After an hour of bickering without coming to any sort of agreement, the tired head abbot had Bai Qingyue transferred to the caged demons section of the monastery, to be dealt with later.
Naturally, every precaution had been taken to ensure his maintained captivity, but the long talks at least delayed any plots these vermin were cooking for him.
Bai Qingyue took in his fellow prisoners. There was a Weasel Demoness in the cage beside his. She was even smaller than him, with grey-brown fur and beady black eyes. She seemed like she could have been a perfectly ordinary weasel, were it not for the unmistakable demonic aura surrounding her.
She was incapacitated but still awake. Bai Qingyue decided to fish for some information.
"Little one, baby weasel, how did you get here?"
The demoness raised her head from atop her front paws and glanced at the rude fox.
"Baby weasel"? How dare he call her that, when he looks like such a young cub.
Still, feeling alone in this unfortunate predicament, she was not opposed to chatting with others, while she was still able to.
"Humph, I"m not little at all. I"ll have you know I"m already married and have 4 children."
Just as she responded, the thought of her family filled her with heartache. She proceeded to whisper her tale softly to the fox listening patiently in the cage next to her.
Her children and herself were abducted by the priests to be turned into familiars, just as they had escaped from the clutches of a demon hunter. Her mate had stayed behind in order to distract the hunter and give them time to escape.
Bai Qingyue had lived for so long and heard countless tragic tales, but recalling now that his kidnapper was boasting of wiping out a Weasel Demon as he dragged him to the monastery filled him with sympathy for this poor mother. Not only were she and her cubs caught and caged, but her mate was surely dead...
While the demoness spoke, Bai Qingyue realized that although she was weak, her power could be strong enough to break out of her cage. All she needed was a little push in the right direction. Unbeknownst to her, he transferred the little bit of energy he managed to reserve over to her.
"It will end soon." was all he whispered back.
His eyes glowed mischievously and the temperature inside the cell dropped by several degrees as, despite the bangles on his paws, his powerful malevolence radiated from him.
The night soon pa.s.sed and with the new light of dawn, several priests arrived to the cages and leading the procession was the head abbot.
The air felt chilly. A murder of crows perched on a nearby tree, waiting, sensing what was soon to come.
The abbot gazed down upon the fox and, noticing no differences except for the slight fluctuations of power, he decided that it was time to end the fox"s life.
He smiled menacingly, "I"m sure you imagined I was unaware that all that talk yesterday was just to fish for time, but unfortunately for you, I am not so easy to fool!"
"Unlike my cellmate here, who you seem to have tricked easily enough. She tells me her children were also kidnapped and have been turned into familiars, and yet I"ve seen no weasel cubs lurking around." Bai Qingyue muttered, loud enough for the demoness to hear.
The Weasel Demoness" head snapped up, eyes glaring at the head abbot in alarm.
"That"s right. They weren"t powerful enough to be familiars. And you might as well join them now, become a source of power to increase my disciples" cultivation. It"s a shame you didn"t tell me more about yourself, I might have considered ending your life less miserably."
The head abbot turned his back to the cages and began preaching to his fellow disciples, "Today we"ve all learned something new, don"t try to make deals with these creatures, nothing good ever comes from it." His tone filled with mockery.
Bai Qingyue continued to glare at the foolish abbot.
I can definitely agree with that statement. He silently agreed.
The fox made a big show of yawning loudly to let them know just how "troubled" he was about his impending fate.
The head abbot fell silent in outrage. "This little pipsqueak was acting like a grand emperor!" He thought, "He had just been told that he was going to be wiped out and he-"
Before the head abbot could finish his thought, it wasn"t the fox who retaliated, but the Weasel Demoness who had been silent the whole time.
Upon hearing that her babies had been killed for their life essence, she went mad with grief. With them gone, she had nothing left to live for.
"I will not be appeased until all of you perish with me!!" The demoness screamed as she expanded in size and energy, tearing the cage apart. Fighting against the sealing enchantment would cost her life, they all knew it. Her body was on the verge of collapse, but still, she struggled on. If she didn"t kill every last one of them, the murderers of her little cubs, she would find no peace in the next life!
The head abbot was stunned. The senior priests quickly aligned themselves in front to protect him. How did she manage to break out of the cage??
Her fur twisted into long sharp spikes as her irises changed into the shade of fresh blood. Her claws grew to an unnatural size, thick and sharp as daggers. The demoness was too far gone, transforming into her most monstrous of forms, something she had never done before. All that remained in her was pure vengeful energy, weighing down on the surrounding priests and crus.h.i.+ng them to the ground.
That night, almost all of the monastery"s population was exterminated.
With her giant claws, she swiped through the petrified priests" flesh, spilling their entrails all over the floor. Only a measly few priests had managed to escape the Demoness"s wrath and a handful of captured demons were slaughtered in the mayhem. It was a scene of complete, utter chaos.
Leaving herself the best for last, after killing anyone who hadn"t managed to scurry away in time, she approached the slack-jawed abbot. Far too paralyzed by her unbreakable hold over him to move, the man could see his own terrified reflection in her bloodshot eyes, just as the weasel"s long, demonic body towered over him. In one swift motion, her enlarged mouth engulfed the Head Abbot from head to toe and swallowed him whole, without even leaving one limb left to bury.
The head abbot of the Ever Eclipse monastery had died. He was never to understand how it had happened nor who, really, was the one to orchestrate his demise.
Bai Qingyue sat in his cage, comfortable and unfazed, as the slaughter took place.
A few hours later, when all the excitement finally "died down", Bai Qingyue cracked the cage open with a slight nudge of his snout. He easily slipped off the jade bangles from his wrists and transformed into his human form.
His skin was pale and smooth, and silver hair soft as silk cascaded down his back. Barefoot, his lean yet muscular form circled around the bloodbath. He looked like a fallen angel descended upon h.e.l.l.
He clad his nude body in the garments of one of the less b.l.o.o.d.y, low-level disciple"s clothing.
The air in the monastery was thick with the stench of blood. The expectant crows finally swooped down and feasted on the flesh of the priests sprawled upon the cold stone floor, pecking at innards and other body parts scattered around.
Being used to blood and death, Bai Qingyue was unaffected by all this. The stench filling the air, however, was already smelling rather repulsive.
His glowing golden eyes scanned the area for the demoness he had used. She somehow had managed to find the discarded carca.s.ses of her young ones and was now curled up around them, dying slowly.
Bai Qingyue slowly made his way over to her and bent down at her side.
"I helped you achieve your revenge, but at the cost of your life. Know that I will find the man who killed your spouse and bring an end to his existence." His voice was cold and detached, but for her, it was the sound of hope she heard. She could now take comfort in her last minute; at least those who ruined her family would suffer the same fate.
Blinking her sorrow filled eyes for the last time, she whispered her grat.i.tude, before falling into her eternal slumber.
Cold and unmoved, Bai QingYue sniffed the air and grimaced, reluctantly inhaling all the filth. That huntsman"s scent was faint, but he could still track him down.