Abnormal

Behind Qin Ming and Xu Sheng, Chixia City shone bright as day, illuminated from within its tall, heavy walls of green stone. Ahead of them, night mist coiled around lofty, towering mountains that cast heavy shadows in the gloomy wilderness. Before them and behind them lay what seemed like two entirely different worlds. Xu Sheng remarked, "After the first spring thunder, the mountains temporarily dimmed again. But in a few more days, once the underground fire springs fully revive and surge, the wilderness will become an entirely different wonder." Even now, changes were already underway. Most of the ice and snow had melted, the scent of damp earth hung in the air, and fresh buds had begun sprouting on the branches of some ancient trees. "Could our luck finally be turning?" Zhou Lin asked excitedly, pointing ahead with her spear. By this point, they had ventured deep into the mountain range. "Is that a mutated plant? This old lady's luck is finally turning!" Zhou Lin was only in her twenties, yet she referred to herself like an old matron purely out of her bold, brassy nature. "It really seems to be one of those special plants brimming with rich spirituality, and it only just sprouted. We should still be able to catch it!" Xu Sheng was equally astonished. There was no need for further words. The three dashed forward through the woods. Amidst the trees, silver blossoms were bursting open on a peculiar ancient tree, glowing continuously and gradually illuminating the dense forest around it. Mutated plants could cause beasts and birds of all kinds to mutate. If a human consumed one, it could also temper their constitution, swiftly granting them a Newborn breakthrough. This was not the first time Qin Ming had encountered a mutated plant. Once, when traveling with Xu Yueping to Silver Vine Town, he had witnessed crimson clouds surging and "crimson butterflies" dancing into the air along the way. Unfortunately, they had been too far away back then, and the petals had long since been scattered into the night sky by fierce winds. "We really made it!" Xu Sheng was overjoyed. In the woods ahead, the old tree was rapidly sprouting and blooming, radiating misty light and a refreshing fragrance. A light breeze blew, dislodging several petals that danced through the darkness like fireflies. Mutated plants bloomed regardless of season and followed no pattern, making them exceedingly difficult to seek out deliberately. Once their splendid display ended, they would wither away entirely and die. It was precisely because of this that Zhou Lin and Xu Sheng were so thrilled. It could truly be said that they had struck great fortune. "Xiao Qin, don't hesitate—don't leave a single petal behind!" Xu Sheng urged. "The mutated beasts in the mountains will be here any second. Hurry!" Zhou Lin thrust her spear forward. With a sharp crack, a thick branch snapped off. "Roar!" Fierce beasts howled in the distance, and creatures throughout the vicinity were stirred into a frenzy. Though Qin Ming and Xu Sheng dearly wished they could uproot the entire tree and carry it off, that was entirely unrealistic. A massive raptor had already appeared in the sky, swooping downward. The emergence of a mutated plant inevitably caused chaos; no one could hope to hoard it all for themselves. "Pah! Why does it taste like blood?" Zhou Lin had just popped a glowing flower bud into her mouth, only to spit it right back out. "Pfft!" Xu Sheng spat as well, his expression shifting. He quickly bent down to examine the roots, a sinking feeling taking hold. "The stench of blood is overwhelming!" Qin Ming said. Xu Sheng took on a grave look. "This isn't a naturally mutated plant—it was artificially induced! Could someone from beyond the mundane world be trying to lure beasts here to brew medicine?" Having once been a wandering merchant, he was well-traveled and knowledgeable. He immediately bowed toward the depths of the mountain forest and called out, "Pardon us, Senior! We stumbled in by mistake and meant no offense." "Let's get out of here, fast!" Zhou Lin whispered. A massive talon had already reached down from the sky, clawing straight for them. Zhou Lin struck upward with her spear. Sparks flew upon impact. It was a raptor nearly ten meters long, its black wings like steel blades shearing off treetops as it skimmed low through the air, its eyes gleaming with golden light. "Roar!" Beneath the cover of night, swarms of mountain beasts charged in, accompanied by dense clusters of swooping shadows. "How has it only been this long, and the sky and earth are already crawling with beasts? Break out, quickly!" All three of their faces changed. The mutated plant Qin Ming had encountered previously had been outside the mountains, very close to Silver Vine Town, where no powerful mutated creatures existed. Here in the mountain depths, however, their situation was perilously grave. "A five-times-mutated venomous python—it crawled out from underground when spring has barely begun!" Xu Sheng's face darkened. He had come face-to-face with a massive python as thick as a water vat, charging right at him. "Is it a spiritual creature?" Qin Ming lunged forward on his own initiative. "No, it's highly venomous! Watch out for its toxic