"Young Master, there is relentless fighting in the dense forest ahead, and the stench of blood is heavy."
"The dense forest?" The youth glanced toward the surface of Three Hearts Lake. "Did the crows say the dense forest?"
He lifted his head and took several deep sniffs of the air. "The aura of Emperor's Flowing Dew is remarkably rich here. The crows were not lying about that."
The youth walked a few paces toward the lakeshore, then leapt into a tall tree—the very one where He Lingchuan had rigged his silk net earlier—and sampled the air once more.
Closing his eyes, his sense of smell seemed capable of "seeing" the shapes of scents. What he perceived was that the lingering aura of Emperor's Flowing Dew drifting across the vast expanse of the lake was unprecedentedly rich, even tinged with a few faint traces of dark fishiness.
The youth opened his eyes. "Emperor's Flowing Dew paste?"
Extremes breed their opposites. To his acute sense of smell, a fragrance that became too concentrated swung toward the opposite extreme.
Needless to say, that had to be the scent given off by a congealed paste far denser than ordinary Emperor's Flowing Dew.
No living creature could resist such a soul-deep yearning.
A faint red glow gleamed uncontrollably in the youth's eyes, yet his tone remained level.
"What manner of creature could intercept Emperor's Flowing Dew high above the lake? Judging by the trace, they gathered quite a lot. Wait, this smells like a human." Mingled within the fragrance of the Emperor's Flowing Dew and mostly dispersed by the mountain wind, it was faint.
Reflecting on it, however, the lake's surface was remarkably open and unobstructed—truly an ideal spot to harvest spiritual dew.
"Someone was harvesting Emperor's Flowing Dew in midair before?" He turned toward the place where the creatures were battling. "Then why are they tearing each other apart over there?"
His subordinate suggested, "Perhaps he was run down."
"Makes sense. Let's take a look." The crows had been squawking "Emperor's Flowing Dew paste" the entire way. That prize was no less than a magnet, drawing who knew how many competitors.
The spiritual rain was a once-in-decades encounter, to say nothing of natural chunks of Emperor's Flowing Dew paste—that was truly jackpot-level luck.
At this moment, the victors of the dense forest skirmish were two monsters known as "laozhi." Their bodies and limbs resembled jackals, but their heads could blossom open like flower petals, shooting out whiplike tongues from within.
In their youth, such creatures were plants, rooted in the soil and unable to move. Once they turned into monsters and grew limbs, however, they could uproot themselves, roaming the woods to hunt, with their prey growing ever larger in size.
It operated on the same principle as ginseng babies and lingzhi ponies running all over the mountains, except that these beasts were a bit bigger, uglier, and far more voracious.
They were currently devouring human corpses on the ground, gulping them down one by one at an unhurried pace.
As the black-clad youth and his entourage approached, the two laozhi spun around at once, hissing warning growls at them.
These creatures were classic examples of seeing without eyes and hearing without ears.
"Get lost!" Without a flicker of fear, the black-clad youth strode forward. "Move, or face summary execution!"
Crimson light flared abruptly in his eyes, and the surrounding light dimmed as though coiled in black smoke.
With every step he took, all plant life within fifteen feet rapidly withered; trees shed their leaves, blossoms and grass decayed, and even the fertile black soil turned pale and cracked.
The tip of one laozhi's front claw caught within this radius; as if scorched by fire, it gave a sharp squeak and snapped back.
That claw tip had shriveled too, its pale green skin stippled with brown flecks like a blight-stricken leaf.
The specks spread wider and wider, and the claw tip began turning yellow.
The laozhi had no choice but to bow its head and bite off its own front toe.
Having suffered this loss, they recognized his deadly power. As the youth advanced, they retreated, and though they snarled twice, anyone could hear the bluster masking their fear.
They had no counter; the youth's divine ability or elemental affinity countered them completely.
Catching the scent of the Emperor's Flowing Dew, the two laozhi drooled onto the ground, deeply unwilling to part with it. Yet in the end, they dared not fight and could only turn away in resentment, leaving most of the spoils to the black-clad youth.
Though derived from flora, they were hardly blockheads; they knew when they were outmatched. Lingering any longer meant certain death.
His subordinates hurried forward to scavenge the spoils.
Soon their faces lit up with grins:
"These two gathered three bottles of Emperor's Flowing Dew. Not bad, not bad at all!"
"The belly pouches of these two violent apes have plenty of goods tucked away too. Let me see how much... Bah! Why is it just fruit?!"
Another man stepped forward as if presenting a treasure, offering up two leaves. The youth peeled them open to find a small lump of congealed Emperor's Flowing Dew paste inside, barely larger than a fingernail.
"Which corpse did you find this on?"
"That tiger." The subordinate turned and pointed. The tigress on the ground had already been half-eaten. "Half its teeth were knocked out, so it was easy to yank free."
The tigress had likely failed to resist temptation, gobbling down whatever Emperor's Flowing Dew she had seized and leaving only this tiny scrap of paste. This was why the other monsters had chosen to devour her carcass directly to absorb the spiritual energy.
"This is the paste the crows were squawking about?" The black-clad youth frowned. "Far too little."
The subordinate chuckled cheerily. "There are over forty corpses here. Scouring them all will yield quite a haul."
Their band of a dozen had gathered in the valley all night and hadn't collected a third of what was here. Truly, murder and robbery was the quickest way to wealth.
The youth mused, "Can you tell who was killed first?"
The subordinate smiled wryly. "They all died within the last half hour. Telling who went first is a bit..." Wasn't this asking the impossible?
