Chapter Two: The Ancient Demon Spirit (Part Two)

When Shi Jun first met Nisus, he felt that the latter did not seem unreasonable. Coupled with what he had previously heard from the great fairy Zisheng about Nisus's past sufferings, he held a certain degree of respect and sympathy for him.

Later on, when he witnessed with his own eyes the scene of Silver Hook sacrificing herself to protect him, the anger in his heart was gradually ignited. Yet, considering that although Silver Hook's death was directly related to Nisus, he had after all been dead for thousands of years—could he really bring himself to strike at Nisus's remaining primordial spirit and make him die a second time to pay for Silver Hook's life?

Therefore, when Nisus appeared, although Shi Jun was extremely displeased, he only wanted to earnestly persuade this ghostly "demon witch" not to constantly use treasures to lure and slaughter his own kind.

Who could have expected that before his persuasion could even be uttered, Nisus would strike first? This instantly infuriated him. He set up defensive restrictions on his barrier and braced himself with focused concentration. Shi Jun had never been one to act rashly or recklessly, nor did he believe force was the best way to solve problems, but he was certainly not afraid of a fight. Thus, the moment Nisus revealed his intention to attack, Shi Jun immediately prepared for defense and counterattack.

Sure enough, sensing danger, the barrier automatically propelled Shi Jun upward into mid-air, yet it was still struck by dozens of boulders of varying sizes. The force of these boulders was astonishingly immense, instantly riddling the barrier with holes. The white light curtain indicating the defensive power flashed abruptly and vanished, signaling that the barrier was about to be destroyed. Left with no choice, Shi Jun formed hand seals to reveal himself, summoned a new barrier, and thrust out both palms to unleash a "Water Dragon Wave."

"Truly a water-type spell! I never expected to find a traitor of the netherworld among humans!" The moment the cyan water dragon appeared, Nisus saw through it at a glance and shouted softly.

"Using water-type spells makes one a netherworld traitor?" Shi Jun retorted coldly without pausing his hands, "I never expected you to share the exact same logic as others. No wonder you were regarded by your own kin as a foreign collaborator whom they were desperate to eliminate." As soon as his voice fell, he immediately chanted an incantation to trigger "Dancing Silver Snakes."

* * * * * * * *

This cave was deeply hidden underground, where the moisture was extremely heavy, making the effect of "Dancing Silver Snakes" exceptional. In an instant, dozens of slender, silver water dragons materialized out of nowhere. Their entire bodies were transformed from light-cyan mysterious ice, surrounded by faint wisps of mist. They bared their fangs and brandished their claws, whipping at everything inside the cave like lashes. A continuous, chaotic crashing sound echoed endlessly. The books and miraculous elixirs that Nisus had treasured and hidden for countless years were naturally battered into a scattered mess, while dozens of huge wooden cabinets were inevitably torn apart, spilling colorful and rare treasures all over the floor.

It was because Nisus had stubbornly insisted on forcefully cultivating water-type spells back then, ignoring the obstruction of everyone in the demon realm, that he had sown the seeds of disaster for himself. Stung by Shi Jun hitting his sore spot, Nisus flew into a rage and shouted lowly, "Seeking death!" With a shake of his body, pine needles shot out from him like a violent storm, instantly shattering the water dragons into vapor. At the same time, the floor of the cave suddenly sprouted dense millions of vines, as if countless magical seeds had been sown. Intertwining and twisting upward, they grew to a height of three to four meters in a mere moment, coming dangerously close to the barrier where Shi Jun was located.

From the bodies of these vines, countless slender gray spikes suddenly protruded in unison. At Nisus's incantation, these spikes flew off the vines like soldiers obeying an order, fiercely stabbing toward Shi Jun's barrier.

Shi Jun had long since experienced this exact trick from the Dish-Bone Dragon, and he thought to himself: Do the spells of everyone in the demon realm operate more or less the same? But I have already been fooled once; this trick won't work on me anymore! However, he still held a healthy respect for Nisus's formidable reputation. Fearing that the barrier's defense might be insufficient and wary that the spikes might be highly toxic, he continuously cast five defensive restrictions onto the barrier while reaching into his all-treasures pouch. He pulled out a treasure "borrowed" from the Refining Bureau and hurled it out from within the barrier.

This was a palm-sized, lightweight, and thin metal disc. Spinning at an extreme speed, it flew to the exact center above the cave, then suddenly disassembled and dispersed into millions of identical discs. Whirling up and down like sharp blades, they swiftly severed the growing vines. In the blink of an hour, severed roots and broken vines littered the ground, with milky-white sap oozing continuously from the cuts. Having lost their targets, the discs immediately locked onto Nisus, fluttering up and down to "slice" toward him like miniature flying saucers.

