"You can't see it anymore? How could it just vanish?" Zhang Yuanqing frowned.
Beside him, Yun Meng, Natsuki's Love, and the others suddenly grew grave. Tearing their eyes away from the gates of the temporary palace, they turned toward Yin Ji.
"It vanished all of a sudden," Yin Ji said in a low voice. Then, looking toward Brother Red Chicken, she urgently repeated, "Fall back!"
*Vanished suddenly...* Zhang Yuanqing's heart clenched. There could only be two explanations: either the scene Yin Ji had witnessed through her spirit servant had been an illusion that had now dispelled, or the boss, the Little Emperor, possessed the Night Travel skill.
Logically speaking, a yin corpse couldn't possess active skills, but the Little Emperor had been refined through ancient cultivators' formations, making it completely different from a Night Walker's yin corpse.
Ordinary logic didn't apply here. He had seen similar cases before—Commandery Princess Yinyao, for instance.
If this was indeed a yin corpse capable of using active skills, things would be troublesome.
Meanwhile, by the palace entrance, Brother Red Chicken—who was carrying his backpack and preparing to set up the explosives—heard Yin Ji's call.
Without hesitation, he promptly stowed the bag away. But before he could head back toward his teammates, the corner of his eye caught sight of a trail of wet footprints emerging from inside the palace. They crossed the flagstone path, reached the threshold, and came right up before him.
*What is that?* Brother Red Chicken's pupils constricted. He abandoned conscious thought and reacted purely on the combat instincts and scent for danger native to a Fire Specialist.
He dropped his knees and lowered his back, posture resembling a sprinter set in the blocks.
With a hiss, a jet of crimson flames erupted from his palm, solidifying into a spear of fire.
The blaze at the tip condensed into a single point, bursting with a piercing brilliance.
He locked his hand around the shaft, sprang off his knees, and thrust forward with all his might.
*Boom!*
The near-blinding white tip slammed into something, unleashing a dense cascade of sparks.
The silhouette of a humanoid form became visible: a young boy around 1.3 meters tall. His skin was mottled grayish-black, and both his body and cheeks were covered in grayish-black scales. He had an eerie, terrifying pair of pale white pupils, blackened lips, and stark white fangs protruding outward.
Most chilling of all was the head of an infant growing from his shoulder. Its eyes were closed as though it were sound asleep, fair and adorable, presenting a stark and unsettling contrast to the savage primary head.
Droplets of water seeped from the crevices between his scales, trickling down past his eyes and splashing to the ground, looking as if he had just been caught in a torrential downpour.
It was precisely these water droplets that had betrayed his footprints and alerted Brother Red Chicken ahead of time.
The Little Emperor's pale pupils shifted as he looked down at the searing spear pinned against his chest. He froze for an instant, seemingly puzzled as to how he had been discovered.
*"Hrrgh—"*
The Little Emperor parted his mouth in a low, furious roar, a massive surge of lunar energy billowing from his blackened lips. Then, he raised a hand and clamped it directly onto the spear of fire.
*Sssss...*
Streams of water gushed from the Little Emperor's palm, extinguishing the near-solidified flaming spear.
Lifting his pale eyes, he cast a grim glare at the enemy before him, his black talons lunging forward.
Brother Red Chicken felt his scalp tingle, the hairs across his entire body standing on end. An intense dread welled up in his heart, only to instantly combust into towering fury.
"Die, you bastard!"
Roaring with a savage grimace, he unleashed a deafening blast as boundless flames erupted from within him, every single pore venting blistering fire.
The searing heat instantly evaporated the moisture on the Little Emperor's body, kicking up plumes of white vapor.
In a flash, Brother Red Chicken's aura surged twofold. Swinging his flame-wreathed fist with the full drive of his back muscles, he hammered forward.
*Bang!*
The ghostly claw collided with the fist. The flames wreathing Brother Red Chicken's hand sputtered out in an instant, and the companions behind him clearly saw his right shoulder burst apart, blood-stained white bone splintering through the flesh.
A level-four Fire Demon, one bolstered by the Rager skill, was crippled in a single exchange.
Amid a flurry of hurried, chaotic footsteps, Yin Ji's two yin corpses arrived in the nick of time. The female yin corpse seized Brother Red Chicken's left shoulder and hurled him behind her.