mist!" Xu Sheng hastily warned. The python opened its maw, stirring up a violent gust as a large cloud of multicolored mist billowed out. Heavenly light flowed across the surface of Qin Ming's body, and he dodged away at the first opportunity. Since it was not a spiritual creature, there was no need to fight it to the death. The python was vicious. With a whip of its tail, it snapped several trees thick as human thighs and lashed straight toward Qin Ming. Thwack! Qin Ming brought his hammer down, instantly reducing the python's tail to a mangled mess of flesh and blood, severing an entire section. On the other side, Zhou Lin clashed twice with a golden leopard using her spear. Xu Sheng, meanwhile, ran into a six-meter-tall black bear. Enraged, he cursed, "I've been cursed with rotten luck lately! Every time I go into the mountains, something goes wrong. Even a blind bear like you dares pick on me? I'll take your gallbladder!" He pulled no punches, rushing forward and tackling the black bear to the ground. "Brother Xu, run! There's an even bigger bear!" Qin Ming shouted. Xu Sheng froze for an instant, then his expression warped. An even bigger bear? With a deafening roar, a twelve-meter-tall giant bear emerged from the forest behind the six-meter-tall "cub," staring down at Xu Sheng with chilling hostility. "Awoo!" The six-meter black bear let out a cry, as if lodging a grievance. "Could that be a creature mutated six or seven times?" Xu Sheng's scalp prickled. A colossal dark shape pounced, swinging a terrifying bear paw down at him. He turned and ran. Had it been just this single giant bear, Qin Ming might have tested his mettle against it. But with birds and beasts swarming from all directions, lingering was out of the question. Worst of all, these mutated creatures treated the three of them as prime medicinal flesh and blood, glaring hungrily. Boom! In the end, Qin Ming still exchanged a blow with the giant bear, smashing one of its paws into a bloody pulp with his long-handled dark-gold hammer before it broke off the chase. That single strike also served to deter the other mutated beasts. Even so, the three of them were in sorry shape, having nearly been swallowed whole by the army of birds and beasts. "I thought we'd struck it rich, but luck was completely against us. We almost ended up in some beast's belly." Zhou Lin felt that nothing had gone right lately. "Was someone from beyond the mundane world really there?" Qin Ming asked. Xu Sheng shook his head. "Not necessarily. It might have been a blood-luring elixir that leaked out from the lands beyond the mundane world, used by someone else to attract beasts." Zhou Lin said, "Xu Sheng, did you pick up some dirty curse back when you were a wandering merchant? Why does bad luck follow whenever I go out with you?" "How could that be!" After a grueling fight, both Zhou Lin and Xu Sheng were exhausted. They decided to return, recover their strength, and head back into the mountains the next day. "Tomorrow, as long as we can find that spiritual clam, we won't need to fight. Its combat strength is very weak." The next day, led by Xu Sheng and Zhou Lin, Qin Ming followed them to a swamp in search of an exceedingly rare variety of clam. The trees in this area were sparse, pocked everywhere with pools of water. The vast mire was shrouded in faint black mist. "See that? That glowing substance in the mud is the trail left behind by a spiritual clam," Xu Sheng said, pointing at some blue mucus in the muddy water. "Stay alert. Last time, we were ambushed right here," Zhou Lin reminded him. This time, no one attacked them from the shadows. Yet an hour later, they were fleeing for their lives as a pack of "mud dragons" chased hot on their heels like hounds driving game, throwing the entire swamp into turmoil. The seemingly tranquil depths of the marsh held a massive nest of mud dragons. They resembled crocodiles, but with single horns upon their heads and long legs that let them run far faster than any ordinary crocodile. Every adult mud dragon weighed several thousand jin. Their eyes glowed red as they pursued the trio, convinced they were there to steal eggs; with the arrival of early spring, several of the mud dragons had already begun laying. "Aaargh!" Having finally escaped the mire, Zhou Lin screamed in utter fury. She was caked from head to toe in filth, her hair and face plastered with thick mud. A valiant beauty had been reduced to a mud monkey. Enraged, she fumed, "Xu Sheng, there is definitely something wrong with you! Every time I go out with you lately, it's nothing but disastrous luck!" "You can't blame me for this! Who could have known the trail of that spiritual clam led straight into a mud dragon nest?" Xu Sheng was burning with irritation himself, even suspecting that someone was deliberately sabotaging him. Qin Ming was just as exasperated. He too had rolled through the mud several times, leaving all three of them looking equally disheveled. Predictably, Zhou Lin turned into a foul-mouthed spitfire once more, cursing the whole way from the mountains back into the city. Xu Sheng tried to placate her. "Don't be angry. Tonight, I'll go see my master from my wandering merchant days and ask him where spiritual