3: Kill the genius demon

The Sheep Demon swiped its claw, tearing through a large water vat to discover a new person hiding inside—a chubby little boy.

The Sheep Demon followed its usual method, swallowing the heart raw once again.

In the blink of an eye, one person after another hiding in the shadows was discovered.

It was as if it had the Heavenly Eye; no matter where people hid, it could find them instantly.

Every move it made signified the death of a person.

After killing five people in a row, it stopped. Seeming to think there were no more people hiding there, it slowly began to leave the courtyard.

In the space between the walls, a woman of about thirty and an old man of sixty were huddled inside, not daring to make the slightest sound.

Even though they knew there was no movement outside and that the demon had most likely left, they did not dare to come out of the space between the walls.

However, their mood was much more relaxed compared to that previous feeling of tension.

Suddenly.

A strange laugh approached from afar.

With a bang.

The wall shattered, exposing the two people in the space directly to the outside.

"Almost forgot, there are two more bugs here!" The Sheep Demon retracted its sharp claws and licked its lips.

The two looked at the demon in terror, feeling as if their entire bodies were frozen.

"Mother!"

A shout diverted the Sheep Demon's gaze, looking toward Chu Jiang and the girl who had arrived quickly.

"Yaner, don't come over!"

The woman shouted anxiously, her face full of despair as she looked at Chu Jiang beside the girl.

She had let Yaner sneak away, never expecting that escaping the tiger's den would only lead her into a wolf's lair.

In her eyes, Chu Jiang and the demon were on the same side.

She thought Yaner had been captured by Chu Jiang to be offered to the demon, and the thought of her daughter's impending fate made her heart feel like it was being twisted by a knife.

The Sheep Demon's expression was cold and gloomy, a trace of doubt flashing through its mind: this guy should have been dealt with by that sloppy pig, so why was he still alive?

Soon, its pupils constricted.

"Chu, did you kill the sloppy pig?"

Chu Jiang's silence only made the Sheep Demon more certain of this result.

"I admire your courage. In all these years, you are the first!" The Sheep Demon slowly turned its head, its gaze falling upon Chu Jiang.

"Is that so? My honor?" Chu Jiang said coldly, unsure if it was a compliment or a mockery.

"Hmph!"

The Sheep Demon slowly lifted the two of them up, a cunning smile appearing on its lips: "Do you want them to live? I can give them to you!"

"However..."

Chu Jiang said indifferently: "What do you want?"

The Sheep Demon said excitedly: "Very simple, let's play a game!"

"If you win, I will let them go and leave the village."

"How about it?"

Chu Jiang looked at the Sheep Demon. His predecessor had dealt with the Sheep Demon several times.

He had come to a conclusion.

The Sheep Demon was cunning by nature and loved to tease humans, making them play games he designed.

Watching humans struggle was his greatest hobby.

The more humans struggled and resisted, the more excited it became.

"I don't care about the lives of these two, but..."

"I am quite interested in your game!"

Chu Jiang sheathed his long saber, a faint, imperceptible smile on his face.

Upon hearing Chu Jiang's words, Yaner's pupils constricted, and a thousand thoughts immediately arose in her heart.

She was very smart.

She did not scream or shout, but instead carefully retreated to the side.

This was Lord Chu and the demon engaging in a battle of wits.

The Sheep Demon shrieked with excitement, its eyes falling into a frenzy. With a toss of its hands, the two people were casually thrown away like ragdolls.

"I admire you. Finally, someone is interested in my game."

"I like people who participate in games voluntarily. While those who are forced to participate can also bring me joy, it is nowhere near as much as those who participate willingly."

"If the game is a success, I might even help you advance a step further, it's not impossible!"

Chu Jiang showed a skeptical expression and said: "I just killed a demon, one of your kind, and you still want to help me advance?"

The Sheep Demon said indifferently: "That sloppy pig, I have long disliked him. A brute who eats people without any elegance. Dying only proves he was trash; it was his fate to die."

"Alright, now let's talk about the game!"

Now, it only had the game in its eyes, clearly not wanting to say more on this topic.

Its eyeballs rolled crazily, and a strange smile appeared on its face, as if it were brewing a terrifying game.

"Listen carefully, the rules are as follows, I will only say them once..."

"First..."

"Second..."

"..."

The Sheep Demon was immersed in the game it had set up, sighing to itself that such a great game was something that group of pig-heads would never understand in their entire lives.

Unknowingly, the Sheep Demon and Chu Jiang were already with their arms around each other's shoulders; anyone who didn't know better would have thought they were brothers.

Just as the Sheep Demon's eyes were hazy and it was about to state the final rule, its pupils suddenly constricted, as if tightly gripped by an invisible force.

In an instant, a long saber slashed through its brow like lightning, piercing deep into its sheep head, as if to tear its Soul apart along with it.

"Ssh... Crack..."

However, this sheep head was exceptionally sturdy, more than three or four times harder than the pig's head.

Chu Jiang held the saber with both hands and stirred it frantically. Brain matter sprayed out from the Sheep Demon's brow and the back of its head, and black-red blood splattered everywhere.

Ssh, ssh, ssh!

Although the long saber had completely pierced the Sheep Demon's brain, strangely, it was not yet dead. It kept struggling violently, fighting back with all its might.

Blood bubbled from its mouth as it repeated two words intermittently.

"Ga... me..."

...

After struggling for several full minutes, the Sheep Demon died with eyes wide open, filled with extreme unwillingness.

It had to be said that the Sheep Demon's vitality was truly tenacious.

This was also the reason for Chu Jiang's caution; the Sheep Demon's strength was a cut above the pig demon's.

One must catch it off guard and strike when it is unprepared.

After the Sheep Demon died, a thick mass of black Qi drifted out from its corpse and quickly dissipated.

"Resentment!"

Chu Jiang stared intently at that mass of black Qi, his brows slightly raised.

Just how unwilling was this demon to accept its fate that it would produce such thick Resentment?

Although his predecessor was scum, he had behaved normally during his first few years of Cultivating and had read some records about demons in the Demon Hunting Division.

Once a demon's head was destroyed, it basically meant total death.

Producing Resentment was an extremely rare phenomenon.

It didn't mean that producing Resentment signified the demon's resurrection; after decades or even a century, the Resentment might Cultivate into form, becoming a new demon.

However, whether it would have an Awakening of its past life's memories was a matter of fate.

The books recorded that only one out of ten cases would result in an Awakening of the previous life's memories.

Chu Jiang smiled. This Sheep Demon was truly obsessed with the game it had set up; before dying, it didn't care about its own life, but was instead focused on its game.

For this Sheep Demon, it could be said it died with its eyes wide open in regret.

But that said, this Sheep Demon's brain was truly a Genius.

The game it had just described, upon careful reflection, was truly brilliant.

It could exchange notes with escape room designers on Blue Planet.

...

This time, killing the Sheep Demon was a huge profit.

[Void-level Sheep Demon, half a foot into the Nether-level, extremely high intelligence, Genius-type demon, Cultivated for twenty-three years, remaining Lifespan: one hundred and eighty years]

[demon life essence: one hundred and eighty-nine years]

[Own Lifespan: ten years]

This Sheep Demon was incomparably stronger than that pig demon.

The pig demon's talent was far inferior to this Sheep Demon's; having only Cultivated for twenty-three years, its strength was already several times greater than the pig demon's, making it absolutely a Genius-level demon.

And with the death of the last demon, the village fell into a deathly silence, as if time had frozen at this moment.