Martial Peak

Translator: Silavin & Tia

Translation Checker: PewPewLazerGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain & Dhael Ligerkeys

The Abyssal Returner, Ah Wang, had also followed them over. She was currently being held in Liu Yan's arms and was baring her fangs and growling at the second group of a dozen people. Those dozen seemed to be extremely afraid of her and each one of them had eyes that were filled with a deep sense of fear.

Yang Kai glanced at them pensively. Fixing his gaze on the first group of eight people, he asked, "Have they all been possessed by Demon Spirits?"

Wen Zi Shan nodded with a grim expression, "Yes. Do you think you can save them?"

"It will be difficult." Yang Kai shook his head slowly. Although he had not tried it before, he knew that those who had been possessed by Demon Spirits were fundamentally different from those who were corrupted by Demon Qi. Even if he used Ancient Shamanic Spells on them, the chances of success were slim to none.

"Please give it a try," Ma Qing begged. One of those people was an Elder of Heavenly Martial Holy Land and Ma Qing could not bring himself to watch such a tragic ending.

Yang Kai nodded, "En. But please don't get your hopes up, Holy Master Ma."

"Please make every effort, Elder Yang." Ma Qing smiled bitterly.

Yang Kai got up, walked over to those Demons, and studied them closely. If he had to be honest with himself, he could not detect any traces of corruption from these people even now, they all just looked like ordinary Humans. It was no wonder that the entire Southern Territory was still in the dark about the situation when Orthodoxy Temple had already fallen.

Those eight people included men and women, young and old. Yang Kai circled around them once and randomly stopped in front of a young man. When their gazes met, the young man's eyes revealed his nervousness.

Yang Kai smiled at the young man and began chanting. He then touched a finger to the young man's forehead and a milky white light on his fingertip burst out, penetrating into the young man's head.

The light was cleansing and that young man suddenly began shaking all over in fear. His expression became savage and horrendous and a beast-like howl came out of his mouth as he struggled even harder than before. Nevertheless, he was helpless. He had many seals placed on his body, so how could he escape?

Under the Demon Exorcism Spell, Demon Qi soon burst forth from the young man's body. Although the Demon Qi in his body began to dissipate at a constant rate as the Demon Exorcism Spell took effect, his Spiritual Essence also wilted accordingly. His complexion turned deathly pale and in a very short period of time, he was sweating so profusely that he looked like he had been fished out of the sea. His clothes were soaked through and after a while, his eyes rolled back and he completely lost consciousness.

Yang Kai stopped and stood there, slowly shaking his head.

Seeing this scene, Ma Qing and the others let out a long sigh. They had mentally prepared themselves before they asked, but they could only give up when they saw that Yang Kai's methods could not work on these people.

These cultivators had been possessed by the Demon Spirits after all and their own consciousness had long been devoured. Hence, they had been fundamentally changed from the roots up. The Demon Exorcism Spell Yang Kai cast was capable of removing Demon Qi from their bodies, but it was simultaneously damaging their Souls. Even if he purged all the Demon Qi, it would simply turn them into walking corpses without a functioning consciousness of their own.

That was something Yang Kai knew best as the memory of the time when Feng Ming had taken out a Demon Seed and tried to attack his Knowledge Sea before in order to possess his body was still fresh in his mind.

"They can't be saved." Yang Kai turned to Ma Qing and asked, "Did you get any useful information from them?"

Wen Zi Shan sighed, "No. These guys are all tight-lipped and not afraid of death, so we couldn't get anything out of them at all."

"Is that so?" Yang Kai stretched out his hand to Liu Yan who immediately walked over and handed the Abyssal Returner in her arms to him. Holding Ah Wang in one hand, Yang Kai stood in front of a demonified cultivator and swept his gaze over them, "If you want to live, tell me what you were plotting. If your information turns out to be useful, I might just spare your life."

The eight people, aside from the young man that had lost consciousness, looked at him quietly, but nobody answered.

Yang Kai nodded, "You truly do not fear death. Very good."

