"Whatever the case, more than a hundred mountain ghosts definitely made this the primary lair around Pingyang Town."
Lu Gang's words brought some relief to everyone. At least their efforts hadn't been in vain.
"We've been at it all night. Hand Black Teeth over to me. Junior Brother Xu and I will scout a bit more. The three of you head back and get some rest."
Liang Qu truly felt he needed to rest. He was utterly exhausted, his mind weighed down with fatigue.
When the sky fell, the tall stood tall. Confident that Senior Brother Lu was capable, Liang Qu accompanied his two senior brothers back to the martial hall. After a quick wash, he rubbed sword oil over the Wave-Subduing Spear, collapsed onto his bed, and fell into a deep sleep, without even having the chance to check on the marsh spirit's favor.
Liang Qu didn't wake until the afternoon. After wolfing down a simple meal of cold rice, he requested leave from his two senior brothers, making up an excuse that he needed to go home and check on the bricklayers building his house.
In truth, he wanted to find a deserted stretch of water to investigate what this favor from the marsh spirit actually was, worried that something unusual might happen during the process and draw prying eyes.
Hu Qi pondered for a moment before agreeing. "Fine. There aren't any other leads for now anyway. Just remember to come back as soon as you've checked on it."
Liang Qu bowed his thanks. "Thank you, Senior Brother. I will definitely be back before dark."
He headed down to the wharf, pushed his boat out, and stopped upon reaching a secluded stretch of water. Ducking into the canopy, he sat cross-legged.
[Searching the Mountains and Subduing Demons Progress: 32]
[Compatibility has reached 30%. Obtained the Sovereign Lord of the River's marsh spirit's favor once. You may fuse with a portion of the Sovereign Lord of the River's marsh spirit to obtain Martial Dao Divine Mastery Tier 1: martial talent doubled, and damage to water-attribute demon beasts increased by 10%. Fuse now?]
Martial talent doubled!
Liang Qu's eyes turned bloodshot at the sight of that description.
Fuse! Fuse with everything he had!
The Marsh Cauldron blazed with brilliant light.
Liang Qu saw a divine general holding a spear stride out of the cauldron and merge into his body. The instant they joined—
*Boom!*
Excruciating agony instantly pierced straight through his consciousness. It felt as if his entire body were being scorched by roaring flames; agonizing torment surged from the deepest recesses of his marrow, and every pore on his skin clamped tight!
"Ahhh! Fuck!"
Liang Qu clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails dug deep into his palms, drawing hot crimson blood.
Flames coursed through his blood to every part of his body. Violent throbs tore at his flesh, and inside his marrow flowed what felt like scalding magma!
The pain was so intense he wished he could smash his head against the deck, his consciousness hovering on the brink of blacking out with every passing second.
He didn't know how long had passed, but just as the final shred of his consciousness was about to be snuffed out, Liang Qu's vision shifted.
Heaven and earth plunged into gloom. A lead-gray river rose and fell in massive, curtain-like swells, one wave pulverized by the next before it could even crash downward, shattering into white foam.
A terrifyingly colossal shadow swam beneath the water's surface. In an instant, the river erupted and bulged upward. A horrifying creature with a pair of stag antlers broke through the surface, sending millions of tons of river water cascading outward.
The monstrous beast looked down from above, its radiant golden eyes like two blazing suns!
Was that... a dragon?!
Liang Qu's pupils shrank violently. Trembling all over, he was overwhelmed by suffocating dread.
Yet his body moved on its own.
Liang Qu shifted his gaze and was shocked to realize he held a three-pointed double-edged blade in his hands!
He raised the weapon just as he would raise his Wave-Subduing Spear, yet the sensation was completely different. As for how it differed, he couldn't begin to explain.
The three-pointed double-edged blade swung down.
Heaven and earth fell dead silent.
The roar of the waves, the howling of the wind, and the beast's bellow vanished without a trace.
Everything turned black and white. Distorted lines filled the world, chaotic and pulsing.
Liang Qu saw the tip of the three-pointed double-edged blade slice through those twisted lines. Everything in its path snapped apart, cutting straight through like a white eraser wiping across gray pencil marks.
His temples throbbed violently and his brain ached with a piercing sting, yet he didn't dare slacken in the slightest.
A vivid fissure appeared on the water's surface. The river, thousands of meters deep, cracked and caved inward. As if an invisible blade were cleaving downward, it dragged along a terrifying gale and chopped straight into the flood dragon's skull.
In an instant, the flood dragon shattered inch by inch. Letting out only half a wail, every bone and sinew in its body pulverized within a single breath, exploding into a vast mist of blood!
Thousands of li of the river turned into an ocean of blood!
Driven by primal desire, countless giant fish overcame their instinctual terror and swam upstream with all their might, desperate to take a single sip of dragon blood.
They tore wildly at one another. The moment they consumed the dragon blood, their bodies swelled and burst, exploding into mounds of minced flesh and dying the blood sea an even deeper crimson. Only a vanishingly small fraction successfully evolved, their sizes expanding drastically, each radiating a terrifying aura.
