After hearing the declaration from the Demon-Hunting Army commander, Qiu Fu showed surprisingly little shock.

  Instead, a flicker of understanding passed through her eyes.

  "Looks like I won't get the chance to repay you after all. I just hope I don't drag you down with me."

  "That old fox must have sensed something and deliberately provoked me, hoping I'd leave behind a bloodline."

  "Looks like her plan couldn't keep up with reality."

  "That roar of mine probably made certain old demons nervous."

  She smiled apologetically at Xia Li.

  By then, some of her clothes had already slipped loose. But under the current circumstances, even if the Demon-Hunting Army had not arrived, Xia Li probably still would not have agreed.

  "So that's why you were in such a hurry. I thought all demons were just like that..."

  Xia Li and Qiu Fu had not known each other for long.

  At the absolute maximum, it had not even been a month.

  In that amount of time, developing favorable feelings was easy.

  Developing anything deeper was impossible.

  And yet even so, Qiu Fu had brought him back to her nest under the pretext of repaying a debt.

  Now it seemed she had had her own considerations.

  Outside the window...

  The voice like rolling thunder rang out again.

  "I'll say it one more time! I am Wang Xian, commander of the Demon-Hunting Army! Hand over the tiger demon who murdered my son at once! Otherwise, don't blame me when I flatten this place!"

  There was no more time for Xia Li and Qiu Fu to keep talking.

  The situation was urgent, and Xia Li had no chance to ask about the full background.

  Two choices now lay before him.

  Stay uninvolved.

  Or help demonkind all the way through.

  But was it worth it?

  Was there any need for him to risk himself for a demon he had only known briefly?

  The answer, in truth, was simple.

  "Get in my gourd!"

  Determination flashed across Xia Li's face as he grabbed Qiu Fu's hand.

  The fact that she was being singled out like this meant she had to be extraordinary.

  And she herself had just said that one roar had made certain old demons panic.

  That was a bloodline divine ability inherited from the divine beast White Tiger.

  Xia Li had seen the power of that ferocious god-roar with his own eyes.

  It truly was a force that could shake heaven and earth.

  There was an old saying: giving charcoal in winter was hard, but adding flowers to brocade was easy.

  The friendship between Xia Li and Lin Ye had come from the latter.

  But Lin Ye had already helped Xia Li so much.

  Qiu Fu might be powerless now, but that did not mean she would remain powerless forever.

  "You're..."

  "Calling in my favor. I'm betting on your future."

  "But I..."

  "Stop talking and get in already!"

  Xia Li urged her on.

  But Qiu Fu refused to move.

  She did not want to implicate the person who had saved her life.

  "Thanks. I'm glad I got to know you on this journey."

  Qiu Fu still refused to enter the Cave Heaven Gourd.

  But Xia Li had a domineering side too.

  After all, he had spent some time in New Tokyo and had absorbed some of the values of the Corporate Alliance.

  He had to admit, he approved of certain parts of that worldview.

  Those bull stocks that later skyrocketed always came with a brutal crash before their great rise.

  If an investor wanted to lift such a stock, he could not simply throw in a little pocket money and spectate from the sidelines.

  He had to get in the game.

  He had to wager every asset he had.

  Even go into debt and use leverage.

  At that stage, it was also the best possible moment to buy up a large amount of original shares in one go, before later dilution became inevitable.

  If it succeeded...

  It would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to defy fate and leap to another class entirely.

  And these kind of bull stocks usually had another trait:

  for one reason or another, they were extremely difficult to acquire through normal means.

  At that point, another technique was required.

  With a thought, Xia Li froze Qiu Fu in place with telekinesis, then rammed the mouth of the Cave Heaven Gourd right against her forehead.

  Xia Li was going for a hostile acquisition.

  "Cut the crap and get in there!"

  He forcibly stored Qiu Fu inside the gourd, deciding to hold on to this temporarily loss-making but high-quality asset first.

