At the Toad Saint's words, the gaze of every great demon focused on the Poison-Wing Eagle King.
Some were gloating, some were greedy, and others were waiting for a good show, their expressions filled with mockery.
The Poison-Wing Eagle King felt as if he were being roasted over a fire.
He had not expected this Bone Temple Master to play so far outside the rules, exposing his secret the moment he arrived.
He had indeed intercepted the human-livestock.
Because he was under someone else's control, he had no choice but to follow orders and hide all those humans away.
But he couldn't say that.
In the Ten Thousand Miasma Valley, a demon that didn't eat humans was an outlier, a symbol of weakness that would be torn apart and devoured by this pack of hungry wolves.
So he had to pretend—to act more bloodthirsty and cruel than anyone else.
Poison-Wing forced his lips into a gruesome smile and slammed his hand on the table, attempting to use a louder voice to mask his guilt.
"Nonsense! Who said this king was hoarding?"
"This king was doing that for the sake of marinating!"
Poison-Wing's eyes darted around as he fabricated a lie on the spot. "As you all know, this Great Demon Assembly is a grand occasion. If we simply ate them raw, wouldn't that be too uninspired?"
"This king specifically ordered people to find a hundred types of poisonous herbs to soak those human-livestock in venom pools, preparing to make a grand dish of 'Myriad Venoms to the Bone'!"
"Doesn't it take time for the flavor to seep in?"
"This king originally intended to bring it out as the grand finale to give everyone a surprise!"
He spoke with such fervor that spit flew everywhere, looking like he was deeply misunderstood and aggrieved.
"Oh? Marinating?"
Chen Zhou looked at him with a half-smile, his fingers lightly tapping the bone armrest of his chair. "It seems the Poison-Wing Eagle King is quite the gourmet."
"However, I am an impatient man."
"I don't like eating marinated food. I like it fresh—the kind that's still dripping with blood."
Chen Zhou leaned forward. "Poison-Wing Eagle King, surely you aren't unable to produce them?"
"How could that be!" Poison-Wing shouted, stiffening his neck. "This king is utterly loyal to the Exalted Saint. What do a few hundred thousand head of blood food matter?"
The Thousand-Eyed Toad Saint smiled. "Since our guest wish to eat fresh..."
"Poison-Wing, stop being so secretive."
"Go. Bring the people here."
"Now."
Poison-Wing's heart trembled.
He knew the Toad Saint had issued a final command. If he made any more excuses, his head would likely be separated from his body in the next second.
"Yes, I obey the holy decree."
Poison-Wing gritted his teeth and turned to look at his sister, Poison Pheasant Fairy.
Poison Pheasant Fairy was also pale at this moment. Naturally, she knew her brother's secret and knew that those humans weren't being marinated at all but were being safely kept in a shelter at Poison Flame Mountain.
If they brought them here, wouldn't everything be ruined?
"Big brother..." Poison Pheasant Fairy called out softly, her eyes filled with anxiety.
"Go!"
Poison-Wing gave her a fierce look and, under the cover of his wide wings, quietly made an extremely subtle hand sign.
It was a secret signal between the siblings.
【Stall for as long as you can. If all else fails, create chaos and let Su Xue release a portion of them.】
"Bring the best batch over. As for the rest, if they 'accidentally' die or escape on the way, there's nothing that can be done about it."
Poison-Wing shouted loudly, though his words were really meant for his sister.
Poison Pheasant Fairy understood instantly. She took a deep breath, struggled to maintain her composure as a great demon, and bowed to the Toad Saint and Chen Zhou.
"This little sister will see to it immediately. I certainly won't disappoint the Exalted Saint or our esteemed guest."
With that, she beat her wings and flew rapidly out of the Black Bone Hall.
Watching Poison Pheasant Fairy depart, the Toad Saint's hundreds of eyes narrowed slightly.
"Poison-Wing."
The Toad Saint suddenly spoke. "I see your loyalty."
"You have worked hard for this assembly and planned thoughtfully, even preparing a surprise for me."
"If I do not reward you with something, wouldn't it discourage the other demon kings?"
Poison-Wing's entire body stiffened as an ominous feeling welled up in his heart.
"The Exalted Saint is too kind. This is only what a subordinate should—argh!"
Before he could finish, the Toad Saint opened his massive mouth.
A grayish-white gu insect shot out instantly, moving so fast it didn't even leave an afterimage.
Poison-Wing had no time to dodge. He felt a chill in his throat as if something slimy and cold had been forced down.
Gulp.
An uncontrollable sound of swallowing.
