The Demon Lord's Invasion

Chapter 2: Hunting in the Sandstorm

Amid the sandstorm where fierce winds howled, a dark figure sprinted eastward at breakneck speed. Suddenly, the figure came to a halt, followed by a piercing, agonized screech, and in the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace. “It was a Fiery Wind Horse. Too bad—someone beat me to it.” Jiang Tang swept his long hair—which had curled like instant noodles across his forehead—back over his head, his face brimming with envy. The soul stone, fashioned into a necklace pendant, immediately sent a query from Dongfang: “A Galewind Horse! Is that the first-tier demon beast you were talking about? Its speed is on par with that of a human at the Great Perfection stage of the Yuanwu Realm—that’s truly astonishing. By my estimate, that black shadow was easily traveling at 100 kilometers per hour. You’re only at the early stage of the Yuanwu Realm right now—how do you plan to hunt it down?” “It wouldn’t have worked before. The Stormwind Horse is extremely cautious. Besides its speed, its eyesight is better than mine, and its sense of smell is incredibly keen—no matter how well I hide within a hundred steps, it can still sniff me out. But in a sandstorm, it’s like a headless fly—just like its sense of smell, it only runs with the wind. As long as I appear right in front of it, I’m sure to take it down,” Jiang Tang explained. After listening, Dongfang fell silent for a moment before saying, “Sitting around waiting for it to come to you isn’t a solution. There are plenty of others nearby with the same idea—the odds are too slim. Since the Blazing Wind Horse has such a keen sense of smell, why not use that to our advantage?” “How do we use it?” Jiang Tang perked up instantly. “The smell of urine is very strong, especially in dry, hot regions. Find a piece of cloth, tear it into strips, soak them in urine, tie them to a twig, and stick them out in front of you. Remember to control the range. I suspect the Stormwind Horse will definitely avoid the dangerous route marked by the scent.” “Will that work?” Jiang Tang was a bit skeptical. “It’s better than sitting around waiting for a rabbit to come to you.” “Deal.” Jiang Tang didn’t hesitate any longer. Since he had no extra cloth, he simply tore his tattered clothes to shreds, and as for the twigs, he had plenty in his storage pouch—they were usually used for starting fires to roast meat. After working for an hour, Jiang Tang lay bare-chested on the yellow sand, buried in the wind and sand, with only his head raised, constantly looking around. Whether it was the Dongfang method that worked or Jiang Tang had simply struck it lucky, in less than a quarter of an hour, he spotted a dark figure sprinting toward him. Having lived in the Sea of Sand for two years, Jiang Tang knew the ferocious beasts of its outskirts intimately. As for demon beasts, he could only spot them during sandstorms, so his knowledge of them was limited—which is precisely why he could sense that what lay ahead was definitely not a ferocious beast! As the dark figure drew near, Jiang Tang popped something into his mouth, then leaped suddenly into the air. Mid-air, he took a deep breath; in an instant, his chest swelled like a balloon being inflated, forming a stark contrast with his slender waist—he looked exactly like a black-skinned frog. But soon, the air he’d drawn into his lungs seemed to be forcibly compressed by his body, condensing into a mass that surged up his throat. “Pfft!” As a cold glint flashed across Jiang Tang’s lips, his puffed-out cheeks instantly returned to normal, revealing two shallow dimples. At the same moment, a whinny suddenly rang out from the dark shadow ahead, followed by a tall, muscular, dark-red stallion skidding to a halt before Jiang Tang, leaving a long trail of sand in its wake. “Big Talker?” Dongfang’s voice rang out suddenly. “Uh… I think so!” Jiang Tang paused in surprise, then chuckled. Rubbing his hands together, he walked over to the horse’s carcass, examined it from head to toe, and exclaimed with uncontrollable excitement, “A Blazing Wind Horse! It’s been two years—I’ve finally bagged one!” A Blazing Wind Horse was in a league of its own compared to a ferocious beast like a earth wolf. When a beast becomes a demon, every part of it is a