Forge a path to success.

Chapter 60 Demonic Speed
The wind reached the demons' ears faster than words, howling fiercely for a mere instant. The wind carried the rusty scent of blood; the elephant-headed demon's left arm was missing, its long tusk spinning and flying into the air. The demon's single eye slanted to the left, as if examining its wound. A red line appeared in its eye, and half its head fell away along a smooth cut.

A dense mass of chilling blood lines appeared, and the three demons were sliced ​​into countless pieces!
Chu Heng silently brandished his blade, the remaining blood on the rock blade spreading out, turning into a red mist in the rain. He stood among the demons, but none of them saw his movement clearly; by the time they reacted, the demon in a hurry was already dead. The demon of self-deception behind him shuddered, meeting the assassin's cold eyes.

"The possessor is a nobody, and the original is just a lackey!"

These words ignited the demons' emotions, and ferocious demonic shadows danced wildly in the fire. Attacks imbued with abnormal power erupted, determined to slaughter these arrogant humans, even at the cost of harming their "friendly" allies.

Claws, teeth, knives, hammers—Chu Hengkong's eyes darted around, tracking the trajectory of each attack. His rock blade slammed into the blade of one of the demons, and Chu Hengkong himself leaped into the air, slipping into a fleeting gap amidst the attacks. In mid-air, he delivered two kicks, shattering the heads of two demons, while simultaneously slashing the throat of the knife-wielding demon with his rock blade.

Three demons died instantly, and the fourth, hammer-wielding demon, the slowest to act, finally launched its attack. It slammed down its twin hammers, resembling giant eyeballs, the immense force causing waves of rock to surge from the ground. Chu Hengkong, stepping on the demon's corpse, leaped again to avoid the impact. In mid-air, he sheathed his sword, his tentacles transforming into whips that lashed out with immense power, tearing through flesh and blood. With a single strike, he shattered the demon and its hammers in two!

Things are no longer the same as before; it's not like a mere demon possessed person could harm him anymore. In Chu Hengkong's eyes now, a demon with mere power is simply not a threat.

A blood-soaked area cleared ahead, and a new demon quickly filled the void. This demon had an orange-yellow body resembling a sea urchin; it was a violent and volatile demon, utterly intolerant of such provocation from the assassin. Its balloon-like body swelled, spewing out hundreds of sharp spikes, each carrying highly compressed force, capable of exploding the enemy's flesh upon impact.

Chu Hengkong wielded his rock blade, using the essence of the Steel Edge Style to deflect all the spikes. The enraged demon grew even more furious, straining to make the rain of spikes even denser, but the rock blade's defense remained unshaken, while a large number of demons around it were instead wounded by the deflections. Those demons that were pierced swelled and exploded, their blood mixed with fragments of internal organs drenching the enraged demon.

Enraged, the raging demon unleashed two thick tentacles from its urchin-like body, using its monstrous strength to snap the nearby black stone tower in half at the base. It swung the tower down, intending to smash the assassin into a pulp, but Chu Hengkong calculated the distance perfectly and leaped, dodging the attack and landing squarely on top of the black stone tower.

He sprinted forward along the tower, drawing his rock sword from its sheath and stabbing the raging demon straight through.

"Aaaaaah! Aaaaaahhhhh!!!" The raging demon, unable to prevail in its fierce battle, roared in fury. Its spherical body instantly swelled several times its original size, and in its rage, it detonated its power, attempting to perish together with Chu Hengkong. Countless spikes burst forth from its exploding flesh, the surging energy forming an orange-yellow mist. But the assassin had already sensed the anomaly. He decisively sheathed his sword and leaped out, letting the rain of needles ravage the enemy ranks, silently disappearing into the mist.

The demons' vision was obscured by the yellow mist. They cursed the sore loser and irritable demon, each using their own methods to dispel the smoke. But the curses gradually weakened, and instead, dull thuds of people falling to the ground continued to rise.

