Chapter 663: Chapter 11: The Curious Monster Maiden

"Why is it another fox..."

Gu Mo raised an eyebrow. Do I have a special connection with foxes?

With a single glance, he counted the number of tails behind the fox demon maiden. Though he felt a brief chill in his heart, he quickly calmed down. Despite the fox demon maiden’s pure and high-level demon qi, which gave off an incredibly strong aura far surpassing his own current strength,

it was not to the level of madness...

It shouldn’t be on the level of Miss Tamamo no Mae. When four tails start to change, five tails are equivalent to a Beast juvenile...

With these thoughts flashing through his mind like lightning, Gu Mo relaxed a bit, carefully observing the fox demon maiden who had been unexpectedly pulled out by him, knocking over a pile of things and landing on the ground in a chaotic mess, looking somewhat bewildered.

Seems like she’s not the main figure?

This behavior appears too sudden, as if she hasn’t fully processed what’s happening, completely unprepared for such an event. She must have been in a relaxed state when suddenly pulled over. If it were the main figure, this wouldn’t have happened.

In fact, it is true; the fox demon maiden still seemed somewhat dazed.

She had never imagined encountering such an ordeal. Her home was built on the boundary line, separated from the outside world. Without a gap connection, it would be like belonging to an entirely different dimension, impervious to outside interference.

She was simply doing chores at home, maintaining the place peacefully, never expecting someone to suddenly grab her tail and yank her out!

Initially, the fox demon maiden thought it was Lord Zi playing a prank by grabbing her tail from behind, so she wasn’t very guarded. With everything happening so quickly and suddenly, she naturally felt perplexed.

"You...!! Let go of Lan! This has nothing to do with her!"

At this moment, an irritated voice came from the air.

Gu Mo glanced with the corner of his eye to find an inexplicable power had torn a rift in space at some point. Inside the rift was pure blackness, as if it could swallow light and sight.

Yet it wasn’t complete darkness; there were dark red stars dotted within. Upon closer inspection, one would realize they were actually dark red eyes. These countless eerie eyes filled the rift, staring at the outside, giving one an involuntary shiver.

It felt as if sanity was slipping... Gu Mo twitched his lips.

But fortunately, no terrifying tentacles or indescribable madness emerged from the rift. Instead, it was somewhat pleasing—

Another demon maiden emerged from within.

She had long golden hair, a delicate face, and a graceful figure. Her purple eyes focused intensely here, filled with annoyance and vigilance, yet underneath there was a hint of urgency and anxiety. Without the demonized characteristics, if not for the faint pure demon qi, she would be hard to identify as a demon.

Looks like she is the main figure...

Gu Mo thoughtfully examined this demon, his gaze wandering on the severed space behind her, pondering what kind of power maintained the rift. It wasn’t just a simple spatial fault; it seemed to be a conceptual break. It was his first time seeing such a phenomenon.

With his extraordinary keen intuition, he sensed this was a very dangerous ability.

"Zi... Lord Zi...!"

The fox demon maiden, just having stood up, finally came to her senses. Seeing Lord Zi like this, she reacted quickly, retreating alertly to the latter’s side, lightly biting her lower lip, and watching the pondering young man as if facing a great enemy.

Gu Mo made no move to stop her retreat.

This is also a great demon, and although taken by surprise, with his current state, it’s hard to suppress her directly. Besides, there were more than one of them, so showing some strength was enough to make them wary.

The punch not thrown is the most threatening.

Retreating safely to the rift’s side and standing together with the golden-haired demon maiden, the fox demon maiden finally breathed a sigh of relief. She continued to watch the contemplative robed young man across from her, a series of thoughts flashing through her mind—

Is he an enemy?

When did Lord Zi provoke him?

Was it when she went out to fight the Flower Tyrant?

And the demon maiden beside her, seeing Lan Anran safely by her side, no unexpected events, also relaxed. She was genuinely nervous earlier, not expecting the other side to just yank Lan over, fearing something might happen.

To be honest, even the demon maiden herself didn’t anticipate such an outcome.

In the confrontation of attacking and defending against the strange power on the opposite side, she could only manage to prevent them from accurately locking onto her in a hurry, unable to fully manipulate the opponent’s power direction. She could only disrupt their ability, making it deviate from its original course.

However, she couldn’t control this deviation precisely, making it bend at her will...

