The General Is So Capricious

That roar didn't sound like a threat so much as a bluff. It must have heard He Lingchuan and the others catching up, yet it didn't spare them a single glance. What was in front of it? He Lingchuan had only blinked once when a sandy-yellow figure flashed past. It was the mountain spirit from the entrance of Chifeng Town—it had come inside too? The sand leopard pounced to the ferry whelp's flank, darting low to bite at its ankle, clearly having noticed the hard bone armor covering its body and unwilling to break its own teeth. Compared to its clumsy descendant, its speed was astonishing. Even the ferry whelp was caught off guard, dragged into a stumble. Just as the ferry whelp was about to bring down a spiked fist in an explosive blow, He Lingchuan hurled the Fusheng saber. Previously in the dead end, the space was too cramped to throw the blade effectively. This time, the distance between them was just right, and the Sure-Throw property could finally come into play. The monster jerked its head aside to dodge the strike, but Fusheng made a magnificent turn, slashing open a bloody gash across its chest armor. Just as He Lingchuan caught the returning blade in his hand, a fiery streak shot past from ahead—inconceivably fast and trailing scorching heat. It plunged directly into the cut across the whelp's chest, throwing the creature back a zhang and pinning it straight to the rock wall! Only then did everyone see that it was an ordinary standard-issue spear, but churning flames enveloped the entire weapon—a pale blue verging on ghostly white, testifying to its terrifying heat. The whelp's wound was charred black in an instant, giving off waves of acrid stench. It wailed in agony and tried to pull out its mother to take another bite or two to recover its vitality, but the sand leopard had already seized the chance to snatch the woman off its back between its jaws and slip away in the opposite direction. The whelp tried to wrench out the spear, but the moment its claws touched the shaft, they were scalded by the blistering heat, hissing with white smoke and leaving it unable to exert any force. Just then, hurried footsteps sounded from ahead, belonging to as many as six or seven people. Finally seeing the reinforcements they had waited so long for, the patrolmen were overjoyed, yet He Lingchuan froze on the spot. A dark-red figure walked past him and stopped a zhang before the monster, staring it down. That was... Could that be? An aloof voice rang directly in everyone's minds: "Sending impish whelps to cause havoc in my city—Baisha Ferry, what are you scheming?" Pinned against the wall, the monster merely thrashed and roared, showing no sign of answering. General Red waited patiently for a dozen breaths. Seeing it had no intention of confessing, he said, "Very well. Regardless of whose bidding you do, it is your offspring that dies." The ferry whelp suddenly gave a long howl. Its form shifted, body swelling burlier and stronger, and two additional arms sprouted from its back, while its face looked more human. This resembled its mature form, yet this transformation seemed artificially catalyzed—twisted and unnatural. It opened its mouth, about to speak, when a flash of cold light illuminated the entire chamber. General Red clapped his hands. "No longer interested." The onlookers: "..." The general is so capricious. Then half of the ferry whelp's head dropped off and rolled across the ground, the severed surface perfectly smooth. He Lingchuan felt a jolt of shock. Did General Red draw a blade just now? There hadn't been the slightest sound. The others let out a long breath. This monster had been so troublesome before, virtually an unkillable cockroach, yet under General Red's hand it was dispatched so casually. Sure enough, once the bond between the underground palace and the monster was severed, the difficulty of taking down the ferry whelp plummeted. With the crisis resolved, pain and exhaustion washed over the three of them at once, leaving them barely able to stand. General Red flicked out a blade, prised an oval object from the creature's skull, stowed it away, and turned to the crowd. "Well done. If the tormentor had firmly established its underground palace, clearing this nest would not have been so easy." Easy? Twenty-six people across three squads had entered, and only six or seven had survived, every single one wounded. But everyone also caught the new term: tormentor. As if sensing their unspoken grievances, General Red offered a rare explanation: "A ferry mother bears multiple young per litter, but only has an infinitesimal chance of birthing a tormentor. Within ten days of its birth, the more humans it devours, the greater its power and supernatural abilities grow. It can also use its host's body to build a nest called a flesh-and-blood fortress. Fortunately, we discovered it early, and it nested in a sparsely populated area, consuming relatively few people. "In ancient times, a tormentor devoured hundreds of thousands of living souls across an entire city, gaining the power to briefly contend with true immortals. The flesh-and-blood fortress it erected proved impervious even to an ordinary immortal's bound natal artifact." He paused. "Our slaying of this tormentor is a tremendous loss to the ferry mother as well." General Red looked at the three of them. "Are there any other survivors in the mine?" He Lingchuan opened his mouth to reply just as Skinny and the others limped out of the rear passage, shouting, "Medical help needed here!" He was carrying the unconscious Duan Xinyu on his back, while the sole survivor of Xu Chun's squad supported the patrolman whose eyes were injured. That wounded man was truly fortunate to have survived the battle in the dead end intact. Evidently, the tormentor had deemed him harmless and saved him as a midnight snack for later. Two guards behind General Red immediately rushed forward to take over. Before long, more men entered from outside carrying makeshift stretchers to carry out the two wounded men who had received emergency first aid. As