Just as the two were speaking, Old Dog Wulong had already charged to Yan Nu's side in a flash.
As for Huang Banyun, he couldn't be bothered to pay him any mind.
Yet although Huang Banyun posed no threat, he had discovered a crucial piece of intelligence: Wulong's black gangqi actually could not defend his crown.
Then came a swish, as several streams of water suspended into the air, coming from the sky and sweeping across the void to bypass the gangqi and strike Wulong directly.
"Did you think I was a vegetarian!" Shen Leling manipulated the water currents to bombard him.
Without the gangqi blocking the way, this time it finally injured Wulong. The water currents contained a powerful, latent magical power oscillation that battered Wulong so fiercely his head spun and his vision doubled.
However, the second stream of water was ineffective. Wulong slightly tilted his body, and his gangqi swatted all the water currents away.
His fatal flaw was merely a tiny patch on top of his head.
Yet Yan Nu and Huang Banyun had already taken the opportunity to flee, and Yan Nu directly tossed the Mysterious Iron Spear to Banyun: "The spear is for you to use. Quickly give me the grass ring!"
"Ah? Dragon Fodder Grass isn't with me!" Huang Banyun had only seen Yan Nu eat the grass once in total, and just like Wulong, he had been hoodwinked by the whole Dragon Fodder Grass affair. He didn't understand what Yan Nu meant by asking him for a grass ring, and instead assumed he was talking about the Dragon Fodder Grass.
"Grass ring? What grass ring? Is Dragon Fodder Grass ring-shaped?" Wulong interrogated fiercely, thrusting both palms out to grab them one by one.
The speed was too fast. Huang Banyun threw himself in front of Yan Nu with his life on the line, holding his spear to thrust straight ahead.
"Hmm? Good spear technique, a bit familiar..." Wulong paused for a fraction of a second, swatting the Mysterious Iron Spear away with a single slap.
With that, Huang Banyun barely managed to exchange half a move with Wulong before having no strength left to fight back.
At this critical juncture of life or death, Shen Leling produced the bait she had devised and shouted, "Old dog!"
She merely spread her left hand, and a completely unremarkable-looking weed lay strikingly in her palm: "Heh, since you won't let me leave, you won't get to profit from this either."
With that, she ate the grass directly.
In an instant, majestic primordial qi radiated from inside the body, so dense that Shen Leling seemed to be enveloped in a field of fluorescent light.
"Dragon Fodder Grass!" Wulong stared in wide-eyed shock. What truly magnificent primordial qi!
Little did he know, this was simply Shen Leling voluntarily dispersing a massive amount of primordial qi she had stored inside the body.
She had absorbed a wave of primordial qi from the Water Talisman comparable to twenty thousand years' worth, and she couldn't digest it all in a short time. Thus, it was better to pull out a portion and toss it out like a meaty bone to feed the dog.
Mr. Feng also understood Shen Leling's intent and said in a deep voice, "Don't waste time on mortals! This female demon is the key!"
As the words fell, Wulong decisively abandoned Yan Nu, whom he had spent ages trying to strike to no avail against the Water Talisman.
With a howl, truly like a fierce hound pouncing on food, he rushed straight at Shen Leling.
Yet he pounced on empty air.
With a thump, Shen Leling transformed into a pool of water, quickly materializing from beside Yan Nu.
Her previous Hanging River Downpour had not been a wasted effort either; it was specifically meant to spread the domain of water across the entire scene.
Executing a clever little trick in this moment, the two of them instantly swapped positions simply because she had pretended to eat a stalk of Dragon Fodder Grass.
The only pity was that the primordial qi hadn't fully dissipated. Wulong opened his mouth wide and twitched his nose, greedily gulping and sucking at Shen Leling's original spot, scavenging a massive wave of primordial qi.
"It truly is immortal grass! A mere small fraction of qi is worth five hundred years!"
Having reaped the benefits, Wulong's gaze immediately turned even greedier. With his dog's maw wide open and his tongue lolling out, drool was actually dripping down.
Meanwhile, Shen Leling produced yet another stalk of grass, shoving it into Yan Nu's mouth.
