A bluish-cyan light played across the cavern's ceiling, looking as though it were studded with multicolored gems, but Liang Qu failed to notice the lethal danger lurking among them.
It was too well hidden, too swift.
The assailant blended seamlessly into the surroundings, striking like lightning. In the corner of his eye, Liang Qu caught only a blurred streak of light and shadow.
Immediately, he felt his shoulder dip as another dark shape shot forward, crashing head-on into the lunging shadow and knocking it through the air.
When he came to his senses, Liang Qu found that Fist, who had been perched on his shoulder, was gone, leaving only six tiny footprints behind.
He had not reacted in time, but Fist had!
Fist and the dark shadow hit the ground together, carapaces clashing against stone with a crisp, metallic clatter.
Sensing the tables turn, the assailant flailed its legs to flee, but Fist, already prepared, leaped forward, landed in front of the dark shadow, and snapped out a massive claw to clamp down on one end.
The shadow coiled its body and opened its mouthparts to bite back, only for Fist's other pincer to clamp around its neck.
Fist's strength utterly overpowered the attacker. Spreading both claws wide, it forced the creature's entire body straight. The creature struggled violently, its midsection heaving and flexing, yet all to no avail.
Having subdued the attacker, Fist scurried on its six legs over to Liang Qu, holding both pincers high as if offering up a treasure to a deity.
Recovering his wits, Liang Qu broke out in a cold sweat. The sudden lunging shadow had genuinely startled him. Underwater dangers truly caught one unawares.
Liang Qu had Fist move closer to the luminescent vines. Squatting down, he saw that the shadow was a giant centipede. Its translucent shell gleamed like sapphire, shimmering in concert with the blue water ripples, radiating an aura of peril from head to tail.
A water centipede!
Lingering fear gripped Liang Qu as he recognized the creature.
It was a venomous centipede native to the waters, possessing a startling bite force. Once it reached three inches, a single bite could kill an ordinary person in moments—a poisonous vermin feared by all.
The one before him was a full six inches long, wider than the span between his outstretched thumb and forefinger. Even though he had become a martial practitioner, suffering a bite would surely not bode well for him.
"Well done, Fist!"
Liang Qu reached around the centipede and tapped Fist's carapace.
Encouraged, Fist raised the water centipede even higher.
Could a water centipede be dominated?
Liang Qu's thoughts turned toward the squirming creature.
His cultivation had advanced substantially, freeing up mental capacity to dominate a new water beast.
For catching fish, Cannot Move and Fat Catfish were more than enough, which meant the focus of his domination ought to be bolstering his combat strength.
Yet Liang Qu's mental strength had only enough spare margin for one "Cannot Move"—and not the three-and-a-half-meter Cannot Move of today, but the Taihua alligator of under two meters back then.
With such a margin, dominating a spirit creature was out of the question; the backlash would likely turn him into a drooling idiot. Dominating another large fish would also be redundant.
In that case, a venomous water insect was the ideal choice.
Poison.
The most effective weapon for the weak to defeat the strong.
This water centipede measured six inches. As long as it could pierce an enemy's defense, even an ordinary martial practitioner would suffer gravely. Best of all, it was small. Unlike Fist, who was oddly shaped and hard to conceal, it could be carried on his person at all times.
Liang Qu looked around nearby, found a sharp flake of stone, and attempted to slice his finger open. The stone chipped apart, leaving only a shallow scrape on his skin.
Hiss—after skin tempering, ordinary stones were useless.
He would have to make time to buy a dagger from Senior Brother Lu.
Resigned, Liang Qu squeezed with all his might to coax a few drops of blood from the small cut, smeared it evenly over his fingertips, and had Fist pin the centipede flat against the ground.
The six-inch water centipede's back was too narrow, so Liang Qu had to cluster three fingertips together in a triangular shape to trace a narrow water talisman across its back.
The Marsh Cauldron shone.