for the unconscious woman, the guards asked General Red for instructions. A glance was all he gave before saying, "Carry her back to Qianfeng Town." Skinny hesitated twice, words caught in his throat. He stood behind He Lingchuan, unnoticed by the others, but General Red turned toward him. "Speak freely." Skinny was slightly startled, then hesitated before saying, "General, there seems to be something amiss deep in the mine." "Go on." "When I dug Duan Xinyu out, I noticed arc-shaped hollows on the rock walls. As I walked out, I looked closer and found hollows of varying sizes throughout the southwestern mining section." He licked his lips. "I spent two years digging for gold in the Xilin Mine. These hollows look very much like... like the traces left by gold mining using the fire-setting method." This mine yielded gold too? The fire-setting method was one of the most common techniques for extracting gold: stones were heated with fire until reaching peak temperature, then rapidly quenched with water before being chiseled with picks, making it easy to fracture hard rock to extract gold. General Red seemed taken aback for a moment, nodding only after several breaths. "No wonder. Good, you will be credited with a merit." With his word given, the orderly beside him immediately recorded it. Skinny coughed lightly. "Could this be treated as an anonymous report?" General Red seemed quite accommodating. "It can." Next, everyone followed behind General Red out of the mine. By now, the mountain road had been cleared of obstructions, with carriages and horses waiting outside. On the journey back, everyone trailed a horse-length behind General Red. This person possessed a naturally chilling aura that warned strangers away. In his presence, even the fearless Willow kept her eyes downcast and dared not speak out of turn, fearing that getting too close would freeze her. Only He Lingchuan spurred his horse forward a couple of paces to ride alongside, voicing the question in his heart: "General, why didn't you let the tormentor speak earlier?" Having entered the dream of Panlong City for over half a year, he finally saw the true face of this military god of war. It was a "she." Around twenty-six or seven, with long sweeping brows and phoenix eyes, an upturned nose and full lips, her features were arranged in the classic ideal of symmetry and proportion, perfect as an immortal stepped from a painting or a porcelain sculpture wrought with a master artisan's painstaking care. Beautiful, exquisite, and devoid of the slightest trace of human warmth. Her tea-colored eyes were icy and devoid of emotion, their gaze sharper than frost-blades and wind-swords. She glanced at He Lingchuan, and his heart gave a jolt; he instinctively looked away. This was the immense aura of authority from a superior, leaving one lacking the courage to meet her gaze. That General Red might be a woman was something He Lingchuan had anticipated long ago. But he had thought he would see Zhong Shengguang's daughter, Zhong Wuhan. Yet calculating by age, Zhong Wuhan at this time would be at most a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, at least ten years younger in appearance than the person before him. More importantly, He Lingchuan had actually seen this face before. In the Mitian Temple within the Panlong dreamscape, the gigantic divine statue worshipped by tens of thousands bore some resemblance to her. So what he was seeing right now was Mother Mitian's mortal form? "A tormentor has limited intelligence. The one I wanted to speak with was the ferry mother behind it," General Red replied. "It hesitated for so long without answering, which shows that even the ferry mother cannot act on her own initiative. When it tried to speak again later, that meant the true manipulator had arrived." This was somewhat convoluted, and He Lingchuan had to ponder for a moment before barely grasping it. General Red meant that the ferry mother was also taking orders from someone else? Well, that seemed to be what she had said earlier. "You didn't want to speak with the true manipulator?" "I know what they want to say. There is no need for dialogue," General Red said coldly. "It is enough to know that the ferry mother is also being manipulated." He Lingchuan pondered. General Red's words were not hard to understand literally, but their implications were obscure. In the end, He Lingchuan possessed too little intelligence to analyze them. However, Dong Rui had indeed said that the ferry mother held a low rank among deities. Mortals were divided into tiers and grades, let alone gods. "He Lingchuan, is there anything else?" He started. "You know who I am?" "I know every warrior in Panlong City." For anyone else to say this would be arrogance, but coming from General Red's mouth, it was different. She represented a deity. If she said she knew, she knew. General Red even added, "You performed well." Eh? Was this recognition from Panlong City? He Lingchuan offered a couple of modest demurs, but General Red did not indulge in pleasantries, simply taking something from her robe and handing it to him. "This spoil of war belongs to you." He Lingchuan took it and looked. Wasn't this just like the silkworm pupae he used to eat often? From its color to its patterns, it looked identical—brownish-red, with beautiful spiraling ridges on the surface, making one want to snap it open right in hand. Deep-fried in oil, crunchy and crisp in every bite, a great snack to go with wine. Wait, no—this seemed to be what General Red had plucked from the tormentor's skull earlier! "What is this?" "A tormentor brain core," General Red explained candidly. "A sliver of power still lingers inside, which you can activate with true power. It will allow you to simulate the tormentor's innate talent and temporarily erect a flesh-and-blood fortress." Badass! He Lingchuan was overjoyed. "I can have a bunker skill too?" A flesh-and-blood fortress was the signature skill unique to the youngest ferry whelp. On the strength of this home-field advantage alone, it had tormented so many patrolmen half to death.