There was no time to react; the physician’s neck was severed immediately, putrid blood gushing from his seemingly frail body, spraying directly onto the temple roof so that blood rained down, drip-dropping to the ground.
That sword strike, like a thunderbolt from the ninth heaven, cleaved from the top of the Heavenly Dome with dominating grandeur, filled with an unmatched ferocity of murderous intent.
Yet even so, the physician, now decapitated, was not dead. His head let out mournful wails as spider-like limbs sprouted from the severed neck, scrambling across the floor in an attempt to escape.
The Demon Slayer Warrior was dumbfounded, thinking he had already died, but Qiao Xuan stepped past him, thrusting his sword into the head of the physician, now turned into a spider.
Qiao Xuan shouted fiercely: "Those corpses outside, clothed just like you, and those children’s bodies, the so-called sick children you spoke of, you ate them, didn’t you!"
"Just now, you unleashed Demonic Qi, enveloping the surroundings. Your next step was to devour the few remaining people, right?"
"The smell of blood, yours is far more pungent than mine!"
The merchant screamed, the old man watched with cold eyes, the Demon Slayer Warrior’s face turned the color of a liver, and without daring to pick up his blade, turned to look at the struggling physician’s head that had not died immediately.
"I, I didn’t want to..."
Tears of blood flowed from the demonized physician’s eyes as he screeched and wailed: "I brought them out to find medicine to cure their sickness... But there was no medicine to be found, they would definitely die, they would die! I truly wanted to save them!"
"If they died, I would be doomed too, hehe... Back in the village, I would be ridiculed and shamed, looked down upon for a lifetime, unable to raise my head... I originally wanted to protect them well, to cure them... but rather than dying from sickness, it’s better they are killed by me, by saying it’s Monsters/Demons, the Monsters/Demons killed them!"
As he said this, his head became increasingly ferocious, with teeth and hair starting to grotesquely mutate: "I was deluded, made a momentary lapse..."
And fell into depravity.
The physician’s head transformed into a complete Demon, and at that moment, Qiao Xuan stirred his sword, utterly pulverizing its skull.
Just then, the physician’s body also began to undergo an drastic Transformation, with its headless torso developing a series of grotesque tumors with children’s faces, letting out piercingly eerie laughs, but before it could complete its metamorphosis, Qiao Xuan struck again with a palm.
This palm was incredibly hot, brimming with a surging Blood Qi vitality like a furnace, akin to a red-hot branding iron stirring the air around, creating a palm-sized imprint the size of a person.
With one palm-heel strike, the body of the Demon exploded instantly, not even managing to react, bursting apart in all directions!
"It was actually a Demon!"
Seeing Qiao Xuan effortlessly kill a Demon, the merchant exclaimed: "You, Lord Qiao, could it be that you are of Martial Meridian?!"
The Demon Slayer Warrior quietly picked his blade back into its sheath, standing to the side without a word, like a student waiting for punishment after a misdeed, and like a gambler waiting for the judgment after conceding defeat.
And the old man’s expression also turned serious: "Such a young Martial Meridian, who exactly are you...?"
And ’Qiao Xuan’ raised his hand: "Stop trying to ingratiate yourselves, no more flattery or rubbish talk. Everyone present is not to be trifled with, I don’t believe I’m the only one who can’t see that he was possessed by the Heavenly Demon, nor do I believe I’m the only one disguised with a fake identity."
"Now, surely, some clever people among you have figured out who I am, so let’s cut the crap and speak plainly."
An Jing cast a sidelong glance at the people present, speaking indifferently: "You three, are all from Da Chen, Taiming..."
"Or perhaps, Scouts from Shangxuan Sect?"
Upon hearing this, the expressions on the three faces changed simultaneously.