In an instant, the blood-red water talisman outshone the rippling light of the cavern and slowly seeped into the water centipede's body.
Jolted by the talisman, the water centipede curled up head to tail, its jointed legs locking together inch by inch until it formed a perfectly round blue bead, rolling down into a hollow on the cavern floor.
A fierce yet bearable prick of pain surged from the depths of Liang Qu's mind. He squatted on the ground, clutching his head, and endured it.
By the time he recovered, the spiritual link within his mind was almost filled to the brim. A sliver remained, but it would barely suffice to dominate a minnow—practically negligible.
What was going on? Why did dominating a single water centipede take up so much capacity, as much as an alligator?
He communicated with the Marsh Cauldron.
[Dominated water beast: Tianshui centipede. Evolution available.]
Tianshui centipede, not water centipede?
Liang Qu was astonished. The names displayed by the Marsh Cauldron had always corresponded to common terms; a Taihua alligator was called a Taihua alligator, nothing else.
Why was this water centipede called a Tianshui centipede?
For the past two days, Liang Qu had focused his reading on the six volumes of the Annotated Miscellaneous Records of Haomu Hall, skimming through most of it, and he had never heard of a Tianshui centipede.
As if answering his doubts, the Marsh Cauldron in his mind blazed with light.
[Tianshui Centipede: A water centipede mutated after being nourished by water lingzhi and sustained by the flesh and blood of a martial practitioner. Consuming one thousand points of essence of the waters can evolve the Tianshui centipede into a great-winged Tianshui centipede.]
Holy shit, one thousand points of essence of the waters!
That was even more than Fist required to evolve.
Fist was already a spirit creature, so was this Tianshui centipede also a spirit creature, perhaps even a cut above?
Liang Qu was overjoyed. He never imagined that, purely by chance, he had dominated another little spirit creature. No wonder it demanded as much mental strength as an adult Taihua alligator despite being so tiny.
It was just the mention of martial practitioner flesh and blood that Liang Qu did not quite understand.
He knew about the water lingzhi; aside from the head-sized mushroom, he had spotted several bare stalks nearby, clearly smaller lingzhi that the water centipede had devoured.
Martial practitioner flesh and blood...
Liang Qu pinched the blue bead from the ground between his index and middle fingers. Instantly, the blue bead unfurled, returning to its six-inch form—a hundred-legged centipede whose blue armor gleamed with a metallic sheen!
The centipede reared its upper body, mouthparts menacing and thoroughly formidable. A closer inspection showed that the segments clamped by Fist bore not the slightest injury, its shell just as hard as iron.
"Since you're so formidable, I'll call you A-Wei."
The Tianshui centipede fluttered its hundred legs, circling once around Liang Qu's palm.
"Where is that human-shaped thing you ate?"
Through mental communication, A-Wei, having gained spirit wisdom, readily grasped Liang Qu's meaning. Pivoting its upper body, it pointed toward a certain direction in the cavern.
By the dim light of the vines, Liang Qu discovered a narrow fissure nestled there. One would have to squeeze in sideways, and it was carpeted with moss.
Taught by earlier experience, Liang Qu had Fist and A-Wei head in first to scout. Only after confirming it was safe did he attempt to squeeze inside.
Tucking in his waist and abdomen, he used the slippery moss to his advantage and slid right in.
Cannot Move stood outside the fissure, eager to slide in as well, but failed no matter how hard it tried. It was simply too wide, and turning sideways left it with no leverage.
Fat Catfish merely floated on the water's surface, unable to even climb onto the stone shelf, sighing in frustration at the rock.
Entering the fissure, the passage was extremely cramped at first, but after a few paces, he emerged into a tiny space of two or three square meters, also illuminated by luminescent vines.
Beneath the vines sat a moss-covered skeleton in a cross-legged posture.
The skeleton's head drooped, its teeth broken and incomplete, and half its lower jaw had dislodged, leaving behind a sinister, mocking grin.
Chapter 62