The Giant Snake's cold, dark-gold vertical pupils swept indifferently over Zhao Si, who had collapsed limply, and the terrified leopards, as if sizing up two insignificant insects. Its movements seemed unhurried, yet carried a despairing precision and strength.
Then its enormous body, coiled around the tree trunk, suddenly twisted!
The serpent's body was as thick as a barrel, its scales a deep, inky green. Like a gigantic steel cable come to life, imbued with the will to kill, it plunged from high above with blinding speed! Its target was the Shadowless Leopard trying to flee!
The Shadowless Leopard summoned the last of its strength and leaped sharply to the side!
But in front of the Giant Snake, its movement seemed clumsy and slow. The serpent's body carved a powerful arc through the air, intercepting the leopard's path with pinpoint accuracy!
"Thump!"
A muffled impact, enough to make the heart shudder, rang out!
The enormous serpent's body coiled around the Shadowless Leopard's waist and belly like a living shackle! Its cold scales pressed tight against the leopard's warm fur, and the touch of death spread through its body in an instant.
"Yowww—!!!"
The Shadowless Leopard let out the most shrill, despairing, and agonized scream of its life! The sound could pierce metal and shatter stone, filled with utter terror and indescribable pain. It echoed over the silent woodland, startling the few birds left in the distant treetops into a frantic, explosive flight!
The Giant Snake's muscles began to contract like hydraulic presses! Layer upon layer, coil upon coil, they tightened! Everyone could hear the teeth-grating crunch of bones being crushed and ground together! The Shadowless Leopard's tough hide and powerful bones were as fragile as paper before this absolute strength! Its bulging eyes instantly filled with blood vessels; blood and scraps of its innards poured from its mouth and nose. Its limbs thrashed and clawed wildly, but only left a few feeble white scratches on the cold scales.
The process seemed long, but in truth it took only a few breaths.
The shrill, despairing scream cut off abruptly.
The Head Leopard's enormous body had been squeezed completely out of shape. Like a crushed sack, it hung limp in the Giant Snake's coils, utterly silent. The once-emerald eyes that had terrified countless prey had lost all their luster, blankly reflecting the despairing canopy of dark-green leaves above.
A deathly silence fell over the woodland. Only the faint scrape of the Giant Snake's scales and Zhao Si's chattering teeth broke it.
The next moment, an even more horrifying scene unfolded!
The Giant Snake slowly lowered its hideous triangular head and opened a terrifying maw large enough to swallow an adult water buffalo! The inside of its mouth was lined with nauseating pinkish-white membranes, and two rows of curved, gleaming fangs stood like daggers, each hooked backward! A much stronger stench swept toward them!
It didn't tear at the leopard. Instead, it slowly "slipped" the twisted corpse into its mouth in a way more like devouring. Its enormous jaws enveloped the leopard's head, then, like a flexible, living pouch, began to swallow it one section at a time, slowly but powerfully! Everyone could clearly see the skin and muscles around the serpent's neck swell into a huge bulge. With each swallow, the bulge moved slowly down its body like a living thing!
The whole process was so primitive, savage, and visually nauseating that even Yan Xiao Liu, Li San, and Wang Wu, veterans of bloodshed, felt their stomachs churn and their scalps crawl! Zhao Si simply collapsed to the ground and retched, bringing up bile.
In no time at all, the priceless First-Order Demon Beast, the Shadowless Leopard, had vanished into the Giant Snake's bottomless belly, along with all its ferocity and value. An enormous, irregular bulge rose in the middle of the serpent's body, shifting gently with its slight movements.
The Giant Snake seemed satisfied. It gave its head a slight sway, then slowly and emotionlessly swept its cold, dark-gold pupils—like two searchlights—over the four men remaining by the thorn thicket: Yan Xiao Liu, Ye Yun, Li San, and Wang Wu.
"Hisssss—!"
It flicked out its red, forked tongue again. This time, its hiss was no tentative probe, but a clear proclamation of death! The sound was like countless sheets of sandpaper scraping together, stabbing at their ears and souls! Its enormous body slid down from the ancient tree and coiled on the ground, head held high like a demon god from primordial times, looking down on the ants who dared trespass into its territory. An invisible, suffocating pressure spread like a tide, locking onto the four of them!
"Demon! Prepare to die!"