Seeing the magical artifact attack, Nisus naturally dared not be careless. He employed "Lotus Broken Yet Silk Connected," a soft-overcoming-hard technique among wood-type defensive spells, weaving thousands of strands of exceptionally resilient energy threads before himself to trap these discs one by one, rendering this attack invisible and void.

* * * * * * * *

The two instantly engaged in combat.

Shi Jun rapidly changed his hand seals dozens of times, executing the water-type techniques he was most familiar with one after another to launch continuous attacks against his opponent. Yet Nisus remained unhurried, parry by parry, effortlessly neutralizing all of Shi Jun's moves while occasionally unleashing bizarre wood-type spells to counterattack through Shi Jun's openings.

At first glance, the two seemed evenly matched, but in reality, Nisus was a formidable and powerful grand demon witch whose abilities far surpassed Shi Jun's current level. However, firstly, his physical body had perished, and fighting solely with the power of his primordial spirit had severely diminished his combat strength; secondly, he harbored a degree of contempt, wanting to see what other skills his opponent was hiding, and thus had not exerted his full strength.

Unlike ordinary demons, Nisus's moves were not merely physical attacks. They included quite a few offensive wood-type spell techniques, and he could even occasionally employ some bizarre water-type spells. Although these water-type spells were not particularly powerful—one might even call them somewhat clumsy—they were completely unfamiliar to Shi Jun, appearing to have been self-created by Nisus.

Zisheng had once told Shi Jun that Nisus was despised and ultimately targeted as the public enemy of the demon realm precisely because he had tried to break through the boundaries of the wood attribute by forcibly cultivating water-type spells. Now witnessing these semblance-of-water spells with his own eyes, Shi Jun's heart stirred: That being said, these crude water-type spells were indeed self-created by Nisus. Although he had not precisely mastered the ability to control the water attribute, judging from the variations and tiers of these spells, they already possessed a rudimentary form. This fellow was truly formidable! Thinking to himself thus, Shi Jun couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration for the person fighting him to the death right before his eyes.

Yet Nisus clearly didn't think much of Shi Jun at all. His repeated use of those water-type spells was merely to test them out. Though long dead, he remained stubbornly devoted to the dream of his youth, only regretting that during his lifetime he had suffered from having no one to guide him on how to study water-type spells. Now, he simply brought them out to experiment.

Shi Jun lacked combat experience and soon began to feel overwhelmed. It seemed Nisus was in no hurry to knock him down; instead, playing with him as if teasing a toy, he skirmished while coldly taunting:
"Is that all the tricks you have? Don't disappoint me!"

Or else—
"Watch out! Make sure you don't just die like this; hold on a bit longer, even a moment or two!"

"Ah, I told you to be careful earlier—why didn't you listen? What a nuisance!"

Judging by his tone, he actually begrudged Shi Jun for lacking the skill to let him have a satisfying fight.

Parrying left and right, Shi Jun gradually felt the strain. The defensive restrictions he set up were broken one after another by Nisus, and while his offensive spells wreaked havoc throughout the cave, they completely failed to affect Nisus, as if bouncing off him entirely.

Anyone else would have been bursting with rage upon hearing Nisus's words, but Shi Jun simply treated it as noise. Gritting his teeth and persisting, he observed Nisus's hand seals and incantations, calculating in secret.

It seemed that a demon like Nisus, who could comprehend and utilize advanced wood-type spells, practically needed no weapons when fighting mortals. With Shi Jun's current power, he was simply no match for him; if this endless battle continued, the one to suffer would surely be himself.

At this thought, Shi Jun grew somewhat anxious. He couldn't understand why Nisus was immune to spell attacks—should he perhaps procure a submachine gun from the human realm and blast this millennium-old demon ghost to pieces?

* * * * * * * *

While he was racking his brain for a countermeasure, he saw Nisus flick his left hand and remotely control several giant logs, five meters in diameter and about ten meters high, materializing out of thin air to attack him. Under the violent impact, the barrier that Shi Jun had painstakingly reinforced with multiple layers of restrictions instantly collapsed. He hurriedly summoned "Three Feet of Frost," only to find the giant logs spinning toward him with ghost-like swiftness; before the Three Feet of Frost could even form, it was shattered with a loud crash.

With no other choice, Shi Jun instantly formed hand seals and flew upward. He dared not go down, for the ground was covered entirely in man-eating flowers, blood-sucking vines, and similar plants re-summoned by Nisus; one moment of carelessness would spell disaster.

