Dragon Boat Secret Realm 29: The Slaying

The fish demon was speaking!

They had been cautious, staying nearly a hundred meters from its lair. How had it noticed them?

The group froze in shock. Qiu Yange nearly leapt up, her hair standing on end.

Zhang Wenhui steadied her, whispering, “It’s not us.”

Su Qing, using a breath-concealing technique, peeked forward to assess the cave. The demon wasn’t addressing them—it was speaking to the paper-cut figures.

The pale paper figures, drifting deep into the cave, had transformed. No longer soft and frail, their edges were sharp as blades, outlined with faint golden rims.

Their origin was unclear, but they had gained sentience.

To Su Qing’s surprise, they were attacking the demon relentlessly. Their paper sleeves buzzed fiercely, thousands swarming like white bats or diving seabirds, encircling their prey.

In mere breaths, they clung to the demon, wrapping it like a paper-covered fish. A second wave pried at its hard scales, trying to burrow inside.

“Argh!” the demon roared in pain but remained unfazed, sneering. “Well done, little ghosts. Thanks for delivering yourselves! Your willpower isn’t a feast, but it’ll do for a snack!”

“We share the same source, but mine’s stronger. I am this island’s god!”

With a bellow, its bloated body writhed, black scales flaring. Golden sparks shot out, shattering the paper figures.

Many dissolved into fragments, sinking into the foul water, but some, using sleeves as wings, regrouped in the air and charged again.

“They share our goal—to kill the demon,” Su Qing whispered urgently. “We can’t let them exhaust themselves. If we strike, we go together for better odds.”

Tian Ning nodded, leaping off the boat. Ice formed beneath her feet, stabilizing her on the water.

Su Qing quietly shed her outer robe, slipping into the water in her underclothes. The cold bit, but she clutched a hidden object at her chest, took a breath, and dove.

Qiu Yange and Zhang Wenhui stayed aboard, one steering, the other accelerating.

Without a word, they moved in sync, as planned.

This was their do-or-die moment.

…

The demon unleashed golden light, shredding the attacking figures. Thousands dwindled to just over a thousand, circling for another assault.

Its whiskers bristled in anger. “So many dead papers, yet no willpower released? Oh, I see—you transfer it among yourselves.”

As long as one figure remained, the willpower stayed contained.

Its yellow eyes gleamed with malice. “I’ll kill every last one, then what? Enter my lair, and there’s no going back!”

The figures, senseless, existed only to attack—endlessly, with their fragile paper bodies.

*Kill—*

Before the demon finished, they targeted its eyes, sleeves waving, linking to cover its slimy eyeballs, aiming to blind it.

Eyes are a universal weakness, but the demon, long cautious, had fortified its own.

Sneering, its eyes secreted oily fluid, corroding the figures to blackened husks. “Useless!”

But as its vision cleared, a gleaming sword tip appeared.

Its sluggish mind jolted: *Who else is here?*

Daring to challenge it—a second-tier peak cultivator, the island’s mightiest god! They’d be devoured, their bones drained.

The sword didn’t hesitate, piercing its eye. Tian Ning, seizing the moment, drove it deep, her hand sinking into its slimy tissue.

The sword, wrapped in iron but made of peachwood—the demon’s bane—scorched its eye black, blinding its left side.

“Who?! Who did this?” it shrieked, writhing in agony.

Tian Ning, never one for banter, found the sword stuck. She abandoned it.

Dodging into its blind spot, she danced across water, frost blooming underfoot, retreating safely.

“Left eye’s blind,” she reported.

“Demon can’t see on its left!” Qiu Yange adjusted the helm, swinging the boat to the left.

Zhang Wenhui drew a bow, firing peachwood arrows at the demon’s left side.

Most arrows failed to pierce its slick scales, falling uselessly into the water.

Undeterred, Zhang Wenhui recalled Su Qing’s teachings on spiritual energy. Calming her mind, she channeled a trickle of energy from her dry dantian through her fingers.

Drawing the bow taut, she loosed three arrows. Each struck deeper, the last sinking half an inch, charring the surrounding flesh.

Tian Ning’s lips curved slightly. “Hit. Well done.”

Qiu Yange tossed her a new sword, which she caught.

The demon roared, “Despicable rats!”

Its tail slapped, splashing water, stirring spiritual energy. Vortices formed beneath the boat, pale hands emerging, clawing the hull, dragging it down.

Zhang Wenhui stabbed at the hands with peachwood arrows, turning them to smoke, but their numbers overwhelmed her.

The boat sank inch by inch. Qiu Yange swerved, shaking it, but the hands held fast.

Falling into the water meant entering the demon’s domain—becoming its meal.

Tian Ning darted across the water, aiming for its tail, but she was too late—

A paper figure floated from beneath the boat, radiating golden light. The vortices and hands dissolved upon contact.

The water calmed, the boat stabilized.

Qiu Yange steered to safety, calling, “Thank you, little ones!”

The demon, unfazed, cackled. “No wonder I couldn’t taste the willpower—a straggler!”

A pale hand grabbed the figure, crushing it to bits.

Still no willpower.

There was another hiding.

“Outrageous!”

Before its rage flared, Tian Ning struck again, attacking from above.

Instinctively mastering spiritual levitation, she bounded off the cave walls, leaving ice flowers. They held her on water and walls alike.

In a blink, she hung above the demon, kicking off the wall, spinning downward, sword aimed at its brain.

Swift and decisive—her style, lethal from afar.

But the demon anticipated, diving, leaving a vortex for Tian Ning.

