Chapter 108 - 94: Female Demon Little Zi

Honest Long Yi conscientiously took the task of eliminating the bad guys. Dealing with these creatures, Long Yi didn’t even need to use the Dragon-slaying Sword. He threw various kinds of magic missiles with every lift of his hand. These undead creatures had no resistance, and in an instant, more than half of them were destroyed.

At this moment, a chilling scream came from the depths of the forest. Suddenly, a pale blue light emanated from the skeleton soldiers and zombies in front of him. In Long Yi’s eyes, the mana that had originally been lurking underground converged on these undead bodies, and a chill emanated from them.

Long Yi smirked. He still continued to hurl magic missiles, but it was obvious that he couldn’t shatter a whole group with just one missile anymore. However, he could still blow a single undead creature to pieces with one magic missile!

This barely seemed to affect the undead creatures. They fell one after another without any struggle or outcry.

The more he fought, the more confused Long Yi became. These undead didn’t seem the same as those he remembered. Although Long Yi had never seen them in person, he had read that they were not dead objects, but living beings. They were life forms that had died and, due to some coincidence or as a result of some magic, regained all or part of their consciousness while their decaying bodies had ceased to decay. Moreover, they would have a powerful force to support their body’s functioning and immortality. Hence, undead creatures were supposed to be somewhat formidable.

Some mages had specifically studied the creation of undead beings. Their ultimate goal was to resurrect massive armies of fearless undead to swing the outcome of wars. However, they found that turning a corpse into an undead being required a lot of time and effort. Eventually, they were rejected by the majority of mages due to their lack of results and ethics, gradually disappearing from the public eye. There were rumours that some had managed to control a large number of undead, but such research became marginalized and the rumours quickly vanished. Whether it was forgotten or secretly hushed up, no one knew.

The present skeletons and zombies were hardly living beings. They were just objects, with no autonomy and were entirely controlled by some unseen hand in the background.

Moreover, to be honest, Long Yi thought the controlling hand wasn’t that clever. It had just randomly deployed a pile of corpses to block the path in front of them, which seemed less like an attempt to kill and more like an effort to prevent them from progressing.

With this thought in mind, Long Yi suddenly stopped and called out, "Hey, you, the puppet master behind the scenes! If you don’t want us to go in, just have them nod their heads and we’ll leave!"

Ai Lin and Bajie had been faithfully following Long Yi. On hearing him, Ai Lin asked, "Will he let us go?"

Long Yi smiled, "Look."

Ai Lin raised her head just in time to see a group of zombies and skeletons nodding their heads. A skeleton even lost its jaw in the process.

Long Yi smirked, "It seems we’ve intruded into someone else’s territory. Since we’re not welcome, let’s just leave. As they’re not demons, we have nothing to do with them. There’s no point in hanging around here. Let’s go."

So, with Bajie leading the way and Ai Lin cautiously holding onto Long Yi’s arm, they turned to leave.

"Wait, please!"

Suddenly, a timid voice echoed from behind, sounding as if it was accompanied by an echo.

Long Yi and Ai Lin turned around, only to see a translucent little girl, about eight or nine years old, standing a short distance behind them. She was timid, with her hands folded in front of her, wearing a maid’s attire common in noble families, albeit decaying and tattered. Her bunches of black hair on either side, large eyes filled with a strange ghostly fire. Lowering their gaze, they saw that rather than standing on the ground, she was floating in mid-air, feet bare.

"A female demon?"

Long Yi questioned.

"Yes..." The little girl’s eyes dimmed as she responded with her head lowered.

Among the undead, female demons are an extremely rare presence. Most undead need a body to maintain their consciousness and stabilize their power. This category includes ordinary skeletons and zombies, and of course, there are also extremely powerful entities like undead dragon knights.

Female demons, on the other hand, abandon their bodies entirely and rely on their strong consciousness to forcibly condense their energy and soul into a spiritual body. Generally, female demons are excellent puppet masters and magic users. As their bodies are non-physical, they can practically ignore physical attacks and have quite a resistance to fighting aura. But in front of magic, their bodies are extremely fragile. Thus, female demons usually enslave some servants with their psychic powers to protect themselves.

