Chapter 34 (Part 2)

Just as he reached the critical moment, when success was nearly in sight, he was forcibly interrupted by an external force.

Liao Xilin suddenly opened his eyes, a fierce light in them. He looked at the enormous snake head not far away but said nothing.

The snake demon flicked out its tongue. Its massive body gradually shrank, finally transforming into the shape of a woman. She slowly stepped forward, sat directly on Liao Xilin’s lap, and hooked her arms around his neck.

“I say, how long do you plan to keep acting tough? If you exhaust my patience, this old lady will swallow you in one bite.”

Seeing him remain unmoved, the snake demon gave a cold snort and spat out corrosive fluid. It slid down from Liao Xilin’s head, and wherever it passed, his robes and skin were damaged.

At this moment, the Daoist robe on Liao Xilin’s body was already in tatters, and the exposed skin beneath was wounded. The only reason he had not collapsed completely was because he was relying on the spiritual energy in his body to hold on.

Pain. Severe pain extending from the skin inward. The deeper the erosion went, the stronger the pain became.

When the snake demon saw that the cultivator before her finally frowned, she was overjoyed. She immediately changed back into her original form and coiled around him, increasing the amount of fluid she released.

“I told you long ago. Even if you don’t cooperate, I can still take your primal yang. I’ve heard you human cultivators all have proud bones. Then let this old lady see which is stronger: my snake fluid, or your bones!”

Liao Xilin still maintained his meditative posture. His eyes shone coldly, but he gave the snake demon no information in words, just as he had been since he was captured half a month ago.

But internally, things were different. For half a month, Liao Xilin had given up protecting his body and willingly endured humiliation, all for the sake of condensing the strongest sword qi inside his body and dealing the snake demon a fatal blow.

“Faster. A little faster…” Liao Xilin turned his divine sense inward and watched as the sword qi gradually turned orange. When it became fully orange, he knew his chance had come.

However, in the next instant, he saw a subtle change occur in his sword qi. Under extremely unstable spiritual energy fluctuations, the orange sword qi actually began showing a tendency to turn yellow.

Sword qi turning orange was the strongest move his current cultivation could achieve. Unexpectedly, under the snake demon’s continuous corrosion, his body had automatically activated its defensive mechanism, instead stimulating his potential.

“Being able to turn sword qi yellow at early Foundation Establishment may be my only chance…” Liao Xilin decisively gave up protecting his body with spiritual energy and circulated all the spiritual energy inside him to repeatedly scour and strengthen the sword qi.

By the time Song Yuanxi and Ji Wuyi found the monster’s cave, three days had already passed. It was just before sunrise, when yin energy was at its strongest. Ji Wuyi believed this was the best moment to attack, so he dragged his junior brother inside without hesitation.

“Senior Brother Ji, why does this monster’s cave smell so disgusting?” Song Yuanxi looked around as they walked. The sharp, fishy stench that assaulted his nose was simply impossible to ignore.

Ji Wuyi hummed, then said, “It should be a snake demon. Snake demons like darkness and hate light. They hide by day and emerge at night. Right now should be when it has finished feeding and is preparing to curl up and rest. At the shift between movement and stillness, it will be most tired and lax. Our chance has come.”

As Ji Wuyi spoke, he stuffed a storage pouch over to him. “Junior Brother Song, I see that you are very skilled at dodging monsters. I will entrust these three thousand talismans to you. When I ambush that snake demon, prepare yourself at the side at all times. As soon as an opportunity appears, act immediately and throw all three thousand talismans at the snake demon.”

Again?

Song Yuanxi instinctively shook his head. “Senior Brother Ji, you’re tricking me again. Are you trying to slack off again?”

Ji Wuyi: “…This time I will take the lead.”

“I don’t believe you. Senior Brother, you have no trust value with me anymore.”

“…”

Whether he believed him or not, Song Yuanxi still accepted the task. It was just that this time, he made many preparations to protect himself and no longer placed his hopes on someone else.

Fortunately, Ji Wuyi did as he said. He truly went to ambush the snake demon, and the battle shook heaven and earth. Song Yuanxi circulated his cultivation method to hold his breath, carefully approached, found the right moment, and threw out all the talismans.

While chanting the spell, he ran faster than a rabbit.

From the depths of the cave came a frenzied roar. After that, everything returned to calm.

