Only now did Meng Fan finally let out a sigh of relief.
He had to admit, the pressure that demoness put on him was truly immense!
If it weren't for the Hong Qi Sword playing a major role just now, he would have probably been in big trouble today.
"Hong Qi, I owe you my thanks today," Meng Fan said to the Hong Qi Sword.
Even though he didn't need to say it out loud for Hong Qi to hear, he still felt it was more ceremonious to voice his gratitude.
"Master, you're too polite. It was my duty," the sword responded.
Meng Fan glanced in the direction of the demoness's remains, which by now had been reduced to nothing more than fragments, dead beyond any doubt.
"What a pity, such a powerful boss-level entity, nearly a Demon King, and I blew her to pieces. Her Spiritual Essence dissipated too. Otherwise, my Supreme Dominance Body would surely have advanced to the fourth level, or even peaked near the fifth level!"
This was a source of regret for Meng Fan.
But regrets were useless. Given another chance, he would still go all out and obliterate the demoness.
In that situation, could he have held back?
Of course not!
Spiritual Essence was important, but not as important as his own life.
Meng Fan stretched his neck and loosened his muscles before returning to the grand bed in the hall.
Apart from this bed, the grand hall was practically empty.
It was foreseeable that all the treasures collected by the demoness must be on this bed.
Meng Fan lifted the blanket and was immediately assaulted by a pungent fox stench.
He scrunched his eyebrows and covered his nose.
If he had smelled this earlier, he might not have needed Hong Qi's help to break free from the demoness's control.
Under the blanket, Meng Fan indeed found a wooden box.
The box wasn't large. Opening it, he discovered a jade bracelet inside.
Picking up the bracelet, his intuition told him it was a storage bracelet, and a high-level one at that.
Without Divine Sense, it was impossible to probe the bracelet, let alone use it.
It seemed he would have to wait until he developed his Divine Sense to explore the depths of this bracelet.
Meng Fan wasn't in a hurry. He pocketed the bracelet and continued to search the bed for any other secrets.
The bedding, the boards, the underside of the bed…
Meng Fan turned everything upside down, but apart from the jade bracelet, there was nothing else.
Clearly, the demoness's treasures were all hidden within this bracelet.
With that in mind, Meng Fan didn't bother to waste any more energy and prepared to leave.
Just as he was about to exit the grand hall, a sword light suddenly struck from behind.
His brow furrowed, and a cold glint flashed in his eyes.
The peak third level of the Supreme Dominance Body gave Meng Fan the ability to hear and see in all directions.
He was immediately aware of the sneak attack from behind.
At this moment, apart from Nie Bing's corpse, there was no one else in the hall.
So, the one attacking him had to be Nie Bing.
He wasn't dead, feigning death!
To feign death in front of that demoness and deceive the heavens and cross the sea was indeed no simple feat!
There must be some expert in the Shu Mountain Sword Sect who had given him this life-saving technique.
Too bad, he survived the demoness only to fall into Meng Fan's calamity!
Nie Bing, you really aren't thinking clearly.
Meng Fan could imagine why Nie Bing would attack him.
It was nothing more than greed, seeing that Meng Fan had obtained the demoness's treasures.
Then, Nie Bing must have thought he could silently assassinate him and seize the loot.
Most importantly, Nie Bing must have just woken up!
He woke up just in time to see Meng Fan collecting the treasures, without witnessing Meng Fan slaying the demoness, naively thinking the demoness had left.
If Nie Bing had seen Meng Fan killing the demoness in that terrifying manner, even with ten times the courage, he wouldn't dare to attack Meng Fan!
All this was Meng Fan's speculation.
And indeed, it was the case!
"I've long heard of Senior Disciple Nie's reputation, but I never expected our first encounter to leave such a lasting impression," Meng Fan said coldly, still with his back to Nie Bing.
However, with a twist of his right hand, the Hong Qi Sword rotated 180 degrees in his grip, the hilt forward, the tip pointing back.
Meng Fan held the Hong Qi Sword in a reverse grip, his right hand by his waist, and thrust backward.
The motion resembled that of committing seppuku, but he aimed slightly off, piercing through Nie Bing's heart from the side of his waist.
Meng Fan never looked back, yet it was as if he had eyes on the back of his head.
Nie Bing's attempt at a sneak attack failed, and instead, he was stabbed through the heart by Meng Fan's sword, dying instantly!
The man fell to his knees, eyes wide with disbelief.
He couldn't understand!
Why did his confident, lethal strike end with his own death?
There was no why. The gap between them was just too vast.
Meng Fan sheathed the Hong Qi Sword and finally turned to look.
His guess was correct; it was Nie Bing who had feigned death to launch a sneak attack on him.
"Greed!" Meng Fan looked coldly at Nie Bing's corpse, saying nothing more.
He had no mercy for those who courted death.
Even though he had already guessed that the attacker was Nie Bing, he still chose to strike fatally, killing Nie Bing without hesitation.
Brotherly affection?
The other party had already attempted to kill him.
Why should he care about brotherly affection?
Meng Fan was not one to start trouble or bully others unprovoked.
But if someone brought trouble to him, he wouldn't be kind-hearted or soft-handed!
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
That was his basic principle of conduct.
It wasn't a matter of magnanimity!
"But now, even in death, you're causing me trouble," Meng Fan said coldly, looking at Nie Bing's corpse with some resignation.
Although it was Nie Bing who had tried to kill him and was killed in return, sometimes things were hard to explain, especially since Nie Bing was now dead, the "weaker party."
If someone were to see Nie Bing's corpse later, it would undoubtedly cause trouble for Meng Fan.
Meng Fan disliked trouble and naturally wouldn't leave this problem unresolved.
Moments later, Nie Bing's body was reduced to dust, leaving no trace behind.
This was the most straightforward way to destroy evidence, obliterating it into nothingness.
This was Meng Fan's first time dealing with such a bloody affair, but it was surprisingly smooth.
Cruel?
Perhaps it was somewhat cruel, but Meng Fan would rather be the killer than the victim!
***
Stepping out of the grand hall, Meng Fan didn't feel the confusion and panic that came with taking a life for the first time.
Perhaps having killed so many demons and grown accustomed to bloodshed, Meng Fan felt no difference between killing a person and a demon.
Killing Nie Bing felt much the same as when he had slain those seductive fox demons!
After all, when he was cutting down those fox demons, in Meng Fan's eyes, he was also cutting down "human" forms.
Most importantly, Meng Fan felt that Nie Bing was no better than those beasts!
Proofreader & Editor: Peter Pan