Meanwhile, the male yin corpse launched into the air, driving a knee strike into the Little Emperor that slammed him back into the palace.
The female yin corpse rushed in right behind him.
*Smack! Smack! Smack!*
A barrage of crisp, explosive blows rang out as the two yin corpses unleashed a relentless flurry of punches, elbows, knees, and kicks, pouring violence upon the Little Emperor.
The two corpses possessed tremendous strength coupled with superb close-quarters combat skills. They battered the Little Emperor backward step by step, sending scales splintering off his body in every direction.
In contrast, the Little Emperor possessed brute force but no technique. Every time he snarled and mounted a counterattack, the pair of corpses easily dodged or parried, dismantling his moves with ease.
The bluestone slabs beneath their feet shattered, indented with deep, erratic footprints.
Though these two yin corpses hadn't shown their true worth underwater, confronting an even more formidable boss now revealed a savagery that left onlookers breathless.
"Charge! Everyone, follow me!"
Seeing the tide turn in their favor, Xiahou Aotian pulled a hand crossbow from his inventory and waved an arm, rushing toward the palace like a fierce general leading the vanguard.
Aside from Yun Meng, who stayed behind to treat Brother Red Chicken's injuries, the rest charged toward the palace in unison.
Just then, the Little Emperor let loose a furious roar, and the scales all over his body flared wide open.
In an instant, a thin mist condensed out of the surrounding air, drifting in wisps toward the gaps between his flared scales.
The moist soil rapidly hardened and cracked. Green weeds withered into yellow husks. The bodies of the male and female yin corpses suddenly froze, their skin swiftly wrinkling and their muscles shriveling.
In merely two to three seconds, every drop of moisture was stripped clean from their bodies, reducing them to desiccated husks.
With a furious sweep of his arms, the Little Emperor shattered the two dried corpses with a loud crash, snapping them apart like brittle rotting wood.
Two top-quality yin corpses were lost just like that in the instance.
Seeing this, the teammates who had just reached the palace entrance quietly stepped back.
Xiahou Aotian retreated the fastest.
Eagle of Freedom fled back to their original spot at a speed rivaling his. Staring warily toward the palace gates, she stammered in panic, "Moisture Deprivation... Is he... a level-six Plague God?!"
A Saint-stage Plague God had two ultimate techniques: Moisture Deprivation and disease pathogens. Moisture Deprivation was particularly tyrannical, a skill accessible only to level-six Saints.
"Moisture Deprivation is a level-six skill. Aside from Yin Ji, none of us can withstand it. I don't think he's equivalent to an actual level-six Plague God—he most likely only knows this single skill—but a boss of this caliber is still more than enough to wipe our party." Xiahou Aotian was terrified inside, but being an experienced spirit realm walker after all, he calmly proposed a plan. "My suggestion is to temporarily withdraw and formulate a more detailed strategy before challenging him again. If he pursues relentlessly, we fight while retreating."
As soon as he spoke, Natsuki's Love's eyes twitched. Discerning the shifts within the palace, she warned, "He's gone!"
Hearing that, everyone's hearts tightened. Shifting their positions to peer inside the palace, they indeed found no trace of the Little Emperor.
He had used Night Travel again.
Yun Meng promptly pushed Brother Red Chicken aside, halting her treatment, and pressed both palms to the earth.
A ripple of green light spread outward. Wherever it passed, tender blades of grass sprouted from the soil, growing until they reached the steps of the palace entrance before stopping.
Well acquainted with the traits of Night Travel, she sought to pinpoint the Little Emperor's location through the movement of the grass.
Yet there was nothing. The fresh green tips stood straight and undisturbed; the surroundings were dead silent.
Zhang Yuanqing and the others scanned around warily, minding the grass while keeping watch on the canopies flanking both sides.
Just then, three feet in front of Yun Meng, a pair of footprints suddenly pressed into the dirt, sinking deeply into the ground with not a single footprint leading up to them.
It looked as if their owner had teleported right before her.
Yun Meng realized instantly: the footprints hadn't materialized out of thin air. The Little Emperor had leaped straight out of the palace.
He had dropped from the sky!