Liang Qu stood frozen in place.
*Am I... that strong?*
*Whoosh!*
The scene shifted once again. Liang Qu's arms gave out, and his face slammed onto the wooden deck. His teeth clashed against his lips, spilling fresh blood.
It hurt so badly!
The lingering agony in his marrow still made Liang Qu tremble slightly. He struggled desperately to push himself up, clutching his head as he strained to recall that scene.
Forgotten. He had forgotten it all.
Liang Qu's face was deathly pale. For some reason, his mind was completely blank; he couldn't remember a single detail of that swinging strike. The pain was simply unbearable!
Why had it hurt so much?
It was entirely different from when he fused with the Water Monkey.
[Fused with a portion of the Sovereign Lord of the River's marsh spirit. Obtained Martial Dao Divine Mastery Tier 1: martial talent doubled, and damage to water-attribute demon beasts increased by 10%.]
Well, that made it bearable.
He hadn't expected to fuse with another marsh spirit besides Wuzhiqi.
Unfortunately, Erlang Shen's other mythological feats were unimaginably difficult, far out of reach, so earning another favor from him would likely be hard.
For now, the priority was still to upgrade the Water Monkey to an azure marsh spirit as soon as possible. His Monkey Brother was no slouch either; even Dayu had to show him respect. When the time came, the transformation was bound to be immense.
Just looking at the description—soaring across waters and riding the waves—was glorious to imagine.
Liang Qu managed to roll over and collapse onto the deck, panting heavily.
His body felt dreadfully sticky, crusted over with salt crystals. He looked no different from someone who had just been fished out of the water. Only after resting for a full three-quarters of an hour did he recover enough strength to jump into the water for a bath.
After receiving Jianghuai's Favor, Liang Qu could no longer feel the cold of the Jianghuai River at all.
Yet he could clearly still feel the cold when drawing well water on ordinary days. It felt as if the Jianghuai River had granted him special administrative privileges.
Once the favor reached one hundred percent, would he become an administrator of the Jianghuai River? That would practically make him an alternative kind of river god, wouldn't it?
Liang Qu let his thoughts wander as he finished his bath, climbed back into the boat, and checked the blood qi in his chest.
Three cun thick, two chi long!
He could actually begin flesh tempering now!
Flesh tempering only required qi and blood to be two and a half cun thick, roughly the width of a forearm. Three cun was more than enough.
He hadn't expected that receiving the Sovereign Lord of the River's favor and fusing with a small portion of the marsh spirit would bring such extra benefits.
He had only been studying martial arts for two months, yet he was already about to begin flesh tempering and break through the second gate?
Excitement surged through Liang Qu's heart. He tried running the Bow Jin Method again; the circulation of qi and blood was far smoother and felt remarkably easy.
If he had to make an analogy, it was like running software that previously required maximum capacity, only for its computational demands to suddenly be cut in half.
No, that wasn't quite right. The Bow Jin Method hadn't changed; he was the one who had changed. It was as if he had installed an extra stick of RAM, dropping his resource usage from one hundred percent down to fifty percent. Requiring less mental effort naturally made practicing it much easier.
After the attempt, Liang Qu sat cross-legged and began flesh tempering.
Breaking the flesh gate followed the same method as breaking the skin gate: dispersing blood qi and fusing it into the muscle fibers and large sinews.
Unlike the excruciating pain from earlier, refining the flesh gate made his whole body feel wonderfully warm. Every inch of muscle and sinew squirmed and shifted slowly, an utterly delightful sensation.
It felt just like stretching languidly after sitting for a long time, hearing one's spine pop as tense muscles relaxed.
"Phew."
Having finished one round of gate tempering, all of Liang Qu's fatigue melted away. He reached out and drew Wave-Subduing.
Breathing!
The Wave-Subduing Spear was truly breathing!
He could feel it!
Liang Qu's eyes went wide. He had never felt it so clearly before. Previously, he had only felt connected to the spear in mind and spirit, finding it exceptionally comfortable to wield.
He had never sensed a living presence residing within it the way Senior Brother Lu described.
So before, it was just that his martial talent hadn't been high enough to perceive it?
Liang Qu stood at the prow, brandishing the heavy spear. The spearhead tapped the surface of the water without raising a single drop, stirring only a ripple.
It was an indescribable feeling, but it was certainly far easier.
Though he hadn't formally studied spear techniques much, he instinctively knew what to do and how to execute it properly, as if by second nature.
This felt incredible!
Liang Qu smiled with delight. Even if his martial talent had only been average before, after being doubled, wouldn't he at least be one in a thousand?
Besides, during those two days of special training, Senior Brother Hu had said he was pretty good. Wouldn't that make him one in ten thousand now?
*I'm a one-in-ten-thousand genius!*
Liang Qu couldn't help puffing out his chest. Facing the river expanse, his heart broadened, his spirits soaring high.
Finally, he wanted to test this move.
Beneath the boat, the river swelled and ripples spread.
Liang Qu took a deep breath and stepped onto the water's surface.
Surging currents weighing over a thousand jin churned, slowly lifting him up.
Chapter 80