Yuan Ming seized the moment, driving the power of the Essence Accumulating Arm to its utmost limit while pouring all his mana into the Azure Fish Sword.
He leaped high into the air, abandoning the slash in favor of a thrust with greater armor-piercing force, charging straight at the Unicorn Viper Python.
The creature was tangled up by the Blood Soul Vine and had no strength to spare for Yuan Ming.
Yuan Ming's sword met no resistance whatsoever as it plunged straight into the viper python's right eye, sinking in to the hilt.
With a soft pop.
Blood burst forth in great sprays. The Unicorn Viper Python, which had been struggling violently, suddenly went rigid, then violently sprang up, flinging Yuan Ming from its body.
Immediately afterward, the viper python's body contracted and twisted, nearly knotting itself into a ball. Yet after struggling for only a short while, it lost its strength and ceased moving.
Once Yuan Ming scrambled to his feet, he immediately pounced back over, planted his foot on the viper python's head, and pulled out the Azure Fish Sword.
Gripping the sword with both hands, he hacked wildly at the viper python's chest, sending scales flying everywhere and blood splashing in all directions.
It was not that Yuan Ming wanted to vent his anger through violence. He had to find the viper python's heart quickly, lest the Blood Soul Vine completely occupy and parasitize it. Otherwise, it might borrow the corpse to return to life and start moving again. In his current state, that would be disastrous.
After a long and arduous bout of chopping, Yuan Ming finally hacked open the viper python's chest and saw its still faintly beating heart. Sure enough, it was already covered in fine black threads.
Without the slightest hesitation, he raised his sword and stabbed. In just a few strikes, he reduced the viper python's heart to pulp.
Only after doing all that did Yuan Ming finally breathe a sigh of relief. He removed the blood-storage pouch from his body, placed it against the wound, and began collecting Blood Food.
But at that very moment, another sudden change occurred.
The Unicorn Viper Python, which he had thought was thoroughly dead, began moving again. Dozens of thumb-thick black vines suddenly grew from the wounds in its body and instantly bound Yuan Ming.
The poison remaining in Yuan Ming's body had yet to clear, while his mana had been exhausted too severely. He could no longer forcefully drive his blood and qi. His vision grew blurred, his entire body went limp, and he had practically lost the ability to resist.
At that moment, the Unicorn Viper Python's head rose once more, still assuming the same downward-looking posture as before.
Yet its sole remaining eye was now a field of scarlet. It no longer held that vaguely human emotion from before; its gaze had become wooden and vacant. Clearly, it had already been parasitized and controlled by the Blood Soul Vine.
Bound by the vines, Yuan Ming was delivered before the viper python's head. Only then did he discover that within the hole where the Azure Fish Sword had pierced its right eye was a black fleshy tumor, contracting and writhing.
"Looks like it doesn't need to lodge itself in the heart..." Yuan Ming understood, but it was already too late.
The vines were inching him toward the Unicorn Viper Python's gaping, blood-soaked maw. No matter how desperately he struggled, he could not escape the fate of falling into the snake's mouth.
Yuan Ming focused his eyes with all his strength, trying to restore clarity to his vision, but he could not manage it. Even facing certain death, with no hope of survival in sight, he still refused to give up.
A desperate fight might yet offer a sliver of life. Openly giving up meant certain death!
The third-layer technique of the Nine Yuan Art within him spun madly, attempting to gather more mana so that he could fight once again. But this last-minute act of clasping Buddha's feet was ultimately difficult to make work.
The Unicorn Viper Python's bloody mouth still swallowed Yuan Ming whole.
Just as the viper python's mouth was about to close, Yuan Ming's eyes began to glow blood-red. A savage, violent emotion that did not belong to him suddenly flooded into his mind.
Within that emotion were rage, hatred, bloodlust, and many feelings Yuan Ming rejected. Yet there was only one that overlapped with his current emotions: unwillingness.
Unwilling to be defeated, unwilling to die, unwilling to give up.
The next instant, Yuan Ming was nearly drowned by that tangled flood of emotions and almost lost himself.
But at the critical moment, a current of warmth from his arm steadied his mind, allowing him to control that emotion that had nearly driven him mad.
At the same time, Yuan Ming felt the White Ape Beast Hide on his body instantly tighten. That sensation of being bound to him by blood became even stronger, and the blood and qi that had been stagnant throughout his body suddenly began boiling once more.
Yuan Ming felt scorching heat spread through his body as vast amounts of blood and qi surged wildly toward his chest.
Then, flesh swelled from his chest and bones formed on their own. A pale golden arm abruptly burst out of his chest, forcibly piercing through the vines binding him. Its fingers were like blades as they stabbed into the viper python's right eye.
The golden arm seized the writhing black tumor inside the eye socket and clenched its five fingers hard.
With a soft bang, the black tumor exploded, crumbling into powder.
Right afterward, the Unicorn Viper Python's body rapidly shriveled and contracted, while the vines parasitizing it instantly withered away and turned to ash.
Yuan Ming regained his freedom as well and fell to the ground.
He hurriedly examined the lone arm protruding from his chest in astonishment, even forgetting to collect the Blood Food.
The arm looked no different from an ape's arm at first glance, yet it was covered in pale golden fur. It looked as though it had been grafted onto this White Ape body, utterly discordant.