*Twang!*
A shrill bowstring snap rang out in reflex as Xiahou Aotian fired an arrow diagonally forward.
The shaft struck something midair with a sharp clink, sparking and deflecting away.
The attack forced the Little Emperor to reveal himself. By now, his claws were already lunging toward Yun Meng's face. Though Xiahou Aotian's shot had broken his Night Travel, it couldn't save her in time.
Yun Meng's vision dimmed as she saw the blackened talons thrusting toward her features, the razor-sharp tips less than three centimeters from her eyes.
In the next moment, she would perish beneath those claws.
Yet suddenly, Yun Meng's head snapped backward, as if struck on the forehead by a club.
She barely evaded the ghostly claws.
At the crucial juncture, the agility of a Wood Monster saved her life.
Reeling backward, she dropped her center of gravity, collapsed swiftly, and rolled to the side.
Having failed his sneak attack, the Little Emperor let out an indignant growl. His scales flared once more, and a thick white fog instantly manifested in the air, swirling into the gaps between them.
The grass and trees withered in an instant, stripped of their moisture.
Mid-roll, Yun Meng's body seized up as she curled in agony. Her skin shriveled and wrinkled rapidly, her cheeks hollowing out. Within a few breaths, she aged by several decades.
This was the wrinkling and desiccation caused by rapid moisture loss.
A similar plight fell upon Zhang Yuanqing and the others. Compared to the rest, Eagle of Freedom and Yin Ji appeared slightly less emaciated.
The former was also a Water Ghost who possessed water-manipulating abilities that slowed her moisture loss, while the latter boasted a higher level and held a degree of natural immunity.
Xiahou Aotian turned to run, but his withered, reed-thin legs could no longer support his weight. The moment he took a step, he crashed heavily to the ground with a pained groan.
Even so, he didn't despair, trusting that his companions wouldn't be wiped out so easily by the boss.
"Yuanshi Tianzun, back me up!" Yin Ji parted her cracked lips and exhaled a long breath of lunar energy. Over a dozen spirit servants surged around her, swooping and whirling.
Then, closing her eyes, she initiated Astral Travel.
A graceful figure clad in a black gown drifted up from her crown. Parting her lips, she swallowed the dozen or so spirit servants into her belly.
In an instant, a pitch-black crescent moon materialized upon the forehead of Yin Ji's spirit form. Misty dark light spilled from her eye sockets, and blackened claws extended from her pale, jade-like hands.
At this moment, she resembled a goddess of the underworld: profound, dark, and somber, yet immensely regal.
Her spirit form swept through the air, skirt fluttering as she descended above the Little Emperor's head. Her hands, pale of skin yet tipped with black nails like talons, snapped down to clutch his skull.
The Little Emperor froze abruptly, the savage fury in his pale eyes turning slack and vacant.
With a violent upward jerk of Yin Ji's arms, a blurred, feral, and violent spirit form was forcibly wrenched out from the crown of his head.
The moment this twisted, brutal spirit left the body, it sank rapidly, trying to surge back inside.
Yin Ji's clawed fingers trembled slightly, as if she could barely sustain the hold.
Without needing Yin Ji's prompt, Zhang Yuanqing knew what he had to do. Pulling out the Demon-Subduing Pestle, he shouted, "Natsuki, pierce his defenses!"
The Demon-Subduing Pestle's greatest shortcoming was its lack of sharpness, at least in his hands.
Her skin no longer fair and smooth, now lined with wrinkles, Natsuki's Love fought through the agony racking her frame. Striding forward in her combat boots toward the Little Emperor, she drew a gleaming short sword and thrust it forward.
A glint of cold light erupted.
With a squelch, the Swordsman—a class renowned for slaughter—easily pierced straight through the Little Emperor's chest.
Natsuki tore the blade free and leaped back. Almost simultaneously, Zhang Yuanqing utilized Star Escape to appear directly before the Little Emperor, driving the Demon-Subduing Pestle straight into the sword wound in his chest.
Yin Ji released her grip, letting the creature's spirit collapse back into the body.
A brilliant wheel of golden light flared to life.
Beams of golden light burst from the Little Emperor's blackened lips, nostrils, and eyes. He had time only to utter a furious, unwilling roar before his body collapsed backward amid a plume of rising black smoke.