Song Yuanxi waited outside for a while, but Ji Wuyi did not come out. “Did Senior Brother get killed too?”

In the end, he could not let it go. Although Song Yuanxi was afraid, he still steeled himself and went inside. When he had only reached halfway, he was drawn by a weak voice. Following the sound, he saw Liao Xilin in disheveled clothes.

The other man’s whole body was flushed red, his breathing rushed and unsteady, and he lay there in a very strange posture.

“Uncle-Master Liao?” Song Yuanxi froze for a moment, then hurried forward to check on him. Before he could touch him, he was bounced away.

“This is… a demonic beast membrane?” Song Yuanxi looked at the protective halo that lit up in defense, his whole expression blank.

A demonic beast membrane was a defensive barrier demonic beasts used to protect their young. Its strength depended on the demonic beast’s own abilities. So why was Uncle-Master Liao inside it? Had that snake demon treated him like its baby?

Liao Xilin slowly opened his eyes. Once he clearly saw who had come, joy appeared in his gaze. Then he seemed to think of something and spoke urgently. “Leave quickly. While that snake demon is in a resting state, Yuanxi, hurry and escape.”

Warmth rose in Song Yuanxi’s heart, but he said, “Uncle-Master Liao, I wasn’t captured by the snake demon. I came here to fight the monster.”

“What?”

“I came with Senior Brother Ji to save you!” Song Yuanxi thought for a moment, then added, “Senior Brother Ji is doing the majority of it. He’s providing eighty percent of the effort. I’m the mobile personnel.”

“Ji Wuyi?”

Song Yuanxi hummed. “My Senior Brother Ji is a genius.”

After Liao Xilin understood the situation, he was still not at ease. In his impression, Song Yuanxi was still that little junior brother at the first level of Qi Refining from years ago. Such a weak child had actually risked his life to come save him. How could anyone not be moved?

Without even thinking, he gave up on breaking through to yellow sword qi and gathered the spiritual energy around his body, striking forcefully at the demonic beast membrane.

With a crack, the demonic beast membrane shattered, and Liao Xilin walked out from inside.

Only then did Song Yuanxi see clearly that beneath where Liao Xilin had been lying, there had actually been an egg hidden there, an extremely enormous egg.

“Uncle-Master Liao, this is?”

With a flick of his longsword, Liao Xilin lifted the giant egg and held it in his hand. “This is a snake egg. That snake demon wanted to use my primal yang to nourish the snake egg, which is why it kept me trapped here.”

Song Yuanxi’s expression instantly turned subtle.

Liao Xilin flushed with embarrassment. “It’s not what you’re thinking! It used snake fluid to erode my body, trying to forcibly take away my primal yang qi. Yuanxi, don’t you usually like reading miscellaneous books? How do you not know that aside from dual cultivation, primal yang can also be taken by force?”

“…” What decent family’s child would read books like that?

Song Yuanxi coughed lightly and changed the subject. “Uncle-Master Liao, what do we do now? Senior Brother Ji is still in the deepest part of the cave. I’m worried about him…”

“I’ll go. You take this egg and leave at once.”

Before Song Yuanxi could speak, Liao Xilin directly used spiritual energy to send him out of the cave.

The sun gradually rose. Song Yuanxi held the snake egg and waited and waited, finally waiting until two figures walked out from inside the cave.

“Uncle-Master Liao! Senior Brother Ji! I missed you to death—”

He forcibly swallowed the word “both.”

Song Yuanxi stared at the enormous snake demon body that the two had carried out together, then retreated again and again.

“This is the snake demon’s true body? Its original form is way too huge, right?”

Song Yuanxi circled the snake demon’s true body once and was simply amazed. This was more than a hundred times larger than modern giant pythons. In front of this snake demon, any Amazon rainforest anaconda was nothing but a three-year-old child.

In his modern life, Song Yuanxi had once read a report. Scientists had discovered a giant anaconda in the Amazon rainforest, with a yellow-green heart-shaped marking on its head that had the beauty of modern craftsmanship. It was over nine meters long, could swallow an elephant in one bite, and was the undisputed king of the jungle.

As for the snake demon before his eyes, he estimated that it was one hundred and twenty meters long and about three meters wide. It was roughly equivalent to a modern forty-story building, then taking the width of one windowed side from the middle and hanging it vertically from top to bottom.

