In the capital of Jingchuan Province, Xue Kai hurriedly rushed to the front of the town's pacification office.
"General! General!" he shouted at the top of his lungs as he entered the office.
The few remaining officers and soldiers inside the pacification office all looked over. When they saw that it was Xue Kai, their expressions were surprised—hadn't he just returned from the capital?
An old woman, leaning on a large spear, appeared at the entrance of the hall and sternly said, "Didn't I tell you to ask for reinforcements from the court? If there are no reinforcements, you are not allowed to come back?!"
The old woman had a terrifying appearance. Her left face was still relatively intact, but her right face appeared to have been torn open, exposing her stark white bones.
Despite this, she had survived with the help of her seventh-stage cultivation.
She was the general of Jingchuan Province, Zhong Chunhua.
"General, there are reinforcements! There are reinforcements!" Xue Kai replied anxiously.
"Reinforcements? Are you joking..." Zhong Chunhua shook her head. Though she was the general of Jingchuan Province, her brother was a revered master, and she had some connections in the capital.
She knew full well that there were no usable generals in the capital at this moment. Unless the Emperor himself was willing to lead an army...
But the Emperor... seemed to have abandoned the nation, and no one knew what he was doing, locked away in the palace.
Zhong Chunhua had only sent Xue Kai to the capital to find an excuse to get him out of here. Even though she had exerted a lot of effort to cooperate with the demonic forces and negotiate peace, she could already feel that Jingchuan Province was on the verge of falling.
Xue Kai was their province's martial arts genius, and it wouldn't be worth it for him to die alongside these old veterans.
"It's true, it's true!" Xue Kai said loudly. "General, you don't know, there's a new governor, Governor Fang Yuan, who has already come here with me!"
"And the Golden Lion Demon King has already been killed by Governor Fang. He sent me to inform you that he will be taking over the lost territories!"
The news was so sudden that Zhong Chunhua's mind went blank, and everyone around her was also shocked.
One of the province's demon kings had been eliminated without anyone noticing?
"Where is Governor Fang now?" Zhong Chunhua asked, her voice trembling.
"He went with General He to deal with the other two demon kings!" Xue Kai answered.
"Other two demon kings... truly decisive!" Zhong Chunhua clicked her tongue.
"They will probably go after the centipede demon first, but the Thousand-Armed Demon King is at the peak of the seventh stage, and his powers..."
"This won't be easy to solve! I must help that Governor Fang!"
At that thought, Zhong Chunhua shouted, "All soldiers of the pacification office, listen up! You are to immediately take over the state city that the Golden Lion Demon King occupied!"
As for herself... Zhong Chunhua took a deep breath, hurled her spear into the air with all her strength!
With a whoosh, the spear sliced through the air, and Zhong Chunhua leapt onto it, riding it toward the distant North Mountain City!
She raced forward with everything she had, knowing that the centipede demon's poison was treacherous and deadly—once you realized something was wrong, it would already be too late!
Half of her body had been disfigured by the demon's poison, but thanks to the protective treasure left by her brother, she had survived.
This intelligence had to be delivered to Governor Fang, or they would suffer a heavy blow. She sensed that this was likely the final counterattack from the imperial court against the demons!
She was willing to sacrifice her life for it!
About half a stick of incense later, the silhouette of North Mountain City appeared in Zhong Chunhua's sight, along with the sight of the city being covered in a layer of white bones.
Her fists clenched, and she gritted her teeth as she looked down at the pacification office. There it was—the Thousand-Armed Demon King's lair!
With a loud crash, the sound of an explosion reached her ears, and what she saw next made her eyes widen in disbelief: a young man was ruthlessly smashing a giant centipede demon, over ten zhang long, into the ground!
Zhong Chunhua's eyelid twitched. What was going on? How did she arrive to see a young man beating the Thousand-Armed Demon King?
At this moment, the Thousand-Armed Demon King was in a pitiful state. What was once a hundred-legged centipede was now reduced to just one leg, a one-armed demon.
It had been struck into the ground, and before it could climb out of the hole, the young man had already casually approached and violently ripped off its remaining leg!
Now, it could no longer even be considered a one-armed demon.
"Ahhh!!"
The pain was so intense that the Thousand-Armed Demon King screamed in agony, "You bastard! Why... why is my Soul-Swallowing Poison ineffective on you?!"
The young man's gaze was cold. He did not respond to the demon's words, only focusing on tearing through the demon's armor with his bare hands.
With a single motion, the once-hard armor was torn apart like paper, revealing a mass of blood and flesh beneath.
The Thousand-Armed Demon King screamed even louder.
Zhong Chunhua's expression was complicated as she watched this scene. The Thousand-Armed Demon King, which had been her greatest nightmare, was now being beaten into a grotesque demon stick by this young man!
At this point, she should have shouted, "Let me assist you!" and joined the battle.
But seeing the one-sided beating the demon was receiving, she realized there was no need.
So this young man was Governor Fang?
How could he be so young? This felt like a dream...
While thinking, Zhong Chunhua's peripheral vision caught sight of He Yaoguang standing nearby, along with a group of pacification office soldiers, all of whom were either completely naked or scantily dressed.
Regardless of whether they were dressed or not, everyone had expressions of extreme shock on their faces.
Zhong Chunhua thought for a moment and then politely asked loudly, "Is this the Governor Fang?"
He Yaoguang, still focused entirely on Governor Fang, paid little attention to their own General. He simply nodded, "Yes."
"How long have you been here?"
"About one stick of incense."
"That long?"
"Yes, after Governor Fang arrived, he has been relentlessly beating the Thousand-Armed Demon King. All the demon's legs have been torn off one by one by him."
Zhong Chunhua: "..."
It seemed that long and drawn-out battles were sometimes not because both sides were evenly matched but because one side was being tortured into submission.