ink-black waves of savage killing intent and demonic energy wove together, saturating the space and swallowing every trace of light, creating total obscurity that rendered even a cultivator's dark sight useless.
The atmosphere hung thick and sticky, laced with the sickly sweet odor of rot and iron.
Even drawing breath felt like swallowing frozen chunks of metal.
*Thud... thud... thud...!*
Deep, deliberate footsteps with a metallic echo abruptly echoed from the lightless void.
The noise drew closer from the distance.
Every footfall landed like a pulse beat, sending faint vibrations through the floor under him.
A pressure far icier, fiercer, and more merciless than the outer beast surge rolled out from the shadows like an unseen tidal wave, piling on relentlessly and bearing down.
Chen Huaian's eyes narrowed in alarm. His spiritual energy flared to maximum around him.
*Clang—!*
The Black Scales Sword slipped soundlessly into his grasp. Its blade shimmered with an icy, shadowy light, serving as the sole illumination in this utter blackness.
The foe hadn't revealed itself, yet the emanation already pressed on him somewhat.
In the sword's dim radiance.
Three indistinct but colossal shapes gradually materialized from the gloom.
...