Chapter 2: Thirty-three days left

Luo Zhou followed his classmates, thinking as he ran.

"Killing the Geomagnetic Demon Gu Shanhe makes five evildoers punished so far. Four more to go!"

He couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

"And there are only thirty-three days left!"

Luo Zhou had died on Earth in his previous life, and in a daze, he had awakened after transmigrating into this world.

His transmigration was a soul-transfer into a newborn, living a life anew.

However, because an infant's small body could not contain an adult soul, he had lived in a muddled, foolish state until he was six, when he fully awakened and remembered his past life.

In this life, his parents were members of the peripheral forces of the Heaven and Earth Dao Sect. He had two brothers, and his childhood was full and happy.

Regrettably, when Luo Zhou was ten, a sea beast siege erupted in Ningze County, and both his parents died in battle.

To make a living, his eldest brother went to work as an apprentice at the Xinglong Chamber of Commerce in the Liang Kingdom's capital and hadn't been seen for three years. His younger brother was adopted by their fourth uncle and had left the Liang Kingdom.

His parents left behind some inheritance from their service, and as a legitimate descendant of the Heaven and Earth Dao Sect, Luo Zhou successfully entered the Heaven and Earth Dao Academy in Cuiling City.

Within the academy, Luo Zhou cultivated bitterly for several years, and sixty-seven days ago, he finally awakened his own spirituality.

He gained the ability: Reward Good and Punish Evil!

Many students entered the academy. Without delay, they separated and headed to their respective classrooms.

Having awakened his spirituality, Luo Zhou entered Class 3 of the Immortal Sprout Hall.

Students who had not awakened could only go to the Planting Hall, Construction Hall, Culinary Hall, Husbandry Hall, Opera Hall, Slaughterhouse Hall, and so on.

These were paths to a future livelihood prepared specifically for ordinary students.

Only by awakening one's spirituality could one enter the Immortal Sprout Hall and participate in the Ascension Assembly to climb the Heavenly Ladder and join the Heaven and Earth Dao Sect!

Entering the Immortal Sprout Hall, Luo Zhou sat down.

The classroom was filled with chatter.

"Did you hear? Another announcement about a new Vermin Cultivator, called the Head-Exploding Demon!"

"How is there another Vermin Demon? The original six great Vermin Demons have harmed countless people and haven't been eliminated yet, and now another one has appeared?"

"The good don't live long, but the wicked live for a thousand years."

"The Rain-Night Demon—don't go out when it rains. The Full-Moon Demon—takes lives on the night of the fifteenth.

The Eye-Eating Demon—specializes in eating women's eyes. The Third-Day Demon—wipes out a whole family on the night of the third.

The Yellow-Earth Demon—covers faces with yellow soil. The Geomagnetic Demon—crushes youths into slices of meat.

Now there's a Head-Exploding Demon, said to specialize in killing cultivators, exploding heads and piercing eyes!"

The students discussed it heatedly, and Luo Zhou listened from the side.

News travels fast!

He carefully examined his spirituality, Reward Good and Punish Evil.

With this ability, he could obtain the awakened spiritualities of his classmates.

From Zuo Sanguang, he obtained "Flash of Inspiration."

The Flash of Inspiration gave him a premonition that in one hundred days, he would encounter the greatest Vermin Demon in Cuiling City and would surely die.

But the flash was very blurry; he couldn't see the opponent's appearance clearly.

From this, he had a feeling, as if it were destiny!

He must kill all the Vermin Demons in the city within one hundred days!

Through his Reward Good and Punish Evil ability, Luo Zhou knew there were nine Vermin Demons in the city. Six of them had their crimes exposed and each had a demonic title.

The Rain-Night Demon, the Full-Moon Demon, the Eye-Eating Demon, the Third-Day Demon, the Yellow-Earth Demon, and the Geomagnetic Demon!

They were all Qi Refining cultivators, while Luo Zhou was only at the fifth level of Body Tempering. Facing them was like being an ant.

Fortunately, he had obtained the divine ability "Dragon-Slaying Thorn" from his classmate Wang Heyu!

Through bitter cultivation and mastering the technique, the Dragon-Slaying Thorn could pierce eyes and explode heads to kill across levels!

Thus, forty-six days ago he killed the Eye-Eating Demon Qiu Jun, thirty-one days ago he killed the Yellow-Earth Demon Li Feng, eighteen days ago he killed the Vermin Cultivator Jiang Ziyou, eight days ago he killed the Vermin Cultivator Yu Jun, and today he killed the Geomagnetic Demon Gu Shanhe!

Jiang Ziyou and Yu Jun had no demonic titles.

Although they were Qi Refining cultivators, they had not mastered unique characteristic Qi, and they were careful to leave no traces when killing. The government constables had not discovered the patterns of serial killings and could not classify or open cases.

There were thirty-three days left, and four more to go!

If the time ran out, he would encounter the strongest Vermin Demon.

Given the Geomagnetic Demon Gu Shanhe's habit of crushing people flat, the terror of the strongest Vermin Demon was unimaginable.

He would die without a burial place!

Therefore, under the mandate of destiny, he had to strike first. He had to kill them all, and then he would naturally be safe and able to survive!

Soon, the day's cultivation ended, the academy dismissed, and Luo Zhou returned home.

He strolled through Cuiling City and returned to the Green Mud Hollow Bridge.

The crime scene had been cleaned up, and Gu Shanhe's body had been claimed by his family; there was nothing unusual to be seen here.

