Chapter 96 96: Swamp Diving



After asking his question Yoze looked at the Leopard demon ready to read its expressions. The holes through its body and the fist-size hole created an odd situation for Yoze to read its facial expressions but he tried to make do.

"..." The Leopard demon seemed to Yoze to have been caught off guard by his question.

The friendly and relaxed expression on its face slowly vanished as it stared at Yoze. It even stopped twirling its tail and took a more defensive posture. Even though Yoze couldn't read the Leopard demon's mind he had a feeling that the temporary peace that they had with each other was broken.

"There is only me, I'm the sole surveyor." After a few seconds of silence, the Leopard demon's attitude shifted toward being more confident as if to project power.

"The leopard demon is lying," With the Leopard demon's long pause and shift in attitude Yoze could tell that the Leopard demon was lying. 

"Why would it lie?" Surprised by the Leopard demon's swift shift in attitude Yoze's mind raced as he tried to figure out what benefits the Leopard demon would receive from telling lies.

"Does it want to increase its importance?"

The first reason Yoze thought of was that the Leopard demon wanted to increase his prestige and level of importance within the demon union. As the sole demon that the union relied on to prepare the Grand Swamp, it could create the impression that the Leopard demon could do so and had strong connections with the demon union.

If that was the case in a normal situation that could work to give the Leopard demon some protection from stronger demons. 

"Or it doesn't want other demons to be involved,"

The other possibility that Yoze thought of implied that the demon union wasn't as unified as he initially thought they were. With the clear understanding that the Leopard demon didn't trust him and still held a cautious attitude Yoze felt that it was because of the Leopard demon's caution that it didn't want other demons involved.

The introduction of additional demons threatens the image of the importance that the Leopard demon wanted to create and implant in Yoze's mind. With the Leopard demon's connection with the demon union seeming less important, it could increase the likelihood that he would attack.

The Leopard demon might even think that Yoze seeing these other demons could cause him to seek out these demons instead to join the demon union. In an extreme case, Yoze and the other demons could join hands to attack the Leopard demon together.

" Senior demon, I'll take my leave." After lying to Yoze about being alone the Leopard demon tried to retreat sensing that the situation wasn't going in the direction it wanted.

"Wait, I want to ask you one more question." Seeing that the Leopard demon wanted to leave, Yoze called out to stop it.

The Leopard demon stopped trying to escape and stared at Yoze with caution trying to see through his intentions 

"I don't trust you and you don't trust me so how do I know that you are leaving or trying to set up another ambush." Yoze continued after seeing that he grabbed the Leopard demon's attention.

"How about you deactivate your spiritual armor? I am not wearing mine so why don't you deactivate yours so I can be sure that you won't attack me the moment I lower my guard." Yoze truly meant what he asked as he wasn't sure about the Leopard demon's true intentions.

After witnessing that the Leopard demon had a talent known as swamp diving and prior was inside the earth waiting to ambush anyone who went near it. Yoze was highly suspicious of whether he could trust that the Leopard demon wasn't going to follow him and sneak attack him later on.

The Leopard demon deactivating its spiritual armor was a strong sign to him that he could at least trust that it didn't want to fight. 

"Senior demon, you are making this difficult for me." The Leopard demon's eyes flashed with a deep brown light as it lowered its body to the ground.

"Haven't you already made things difficult for me when you decided to attack me? I am just asking for you to be considerate." Yoze suspicion of the Leopard demon rose seeing it lower its body closer to the ground.

"..." A brief silence engulfed the Grand Swamp as the Leopard demon and Yoze stared at each other with suspicion before the silence was broken by the Leopard demon.

"It seems that you have made up your mind to kill me, in that case, don't blame me for not holding back." The Leopard demon's spiritual armor darkened as more brown spiritual energy surged out of the Leopard demon's body. 

"Roar!!" The Leopard demon then let out a deep roar that created a shock wave of the Leopard demon's spiritual energy surging toward Yoze and Jewel.

As soon as Yoze notices that the Leopard demon wasn't going to continue playing their game, he began his retreat to get Jewel to safety. As soon as Yoze jumped up the Leopard demon let out its terrifying spiritual energy attack and it had to cross a large distance to catch up to them.

However, the attack was too fast to cross the distance that Yoze had created between them in a mere few seconds. As soon as the Leopard demon's demon's spiritual energy was about to touch Yoze and Jewel, Yoze created a spiritual claw out of the Serpent demon's oppressive and sharp spiritual energy with his spare hand and slashed at the wave.

Yoze's spiritual energy claw tore the Leopard demon's spiritual energy wave and devoured the majority of it, turning it into more fuel to grow his spiritual energy pool. However, he wasn't able to devour all of it and some of the spiritual energy collided with Yoze and Jewel.

The remaining spiritual energy that attacked Yoze made him feel like he was stuck inside quicksand which made his body feel sluggish and his mind slowed down. The more Yoze tried to escape from the Leopard demon's spiritual energy the more it seemed to slow him down.

Jewel wasn't spared from the splashes of the Leopard demon's spiritual energy and experienced a stronger effect due to her spiritual energy being exposed. She felt sick to her stomach as the feeling of having her mind slow to a crawl and being unable to move was unbearable. 

Luckily Yoze's internal spiritual energy arose from their slumber and began to eat at spiritual energy that touched Yoze and Jewel. It took less than a second for Yoze to recover from the Leopard demon's attack after his spiritual energy is the Leopard demon's spiritual energy.

Due to that, he was able to witness the Leopard demon's body sink into the ground as if it was water, completely disappearing without a trace. Similar to how Yoze wasn't able to sense the Leopard demon's spiritual energy until it attacked him, he found that he couldn't sense the Leopard demon's spiritual energy once it entered the ground.

Without Yoze having to think his Mindless Body went into overdrive as he jumped up into the air. Just as his feet left the ground Yoze saw 10 spikes made of spiritual energy phase through the ground and chase after his body. 

However, they stopped following his body after reaching a maximum height of 10 feet. An uneasy feeling surged through Yoze's heart when he saw that the 10 spikes made out of the Leopard demon's spiritual energy stopped chasing after him.

"What is it planning?" With his mind working on overdrive Yoze's mind raced as he tried to figure out what the Leopard demon was planning