Chapter 21: Golden Core? I’ll Beat Golden Core Too!

“Senior Brother Xu, what’s wrong with you?”

Li Shaobai and the others also noticed something was off about Xu Gu and were just about to ask.

But then the demonic cultivators gathering around them surged forward aggressively.

In moments, the six of them were surrounded in the very center.

“This…”

The straightforward Zhao Jingang hesitated when he saw this. “Weren’t we here for a meeting? Why are they all crowding around us? Are they… expecting us to run the meeting for them?”

Huan Caiyi and Li Shaobai shook their heads.

Coming from the five great righteous sects, they naturally had no idea what was going on here.

Xu Gu pulled his mood back under control. The moment he saw this scene, he wasn’t surprised at all.

“It’s a demonic path tradition,” he said calmly. “After you join, the senior disciples will ‘teach’ the new ones a lesson. Once they scare you enough, they can boss you around however they like for the next few years.”

“Ah?”

The five righteous infiltrators all exclaimed at the same time.

Xu Gu thought they were scared.

But then he saw the five of them all light up, faces full of excitement.

“There’s such an awesome rule?”

“So if we beat up these senior disciples, does that mean we can make them work like pack mules for us?”

“This rule is amazing. Why doesn’t our sect have something like this?”

Xu Gu: “…”

Sure enough, the righteous sects definitely did their homework before sending these five.

They might call themselves righteous disciples, but aside from their outward appearance, their methods and way of thinking all leaned heavily toward the demonic path.

Every last one of them was full of demonic tendencies.

Coming to the Demon Cavern was basically like coming home.

Naturally, they weren’t worried about failing their undercover mission.

“You little brats!”

“You come to the Demon Cavern, you follow the rules!”

“Hand over all your spirit stones!”

“From now on, you lot will take care of our missions!”

“And you—yeah, the pretty one. I just happen to be short a Dao companion. You can take turns being our Dao companion for a few days each—”

“You hear that, you six? If you’re not obedient, prepare to get beaten!”

The leading few senior disciples in the Foundation Establishment realm strutted over, surrounded by a crowd of demonic cultivators. They walked up to Xu Gu and the others with arrogant swagger, looking down their noses at them as they barked these orders.

All around them, the other demonic disciples laughed in cooperation, grinning with those classic wicked faces.

Xu Gu cleared his head, exchanged a glance and a smile with the five righteous infiltrators, then said,

“Demonic cultivators’ lives don’t count as lives. Don’t hold back.”

He was reminding the five infiltrators not to go soft on demonic cultivators. If they wanted to survive in the Demon Cavern, they needed ruthless methods. That righteous-path act was useless here.

“Kill!”

Li Shaobai was the first to move. His longsword at his waist shot from its sheath, waves of power rippling out as sword light swept horizontally like it was cutting across the eight desolations.

One slash became twelve streaks of sword light, all tearing forward at once.

And it wasn’t just him. Huan Caiyi, Kong Haoran, Mi Suhui, and Zhao Jingang all attacked with obvious excitement. With Xu Gu’s reminder echoing in their minds, every move they unleashed was a lethal technique.

The arena instantly exploded into a storm of spiritual energy and detonations, power surging everywhere.

“H-how is this possible?!”

The senior disciples who’d been swaggering around a second ago, faces twisted into vicious grins as they prepared to “teach” Xu Gu’s group a lesson, turned pale in an instant. Cold sweat poured down their backs. None of them had expected things to play out like this.

Weren’t these six supposed to be new disciples at the Qi Refining stage?

Qi Refining? This was Qi Refining?

The five working together—forget Foundation Establishment early stage, even mid-stage Foundation Establishment might not be enough to handle them!

Xu Gu, on the other hand, stayed perfectly calm. Not surprised at all.

The righteous-path five all had at least heavenly spiritual roots, and each of them was a core heir of a great sect with terrifying backing. Fighting realms above their own was practically a daily routine.

What was there to be shocked about?

No wonder these guys were still small fry after all these years in the demonic path.

In just a few breaths, the senior disciples were beaten into a panicked mess. A few of the previously loud-mouthed demonic cultivators even had their heads lopped clean off, blood spraying everywhere as they died on the spot.