The Death-冥 Spirit standing by the bridge—the sixth youth Gu Shanhe had murdered—was gone following Gu Shanhe's death.

After a Vermin Demon killed someone, the victim would turn into a kind of Death-冥 Spirit.

It was not a vengeful spirit, not a ghost, not a dead soul; it was a Death-冥 Spirit that only Luo Zhou could see.

Through Reward Good and Punish Evil, he could feel the hatred of the Death-冥 Spirit and experience everything it had gone through.

By doing so, he could inexplicably learn the various circumstances of the Vermin Demon, determine their ritual process, and lay out corresponding countermeasures to kill them in one strike.

Otherwise, given the cunning and cruelty of the Geomagnetic Demon Gu Shanhe, the Eye-Eating Demon Qiu Jun, and the Yellow-Earth Demon Li Feng, how could Luo Zhou have possibly killed them?

Luo Zhou continued forward, but after walking only a dozen yards, he reached a crossroads.

By the side of the intersection, a woman who had been completely reduced to countless fragments looked at Luo Zhou, wailing and accusing!

Luo Zhou sighed. There were nine great Vermin Demons in the city; he had already killed five, and there were four left.

This was a woman harmed by the Full-Moon Demon.

The Full-Moon Demon took lives at the crossroads on the fifteenth of every month!

But Luo Zhou had no way to deal with him right now, because he was not human!

He was a great demon, lurking in Cuiling City.

Luo Zhou could feel the sixty-nine people it had eaten, but he simply could not find its true form to devise a way to deal with it.

Besides the Full-Moon Demon, there was the Third-Day Demon.

The Third-Day Demon would break into a house and wipe out a family on the third of every month.

But for the families wiped out by him, for some reason, the Death-冥 Spirits were completely chaotic, leaving no information behind.

It was impossible to lock onto the opponent's true form, and he could not avenge these two hundred and thirty-one people from fifty-five households.

There was also one more Vermin Cultivator who had not revealed any demonic traces and had not been identified by the government constables.

The Cao Gang in the north of the city was one of the five major gangs in Cuiling City, an organization affiliated with the Heaven and Earth Dao Sect.

The Cao Gang was responsible for the transport of grain for Ningze County and four other counties; ten thousand people in Cuiling City relied on working for them to survive.

Never would one expect that on the first of every month, they would buy three pairs of young boys and girls from out of town and secretly dig out their hearts for sacrifice.

The resentment of countless children filled the entire Cao Gang headquarters. Luo Zhou didn't even dare to get close; the wailing resentment of over a thousand boys and girls had accumulated to a level he could barely endure.

The Cao Gang had been performing these sacrifices for fifteen full years. The boys and girls were all bought from out of town, and once finished, the bodies were destroyed, leaving not a single trace.

Thinking back carefully, the Cao Gang leader, Liu Changlong, had inherited the position fifteen years ago.

He was a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator, already at the Great Perfection of Qi Refining, preparing to冲击 the Foundation Establishment stage!

Luo Zhou had no way to deal with him. Liu Changlong would not come out to hunt, and he had countless guards; it was impossible to get close and kill him.

The last one was the Rain-Night Demon, which ate people whenever it rained!

This one was also not human; it was a Great Crocodile Dragon from Jing'an Sea. Every rainy night, it would manifest its body, shrink its size, and sneak into the city to eat people.

It had been eating people in Cuiling City for over a hundred years, and tens of thousands had been eaten by it.

Tens of thousands of people had been swallowed without a trace, becoming unexplained missing persons.

For some reason, ten years ago it began leaving behind mangled corpses, only then being classified by the government constables as the Rain-Night Demon.

These four great Vermin Demons could not be found and could not be killed. Luo Zhou had no way to deal with them right now!

He walked slowly home!

In the Ping'an District of the city, there was a detached house with its own courtyard. It wasn't large, but it was quiet.

This was the house left by his parents.

Returning home, he cooked, ate, cultivated, and rested. Soon, it was midnight.

Luo Zhou came into the courtyard and waited silently.

*Rustle, rustle*—it sounded like something was crawling.

Sixteen Death-冥 Spirits, thin as paper, crawled over and arrived before Luo Zhou.

The Death-冥 Spirits touched Luo Zhou gently, as if passing something over...

Once the touching was finished, the Death-冥 Spirits were finally liberated, slowly transforming into sixteen youths.

They were no longer slices of meat, no longer hideous, no longer stained with blood; they had become youthful teenagers.

There were boys and girls, some mountain barbarians, some local city dwellers, and some sea folk from afar.

They looked at Luo Zhou with gratitude, thanking him, bowing, and saluting.

Luo Zhou watched them and lit three sticks of incense!

"Everyone, your great vengeance has been avenged. There is no more hatred. Disperse and return to the cycle of reincarnation!"

They slowly dispersed, returning to the cycle of reincarnation!

Luo Zhou watched the burning incense, motionless. Slowly, his ability, Reward Good and Punish Evil, quietly activated!

"Luo Zhou, sensed a plea for help from the dead. A spirit has done evil; punish it!"

"Punish Evil: Executed the Vermin Demon, Geomagnetic Demon Gu Shanhe. Good, reward is due!"

"Reward Good and Punish Evil complete. Reward!"

In a daze, Luo Zhou felt a power condensing and emerging within his body!

New book, new atmosphere. Come again, fight again. I hope everyone likes it, and that it gets better and better!

(End of chapter)