So, during the chaos, there was a coordinate shift. While she remained safe and avoided it, the opponent happened to pull Lan out.

This was indeed a mishap like a blind cat catching a dead rat...

After all, the space within the gap isn’t exactly small, yet ending up coincidentally encountering the only other target besides her is entirely a low-probability event.

Of course, another significant reason is that Lan was completely unaware of this. As she was doing housework outside, she was naturally unguarded, and instinctively thought it was some prank by Lord Zi due to boredom, so she didn’t immediately counteract with her own power.

"Lan, are you alright..." The golden-haired monster maiden carefully scrutinized Lan. After confirming that there really was no issue, she finally let out a sigh of relief. She had no friends or relatives, only Lan was the most important to her, so earlier she inevitably felt a bit flustered.

Now relieved, she finally exhaled, turned her gaze, and looked at the calm-faced young man opposite her.

"..."

"..."

The scene suddenly fell silent.

Gu Mo leisurely collected his thoughts and calmly asked, "Who are you..."

Eh?

The fox demon maiden named Lan was slightly taken aback. Why such an opening line? Could it be that both of them actually didn’t know each other? But if that were the case, how could a conflict occur, one that directly affected the mansion within the gap...

Just as she momentarily dispersed her imagination, whirling through countless thoughts—

"Why were you spying on me just now?" The young man in moon-white Daoist robe across was calmly and blandly continuing to ask.

So that’s what this is about...

The fox demon maiden’s expression immediately turned somewhat subtle, looking at her master with a strange gaze. It turns out her master was the one who initiated the trouble.

"Hmm..."

The intuition of the monster maiden beside her, however, was evasive. Being so plainly pointed out that she was spying, her fair cheeks inevitably flushed with a faint blush, while she guiltily looked toward an empty direction beside her, after all, it was her first time being caught red-handed by the person involved.

In such a situation, even she found it difficult to pretend that nothing had happened.

The air didn’t freeze, the atmosphere wasn’t heavy, and there was no oppressive tension...none of that was present.

It was just a bit awkward.

Other than that, there wasn’t a sense of hostility between the two sides, just like she hadn’t harbored malice from the beginning, and the other party didn’t stop Lan from returning, so under each side’s restraint, the situation never escalated to a serious tension.

"I am Yakumo Zi, and she is Lan, my Shikigami..."

The monster maiden steadied herself, trying to defend her actions: "I didn’t do it on purpose, nor did I want to harm you. I usually observe the outside world through the windows, and I happened to see the situation outside today by chance..."

"Uh, at most, I was a little curious about you, so I watched for a while. Before today, I didn’t even know you existed..."

Perhaps because her skin was still quite thin, this monster maiden seriously started explaining. After all, on her part, she was more at fault. Moreover, the other side didn’t make an issue of Lan, so naturally, she couldn’t assert herself arrogantly.

At the same time, she clarified a problem, showing she harbored no ill will and wasn’t targeting him out of malice.

That’s a very important point.

She wasn’t like that Flower Demon, incredibly irritable, always needing to find an excuse to fight even when things could be discussed nicely.

"Isn’t this still spying? At most, it’s a spur-of-the-moment decision..." Gu Mo raised an eyebrow again, "But is there something about me that piques your curiosity?"

"Something that piques curiosity..."

The golden-haired monster maiden stayed silent for a moment, looked him up and down for a bit, before answering the question with a peculiarly odd tone—

"Isn’t it everywhere?"

This person, doesn’t he have any self-awareness at all? Doesn’t he think that his style seems out-of-place with the whole world? From his attire, to his crafted devices, even to the techniques he uses, everything seems particularly strange, as if he hails from another world.

It was precisely because of this that she felt curious and somewhat interested—

Originally, this monster maiden was just idly lying by the window, watching the transformation of the external environment, wanting to see what changes the world had undergone since she last woke up.

The scene outside the window shifted, and shifted, until she saw in the distance a huge steel giant towering by the lakeside, which caught her attention. At the time, she thought it was some gigantic demon, like a Grand Master.

But later she realized it wasn’t, and also discovered two powerful gods conversing over there, so she didn’t rashly close in with her perspective.

Only after that meeting ended did she spontaneously decide to observe Gu Mo, who left alone and returned into the deep mountains.

After all, through her observations, the peculiarities of this man were what most caught her eye.