With the Wave Slash unleashed, it was now his enemy's turn to face the crushing fury of a towering wave.
He Lingchuan had come to pay his respects; since the other party refused to appreciate his goodwill, he might as well switch to kicking down their door.
The youth dared not meet the blade head-on. He retreated diagonally twenty feet to avoid its edge, a dark silhouette seeming to flash across his back before he burrowed into the ground and vanished.
*Earth escape? How is this kid's escape technique so fluid?* He Lingchuan was startled.
The dark silhouette on the youth's back had sneak-attacked He Lingchuan's instep moments ago, but He Lingchuan had not gotten a clear look at what it was, knowing only that it was no living creature.
He Lingchuan kept moving erratically, not daring to remain in one spot for too long. He spread his divine sense, raised his vigilance to the utmost, and held out the mirror shield in his left hand, shining it in all directions.
The soul-snatching mirror suddenly warned him, "Two feet to your front-left!"
He Lingchuan stopped dead in his tracks.
Sure enough, a point of dark shadow silently emerged from the ground beneath his feet, thrusting like lightning toward his Yongquan acupoint.
Whoever was struck there would surely leap in agony.
Yet He Lingchuan's pause had been bait; he hesitated for merely an instant before sliding aside, perfectly exposing the dark shadow.
Fusheng slashed down, cleaving the dark shadow in two!
There was no solid resistance; the thing was indeed incorporeal. But Fusheng was inherently adept at cutting formless, bodiless things, and the dark shadow was no exception.
The severed upper half drifted down, faintly resembling a venomous stinger with a bulging sac beneath it, but dissipated into the air after only two breaths.
Without waiting for the lower half to retract into the soil, He Lingchuan turned Fusheng upright and plunged it viciously into the ground, burying it to the hilt!
For Fusheng, slicing through earth was easier than cutting through sponge cake.
He Lingchuan had judged the position with pinpoint accuracy; this thrust finally met the solid sensation of piercing flesh and blood!
To make matters worse, he was thoroughly wicked—gripping the hilt, he gave it a vicious twist—
He could even faintly hear an agonized roar rising from beneath.
"Junior Brother Qiu!" The nearby Mount Rong disciples rushed to his rescue, flicking two iron caltrops with a raise of the hand.
He Lingchuan dodged aside and stepped back two paces.
The youth underground also vaulted up some distance away, his right chest dripping with blood.
Yet the moment he returned to the surface, he was struck by a flare of golden light—at least ten times the intensity of the blazing sun—nearly dazzling the soul right out of him.
Anyone's instinct would be to squeeze their eyes shut and raise an arm to block it.
The moment he made the move, he thought grimly, *It's over.*
Sure enough, a light breeze swept up behind him, and a cold blade already rested against his neck. The other man asked leisurely, "Still want to fight?"
The youth opened his eyes, only to see a blinding expanse of white; his vision had not recovered at all.
He had no choice but to roar, "Stop! Everyone, stop!"
Just then, a rustling noise tore through the woods, and a colossal figure charged toward He Lingchuan accompanied by a savage roar.
Two trees as thick as watermelons stood in its path; without flinching or dodging, it snapped them in two, grabbing one of the trunks amid the splintering crashes and swinging it in a horizontal sweep straight at He Lingchuan.
Trees snapped and boulders shattered in its wake.
Having just defeated Qiu Hu, He Lingchuan had no desire to keep fighting. Stowing away the shadow-projecting lamp, he executed a swallow flip and retreated to Zhu Daniang's side.
The shadow-projecting lamp was a treasure he had scooped up from the formation core on Mount Xu. If it could reveal the diagram on the spider immortal's moulted husk, it could easily blind ordinary eyes. Once He Lingchuan figured out how to use it, he realized it was an absolute masterpiece for ambushes.
The giant shadow pursued him relentlessly, as if bearing a deep, bitter grudge.
Just as Zhu Daniang was about to teach it a lesson, Dong Rui crawled out from beneath her belly and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Number Seventeen, halt!"