Therefore, everything was understood. These virtually powerless undead puppets were all this little female demon’s minions.

"What is it?"

Long Yi asked.

"Please... brave warrior, could you do me a favor?"

The little girl asked timidly, her head down, not daring to look straight at Long Yi.

"Did I hear you right? You’re asking me for help?"

Long Yi was greatly baffled. What was this little female demon up to?

"Yes, I’m asking for your help!"

The petite female demon looked up, her eyes full of courage. Looking at her, Long Yi was slightly bewildered, wondering if he was that terrifying. Little did he know, he had barged in, wrecked her puppets, and yet she still had the bravery to speak to him! To put it into perspective, she was a ghost, and he was human. Any regular ghost should be terrified of him. How fierce could he be!

"Well, we actually have other tasks..." just as Long Yi began to speak, Ai Lin tugged at his arm from the side. Long Yi looked down and saw Ai Lin looking at the little female demon with loving eyes, saying, "Brother Long, let’s just listen first..."

"Alright then... go on!" sighed Long Yi. There were no signs of any magic in the air, and facing a magic fighter like Ai Lin, who was a killer of mages, ordinary magic could hardly control her spirit. This girl was overwhelmed with compassion. That said, this little female demon was indeed sweet and pretty. Although she was still young, she had a well-proportioned figure, clear eyebrows and bright eyes. The mixture of fear and strength on her small round face made her incredibly adorable.

Usually, Long Yi was not a savior of beauties, and he shouldn’t agree to everything just because a girl was cute, right? But since Ai Lin was interested, they might as well listen. After all, they had no specific place to go.

Turns out, this little girl was named Little Zi. Despite appearing young, she had been living alone in this forest for hundreds of years. She had always been the master of the nearby mountains and forests. Though her solitary existence was lonely, it was also peaceful. However, recently, a monster had intruded into the forest. The monster was very powerful and had attempted to invade Little Zi’s territory several times. In the disputes that ensued, the monster began to infect the forest creatures and launched an attack on Little Zi’s territory. Little Zi had to rely on her natural instincts to collect corpses, turn them into puppets, and control them to fight for her. However, against these raging beasts, she stood little chance and was soon defeated and driven to the edge of the forest.

What Little Zi wanted was for Long Yi to help her drive away the monster.

"And, I won’t ask you to fight for me for nothing! I also have some treasures I can give you as a reward!"

Little Zi earnestly stated.

"A monster, huh..."

Long Yi laughed; it was a task that required little effort!

"Alright, I’ve got this covered," said Long Yi, slapping his chest in assurance.

"You... trust me just like that?" Little Zi asked in amazement.

"Why wouldn’t I trust you?" Long Yi responded, genuinely curious.

"Because... I am a female demon," said Little Zi.

"Why should I distrust you because you’re a female demon?" Long Yi was even more puzzled now.

"Well..." Little Zi was utterly confounded. In her memory, human perception of female demons was was extremely horrific. Although the man before her was a Dragon Knight, not fearing female demons, it shouldn’t be normal for him to trust a female demon so unconditionally, right?

Since he had agreed, the undead at the entrance had lost their purpose. A group of puppets dug a hole and buried themselves. Even though they no longer posed a threat, Ai Lin still hid behind Bajie in fear, using his large and plump body to fully shield herself. Not until there were no sounds up ahead did she peek out. The Shadow Dragon echoed her sentiment, settling on Long Yi’s shoulder after descending from the sky.

Little Zi led the way as Long Yi and the others followed. In Long Yi’s eyes, trails of mana seeped from Little Zi’s toes as she floated mid-air, coalescing on the ground and steadily lowering the surrounding temperature.

With the ghoulish bodies gone, Ai Lin returned to her lively self. It was evident she liked Little Zi, engaging in plenty of conversation along the way. Little Zi was extremely courteous in return, her manners more refined than some high-standing young ladies.

"Little Zi, your name must be from a type of tree, right? Catalpa Tree, right? That’s a boy’s name, isn’t it?" Ai Lin posed another question.

"Yes, my dad always wanted a boy, and he even picked a name in advance. But then I turned out to be a girl. Father didn’t like me. When I was five, he sold me to that... that bastard!"

Little Zi spat out the words through clenched teeth.