Chapter 367: Heart of a Jackal or Fox
The young woman atop the centipede screamed shrilly. At her urging, the centipede writhed on the dirt wall, trying but failing to fling the paper money off of it. The paper money was coming from inside the centipede, spilling out and covering it. In fact, it was getting very close to the young woman.
The ghastly voices again spoke from the ghost faces on the paper money.
“Are you full?”
The voices were countless piercing cries all overlapping on each other.
The woman’s eyes glared malevolently at the paper money which she seemed helpless to do anything about. Then she sent her centipede body burrowing into the wall. As dirt sprayed everywhere, she vanished without a trace.
At the same time, the paper money on the faces of all the corpses flew up and flew toward that spot. The ghost faces laughed as the paper hit the wall and started digging in to chase the centipede. From the look of it, this place really was a big trap. But it hadn’t been laid for Xu Qing. Instead... it was laid for the bizarre centipede. Or perhaps the centipede had attracted the attention of the paper money, causing a shift in targets. Xu Qing had no way of knowing which was the case.
He looked at the spot where the centipede had disappeared, all the while staying fully on guard. Both the paper money and the centipede imparted a sense of extreme danger to him. It was something that had nothing to do with his cultivation base. Rather, that centipede seemed to have some sort of mysterious power that he could just innately sense.
It’s similar to that red moon.... I think my taboo poison core could probably kill that centipede, and maybe the violet moon too.
That said, he didn’t want to reveal his major secrets here. Keeping his guard up, he cautiously approached the corpses and took all the pillar fragments and bags of holding he could find. Continuing to move down the tunnel, he opened the bags of holding one by one to find more pillar fragments. In fact, there were over a hundred in total. Putting them all together in his own bag of holding, he continued downward.
At this depth, the noxious stench grew even more intense, and the singing became clearer. Both the frigid cold and the mutagen were more intense than ever. At the same time, he found more pillar fragments. He took every one he saw.
In that manner, time passed. An entire day went by.
During that time, Xu Qing spotted more corpses, most of them rotting so badly it was hard to tell if they were even trial participants. All of them were being slowly devoured by ravenous, ghostly figures. None of those corpses had bags of holding.
Xu Qing’s caution grew, to the point where he slowed down a bit as he descended. He encountered quite a few ghasts. He saw a giant made of mounds of raw flesh, with a huge opening on its belly that consumed and vomited dirt. He saw a plant growing out of the wall that looked like a giant eye, which stared at him. He also spotted dancers in stunning dresses that looked like immortal fairies. They floated out from the mud walls, twirling and spinning. At first, they seemed beautiful, but then he realized they had no faces.
Most ordinary people would be struck with fear so badly their legs would go weak and they would flee. The darkness, the claustrophobia, the stench, along with the ghasts and the singing, would cause one’s soul to tremble and one’s hair to stand on end.
Xu Qing wasn’t doing so badly. He had seen a lot of horror in his life, including things more terrifying than this.
As the second day slipped by, Xu Qing got deeper and deeper. He now had over two hundred pillar fragments, which was definitely quite a lot.
He was starting to wonder if he should stop going down, when all of a sudden, his shadow turned into a coffin of its own volition. All of its eyes were open, and it was staring at the nearby wall. At the same time, it sent urgent fluctuations to Xu Qing.
Xu Qing looked at the wall and sent the iron skewer flying out. The skewer shot forth and stabbed into the wall, excavating a large hole.
Eventually, a young woman on a centipede was revealed, gasping for breath. Her centipede body was now completely made of paper, and looked severely shriveled, as though its inner aspects had been sucked out, leaving only a husk behind. It was the same with the young woman’s human torso, from her eyes down. And her eyes looked empty, as though she were just waiting to pass away into nothing.
Xu Qing took a look, then turned to leave. Except, then he sensed pleading fluctuations from the shadow.
“You want to save her?” Xu Qing asked in amazement. It was his first time sensing any emotional fluctuations like this from the shadow.
“Aura... familiar.... Want....”
After thinking the matter over, Xu Qing nodded. “I can try. Worst case scenario, I fail, and she still dies.”
The coffin-form shadow shook back and forth. Xu Qing eyed it curiously, but had long since grown used to the way Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior had skewed the shadow’s communication ability.
He approached the centipede in the dirt wall.
The woman’s eyes shifted to him, and they rippled with recognition. However, everything beneath her eyes had turned to paper, and she couldn’t speak.
Xu Qing looked down at her, then tapped into his third heavenly palace. The power of taboo poison roiled out and seeped toward the centipede woman. In the blink of an eye, it invaded her form. Her eyes shone with terror. Meanwhile, the ghost faces on the pieces of paper that made up her body turned to glare at Xu Qing, then opened their mouths wide. However, instead of the ghastly voices that had previously come out, the only thing they did was scream in agony.
Xu Qing’s poison spread rapidly through the paper money, turning it black and causing it to melt. The process took some time, but eventually all the paper money was a sticky fluid that flowed down into the mud.
