Each of the snake's scales was larger than a copper coin and far harder. Even a full-force chop from the youth's subordinates could barely damage them.
Yet when the youth bit down, the scale shattered with a crisp crunch, as brittle beneath his teeth as a potato chip.
He took two more bites in quick succession, tearing away several scales to expose the supple snake hide beneath.
By now, the giant python realized something was terribly wrong. What it was constricting felt like a solid wooden post—where was the softness and elasticity of living flesh?
Forget a human body; it should have been able to crush a timber pillar of this thickness into splinters.
Then came the searing pain of its scales being ripped away. The python looked down to see the youth opening his mouth again, biting directly into the fresh wound.
His neat row of white teeth had transformed into sharp, serrated points, like the teeth of a shark.
Agony beyond words racked the python. It felt as though its blood and flesh were being sucked straight into the creature's gullet.
To the onlookers, the serpent's plump, massive body began to shrivel, and the scales around the wound started peeling away in sheets.
Howling in pain with a guttural shriek, the python spewed a blast of green fire at the youth.
It was not true fire, but a corrosive miasma brewed from the stomach acid in its gut. It was fiercely erosive to skin, causing the flesh of anyone it touched to split open in excruciating agony.
Where the miasma swept past, the skin on the youth's face and neck indeed corroded away, laying bare crimson muscle. Yet he remained utterly unfazed, simply closing his eyes against the spray.
Having exhausted its options, the python released the youth and tried to flee into the woods.
"Damn it, that hurt! You think you're getting away?" The black-clad youth had no intention of letting it go. Reaching out with a backhand, he dragged the beast back and resumed gnawing and sucking.
Watching itself grow looser and looser until it resembled an empty leather sack, the python shrieked, "I am a special envoy of the Eling Kingdom! Kill me and there will be dire consequences! Neither Eling nor the Jeweled Tree Kingdom will spare you!"
The youth let go, his face full of bewilderment. "What? You're not from the Shanyu Kingdom?"
"No, no! I am an emissary of the Eling Kingdom!"
"Where are your credentials? Show me."
The python spat out an envoy's staff of office.
One of the subordinates stepped forward, picked it up, and respectfully handed it to the youth.
He held it up to inspect it against the light. "Mm, it really is an Eling envoy's tally staff."
His voice was thick with disappointment.
"You've got the wrong person!" The python strained to pull its tail free. "Let me go, and my kingdom will let bygones be bygones."
"So you're a special envoy too, just not the one I was looking for." The youth smacked his lips with a trace of regret. "I've already eaten half of you. Whatever, might as well finish the job." With that, he seized the snake's body once more and sank his teeth in with ferocious force.
No matter how the giant python begged, it was useless. Amid dripping blood, it was drained into little more than an empty skin.
Having consumed so much flesh and blood, the black-clad youth showed no sign of a bloated belly; he merely let out a satisfied burp, and the corrosive wounds on his face knitted closed.
He cast the serpent's carcass aside and casually wiped the corners of his mouth.
"This bastard wasn't from the Shanyu Kingdom after all. Got my hopes up for nothing. Fu Jiu, didn't you say the Shanyu special envoy would pass through the Three Hearts Plain?"
The region encompassing Three Hearts Lake and the surrounding forests was known as the Three Hearts Plain.
The subordinate singled out, Fu Jiu, replied in terror, "Young Master, the intelligence I gathered was absolutely true. If they haven't arrived, it's mostly... mostly likely due to Emperor's Flowing Dew."
The schedules of all diplomatic missions could easily be thrown into chaos by the arrival of Emperor's Flowing Dew.
"'Mostly likely'?" The black-clad youth scoffed. "So you failed to confirm it thoroughly? Tell me yourself how you should be punished."
A thin sheen of cold sweat coated Fu Jiu's brow. "I still need to serve the Young Master. How about I sever one of my fingers?"