"Is it dead?"
Natsuki's Love flicked her short sword. The blade was coated in a foul, black liquid that reeked horribly, thick with deadly toxins.
"That's it? Haha, wasn't so tough after all!" Brother Red Chicken licked his cracked lips, beaming with delight. "Awesome! We can finally go home and drink some soup!"
The other three companions were similarly overjoyed.
None had expected the Demon-Subduing Pestle in Yuanshi Tianzun's hands to be so formidable. Even a terrifying boss like this couldn't withstand its power.
"Congratulations, everyone, on earning your badge for clearing an S-rank instance," Eagle of Freedom gave a low whistle.
Zhang Yuanqing frowned faintly, scrutinizing the corpse at his feet as a doubt flickered in his mind.
Given the Demon-Subduing Pestle's attribute of countering yin creatures, the Little Emperor was indeed bound to die. But why hadn't he disintegrated into ash like the dried corpse back in the killing trial?
Furthermore, where was the Xie family's item?
Pondering this, his gaze shifted toward the charred corpse's shoulder, where he spotted an irregularity.
While the Little Emperor's body had been nearly carbonized by the burning divine power of the sun, the infant head on his right shoulder remained completely intact, still sleeping soundly with closed eyes. It defied reason.
Unless that infant head didn't belong to the Little Emperor at all.
"Yuanshi..."
Natsuki's Love called out, pointing her sword toward the infant head.
What Zhang Yuanqing could spot, she, as a Swordsman, was naturally quick to notice as well.
Zhang Yuanqing nodded, bent forward, and reached out to touch the baby's head.
Just as his fingers were about to brush against the infant's cheek, it suddenly opened its eyes. Its gaze was bright, dark, and clear, innocent yet devoid of true consciousness, staring straight at Zhang Yuanqing.
Caught completely off guard, Zhang Yuanqing jerked his hand back with a shudder.
*"Waaah!"*
The infant let out a piercing wail.
*"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah—"*
As the cries reverberated through the air, a horrifying scene unfolded. The carbonized corpse of the Little Emperor began to squirm, fresh scales forcing their way out from beneath the blackened, brittle ones.
A savage light flared within his dead white eyes. Across the charred cavity in his chest, flesh and blood writhed and regenerated, sealing the wound shut.
Though clearly a yin creature devoid of vital signs, its flesh divided and grew just like a living human's.
"He's revived! Fuck, he revived!" Brother Red Chicken shouted in horror.
"Shut up, I know!" Shocked and furious, Zhang Yuanqing raised the Demon-Subduing Pestle high, preparing to strike.
Suddenly, an agonizing pain struck his lower abdomen. The pain made his vision go dark, his calves tremble, and cold sweat drench his entire frame.
*What is happening?* Looking down, he saw his stomach rapidly swelling and bulging outward, ballooning like that of a woman six or seven months pregnant.
Zhang Yuanqing's vision swam once more.
Behind him, groans and screams erupted in rapid succession.
Clutching his lower back and supporting his bloated belly, he turned around, only to see that all his companions' bellies had swollen up as well.
Even larger than his.
*"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah—"*
Accompanying the infant's cries, small baby hands and impressions of tiny heads pressed out against the taut surfaces of their rounded bellies, as though the infants inside were about to tear their way through the flesh.
Brother Red Chicken slumped on the ground, cradling his stomach, and wailed, "Fuck, fuck, fuck! I'm pregnant?! What the hell is going on?!"
"No! This isn't the treatment a protagonist is supposed to get!" Xiahou Aotian lay on his side, clutching his swollen belly and howling in despair.
The four women—Yin Ji, Natsuki's Love, Eagle of Freedom, and Yun Meng—turned utterly pale, unable to process the reality of their sudden pregnancy.
*Healing, conception... Those are abilities of the Musician class. This infant head is the component of the Xie family's rule-based item...* Zhang Yuanqing pieced together the abilities of the Xie family's artifact.
Yet he would rather have never figured it out.
Just then, he saw the revived Little Emperor spring straight up, fixing a pair of vicious, pale pupils right onto him.
Without time to think, Zhang Yuanqing dissolved into a dreamy shower of starlight and vanished from the spot, only to stumble into view several meters away.
