Chapter 196: Demonic Artifact

"Hah... Hah, this should be far enough..." Breathing out loudly, Old Ji informed his two companions as the group of three all came to a stop.

By this point, they had already been running for close to one hour and all of them were exhausted to the point of almost collapsing.

After all, they had just used their ultimate moves earlier and exhausted most of their qi in the process...

The old lady was the worst off, as she immediately sat down the moment Old Ji called for a break and began trying to stabilize the injuries that she had received from clashing with the former bandit leader before he transformed into a demonic cultivator.

"Old Ji... Do you think Lord Bright Sword will be able to win...?" Seeing that the old lady had sat down to stabilize her injuries and recover, the young lady from the Flowing Cloud Sect anxiously walked up to him and asked with a worried look in her eyes.

"Haha, you don't need to worry! I have seen Lord... Bright Sword... Fight before and dealing with that demonic cultivator should not be a problem at all!" Laughing confidently, Old Ji tried his best to ensure the young lady as she seemed to calm down after hearing him speak.

"That's good... Hopefully, we will be able to thank him personally in the future!"

"Yes... Hopefully we will..." Muttering this quietly to himself, Old Ji looked behind them in the direction of the fight and sent his sincere hope that Xuan Hao would win.

...

"Hah... H-how come you can fly as well!? Is that sort a flying artifact of some sort? Why?! Why can you fly as well while not being at the Domain Lord Realm!?" Floating in the air on top of his sword, Xuan Hao looked over at the demonic cultivator as he angrily screamed at him while trying his best to quickly stabilize his breathing.

Xuan Hao had already exhausted him way beyond what he could take, and his demonic artifact had even started breaking down under the constant barrage of sword attacks by Xuan Hao.

This just spoke of how strong Xuan Hao currently was as it should have originally been a pseudo mystic rank demonic artifact. Breaking something like that would be hard for anyone below the Domain Lord Realm and Xuan Hao did not end up too exhausted after bringing it to the point that it was already about to break at the slightest touch.

"What did you expect? That only you could fly?" Answering the demonic cultivator, Xuan Hao rolled his eyes at the childish question of the demonic cultivator.

Did he expect that he would be the only one able to fly below the Domain Lord Realm just because he became a demonic cultivator?

"Y-you!" Pointing angrily towards Xuan Hao with one of his claws, the demonic cultivator did not know what to say, as it was indeed true...

The demonic cultivator had also heard about several different flying artifacts from his travels through different kingdoms and had already convinced himself that the flying sword beneath Xuan Hao was one such artifact.

This misunderstanding did not really bother Xuan Hao much, as he had already viewed the demonic cultivator as a dead person... Whether he knew about it being his sword intent or a flying artifact did not really matter to him.

Boom!

"Wha-!"

As Xuan Hao was observing the demonic cultivator begin to throw a tantrum, a large explosion suddenly erupted from the demonic artifact in the demonic cultivator's right hand as the black flame suddenly engulfed him completely before he even managed to react.

Following this, Xuan Hao watched as the black flame transformed into the shape of a small crow that quickly flew into the distance at a speed way faster than what Xuan Hao could currently muster.

"What in the world..." Xuan Hao did not manage to react much to the situation as he looked over to see that the body on the demonic cultivator and all the things on his person had already been completely burned up by the black flame before it took the form of a small crow and flew away.

"The demonic artifact managed to gain sentience...?" Thinking about it, Xuan Hao could not think of any other reason for the demonic artifact to suddenly erupt and kill the demonic cultivator before turning into a crow and fly away.

Maybe it had gained sentience for some time and just waited for the demonic cultivator to be weak enough before breaking free and escaping...?

"You wouldn't run away...? Right?"

Thinking about this, Xuan Hao looked down at the sword in his hand and asked in a teasing tone.

There was a difference between a demonic artifact and a normal artifact that had gained sentience. Most of the time, demonic artifacts would try to kill their master and escape to cultivate by themselves.

This way, the artifact would be able to walk on the path of cultivation by itself after it managed to create a humanoid body.

Normal artifacts on the other hand, would grow along with their master as they might be able to take on a physical body by themselves without needing to spend any time cultivating one after they become strong enough.

Xuan Hao was not really clear about what would happen after this or how accurate it was, as most of the things recorded in the Flying Sword Sect did not mention much about sentient artifacts outside of that...

"Well... What to do now? Should I go and find that Skinling guy or was it Old Ji now?" With the demonic cultivator dead, Xuan Hao did not really have to stay around for any longer as he thought about catching up with the former elder Skinling now going by Old Ji from the Flowing Cloud Sect.

But he quickly threw this idea away.

Meeting up with the people he had saved earlier did not really seem like a good idea and he should just leave that Old Ji alone and let him do his own thing without interfering.

After all, it seemed like he was doing well after leaving the Black Rose Sect for only a few months... Maybe he would give him a few more surprises the next time both of them met?

"Hehe, seems like I will have to keep an eye out for the Flowing Cloud Sect in the future!" Chuckling to himself as he thought about this, Xuan Hao soon disappeared from the battlefield where the demonic cultivator had perished.