Howling Celestial Dog

The palm-sized Metal Spider bounced along like it was flying, reaching Shi Lingqing's subordinate's back after only a few leaps.

The man lying among the rubble had craned his neck to peer outside, completely failing to notice the tiny Metal Spider descending at high speed. Its six slender metal legs suddenly clamped down on the major tendons at the back of his neck.

A blinding flash of electricity erupted. Amid sharp crackles, six arcs of lightning burst from the Metal Spider and plunged into the man's body.

The man's body convulsed violently. His eyes rolled back, foam spilled from his mouth, and he fainted.

Wu Tie sucked in a cold breath. He put on his helmet and quickly entered the crevice. An invisible force field spread outward. Only this one man was hiding near the crevice; Shi Lingqing and the others were not here.

For no reason at all, Wu Tie sensed several gazes coming from afar.

He abruptly turned and looked into the distance. Several miles away, beneath the dim ghostly glow cast by a few night-glow vines, several figures stood silently.

When they saw Wu Tie looking over, the faint glow immediately went out, and the figures vanished into the darkness.

Wu Tie had sharp eyes. He had already made out Shi Lingqing's shapely figure. Standing beside her were clearly Qiao and Shi Dian.

"An ambush?" Wu Tie looked at the man lying on the ground, whose ten fingers were still twitching faintly.

The crevice, the guard hidden at its entrance, the 'dog thing' thirty-odd meters inside, and the deep, long, narrow passage beyond it. Wu Tie immediately understood Shi Lingqing and the others' plan. They wanted to lure Luolin's group of three into the crevice and use the cramped terrain to limit them.

The tiny Metal Spider leaped up and landed on Wu Tie's shoulder.

The previous electric discharge seemed to have consumed too much of its power. Even Old Tie's voice coming from its belly had grown much fainter. "Don't concern yourself with their business. Hurry up and bring that dog thing back."

Wu Tie nodded and strode into the crevice, carefully examining the dog thing on the ground.

From head to tail, the thing was roughly five or six meters long and around three meters tall. Its entire body was a ghastly white, shaped in an exceedingly smooth, streamlined form that carried a strange kind of beauty.

"This is a big fellow." Wu Tie grabbed the dog thing's head and gave it a hard pull. The ground around it cracked with a dull rumble. Several rocks wedged against its body shattered, and Wu Tie suddenly felt his hands lighten. He staggered backward several steps.

"I'm really stupid." Wu Tie cursed himself under his breath.

The dog thing's body looked as if it had been forged from the same material as Old Tie. Old Tie's weight was unexpectedly light, and the dog thing weighed only a few thousand jin in total. Compared to Wu Tie's current strength, that was nothing.

Instead, he had used too much force. Supporting the dog thing, he retreated more than ten steps and nearly lost his balance and sat down.

Hoisting the dog thing's two front paws over his shoulders, Wu Tie dragged it out of the crevice in huge strides. The invisible force field enveloped his whole body. He suddenly leaped up, lightly tapping the rock wall with both feet in rapid succession. After borrowing force several times, he shot out of the sunken pit.

He broke into a full-speed run, and the journey of several hundred miles took little time.

The wooden shed's floor had already been lifted open, exposing the entrance to the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp. Wu Tie carried the dog thing and jumped down. A quarter of an hour later, he met up with Old Tie in the metal hall.

Throwing the dog thing onto the ground, Wu Tie panted as he stood with his hands on his hips and looked at Old Tie. "Didn't you say that these Energy Puppets used for odd jobs could only operate within ten miles of the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp?"

Pointing at the palm-sized Metal Spider on his shoulder, Wu Tie asked, "What's going on with this?"

Old Tie bluntly dumped the blame on Big Iron. "It's because this fool is too stupid. I taught him a couple of tricks, so these small Energy Puppets can now operate within a thousand miles of the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp... Isn't that perfectly normal?"

Wu Tie stared straight at Old Tie.

Old Tie stared straight back at him.

They glared at each other for a full quarter of an hour. At last, Wu Tie's eyes became unbearably sore. Wiping away tears, he turned his head aside. "I always feel like you're setting me up."

Big Iron gave a couple of "gugu" sounds.

He still could not speak normally like Old Tie. He only made a few vague, meaningless noises and rapidly spun around three times where he stood.

Old Tie snorted. Directing four Metal Spiders to carry him before the dog thing, he shot dozens of extremely fine red beams from his eyes, scanning the dog thing's body again and again.