"Hmph, I've long since grown tired of eating Dragon Fodder Grass, and its medicinal effects are useless to me. It's better to let this youth eat it instead; at least he helped me out earlier," Shen Leling said leisurely.
Wulong's dog eyes bulged. No matter how he looked at it, it was just ordinary sheep grass, yet he dared not underestimate it. Instead, he cursed himself for reading too little and being blind to pearls!
He had lived on Flag Mountain for so many years, yet he hadn't even known there was immortal grass, whereas these outsiders found it the moment they arrived.
It was likely precisely because... this treasure looked far too much like ordinary sheep grass!
"Stop right there!" Wulong pounced forward like a madman, feeling utterly heartbroken!
However, Shen Leling had already shoved the grass into Yan Nu's mouth, and there was a hidden mystery to it.
Her palm surged with wondrous water, which also carried a cluster of grass seeds!
These were the very last bits of grass seeds Shen Leling had stored on her person.
Though few in number, stimulated by the wondrous water, they grew at a rapid pace, stuffing a full mouthful for Yan Nu.
Moreover, because Shen Leling was covering Yan Nu's mouth while the grass grew, it sprouted directly down his esophagus, going straight to his stomach, and was digested and gone in an instant.
Yan Nu was instantly stuffed to the brim, his true qi bursting to the limit—three thousand eight hundred years of cultivation!
"Yan Nu, this is my last bit of grass. I need you to buy me a moment of time," Shen Leling said in a low, solemn voice, while simultaneously waving her hand to cover Yan Nu in another layer of rattan armor.
"Out of grass?" Yan Nu looked towards the high slope. "Aren't there still some on the mountain?"
Shen Leling was speechless in her heart. If the truth were known to Wulong, he would definitely destroy every single stalk of grass.
Hearing Shen Leling's words, Wulong cold laughed: "The last stalk of grass? Impossible! Weren't there four stalks in total?!"
"You ate one, he ate two... Is the last one hidden in the mountain?"
Recalling Yan Nu's words, Wulong couldn't help but also look toward that slope.
There was a large patch of grass there, and since Dragon Fodder Grass looked very much like ordinary sheep grass, ordinary people simply couldn't tell them apart... This vixen had probably mixed it among the grassland to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, intending to gather it after it was safe!
"Hahaha... There's so much grass on this mountain, go ahead and look for it." Shen Leling couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"Hmph, if I kill you and it's not there... I'll just eat every single blade of grass on this mountain!" Wulong cold laughed.
Shen Leling was speechless, finding it somewhat funny yet exasperating.
"Then I'll smash you to death first!" Brilliant flames instantly flashed across Yan Nu's body, his entire being blazing fiercely.
The rattan armor was exceptionally resistant to burning, and the ignited flames burned at a high temperature. Beneath Yan Nu's feet, moreover, was half a foot of deep marsh water.
And so, Yan Nu's upper body burned with raging infernos, while his blazing feet boiled countless surrounding wisps of steam.
"Sss..."
Yan Nu's rising aura hissed loudly. Crouching halfway, he picked up the Mysterious Iron Spear and suddenly made a dash!
The long spear was at the vanguard like a bird's beak, while the flames trailed behind like a phoenix's tail. He blasted fiercely through the void, parting the surrounding water vapor like waves rolling to both sides.
The whistling sound was akin to a mountain collapsing!
Wulong showed no weakness at all. Having just absorbed a wave of primordial qi, his magical power was currently recovering steadily, and he didn't fear Yan Nu in the slightest.
That old dog surged with killing intent as he lunged forward.
Just as the two were about to collide, Yan Nu flashed and vanished right before his eyes, actually brushing past him.
"What is the meaning of this?" The moment Wulong turned his head, a wave of fire washed straight across his face.
Immediately afterward, he felt a sharp pain in his chest as the Mysterious Iron Spear slammed deep into his wound.
Flying into a rage, he swung his claws to counterattack, only to strike empty air once more.
"So fast!" Wulong widened his dog eyes.
He discovered that Yan Nu was constantly ricocheting through the air, sometimes even simply slamming head-first into the stone walls to slow down before kicking off the rock face to sprint again.