"How is it? Do any regrets linger? The consequence of greed is precisely this—even if I handed the treasures over to you now, you wouldn't live to enjoy them. Alas, how pathetic!" Nisus, perhaps having spent too long cooped up underground alone, found himself unable to shut his chatterbox the moment he laid eyes on a living person. While fighting a life-or-death battle with Shi Jun, he continuously poured forth endless sighs and laments.

"You really are full of yourself." Shi Jun held his breath, cast a protective qi aura around himself, and then hurled dozens of water-dragon waves to entangle the giant logs, finally extracting himself from the perilous situation. Having already been poisoned, he had expended a vast amount of mental energy and now found himself panting slightly. "What, do you think everyone drools over your so-called treasure? Let me tell you, Silver Hook only broke in here to save me! You killed her indiscriminately, yet you stand here spouting nonsense!"

Nisus crossed his arms, standing far off in a corner of the cave, and said coldly: "First, the hidden mechanisms guarding my treasure are a matter of common knowledge throughout the demon realm. I don't care why your Silver Hook came here, but she could not possibly have been unaware of the danger. Since she willingly courted peril, whom can she blame other than herself? Second, my mechanisms make no distinction regarding who arrives; once triggered, not even the Jade Emperor himself is spared. This is called equality and sweeping through all indiscriminately. Her cultivation was simply inferior—whom can she blame? You wish to seek justice for her, but is there truly any justice to be found in this world? If there were, I wouldn't need to set traps to avenge myself."

"Are you out of your mind? Every debt has its debtor, and every grievance its perpetrator! What kind of logic is it to disregard human lives like this?"

Nisus laughed up to the sky: "Do you even merit speaking to me about logic? Let alone killing just these few, even if I killed thousands upon thousands of you, what could you possibly do to me?"

Hearing this, Shi Jun flew into a rage and shouted, "If someone wronged you, go seek your revenge on them! Why harm these little demons who have no grievance with you? They were merely a bit greedy, hoping to find treasures to aid their spiritual practice, yet they weren't the masterminds behind your death! Lacking any sense of right and wrong, you only think of your own grievances—why don't you think of them? Who are they supposed to seek revenge against? Did they deserve to die? You keep proclaiming that others deserve to die, but in my eyes, you are the one who deserves it most!" With that, he focused his mind and hurled two "Bursting Torrents"—a technique he had previously learned from Chiyang.

Hearing Shi Jun's words, Nisus was momentarily stunned. In that brief moment of distraction, the two bursting torrents flew right before his eyes and exploded with a resounding "bang." The boiling magma instantly blasted a moderately sized breach in his protective spiritual qi, and the primordial spirit hidden behind it was impacted, causing it to ripple back and forth.

Lacking a physical body, Nisus relied entirely on his protective spiritual qi to sustain the consciousness of his primordial spirit. Through a momentary lapse in judgment, he had been heavily wounded by this wet-behind-the-ears kid. Instantly discarding his previous contempt, his eyes flashed with brilliant light. Without a word, he brought his "hands" together and then separated them, gathering two soccer-sized, dark-green wood-type energy spheres in his palms. Pausing for a moment, he hurled them toward Shi Jun with a "boom" while coldly scoffing, "Sharp-tongued. Let's see if you can save your own life first."

The moment Shi Jun saw those two green light spheres in Nisus's palms, a faint sense of foreboding told him intuitively that they were exceedingly dangerous. In his panic, he simply mimicked his opponent, staring fixedly at Nisus's every move, thinking: *No matter how powerful you are, using your own methods against you shouldn't leave me at a disadvantage!* Without blinking, he firmly memorized Nisus's hand seals and incantations, applying them to his own hands accordingly.

Before long, two wood-type energy spheres also materialized in the palms of his hands. However, the color of these two spheres was much darker than Nisus's, turning almost pitch-black, and they were considerably smaller—roughly the size of fists. At the very moment Nisus directed his light spheres to fly forth, these two dark green light spheres also left Shi Jun's palms, trailing thin golden tails as they flew straight to collide with Nisus's spheres.

Shi Jun had never learned demon realm spells and was suffering from a strange poison, but now facing a life-or-death crisis and seeing Nisus behave so bizarrely that it defied all reason, he knew that if he played it poorly, not only would he fail to persuade Nisus to cease his slaughter, but he might not even escape the cave alive. At this thought, he could only summon every ounce of his concentration, gritting his teeth to endure. Yet his experience was limited after all; forcefully mimicking Nisus to summon wood-attribute energy was, to someone who had only just begun practicing cultivation, equivalent to making a three-year-old child run a marathon. Although he managed it through sheer willpower, it drained an immense amount of mental energy, leaving him instantly exhausted and weak in the legs. Fortunately, the barrier protected him, preventing him from plummeting straight out of mid-air.