Chapter 126: A Reunion of Three
In the undersea world beneath Joine Island, Xu Qing felt immense pain with every move he made. The wounds on his arms, legs, and belly kept ripping open and bleeding. What was left of his tattered daoist robe was soaked with blood.
Though he had spirit power defenses around him, preventing the sea water from reaching his wounds, he still felt wracked with pain. He had been injured so badly that not even the violet crystal had the ability to heal him in a short time.
Black mist seethed around him. Xu Qing wasn’t worried about the mutagen it contained, but he was worried about the intense zombie poison within it. Given his current state, if he got infected with zombie poison, the power of the violet crystal wouldn’t be able to neutralize it. He also saw corpses within the black clouds getting back to their feet. Howling like beasts, they began to run amok.
One thing was for sure: if that black mist reached him, he would be in a deadly crisis. He had to get away quickly. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he picked up speed.
He had no options other than to endure the pain. In fact, he even used a flight talisman as he sped toward the exit. It wasn’t just his fleshly body that had taken damage. His spirit power was almost completely drained. Given he was in such dangerous circumstances, he needed to conserve what little spirit power he had left in case he got into a fight. Thus, he resorted to using a flight talisman rather than tap into his cultivation base.
Enough time passed for an incense stick to burn, whereupon he emerged from the temple complex. Looking around, he saw that the black mist was everywhere. It filled the temples and coral buildings. Everything was being consumed by it. There hadn’t been many living people in this area to begin with, and now there were none at all. There were only the howling zombies.
Xu Qing’s expression was grim as he realized that the black clouds seemed to be coming from the sea floor, which meant he couldn’t escape in that direction. Having no other choice, he started speeding along on the ground.
Unfortunately, the exit was just too far away. After proceeding for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, the clouds were building up to the point where he couldn’t avoid them. As soon as they enveloped him, his spirit power defenses started corroding. What was more, he was now having a hard time seeing things clearly.
The howls of the zombies grew louder and more distinct.
Eyes flashing with killing intent, he waved his right hand, and his iron skewer shot out toward one of the zombies.
This zombie looked different from the Seazombies. It was a Seven Blood Eyes disciple who had been killed. Now, he was pitch black, both his skin and his eyes. And even after Xu Qing’s iron skewer slashed through his throat, and his head fell to the ground, he still reached out toward Xu Qing with claw-like hands.
Xu Qing’s left hand flashed in an incantation gesture, and a screen of water spread out, then shoved the zombie back by about thirty meters.
Xu Qing didn’t waste time on further fighting. There were more howls coming closer. Eyes filled with determination, he performed an incantation gesture with his left hand, causing countless water droplets around him to form into a snakeneck dragon.
After appearing, the snakeneck dragon quickly grew to 300 meters, wrapped around Xu Qing, then howled as it carried him forward. As they moved, the snakeneck dragon would slap aside any zombies that got in their way.
This was Xu Qing’s final trump card. If the snakeneck dragon were to be destroyed, then it would be a big challenge escaping. Thankfully, the snakeneck dragon was capable of astonishing levels of speed, and was strong enough to barrel through any resistance. The corroding effect of the black clouds ate away at it, causing it to shrink, but Xu Qing had stored up a lot of spirit power in it. As a result, the snakeneck dragon kept Xu Qing moving through the clouds, getting closer and closer to the exit.
Along the way, he saw a few Seven Blood Eyes disciples, struggling to fight their way to freedom. None of them paid any attention to him. However, as he got closer to the exit, he also got closer to areas where the fighting had been fierce, and a lot of cultivators had been killed. Therefore, the howling of the zombies grew more intense.
The Seven Blood Eyes disciples who had made it this far were going to have a tough time dealing with the sea of zombies. Grim-faced, Xu Qing performed a double-handed incantation gesture, then threw his hands out.
The snakeneck dragon shrank down, withering as its spirit power flowed into Xu Qing, restoring some of his lost reserves.
Unfortunately, that resulted in him losing the snakeneck dragon.
There was no other option. By the time the snakeneck dragon disappeared, his spirit power reserves had been restored by about half. He was still badly wounded, but at least his battle prowess was restored to an extent. Performing an incantation gesture, he caused water droplets to circulate around him, and then he charged forward, leaping directly over the sea of zombies. When the occasional zombie tried to intercept him, he would sacrifice some of his water droplets to encase them in water and prevent them from reaching him.
As he moved along, and as he trapped one zombie after another, he eventually caught sight of the exit. However, that was also when he suddenly looked to the side to see a figure rushing in his direction. As this person ran, they tossed out random traps that would instantly explode. And on his back was another person, who was calling out in a familiar voice.