Song Yuanxi said, “I have never seen such an enormous monster.”

In Xuantian Sect, the most commonly seen creatures were all sorts of spirit beasts, and their sizes were generally normal. Even if they were bigger, they were still within an acceptable range. As for demonic beasts, the ones Song Yuanxi had seen most were snow-fleece rabbits and yellow brocade chickens. They were all low-level demonic beasts and looked no different from the animals he normally recognized.

Liao Xilin smiled and said, “This still isn’t its maximum size. Once snake demons mature, they can grow to a hundred zhang. Female snake demons in particular can even reach one hundred and thirty zhang.”

Together, Liao Xilin and Ji Wuyi dug out the snake demon’s demon core and crystal core, then skinned it whole. Only then did they leave the cave with Song Yuanxi.

“Uncle-Master Liao, where are we going now?” Song Yuanxi was still thinking about the other four fellow disciples. “I heard from Senior Brother Xiang that four others were captured with you. Then they…”

“They are fine. Before I was taken by the snake demon, I sent them into a Defensive Array. Unless a Golden Core cultivator forcefully breaks the array, that array can last for more than a month.”

Liao Xilin directly flew on his sword, taking the two of them several hundred li. Sure enough, in one array, they found four Xuantian Sect disciples.

“Uncle-Master Liao!”

“Uncle-Master Liao!”

The four were very excited when they saw Liao Xilin.

Liao Xilin nodded lightly, but he did not wish to say much. “Return to Wan’an City first. Everything else can wait until we are back.”

Song Yuanxi stayed at Xuantian Sect’s duty station in Wan’an City. Ever since Liao Xilin returned, he had entered short seclusion to recuperate and recover his body. The other fellow disciples did the same. Even Ji Wuyi stayed in his room the whole time without coming out. In the entire duty station, Song Yuanxi was the most idle.

Once a person became idle, they easily started making trouble. Especially Song Yuanxi. Bored to death and uncomfortable all over, he finally picked up the snake egg they had brought back and began studying it.

“Uncle-Master Liao said this snake egg is very different. What exactly is different about it?”

Song Yuanxi circled the snake egg, occasionally placing his hand on it to sense it. Back then, the little yellow chicken had also been an egg. He had held it in his arms every day and then hatched it. If this snake egg was also hatched like that…

The fear he had felt when he saw the snake demon’s true body that day surfaced in his eyes, and the thought that had just arisen vanished completely in an instant.

“Forget it. A creature like a snake absolutely cannot be raised as a pet. It gives me the creeps.”

Song Yuanxi took out a spirit beast pouch, preparing to stuff the snake egg back inside. Unexpectedly, an accident happened right then, and it happened so suddenly.

At some unknown point, the little yellow chicken had woken up. It burrowed out of the pet pouch, and the instant it saw the snake egg, its eyes shone.

“Chirp, chirp… awoo!”

Song Yuanxi watched helplessly as that giant snake egg was swallowed by the little yellow chicken in one bite.

A giant snake egg. A little yellow chicken. Swallowed in one bite?!

Song Yuanxi was dumbfounded. After a long while, he came back to his senses, hugged the little yellow chicken, and frantically felt around for the neck it did not have. “Little Yellow, my cub! That egg didn’t get stuck in your throat, did it? Are you all right?”

The little yellow chicken made a rumbling sound, then smacked its beak and tilted its head, blinking.

“Chirp, chirp… Daddy, tasty!”

“…”

Seeing that Song Yuanxi did not speak, the little yellow chicken tried hard to think, then called tentatively, “Woof, woof… woof?”

Song Yuanxi remembered Liao Xilin’s instructions before entering seclusion. He had told him that he absolutely had to protect the snake egg. At this moment, Song Yuanxi’s heart was filled with desolate helplessness. “You’re finished. No, I’m finished! Unfilial son, your dad is going to get killed because of you this time…”

The little yellow chicken shrank its head back. Sensing the coming storm, it decisively fled back into the spirit beast pouch.

Song Yuanxi’s slap hit empty air, and he was so angry that he ground his teeth. “You actually learned to be smart? Is that how you’re supposed to use your brains? Eating everything will only get you killed. Unfilial son, sooner or later I’ll have to collect your corpse.”

Next Chapter >