treasure: its hide can be used to make armor, its tendons and bones can be forged into weapons, and its flesh can be eaten—consuming enough grants boundless strength. But most importantly, there’s the demon core. If sold to a pill master, even a first-tier one would fetch ten crystal stones. “Quick, put it away. After muttering excitedly to himself, Jiang Tang dared not admire it any longer. He pulled out a storage pouch adorned with dragon-head runes and channeled his Yuan Power; the Stormwind Horse’s corpse instantly transformed into a streak of light and flew into the pouch. “What on earth is that?” Dongfang suddenly asked. “Oh, we’ll talk about it later.” Jiang Tang rarely used his storage pouch because it was far from ordinary. Aside from the size of its interior space, the runes on its surface alone were enough to catch many people’s eyes—and lead them to guess where he came from! For the next hour, Jiang Tang found nothing else, which made him doubt Dongfang’s method. “With the wind and sand this fierce, the strip of cloth must have been buried long ago,” Dongfang remarked. “True. Too bad I can’t even take a leak right now,” Jiang Tang replied. He untied the gourd from his waist, took two sips of water, and ate a piece of dried wolf meat. Just as he was about to move to a different spot, he suddenly spotted another dark figure ahead! “It doesn’t look like a person. Let’s lie in wait first,” Jiang Tang thought to himself as he lay flat on the yellow sand, quickly buried by the wind and sand. The dark figure was approaching rapidly. What excited Jiang Tang even more was that there didn’t seem to be just one—two more dark figures appeared behind it. No, three, six, nine… “Holy shit!” Suddenly, Jiang Tang leaped to his feet as if his pants were on fire, flinging his bare arms wide as he sprinted eastward. A thunderous roar shook the heavens and earth. The yellow sand, which had barely settled in the gale, had no time to catch its breath before being hit by a massive shockwave that sent it swirling back into the sky, drifting with the wind. Behind Jiang Tang, a line of dark figures rolled down like a mudslide from a collapsing mountain, stretching as far as the eye could see to the left and right. Accompanying their approach was the deafening, thunderous roar of ten thousand horses galloping. “Good heavens! A beast tide?” Jiang Tang was completely dumbfounded. In the past two years, he had never witnessed such a scene; even the rumors of it dated back a hundred years. What on earth was happening in the Sand Sea? Had Green Moon Lake—the home of the Blazing Wind Horses—been engulfed by a sandstorm? Jiang Tang had no time to dwell on it; the herd of Blazing Wind Horses was now no more than five zhang behind him. “In a situation like this, it’s best to mount one. Even if it goes berserk, it won’t have enough room to throw you off,” Dongfang suggested. “That’s our only option,” Jiang Tang agreed. He turned, zeroed in on a Blazing Wind Horse, and sprinted toward it in a single bound. Startled, the horse opened its mouth and spat out a wind blade, but Jiang Tang dodged it with a lightning-fast sidestep. He then leaped up from the side, wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck, twisted his waist, and mounted it. Sure enough, though the Stormwind Horse’s eyes betrayed panic, it didn’t throw Jiang Tang off its back but simply kept charging forward with its head down. “At this rate, we’ll reach the Green River before long. I don’t know if Earth City is to our left or right. If it’s directly ahead, these guys are bound to break through our defenses.” “You should be watching your back,” Dongfang reminded him. Jiang Tang paused, then turned to look behind him. Through the haze, all he could see were endless silhouettes of horses. However—whether due to his own blurred vision or the wind and sand—the number of black figures seemed to be dwindling. Jiang Tang hurriedly closed his eyes, gathered his sparse Yuan Energy into his eyes, and opened them again—only to have his pupils contract in terror. Behind the herd, the sandy terrain surged like crashing waves, wave after wave knocking down and swallowing the straggling Stormwind Horses. “Damn it, what on earth has emerged from the depths of this sea of sand?” Jiang Tang felt a chill run down his spine. “It’s an