"Not good, those things are attacking the bottom of the ship!" Min Tianxi's face drained of color. "Young Master He, if you have a trump card, play it now, or it'll be too late!"
This vessel was brand-new, recently purchased by He Lingchuan. From its timber to its craftsmanship, there was nothing to fault, but could it hold out against the enraged yin hui? No one felt optimistic.
Under the blazing midday sun, the yin hui dared not board the ship to attack, so they sought to bore through the hull and drag everyone into the water.
Underwater was their primary battleground.
He Lingchuan slapped the deck hard. "Come on out! You're this whole ship's only hope!"
Min Tianxi instinctively looked toward the narrow hatchway, only to see a pair of thick, bristly legs thrust out from the darkness, gripping the hatch frame to heave outward.
Being closest to the hatch, he leaped two steps back. Whatever monster was inside, he had no desire to stand in its way.
Immediately afterward, a round, black-and-red creature bristling with sharp spines squeezed out!
The next instant, it stretched its body, swelling as though inflated with air. Only then did Min Tianxi realize to his shock that this was a colossal spider nearly ten feet tall!
The yin hui were hideous beasts, but this giant was by no means outdone.
"This...!" He looked at the giant spider, then back at the hatchway, through which he himself had to duck and stoop to pass.
With such a plump, bulbous body, how on earth had it squeezed out of such a tiny opening?
Had this great demon been hiding in the hold the entire time? No wonder the ship was riding so low in the water!
He had wondered how the weight of a mere twenty men could account for such sluggish sailing!
He then heard He Lingchuan complain to the giant spider, "Daniang, these damned things are boring holes under the ship."
"I heard," the giant spider's deep, muffled voice rumbled. "Leave it to me. Have your men row faster."
With that, it strode past everyone toward the bow.
No matter how violently the vessel rocked, it walked as smoothly as over level ground, its speed unflagging.
Without needing another command from He Lingchuan, the crew gripped their oars and adjusted the sails, exerting every ounce of strength they had.
Zhu Daniang hung upside down over the bow, aiming her corpulent abdomen down at the water beneath the stem, and shot out jet after jet of red spider silk.
These strands wove into nets that floated upon the surface.
As the ship sailed over them, the nets drifted naturally beneath the hull.
She wove layer upon layer, stopping only after four or five nets were spread beneath the ship's bottom.
Partway through, two yin hui leaped from the water, attempting an ambush.
Zhu Daniang remained completely unfazed.
She was covered in sharp spines; let alone four hands, even fourteen hands could never drag her into the water—they would only get impaled.
It was like trying to squeeze a spiky durian bare-handed... tsk, quite a thrill.
Besides, given Zhu Daniang's size and tonnage, the yin hui could hardly budge her.
One unlucky beast botched its leap, landing directly in front of Zhu Daniang, who reached out a massive cheliped, twisted it into a lock, and hauled it onto the deck.
Exposure to the sun was an outright public execution. The yin hui's serpentine body writhed in agony across the deck as an acrid, burning stench filled the air.
In just a dozen breaths, the creature stopped moving, resembling a charred piece of charcoal.
The crew shoved it overboard.
By now, the crunching and scratching sounds beneath the hull had subsided, but the rocking grew even more violent, as though several huge beasts were thrashing frantically below.
"Hold tight, hold tight! Don't fall into the sea!"
Only then did Zhu Daniang leisurely begin reeling in her nets.
Her movements were mechanical yet fluid, filled with the lethal grace of a hunter.
The thrashing from within the nets grew increasingly violent. Anyone else handling them likely could not have held on.
With every beast hauled up, Zhu Daniang flung it backward onto the deck, her motion no different from a fisherman hauling in a catch.
Burrow spiders loved eating fish; back in Demon Nest Swamp, this was exactly how she fished.
These yin hui had been wreaking havoc beneath the hull or circling the vessel, only to be snared by the floating webs carried by the current, unable to break free.
The webs were light enough to drift on water, but their strength was beyond question.
The yin hui had roamed the waters around Longji Island unchecked for so long that they had never imagined facing an adversary who didn't even need a head-on clash to drag them brutally from the depths.
The rest of the work was left to the sun.
The yin hui tried desperately to scramble off the deck and back into the sea, but Zhu Daniang's nets were not so easily escaped. Before long, they were baked crisp on the outside and tender on the inside.
Whenever one baked to death, Zhu Daniang pushed it back into the sea so its weight would not sink the vessel.
Soon, another yin hui was hauled aboard.
Then a third, a fourth...
Five in a row, all meeting the same fate.
Throughout the entire ordeal, the ship barely slowed.
While working furiously, Min Tianxi stole glances at the spider demon.
Just looking at its methods of attack, he could tell that Fishbone Reef, where He Lingchuan had arranged to meet the Second Channel pirates, would have been an ideal hunting ground for it!
Surrounded by open water, long and narrow, with the pirates packed closely together—it would have been child's play for Zhu Daniang to sweep them all up in a single net.
Yet He Lingchuan had deliberately left it on the ship and led his men to clash with the pirates with cold steel!
He had wanted to subdue them through raw martial prowess, winning their utter submission.
Min Tianxi swallowed hard.
Every so often, the netting process was repeated. In total, more than thirty yin hui—large and small—were netted by Zhu Daniang and baked to death in the sun, their combined weight exceeding that of the ship itself.
