Chapter 740: The Ten Great Demons
Nightmare’s face was ugly. His eyes were gleaming, and he was feeling an acute sense of danger as Hui Yue rushed towards him.
All the daos around him stirred and were ready to lash out at Hui Yue. Darkness was the dao that he was most proficient in, and he molded the darkness into two massive claws that sped towards Hui Yue, attempting to stop him, but Hui Yue just snorted as he sped up and slashed forth with his sword.
Four daos were laying on top of one another superimposing themselves, as they flew forward toward the demon, making the air whistle and tremble by the sheer power contained in the attack.
The moment that the superimposed daos came into contact with the dao of darkness, cracks appeared in the claws.
Although Nightmare knew one more major dao than Hui Yue, his power was far below Hui Yue’s due to his inferior understanding of the daos.
Hui Yue could stack the dao and use their powers to supplement one another while Nightmare could only use them on their own.
The claws, which looked intimidating, large, and powerful, cracked open the moment they came into contact with Hui Yue’s sword.
Hui Yue’s speed was slowed slightly but not enough to give Nightmare enough time to flee.
Hui Yue flicked the sword and sent a swordlight strike shielded by the superimposed daos towards Nightmare. A shrill shriek sounded out as Hui Yue chopped off Nightmare’s leg.
Blood gushed out, and Hui Yue snickered. “You are called Nightmare since you are a real nightmare for the humans who meet you. You torture them to your heart’s content and suck all their blood out of them.”
“I guess you somehow use the blood of others to enhance your own strength, but the quality of those you killed was simply too low. You simply don’t have the power to fight against me.”
Hui Yue was honest. Although he had fewer major daos comprehended, he was much stronger than Nightmare because he had comprehended the daos he commanded fully.
Hui Yue snickered, “Imagine the pain those humans went through.” He said slowly as he flew closer and closer to Nightmare who was doing his best to flee.
“I wonder how you will feel now that you are going to be the one toyed with. I wonder how it feels to know that you are going to die.”
Hui Yue truly showed no mercy. He instantly sent out more swordlights that cut through every defensive measure that Nightmare had, and with a slash, his other leg was sliced clean off.
With a scream, his two arms were severed and as reality finally dawned on Nightmare, realizing that he was truly going to die, his eyes filled with disbelief and unwillingness right before his head was cut off and flew far away from his body.
His soul tried to escape out as he had abandoned his body in the nick of time. Just as he was jubilant and fleeing for his life, Hui Yue flicked his hand. A strand of four daos shot forward and moments after Nightmare’s soul was wounded. Right after, another strand composed of four daos shot forward, and his soul wailed out quickly then got eerily quiet.
No one spoke. No sounds could be heard as Nightmare drew his last breath as his soul disintegrated into nothing.
Hui Yue turned around to look behind him. His friends had overwhelmed the Blood Demons and killed them all. Not only had they had the benefit of numbers, but the Blood Demons had also been wounded. For this reason, they were easily massacred.
“Talented little bumpkin to have actually managed to superimpose four daos, he is definitely unrivaled amongst other experts. Only those old supreme experts who have five superimposed daos would be able to defeat him. Of course, extreme experts with command of the heavenly daos can squash him as easily as an ant,” the old man muttered to himself.
After this, Hui Yue and the others swept through the corpses taking all their possessions. Then they flew on as if they had killed an ordinary squad of Blood Demons.
Hui Yue had gained a whole lot of contribution points from killing Nightmare, but he did not care. To him contribution points were useless. The number of Blood Demons he killed was all that mattered, and thus he instantly sped up and left to find more.
Time went by and soon months had passed. Hui Yue would find the area that was reported as having the most Blood Demons and kill all that he came across.
He would then move straight to the area with the next most demons and hunt them. Others would do the same, but none of them were as fast as Hui Yue. After eleven months Hui Yue heaved a heavy sigh of relief. He had finally reached his goal of slaying a hundred thousand demons.
Hui Yue had killed many many Blood Demons, but his clothes had never been stained by blood, and he had never been in a difficult situation.
The elder was sure that Hui Yue would have failed the test so he had never considered what the second or third tests would be. But now that Hui Yue was rushing back to the world belonging to the Gate of Retribution, the elder was at a loss for words. Just what task could he possibly give this young man?
As they arrived at the Ling family’s mansion, the elder was already there waiting for them. He was standing with his back straight and with his hands held behind his back. He seemed dignified as he stood there while looking at Hui Yue stoically.
