Bai Li's eyes were practically popping out of their sockets.
"But if your young master is willing to fight me, I will return the stone to you if I lose, and if I win, you will withdraw from the Six Harmonies Sect and agree to a ten-year non-aggression pact." Ruofeng's eyes were deep, and his words were not polite. He looked at the fury of the demons in front of him, which seemed to have solidified into a tangible form, but a sense of pleasure welled up in his heart.
Look at these demons, they're usually so arrogant, but now they have to obey them obediently.
Bai Li and Ruo Feng are of similar cultivation levels, and Bai Li is even slightly inferior to Ruo Feng now because the demon race has fewer skills in their youth.
Even if they don't believe Bei Sining is still alive, they will definitely get his companion stone back. It's a matter of their dignity.
Then Ruofeng stepped forward, the tassel on her sword fluttering in the wind.
"He's stalling for time..." Tianhu murmured, "What is he waiting for?"
The peacock, its face pale, slowly shook its head.
“Those disciples said that the King might still be alive, and this news was first spread by Ruofeng.” Peacock asked softly, “If he really believes that the King will come back and save him, then his actions at this moment are waiting for the King to come here.”
"...Is that even possible?" Tianhu asked, his voice choked with apprehension.
Bai Li stepped forward, twirled her sword, and without saying a word, engaged Ruo Feng in fierce combat.
Ruofeng swiftly hid the stone in his storage, then swung his sword to block it. With a clang, the two of them were forced back.
Even with her mediocre talent, Ruofeng had years of experience and held her own against Baili. The other demons had no intention of launching a sneak attack; they were all just anxious and hesitant to help, even if they wanted to.
However, Ruofeng's stamina was limited. The two of them had left a patch of grassland in disarray, and he gradually became breathless and exhausted.
Bai Li watched his movements carefully and suddenly discovered a flaw. Overjoyed, she suddenly accelerated and pointed her sword at his heart meridian!
"Bang!"
Where he couldn't see, Ruofeng suddenly smiled, two needles tucked between her fingers.
Without dodging or avoiding, he faced Bai Li's sword tip head-on, and with a flick of his wrist, the needle flashed silver and was about to pierce Bai Li's eye.
"White Pear!" Peacock was the first to notice something was wrong and cried out in alarm. Heavenly Fox rushed forward, but it couldn't keep up with the speed of the needle!
It's over.
The moment those two words crossed her mind, the sky suddenly twisted, the world changed color, and dark clouds gathered.
Even faster than the needle was a bolt of lightning that narrowly struck it down, grazing Bai Li's temple before falling to the ground!
The demons were in an uproar, looking up in astonishment at the sky.
The distorted sky, the gloomy dark clouds, the sudden gust of wind—it was as if… as if someone was about to tear the sky apart!
Ruofeng was stabbed in the shoulder by Baili's sword and fell to the ground. At this moment, he also looked up at the sky.
“Brother Ning…it’s him…” He took the stone out of his pocket, and the stone, which had been dull before, was now shining with a red glow.
He suddenly shouted excitedly, "He's back! He's come to save me! Brother Ning! Save me—"
As he shouted, a dark light tore through the sky, followed by a deafening thunderclap that forced everyone to shield their eyes. Suddenly, a figure descended, flashing through the air and appearing before the stone emitting a dazzling red light.
Bei Sining gently picked up the stone.
He then straightened up, not even glancing at Ruofeng who was still sitting on the ground, and held the companion stone in his palm.
“Mine,” he said.
Chapter 105
"...Your Majesty!?"
Bai Li was the first to react. Her sword clattered to the ground and she transformed back into her original form, a large white fox, which pounced into Bei Sining's arms.
Bei Sining raised her hand and put the stone into her talent space, then reached out and caught the already heavy fox.
The white fur was fluffy like a cloud. Bei Sining's eyes softened slightly. Just as she was about to walk toward the dumbfounded Tianhu and Peacock, she suddenly felt a pull on her ankle.
