A Hundred Gu Devour the Heart

Jiang Yiming had released two Gu this time only to test the waters.

After dodging Lu Yan's next attack, he summoned another spider and eight centipedes.

The spider leaped onto the center of Lu Yan's back, while the eight centipedes clung to the Spider Gu's back, avoiding contact with the Yellow Springs Water.

They shared one goal: to devour Lu Yan's flesh!

Three seconds!

In just three seconds, the Spider Gu underneath had been completely corroded away. The Centipede Gu on its back seized the chance to tear off several pieces of flesh.

Come back!

Seeing that the centipedes had nothing left to stand on and were about to be corroded by the Yellow Springs Water, Jiang Yiming hurriedly retrieved them into the Gu Rearing Box.

This had also been a test. Now that it had proved feasible, he could use his Yellow-Rank Gu.

The Three-Legged Golden Toad was too clumsy, and the Single-Horned Wandering Snake was too big. Neither was suitable. The only ones he could use were Red Tail, Ghost Face, and Iron Back.

So he devised a new strategy: a Primordial Gu would carry a Yellow-Rank Gu, and as soon as the Primordial Gu was corroded away, he would recall the Yellow-Rank Gu to prevent casualties.

From then on, whenever Jiang Yiming dodged an attack, he took the opportunity to throw out six Gu—three Primordial Gu and three Yellow-Rank Gu.

The Primordial Gu carried the Yellow-Rank Gu onto the center of Lu Yan's back, where they began tearing away furiously. Before the Primordial Gu underneath were corroded away, they tore off as much flesh as they could.

After surrendering his body to the Gu, Lu Yan's judgment had deteriorated considerably. He kept his eyes fixed on Jiang Yiming and attacked him, utterly unaware that a gaping hole had been torn in the center of his back!

That hole had been bought with the sacrifice of Primordial Gu!

Once the hole was big enough, Jiang Yiming suddenly summoned more than twenty Primordial Gu and sent them all shooting into it at once, straight for the heart!

Lu Yan's heart had already been occupied by the Eight-Tailed Earthworm. Once surrounded, the Eight-Tailed Earthworm fought back desperately, spraying out a great deal of Yellow Springs Water.

The Primordial Gu that went in gave off yellow smoke as they corroded, but some still managed to bite the Eight-Tailed Earthworm a few times before they died.

As long as they could bite it, Jiang Yiming had hope!

Trading the lives of Primordial Gu for wounds on the Eight-Tailed Earthworm—that was the war of attrition he had planned!

Wave after wave of Primordial Gu burrowed into Lu Yan's body, and wave after wave corroded away.

Meanwhile, the bite wounds on the Eight-Tailed Earthworm kept multiplying.

After more than 300 Primordial Gu had been expended, the Eight-Tailed Earthworm finally could hold out no longer. It abandoned Lu Yan's body and escaped.

Only then did Jiang Yiming get a clear look at it: it was over two meters long, with one head and eight tails, but it was distinctly different from an octopus. It looked like a thick, long earthworm dragging eight tiny earthworms behind it.

Once it had left Lu Yan, it was much slower and could only wriggle along the ground.

At that speed, it was no longer a threat.

Jiang Yiming grabbed a stool, intending to smash it to death.

Suddenly, Lu Yan lunged at him from behind!

"What's going on? How can he still move?"

Though puzzled, Jiang Yiming quickly put away his Gu and ran a few steps forward, putting some distance between them.

Lu Yan was no longer breathing, but as though he were being controlled, he pursued Jiang Yiming relentlessly.

He's already dead. There's no need to keep fighting him!

Jiang Yiming didn't want to struggle with a corpse, so he scooped up Yulan and prepared to leave the hall and get out of harm's way for the time being.

Boom!

Just as he picked Yulan up, an explosive blast rang out. Lu Yan, five paces behind them, had actually blown himself up!

The Gu Essence remaining in his sea of qi had all detonated at once, with power comparable to explosives.

At such close range and completely unprepared, Jiang Yiming was caught off guard by the blast.

The surging Gu Essence was already upon him, and he felt it scrape painfully against his face.

I'm done for! Even if this doesn't kill me, I'll be seriously injured!

That thought had already crossed his mind when, in the next instant, a beam of seven-colored light suddenly shot from between Yulan's brows as he held her in his arms.

The light instantly formed a spherical shield, protecting them both inside.

A moment later, the last of the explosion's aftershock faded, and the seven-colored shield slowly dispersed.

Jiang Yiming discovered that he didn't have a single injury. Surprised, he loosened his grip and put Yulan down. "You actually had such a powerful trump card!"

"That wasn't mine," Yulan said, denying it.

Just then, a seven-colored venomous bee flew out the window.

Yulan looked up in the direction it had gone and said slowly, "Did you see that venomous bee? It was the one that just saved us."

"That venomous bee..." Jiang Yiming hadn't used Identify Gu at a Glance just now, so he hadn't been able to tell anything.

"It belongs to someone else. It should be Earth-Rank now," Yulan explained.

"Earth-Rank?! Whose Gu is it? How did it get on you?"

"I don't know when it hid itself on me either. I suppose Elder Shen was worried."

Having said that, Yulan offered no further explanation and began checking the scene.

The expensive carpet, the genuine leather sofa, the enormous television... all had been destroyed in the explosion.

The Eight-Tailed Earthworm that had escaped had also been blown into more than a dozen pieces, scattered throughout the hall. Though it had been torn to pieces, it was still alive, because it had a skill—regeneration.

"It's in that state and it can still move!" Jiang Yiming followed behind Yulan.

"Earthworm Gu aren't so easy to kill. If we leave it alone, it'll come back to life and hurt people again in a few days," Yulan explained. "If it didn't have an ability like that, it wouldn't have blown Lu Yan up just now."

"It was the one that blew Lu Yan up?"

"Of course," Yulan said. "If a Gu Master gives himself over to his Gu, his body becomes nothing more than the Gu's tool. This Gu wanted to use its former master's body to blow us up, so it could escape."

"There are Gu that smart?!" If Jiang Yiming hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it.

Yulan took out a black cloth bag and put one of the Eight-Tailed Earthworm's severed tails inside. "What good is being smart? The smarter a Gu is, the more easily it becomes an evil Gu."

"Lu Yan was originally a promising young talent of Lu Family Village. But because he had this evil Gu, he lost his resolve and ultimately went from a Gu Master to an Evil Gu Master."

Jiang Yiming happened to want to learn more about the Gu World, so he took the opportunity to ask, "What's a Gu Master? And what's an Evil Gu Master?"

"Generally, people who rear Gu start out at the Gu Master realm. If a Gu Master is controlled by evil thoughts, he becomes an Evil Gu Master." Yulan explained as she cleaned up the Eight-Tailed Earthworm. "For example, I'm a First-Grade Gu Master right now. If I accidentally fell under an evil influence, other Gu Masters would no longer regard me as a Gu Master, but would call me a First-Grade Evil Gu Master."

"Oh... I see. So the realms of Gu Masters and Evil Gu Masters are much the same. What realm comes after that?" Jiang Yiming asked.

"Above Gu Master is Gu King, and above Evil Gu Master is Gu Berserker."