His Star Escape had been forcibly cut short.
Something even worse occurred: Zhang Yuanqing discovered that he had lost all of his Starlord skills, and his level had plummeted from level four to level three.
That was why his Star Escape had broken.
His power had been siphoned away by the fetus in his belly.
The instant Zhang Yuanqing reappeared, the grayish-black Little Emperor lunged eagerly toward him, eyes fixed entirely on the nemesis who had just slain him.
*Damn it, go kill Xiahou Aotian! Why are you chasing me?!* Zhang Yuanqing's face drained of color. His condition was abysmal right now; setting aside the de-leveling, the fetus inside was continuously draining his strength, accompanied by intense abdominal pain.
Besides, fighting with such a massive belly was exceedingly awkward.
How could a mere Extraordinary body contend with a level-six monster?
Without a doubt, the Little Emperor could tear him apart in a single second, without even needing to use a skill.
A spike of lethal danger flared in his chest. Zhang Yuanqing scrambled backward in panic, though he knew this would only buy him a few meager seconds.
With adrenaline surging, he racked his brain in desperation for a way to survive.
At that moment, Blood Rose, standing not far off, caught his eye.
The exquisitely beautiful yin corpse stood under the shade of a tree on standby. Her lower abdomen was flat and firm, unaffected by the infant's wailing.
*She's an inanimate object to begin with, so she's immune to the cries?*
Zhang Yuanqing immediately invoked Night Travel, cloaking his form, and charged toward Blood Rose with his bulging belly.
Opening his inventory, he pulled out a pair of logoless black running shoes and a sheet of human skin as thin as a cicada's wing, tossing them toward Blood Rose.
Simultaneously, enduring the searing pain, he detached a thread of spiritual energy to commune with the mental brand in her sea of consciousness, seizing control of Blood Rose's body.
The Flawless Human Skin attached itself to Blood Rose's face and melted rapidly. Within an instant, the delicate yin corpse transformed into Zhang Yuanqing's exact likeness.
"Zhang Yuanqing" kicked off her shoes, slipped into the Sliding Tackle Shoes, and shot a glance at the distant Little Emperor. Once their eyes met, she spun on her heel and bolted.
*"Roar!"*
The Little Emperor blurred into an afterimage, swiftly closing in on Blood Rose.
Suddenly, Blood Rose whipped around and executed a sliding tackle straight beneath the Little Emperor's crotch, her form shifting into a translucent state suspended between the physical and the ethereal.
Having evaded the lethal pounce, Blood Rose bounded back up and dashed off in another direction.
The Little Emperor wheeled around in pursuit.
One chasing, one fleeing, they swiftly vanished from everyone's view.
*"Waaah! Waaah! Waaah—"*
The shrill cries of the infant receded into the distance until they faded away entirely.
Zhang Yuanqing leaned against a tree with his huge belly, gasping for breath.
Once the crying ceased, the fetus in his belly seemed to lose its vitality. It stopped trying to tear through the skin and began returning the stolen energy.
*It seems the crying is the root of the conception. Staying exposed to that wailing for too long would cause the fetus to burst out. By then, the level drop might become permanent. A Musician-class rule-based item is truly terrifying...* Feeling his strength slowly returning, Zhang Yuanqing breathed a sigh of relief.
Leaning against the trunk, he surveyed his companions' conditions.
Yin Ji leaned against a tree with one hand while supporting her belly with the other, struggling to remain standing. Yun Meng sat cross-legged on the ground, warily examining her swollen stomach. Natsuki's Love was holding her short sword, nervously measuring it against her bulging belly.
"Hey, it stopped moving! I can feel my strength coming back!" Brother Red Chicken slapped his stomach repeatedly.
Xiahou Aotian, on the other hand, looked utterly shattered. For a protagonist to endure the humiliation of carrying a monster's child was an unspeakable disgrace.
*If only I had a phone right now to take a photo...* The thought flashed involuntarily through Zhang Yuanqing's mind. Clearing away his distractions, his expression turned grim and serious.
"Everyone, the danger isn't over yet. My yin corpse can buy us five minutes at most.
"We've pretty much figured out the boss's abilities. It's time to adjust our strategy. Whether we wipe out or clear the instance will be decided in five minutes."
Chapter 356