Li Shaobai and the others had no intention of showing mercy to these scum who’d committed who-knew-how-many crimes.

Miserable screams filled the arena.

Many disciples tried to beg for mercy—

“Hit him!”

“He’s the weakest of the six!”

“As long as we grab him, we can get our revenge!”

A Foundation Establishment early-stage senior with sharp eyes had spotted that Xu Gu was the weakest one of the group—just a standard eighth-layer Qi Refining cultivator they could definitely handle.

However—

Just as they turned to attack Xu Gu—

“Roar!”

The battlefield suddenly filled with a herd of demonic bulls and savage tigers.

Xu Gu’s talent, Strength of Nine Bulls and Two Tigers, burst into power once more.

In an instant, those old disciples charging toward him were smashed aside.

“You? Kill me?” Xu Gu’s eyes flashed. The sword in his hand thrust skyward, black light becoming almost solid as it cut through countless obstructions and came straight down on that Foundation Establishment cultivator who’d just shouted for everyone to attack him.

Pssh.

The Foundation Establishment senior, still reeling from being slammed around by those demonic bulls and savage tigers, hadn’t expected this “Qi Refining little ant” to attack him at all.

His neck was neatly grazed.

The sword’s light was pitch-black.

It was only a graze, but there was poison on the blade.

He touched the wound in disbelief, rage flooding him as he prepared to snap.

Before he could, Xu Gu kicked him flying. “This is a fight, what are you spacing out for?”

Crack.

Huan Caiyi seized the opening. Her pink blade flashed down, hacking that Foundation Establishment senior neatly in half.

“You’re too vicious…”

The man’s face twisted with terror and grievance as he managed to choke out those last words before dying.

Not just him—every senior disciple present was terrified now.

Xu Gu’s group were complete lunatics.

They just wanted to teach a few juniors a lesson, make them learn the “rules.” But these six were clearly trying to kill them.

And now the leading group of Foundation Establishment seniors was almost entirely wiped out.

If this slaughter continued, every single senior disciple who’d come today to “teach them the rules” would die here.

Suddenly—

“Stop!”

A furious shout cut through the chaos, followed by several immense, tyrannical auras crashing down over the arena.

“That’s… Golden Core…”

Huan Caiyi and the others felt those auras and their faces changed. In perfect synch, they pulled their techniques back, regrouped, and stood together, staring solemnly at the newcomers.

“How presumptuous!”

“The Demon Cavern’s training arena may not forbid killing, but your senior brothers had no malicious intent. They were just teaching you the rules. If you’re not convinced, you can beat them back, fine.”

“But why kill them?”

The Golden Core demonic cultivator at the front was wickedly handsome, demonic energy piercing the sky as he roared at Xu Gu and the others.

The Golden Core cultivators at his side all radiated killing intent, glaring at them with obvious hostility.

“Are you protectors or elders?” Xu Gu asked mildly, expression flat, completely unruffled.

“We’re your senior brothers,” the lead Golden Core snapped.

They’d joined the Demon Cavern centuries ago. Of course they supported the seniors maintaining the Demon Cavern’s “traditions.”

If these little brats killed their seniors, wasn’t that just a slap in their faces?

Some of the Foundation Establishment cultivators who’d died were their own underlings.

“I’ll ask you one last time. Why did you go so far? Did they ever try to take your lives? If you refused their lesson, you could have just beaten them back.”

“Why kill?”

“If you can give a reasonable explanation, then today you’ll each cripple your own meridians and abolish your spiritual roots. After that, you’ll apologize to your senior brothers and this can be considered settled. If not, you’ll regret killing your seniors today for the rest of your lives.”

The lead Golden Core’s tone was icy.

Xu Gu couldn’t help but laugh, exasperation written all over his face. “Are you an idiot? You’re a demonic cultivator, and you’re trying to morally blackmail me?”

“I wanted to kill them, so I killed them. Not just them—you too, you bastard. Go to hell!”

As he spoke, he moved.

No more talking—he simply attacked.

“Senior Brother is right! Get him!”

Li Shaobai and the others didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. Their fighting spirit surged as they picked up their weapons and charged straight at that damned Golden Core.

(End of this chapter)