Just a mediocre talent.

The demon threw him away with just a wave of the hand and Jie Fu Lian spit out a mouthful of blood.

"HAHAHA..." The demon laughed as he saw Jie Fu Lian gritting his teeth and glaring at him with hatred, "Boy, did you really think you can kill me?"

Jie Fu Lian didn't answer that question, instead, he sent his sword out forward to strike the demon.

The demon stepped aside and avoided the sword with ease but the sword was quick to change direction and got ready to stab the back of the demon's head.

However, the demon was also quick.

Changbo returned back to Jie Fu Lian who had already pushed himself off the ground.

His heartbeat started to calm down and for some reason, all he could see was red.

He staggard a step forward before he fell again, but he didn't give up. He pushed himself up and stood once again.

The demon was a bit startled to see the boy and couldn't hide his amused reaction.

"Boy, how old are you?" The demon asked but his question got no answer.

Jie Fu Lian threw his sword forward, seeming to aim at the demon's neck but the demon held out two fingers in front of him and tried to stop the sword.

However, when the sword came close to his fingers, his face twisted in anger and he stepped aside, avoiding the blade of the sword.

The demon looked down at the burnt tip of his fingers with a bit of shock and didn't seem to have understood what had happened.

The sword missed the demon but that was something Jie Fu Lian had already calculated.

In the first place itself, he wasn't aiming at the demon, he was aiming at the tree that stood behind the demon and he had been successful at chopping it down.

The demon had been caught by surprise and although Jie Fu Lian didn't understand why, he was still glad to see that his plan had worked.

The tree fell down and before the demon could avoid it, he was crushed under its weight.

Jie Fu Lian almost sighed in relief, but before he could rejoice, he saw the huge tree being lifted with just a single hand.

"Hahaha... Boy, I must say that I'm surprised," The demon laughed as he threw the tree aside, "You're not strong nor do you have some heavenly spiritual root. You are almost at the Core formation realm and yet, you haven't found your dao. If you keep practicing what you have been taught then there is no doubt that you would remain mediocre and would never attain anything significant in your life."

Jie Fu Lian gritted his teeth as he heard this but instead of paying attention to the demon's words, he started thinking about his next course of action.

"But I'll have to admit that I'm intrigued by you," The demon added with a small smile that looked a bit too sinister, "Although your mind is pure, your eyes have the darkness of the entire night sky trapped within. You have darkness within you. Darkness that I have never seen before."

Jie Fu Lian pursed his lips together and started running around the demon in a circle. He made sure to keep at least twenty metres of distance between them and made it seem as if running was all he did.

"Boy, tell me. What is that darkness that I sense? Is it a heart demon? Is it hatred? Is it weakness? Or is it fear?"

Jie Fu Lian pulled his hands back and all the trees around were cut down in an instant.

The demon's words were cut short as he was once again crushed under the weight of trees. This time, there were at least twenty trees pushing him down so Jie Fu Lian was sure that it would take some time for the demon to come out this time.

He had used the wind string art of the Yan sect. It was a technique that his father was proficient in but also a technique that Jie Fu Lian had never bothered to master.

He knew the basics and it just so happened that the basics were enough to cut down all the trees without letting the demon notice his movements.

"Hahahahahaha...." The wicked laughter of the demon seemed to be growing louder and louder but Jie Fu Lian no longer feared him.

"Boy, do you really think you can beat me?" The demon's confident words came first and with just a single move, all the trees were pushed aside.

Jie Fu Lian gulped as he silently looked around.

"That darkness within you... It would be really delicious, don't you think?" The demon suddenly grinned, showing off his yellow pointy teeth that would make one's skin crawl. The sides of his lips almost looked to be touching his ear and his eyes turned red as he looked at Jie Fu Lian with the full intention of devouring the youth.

"It might be delicious," Jie Fu Lian finally spoke up and since he hadn't said anything for a while now, the demon actually waited to listen to what the boy had to say, "But I'm afraid you won't be able to taste it."

"Really? And why is that?"

"Because I don't plan on dying today," Jie Fu Lian clenched his jaw and pulled at the wind string that he had secretly laid out.

The demon thought that he would be able to beat this boy in a heartbeat without needing to put in any effort and hence, he had been playing around till now, not bothering to put up his guard.

At the end of the day, why would a high-ranking demon fear a boy who was already running out of spiritual energy?

The demon was confident that he would win and that confidence was the reason why he had been beaten today.

As soon as Jie Fu Lian pulled the thin wind string, the demon felt a sharp pain and in a split second, his entire body was chopped up into bits that were not bigger than a pebble.

There was a limit to how much a demon could regenerate and this was clearly crossing that limit.

If the demon had been a little more observant and on guard, he would have probably realized the trick and avoided it.

When Jie Fu Lian had run around the demon in circles, he hadn't just laid out the string to cut down the trees, he had also laid out another trap that would chop the demon into bits when triggered.

The demon died without even knowing what had caused his death.

Jie Fu Lian had won.

He had survived.

There was a flash of relief that could be seen on his face, but he was too far exhausted to celebrate his victory.

Small black dots slowly started filling up his vision and before he knew it, he had already passed out.

His body fell limply onto the ground and his sword, Changbo, also stopped letting out a soft glow.

Jie Fu Lian had saved both his and his father's life, but at the end of the day, the east gate of the demon realm had not been closed and both Jie Fu Lian and his father had passed out, leaving their bodies completely vulnerable to any further demons that would crawl out of that cursed gate.

A week passed after that incident and Jie Fu Lian finally opened his eyes only to realize that he was already back at the Yan sect.

At first, he couldn't quite recall what had happened but upon thinking about it for a bit, the memory started returning to him slowly.

At first, he was ecstatic to realize that he had won against a high-ranking demon and then he became equally worried about not being able to close the east gate of the demon realm. A few more seconds passed and his worry turned into confusion as he wondered how he had come back here.

"You're awake?" The sweet voice of a female came.

When Jie Fu Lian lifted his head to look, it was his senior martial sister Yin Ru who had spoken.

"Senior Sister Yin, what happened? Where's father? What about the east gate?" He immediately bombarded her with questions.

"Instead of worrying about others, worry about yourself first," Yin Ru sighed as she rubbed her forehead before continuing, "Your father is alright. The east gate was also closed. There wasn't much damage. Only you..."

She paused and looked at the boy with her eyebrows creased together in worry as she added, "Jie Ming, you almost died."

Jie Fu Lian gulped as he heard this but that was it. He didn't feel really shocked to hear these words nor did he care about them much.

"Who closed the east gate?" The boy asked with a serious expression, seeming to care more about that then his own life.

Yin Ru sighed and shook her head as she saw this reaction. She was disappointed to know that this boy wouldn't hesitate to throw away his own life for the sake of others, but at the same time, she couldn't scold him for it either.

"It was Hua Tianshu and his sister, Hua Meifang."