Chapter 495 - 494: The Intruder and the Roots

Chapter 495: Chapter 494: The Intruder and the Roots

That shriek was piercing, a needle-like pain that stabbed at the mind, bringing on waves of tinnitus and dizziness.

In response, Hee Lingchuan’s solution was to toss out the net he was holding:

’Didn’t I only catch four of them earlier?’

The net was huge, with plenty of room to spare.

They were close, and he was fast. At least forty or fifty bats failed to stop in time and plunged headfirst into the mesh.

He had to admit, products from the Earth Cave Spider were top-notch. Despite the addition of several dozen ferocious, rampaging human-headed bats, the net actually held firm, refusing to tear no matter how frantically they rammed it.

The remaining fifty or sixty bats dodged the net, split into two groups, and dove straight for Hee Lingchuan.

Hee Lingchuan stood atop a stalactite, feeling the direction of the wind.

These creatures were flying with the wind, too.

Only as the first bat was about to reach his face did Floating Life slide from its sheath.

A sudden flash of light cut through the darkness of the cave—as fleeting as a startled bird, as powerful as a crack of thunder. Though it lasted only a moment, it covered the ten-yard area directly in front of him.

The overwhelming arc of the blade was like a tidal wave, shredding all the bats that came at him.

Wave Slash.

The remaining bats, seeing their chance was lost, tried to flee but were caught in the whirlwind of the blade and annihilated in an instant.

After being shredded, the bats didn’t burst into flesh and blood. Instead, they dissolved into black flakes that scattered through the air.

’They look like burnt paper offerings.’

Looking ahead again, he saw the monster had somehow lost two or three of its faces, but a vertical pupil had appeared on its forehead.

The vertical pupil was huge and bulging, taking up half the face and nearly squeezing out all the other features.

It opened to glare at Hee Lingchuan, its corners already shot through with blood.

He didn’t know what this thing was capable of, but it radiated evil. Not about to wait for it to make a move, Hee Lingchuan raised a hand and "gifted" it two more pellets.

The monster raised a hand to block, but the instant the pellets touched its skin—BOOM! BOOM!—two massive explosions erupted.

They had exploded.

The new fire bombs from Spirit Island, also known as Hand Cannons, were pretty effective.

When the acrid smoke cleared, he saw the monster had been blasted into a mess, like putty kneaded by a child. Its proportions were all wrong—some parts elongated, others shortened. A large chunk was missing from its shoulder, right where the fire bomb had struck.

But the vertical pupil was still intact, completely unharmed.

It stared unblinkingly at Hee Lingchuan, and the monster even spoke: "Why can’t I find it!"

’Can’t find what?’

It sounded like it was muttering to itself.

Right before Hee Lingchuan’s eyes, the creature began to regenerate.

The blasted parts began to retract, as if an invisible hand were kneading it back into its original shape.

’Unafraid of blades, water, or fire, and it can heal itself. Where is this thing’s weak point?’

The monster pressed one hand against the rock wall. Grayish-green moss began to grow on the stone, spreading out in all directions.

Something seemed to be wriggling on the moss.

’Insects?’

Hee Lingchuan didn’t get a closer look, because within two breaths, the moss withered, turned to black ash, and rustled away, leaving the rock wall clean once more.

"Huh?" A look of surprise actually appeared on the monster’s hideous face. Its next strike against the rock wall was even harder, making a dull THUDDING sound.

However, it was useless.

The moss it summoned withered even faster this time, failing to spread more than two feet.

Hee Lingchuan watched calmly. "Any other tricks up your sleeve?"

Apparently, the creature had tried to use a large-scale Divine Technique, but for some reason, it had failed to work here.

A shocked expression crossed the monster’s face, and it suddenly leaped into the water.

Hee Lingchuan’s eyes never left it. The moment it lifted its leg, he was already in motion. He crossed the ten-yard distance in a single leap, as fast as a Sleeve Arrow, and followed up with a Swallow Strike—a perfectly executed slash from the Floating Life Blade.

The monster should have been cleaved in two, but it clapped its hands together, catching the blade between its palms!

’This thing can catch a blade bare-handed?’ And it was exceptionally skilled at it, too.

No matter how sharp the Floating Life Blade was, it was useless if it didn’t cut flesh.

The monster then stretched its neck, opened its mouth wide, and lunged forward to bite Hee Lingchuan’s head.

A human’s neck is too short to reach an enemy, but this creature’s neck suddenly elongated like a heron’s—it could have been tied in a knot.

Aside from the shockingly large vertical pupil, its face looked relatively normal when its mouth was closed. But when it opened its mouth, its jaw seemed to dislocate, opening wide enough to swallow a whole brocade ball.

Of course, swallowing a human head would be no problem at all.

And inside that mouth, besides two rows of fangs, was nothing but a pitch-black, cavernous hole.

It was the stuff of nightmares. A normal person would have been frightened to death.

Thankfully, the creature had been bizarre from the very beginning, so Hee Lingchuan was unfazed by its latest stunt. Before its massive maw could clamp down on his head, he had already kicked it square in the belly.

However, the kick didn’t send it flying. Instead, his foot sank deep into its flesh, as if plunging into a swamp.

’This thing’s body is too malleable.’

As the cavernous mouth closed in on his head, Hee Lingchuan shot his other fist upward, striking it directly on the chin.

CLACK. He heard its two rows of massive teeth smash together.

Then, they both tumbled into the water.

