Chapter Forty-Four: Slaying in Agony

The arrows shot by Lord Hengluo came from several miles away. As the arrows moved, so did the forest. When hundreds of arrows sliced through the air, the trees in the mountains seemed to come alive, shaking violently. The dappled shadows of leaves merged completely with the shadows of the arrows, making it impossible, despite the great power of the shamans, to discern the trajectory of the oncoming shafts.

With a sharp, whistling hiss, a warrior from the Blackwater Serpent Tribe cursed loudly. One arrow merely grazed his face, the tip opening a thin cut that left a seemingly insignificant line of blood. In the next instant, that tiny line abruptly swelled, widening from a hair’s breadth to the span of a grown man’s palm. Black blood spurted from the wound, and the flesh surrounding it rapidly festered. The stricken warrior screamed in terror, his hand flying to his face—only to watch in horror as his own hand began to rot, several fingers dissolving into drops of black blood before his eyes.

One after another, the warriors of the Blackwater Serpent Tribe collapsed to the ground, wailing and shrieking as their bodies rotted away. Three enormous, single-horned serpents slithered about restlessly, their jaws agape as they flicked black, venomous tongues.

Lord Hengluo’s rain of arrows had struck few vital points; most injuries were mere grazes to faces and fingers. Yet the voodoo concocted by Qingfu was so vicious that even the slightest scratch could claim a life within a few breaths. Towering bodies melted swiftly into pools of black water that seeped into the earth. Where the warriors’ bodies had utterly decayed, nothing remained but over a hundred sets of snakeskin armor, soaking in the poison and hissing as even the armor itself succumbed to rapid corrosion.

“Despicable! Cowardly scoundrel, shooting from the shadows!” shrieked one of the tribe’s shamans, who had been flung by the ancient tree demon’s vines and was now tumbling through the air. But he had barely finished yelling when a thick vine jabbed savagely into his gaping mouth, shattering his teeth and nearly ramming down his throat into his gut.

Another shaman, equally beleaguered, let out a furious roar. The three giant single-horned serpents, still rampaging through the forest, shrieked in response and lunged at the ancient tree demon with their jaws wide. From afar, all three spat a torrent of icy, toxic venom.

Green light flickered in the ancient tree demon’s deep, hollow eyes, and a frigid mist billowed from its open maw as it emitted a derisive, cackling laugh. Countless plants writhed wildly around it; roots and leaves erupted in a frenzy, lashing at the three great serpents. The demon paid no heed to the venom, for as a spirit born of ancient wood, neither cold nor poison could truly harm it.

Two of the serpents were blocked by the seething mass of roots and leaves, but the last managed to reach the tree demon’s massive form, sinking its fangs deep into a gnarled root.

With a crunch, the ancient tree demon’s bark was shattered to pieces. The serpent, at first triumphant, opened its jaws in confusion, spitting out mouthfuls of wood chips—no blood, no flesh, only dry, tasteless splinters. It tried to inject its deadly venom, but it was useless against the tree demon.

Suddenly, a colossal figure, over ten fathoms tall, burst from the earth. Old Stone, who had recently sent Ji Hou flying with a punch, pounded his chest and slammed his massive foot down.

With a resounding crash, all three giant serpents were stomped deep into the ground. The surrounding forest trembled violently for miles, hundreds of towering trees leaping as the shockwave shattered trunks thick enough to require a dozen men to encircle.

Old Stone lifted his foot, and the serpents reared their heads, spitting venom and icy mist in fury. But Old Stone stomped again, and with a mournful wail, the three serpents, already buried ten fathoms deep, were driven down another twenty by the force of his blow.

“Roar!” Old Stone bellowed, exhaling a dense stream of stone and earth essence from his mouth.

The three single-horned serpents, each a match for a great shaman in strength and ferocity, were miraculously still alive after two savage beatings, raising their heads to spew poison at Old Stone. But enraged and utterly mindless, Old Stone bent down and resorted to the simplest, most brutal tactic: he threw dozens of massive punches, enlarging the pit until it could contain his entire body. Then he leapt in, swinging his enormous fists wildly at the serpents.

Pitifully, the three serpents’ venomous mist and icy attacks, so deadly to humans, had no effect on the stone colossus. Blow after blow rained down, shattering their horns and scales, breaking their bones, and rupturing their organs until their bodies were battered deep into the earth, hundreds of fathoms down, and still sinking.

“What manner of monsters are these?” cried the three Blackwater shamans, momentarily overwhelmed by the tree demon’s onslaught. Relying on their powerful vitality, they managed to hold back the attack while witnessing the horrifying destruction Old Stone wrought upon their war beasts.

But no sooner had the word “monsters” left their lips than a piercing shriek rang out. A giant tree exploded, and from the hollow within burst a towering black-furred ape, its muscles knotted and bulging. Brandishing a massive grayish-white wooden cudgel, it charged at the three shamans.

As the unremarkable cudgel swept through the air, strange, twisted runes—naturally formed by heaven and earth—flared to life. All around, the forest erupted with blue-green light, streams of which shot like meteors to converge upon the cudgel.

In a heartbeat, the cudgel transformed into the image of a blue dragon, and with a triumphant, resounding roar, the black-furred ape bellowed, “A hundred jars of good wine!” and brought the cudgel down on the three shamans.

The first to be struck grunted, his arm grotesquely twisting and swelling before exploding in a rain of blood that sprayed for hundreds of paces. The cudgel’s destructive power was shocking beyond belief; even the body of a great shaman was obliterated in an instant.

The cudgel smashed into the chest and stomach of the maimed shaman, shattering his black, scale-covered armor. His body twisted unnaturally, bones breaking audibly, before he was hurled against his two companions. The three were sent hurtling skyward like inverse meteors, trailing fire as they soared for miles before plunging earthward.

Ji Xiao, stunned by the sudden ambush, let out a startled yelp and darted from the thicket.

In that instant, a bony black hand emerged from thin air, seizing Ji Xiao by the nape and slamming him heavily to the ground.

***

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