Chapter 377: I Am the Butcher

Chapter 377: I Am the Butcher

“Father, what’s coming?”

One of the little tiger demons at his knees looked up and asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

To it, today didn’t feel any different from usual.

It was still just them guarding the Black Tower.

“Humans…” The Tiger King frowned and replied coldly, “To be exact—Ascenders.”

“Ascenders! Enemies!”

The younger little tiger demon threw its head back and roared.

“Father, are a lot of Ascenders coming today?”

The first little tiger demon was itching for action. Lately, watching Father dominate and slaughter Ascenders had filled it with envy. It was dying to join in.

“Yes. A lot.” The Tiger King nodded.

“Lots of Ascenders… Can we beat them?”

The Tiger King glanced at his other son and shook his head.

Usually, the ones that came were random small fry—stray cats and dogs in groups of three or five.

But today, the scent in the wind over the Qinling Mountains told him that the ones coming were a massive force of sect cultivators meant to surround and eliminate the Demon-Locking Tower. This would be a war that had been set up long in advance.

“We can’t win?!” A trace of fear appeared in the little tiger demon’s eyes. It clutched at the Tiger King’s paw. “Then let’s run, Father. Let’s abandon this Black Tower. Let’s just go find some random mountain, hide for a few hundred or thousand years, become immortals, and come back out later!”

Become immortals...

The Tiger King looked up at the sky, its eyes filled with sorrow.

“We can’t run.”

It clenched its fists, then slowly relaxed them, letting out a long sigh.

“This… is our fate!”

…

“Senior, would you like to review the intel on the Demon-Locking Tower?”

Wang Shouyi emerged from a small room.

He had just finished discussing matters with the other lead Ascenders.

Now that several thousand Ascenders had gathered, the flying vessel was already headed toward the Demon-Locking Tower. But Chen Huaian and Li Qingran had said they preferred peace and quiet, so they hadn’t joined the meeting.

“Don’t feel like it.” Chen Huaian yawned.

What intel could there possibly be about the Demon-Locking Tower?

It’s just demons. A bunch of them locked inside, getting stronger the higher you go. There were probably some guarding the outside too—likely comparable in strength to the strongest on the first floor inside, or maybe a bit weaker.

By his estimate, the gatekeeper demon would probably be equivalent to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Wang Shouyi gave a helpless smile.

Just as he was about to leave, Li Qingran raised her hand.

“I want to see it!”

If Chen Huaian were just a fellow disciple, Li Qingran would definitely have said, “This is too important—how can you be so careless?” But because he was her Master, she didn’t say anything.

She simply took it upon herself to handle everything her Master didn’t want to deal with.

Anything her Master left undone—she, Li Qingran, would handle.

Seeing how calm and carefree Chen Huaian was, Wang Shouyi felt a wave of respect.

Just moments ago in the meeting hall, he had been busy trying to calm down all the lead Ascenders. The intel revealed an overwhelming number of demons and horrifying risks—many might not make it back alive.

Seeing the worried faces of those cultivators had made him anxious too.

But then Chen Huaian’s casual “don’t feel like it” had hit his heart like a booster shot.

Senior, you sly dog…

Pretending to be indifferent just to lift our spirits, boost morale, and then let the disciple (sister-in-law?) collect the intel. A win-win.

Truly worthy of being called “Senior”!

Such a clever and effective morale-boosting tactic—why hadn’t he thought of that?

There really was an insurmountable gap between him and this man!

Suppressing the admiration in his heart, Wang Shouyi pulled out a jade slip and handed it to Li Qingran.

Seeing that Li Qingran was going to read the intel, Chen Huaian naturally leaned in to look too.

Li Qingran smiled at him as she took the jade slip, activated it, and a flood of information surged into their minds.

The intel was fairly detailed—even included a map.

The map outlined the distribution and density of the demon forces.

At the Demon-Locking Tower in the Qinling Mountains, the gatekeepers were the Tiger King and the Spider King. The Spider King had already been killed, so only the Tiger King remained. Its cultivation was at the peak of Foundation Establishment.

But a single Tiger King wasn’t what made the situation dangerous.

It was the sheer number of tiger demons spread throughout the mountains. Like the spider demons that had once reproduced like crazy, the tiger demons had already reached a population of 3,000 three days ago.

By now, it was likely over 4,000.

Which meant each Ascender would have to face at least three or four tiger demons.

The key problem: they weren’t all weaklings at the Qi Refining Stage. A good number were Foundation Establishment elites.

And this was all before entering the Demon-Locking Tower.

If the tower’s first floor gate were to suddenly open while Ascenders were still busy fighting the tiger demons… the consequences were unthinkable.

“This lineup is… pretty dangerous.”

Chen Huaian looked up at Wang Shouyi, a touch of sympathy in his gaze, as he gave his assessment.

“It is dangerous.”

Wang Shouyi nodded and sighed, but his eyes remained resolute. “But isn’t that exactly what you said, Senior? We Ascenders—slaying demons and evil is our duty! Besides, I’ve got a secret weapon!”

“What secret weapon?”

Wang Shouyi smiled mysteriously and zipped his lips.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, you just need to follow the main force, kill demons, and collect resources. I can guarantee your safety.”

Chen Huaian and Li Qingran exchanged a glance.

They had no idea what Wang Shouyi was scheming.

…

Meanwhile—

Qinling Mountains, Demon-Locking Tower.

The mountain winds howled, cold and biting. In the woods and across the hills, countless tiger demons stood at the ready, weapons in hand.

They stared blankly toward the southern sky, eyes hollow, like puppets with their minds wiped clean. They made no sound at all.

“Krrk—Krrk—”

Rhythmic scraping echoed through a nearby ravine.

Tiger King—Blood Amber Mountain Lord—stood by a creek, sharpening a massive blade.

The blade scraped against a pitch-black whetstone, peeling off sticky filth that dyed the stream water red as blood.

No one knew what material the black whetstone was made of.

Each stroke across its surface made the blade gleam more brightly, and with each scrape, the stone shed dark flakes—soft, tormented howls of lingering ghosts could be heard faintly.

The Tiger King kept sharpening the blade, stroke by stroke, completely absorbed.

That fierce gaze of his showed less numbness than before—this simple act of sharpening brought him a kind of twisted joy.

But the whetstone was short-lived.

Barely half the blade had been polished before the entire thing was used up.

The Tiger King shook his head, grabbed the bamboo basket behind him, and dumped it over—revealing a pile of pitch-black human skulls.

He casually picked one, smashed it into the muddy bank near the creek, wedged it between some rocks, and sat back down to continue sharpening.

The midday sun grew more intense, but over the Qinling Mountains, it seemed to dim and chill as if passed through a filter.

By the time the sun had shifted slightly westward, the Tiger King had finally finished sharpening his blade.

Over a hundred skulls had been used up. The creek now ran crimson with blood.

A low hum came from the sky.

A small black dot appeared on the southern horizon—slowly growing clearer.

It was an Ascender’s flying vessel.

As the buzz of its passage filled the sky, a killing aura swept through the mountain forests, climbing steadily to its peak.

“Man is the butcher, I am the meat…”

The Tiger King raised his blade to the sky. In the sunlight, its edge turned faintly red.

“Today, I am the butcher! Ascenders… must all die!!!”

…

…