The self-deceiving demon in the rear panicked. It fanned out the poisonous smoke, then stared wide-eyed in astonishment. It saw the green-clad assassin draw his knife, using the fog as cover to continuously assassinate the demon!

The self-deceiving demon darted behind the black stone tower and unleashed a jet of black water. This attack was several times more powerful than the one against Mimori Nostalgia; the high-pressure water pierced the gray stone tower as easily as a needle piercing paper, heading straight for Chu Hengkong's head. However, the water gun struck a steel blade, as indestructible as a rock. It sliced ​​through the water gun, cleaved through the stone tower, and with unstoppable force, severed the demon's seahorse-shaped body.

Steel Edge Flow - No Return Strike.

The man and the demon passed each other by. Chu Hengkong sheathed his sword, the hilt and sheath clashing with a soft click. As the demon turned its head to die, it realized it was the last to fall.

Chu Hengkong picked up the yellow crystal and adjusted his breathing before speaking. He had previously concentrated his mind to the extreme because every second counted and a swift victory was necessary.

“The first batch is all killed,” he said. “The crows are the true forms of demons.”

"Are the crows over there carnal demons?" Jie An asked incredulously. "Are you sure?"

"I can't be mistaken." Chu Hengkong looked up and strode forward.

“I fucking knew you couldn’t be wrong, but this isn’t right…” Jie An bit his nails. The intelligence that the enemy had new recruits made him extremely nervous. As if struck by a sudden thought, he asked, “How many did you kill?”

"32."

"32... The workshop owner took 25 people from the swamp... That should match up!" Jie An exclaimed excitedly. "You've done a great job! I bet the black workshop turned a group of demon-possessed individuals into real demons to launch a surprise attack on headquarters. You killed them all!"

"Next step." Chu Hengkong started running.

"Smash that glowing thing," Jie An said quickly. "We only have a chance of winning if we smash the curtain-breaking device, and the sooner the better!"

Chu Hengkong ran, leaped, and his tentacles wrapped around a flying machine flying overhead, sticking to its steel hull with secretions. He retracted his tentacles, nimbly climbed onto the hull, and slashed with his rock blade, shattering the cockpit window along with the crows inside. He jumped into the cockpit, threw out the crows' carcasses, and tried to pull the control stick.

Pulling the control stick failed to increase altitude; the thing's balance was atrocious, and the aircraft swayed aimlessly in the air like a drunkard. Chu Hengkong took out the Silver-Eyed Book and pressed it on the instrument panel, but the identification document did not appear. This thing was not a relic.

He fiddled with all the movable parts as quickly as possible, making a judgment based on his intuition: "Accelerate, pull up the left lever, turn the right lever." "What did you say?" Jie An didn't hear clearly.

"I said let's go!"

Chu Hengkong floored the accelerator, and the aircraft tumbled and tumbled like a hamster wheel as it soared into the sky. The burning wind whipped against his face, the air so hot it was almost suffocating. He manipulated the control stick by feel, just as he had when he had just finished practicing three thousand sets of exercises, controlling every muscle to regain his ability to walk. He learned quickly, incredibly quickly, stabilizing the aircraft in just a few breaths.

Chu Hengkong opened his eyes and rushed through the fierce wind towards the distance, towards the direction where the black beam of light rose.

"Ha...ha..." Chu Hengkong gasped for breath. "Ha...ha..." The overlapping sounds made him realize there was another person on the communication channel. A familiar but weak voice. It was Ji Huaisu. "Not dead yet, right!" she said. "Just finished killing a batch of demons." "That's great, I only took one down." "How's the battle in Midgard?"

Silence. A long silence. Only the sounds of panting and sharp blades cutting through the air.

"Everything's going smoothly. We have the upper hand," Ji Huaisu said. "You don't need to worry about anything. Just finish the job well and come back alive, understand?"

“You’re the same,” Chu Hengkong said. “I fly a flying saucer in the sky.”

