Chapter 97 - The Ice Sword Cliff

Xuanyue widened her eyes and said, “How dare you treat your meowster so rudely!” Her eyes only grew larger.

Li Qingshan stared at Xuanyue. “You’ve never mentioned this before. You clearly hid it from me.”

Xuanyue avoided his gaze. For some reason, she felt frantic inside. She avoided the main point. “Haha, have I? You never asked!”

Li Qingshan sat and crossed his legs. “This is it.”

“What? Why don’t you say that again?” Xuanyue extended her claws and threatened him.

Li Qingshan said, “You have tremendous abilities. When you come across danger, you can use your Shadow Displacement to just walk away from it, but we’ll most likely die. If you want to kill me, then kill me. I don’t want to be used by you anymore. As long as Xiao An can leave safely, I don’t mind anything you do to me.”

Xiao An grabbed Li Qingshan by the sleeve and shook his head desperately.

Xuanyue said, “Do you think I won’t?” She swung down with her claws, as swift as lightning. Li Qingshan had decided on not trying to avoid it. His hide was no tougher than that rat daemon’s.

The claws stopped near Li Qingshan’s neck, only a millimeter away. Xuanyue’s chest heaved up and down. She turned around and said, “Hmph, I can’t be bothered killing you. If you want to leave, then leave! Do whatever you want!”

Li Qingshan looked at her deeply before turning around. He was just about to leave.

Xuanyue grabbed Li Qingshan’s little finger and said gently, “The Dragon province is close. We promeowsed!”

Li Qingshan turned around. All he saw was her looking elsewhere and not at him. The sunlight fell on her eyelashes, casting a shadow on her eyes that were as clear as lakewater. She seemed melancholic and fragile, which tugged at Li Qingshan’s heart.

After a long moment of silence, Li Qingshan answered her, “Fine then. I’ll send you off one last time, just to complete our promise.”

Xuanyue immediately cheered up. She stuck out her tongue and smiled craftily. “How easy to coax!” She did not seem melancholic and fragile at all.

Li Qingshan lowered his head, and his expression immediately darkened. Xiao An looked at Li Qingshan rather sympathetically.

“It’s a promeowse! A promeowse!” Xuanyue leapt around Li Qingshan complacently before jumping onto his head in the end. She urged him, “Let’s go!”

Li Qingshan glared at her viciously before continuing on his way.

It had been quite some time since he had travelled under the sun. The sunlight in winter was warm. Before he knew it, a very long time had already passed. He had grown completely accustomed to his body as a daemon now.

Xuanyue said, “There’s no need to feel ashamed! There’s nothing embarrassing about losing to my ultimeowte move!”

“Ultimate move?!”

Xuanyue said, “Actually, I’ve wanted to leave since a long time ago, but the Dark Queen always shows this expression, so there’s nothing I could do.”

Li Qingshan said, “But in the end, you still left.”

Xuanyue said complacently, “That’s because I’m rather cold-hearted!”

Li Qingshan said, “That’s not something you should be proud of! If you’re coldhearted to others, they’ll be cold-hearted to you too.”

“Really?”

On the Black Rat mountain, the rat king laid on the ground with his head completely buried in the earth. The quiet sounds from five or even fifty kilometers away reached his ears. Li Qingshan and Xuanyue’s conversation obviously failed to escape his ears.

Most of the innate abilities awakened by daemons were for attack or defence, but he knew the extremely rare ‘Earthen Auditory’, matching his prudent personality that was as timid as a mouse.

Suddenly, he pulled his head out of the ground and said with a face full of soil, “Something really is off!”

The rats said, “Wise be the king!”

“Cut the rubbish. Go chase them!”

Xuanyue’s ears suddenly perked up. “Oh no, they’ve come chasing. Let’s go!”

Li Qingshan swung his legs and took off in a wild sprint. He would leave behind a deep footprint whenever he took a step before landing several dozen meters away.

“You’re too slow!” Xuanyue found him to be too slow.

Li Qingshan said, “Why don’t you carry me and try?!”

Xuanyue fished out a spiritual pill and tossed it into Li Qingshan’s mouth before taking out a talisman. The talisman was not yellow as he had seen it before, but scarlet red.

The pill dissolved, and a light sensation rose up through him. Li Qingshan felt like his weight had halved. The talisman shattered, and a whirlwind wrapped around Li Qingshan. He felt weightless now.

Li Qingshan took a step and shot up into the sky. The sky was a dazzling blue, while the ancient forest stood below him. The mountains in the distance rose and fell as a curve. He felt like he was flying.

He looked back, and as expected, there was a cloud of dust rushing towards him. When he landed back on the ground, he had already adjusted his posture. Leaning forward, he took off in a straight charge. He would cross several hundred meters with each step. These hills no longer posed an obstacle to him. He would just leap over them.

Xuanyue laughed aloud as she stood on his shoulder. “Charge! Meowhahaha!”

The rolling cloud of dust swept over, moving with startling speed. Within the dust, the person at the front was the rat king. He stood on a wave formed from countless rats and spotted Li Qingshan immediately. He shouted out, “Stop!”

Xuanyue knew their cover had been blown, so she no longer tried to hide. She pulled a face. “Only an idiot would stop! You dumbo! Dumbo!”

Yellow light flashed through the rat king’s eyes, and a series of earth spikes stuck out from the ground. Whether it be their speed or strength, they were far more vicious than the rat general. Every single one of them would emerge when Li Qingshan was about to step on the ground.

Li Qingshan zig-zagged about, constantly changing directions. As soon as he had avoided a spike, there would be activity below his feet again. He roared out, “The Ox Demon Stamps its Hooves!” and stepped on the spike that had just emerged, pushing off it and taking off into the sky.

His foot ached, but fortunately, his feet had already turned into tough ox hooves, or his leg would have been crippled.

He reached an altitude of several hundred meters. The blue sky dazzled his eyes, and he no longer cared about the pain from his foot.

Xuanyue pointed at the horizon. “Big Blacko, Li’l Whitey, do see it? The Ice Sword cliff is right in front of us!”

An imposing ice cliff that spanned over a thousand kilometers crossed through the Boundless mountains as if a celestial had used an ice sword to split the dragon-like mountain range in half.

This was the boundary between the Green and Dragon provinces.

Hope suddenly sprang forth in Li Qingshan’s heart. He was like a traveller seeing his final destination, even though he understood that distances would often be underestimated. He knew that the Ice Sword cliff was still very far away.

However, he just had a feeling that if he could cross that ice cliff, he would definitely reach a place he had never set foot in.

When he lowered his head, all he saw was that the tough rock he was about to land on had turned into a region of quicksand that spanned several hundred meters. He sank heavily into the quicksand.

The quicksand spun like a vortex with a great suction force as if countless hands were pulling Li Qingshan into the ground. He felt like a declawed tiger. Even if he possessed tremendous strength, he was unable to use it at all now. The more he struggled, the further he sank.

The rat king used this opportunity to catch up in a single stroke. He laughed aloud. “You’ve fallen for my trap! Since you’ve looked down on me, I’ll make you all remain here forever!”

“Wise be the king!”

“Yowl!” A cat’s cry that was even more imposing than a tiger’s roar rang out. Xuanyue stood on Li Qingshan’s shoulder and radiated with powerful daemon qi. She stared straight at the rat king. “You’re the Cat-eating Mouse, aren’t you? It’s disgusting, but I’ll be trying the taste of rats today.”