Yan Xiao Liu was an experienced leader. He knew that fear now meant certain death! He forcibly suppressed his shock, and a surge of blood-fueled courage rushed to his head. He couldn't just sit and wait to die! He roared, like thunder splitting the plain, trying to drive the chill from his heart. His Internal Force surged through his dantian and flooded both arms. He kicked off hard, shooting toward the Giant Snake like a cannonball!
He gripped his thick-backed cleaver with both hands and raised it high above his head. Its edge carved a dazzling streak of cold light through the dimness! This was his signature move, a fierce, unyielding strike that concentrated all his strength and Internal Force—Cleaving Mount Hua! His target was the Giant Snake's raised vital spot, seven inches below its head! Before the blade even reached it, the fierce wind of its swing had already torn through the air with a sharp whistle!
That strike held the full force of his life's cultivation, its momentum as swift as thunder!
And yet!
In the split second when Yan Xiao Liu reached the peak of his leap and his blade was about to fall—
"Whoom!"
A muffled, terrifying boom that ripped through the air suddenly rang out!
The serpent's tail!
Like a battering ram, it swept out from an inconceivable angle in an instant too fast for the eye to follow. It tore through the air with the terrifying force to topple mountains and shatter peaks, becoming a dark-green blur of death as it swept toward Yan Xiao Liu at several times the speed of his strike! Its target was Yan Xiao Liu, suspended in midair with nowhere to brace himself!
Fast! Far too fast!
Yan Xiao Liu's pupils contracted sharply! His entire focus was on that one strike; he had no time to change his move! In desperation, he could only rely on the instincts honed through countless life-and-death battles. He poured all his Internal Force into the blade, changing his attack into a block and holding the flat of the heavy weapon across himself like a shield!
"Clang—!!!!"
A deafening crash, like a great bell exploding, swept through the entire woodland!
The finely forged steel of the thick-backed cleaver let out a groan of protest the moment it struck the serpent's tail! An irresistible force, like a mountain flood bursting forth, slammed along the blade and into Yan Xiao Liu's arms and chest!
"Pfft—!"
Yan Xiao Liu felt as if a mountain moving at high speed had struck him head-on! His arms instantly went numb, and his protective Internal Force shattered like paper! His internal organs seemed to be seized and crushed by an invisible hand. A mouthful of scalding blood erupted from his lips like a fountain!
He flew backward like a kite with its string cut—or a stone hurled from a catapult—at several times the speed with which he had charged in! His body traced a wretched arc through the air, trailing a spray of dazzling blood!
"Thud!"
Yan Xiao Liu slammed into the damp, soft humus less than three steps from Ye Yun. The enormous impact sent him rolling twice before he stopped, leaving a shallow pit in the earth beneath him. The thick-backed cleaver had already flown from his hand. It was warped and stuck in a nearby tree trunk, humming. Yan Xiao Liu's face was pale as gold paper; his breath was faint, his eyes unfocused. He looked on the verge of passing out.
From the moment Yan Xiao Liu launched his attack to the instant the serpent's tail struck him down, it had all happened in the blink of an eye! Even someone as formidable as Yan Xiao Liu couldn't withstand a single move from this terrifying Giant Snake!
Ye Yun reacted fastest. The moment the serpent's tail lashed out, he sensed danger and lowered his body slightly, bracing for the impact. As Yan Xiao Liu crashed beside him like a broken sack, he didn't hesitate for an instant. He rushed forward and dropped to one knee.
He didn't try to lift Yan Xiao Liu right away. Instead, with quick, steady movements, he extended two fingers and placed them against the artery in Yan Xiao Liu's neck. The pulse beneath his fingertips was chaotic and rapid, but at least the injury wasn't fatal.
He made this assessment in the blink of an eye.
Then Ye Yun snapped his head up. His deep eyes were like a cold pool as they locked onto the dark-green Giant Snake, which had just withdrawn its tail and now held its head high, gazing down at them with icy vertical pupils.
There was no fear, no panic.
Only absolute calm and a sharpness that saw through appearances!
His gaze pierced the suffocating pressure and terrifying form. Like an invisible probe, it precisely caught every trace of the Giant Snake's power: the sheen of its scales, the energy in the foul wind raised by its flickering tongue, the level of strength behind its explosive strike, and the lofty, condescending air with which it had struck—as if it had merely shooed away a fly...
With that single glance, Ye Yun saw the truth clearly.
He had formed a clear, grave judgment of the power and level of this terrifying serpent demon that had appeared without warning. In his otherwise calm eyes, a trace of extreme solemnity flickered, along with a strangely resolute light.
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