While speaking, he gently patted the Abyssal Returner on the head. The black puppy roared wildly in response before it suddenly stuck its head out, opened its mouth wide, and swallowed up one of the Demons standing in front of her in a single gulp.

Upon seeing that scene, Ma Qing and the others jumped in fright. Although they had witnessed what the strange black puppy was capable of before, it was still a shocking sight. It wasn't strange for a Monster Beast to prey on Humans, but the key point was that the Abyssal Returner did not feed on Humans but only Demons. Moreover, it was completely immune to demonification. Not too long ago, it even devoured all the Demon Qi in the mountain valley.

Wen Zi Shan wore a thoughtful look. He had known about the existence of the Abyssal Returner for some time now after all. Gong Yue was the one to discover this Abyssal Returner in Azure Sun Temple back then, and at the time, it had tried to devour Feng Ming in one bite. More than a dozen Emperor Realm Masters working together to attack it had also had their attacks all swallowed into its belly before those same attacks were spat back out. According to Gong Yue, the little beast seemed to have the bloodline of a legendary Monster Beast from the Demon Realm; thus, it was not strange for it to have such a bizarre ability.

When one of the Demons was swallowed down, the rest of the Demons became agitated. They glared at the Abyssal Returner as though they were looking at their natural enemy, their eyes filled with horror and fear; however, their cultivations were all sealed so they couldn't run even if they wanted to.

Yang Kai looked at them in a leisurely manner and said indifferently, "Take your time to think it over. Whoever has made up their minds can go ahead and talk. This Yang always means what he says; as long as you can provide me with some useful information, you may survive."

While he was speaking, the Abyssal Returner opened its mouth again and swallowed up another Demon. Yang Kai didn't say anything else after that and simply walked down the line, step by step, with Ah Wang in his arms. Whenever he arrived in front of a Demon, Ah Wang would devour that Demon in one gulp. Just like that, she ate five Demons in the blink of an eye and there were now only three left, their eyes filled with hatred, but none of them speaking a single word.

Looking at the situation, Yang Kai sighed in frustration, "Truly a bunch of stubborn and rigid people."

Turning to look at Ma Qing and the others, he added, "I'm afraid we won't be getting anything out of them."

Ma Qing replied with a cold expression, "In that case, there's no reason to let them live anymore."

If they were not demonified, he might have suggested trying to use Secret Techniques such as the Soul Scouring Technique on them to investigate the secrets of their minds; however, this was related to the Demons, so who would dare do that? What if they were infected by the Demon Qi as a result? The potential gains were not worth the risks.

Since there was no point keeping these Demons alive, then they could only get rid of them once and for all. Ah Wang swallowed the remaining three Demons into her belly in one swift motion. Nevertheless, she still looked unsatisfied and her gaze now turned towards the other dozen people standing to the side.

"And, what's up with them?" Yang Kai asked curiously.

"You have to ask that pet of yours." Wen Zi Shan frowned, "She keeps barking at them. We don't know what's wrong with them either."

When the dust of the battle in the mountain valley settled, all the major Sects summoned the remaining survivors to help collect the remains of the injured and dead, but to their surprise, the Abyssal Returner suddenly ran up to a cultivator and barked at him non-stop. In view of the spectacular performance of the Abyssal Returner previously, Wen Zi Shan and Ma Qing became alert and ordered that cultivator to be detained.

Who could have known that the Abyssal Returner would continue making its way through the crowd, sniffing out these dozen people? Subsequently, that led to the current situation they were facing right now.

"I have been unfairly accused, Temple Master Wen! I am a disciple of Blue Cloud Sect! Why am I being detained like this!?" A young woman with a youthful-looking face complained bitterly, trying to defend herself. The rest also began talking all at once, agreeing with her statements.

Yang Kai said, "Whether something is wrong or not, we only need to test it out to know." Striding forward, he came to stand directly in front of the young woman.

The young woman instantly reacted in fear, trying to step back as she spoke in a horrified voice, "W-What are you trying to do!?"