creatures have appeared recently that are safe enough to hunt." Many people in the city stared at the mud-caked Zhou Lin, only stoking her fury further. "Brother Xu, maybe you should have your master take a look at you first to see if there really is something wrong," Qin Ming suggested, wiping mud from his face. In truth, Xu Sheng had begun questioning his own existence as well. He nodded. "Fine. Tonight, I'll have him give me a thorough check." The next morning, sunlight bathed Chixia City in brilliance as the three set out once more. "My master told me there's nothing wrong with me at all," Xu Sheng explained the moment they met, insisting the fault did not lie with him. "This time we're going to the Red Mist Cave? A terrifyingly massive swarm of fire bats lives there—we can't afford to provoke them!" Zhou Lin shook her head. Xu Sheng replied, "We aren't going there to provoke the fire bats. There's a subterranean cold pool inside connected to an underground river, and spiritual eels have appeared in it." The Red Mist Cave lay within the belly of a mountain. The three followed a fissure deep underground. It was not particularly dim inside, as fire springs within the mountain were reviving. "Won't this disturb the fire bats of the Red Mist Cave?" Qin Ming asked worriedly. Xu Sheng shook his head. "Don't worry. The Red Mist Cave is vast, and we're heading in the opposite direction of their roost." They arrived near a cold pool inside the cave. The pitch-black water was bone-chillingly frigid, and multicolored light occasionally flashed within its depths, confirming that spiritual eels were indeed present. "Bait, fishing rods, harpoons, and large nets—I brought them all. Everything is prepared; the time for our harvest has arrived!" Xu Sheng declared with supreme confidence. Zhou Lin gave him a look of disdain. "Stop saying things like that. Going out with you has given me psychological trauma." Half an hour later, a deafening rustle of wings echoed throughout the Red Mist Cave. A vast swarm of fire bats mobilized, blotting out the cavern as they surged across territories toward them. "Why are there so many?" Qin Ming felt a chill run down his spine; there was no way to kill them all. Xu Sheng explained, "The mountains are overrun with all sorts of mutated insects. The City Lord's Estate specifically ordered everyone not to touch this nest of fire bats so they could cull the pests. As a result, their numbers have grown monstrously large." In the end, the three had practically turned themselves into bait. They plunged into the cold pool and fled along the subterranean river. Along the way, they continually searched for exits to return to the surface, finding only a few pockets of air. They swam for well over a dozen li before finally surfacing in a mountain lake. "Aaargh!" Zhou Lin could hold back no longer, warning Xu Sheng never to invite her out again. "It isn't Brother Xu's fault. I'll look into this once we return," Qin Ming said, coldness surfacing in his eyes. He felt that such things could not be mere coincidence; it felt very much like someone was deliberately targeting them. Although they had managed to escape safely each time, the slightest misstep would have cost them their lives. Furthermore, judging from these incidents, if someone was pulling strings from the shadows, they seemed to want them—or rather, want him—to meet a natural end in the mountains. Has an invisible hand reached out from afar? Qin Ming felt that was unlikely. If it were truly those people, their methods would have been ten times fiercer and more terrifying than this. Could it be some little bastard I beat up back in the day, using underhanded tricks like this to humiliate me? he wondered privately. *** "What did you say? He might have endured six or seven waves of heavenly light?!" Inside the City Lord's Estate, Meng Xinghai stood up abruptly upon hearing the report from a man in black. That day, he had been accompanied by a gathering of nobles, drinking wine in the Mountain God Temple while observing the spectacle above the Thunder-Fire Gold-Forging Palace. He had had no knowledge of what had transpired inside the hall. "Is the information reliable?" The man in black replied, "The corpse collector Xu Hai died vomiting blood two days ago. Before his death, he told his family that his greed might have killed an extraordinary genius. He had intentionally let that youth endure six or seven waves of heavenly light impacts, and in the end, retribution caught up with him as well." "Incredible! Keep this matter locked tight in your chest—never mention it again!" Meng Xinghai commanded his confidant. He waved his hand, dismissing the man in black. Meng Xinghai stood before the window and murmured, "To endure multiple waves of heavenly light impacts and survive... such natural endowment will make the Cui clan regret their choices." A smile appeared on his face. "A group of the most outstanding disciples from beyond the mundane world is about to compete for that legendary artifact, which is reportedly inside a spiritual cave where heavenly light is exceptionally dense. Looking at it this way, if Qingyue replaced her golden-armored guard, she might just obtain it and emerge as the ultimate victor."