His true qi was almost entirely used for acceleration, and the force of his strikes landing on Wulong was merely that of sixty years of cultivation.
It was just barely enough to breach the gangqi body protection and make contact with Wulong's wound.
"Sss-sss!"
Yet because the heat radiating from Yan Nu was entirely too terrifying—his body even more fearsome than a branding iron—even the lightest touch felt like the ancient torture of branding!
"Bang bang bang!"
Yan Nu wove back and forth between two stone walls, brandishing the Mysterious Iron Spear in one hand while punching wildly with the other.
Seeing this, Mr. Feng pointed his long sword urgently, erecting several rocks around Wulong and almost completely surrounding him to provide surfaces for Yan Nu to kick off of.
While creating stones, he anxiously called out: "Wulong, I can't hit him!"
"You damned ghost! Will you stop already?!" Overwhelmed and pressed from all sides, Wulong discovered that Yan Nu suffered zero damage from crashing into the stone walls, and instead relied on them to decelerate and ricochet. Finally, he cursed the old ghost bitterly.
Wasn't this just helping by making a mess? With the old ghost's stone walls in play, Yan Nu's mobility was even higher.
Yan Nu blasted fiercely through the void, hammering Wulong's body with dull thuds while also leaving cracks, holes, and flying debris scattered across the surrounding stone walls as stone dust and powder fluttered everywhere.
Because the force of every single strike was too immense, it would also send him rebounding backward.
Thus, Yan Nu essentially treated himself like a pinball: throw a punch, fly backward, then blast fiercely through the void, ricochet to change angles, and strike again!
Sprinting charges, coordinating with wall bounces, throwing another punch—this repeated, high-speed mobile combat left Wulong's vision swimming.
Yan Nu's entire person was like a shooting star, launching a frantic bombardment from all directions. Wulong was suppressed to the extreme, and the wound on his chest was slowly ground wider and wider piece by piece.
"Damn it, he's staring right at my wound again..."
The spot Yan Nu struck most frequently was the spear wound on Wulong's chest. If his speed was too fast and he missed the mark, he would at least leave a brand of fire on Wulong's body.
From time to time, Wulong would be scalded with scars shaped like fistprints—low in lethal damage, but maximum in humiliation.
Conversely, Wulong rarely managed to hit Yan Nu; whenever he retaliated with his black qi, it would simply be blocked by the Water Talisman.
"Damn it, do you only know how to hit this spot?!"
"Because hitting here hurts you the most." Amidst the fierce battle, Yan Nu even gave an honest reply.
"Damn it!" Wulong was driven to distraction by rage.
He lunged fiercely in one direction, attempting to break out of the stone formation's perimeter. Once he reached an open area, Yan Nu's mobility would plummet drastically.
Without stone walls to decelerate against, Yan Nu would have to waste far more true qi.
Yet no matter where Wulong ran, the Rock Thrust followed...
"Old ghost!" Wulong glared with hatred at Mr. Feng. "You're seeking death!"
Sensing the massive thickets of vines deployed underground by Shen Leling, Mr. Feng figured the overall situation was decided and couldn't help smiling: "Sorry, I'm laying my cards on the table! I—"
"You want to monopolize the last stalk of Dragon Fodder Grass!" Wulong roared in anger.
*"..."* Mr. Feng was left speechless.
Wulong thought to himself that when there was only one stalk of Dragon Fodder Grass left, there was no way he would share it with the old ghost; no, from the very beginning, he had never intended to share it with the old ghost, planning all along to monopolize it at the very end.
The old ghost must be planning the exact same thing right now, which was why he wanted to balance the situation on the field and reap the fisherman's profit.
"Uh... Yes, yes indeed..." Mr. Feng perfunctorily replied.
At that moment, Shen Leling also made her move, waving her hand to manipulate winding, twisting vines that slithered forward!
One vine wrapped around Yan Nu, forming a new suit of armor which amounted to adding more fuel to the raging flames on his body.
As for the remaining vines, they completely entangled Wulong.
"Damned woman!" Old Dog Wulong flew into a towering rage, sending a surge of even heavier black qi bursting from his body to shred the wrappings.
Yet a continuous stream of vines broke through the soil to entangle him anew. These vines even secreted a liquid that plastered onto his body like an ointment.