"Wow, so fashionable!" she laughed. "It must be so great to be a crafty person!"

With a loud bang, the communication was lost, and Chu Hengkong gripped the control stick tightly. This girl couldn't lie at all; just from her voice, he could tell she was injured. Her concentration had wavered, and she hadn't even noticed Jie An on the same channel.

All around Jie An was the noise from the public broadcast channel: the cries of despair, the weak last words, and the furious roars of those about to perish with the enemy. The sounds were muffled, but Chu Hengkong could hear them clearly.

With the fighting going on like this, how could the situation possibly improve?

"...I don't know when I'll die. I'll just say whatever comes to mind." Jie An took a deep breath. "The Central Court can barely hold on, but the main force of the crows is the Fireflies."

Chu Hengkong frowned: "Another relic of mind control?"

“An artifact that covers the entire central courtyard is too powerful; I don’t believe the workshop owner has such a thing. Besides, there’s a demon…” An explosion came from Jie An’s side, and his speech quickened. “I have a guess, but I don’t have time to elaborate. There must be a powerful enemy guarding the shattering device. If we take it down, we’ll have a chance of winning!”

"I'll try to fly faster." Chu Hengkong slammed on the accelerator, which was already floored. A flying vehicle noticed the anomaly approaching from the side, and he casually threw two water bullets, killing the pilot.

He told himself there was still time; with Jie An directing the battle in the central courtyard, they could hold on, and Ji Huaisu wouldn't be easily defeated. But in reality, even someone as calm as him became anxious, because he didn't know how long his partner could hold out, and even less whether the city lord truly had a way to defend against the formidable enemy outside the city.

A hail of bullets came from below. Chu Hengkong lowered the altitude of his aircraft. He was very close to the black beam of light, close enough to see the crows holding guns on the ground and the shapes in the light.

A burly, eerie alien stood in the light. It had a body shaped like a long snake, a long, thin bird-like head with three eyes, and wings growing from each side, forming an inverted triangular outline with the beak.

It was a demon. Chu Hengkong instantly realized the true form of the other party. Only demons possessed that disorienting sense between illusion and reality, and this thing posed a greater threat to him than all the previous demons combined. The bird-headed demon looked up as the gunfire erupted, spotting the assassin in the air. Its three eyes lit up simultaneously, burning with fierce blue flames.

Chu Hengkong lowered his flight altitude, preparing for a surprise attack. His heart suddenly sank. The demon didn't attack, only smiled. It was a confident smile, like Kanin's during negotiations.

“You’re too late, Chief Inspector,” the devil said.

Its body vanished instantly, disappearing without a trace like the phantoms of every demon. However, the black light that pierced the curtain did not disappear; the pillar of light deepened, and a soaring blue flame was suddenly absorbed into it. The addition of this new power doubled the strength of the curtain-piercing device, and in an instant, it completely shattered the swirling dragon water curtain, tearing a chasm-like gap in the sky above the city!

The swirling water curtain came to a complete halt, and a raging wind surged through the cracks, swirling endlessly like the fury of a god. Chu Hengkong's heart skipped a beat, his breath caught in his throat, and his limbs stiffened. It felt as if a mountain's weight was pressing down on his back, an indescribable pressure that threatened to halt all life. He forced himself to breathe, inhaling the turbulent air deeply, only to cough again. The air cut into his lungs like daggers, the pain a harbinger of impending doom.

He looked up and saw the storm swirling and circling, like some kind of life breathing in the sky, with thick clouds, lightning, and torrential rain surging within it. Winds of different colors danced at vastly different speeds, layer upon layer carving wrinkles like those on a human face.

The dark clouds coalesced into a jet-black face, its eyes like gilded plasma, its mane like a majestic beard. A face as vast as a city took shape in the storm, roaring with a yearning that had lingered for twenty years!

Outer Path Point Four, Cataclysmic Species - Demonic Gale!
(End of this chapter)