Yang Kai didn't waste any time on talk and simply reached out his hand to grab her head while casting the Demon Exorcism Spell. When he began chanting, the young woman's expression changed greatly and she wailed as wisps of black Demon Qi poured out of her body.

When everybody saw this, their expressions sank.

"There really is something wrong with them…" Ma Qing looked stern.

Similarly, Wen Zi Shan also had an expression of lingering fear as he turned a look of wonder at the Abyssal Returner. [If not for this little beast's strange behaviour, I'm afraid everybody would have been deceived again.]

When was a person most relaxed and unguarded? It was when they emerged victorious after a difficult battle. When the dust settled over the battle of Orthodoxy Temple, nobody expected Demons to still be hiding among them. Nobody had the means to distinguish between the Humans and the Demons either, so if these people had been allowed to leave this place alive, a second or a third Orthodoxy Temple could have appeared in the future.

Yang Kai continued checking these dozen people, one by one and soon determined that every single one of them had been quietly taken over by a Demon Spirit. Nobody knew whether they had been possessed before the battle or whether it happened during the commotion. Seeing as these dozen people came from different backgrounds and had varying cultivations, it was probably the latter.

There was nothing much to say since these people had been possessed and it didn't take long before all of them ended up in Ah Wang's belly.

Wen Zi Shan said, "Should we let your pet look around again? Just in case there are still some Demon Spirits left…"

Previously, they had no way of determining who had been possessed by a Demon Spirit, but now that they had a weapon like the Abyssal Returner on their side, it was only natural that they screened the remaining survivors carefully.

Yang Kai nodded, "That's probably for the best."

After saying that, he tossed the Ah Wang to Liu Yan, "Take her out for a walk."

Liu Yan took the Abyssal Returner, turned around, and left.

Not far away, Wu Chang watched the entire scene with a stoic expression while in his heart, tumultuous waves were brewing.

When everybody ran into each other at the gates of Orthodoxy Temple just slightly over a month ago, he had spoken disdainfully to Yang Kai. He arrogantly believed that Yang Kai still did not have the qualifications to face him, but who could have imagined that in just the span of a month, that opponent he looked down on would be speaking to his Sect's Holy Master on equal terms? Moreover, Yang Kai had, more or less, single-handedly resolved the entire Orthodoxy Temple incident. If not for him, almost all of the Southern Territory's Masters and elite disciples would have been wiped out.

While thinking about how Yang Kai had casually gathered and brought more than two hundred Emperor Realm Masters as reinforcements here, Wu Chang's thoughts drifted to the unruly thirty-two Monster Kings, then to the three Divine Spirits who obeyed Yang Kai's every word…

For somebody as proud as Wu Chang, those thoughts made him feel a pang of helplessness. At some point in time, this person, who was supposedly one of his peers, had gone far beyond his reach. They were now two people living in two different worlds.

When he thought back on the arrogant words he uttered more than a month ago, he discovered that he had been acting absolutely ridiculous and childish back then. At the time, Yang Kai probably didn't even put him in his eyes.

Wu Chang couldn't help feeling a deep sense of frustration in his heart, like he had made a fool of himself in front of everyone.

Chen Wen Hao stood beside Wu Chang, seemingly aware of the changes in his Junior's heart, and patted him on the shoulder, "Everyone has their own path to walk. He is just truly blessed. He is a rare existence that only appears rarely throughout history. He is not someone anybody can compare to."

Wu Chang sighed softly, "I know."

He paused for a moment before he continued, "I'm going to enter retreat upon our return. After achieving a breakthrough in my cultivation, I'm going out to wander the world."

Chen Wen Hao turned and glanced at Wu Chang; then, he nodded in agreement, "Good."

Flowers grown in a greenhouse cannot withstand the harsh elements of the outside world.

Silavin: Man. The author completely forgot Ah Wang's name. He even called her 'it'… I hope I can do some justice to this puppy by remembering her in place of the author. (BTW, in the past few chapters, she was just referred to as Abyssal Returner and it…)