Although He Lingchuan hadn't seen it clearly, he was certain that Qiu Hu's spirit guardian—er, demon spirit—was likely of the lion or tiger variety. Otherwise, a divine ability akin to the "Lion's Roar" would be very difficult for a human to master.
The spellcaster was ambushed by Wang Fubao as well; the pommel of a saber struck the back of his head, knocking him out cold.
Of Min Tianxi's thirty-four men, only thirteen or fourteen were left standing in the blink of an eye.
Blood soaked Fishbone Reef, staining the nearby sea red.
This man named He truly showed no mercy!
Two pirates tried to charge over to save their chief, but both were hacked down by Xiang Lian, the Mount Rong man standing behind He Lingchuan. He Lingchuan gave a slight tilt of his chin toward him; catching the hint, Xiang Lian pressed his blade against Min Tianxi's neck.
The blood on the blade trickled down Min Tianxi's throat.
He Lingchuan picked up the round silver disc from the ground, kneaded it into a ball, and crouched before Min Tianxi.
"I'll give you a chance to say it again: whose fist is harder?"
With every word he uttered, he slammed the silver lump into Min Tianxi's face.
Twelve words spoken, twelve blows landed on Min Tianxi's face.
Just earlier, Min Tianxi had crushed the wine flagon to humiliate him, and now He Lingchuan paid him back in kind—literally slapping him across the face.
Soft as silver might be, imbued with He Lingchuan's true power, it still battered him until blood splattered everywhere.
Min Tianxi's face was battered black and blue, his eyes could barely open, and one of his teeth had been knocked out.
The silver lump had long been warped out of shape and smeared with blood. He Lingchuan shoved it into Min Tianxi's collar and gave it two light pats. "Consider it a reward from me later."
Min Tianxi was still a tough man; even grinding his teeth to powder, he refused to yield.
Painful as his face was, compared to the agony racking his internal organs, it was virtually nothing.
He Lingchuan smiled again. "Besides staying or leaving, there's actually a third option: being tossed into the sea to feed the fish! Ah Hu—"
He pointed not far away.
Min Tianxi had only brought thirty-odd men down from the ship. It wasn't that he didn't want to bring more, but that Fishbone Reef couldn't hold any more people.
Seeing their comrades getting mauled, sixty or seventy scoundrels on the ship howled and leaped overboard onto the reef.
On He Lingchuan's side, the Mount Rong disciples who had stayed on their vessel rushed over in reinforcement as well, but all told, they numbered only ten.
Understanding his intent, Qiu Hu signaled to Lü Qiuwei, who immediately formed a hand seal and shouted, "Wind, arise!"
*Whoosh!* A gale swept past, blowing from west to east—from He Lingchuan's side toward the pirate ship opposite.
Qiu Hu took a white jade cleansing vase from his robes, dipped a willow sprig into the dew within, and flicked it forward—
Carried by the wind, the water droplets broke apart into a pale golden mist, so fine and thin that it was nearly invisible in the bright daylight.
The charging pirates had only to touch it before dropping to their knees with dull thuds. Their limbs flailed frantically against the ground, yet they could not crawl forward a single inch.
Living, breathing men had been reduced to squirming maggots.
What Qiu Hu had brought out was the Mount Rong Sect's treasure, the "Thousand-Jun Vase." Any living creature touched by the mist it dispersed was instantly burdened with a weight of a thousand jun.
Most people would be crushed so hard they couldn't even lift their heads. Back then, Mount Rong had used it to deal with the seventy-year cicada.
Naturally, this thing was not as effective on a real battlefield; it could be blocked by protective astral qi and severely diminished by origin power.
Yet Qiu Hu using it against common pirates was truly hitting the mark.
Of course, a few pirates reacted quickly enough, raising their protective astral qi in time to keep from being flattened. But Mount Rong disciples swarmed them with sabers, spears, swords, and staves, thoroughly relishing the pleasure of outnumbering their foes.
As a result, these stronger ones ended up dying the fastest.
