Slaying the Crab Spirit!

The noon sun blazed even fiercer, yet it could not pierce the waterborne sand and silt that filled the depths.

Broken stone piles stood thrust upside down in the mud. Aquatic grass rooted in cracks between the rocks had no choice but to leave the place where it had grown, drifting away on the gentle water waves.

The entire riverbed had been reduced to chaos by the fierce battle of Liang Qu and the others, as though an undersea earthquake had erupted.

"Hah!"

Liang Qu swam to the surface and drew deep breaths. He threw back his head, his tongue so dry it felt ready to split, his chest heaving violently.

Strings of water droplets dripped from the ends of Liang Qu's soaked hair, mingling with cold sweat before running down his chin and splashing into the water.

The tide carried Liang Qu up and down, dazzling ripples of light everywhere around him.

He kept drawing deep breaths. His bellows-like lungs sucked in enormous amounts of oxygen, while his heart desperately pumped it throughout his body. The flush quickly faded from his face, and his numb mind regained its vitality.

The Crab Monster's attacks had been airtight. A few minutes of battle had consumed almost as much oxygen as more than fifteen minutes under normal circumstances.

He lowered his head to look at his waist. The wound was nearly a palm wide, slashed from three or four inches beside his navel all the way to the hollow of his lower back.

An entire layer of skin had been torn off. Pale yellow tissue fluid seeped from the edges, while bright red muscle was exposed at the center. Blood continuously poured out, raising cold sweat on his brow even as lingering fear gripped his heart.

Splash.

Fat Catfish surfaced, dragging over the clothes Liang Qu had left on the boat. Gritting his teeth, Liang Qu took them, tore them into strips, and wrapped them around his waist. With the wound no longer being scoured by the current, the searing pain finally eased somewhat.

His rapidly pounding heart finally slowed a little.

Water waves crashed against Liang Qu's chest. He took out the broken half of his spear, several long wooden splinters jutting from the fractured end of the shaft.

If only I had an iron fork. I wouldn't have been injured.

Liang Qu reached out, snapped off the protruding splinters, smoothed the break, then gripped the short spear again. After taking a deep breath, he dove back down.

The Crab Monster had suffered severe injuries, but it was not dead yet. He could not give it a chance to recover.

The second round began! On the riverbed, the dust that had originally spread four or five meters high had settled to around two meters, yet there was no sign of the Crab Monster anywhere nearby.

But under the search of Fat Catfish and Zhu Po Long, they quickly discovered its trail. The moment Liang Qu saw the Crab Monster, his eyes turned red! The Crab Monster was sprawled in the lotus root field, its pincers gripping thick lengths of lotus root as it chewed madly, nearly swallowing one section at a bite.

With the nourishment of enormous quantities of lotus root, its healing ability took effect. Flesh buds had nearly grown from the Crab Monster's severed limbs, and new feelers had even sprouted from its eye sockets.

Crabs possessed extremely powerful regenerative abilities. Liang Qu dared not let it keep eating, or everything they had done would go down the drain.

Besides, those were all his lotus roots!

Liang Qu charged forward again. The instant he landed on the ground, the Crab Monster's newly grown feelers twitched and turned toward him.

But its vision had not recovered. It could not see Liang Qu's movements at all and could only judge the intruder's direction from the vibrations through its jointed legs.

Once a crab's eyeballs and eyestalks were completely destroyed, it could no longer grow new eyes. It could only grow another feeler in the eye socket—but that was for ordinary crabs.

Liang Qu could not be sure whether the Crab Monster before him would be the same. He had to finish it before its eyes grew back!

Liang Qu had discovered long ago, when the crab changed its pursuit target after being attacked, that this thing was not intelligent.

A truly fatal weakness.

As his thoughts raced, Liang Qu struck a rock with the short spear. Almost the instant the vibration appeared, the Crab Monster flew into a rage. Its four legs trembled and swung as it charged in his direction.