"Ning... Si Ning." Ruo Feng lay on the ground, reaching out to grab the hem of his robe, her face filled with joy, yet also looking pitiful.
In the past, whenever he showed a pleading, expectant expression, he would receive a tender look from this young demon king. The other party was naturally soft-hearted; although he complained that birds and beasts were too weak, he rarely harmed them.
The same applies to oneself.
Therefore, Ruofeng was very confident. He knew this man's weakness, his hidden thoughts, and he understood him.
"roll."
Bei Sining kicked him three meters away.
Ruofeng fell heavily to the ground, the wound on his shoulder from the sword still bleeding, but the waves of intense pain did not clear his completely shut-down mind.
He tasted the earthy flavor in his mouth, and it took him a while to realize that he was lying face down on the ground, like a tattered sack.
What happened to me? Who kicked me? Was it... Si Ning?
The fear he had suppressed through self-hypnosis erupted completely. Ruofeng's eyes widened, he trembled like a leaf, and lay on the ground, not daring to move.
What does that mean? He told me to get lost? He actually... told me to get lost?
Didn't you say you still loved him? Otherwise, why would you risk his life by self-destructing?
Yes, being betrayed is really hard to bear, so he wanted to vent his anger.
Ruofeng, with a sudden burst of strength, braced himself with both hands and stood up unsteadily, clutching his shoulder and calling out in a disheveled manner, "Sining!"
The demon king, who was leading the celestial fox and peacock away, paused in his tracks.
"Sining, hit me, scold me! I know I've wronged you, but I was wrong! It's all my father's fault... he forced me into this... Sining, please save me!"
Suddenly, Tianhu's claws flashed, and her sharp nails pressed against her throat in an instant. Ruofeng didn't see her move at all; she only felt a gust of wind and a chill on the back of her neck. Before she could scream, Bei Sining interrupted her.
"Heavenly Fox," he said coldly.
Tianhu's hand stopped; his fingernails were now just a hair's breadth away from Ruofeng's neck.
"Don't kill him, go back first." With Bei Sining's order, Tianhu naturally withdrew his hand, glanced at Ruofeng with the eyes of someone looking at a dead man, and followed Bei Sining's steps.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Bei Sining didn't look back even once, while Ruofeng was so frightened that he choked up and couldn't utter a single word.
***
The Demon King is back!
The demons were in an uproar, and the human alliance offered their congratulations. Although the demons were still gathered in the valley, the atmosphere was completely transformed. Bei Sining indicated that she had something to say to Tianhu and the others, and instead of rushing back to Beiyao Mountain, she found a tent and went inside.
"Your Majesty!" Bai Li jumped onto the table angrily, baring her teeth at him: "You actually let that scum go! Do you really still have feelings for him, just like he said?! You, you, you... you're not my king anymore!"
Bai Li's eyes reddened with anxiety, tears welling up in her eyes. Bei Sining hissed and said with a headache, "Calm down, you know it's impossible."
As soon as he finished speaking, the Heavenly Fox and the Peacock, working in perfect unison, cast a soundproof spell, bringing their beautiful and innocent but gloomy faces close together, and asked in unison, "Why is that!?"
Bei Sining's lips curled up, unable to hide her smugness: "Keep it, lock it up, and let my Daoist partner chop it up."
"...???"
The celestial fox peacock and the white pear stared blankly at him.
"What's with that look on your faces?" Bei Sining frowned. "I finally got back, and you didn't even ask me how I left or how I got back. You just kept asking me about what I like and what I love... And then you give me this look?"
Peacock slapped her forehead, snatched Bei Sining's hand, and placed it on her wrist. After a moment, her face turned pale, and she asked in shock, "Sining, where's your demon core?!"
"What?" Tianhu was also shocked. She rushed to his side and pressed her hand against his dantian. She probed his spiritual energy back and forth, but found nothing.
