"The leader of the Demon Sect got away. The Taoist Court locked down the Third-Grade State Boundary and is doing everything it can to hunt him down, but..."
Gu Changhuai frowned.
"You probably wonât catch him," Mo Hua said.
Gu Changhuai nodded, "A Demon Sect commander at the late Golden Core Stage, wielding Evil Dragon powerâeven with several Taixu Sect Elders at the same stage, they couldnât kill him. Catching him is basically impossible."
Mo Hua didnât like how that sounded, so he spoke in defense of Xun Ziyou and the other Elders:
"That demon headâs just too strongâitâs not that the Taixu Sect Elders are weak!"
Gu Changhuai agreed.
This Demon Sect leader, with the power of an Evil Dragon and having devoured endless Blood Qi, was terrifyingly strong. He definitely wasnât someone ordinary cultivators could subdue.
On the flip side, they were lucky several Taixu Sect Elders teamed up to suppress the Demon Sect leader and even forced him to flee.
If not, with that demon running rampant, who knows how many cultivators from the Taoist Court wouldâve died. The consequences wouldâve been unthinkable.
They hadnât expected that, either.
Gu Changhuai nodded, "The Taixu Sect has deep foundations, and the Elders are righteous and powerful. We were only able to suppress the Demon Sect and exterminate the Demon Cultivators thanks to them."
Only then did Mo Hua nod in satisfaction.
Uncle Guâs been hanging out with me for so long, now heâs learned how to say nice things too.
"What about the other Demon Sect Elders? Did they all die? Any that slipped through the cracks?" Mo Hua asked.
Gu Changhuai counted off, one by one:
"Like you mentioned earlier, that greedy, gluttonous Elder Jiu is dead; the short, snake-like Monster cultivator Elder was slain by Elder Xun; the most senior Second Elder is dead too. Most of the other Elders are dead as well. The only ones left are a Bear Demon Elder and the one you mentioned, âElder Youâ..."
"I had people checkâno sign of these two Golden Core corpses near the Demon Sect stronghold. The Bear Elder at least showed himself, got his arm slashed by Elder Xun Ziyou. As for that Elder You, he vanished from start to finish."
Mo Hua slowed down, chewing his pork knuckle.
This Elder You really is something else...
Did he get a heads-up from the Taoist Court in advance?
Or did he suspect something was wrong with my impersonation as âMr. Yuan,â and, using the Thunder Magnetism Formation, found some clues and escaped early?
How did he escape? Where is he now?
Questions swarmed in Mo Huaâs mind. He sat there, lost in thought.
Gu Changhuai glanced at him, took a sip of wine, and said, "Enough, stop obsessing. This is Taoist Court business."
He paused, then added, "If thereâs any word on those two, Iâll let you know."
The message was clear: stop wasting your energy on this, focus on cultivation, and leave hunting Demon Sect remnants to the Taoist Court. If thereâs any news, youâll hear it.
"Got it," Mo Hua nodded.
"Thereâs one more thing," Gu Changhuai said. "The merit points from destroying the Demon Sect are being tallied by the Taoist Court. Everyone who helped with the encirclement will get a cut, including you. Once they finish, the Taoist Court will issue the rewards through Taixu Sect to your Disciple Token. Itâs a big deal, so the merit should be pretty generous."
Mo Hua didnât react much.
Mostly because he was already kind of a âmerit tycoonââhe had so many, he barely knew how much anymore.
Whether there was a bit more or less didnât really matter to him at this point.
Also, Mo Hua knew all too well how slowly the Taoist Court workedâby the time those merit points arrived, who knows how many years would have passed.
After chatting, and finishing their meal, Mo Hua got ready to return to the Sect for class.
As he was leaving, Gu Changhuai said,
"Your cousin wanted me to tell youâif you want, come to the Gu Familyâs New Yearâs banquet."
"The New Yearâs banquet?"
Mo Hua froze, then suddenly rememberedâit was only a little over a month until the New Year.
Another year had somehow already slipped by.
Mo Hua felt a vague sense of urgency, like time was passing too quickly and something big was about to happen. It was just a feeling, though; he couldnât put his finger on why.
"Uncle Gu, youâre not going to be busy at the banquet this year, right?" Mo Hua asked.
Gu Changhuai looked at Mo Hua and, after a while, finally let out a slow breath:
"Thanks to you, the Demon Sect disasterâs over and the Taoist Court can finally relax for a while and enjoy the new year."
"No need to thank me," Mo Hua nodded, looking pleased. "Iâll come to the Gu Family to hang out during the festival."
Gu Changhuai was silent for a moment, then sighed, "All right."
...
After saying goodbye to Gu Changhuai, Mo Hua returned to the Sect.
That night, back in his room at the Discipleâs Residence, Mo Hua read by lamplight. When his eyes got tired, he rested his head on the desk, lost in thought.
The Demon Sect chaos was, for now, settled.
Apart from the beginning, when he was making plans and pulling stringsâputting in quite a bit of effortâhe barely had to lift a finger during the actual encirclement.
Not a single Golden Core demon head came looking for a fight.
Most of the methods heâd prepared ended up going unused.
Mo Hua felt a hint of regret.
But on the other hand, this wasnât a bad thing. After all, cultivators need to be cautious when itâs time to be cautious.
And with the Demon Sect wiped out, Demon Cultivators killed or all but wiped out, the rest locked away in the Taoist Prisonâ
From now on, the local innocent cultivators would be spared from murder and the threat of the Demon Sect. That, at least, counted as a deed of merit.
The only remaining issue was his own Magic Treasureâthat Four Symbols Green Dragon Evil Formation...
Thinking of this, Mo Hua couldnât help but sigh.
Getting that Formation Diagram was just too difficult...
Now, with the ferocious, powerful Demon Sect leader escapedâlike a flood dragon to the seaâhe was completely clueless about his whereabouts.
Plus, after seeing how the Demon Sect conducted its businessâand the sheer size of that Blood PoolâMo Hua couldnât help but start to wonder if the Four Symbols Azure Dragon was really as upright as its name suggested.