Lying flat on the ground, Min Tianxi watched this scene unfold, his heart bleeding. He could only shout, "Stop! S-stop!"
The men he brought today were all his elites, his trusted confidants. If they all died here, what leverage, what prestige would he have left in the pirate band?
His throat had nearly been scorched away and his cheeks were swollen; the voice that burst from his mouth was coarse and hoarse, almost drowned out by the shouts and screams.
Cupping a hand to his ear, He Lingchuan leaned close to him. "What did you say? Can't hear you!"
"Stop! I said stop!"
"Can't hear you. Ah Hu—" He Lingchuan shook his head with regret and made a gesture to Qiu Hu. "Kill them all. Leave none alive!"
Without a second word, Qiu Hu smashed his staff down on a prostrate pirate, splattering brains across the sand.
Immobilized just the same, these pirates were far easier to bash than seventy-year cicadas. He took them down one blow at a time—one, then another, then another...
The other Mount Rong disciples slaughtered just as merrily.
"Stop, stop!" Min Tianxi shouted twice. Looking up into He Lingchuan's smiling face, he felt this fellow was genuinely more terrifying than a green-faced, fanged fiend!
The screams of his men rose and fell in waves.
Min Tianxi closed his eyes and rasped with difficulty, "I surrender! I'm willing to surrender!"
"Oh?" He Lingchuan could hear now. Crouching lower, he said, "Who did you say was surrendering?"
The instant Min Tianxi hesitated, two more screams came from nearby—his trusted lackeys who were usually the best at flattering him.
A cold blade patted his cheek. "Answer quickly, or your men will all be dead."
"We surrender! We surrender!" Once Min Tianxi opened his mouth, the rest tumbled out much more smoothly. "Our Second Channel is willing to submit under Young Master He's command and serve like hounds and horses!"
"Even if it means spilling your blood and brains?" He Lingchuan pressed.
The background accompaniment was two more pirates getting impaled, drawing out several long, agonizing death shrieks.
Min Tianxi knew full well this He fellow was deliberately killing more men to torment him with terror, but he still swallowed subconsciously.
"Even if it means spilling our blood and brains! If Young Master He tells us to go east, we will never dare go west!"
"Now isn't that better?" He Lingchuan patted his cheek again. "I never wanted to make things hard on you."
Two more pirates died.
Min Tianxi's eyes nearly tore at the corners. "Young Master He!"
"Oh, right, I forgot." He Lingchuan turned back and called out to stop Qiu Hu. "Enough, enough. Stop killing."
At his order, the Mount Rong disciples stopped immediately.
He Lingchuan personally helped Min Tianxi up from the ground, sighing, "I have always observed courtesy before force. If you had understood the situation earlier, the brothers of the Second Channel wouldn't have had to suffer so much, right?"
"..." Bitter bile flooded Min Tianxi's gut, but he could only choke out, "Yes, yes."
Backed by the weight of a crushing victory, whatever He Lingchuan said, Min Tianxi could only agree.
His eyes darted, but He Lingchuan easily saw through to the fear within them. Only then did He Lingchuan smile with satisfaction. "Let them stand up."
To talk to pirates, one had to communicate in a language they understood.
If they didn't understand, you made them understand.
Qiu Hu and the others acknowledged the order, retrieved buckets from their storage rings, scooped up seawater nearby, and poured it over the pirates.
The counter to the Thousand-Jun Vase was simple: wash away the water droplets weighing down the body.
The pirates who scrambled to their feet kept their eyes lowered and heads bowed; where was any trace of their earlier arrogance? Seeing their Second Channel Chief held captive, they took the buckets to rescue their comrades.
With sixty-odd men, rescuing them was slow going.
He Lingchuan pointed toward his own ship. "Channel Chief Min, come have a seat on my boat. Before nightfall, I'll send you back here."
Could Min Tianxi even say "no"?
He Lingchuan also casually picked out seven pirates whose limbs were intact, bound their hands, and brought them aboard as well.