The black-clad youth noticed the corpse of a shanxiao lying on the ground.
With the Emperor's Flowing Dew just ended, the monsters naturally targeted other monsters first to devour. This shanxiao was merely a large monkey with negligible cultivation, allowing its body to remain intact until now.
"Why would an ordinary shanxiao die here, in a battleground between monsters and cultivators?"
Shouldn't an ordinary beast run as far away as possible when encountering such a melee? Or did this shanxiao try to fish in troubled waters and steal some Emperor's Flowing Dew, only to get slaughtered?
He crouched to inspect it. "Killed by the bite of a beast of prey."
There were several beasts of prey on the scene; which one had killed it?
Suddenly, a white-fronted crow swooped down from a treetop several fathoms away, landing on a low branch and flapping its wings. "It was killed by a tiger! I saw it with my own eyes!"
A crow? The youth's eyes flashed. "Were you the ones spreading the news everywhere?"
"Yes!" The crow folded its wings. "A man snatched our Emperor's Flowing Dew paste—it was bigger than a duck's egg! This shanxiao was his minion!"
Paste bigger than a duck's egg? The onlookers were visibly shaken.
A natural paste carried the potency of a hundred times its volume in liquid Emperor's Flowing Dew, along with countless magical uses. This flock of crows had struck the jackpot only to have it stolen—no wonder they were driven mad with rage.
Seeing its agitation, the youth surmised, "This man didn't die?"
"Two tiger demons ambushed him, but he took control of one and killed the other," the crow squawked. "Then the white cranes came, so he abandoned the tiger carcass and dashed into the woods to escape!"
"Escaped?" The youth's gaze sharpened. "You lost him?"
"None of us can find him," the crow replied. "To the west is barren gravel desert, wide open and empty, while to the east is Three Hearts Lake. He could only have gone northeast!" It then described He Lingchuan's attire. "He was also wearing a Nuo ghost mask."
A subordinate offered a suggestion to the black-clad youth: "Young Master, should we summon the mountain spirits to inquire?"
"I'm afraid not today." Mountain spirits were monsters as well, and during an outbreak of Emperor's Flowing Dew, they would never answer a summons. "Besides, we might not even be able to command the local mountain spirits."
The black-clad youth then reached into his robes, drew out a purple-gold hammer, and gave it two shakes.
The hammer expanded upon catching the wind, growing larger than a human head.
Inverting the handle, the black-clad youth struck the ground with the hammerhead three times: *clang, clang, clang!*
Centered on the point of impact, shockwaves rippled in all directions, rattling the surrounding trees so violently that leaves rained down.
Yet this tremor was relatively gentle, causing no major destruction; it merely dispersed the morning mist and faint haze hanging over the forest in an instant.
Now, the forest was so crisp and clear it seemed freshly washed with water.
This was the purple-gold hammer's special property: Barrier-Breaking.
Had there been any illusions, obscuring glamours, or invisibility arts in effect, a few such vibrations would force them to reveal themselves.
Clearly, the black-clad youth believed that whoever took the Emperor's Flowing Dew paste had intentionally abandoned the tiger carcass while hiding nearby, watching like a bystander while the snipe and clam fought, waiting to reap the spoils in the end.
Because had it been him, he would have done the exact same thing.
His subordinates fanned out as well, ready to make the capture.
Suddenly, one of them paled in horror, pointing behind the black-clad youth and shouting, "Behind you!"
A giant gray python had slithered up behind the youth at some unknown moment. Nearly three feet thick, it possessed the ability to camouflage and turn invisible, leaving no trace on the ground, so none of them had noticed.
It had already coiled into a strike pose, preparing to ambush the youth, when his three hammer blows to the ground shattered its invisibility power.
Just like that, the colossal beast was exposed in broad daylight right in the center of the clearing.
Seeing its cover blown, the giant python struck instantly, moving so fast that to the onlookers, the black spots along its scales blurred into unbroken lines.
Without turning his head, the black-clad youth took a single sidestep, evading it with ease.
Following through, the giant python snapped sideways to seize his waist.
Unexpectedly, the youth's purple-gold hammer met it—so naturally it looked as if the serpent had deliberately thrust its head into the blow.
A deafening *clang* rang out, lingering long in the air.
The giant serpent was actually sent flying, its head snapping a small tree in half.
That heavy hammer blow smashed into its jawbone, not only shattering bone but twisting its lower jaw so severely that it could not close its mouth anytime soon.
The gray python struggled to lift its head, failing twice as if reeling from a massive concussion.
Unrushed, the youth strode over, intending to bring the purple-gold hammer down on its skull once more.
The moment he reached the giant python, however, it lunged violently and coiled tightly around him!
Its mouth was mangled beyond use, but that mattered little—a python's natural instincts remained. Once wrapped around its prey, thousands of muscles strained in unison to crush him on the spot!
"Young Master!" The subordinates rushed forward.
Yet wary of the purple-gold hammer, the giant python held its head high. Unless someone brought a horse-cleaving saber, no one could reach high enough to strike its head.
"Back off!" the giant python roared. "Or I'll strangle him to death!"
Its scales were thick and tough, occasionally flashing with protective gleams, but under the onslaught of blades, the pain was excruciating.
Right then, the black-clad youth suddenly said, "You wear out iron shoes searching in vain, only to find it right before your eyes. You delivered yourself right to me."
What did that mean?
Before the giant python could comprehend, the youth opened his mouth and bit down into its body.
Both of his arms were pinned, leaving only his neck free to move—and a simple drop of his head brought his teeth directly into flesh.
Chapter 378