In the next second, violent, agonizing pain exploded in his abdomen, as if countless steel blades were churning his internal organs.
"Aaaaahhh!!"
Poison-Wing tumbled directly from his seat and rolled frantically on the ground.
It was a corpse god gu.
Furthermore, it was a top-tier corpse god gu, thicker and denser with death qi than the one given to Thousand-Tangle.
"This is a divine gu I have carefully nurtured."
The Toad Saint watched the struggling Poison-Wing, his tone remaining flat. "After consuming it, your poison flames will merge with death qi, helping you break through your bottlenecks."
"This is a reward, and it is also trust."
"Poison-Wing, do not fail my painstaking efforts."
The surrounding demon kings watched with envy. Thousand-Tangle, who had just been resenting Chen Zhou, was now especially filled with jealousy.
She had nearly lost her life and had been humiliated by Chen Zhou just to beg for a single gu insect. Why did Poison-Wing get one? Just because he hid some humans?
"Ugh... thank... thank you, Exalted Saint..."
While vomiting poisonous blood, Poison-Wing still had to painfully kowtow in gratitude.
His feathers began to fall out, cadaverous spots spread across his skin, and his poison flames turned a dull gray, exuding an aura of death.
He was becoming stronger.
But he was also ceasing to be himself.
Chen Zhou watched this scene with cold detachment.
'Interesting.'
Was the old toad giving his subordinate a condensed mass of death qi in an attempt to mimic Chen Zhou's method of directly boosting his followers' strength?
Chen Zhou didn't think so. How could the old toad be like him? Could he really be so generous?
He wasn't an evil god.
If human cultivators could turn their blades against their own kind to resist eerification, there was no reason demon cultivators wouldn't do something similar. Chen Zhou could roughly guess what the old toad was up to.
Chen Zhou rubbed his chin. In his vision, Poison-Wing's interior was currently a chaotic mess.
The original demonic poison was being carried along by an unknown baleful aura and was being frantically eroded by the death qi brought by the corpse god gu. The two forces were using his body as a battlefield.
But just as the two forces were slaughtering each other and seemed poised to make Poison-Wing explode, Chen Zhou saw a third power.
It was a very faint, cloud-patterned golden light.
It was entrenched deep within Poison-Wing's heart and sea of consciousness like a towering, immovable mountain, stubbornly protecting Poison-Wing's last shred of intellect and vitality.
No matter how the death qi washed over it, the golden light remained steadfast. Under the stimulation of the death qi, it actually became even more pure.
One baleful, one auspicious, and one deathly—the three auras were entangled within Poison-Wing's body.
Chen Zhou raised an eyebrow.
Golden light? Auspicious clouds?
A Guardian Auspicious God Destiny?
Now this was interesting. Do demons and monsters also possess special destinies? Can they also have a Guardian Auspicious God Destiny?
He instantly thought of the Gathering Fortune Pavilion in his City of the Wrongfully Dead and of Jiu'er's heaven-defying Auspicious Noble destiny.
Jiu'er could avert calamity with her life; she was a walking luck baby.
While the cloud-patterned golden light inside Poison-Wing was very weak—not even a hundredth of the power of the Auspicious Noble—that aura was clearly from the same source as Jiu'er's. Both were unique existences belonging to auspicious god destinies!
'So that's how it is.'
Chen Zhou realized the truth.
No wonder the auspicious clouds of the Auspicious Noble had been pointing toward Poison Flame Mountain in the east back at the front of the Black Bone Hall.
It wasn't pointing him toward some treasure; it was pointing him toward a colleague!
No, it counted as a treasure too.
Chen Zhou was very satisfied. This was simply an arrangement of fate.
As Chen Zhou looked at Poison-Wing, who was rolling in pain but gritting his teeth and refusing to beg for mercy, his gaze changed.
It shifted from the mocking look of a spectator to the benevolent gaze of someone looking at their own property.
This wasn't some demon king.
This was clearly a pillar of talent being sent to his City of the Wrongfully Dead.
He had to admit, the luck of an Auspicious Noble was truly heaven-defying, especially after his destiny's fortune had been replenished by the unaging pine cone.
Chen Zhou even felt that meeting another auspicious god here in the Southern Region might have been the result of the Auspicious Noble's luck taking effect.
Everything was destined in the dark, and it would all benefit him.
Chen Zhou decided he would give Jiu'er an extra meal when he got back.
Then he quickly transferred some money to the Plague Rat as well. The little rat was sturdy enough that nothing would happen to him, but he couldn't let this auspicious god who was about to belong to him suffer an accident.
Rate on N.U.
