Chapter 93: Wipe Them Out

Lie Feng’s furious roar sent the purple-eyed blue ox shuddering on the spot, but it did not drive it back. The big ox knew that retreating would only lead to a far more miserable end.

Yet Lie Feng, having already been scolded by the ring spirit beauty, had regained his wits. This time, though he charged the blue ox at full speed, he no longer crashed into it foolishly as before. Instead, he flashed aside from its front, appeared instantly at its flank, and then whirled around to blast forth a stream of searing fire.

The crimson blaze wrapped half the blue ox’s body in an instant, and the beast’s hide crackled under the heat. Now that his power had broken through to the fifth stage, the fire he spewed was no longer anything like what it had been at the fourth stage.

Back then, even a fifth-stage crocodile demon could not endure his flames, let alone this fourth-stage blue ox demon now.

The terrible agony made the purple-eyed blue ox leap and thrash in torment, but no matter how wildly it jumped, the fire on its body showed no sign of dying out. In the end, just as the crocodile demon once had, the purple-eyed blue ox could do nothing but roll desperately across the ground.

Unluckily for it, this was the depths of the forest, not the swampy region where mud and water lay everywhere. Even after several rolls, the flames showed no sign of being extinguished. Before long, they had burned through the thick hide armor and begun to sear its flesh. A distinctly appetizing smell of roasting meat soon filled the air.

All of this sounded long, yet in truth it had happened within a dozen breaths. Clearly unwilling to waste time waiting idly at the side, Lie Feng flashed toward the purple-eyed blue ox rolling on the ground, then lashed out savagely with a claw at its flame-engulfed body.

Bang!

The sharp lion claw tore fiercely into the blazing blue ox. The beast’s already incredibly tough hide, softened by the intense heat, gave way at once, and with that single strike the great lion ripped a huge chunk of flesh straight from its back.

The agony and the mortal wound drove the purple-eyed blue ox into a final frenzy before death. It began attacking everything around it like a mad beast.

Normally, Lie Feng could simply have stood aside and waited for it to exhaust itself before finishing it off with ease. But now there was no time for such patience. Relying on his speed advantage, he circled the half-burning blue ox at high speed, and whenever an opening appeared, he struck again without the slightest hesitation.

After several rounds of this, the purple-eyed blue ox was finally hit in a vital spot. At last, it collapsed unwillingly to the ground.

“Idiot! At last we’ve dealt with that stupid ox! Head full speed toward the front left. That fellow named Fan Liang is fleeing that way with dozens of people!”

Just after Lie Feng had killed the blue ox and was wondering which direction to pursue the fugitives, the ring spirit beauty’s scolding voice rang once more in his mind.

He could only obey and shoot toward the front left. With his terrifying speed, he quickly caught up to the group the ring spirit beauty had mentioned: the several dozen people led by Fan Liang.

Fan Liang, who was frantically fleeing southwest at full speed, could intermittently hear the purple-eyed blue ox’s miserable howls. He knew the big ox was probably finished as well.

While fleeing for his life, he kept thinking about how he would explain this when he returned. Then, at one point when he glanced back, he happened to see that deadly crimson figure appear behind him, charging forward at a speed that plunged him straight into despair.

“No! Damn it! Who the hell provoked this beast? Why is it hunting us down so relentlessly?!”

Fan Liang let out a horrified curse.

He could not understand why this great lion had attacked his two beasts, and after succeeding, why it had not gone after the other people fleeing in all directions, but instead came straight after his own group. Could all of this really be a coincidence?

This fellow had even gone back and borrowed two fourth-stage demon beasts to cover up the trail of his murders, yet when he himself was being hunted by a demon beast, he had never once thought along those lines.

From the intelligence he had received, the Du clan did not have a single expert of spirit-rank strength. There was no way they could have tamed such a powerful beast.

Unfortunately, there was no time for him to think slowly about why this had happened. The crimson figure flashed into the crowd, and then the slaughter began without hesitation: one sweep of its claws and two or three people were torn apart on the spot; one blast of flames and three or five were cremated in a single breath. Killing with growing relish, the great lion even bit down on Fan Liang and snapped him in two, swallowing the upper half of his body in one gulp.

Clearly, Lie Feng hated this disgusting fellow to the core. Because of him, he had been repeatedly scolded as a big fool by the ring spirit beauty, and Lie Feng was determined to make sure the beauty had no excuse to insult him again. This time he killed with complete ruthlessness.

Among these several dozen people, the strongest were only Fan Liang and the two Qi Sea stage experts beside him. Qi Sea stage was equivalent to the third stage among demon beasts. Compared with the great lion’s fifth-stage power, the vast gap of two whole major stages meant they did not even have the strength to resist for an instant.