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  "Stay in there and behave."

  He sent the message into the gourd, then walked out of the wooden house toward the mouth of the valley.

  The fox clan leader did not appear.

  When he had first entered the valley, plenty of fox clan members had still been wandering near the entrance.

  Now every last one of them had vanished.

  At the mouth of the valley.

  A man in armor stood before the army formation, a massive greatsword resting on his shoulder, looking every bit the war general.

  This had to be the commander named Wang Xian.

  Behind him stood a sizable military array.

  With a rough glance alone, Xia Li could tell it consisted of at least three thousand soldiers.

  And a subtle formation connected the entire army to the general standing before it.

  This was the Demon-Hunting Army.

  Humanity's regular force for war against demonkind.

  Its ranks were filled with elites, many of them geniuses from all over the world who had joined to temper themselves in battle.

  "Who goes there? State your name!"

  As Wang Xian sized Xia Li up, Xia Li did the same to him.

  The Heaven Chip could only determine that he was at Soul Transformation.

  It could not assess the true intensity of his realm.

  Which meant his strength far exceeded that of ordinary Soul Transformation cultivators.

  He was probably capable of suppressing several peers at once.

  There was no doubt he had once been one of the most famous heaven-chosen of his generation.

  And now he had become a pillar of a great army.

  "Commander Wang really doesn't recognize me?"

  He was the one who had killed that man's son.

  There was no way Wang Xian truly failed to recognize him.

  Or perhaps the son did not matter to him at all, serving only as a convenient excuse to make trouble. It was even possible the dead youth had not been his son in any meaningful sense.

  "I don't want trouble with you, and you'd do best not to make any for me either. Or do you think drawing the ire of the Heaven Alliance wasn't enough?"

  It was obvious Wang Xian had investigated him after receiving the report.

  He knew Xia Li was an inner disciple of Lingxu Cave Heaven and that the Heaven Alliance was already watching him.

  He had no interest in involving himself in the Heaven Alliance's internal mess.

  He was commander of the Demon-Hunting Army.

  His duty was to face outward, not inward.

  "I don't want trouble either. I'm only a guest here. If this has nothing to do with me, then may I leave?"

  "You may."

  Wang Xian had no intention of stopping Xia Li.

  He merely flicked his finger.

  A tuft of gray fur stained with blood appeared at his fingertip.

  The fur stirred in the wind, and a translucent thread extended from it, one end attached to the fur, the other to Xia Li's Cave Heaven Gourd.

  "There are just some things you can't take with you."

  Wang Xian held out a hand, signaling for Xia Li to hand over Qiu Fu.

  "May I ask, Commander Wang, what crime my demon slave has committed?"

  "That is not your concern. But since she is your demon slave, then consider it a purchase. I won't make things ugly for you. Two hundred thousand spirit stones. How about it?"

  That was an extraordinarily generous offer.

  A typical Golden Core demon slave sold for only fifty or sixty thousand spirit stones.

  Which only made Xia Li feel the situation had grown even thornier.

  If Wang Xian were the arrogant, overbearing sort, Xia Li might actually have felt more at ease.

  People like that were often easier to handle.

  It was much worse to face a man like this, one who could have crushed others by sheer power but instead remained calm, reasonable, and polite.

  Such people did not anger easily.

  But once they did, the consequences were terrifying.

  He could casually offer two hundred thousand spirit stones, and from the look of it he genuinely respected Xia Li...

  Which meant Wang Xian took him seriously enough that he would never underestimate him.

  He was not foolish enough to treat Xia Li as some insignificant pseudo-Core cultivator.

  Troublesome.

  A great deal of trouble.

  "Commander Wang, you're remarkable. You're one of the people who has respected me the most since I entered this world. I'm genuinely pleased that you're willing to lower yourself and negotiate with me."

  "Unfortunately..."

  "My demon slave is under my protection."