Hee Lingchuan channeled his Primordial Power, and the edge of his blade glowed with a faint yellow light. With a deft twist, he severed the monster’s hands.

But in that same instant, several wisps of black smoke erupted from the monster’s body and darted into the water.

Behind Hee Lingchuan, they transformed into several Water Ghosts. Their hair instantly grew into thick, dense seaweed that wrapped around his ankles and arms, dragging him toward the bottom with surprising strength.

The monster in front also lunged at him.

’Ganging up on me? Trying to win with numbers?’

Hee Lingchuan’s brow twitched. A shadow materialized behind him, wielding Dual Blades, and dispatched one Water Ghost with a single strike.

His Clone was out.

The third Water Ghost, recognizing the danger, turned to flee.

His bindings gone, Hee Lingchuan’s arms were free. He took aim at the monster before him and slashed.

The timing was perfect; it was as if the monster had deliberately offered itself up to the blade.

Hee Lingchuan was most concerned about that giant eye. The monster’s neck was now thin, and he sliced it clean through.

Even underwater, he heard the creature’s agonized wail.

...

「In an inn a thousand yards away.」

The Curse Master knelt before the idol, muttering incantations. Three sticks of incense were burning with incredible speed, turning to ash in about fifty seconds.

The Curse Master had to keep replacing them to ensure the incense smoke never ceased.

The current three sticks were already more than halfway burnt.

He opened his eyes to replace them again, but with a soft SNAP, the three incense sticks broke without a breeze and fell onto the table.

’What is this...?’

The Curse Master froze. The swirling smoke in the room suddenly coalesced back into the shape of the idol. It glanced at the broken incense on the table before turning to the Curse Master to demand, "What kind of offering did you give me!"

"A person," the Curse Master replied instinctively. "He has an appointment from the Crown Prince, but he’s a foreigner who can’t use Primordial Power!"

’If Hee Lingchuan had Primordial Power to protect him, I wouldn’t have summoned this kind of evil creature in the first place.’

"Wrong! It’s not that simple!" the smoke-figure snapped. "When I get back, I’ll deal with you!"

With that, it shot out the window with a WHOOSH, kicking up a small tempest in the room.

Several sheets of white paper on a nearby table were sent scattering through the air.

The air in the room calmed, the smoke dissipating out the window. The Curse Master knew the entity had now gone in person.

His job was to continue lighting the incense.

But the Curse Master’s heart was anything but calm. ’With the idol’s power,’ he thought, ’assassinating an obscure, unprepared human should have been child’s play, shouldn’t it?’

Even if it had only sent a clone out earlier, it shouldn’t have failed.

’So what is going on?’

...

Although the monster was covered in faces, the one on its neck was the most important. It could no longer be bothered with Hee Lingchuan and crouched down to retrieve its severed head.

It was worth noting that once the head was severed, the monster’s body returned to its normal size—its neck shortened and its torso was no longer elongated.

An idea struck Hee Lingchuan. He grabbed the monster’s shoulder and, before the face on its chest could move in to bite, flung the entire body out of the water.

Despite its scrawny appearance, it was absurdly heavy. Hee Lingchuan felt like he wasn’t lifting a person, but a wild boar weighing over three hundred pounds.

Fortunately, his abundant True Power flowed through his arms, and with a firm foothold on a nearby stalagmite, he was able to manage the feat.

The throw sent the monster flying near the rock wall.

Hee Lingchuan threw the Floating Life Blade backhanded. With a WHOOSH, it pinned the monster to the rock wall.

Without its head, it couldn’t shapeshift or slip off the blade.

Only then did Hee Lingchuan relax and swim off to find the head.

He looked around, but the head was gone.

His heart leaped into his throat as he dove beneath the surface.

Swimming a few laps by the light of the Fluorescent Grass, he discovered that the monster’s head had actually regrown a body—a long, thin, limbless one.

It was diving for the depths, its lack of limbs not hindering its surprising speed in the water.

Just then, his Clone, having finished off the last Water Ghost, happened to be near the head and immediately fired a Sleeve Arrow.

Hee Lingchuan, fearing the creature might simply open its mouth and swallow the projectile, had the Clone aim for its messy, weed-like hair.

Sure enough, the arrow pinned the head’s tangled hair to a nearby stone crevice.

Hee Lingchuan swam over, took the blade from his Clone, and sliced off the newly grown body before grabbing the head and swimming for the surface.

With the head in hand, he still had to go back up and deal with the monster’s body.

However, when he surfaced and looked up, holding a stalk of Luminous Grass, he was once again taken aback.

At some point, numerous dark brown vines, both thick and thin, had sprouted from the rock wall and were binding the monster’s body tightly.

It was well and truly trussed up.

The monster struggled, but pinned by the Floating Life Blade, it could go nowhere.

Hee Lingchuan looked closer. They didn’t look like vines, but more like...

’Roots?’

They were covered in countless tiny root hairs.

’What kind of plant could sprout such an extensive root system in an instant?’

’If the roots are here, where is the plant itself?’

Hee Lingchuan followed the roots with his eyes and found that they seemed to originate from a crevice in the rock wall directly above.

Clearly, they were after the monster.

Some of the root tips had even pierced the monster’s skin and were sucking continuously, like straws in a juice box.

The remaining faces on the monster’s body tried to flee but were held fast by the root system. The root hairs even emitted a faint green light that prevented the faces from dissolving into black smoke and escaping.