Even when torn apart, fragments still adhered to him in scattered patches.
The more he struggled, the thicker he was wrapped, growing more and more bloated and bulky.
"Call me soft and weak? Let's have you taste my true might!"
Shen Leling spread her arms wide, and the earth beneath her feet instantly trembled and churned, drilling out thick, intertwined, knotty vines.
These vines continued to grow, every single one as thick as a human fist, spreading and proliferating outward with Shen Leling at the center.
Wherever they passed, the ground was overlaid in overlapping layers, piling higher and higher.
Finally, they all converged toward Wulong, burying him directly as if he had fallen into the ocean of a twisted jungle.
This scene was supremely spectacular.
"Impressive!" Even Mr. Feng couldn't help exclaiming in wonder. The churning vegetation piled layer upon layer, making one's scalp tingle.
"Of course! Thousands of knotty vines wrapping and constricting with giant force—even if it doesn't grind Wulong into fine powder, he definitely won't be able to escape."
The moment Shen Leling finished speaking, she saw a collar emerge around Wulong's neck, blooming with a brilliance as dazzling as the stars, enshrouding Wulong and protecting him.
Emblazoned upon it was a golden plaque, strikingly bearing the three characters: 'Black Dragon Colt'.
Such a collar rose straight from the ground, forcefully grinding away the vines to blast open a passage, and hooked Wulong by the neck to hoist him straight up into the air.
"What!" Only then did Shen Leling realize that Wulong actually possessed a fine-grade magic tool!
Yet this magic tool... was a dog collar? Ah, right, Wulong was the mount of some cultivator!
Breaking free, Wulong realized this was his master rescuing him from afar, and he was overjoyed.
"Hhahahaha! You dare to kill me? My master will definitely avenge me!"
Hearing these words, Shen Leling became even more determined to kill him: "Rise!"
In an instant, the massive twisted jungle surged from all directions, forming a closing encirclement toward the center.
Like a giant flower, it was currently contracting to form a bud...
Yet this contraction was too slow. Wulong soared into the air, on the verge of being dragged out of range.
Shen Leling shouted: "Yan Nu, finish him off quickly!"
Yan Nu called out: "I've run out of true qi."
"Ah?" Shen Leling's magical power was already exhausted, and her face turned ugly. Could it be that she was going to let this dog run away?
"Banyun, Banyun, didn't you talk about repaying kindness with grass? Where's the grass ring?" Yan Nu fumbled about Huang Banyun's person.
"Brother Jiang, repaying kindness with grass doesn't mean that!" Huang Banyun wore a wailing face.
Although this ocean of vegetation was terrifying, it was entirely under Shen Leling's control. Aside from incidentally sucking Zhang Quan dry, everyone else was like a boat sailing on the sea, completely safe from being crushed by the rolling vines.
Watching Wulong about to be executed, Huang Banyun had been on the verge of tears of joy, only for another twist to occur, plunging his heart into extreme agony.
"No, you can't let him run! Just drain me instead!" Eyes about to burst, Huang Banyun wished he could transform into someone else's magical power.
However, Shen Leling wasn't lacking in primordial qi or essence souls; she simply had no time to recover.
Everything happened too fast, right as they watched Wulong fly beyond the enclosing perimeter of the twisted jungle.
"Squeak squeak squeak!" Suddenly, a grass ring descended from the sky, landing with pinpoint accuracy around Yan Nu's neck!
"Eh?" The group looked over, and it was none other than the intelligent little monkey.
"Many thanks!"
Yan Nu opened his mouth and ate it, stuffing the whole thing into his mouth.
As it turned out, when Yan Nu had first asked Huang Banyun for a grass ring, Huang Banyun hadn't understood, but his monkey had...
As a spiritual monkey, Maruko could understand human speech and possessed simple thoughts. Since Yan Nu wanted a grass ring, it simply gave him a grass ring.
Furthermore, it knew what kind of grass ring Yan Nu wanted.
For back when Yan Nu first flew in to join the battle, he had worn a ring woven from grass around his neck, though it had burned away later on.
Huang Banyun hadn't taken that matter to heart, but the monkey had remembered.