Liang Qu braced himself.

The crab swung its severed limbs and charged before him like a chariot. The current it stirred rushed straight at his face, as though he stood at the mouth of a volcano about to erupt. Liang Qu leaped up and controlled the water current to create a disturbance on the other side.

The giant pincer snapped toward the flowing water without hesitation. Its sharp claw sheared through the current, but it clamped down on empty water.

The Crab Monster flung its giant pincer aside, leaving itself wide open in front and exposing its white belly.

Now!

Liang Qu dropped back to the ground, gripping the short spear that was only half its original length. His gaze settled on the spear tip, aiming for that white navel.

His wrist, elbow, waist, and legs—every muscle he could use—tensed, contracted, then rapidly extended at that instant.

He stomped the ground, shaking up dust. His long-term stance training had made his lower body as steady as a boulder. His whole body drove forward, thrusting ahead.

The chipped spear tip left Liang Qu's sight. He clenched his teeth as blood from his waist seeped through the strips of cloth and scattered through the water, trailing thin crimson threads that were broken apart by his advance.

The instant Liang Qu landed again, the Crab Monster reacted and turned its giant pincer around, but it was already too late.

The short spear, more than a meter long, was driven entirely into the Crab Monster's navel at an upward angle. It pierced without resistance through its most vulnerable place—and its most fatal one.

"Still a female crab."

Looking at the round abdominal flap beneath the crab, Liang Qu thought to himself.

Crustacean arthropods had three neural centers. The most vulnerable part was at the navel, where its gonads and one of its neural centers lay. Aside from the joint membranes, it was also the softest part of its body.

When preparing crabs, as long as one held down a spot above the crab's navel and drove a chopstick into its body, the crab would die instantly, without pain.

Rumble!

The pincer raised overhead slowly fell under the support of the water current, cutting across Liang Qu's head before landing on both sides of him.

The massive object crashed into the mud, throwing up great clouds of sand and silt that rose high from the riverbed like stone walls.

Zhu Po Long and Fat Catfish beside him widened their eyes, awed though they did not understand why.

They could not figure out how such a huge Spirit Monster had been taken down by Liang Qu.

Just now, he had clearly been beaten into fleeing with his head in his hands like a rat.

The two beasts felt even greater reverence in their hearts. As expected of the heavenly god who had opened their spiritual intelligence.

Liang Qu's body went weak. He slowly rose and swam out before the dust on both sides could engulf him. After returning to the surface, he climbed into the skiff and lay down, drawing deep breaths.

After delivering the final blow, he only felt dizzy and disoriented, as though numbness had wrapped tightly around his entire body. It was the exhaustion of being hollowed out from within.

Blood gushed continuously from the wound at his waist.

Liang Qu was drowsy, yet he did not dare fall asleep. He feared that if he slept, he would lose too much blood and never wake again.

He lay there for quite a while before his dizzy head gradually returned to normal and a trace of strength returned to his exhausted body.

Liang Qu gripped the edge of the boat with his palm. His forearm trembled as he supported himself upward, then he gently leaned against the partition and gasped for breath.

The wind stirred the waves, and the tide struck the hull without end, shimmering with rippling light. Low-flying hawk falcons swooped down and snatched up small fish leaping from the water.

The cold wind carried away the damp moisture, and his wet hair gradually began to sway with the rhythm of the breeze.

"Hahaha! Hahahahaha!"

Liang Qu suddenly burst into laughter. His laughter echoed over the waves of the Zeye River. At that very moment, he abruptly felt unbelievably formidable! He had actually killed such a huge Spirit Monster! A Spirit Monster! A monster that made countless fishermen flee at the mere sight of it had been killed by him, Liang Qu!

LaiTou Zhang, the Wang Brothers Three—suddenly, they seemed as insignificant as children playing house.

His heart suddenly opened wide, as though there would no longer be any difficulties on the road ahead.