"..." Tianhu didn't cry when Bei Sining self-destructed, didn't cry during the many nights of waiting, didn't cry when he was restless, and didn't cry when he was searching for human allies while holding back his hatred, but he shed tears at this moment.
The beautiful woman covered her eyes with one hand, her despair almost overflowing, and choked out, "How could this happen... how could you..."
Peacock's eyes were red and her voice was hoarse: "The companion stone cannot replace the demon core of an adult demon. Even if you find the stone, how long can you hold on?"
Bai Li was completely dumbfounded, staring blankly at her mother, and asked, "What? What happened to the King? The King's demon core is gone? The demon core is gone, that's all—"
He stopped talking abruptly halfway through his sentence.
The Great King self-destructed his demon core; now that the demon core is destroyed, the demon race cannot survive.
Your Majesty... is about to die.
He opened his mouth wide, the feeling of gaining and then losing made him dizzy, and he was about to cry out when Bei Sining, whose face was covered in bulging veins, stopped him.
"No! I won't die! What's wrong with you all? Can't you just let me finish what I'm saying?!"
...And so, Bei Sining briefly recounted her journey to another world, how she followed the laws of that smaller world to find the rift, and how she returned to her original world guided by the companion stone. There was a moment of silence in the tent. Bei Sining sighed softly and said, "You've worked hard."
This time, even the peacock couldn't hold back her tears.
Before they could have a proper cry, Bei Sining suddenly said, "But I'm lucky. I found a new Daoist partner who loves me very much."
The three demons' ears all perked up.
They now have extreme distrust of this demon king's aesthetic sense, and they get a headache whenever they hear someone say they particularly love me.
“It’s true!” Bei Sining began to give examples: “He cooks for me, and he makes it especially according to my taste. He tries to please me, soothes me, and kisses me every day. He speaks softly and has a very good temper. He agrees to whatever I say. He also loves to hug me. He hugs me and shows me off wherever we go, and he wants to hug me to sleep at night. Sigh, he’s so clingy.”
The three demons: "………………"
"He's really exceptional, completely incomparable to that Ruofeng. He's incredibly healthy, never gets sick all year round, and exercises regularly. He can lift 200 pounds of iron, and he's always among the top performers in his team's tests—outstanding. He's also very smart; he can solve physics problems that others can't, and not only that, he teaches others! There are hundreds of people in that classroom, all older than him, making him even more imposing than Qin Mo. He can tell those students to get lost, and they'll leave without a second thought."
"Also, he's really good at games. No matter how complicated the password is, he can crack it in no time. He's fast at calculating, has a great memory, and there's a leaderboard... Hey, you guys don't know, there's a leaderboard that hundreds of thousands of people see every day, and he's on it! He's also famous, with 20 million fans, and just one account is worth a lot of money..."
"In short, he's much better than Ruofeng, and he likes me, completely devoted to me. He even pleaded with his boss for me, and he confessed to me first. Sigh, I told him no, but he still pursued me, sending me text messages and WeChat messages every day, professing his love. Isn't that just too much of a crush on me?"
"But liking me makes him proud, it's definitely not shameful or a loss for him. It's also thanks to my good temper that I can tolerate his clinginess. You wouldn't believe how clingy he is; he'd rather quit his job than not come to work with me. What can I do? I have to take him with me. Seriously, he even comes looking for me if I can't see him for a second at night, it's really..."
Tianhu Kongque and Baili sat in the tent, listening to Bei Sining talk non-stop for two hours until he finally finished praising his new Daoist partner.
At this moment, the three demons were already drowsy and their eyes were lifeless.
Bei Sining stood up and said, "Then I'll be going now."
"!?!" The peacock suddenly woke up with a start: "Wait, what's gone!?"
Bei Sining said, "Go back to my Daoist partner's place. Didn't I leave my demon core there?"
“Oh right…no,” Peacock had only heard him mention it briefly before without thinking much of it, but now she realized, “You…you’re not planning to stay here?”
The Demon King smiled.
"You did a great job."
He spoke suddenly, his voice calm and reassuring.