Could this White Ape Beast Hide still have room to evolve? Yuan Ming was both shocked and curious.
With a thought, the third arm clenched into a fist and threw a straight punch. The tremendous force drove his whole body forward involuntarily, and its strength was actually several degrees greater than that of his original two arms.
I wonder if this arm can be retracted. I can't possibly have an arm hanging out of my chest forever, can I? That would look far too strange. Yuan Ming pondered inwardly.
Who would have thought that, along with his inward words, the golden ape arm at his chest really did retract.
He hurriedly touched his chest. Everything there was normal, without the slightest change.
After thinking briefly, Yuan Ming immediately took out the blood-storage pouch and collected the Blood Food. Then, after stripping off the horn atop its head, he hurriedly left.
In the blink of an eye, several more months passed, and the Hundred Thousand Mountains had entered the depths of winter.
Heavy snow sealed the mountains, and a thousand miles lay clad in white.
Over the past few months, Yuan Ming had cultivated without rest while continuously hunting vicious beasts for Blood Food. He was gradually hitting his stride, submitting more than his quota every month—sometimes even ten times the required amount.
Naturally, whenever he could avoid using the Fur Transformation Technique, he did.
By his reckoning, less than a year and a half had passed since he officially became a furred beast slave, yet he had already submitted a total of five hundred and seven portions of Blood Food.
His goal of completing a thousand portions within three years and becoming a registered disciple of Jade Luo Cave before completely falling was no longer so impossibly distant.
One day, at dawn.
Yuan Ming carried a thick deer leg over his shoulder as he trudged deep and shallow through the snowy mountain forest.
His skin was dark all over, and the skin on his face was rough. Judging from his appearance alone, he was already no different from the people of the southern frontier, or even from the Wildlings.
After winter snow sealed the mountains, many bear- and python-type vicious beasts had gone into hibernation, while the activities of the remaining beasts had greatly diminished. Hunting had become much harder than before.
Yuan Ming had left two mornings earlier and was only now returning. Had he not luckily encountered a Black Horn Deer, he likely would have come back empty-handed.
As he passed through a pine forest, he suddenly heard a burst of commotion ahead, as though people were fighting.
Yuan Ming instinctively wanted to take a detour and leave. These days, apart from hunting vicious beasts to accumulate points, he cared little about anything else. As his cultivation grew, the backlash from the Furring Technique had become increasingly severe.
Especially after he grew that third golden ape arm, every transformation using the Furring Technique made the savage aura within his chest grow stronger. That bloodthirsty, violent emotion battered his reason again and again.
Yuan Ming did not know how much longer the incense burner hidden in his arm could suppress this backlash.
Just as he was about to detour around the area, he suddenly heard a somewhat familiar voice. "You Hyena Hall scum! If I weren't seriously injured, would the likes of you two dare attack me?"
Hagon? Yuan Ming thought.
The response was several sneers and contemptuous taunts, followed by the sounds of fighting.
Yuan Ming sighed, set down the deer leg in his hand, and hurried over.
Before he could even get close, a figure had already flown out from a large clump of brush.
Yuan Ming reacted swiftly, catching the man by the back with one hand. Using his left foot as a pivot, he turned in a circle, dispersing the force of the impact before steadying him on his feet.
Immediately afterward, two more men jumped out from behind the bushes, each holding a pointed knife.
When they saw Yuan Ming, the two were clearly startled. Then one of them, a fellow with a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks, immediately barked, "Who are you? Trying to meddle in other people's business?"
The other had already raised his knife and pointed it at Yuan Ming's nose.
"Brother Yuan?" Hagon cried in surprise, his face pale and his forehead covered in sweat.
His clothes were soaked in blood. There was an obviously horrific tearing wound across his waist and abdomen, while his arms bore numerous neat knife wounds. All told, there were more than ten injuries.
"How did you end up like this? Why are you so badly hurt?" Yuan Ming frowned.
"I..." Before Hagon could finish speaking, his body went limp and he collapsed against Yuan Ming.
Looking at the unconscious Hagon, Yuan Ming felt rather helpless.
"You two, why haven't you gotten lost yet?" He raised his head to look at the two pursuers and rebuked them.
"You're courting death?" the pointed-mouth, monkey-cheeked fellow shouted as he lunged at Yuan Ming.
Yuan Ming's gaze flickered. He raised one hand and softly chanted, "Rise!"
The moment his words fell, a yellowish glow lit up from the ground. The pointed-mouth, monkey-cheeked fellow let out a scream as the foot he had stepped forward with was pierced through by a sharp stone spike rising from the earth.
Seeing this, the other man hurriedly looked beneath his own feet and quickly retreated.
Yuan Ming could not be bothered to argue with them. He hoisted Hagon over his shoulder and turned to leave.
Having picked up a living person, Yuan Ming naturally could not return to his cave hideout. He could only head instead for one of the temporary shelters where he usually rested.
It was a rotten, dilapidated treehouse that seemed to have once belonged to some furred beast slave. It had been abandoned for a long time, but after Yuan Ming gave it a simple cleaning, it was barely usable.
He brought Hagon into the treehouse and used medicinal powder he had traded for to treat his injuries simply. Then he went outside, lit a bonfire, and roasted the Black Horn Deer leg.
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