The raging water resisted her ice. Hands formed, pulling her down.

Unfazed, she infused her sword with spiritual energy and hurled it.

It struck the demon’s tail fin, drawing foul blood, frozen by her ice energy.

The vortex paused, and she escaped, kneeling on ice, hand in water, frowning. “Not the waist, not the left, not the right.”

Zhang Wenhui knew the reverse scale was once at its waist.

But after fifty years, the demon was like an iron fortress—no trace of it.

“Looking for my reverse scale? You mortals?” it mocked. “I’ve ascended with willpower. Gods have no weaknesses!”

“Surrender, and I’ll spare you, return you to the island,” it tempted.

Mid-sentence, Zhang Wenhui fired three more arrows at different spots.

Tian Ning summoned her sword. “Next, I’ll take your left cheek.”

The demon laughed. “With your tickling attacks?”

Its wounds were minor. As long as its reverse scale was safe, pain was just pain.

Arrogant, it ignored them, waiting for their energy to deplete.

They clashed for over ten rounds. Tian Ning paled, fingers trembling on her sword, blood seeping from new wounds. Her sealed cultivation was nearly spent.

The boat fared no better. The demon’s venom corroded half the hull, water seeping in. Qiu Yange dodged attacks while frantically repairing.

Zhang Wenhui’s energy was gone; even blood-soaked arrows were useless.

Despite its blinded eye, pierced body, and half-severed fins, the demon grew fiercer, fueled by bloodlust.

“Is that all?” it taunted. “Your tricks end here?”

Its tone shifted to fury. “Disloyal, disrespectful, daring to slay a god! You’ll face heaven’s wrath!”

Tian Ning interrupted, raising her hand from the water. “Found it. Reverse scale’s at your left tail.”

The demon’s right cheek twitched faintly—its reverse scale’s hiding spot.

It hadn’t shed it, as it boasted. Even true dragons have reverse scales; a cowardly fish demon couldn’t lack one.

It had grown a second layer of scales to conceal it, unfindable from the outside.

“Interesting,” it laughed, whipping its tattered tail. “Try it!”

It planned their demise: the youngest, tender, for swallowing alive after screams; the old one, dried and torn; the sword-wielder, fattened for later.

As it fantasized, a sharp pain pierced its right cheek.

It screamed, thrashing in the water.

“No! No!”

Its reverse scale—struck by peachwood!

Who? It had watched the three—who struck?

The pain was unbearable, unlike anything it had felt.

A peachwood spike had pierced its reverse scale, its body deflating like a punctured balloon, centuries of cultivation and willpower flooding out.

A fourth person, hidden, had struck—Su Qing, who now fled after her hit.

Their plan was set: Tian Ning, Qiu Yange, and Zhang Wenhui drew its attention while Su Qing lurked underwater, seeking the reverse scale for a fatal blow.

Since fifty years ago, the scale’s location had changed. Su Qing relayed intelligence from below, with Tian Ning passing it to the others, pinpointing it through their attacks and the demon’s reactions.

She found it. She struck it.

Driven to collapse, the demon roared, “You won’t escape! You’ll die with me!”
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The cave shook, rocks falling, splashing the water.

Pale hands emerged, covering Su Qing’s mouth and nose, pulling her hair, arms, and legs, dragging her toward the pierced scale, where hundreds of hands sought to pull her into the wound to fill it.

Tian Ning slashed at the demon. Qiu Yange rammed the boat’s peachwood prow into its wound, scorching a black mark.

The demon howled but persisted, determined to take them down.

Su Qing’s lungs burned, bubbles escaping. Suffocation gripped her.

Underwater, she drew another spike, stabbing the hands.

A golden glow erupted from her chest, thousands of light points scattering. The hands touching them turned to ash.

A faded paper figure emerged—her creation from the festival, made with Zhang Wenhui’s song.

It triggered the demon’s scales to bulge and burst, golden willpower flooding toward the figure.

All its hard-earned willpower abandoned it, claimed by another.

“No! Give it back!” it wailed. “I’m the island’s god! I blessed their prosperity, their parent!”

Amid the chaos, Su Qing grabbed the spike in the reverse scale, eyes closed, pouring all her spiritual energy into it.

*Grow!*

The peachwood spike, made from the revived branch, sprouted under her wood energy, lengthening into a branch. Rooting in the demon’s flesh, it drank its blood and energy, sprouting new buds. A small tree formed.

Leaves unfurled, branches thickened, growing taller, bursting through its skin.

As Su Qing surfaced, gasping, pink petals fell like snow, catching in her hair and shoulders.

A petal slid from her eyelash to her cheek. She plucked it, feeling its resilience.

Amazed, she thought: *The peach tree bloomed!*

Its branches were laden with soft, vibrant blossoms, like dawn’s glow.

“So this is a peach blossom…” Qiu Yange, seeing them for the first time, stammered, “So… so beautiful.”

In this dark, sealed cave, a vibrant tree and its endless flowers were breathtaking.

The demon, pinned by the tree’s roots, was reduced to a flattened husk. Its gluttony had kept it robust, leaving it a faint breath.

“How… did you… hide?” it gasped, unwilling to die. “This… is my lair…”

“No obligation to answer,” Su Qing said, driving another spike into it, pinning it to the tree. Only when its breath fully ceased did she relax slightly.

Her concealment was simple: a breath-concealing technique from Ju Wang, bolstered by the others’ distraction, and half a year of stealth training under a jellyfish mentor on Pure Water Island.

It worked well.

System: * Today’s date and time is 11:04 PM IST on Wednesday, October 01, 2025.