The black-clad youth pondered for a moment. "Fine. I'll let you off this once."
Gritting his teeth, Fu Jiu drew his blade and swiftly lopped off a finger, seemingly afraid the youth might change his mind.
Naturally, it was his pinky.
"Then we'll settle it once we reach Fufeng City." In this desolate wilderness, where could they track down their target's movements? They might as well wait at the destination. "For now, let's find that lump of Emperor's Flowing Dew paste first!"
Treasures of heaven and earth belonged to the capable.
No matter whose hands the Emperor's Flowing Dew paste had fallen into, he was grateful to them for holding onto it for him this long.
The black-clad youth pointed toward the northeast and asked the crow perched in the treetops, "You said he went that way?"
Seeing how effortlessly he had sent the giant python to its grave, the crow's confidence soared. It immediately hopped over to the spot where He Lingchuan had vanished into the woods. "He slipped right between these two trees!"
The youth walked over, closed his eyes, and took another deep breath. After appearing to analyze the scents in his mind for a good while, he spoke. "That's right. Besides the thick fragrance, there's the scent of a human from the lake! This fellow was busy all night; his body is soaked in Emperor's Flowing Dew!"
"Pack up quickly and follow me." With that, he plunged into the forest, racing after the scent.
Through the rugged mountain woods, his speed far outstripped a galloping horse.
The crow hurriedly flapped its wings to keep up.
Yet before it had flown even a few hundred paces, it realized to its dismay that it had lost him again!
***
He Lingchuan had indeed retreated toward the northeast.
Here, towering trees reached into the sky, the canopy knit so tightly that one could scarcely find a patch of sky the size of a palm—precisely the terrain he needed most.
His horse was gone, but the tiger controlled by the evil spirit remained. With the mirror suppressing it, the tiger demon would not regain its senses anytime soon.
Using the tiger as a mount, He Lingchuan rode ten li without stopping.
Only when the trees began to thin ahead did he dismount, pick a tall tree, and climb up more than fifty feet until he found a comfortable fork in the branches to sit.
The tree was lush with foliage, and the perch he had chosen offered an exceptional vantage point right beside an animal trail.
Through the gaps in the leaves above, he spotted the crow circling overhead several times, cawing in bitter frustration.
He had chosen this spot because straying too far would make it difficult to receive clear transmissions from the eyeball spider.
Watching so many martial artists and monsters slaughtering one another over the rumors the crow had spread, he felt immensely fortunate that he had chosen to slip away early.
Furthermore, the black-clad youth's guess had not been wrong; He Lingchuan had indeed considered doubling back to scavenge whatever was left once the slaughter by the lakeshore wound down.
However, thanks to a peeping divine artifact like the eyeball spider, he had had no need to watch from up close. Thus, he had avoided being flushed out by the black-clad youth's purple-gold hammer, while the stalking python had suffered a wretched fate instead.
Yet the moment that black-clad youth made his entrance, He Lingchuan had raised his guard to the maximum.
Despite having a handsome human face, that fellow was not human at all, was he?
What normal person had eyes and fangs like that?
After the black-clad youth devoured the giant python, He Lingchuan overheard his exchange with the crow. He immediately leaped down from the tree, mounted the tiger, and urged it into a frantic gallop.
Observing the youth in action, He Lingchuan had seen that he handled the python with ease to spare; he definitely had more cards up his sleeve.
He Lingchuan had little confidence in facing such an adversary.
Most importantly, he currently carried a great treasure. Fine jade did not clash with coarse pottery; with such an abundant haul of Emperor's Flowing Dew on him, he had no desire to fight to the death against an unknown monster.
He had initially planned to use Lord Boshan's invisible snakeskin to slip away undetected, but that fellow's nose was sharper than a hound's. He Lingchuan could conceal his own aura, but the scent of Emperor's Flowing Dew was impossible to mask.
Thinking hard as he spurred the tiger along, He Lingchuan quickly hit upon a solution.