“Go, go, go, Zhang San! Right! Throw them like that and blow them up! Aiyo, you threw that one in the wrong direction. You should have thrown it that way!” The person running was Zhang San, and the person yelling was the Captain.
Zhang San gasped for breath as he sprinted. On his back, the Captain was laughing as if he wasn’t worried at all about their current circumstances.
“Shut up!” Zhang San yelled.
“Huh? Zhang San, how could you use such a tone on someone that used to be your captain!” Taking out an apple, he took a bite.
“If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll throw you down and you can run the rest of the way on your own!”
“Go, Zhang San, go!”
An odd expression appeared on Xu Qing’s face as he watched Zhang San running toward him with the Captain on his back. Seeing that the Captain was missing his lower half, he once again was struck by how crazy the Captain was. When Zhang San finally saw Xu Qing, his eyes went wide. Sending his thread whipping out, he used it to grab onto Xu Qing and then pull himself toward him.
Then the Captain noticed Xu Qing’s wounds, and his tattered daoist robe, and his eyes went wide.
“Yo! Deputy Captain Xu! Look at the state you’re in. You must have accomplished something amazing. You look drained! Don’t tell me you found the sleeping chamber of the mermaid princess, and she wore you out?”
Meanwhile, Xu Qing looked at the Captain’s missing lower half and calmly asked, “Will it grow back?”
“I’m not worried about it,” the Captain said proudly. “I’ll be shipshape in no time once we get back.”
“Alright,” Xu Qing said coolly. “I’ll give you a feather when we’re back at the sect.”
“Feather? Why would you give me a feather?” The Captain looked completely confused. [1]
“My god, now’s not the time for chatting!” Zhang San snapped. “We need to get out of here!”
As far as Zhang San was concerned, both Xu Qing and the Captain were freaks. After all, who else would sit around chatting in such dangerous circumstances?
Looking away from the Captain and his damaged body, Xu Qing started moving again. Zhang San used his thread to borrow momentum from Xu Qing. And thus, the two-and-a-half of them rushed into the exit and then disappeared.
Not long after they left, the black clouds inundated the entire area.
Although the entire underwater world had been filled with the clouds, things weren’t over yet. Soon, the clouds started seeping onto the surface of the islands as well, moving through the tunnels and various other passages. The poison Xu Qing had laced the water with had mostly dissipated already, though he wasn’t sure if it was naturally or by some other means. After moving through the tunnel for the time it takes half an incense stick to burn, he broke the surface of the water and flew out into the open with the power of the flight talisman.
Zhang San was right behind him, also moving with a flight talisman. Meanwhile, the Captain was talking nonstop.
“What did you mean about the feather, Xu Qing?” he asked.
Xu Qing didn’t respond.
“Deputy Captain Xu, don’t forget you owe me 8,000 spirit stones! Now tell me what you mean about the feather!”
Ignoring him, Xu Qing looked around at the outside world, felt wind on his face, and suddenly looked surprised. Zhang San reacted in the same way.
They were surrounded by chaos and whipping winds. Black clouds were rising up everywhere, creating huge pillars that looked like dragons, connected to the spell formation above. There were eight such pillars in total, two per island.
Countless streams of black mist on the ground fed into the eight pillars. And as Xu Qing, Zhang San, and the Captain watched, the pillar nearest them began to transform.
Started at the very top, it split into multiple parts, with each part coming to resemble the head of a snake. In total, there were nine heads, and after they formed, they let loose howls that caused the earth to quake.
The howls caused boundless mutagen and zombie poison to emerge from the ground. Meanwhile, the howling of the serpents grew more intense, as if it might be able to pierce through the Seven Blood Eyes formation. In fact, it seemed to be climbing toward the Gold Core level.
The scene caused Xu Qing’s mind to spin as he realized he recognized this huge snake. It was the same snake that had been wrapped around the giant in the mural.
The other seven pillars were undergoing the same transformation, and as they howled, the mutagen in the Merfolk Isles grew vastly more intense.
Merfolk and Seven Blood Eyes disciples alike all began to corrode under its strength. At the same time, countless corpses opened their eyes as they were resurrected.
1. I had to read the reader comments in Chinese to figure out what this joke was about. Apparently, even many Chinese readers didn’t get it. There were two main theories I noticed being most common. The first was that the feather reference had something to do with the feathered tents in the scavenger basecamp. The second, and more likely theory was… well first, WARNING: it’s a bit graphic. Basically, in ancient China, when court eunuchs were castrated, they would insert a feather quill into the urethra to prevent it from getting blocked as the wound healed. So when Xu Qing asked “will it grow back” …. anyway…. ☜