“Senior,” Hui Yue cupped his hands and bowed deeply to the elderly man once more. “I have completed the task you gave me; I have slaughtered a hundred thousand demons within the timespan of a year.”
The members of the Ling family who were present all gasped in surprise. All of them had been certain that it would be impossible for this young man to finish the task at hand, but now he had done it, all of them were relieved, and the reverence they felt towards this young man soared to the sky.
“Well done,” the elderly man nodded his head. After watching this young man for the past year, he no longer felt hostility towards Hui Yue, only sheer admiration. But he knew that to maintain face, he had to give him the rest of the trials.
Hui Yue could feel the change in the man, but said nothing. He knew that the elderly man would decline whatever he said, but he felt much calmer. It was clear that he was not in danger of being killed anymore.
“The next task will be to kill ten high ranking Blood Demons,” he said after a bit of hesitation. Since he no longer made the tasks to trouble Hui Yue, he had to do them so that they benefitted the rest of the experts who were fighting the war.
These prominent Blood Demons were all powerful and slaughtered every human in their path. To kill them would be a great service to the humans.
Hui Yue understood this, and although he knew that these last trials were just for appearance, he accepted it with a deep bow.
“This time, because it is specific Blood Demons you will also have a year to locate and massacre them all.”
It might have seemed like a year to kill ten demons was a lot especially considering before he had a year to kill a hundred thousand of them, however, finding these ten specific Blood Demons was like finding a needle in a haystack; it was next to impossible. Even in a year, it could prove to be quite problematic.
Hui Yue did not waste time. As soon as he knew what the second trial was, he headed straight for the Gate of Retribution’s headquarters.
Here he purchased the most recent and up-to-date reports about the ten individuals he needed to kill.
First was the Cleaver. The corpses left behind when he was finished with them had all been cleaved in half, hence his name. Even when people fled in numerous directions, everyone had been murdered by this man; none managed to escape alive after an encounter with him.
The second was the Blood Ritualist. He conducted rituals with the blood of his sacrifices, and although he spent most of his time killing people in the most horrid of ways, he was one of the few Blood Demons who actually took hostages. As for why he kidnapped people, nobody knew, but Hui Yue was sure that it was to create more Blood Demons.
The third was Dream. He, or she, did not have a horrid name, but amongst all of the Blood Demons, Dream was amongst the most mysterious. Everyone who encountered Dream would die. Their souls would be dragged from their bodies, but they would look as if they were simply sleeping and no wounds to be found anywhere.
The fourth one was Black Death. There was nothing special about him, except he killed recklessly. He seemed to not care about anything else other than killing as fast as absolutely possible.
The fifth was the Torturer. He kept his enemies alive as long as possible and tortured them time and time again until they could no longer hold out and their souls turned insane from the pain, tried to escape and were eradicated.
The sixth was known by the name Joker, and he was the only demon that people sometimes managed to escape from. This was not because he was not strong enough to kill people, but because he played games with people. He would make them kill each other, and the survivor was allowed to leave. If they refused to play, then he would kill all of them, and if someone committed suicide to allow another to live, then he would just kill everyone. Strangely enough, as soon as he promised to let one leave, he would never renege on his promise.
The seventh high-level demon was called the Puppeteer. Only one person had managed to escape his onslaught, but that person had told horrid stories about him. He would take the corpses of his enemies with him and create puppets out of them. He would then use his Ancestral Worldpower to control these puppets and fill them with the dao of metal, making them lethal weapons. When teams vanished without a trace, it was now blamed on the puppeteer.
The eight was known as the Beast for the simple reason that the corpses left behind by him looked as if they had been chewed on by a massive beast and then spat back out again.
The ninth was referred to as Highlord. A few lucky survivors had escaped from him as well. Though whether or not it was intentional no one knew, but he had referred to himself as Highlord. No one knew what exactly it meant, but everyone understood that he was not to be trifled with. He was known to have an unmistakable elegance and behave like a prince of the heavens. Every murder committed by him was fast and clean.
The tenth was the Artist. There was not much to say about his way of killing; it varied from person to person, however, every time he killed someone, he would arrange their corpses in various artworks for others to see.
It was these ten experts that Hui Yue had been tasked with killing in a year, and he felt a headache coming his way as he read about them. All of them were formidable foes, but that was not the main issue, the main issue was locating them.
Reading about their most recent location he found that they were spread all over the entire western region, and with Hui Yue’s level of intelligence, he could guess that they did not stay at the same location for long. Sighing, Hui Yue knew that he was in for quite a year, but he did not give up. He too wished to push his limits and find out just how much he could grow during this war between humans and demons.