He made a wide turn.
If the crow had been able to spot him from above, it would have seen him trace a massive U-shaped arc, heading back toward Three Hearts Lake.
Along the way, he even trespassed onto the territory of two monsters, receiving two furious bellows in greeting.
These were a pair of massive wild boars, their bulk nearly rivaling the tiger he was riding.
Behind them lay a massive burrow in the ground.
As everyone knew, wild boars loved living in subterranean hollows.
The moment He Lingchuan caught sight of the burrow, he could not bring himself to leave, and the tiger ground to a halt.
The two boar demons immediately snorted loudly at him, warning him to clear off. Their four beady eyes burned crimson, and white froth clung to their snouts after a whole night of frenzied excitement.
Unexpectedly, He Lingchuan began stripping off his outer robe and trousers with unstoppable speed.
The two boar demons froze on the spot.
*Was this something we were meant to see?*
Then the bundle of clothes came flying right at their heads.
The boars furiously tried to gore them away, but a twitch of their snouts caught the rich scent of Emperor's Flowing Dew.
*Huh?*
*What's this?*
Overjoyed, the boars clamped their jaws onto the clothes and dragged them into their burrow. After all, the spiritual rain of Emperor's Flowing Dew had pelted this set of garments for an entire night.
Dawn was breaking and the spiritual rain had ceased, yet here was a windfall dropped straight into their laps. They needed to retreat into their den to digest it properly.
Wiggling their rumps, they retreated inside. Stripped down to his inner garments, He Lingchuan circled the tiger once around the burrow before spurring it forward toward the lake once more.
***
Barely the time it took to drink a cup of tea later, the black-clad youth actually tracked the trail here.
Gazing at the burrow in the dense woods, he furrowed his brows.
Following the scent all this way, he sensed that it was thickest inside the hollow.
Had the target hidden in the den?
It did not seem impossible.
With dawn approaching, both beasts and men would seek a safe haven to absorb what they had gained overnight.
Besides, how could the target have known someone was in hot pursuit?
After a moment's hesitation, the youth stooped and crawled into the burrow.
He remained inside for nearly half a quarter-hour.
What took place within was impossible to see, but a series of shrill, frantic squeals echoed out.
The saying "squealing like a stuck pig" must have found its very prototype right here.
Sometime later, the youth crawled back out with a sullen face.
His clothes were black to begin with, so the blood spatters were not conspicuous, but he reeked heavily of gore, and several droplets were speckled across his face.
The burrow had been too cramped to dodge.
The first thing he did upon emerging was look up at the sky.
Time was running short.
The youth cast about his surroundings and finally picked up the scent once more.
This time he moved even faster. When he dashed past a pair of grazing sika deer, they merely lifted their heads in bewilderment, having no clue what had just whipped by.
Sprinting several hundred paces, he reached a prominent animal trail leading toward a bamboo grove.
Just as his feet struck the ground there, the earth shuddered beneath him—*BOOM!* An explosion tore through the soil.
The blast packed tremendous force, blasting out a crater two feet deep at its center and hurling dirt across an area twenty feet around into the sky before it came showering back down.
The thunderous roar sent birds and beasts scattering in all directions.
The black-clad youth was flung over ten feet away, but the moment he hit the ground, he rolled back to his feet, seemingly unharmed.
Yet his clothes and boots had been shredded into rags. His appearance was now thoroughly wretched; if he were to set a broken bowl by the roadside in Fufeng City, some kind soul would surely toss him a coin.
"I was too hasty after all." If he had not been so impatient to catch his quarry, he would have caught the faint whiff of gunpowder concealed along the path.
Paying no heed to anything else now, he continued his pursuit toward the far side of the bamboo grove.
Suddenly, the view opened up before him—
The path came to an abrupt end. Directly ahead lay the vast, mist-shrouded waters of the main body of Three Hearts Lake.
Chapter 379