Earth Dragon!” A figure appeared on a Stormwind Horse not far from Jiang Tang. The voice sounded as if forged from refined iron—resonant and powerful—truly startling Jiang Tang. “What’s an Earth Dragon? An earthworm?” Jiang Tang looked at the figure, his mind immediately associating it with the “death worms” from his past life. “Bullshit, earth dragon!” Suddenly, another figure appeared on a horse on the other side—a woman with her face veiled in sheer gauze. Though her features were indistinct, Dong Ce recognized her voice as belonging to the sultry woman who’d claimed to carry a hundred storage pouches outside Earth City. “Earth Dragons went extinct three hundred years ago,I never expected there’d still be one. This kind of demon beast is born with first-tier strength, measures three zhang in length, is as thick as a water barrel, and has a hundred legs. Its back is covered in armor as hard as iron—impervious to swords and spears. When it grows two hundred legs, it advances to the second tier. Rumor has it that a thousand-legged Earth Dragon once roamed the Sand Sea a thousand years ago, revered as a totem by a great tribe—unfortunately, it was struck by lightning and died. As for just how powerful it was, I’ve no idea.” “Huh, that sounds a bit like a centipede, doesn’t it?” Jiang Tang blinked. “Hey, Black Guy,” the sultry woman suddenly called out to Jiang Tang in a coquettish voice. “Huh? What’s up?” Jiang Tang asked curiously. “Want to team up and take it down? Don’t worry—judging by its aura, it’s at the peak of the second tier and could advance at any moment. This is also when it’s at its most vulnerable!” Jiang Tang knew that when a demon beast was on the verge of a breakthrough, the Yuan Energy within its body was extremely unstable. If it fought back desperately against an enemy’s attack, even if it won, it would sustain injuries that would prevent it from ever advancing to the next level. Therefore, when they sensed danger, they usually just fled—only to be slowly worn down and killed by cunning humans. But no matter how unstable it was, it was still at the peak of the second tier—while he, at the very lowest stage of the early Yuanwu Realm, wasn’t even worth a second glance. “You’re just here to assist from the sidelines,” the fiery woman said, then turned to another figure and asked, “What do you think, brother?” The figure fell silent for a moment before replying, “First, show me what you’ve got.” The sultry woman laughed seductively and said, “I’m a disciple of the Yinpo Sect—is that enough?” “What about you?” The figure turned to Jiang Tang. “Um… does being strong count?” Jiang Tang asked, a bit awkwardly. There was a silence. After a moment, the figure asked, “How many jin can you lift?” “I’ve lifted a thousand-jin cauldron,” Jiang Tang replied, even more flustered. However, upon hearing this, both the figure and the sultry woman sucked in a sharp breath and stared at Jiang Tang in astonishment. “Your Qi is only at the early stage of the Yuanwu Realm, yet you possess strength rivaling that of the Qiwu Realm? You aren’t pulling my leg, are you?” The sultry woman clearly didn’t believe him. “I don’t think so!” the figure declared with conviction. “If his body hadn’t been forged through countless trials, it wouldn’t be like this. All right, the three of us will join forces, and the spoils will be divided according to our contributions.” “You haven’t mentioned yourself yet,” the sultry woman said discontentedly. “Sword Sect, Li Yishang.” As soon as the figure finished speaking, he suddenly flung his cloak aside, revealing a set of black combat gear. Gripping his long sword, he leaped from his horse’s back in a single bound, his entire body darting like an arrow leaving the bowstring, shooting straight toward the rear of the horse herd. “Just as I thought—early Qi-Martial Realm,” the fiery woman smiled, turning to Jiang Tang. “Go on. Wait for my command.” Watching the sultry woman’s slender form flit across the backs of the horses like a butterfly, Jiang Tang hesitated for a moment, then finally gritted his teeth. He leaped backward off the galloping Fiery Wind Horse. Instantly, a cracking sound of breaking bones echoed from the horse’s flank as he used its momentum, and Jiang Tang himself vanished against the gale, lost in the swirling yellow sand.