Amid the faint crackling of electric currents, several transparent tubes beneath Old Tie's neck began to move like spirit snakes. The tubes gradually extended, inching toward the transparent wound in the center of the dog thing's forehead.

Wu Tie's eyes widened in horror. He muttered, "Old Tie... what are you doing... Who is he?"

The transparent tubes extending from Old Tie's neck flickered with electricity as they slowly drilled into the wound on the dog thing's forehead.

He did not answer Wu Tie's question. Only after a full hour had passed, when rippling electrical radiance shimmered over the dog thing's entire body, did he mutter in a low voice, "Since there is Lesser Manifested Sage True Lord Yang Jian... then naturally, there should be the Howling Celestial Dog."

"This dog thing is naturally the Howling Celestial Dog... I had even planned to stew him in a five-spice dry pot after he grew flesh and blood. Looks like there's no chance now." Old Tie's voice was filled with indescribable emotion. "Still, it makes sense. Wherever Yang Jian was, the Howling Celestial Dog would surely be nearby."

"Not one of those crudely made imitations. As expected, this is the true original body of the Howling Celestial Dog." Old Tie spoke heavily. "This fellow... was the sort to lord it over others by relying on his master, bullying the weak and fearing the strong... Who would have thought he would fight to the death... and die in battle here?"

Wu Tie had already sat down on the ground. He stared blankly at the Howling Celestial Dog. "The Howling Celestial Dog? That name..."

With several clicks, dazzling electricity leaped and flowed rapidly around the Howling Celestial Dog's neck. Fine cracks suddenly appeared on his smooth, seamless neck, and strands of incomparably magnificent white light poured from them, spreading outward in ripples.

With a thud, the Howling Celestial Dog's damaged head fell to the ground.

Old Tie said gravely, "Big Iron, send him to keep Yang Jian company. If they can be together... they should be very happy, right?"

Old Tie's rigid, icy metallic voice was strangely full of grief. The blood-red light in his eyes had become incomparably chaotic as well. "What a pity. Back then, Yang Jian dreamed of letting this dog thing grow flesh and blood. But this dog thing was disappointing... Until the very end... he only became a half-step flesh-and-blood body..."

"What a pity for all those treasures Yang Jian saved by squeezing them out from between his teeth... If they had been given to me..." Old Tie sighed heavily. "Still, I won't settle old scores with you, dog thing... You should be very happy to be with Yang Jian, shouldn't you?"

Four Metal Spiders carried Old Tie over, bringing his neck close to the Howling Celestial Dog's body.

Old Tie's neck wriggled like flowing water, adjusting its size to match the thickness of the Howling Celestial Dog's neck.

Dozens of tubes of varying thickness and streams of light emerged from the Howling Celestial Dog's neck. Likewise, dozens of tubes of varying thickness and solid-looking streams of light emerged from Old Tie's neck.

Tube connected to tube, and light merged with light.

Wu Tie stared dumbfoundedly at Old Tie, watching Old Tie's enormous head join with the Howling Celestial Dog's body. Soon, they fit together perfectly, seamless as heaven's own handiwork. Arcs of electricity rapidly coursed over Old Tie's body, and his neck immediately became smooth as a mirror, without the slightest trace left behind.

"Old... Old Tie?" Wu Tie was stunned.

A human head, albeit one forged of metal, had actually been mounted onto the Howling Celestial Dog's body just like that?

Old Tie shook his head. The blood-red light in his eyes suddenly grew incomparably intense. Two blazing torrents of blood light surged forth, illuminating the entire metal hall.

Amid clicking sounds, the limbs that had once belonged to the Howling Celestial Dog slowly began to move.

Very soon, that body slowly stood up and began walking stiffly through the metal hall. After taking several steps, Old Tie turned to glance at Big Iron. Blood light flickered in Big Iron's eyes, and several Metal Spiders quickly gathered together.

The Metal Spiders' bodies melted, turning into a ghastly white sphere of liquid metal roughly a meter across.

Old Tie opened his mouth and took a fierce bite-like inhale. The sphere of liquid metal swiftly entered his body. Electricity flowed over his body, while dense metallic collisions rang out from within him. At the same time, twisted metal fragments continuously sprayed from his mouth.

"These injuries are really severe." Old Tie snorted. "What a bunch of bastards. Killing the dog thing was one thing, but did they have to whip the corpse afterward? Don't they know I'm the one taking over this body now?"