After the paper money was gone, Xu Qing’s poison started invading the centipede.
Everything beneath the young woman’s eyes rotted, and her eyes turned emptier. Then Xu Qing’s third heavenly palace vibrated, and all of the poison outside his body, including that in the centipede woman, swirled back into Xu Qing.
When it was over, the centipede woman shivered, then struggled to lift her head and look at Xu Qing. Finally, she turned and burrowed back into the wall.
Xu Qing didn’t pay any attention to her after that. Standing at the edge of the pit he’d just excavated, he decided that, in order to ensure he got into the top ten, he needed to find some more pillar fragments.
Hopping back into the tunnel, he started his descent again. Another half a day went by, during which time his search brought his total fragment count up to 243.
There was now only half a day left until the time limit was up. Xu Qing wasn’t interested in searching for more fragments, and was getting ready to leave. However, just as he picked up what he’d determined would be his last fragment, his pupils suddenly constricted. He had just spotted a living person. It was the first actual person he had encountered for over a day and a half.
It was the dao child of the Supreme Arbiter Immortal Society, Zhang Siyun!
He was further down in the tunnel. He had just barreled out of one of the cross-tunnels, all the while fighting with a ghast. They both moved with incredible speed, and the booms from the blows they exchanged were quickly absorbed by the mud, ensuring that the sound of their combat didn’t go very far.
The ghast was very tough and vicious. It was humanoid, but had no skin. Its entire body was wizened and cracked, like a corpse that had been burned to death. Yet it was very agile and fast. In fact, Zhang Siyun was having a hard time landing any meaningful blows.
Every time the ghast attacked, it would send black flames sweeping out in all directions. Based on its aura, Xu Qing could tell this was the most powerful thing he’d encountered in the tunnel.
It was at the six-palace level. Especially noteworthy was the fact that the black flames didn’t emanate heat, but rather, cold. It was netherflame, something that could severely harm souls.
Zhang Siyun’s expression was unsightly. He had been locked in combat with this immolated zombie ghast for a long time now. He had used secret magics to destroy it, only to find that it would reform moments later, seemingly unharmed. He had even used a soul-slaughtering trump card, only to find it useless. The ghast seemed undying and indestructible, and would occasionally release bizarre power that even he found terrifying.
Dammit. I’m so close! Why did this five elements zombie have to jump out all of a sudden? Don’t tell me that Sect Grandfather calculated wrong? Did something change down below?
Zhang Siyun’s expression was profoundly grim. The reason he had refused his Sect Grandfather’s suggestion to let him skip the recruitment event was that he specifically wanted to explore the ghast hollow. He had known from the beginning that the trial would happen here. And his Sect Grandfather had made it clear to him that the upper levels of the ghast hollow had an item that, if he could acquire it, would bring incredible good fortune. His Sect Grandfather had also explained all of the details about what was in the ghast hollow. Because of that, he had immediately come to this spot.
However, his path had been blocked by this ghast, and it was fighting so fiercely he couldn’t proceed. If he tried to simply get past it, it would suddenly reveal even more astonishing magics. He could tell that this terrifying zombie wasn’t anything that could be considered ordinary. In fact, he knew its origin.
“This isn’t going to work....” he murmured, his expression turning grimmer. As he tried to come up with a solution, he backed away, only to find that the zombie rushed right toward him.
His eyes glittered, and he was about to release another attack when he noticed Xu Qing, who had just arrived.
There was only about 600 meters between the two of them. Though the surroundings were dark, they could both see each other, and even caught each other’s eyes. Xu Qing’s eyebrows shot up. Looking into the depths of the tunnel beyond, he backed up a bit. He had no interest in getting involved in this fight, and instead decided to just leave.
“It’s you!” Zhang Siyun said, his eyes shining with strange light.
Without any hesitation, and even ignoring the incoming zombie, he quickly performed an incantation gesture with both hands.
His entire body then rippled, and spatial fluctuations rolled out of him in all directions. He then smacked his forehead with his right hand, causing it to split open. Inside the opening appeared a hand-sized, black-colored goat. It stuck its head out, looking at Xu Qing, and then opened its mouth.
“BLEAT!”
Xu Qing was backing away when it happened. But then his mind spun, and he heard cracking sounds all around him, as if the space around him was shattering. Two of the shattered pieces shifted position and then stitched back together. Then more. The world around him spun and began to get clear again. When he looked around, his face turned grim as he realized that he was now in the spot previously occupied by Zhang Siyun.
Meanwhile, Zhang Siyun was now in the spot he had just occupied. Unexpectedly, they had been transposed!
And now, that immolated zombie was rushing right toward Xu Qing!
Zhang Siyun chuckled. Then, taking advantage of the fact that the zombie was now focused on Xu Qing, he sped down deeper into the tunnel.
Xu Qing watched him go, his eyes turning as cold as ice.