This tally exceeded everyone's expectations, including He Lingchuan's. It showed that the king of the yin hui had already been on guard against him, dispatching yin hui into the water in advance to lie in wait against another disruption.
However, Zhu Daniang's clever tactics happened to counter the yin hui perfectly; otherwise, disaster would have struck.
Seeing that fewer and fewer yin hui were pursuing the ship, He Lingchuan ordered the vessel to turn back around.
By now, he had gauged that the Dafang Pot's absorption range for yin fiend energy was about thirty li. Returning to Longji Island would allow them to drain nearly all of the island's yin fiend energy, leaving almost nothing behind!
Min Tianxi pondered for a moment and suddenly understood. "The yin fiend leyline erupts every seven days. Hey, it just erupted last night!"
"Indeed, it won't erupt again for another six days," He Lingchuan said with a smile. "Last time we came at an inopportune moment. Although we drained all the island's yin fiend energy, the leyline erupted again that very night, allowing the strong yin hui to survive."
This time, he wanted to see what yin hui could survive for six days deprived of fiend energy. That would be like fish out of water for six days; aside from a few extraordinary specimens, hardly any could survive.
Sure enough, during the journey back to Longji Island, attacks on the vessel dwindled to just two, involving a total of six yin hui.
Most of Longji Island's yin hui lived ashore, penned in by the sunlight; far fewer truly patrolled the open sea. Now that forty had been lured and slain by Zhu Daniang, the entire sea was peaceful.
Yet after enduring multiple rounds of assault, the humans could not escape completely unscathed. One pirate was killed, Min Tianxi was injured, and two Mount Rong disciples were wounded.
Yin hui injuring people had occurred in Blade Harbor since ancient times. Through long experience, fishermen and pirates had developed a treatment.
In truth, it relied on two main ingredients: white flame grass, an herb of intense pure yang, combined with the black yu bug unique to the archipelago.
This bug resembled a beetle in size and shape, but bore a pattern like a human eye on its back and could fly with wings. It grew exclusively in places rich in yin fiend energy; He Lingchuan had seen them on Longji Island, and Lingguang had caught plenty of them.
Interestingly, white flame grass also grew on Longji Island where yin fiend energy was thick, but only in spots reached by direct sunlight.
It captured the true essence of the blazing sun.
Growing the most yang of herbs in the most yin of places—it was quite logical.
Pounding these two together into a paste and applying it to the wound made the locals' specific remedy against yin hui venom.
The mild yang energy of white flame grass neutralized the yin fiend, while the flesh of the black yu bug drew out the venom from the wound, preventing it from spreading through the body.
However, because both grew in regions dominated by yin fiend energy, harvesting them on the island was perilous, making them quite expensive.
After emergency treatment, everyone's condition stabilized.
The hull had also sustained damage.
After all, having weathered attacks from dozens of yin hui, even a sturdy ship had its limits.
Lü Qiuwei discovered three holes in the ship's bottom, seawater pouring in and bubbling furiously.
At this rate of intake, the ship would sink before ever reaching Fishbone Reef.
Fortunately, they had prepared thoroughly for this trip, having stowed sandbags and timber planks in advance. Min Tianxi directed several of his men into the hold for emergency repairs.
Accustomed to making a living on the sea, such patching was child's play to them.
The trouble with plugging leaks was that incoming seawater hindered the work. Hearing of this, Zhu Daniang squeezed into the hold and sprayed several webs over the breached hull.
This time, they were not red, but thick, sticky white webbing with an extremely fine mesh. Though not watertight, it dramatically slowed the inflow of seawater and helped secure the planks for quick nailing.
In no time at all, the bottom was patched, and the crew bailed out the seawater.
After this flurry of activity, the ship returned to the coastline of Longji Island.
From beginning to end, He Lingchuan's function as a 'human black hole' had never stopped. Wherever he passed, yin fiend energy surged from hiding, throwing itself heedlessly toward him until purified by the sunlight.
The same happened on Longji Island.
This scene played out again, fifteen days after the first time.
Only this night, the leyline would not erupt; the yin hui would have to endure six full days before the next surge of earth fiend.
From deep within the island, the resonant, piercing roar of the king of the yin hui echoed once more.
He Lingchuan held the Heavenly Order Gold Scroll in hand and immediately sensed its fury and anxiety.
It was asking him why he was trying to exterminate the yin hui clan, and what deep-seated feud could possibly justify this.
Countless words boiled down to a single question:
"Are you sick in the head?!"
The creature was so enraged it had resorted to cursing.
Discerning the monster's frantic state, He Lingchuan had briefly worried it might cast caution to the wind and burst from underground to wreak havoc on the humans.
After all, no one knew whether an ancient demon like this possessed some temporary means to withstand the sun.
He had also told Zhu Daniang to be ready.
Fortunately, that never happened. It seemed that furious as the king of the yin hui was, it had not completely lost its mind.
Yet how could he establish contact with this fellow? Following Min Tianxi's directions, He Lingchuan used the gold scroll to reflect sunlight into a crevice on one of the island's great mountains.
The mountain had an unusual structure, featuring an indentation near its lower-middle section. Even under the direct midday sun, sunlight could not reach into that recess.
The light reflected by the gold scroll actually cast a dazzling rainbow against the dark rock face.
After repeating this several times, the king of the yin hui's roars finally ceased.
Chapter 909