Dozens of people were wiped out in just a few minutes, and the great lion did not linger. Under the ring spirit beauty’s guidance, it continued at high speed toward the next target.

The ring spirit beauty was like a radar station, while those humans fleeing in all directions were like aircraft skimming the sky. Unless they could escape the radar’s range quickly, death was their only outcome.

It was impossible to flee beyond the ring spirit beauty’s terrifying hundred-li detection range in a short time. Thus, about half an hour later, after the Flame Horned Lion had made a great circle with a radius of more than thirty li, all the humans were finally cleaned out.

Not even one or two fellows who had played dead and hidden in some dark corner were spared. In short, not a single person escaped its claws.

Once everything was done, the great lion carried Du Long to the two fourth-stage demon beasts, now dead beyond all question. Their treasures could not be wasted.

With Lie Feng’s help, two demon cores were dug out. To Du Long’s annoyance, both cores were yin-attribute. Still, two fourth-stage yin-attribute demon cores remained valuable indeed.

Besides the cores, Du Long also took the hides of those two beasts, as well as the purple-eyed blue ox’s eyes and horns. As for the remaining heaps of flesh and bone, after slicing off several hundred jin of the most tender meat, he left the rest entirely to Lie Feng.

By the time all this was finished, it was already past midnight. Only then did Du Long leave this blood-soaked Twin Gorge, still unsatisfied, and return silently to the encampment.

Because this expedition had taken relatively little time, when he made it back to camp there were still two or three hours until dawn, so no one noticed him. After returning to the tent where several of the boys lived, Du Long sat cross-legged and began to cultivate while resting.

The night passed without incident. Early the next morning, he ate breakfast with everyone else as though nothing had happened, and then continued toward the final gold mine.

When they passed through Twin Gorge, the troops leading the way discovered human bones scattered occasionally in the ravine below. More than three hundred people had been killed the previous night, and dozens of them had died within the same mountain gorge they were now passing through. In just a few hours, the original corpses had been gnawed by demon beasts until only a few scattered bones remained.

The soldiers in the vanguard reported this to Du Long from time to time. Experienced officers could tell at a glance that these human bones were very fresh, still tinged with blood, and had probably formed within a day. In other words, a great battle had certainly taken place here not long ago.

As one of the parties involved, Du Long naturally knew where those bones had come from. He could only tell his men not to bother with them and to continue advancing at full speed so as to reach the final gold mine as soon as possible.

Since he had ordered that the matter not be investigated, naturally no one would be bored enough to spend time probing the cause of death for those bones.

With the enemy ambush gone, the several hundred men under Du Long reached the other end of the more than ten-li-long Twin Gorge with complete ease. After leaving the gorge and traveling another twenty li or so, they finally arrived at the last gold mine of this expedition.

Unlike the previous two gold mines, the scene of an empty stronghold did not repeat itself. When Du Long’s party of several hundred appeared outside the mine stockade, the several dozen guards stationed sparsely atop the gate stared dumbfounded.

They knew that in recent days the new lord of Fengli Commandery had led his army into the Beast Forest to investigate illegal gold mining, but their master had long ago instructed them that the lord’s private forces would absolutely never reach this place.

Yet unexpectedly, the lord of Fengli Commandery’s private army had descended like divine soldiers, appearing so quickly outside the gates. The dozens left behind to guard the stockade were all stunned. After all, they were merely a hastily assembled defense force; the true elite soldiers had been taken away by Fan Liang several days earlier.

Could it be that the Fan family had abandoned this gold mine?

At that moment, the same thought surfaced simultaneously in the minds of the dozens of guards atop the stockade wall.

“I am Du Long, lord of Fengli Commandery! I personally entered the Beast Forest to investigate the matter of illegal gold mining. You have no permission to mine gold within Fengli Commandery’s jurisdiction. Why do you not surrender at once? Those who refuse will be killed without mercy!”

Riding atop the great lion, Du Long came to the front lines and shouted grandly.

The guards on the stockade walls panicked at once. After murmuring among themselves for a long while, one of their leaders finally called out loudly, “We are willing to surrender! Please wait a moment, Lord. We will open the gates and submit immediately!”

Their surrender was so straightforward that it left many people outside the gate bewildered on the spot. Du Long, however, understood perfectly well. Last night he had slain all more than three hundred elite retainers of the Fan family. The few weak, aging soldiers left here were nothing more than a trifle.

Very soon, the stockade gates were pushed open, and dozens of dispirited guards emerged from within. Du Long wasted no words; with a wave of his hand, he ordered his men forward to disarm them and accept their surrender.