Chapter 61

The night breeze was slightly cool.

The bright moonlight bathed the desolate grassland, and the gentle wind caused the grass to rise and fall.

The distant mountains were like a series of connected black shadows.

Not long after He Boqiang left the desolate grassland, three demons caught up.

They saw the decapitated demon lying in a pool of purple blood and immediately began to investigate the surrounding traces. They did not even pay attention to the demon's corpse, only hurriedly examining the wounds before quickly following the trail left by He Boqiang, chasing him without stopping.

These three demons were over three meters tall, their bodies covered in black demonic patterns, and their fierce heads were dotted with bumps.

Although they had not yet reached the strength of horned demons, they were on the verge of advancing.

These demons were powerful enough to match a 15th-level first-turn construct knight, and in a narrow encounter in the wild, they would have a slight advantage due to their physical strength.

These demons were patrolling the Gandaur mountain range when they discovered traces of a human warrior in the desolate grassland.

The valley between the mountains was covered with desolate grass, and searching for a human warrior in such a vast area was not an easy task. Five demons entered the grassland and split up to search.

Seeing the weakest demon in their group beheaded and its forehead pierced, with the demon core taken by the human warrior, the three remaining demons were enraged. They followed the trail left by He Boqiang, chasing him in the direction he had fled.

He Boqiang, with his sharp intuition, could sense the danger slowly approaching. He tried to speed up and run towards the opposite hill.

A few hundred meters ahead, there was a dense red pine forest. He thought that if he could hide in the forest, it would be safer than the desolate grassland.

Unexpectedly, his attempt to take a shortcut back to the 57th Regiment camp had led him to deviate from his course in the mountains. Not only did he fail to find the river valley, but he also encountered the demons.

Sul Dak had mentioned that when demon scouts and human patrol teams encountered each other in the wild, it usually ended in a fight to the death.

Under normal circumstances, once infantry soldiers discovered demons, they would immediately hide as far away as possible.

The strength disparity was too great, and the most important task for the patrol team was to bring the information back to the regiment. Therefore, they would avoid combat whenever possible.

If they could not avoid it, they would set traps and create decoys to lure and kill the demons.

He Boqiang looked down at the through-and-through wound on his left arm, feeling bitter.

His lungs felt like they were on fire, and each breath caused the wound in his chest, inflicted by a sharp spike, to throb with pain.

He crouched in the grass, using the moonlight to clearly see the three demons chasing him a few hundred meters behind. Two-thirds of their tall bodies were exposed, making them particularly conspicuous in the moonlight.

Seeing them stride through the grass, He Boqiang knew that even if he ran until his intestines burst, he would not be able to outrun these demons.

He stopped at the edge of the desolate grassland, where the deep, dark forest lay ahead. The dense branches made the forest pitch black. He thought that if he could hide in the forest, it would be like a fish returning to the sea, and the demons might not find him.

He stopped at the edge of the grassland, intentionally trampling some withered grass and discarding his nearly broken iron shield outside the grassland, creating the illusion that he had entered the forest. Then, he crouched and walked back a few dozen meters along his escape route, trampling the grass to create a clear trail.

He then hid in a patch of night-blooming herbs, walking carefully to avoid crushing the leaves.

The herbs were not very tall, and even with some other weeds around, he had to crawl to hide among them.

He heard a faint rustling sound in the distance, probably from some tough thorny vines being torn. Then, clear footsteps followed, and a demon's towering figure appeared in the moonlight.

He Boqiang lay quietly in the night-blooming herbs, a few dozen meters away, not daring to raise his head, fearing that his gaze might alert the demon.

The demon stopped not far away, scanning the surroundings.

Just as he was about to approach He Boqiang's hiding place, he noticed some trampled grass nearby and ran over. Finding the traces very fresh, he called out to the others behind him.

Two more demons quickly arrived, and the three followed the trail He Boqiang had left, heading towards the dark forest on the hillside.

At this moment, He Boqiang managed to crawl out of the grass, gritting his teeth and walking deeper into the desolate grassland.

He knew that with his exhausted state, even if he entered the forest, he would not be able to escape the demons.

He had successfully misled the demons, but he did not intend to return to the native village.

Doing so would inevitably bring disaster to the village hidden in the canyon.

He Boqiang ran back to where he had killed the demon. As expected, the demon's corpse was still lying on the grass, with no other demons to bury it.

He picked up the demon's head and found a dense patch of grass to hide in.

He quickly cleared a small area in the grass and took out four earthen bowls from his pack.

Two of the four bowls had been broken in the fight with the demon, but He Boqiang did not care. He took some gray stone powder from his backpack and filled the four bowls.

Despite the two broken bowls, he placed the gray stone powder on the broken pieces.

He placed the four bowls at the four corners of the cleared area and lit the gray stone powder, which immediately produced a small blue flame.

Standing in the center of the cleared area, he thought for a moment, worried that the ritual might fail, and drew some symbols on the ground. After completing these steps, he sat down cross-legged, reciting the native incantation, which he found somewhat awkward, while waving his hands continuously.

As the incantation ended, a faint light column descended from above, and a demonic shadow appeared before He Boqiang. This shadow looked almost identical to his own 'aura.'

The only difference was that the shadow's eyes seemed to contain a hint of authority.

Following the steps taught by the high shaman Inoyatira, He Boqiang placed the demon's head in front of the demonic shadow. The demon's head began to burn slowly as He Boqiang recited the incantation, and as the flames gradually died out, the demon's head disappeared completely before his eyes.

The demonic shadow stood before He Boqiang, its smiling face turning towards him, and a blessing force, like a sweet spring, flowed into He Boqiang's body.