The sacrifice of several Metal Spiders proved effective. Roughly two hours later, Old Tie could already run rapidly back and forth through the metal hall, and he was clearly much faster than Wu Tie.

"Old Tie? You can move!" Wu Tie looked at Old Tie in shock and delight.

"I can move, but... after all, it isn't my own body. It feels strange to use." Old Tie bared his teeth fiercely, and his two rows of huge teeth scraped out showers of sparks. "Still, after being a living corpse for so many years, being able to move is enough."

Old Tie suddenly dashed before Wu Tie, pushing his huge head close as he laughed loudly. "Isn't it rare? A new species—human-headed dog... Bah, sphinx... Bah, dog-bodied... Fine, human-headed dog is a pretty good name."

Electricity flowed over his entire body. Old Tie gritted his teeth and muttered curses that no one could make out, then began wildly sprinting through the metal hall, wind beneath his four feet.

As he ran, Old Tie suddenly leaped up and began running rapidly along the vertical wall.

Like a faint shadow, he raced around the metal hall along the vertical wall dozens of times before abruptly coming to a halt.

"Big Iron, give me a target!" Old Tie roared.

Electricity flashed across the ceiling, and a metal plate one meter square and one foot thick came crashing down.

Old Tie opened his mouth wide. A fist-sized ball of dark blue electricity silently flew from his mouth and struck the center of the metal plate with savage force.

With a piercing screech, the electric ball exploded. Bolts of electricity as thick as arms shot more than ten meters away, striking the ground with ear-splitting explosions. Old Tie threw back his head and laughed three times, then his four legs suddenly went limp, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.

"This dog thing... it's only been such a short while..." Old Tie pressed his forehead against the floor. Only after a very, very long time did he slowly raise his head and leisurely straighten up. "Sure enough, one must not forget oneself in triumph, or misfortune will surely follow... Still, being able to move is enough."

Wu Tie looked worriedly at Old Tie. "Is there something wrong with your body?"

Old Tie muttered unhappily, "There's a huge problem, but it isn't really a problem... Right now, I have a very interesting question... Why did Yang Jian die here, while this dog thing, instead of following his dying master, died in battle hundreds of miles away?"

Old Tie spoke quietly to himself. "That crevice... Little fellow, come with me. What lies beyond that crevice?"

With all four feet moving like the wind, Old Tie ran swiftly toward the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp's exit.

Wu Tie grabbed his spear and hurried after Old Tie. "Old Tie, you don't know what happened here?"

As he sprinted, Old Tie kept muttering, "I'm merely Bian Que's ninth-generation medical-care Ancient Divine Weapon... How could I possibly know about the affairs of those killing maniacs who only know how to fight and slaughter?"

Big Iron followed behind Old Tie and Wu Tie. However, after Old Tie and Wu Tie left the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp, he could only mutter "gugu" helplessly and remain behind in the camp.

Wu Tie followed closely behind Old Tie as they ran toward the sinkhole.

Old Tie's speed was astonishingly fast. Led by him, Wu Tie took even less time than on the return journey to reach the edge of the sinkhole again.

Without a single word of nonsense, Old Tie used the momentum of his charge to leap high into the air, tracing a graceful arc as he rapidly descended toward the bottom of the pit.

Wu Tie's eyes widened in astonishment. "Old Tie, you can fly?"

Before his words had even faded, Old Tie smashed heavily into the ground, shattering a stone stalagmite. He himself bounced several times across the ground and rolled more than a hundred meters before finally stopping.

"Obviously, that was only a mistake..." Old Tie's muffled voice drifted over from afar. "A mistake... This fellow is too badly damaged."

Old Tie rose unsteadily to his feet and let out a sharp whistle at Wu Tie.

Wu Tie leaped up as well, tracing an equally graceful arc before landing lightly beside Old Tie.

Old Tie spread his four feet and raced toward the previous crevice. Wu Tie followed closely behind. Their landing spot was only a few miles from the crevice, and they quickly arrived before it.

Dull explosions were coming from within the crevice, along with unceasing, piercing clashes of weapons.

A cold wind howled out from the crevice. Strands of black smoke drifted out with it, accompanied by a faint scent of blood.

"They've already started fighting." Old Tie spoke in a low voice. "Come, let's take a look... Perhaps there really is something extraordinary here."

Wu Tie nodded and followed Old Tie into the crevice.

They raced for more than ten miles along the narrow passage beyond the crevice. The passage sloped downward all the way, and gradually, large amounts of blood began appearing on the ground.