Even as the log was about to slam into his face, Dong Rui showed not the slightest fear; instead, he puffed out his chest and took two strides forward, a complete contrast to his previous cowering self.
He Lingchuan did not push him away either, for the oncoming giant shadow dug its soles into the ground, screeching to a sudden, violent halt.
The log stopped barely two feet from Dong Rui's nose.
The billowing dust set him coughing repeatedly.
"Pah, pah, pah! Take it away! How dare you show disrespect to your master!"
Sure enough, the creature tossed the log aside and roared at him twice, its voice brimming with the joy of reunion. It even reared up on two legs and pounded its chest with both fists.
This was a giant ape, standing a full ten feet tall on its hind legs. Its body bulged with knotted muscle, its twisted face resembled a yaksha, and a collar of thorns was clasped around its neck.
The moment it appeared, He Lingchuan recognized it as one of Dong Rui's demon puppets—
The ghost ape.
He Lingchuan remembered badly wounding the ghost ape on the Xiazhou front line, so Dong Rui had not brought it to the Battle of the Han River. Later, when both of them were washed into the Demon Nest by the floodwaters, Dong Rui never mentioned where this demon puppet had gone.
Bizarre. How had this creature suddenly surfaced in the forests of Mount Rong?
The ghost ape still recognized him, its small eyes smoldering with hatred.
A monkey's heart was even pettier than a human's. He Lingchuan had injured it several times before, landing himself firmly on its blacklist, so seeing its enemy now naturally made its eyes blaze with fury.
He Lingchuan seized the moment to take out an object, held it to the wound on his foot, and squeezed it several times.
Looking at Dong Rui's expression now, aside from delight, he appeared utterly bewildered as well.
Yet that did not stop Dong Rui from patting his own shoulder and ordering the demon puppet, "Come back!"
The ghost ape immediately shrank to the size of an ordinary macaque, preparing to leap onto his shoulder.
The youth surnamed Qiu suddenly spoke up, beckoning to it. "Monkey, over here!"
His sight had not fully recovered, but from the sound and commotion, he knew the ghost ape had arrived.
The ghost ape froze. It looked back at him, then at Dong Rui, surprisingly showing some hesitation.
Of all the demon puppets Dong Rui created, which one was not submissive and obedient to its master? The ghost ape was his proudest creation, boasting the highest degree of completion.
It actually showed signs of obeying a stranger?
Dong Rui's face darkened, and he waved his hand sharply. "What are you dawdling for?!"
In the end, the master's authority and the ingrained inertia of hundreds of training sessions won out. The ghost ape took two steps back and leaped onto Dong Rui's shoulder, transforming from a berserk giant ape into an obedient little monkey.
This turn of events seemed to shock every Mount Rong disciple, even causing their attacks to slacken.
Riding the lingering momentum of taming the ghost ape, Dong Rui demanded with a stern face, "Let me ask you again: is treating guests like enemies a tradition of Mount Rong?"
The sullen youth shook his leg. "No."
The saber wound on his right shoulder slashed all the way down to his chest, the flesh rolled back to reveal the white bone beneath. He Lingchuan's cut had bitten deep; had the youth not dodged quickly, his entire shoulder would have been shorn off.
With this interruption by the ghost ape, both sides cooled down.
They bore no deep hatred to begin with—merely a small misunderstanding. Why fight to the death?
The youth pointed at the ground blanketed in white silk webbing. "It's not safe here."
Zhu Daniang spoke at the same time: "Those damn things have hatched."
Her tactile senses were sharp, able to detect the strange stirrings underground—such as the bizarre cicadas bursting through bellies and devouring their maternal hosts down to nothing.
It was just that while their side was fighting the Mount Rong disciples, Zhu Daniang had not spoken up.
The words had barely fallen when the soil churned, and dozens of bizarre cicadas crawled onto the surface. Some flew, some leaped, charging toward the group without hesitation.
Their fervor was like a pack of wolves starved for seven days and seven nights hurtling toward plump, tender sheep.
The sullen youth told his companions, "Release the water."
Chapter 747