And when Huang Banyun joined the fray, he did so with the absolute resolve to die, worrying for the monkey afterward, so he hadn't let it come down to fight alongside them.
This left the monkey staying behind on the mountain all along. Hearing Yan Nu say he wanted a grass ring, it acted with utter earnestness, immediately searching for identical grass to weave an identical ring...
Until this very moment, when it was finally delivered to Yan Nu's hands.
"Boom!" Yan Nu's true qi burst to the full, instantly possessing an astonishing four thousand two hundred and sixty-one years of cultivation!
"What!" Watching closely from the sky, Wulong saw that what Yan Nu had eaten was merely ordinary grass—and a whole handful of it at that!
"Get back here!"
Yan Nu surged into the sky, his entire body blazing, like a bolt of red lightning catching up to Wulong.
He grabbed Wulong, sparing no true qi and plunging wildly back down.
Like a fiery meteor, he plummeted toward the giant, closing flower bud!
"You're not getting away!" Shen Leling clapped and laughed.
Falling at extreme speed, Wulong screamed in terror, "It's the last Dragon Fodder Grass! To think I believed it was hidden in the meadow on the mountain, only for you to hand it to a monkey and weave it into a ring with other weeds..."
"This..." Shen Leling and Mr. Feng both cracked a bit.
They suddenly felt that tricking this dog was quite pointless. They hadn't even bothered to keep up the lie later on, yet the dog still couldn't see through it, its mind filled entirely with Dragon Fodder Grass.
At this moment, Wulong finally noticed Mr. Feng at the edge, hope bursting in his eyes. "Old ghost, I'm about to Die, and you're not helping? If they kill me, they kill you!"
As he spoke, Yan Nu had already grabbed him and crashed fiercely into the center of the vines, sinking deep inside.
Mr. Feng's mouth twitched, his long sword raised, and he formed an incantation. "Rise!"
Seeing this, Wulong's hopes rose, and he struggled with all his might, wanting to climb out using the power of the collar, even as his neck was nearly choked in two.
Yet the next second, massive boulders rose from the bottom, like a giant hand gripping Wulong and dragging him down fiercely.
"Old ghost! Old ghost!" Wulong was driven mad with fury, ultimately completely buried within the vines.
This was still not the most horrifying part; the most horrifying thing was that Yan Nu was also entangled within them.
That blazing body, hot as a branding iron, ignited all the surrounding vines!
With a thought, Shen Leling immediately formed an incantation. "Get out, all of you!"
Instantly, these vines secreted oils one by one, burning ever more fiercely, and soon the entire jungle transformed into a Sea of Fire!
"Aaaaaah!" Deep in the Sea of Fire, the flames trembled as Wulong screamed in horrifying agony.
"Yan Nu, are you alright?" Shen Leling asked Yan Nu, who was also in the Sea of Fire.
"I'm fine, just a little choked... cough cough..." Around Yan Nu, there was nothing but roaring flames, steam, or billowing smoke.
Shen Leling had been well prepared, knowing he was not afraid of the first two. After testing the toxic smoke slightly, she quickly shot a special vine she had prepared onto Yan Nu's face to cover his mouth and nose.
Yan Nu instantly breathed fresh air, holding Wulong as they were refined in the great fire.
The radiance of the collar magical artifact was still protecting Wulong, but it could no longer rescue him.
Wulong was immersed in suffocation and high heat, in excruciating pain yet unable to Die.
The giant lotus-shaped vines closed completely.
Bright red on the inside and cyan-green on the outside, it resembled a gigantic fire lotus towering on the mountainside. When it burned to its absolute peak, the firelight soared into the sky, rising higher than the mountain peak.
Shen Leling and the others stood outside, gazing up at the terrifying fire lotus, thinking that the power of this spell had instantly risen by several grades.
After being refined for about half a quarter of an hour, Yan Nu took the initiative to walk out from the blazing flames.
Clad in not a stitch of clothing, he was covered only in flames and ashes.
"He's been reduced to a single bone."
p.s: Sorry for the late update. I deleted a lot of drafts, then rewrote four chapters into two, condensing the plot. These two chapters total ten thousand words.
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