Chapter 19 Beat the grass and frighten away the snake

Dǎ cǎo jīng shé - Beat the grass and frighten away the snake -- act rashly and alert the enemy

"Can't believe these mortals could actually be this troublesome!" Xun BingBing squatted and fanned herself under a tree. She did not dare to switch to her beast form and had ran like a normal human, escaping the so called demon hunters.

SheLin was quietly looking around their surroundings, camouflaging with the trees.

"Big Brother snake, why can't you just poison them so we won't have to run away from these puny mortals."

"Xun xiaojie, we had talked about this. We cannot bully the weak and show the mortals our skills. Moreover, those demon hunters are useful to take care of those other unruly demons, save us the trouble and energy."

When that human emperor had stupidly work with the rock demons, more demons from all over, took advantage of the situation and entered into the human realm. The atmosphere of the mortal plane let some of the demon thrived in cultivation and some also ate human energy to increase their demonic powers.

With the increase of evil demon presence, a cult like sect, TianDao sect, had tasked themselves to remove evil from their world. Some mortals with uncommon abilities had also joined for them for their similar cause.

Such a sect was founded by a cultivating mortal, grandmaster, who had almost fully cultivated, but saw human suffering under demons influence and the grandmaster chose not to ascend and stayed back in the mortal realm to help his fellow mortals.

Unlike the Shaman Wo cult, that had their cult head by a holy maiden, and was very archaic, TianDao under the founding grandmaster's leadership and wisdom, grandmaster had taught his followers and later disciples to know the difference of good and evil demons, eliminating only those who did evil deeds in the human society. The grandmaster was a conservative person and had kept their sect a secular one, only accepting those righteous members within their sect and association.

Their grandmaster and their sect earlier activities, was already in the knowledge of Crimson Wolf Clan, and Crimson Wolf Clan already have a list of the leaders and the special mortals within the sect.

TianDao cult founder and grandmaster had already ascended after handing the leadership to another, naming the new leader as jiàozhǔ (教主 "Pavilion Master").

The current pavilion leader was also said to be a charismatic person with special abilities who could control three elements- wind, earth and fire, making him or her one the Mortal of Interest under Crimsons Wolf's radar. The Crimson Wolf had yet to capture sighting on this elusive and mysterious TianDao leader.

TianDao base was said to be on the peak of highest mountain on the other side, across the vast ocean, Quan Kingdom, but they had operations in each kingdom. Quan Kingdom was a mystery itself. Decades ago, the entire continent was protected with a shield barrier not allowing entry to immortal and mortals alike. Crimson Wolf network had not been able to enter previously.

Once the barrier was down, Crimson Wolf immediately sent spies towards Quan kingdom yet this particular mountain of TianDao's defenses was almost impenetrable and had warded off their sneak ins successfully.

It was SheLin and Xun BingBing's bad luck when they encountered the followers of TianDao. SheLin was mostly in the Underworld realm, but that did not mean he was living other a rock, he knew from reports about uncommonly strong mortals, such as those who belong to TianDao cult.

When these cultivators apprehended them, while SheLin and Xun BingBing were following the trail of the little young miss, they had accused SheLin of poisoning humans in the other town. There were children missing and adults mysteriously sick, that physicians were confused and could not cure. The information was known to the local TianDao cult local followers and they somehow had seen SheLin's snake form and came after the duo.

Snake demon poison caused people restlessness, insomnia and other mental problems. Some victims shown symptoms of an unquenchable thirst that it drove them to throw themselves into the wells and rivers. Others suffer from partial paralysis to coma.

SheLin was insulted when he was framed of doing such a lowly poison. Did they not see that he had two heads when he was in snake form? His spittle itself was venomous enough to kill a small demon, he did not need to resort to use his venom to harm innocent and weak humans.

SheLin was actually a direct descendant of XiangLiu, the nine-headed snake, a very strong demon, whose power was at par with a powerful Celestial High God. His true form was six-headed snake demon, but his lord found it distracting to look at him and made him hide his heads.

Since SheLin was a proud snake demon, he had bargained his way with the lord and managed to compromise to keep two heads. But the last time he had made his lord so angry, his lord had ripped his one of heads off and it was then, he was glad the other heads were hidden, else it would had taken him centuries to heal and cultivate back his powers.

It was not that SheLin and the child of Crimson Wolf could not outrun the mortals. Just as what he had told Xun BingBing, about them traveling incognito, and should not gain more attention towards themselves. The second most important and the main reason to let themselves in the open for the disciples of TianDao, was that this was a good opportunity for the Crimson Wolf who were following their leader's granddaughter to get more information on TianDao.