The ship weighed anchor, hoisted its sails, tacked around, and soon sailed away from Fishbone Reef.
Min Tianxi watched helplessly as his followers on the beach grew further and further away, feeling utter misery in his heart.
Even if those subordinates had remained, they wouldn't have brought him any sense of security anyway.
He Lingchuan reached out and pressed the back of his neck several times, and the pain racking Min Tianxi's body subsided significantly, no longer searing like fire.
He let out a long breath, finally relaxing.
That agony had been nothing short of torture drilled into his very soul.
After He Lingchuan used his venom sac to extract the spider venom from him, he handed over a white towel and pointed at Min Tianxi's face. "Too dirty. Wipe it clean."
"Th-thank you." Min Tianxi hadn't been so polite to anyone in a long time. Taking it with both hands, he wiped his face.
The towel was soft, but wherever it touched, sharp stabs of pain flared.
Pulling the towel away, he saw it soaked in blood.
Xiang Lian brought out a table and two chairs again, setting down a flagon and two cups upon the table.
This time, Min Tianxi was thoroughly obedient to He Lingchuan, sitting down docilely and raising his cup to drink without fuss.
The internal damage wrought by the spider venom had yet to heal, and his tongue and mouth had been bitten raw by his own teeth. As the wine washed in, his whole mouth stung as if pricked by needles.
Sweat broke out across Min Tianxi's forehead once more.
Yet he forced himself to swallow the wine down, because he knew that Young Master He was telling him:
Refuse the toast, drink the forfeit.
Sure enough, once he gulped down the cup, He Lingchuan's expression softened considerably. "Min Tianxi, why didn't the yin hui attack you?"
Of the three pirate bands on the outskirts of the archipelago, the other two had both been attacked by the yin hui and suffered catastrophic casualties. Only the pirates of the Second Channel had not lost a single person to the attacks.
Fascinating.
"Our camp is further from Longji Island, so they couldn't make it across..." Min Tianxi began, only to stop when he saw He Lingchuan smiling again.
Now, whenever this young master smiled, a chill involuntarily gripped his heart.
He Lingchuan swirled his wine cup and took a sip with lowered eyes. "Still trying to stall me with that excuse? Are you sure?"
Recalling the young master's ruthless methods, Min Tianxi swallowed hard. "That night, I led my men to the mainland in the northwest for a raid. By pure coincidence, we avoided the yin hui's assault."
Relying entirely on "pure coincidence."
He Lingchuan's gaze sharpened slightly. "You went out in full force?"
"Yes."
"And left no one behind to guard the lair?" He Lingchuan watched him, smiling. "Lei Ni said you didn't lose a single person."
"What does that slip of a girl know? Two men who stayed behind to guard the stronghold died too; we just didn't announce it to outsiders," Min Tianxi muttered in a low voice. "Compared to the losses of the First Channel and Third Channel, mine was negligible."
"So, it was just a coincidence?"
"Yes, it was." Min Tianxi met He Lingchuan's gaze directly, putting on an air of utmost sincerity.
He Lingchuan beamed at him. "Fine." Then he turned to another pirate. "What your chief said—is it true or false?"
He stood a full head taller than the man. Looking down at him from above, the oppressive weight of his presence bore down instantly. The man swallowed hard before answering, "True, it's true."
He Lingchuan's face darkened. Standing at the side, Qiu Hu moved swift as wind and snapped the captive's neck.
A crisp crack of breaking bone sent a chill down the spines of the remaining pirates.
Min Tianxi's expression changed; the young man clearly did not believe a word. "Young Master He!"
Ignoring him, He Lingchuan paced over to another pirate. Without saying a word, he simply stared fixedly at him.
Stared at like that, the man's face blanched, veins throbbing wildly at his temples. Suddenly, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Kill me if you want! I'm not playing your damn game—"
Before the words finished leaving his mouth, with a crack, Qiu Hu snapped his neck too.
Who said acting tough would keep you alive to the end?
Chapter 905