Encountering a Transforming Serpent

Who would have thought that among the wolf, snake, and crow totems, the one with the most tricks up its sleeve would be the Wolf Totem, which possessed powers akin to wildness and berserk fury? Then again, the power of totems probably shouldn't be called authority...

Yu Chen looked at the wolf fang gradually losing its luster in his hand, his thoughts drifting somewhat. He had not missed that fleeting trace of totemic aura just now. Clearly, the other party had left behind a little safeguard during the trade.

But Yu Chen did not care. The Incense and Fire Prayer Power he had traded from his sanctuary was meant not only to further inflame the conflict between the Crow Totem and the Wolf Totem, but also to charge the "Instance Travel Key." As for whether the other party had left any hidden measures behind, he was not particularly concerned.

Looking at the progress bar, now more than halfway white, Yu Chen stretched his body and dispelled the aura he had left within the sanctuary. Then, without looking back, he left the place where he had lived for nearly half a year.

Opening the bamboo slip that his cheat ability had become and studying the map, Yu Chen headed north.

That was the Central Plains spoken of by the traveling merchants who came to the tribes to exchange goods. According to them, north of the mountain range, after crossing more than a dozen great mountains, one would enter the borders of the Central Plains. It was the center of the earth, a land blessed by the gods in heaven, ruled by the Heavenly Emperor's most beloved child.

Most of the Snake Tribe regarded such claims as a joke. Yu Chen alone did not.

He had always wanted to visit the Central Plains.

To see whether that land blessed by the gods of legend was the same as the Central Plains in his memories.

Yu Chen traveled for seven full days and nights.

At first, the maps he remembered and had heard described by others were still of some use. By the fourth day, however, Yu Chen no longer knew where he was. The only fortunate thing was the existence of his cheat ability, which allowed him to confirm that his general direction was correct—he was still heading north, toward the Central Plains.

After walking through the mountains for another half day, with no sign of another person in sight, Yu Chen was beginning to wonder whether he had taken a wrong turn when rumbling sounds came from the mountains not far away.

"A flash flood? How could there be a flash flood at a time like this?" Yu Chen found it strange. He had chosen this time to set out for the Central Plains precisely because it was the relatively dry season in the Southern Barbarian Lands, when he was less likely to encounter torrential rain, flash floods, and the like.

Realizing that a flash flood might be ahead, Yu Chen immediately headed uphill without hesitation, intending to continue once it had subsided.

Yet this flood was interesting—it actually "chased" after him.

Yu Chen frowned and immediately knew the newcomer meant him no good. Finding a patch of high ground, he buried one talisman seed after another. Then, amid the roaring waves, he heard shrill cries like a baby's wail. The sound was piercing and grating, echoing without end, carrying a bizarre magic within it!

Then, from the surging floodwaters, a huge head resembling a human's burst forth. Beneath the head was a furry torso, and on its back was a pair of wings. With a flap of those wings, torrents churned forth.

Looking at the creature's lower body beneath the waves, which resembled a furry snake tail, Yu Chen immediately recognized it. Its form was like a human face, yet its body was that of a jackal; it had bird wings and crawled like a snake, and its cry sounded like a shouted rebuke. A Transforming Serpent? By all reason, shouldn't this thing live on Sun Mountain north of the great river? How had it appeared here? Was it drawn here by the Snake Shamanic Script?

Though he could not figure out why the Transforming Serpent had appeared here, Yu Chen did not spare another thought. With a wave of his hand, the Snake Shadow Banner landed in his grasp. He gave it a gentle shake, and streams of snake shadows fell into the water.

At the same time, Yu Chen changed his hand seals. One talismanic character after another appeared around him, transforming into fireballs that smashed into the Transforming Serpent. Most of these fireballs were crude, low-grade spells, but empowered by the Golden Light Mantra, their might was far from weak. They struck the Transforming Serpent that had surged from the water so hard that it was utterly dazed.

This fellow had been sleeping peacefully at home when it suddenly sensed an extremely fragrant aura. Driven by instinctive craving, it had ridden the flood here.

It had not expected to be met with a savage beating the moment it laid eyes on its "food"!

It realized something was wrong. This "food" before it seemed far more formidable than any it had encountered before!

The infant's cry rang out again. The Transforming Serpent lashed its tail, stirring up wave after wave of water. Yet at that moment, a fireball landed squarely on its eye.

The Fire Snake Dart inside the fireball pierced the thin membrane over its eye, directly burning the eyeball into charcoal.

Its miserable shriek was like demonic music as streams of muddy water containing a strange aura spewed from its mouth.

The foul water fell into the surrounding waves, immediately stirring ripples that wrapped around the Transforming Serpent as it tried to flee.

But how could the well-prepared Yu Chen let it escape? A little white snake shot out from the water and pierced straight through the Transforming Serpent's fur. Snake shadows swiftly covered the exposed wound.

Having been refined once more by Yu Chen, the snake shadows had already absorbed some ghostly qi and could contain all manner of poisons. Their restraining effect on living creatures far surpassed that on dead things.

The Transforming Serpent struggled without end as Yu Chen suppressed it with all his might. The talisman seeds he had buried earlier and the Heart-Protecting Bell firmly protected his body. The Snake Shadow Banner shook continuously, pumping a steady stream of poison into the Transforming Serpent. As it grew increasingly frenzied, the poison flowed into its heart.

At last, Yu Chen grasped every trace of the Transforming Serpent's aura. One shamanic curse after another descended, temporarily binding its movements.

Then Yu Chen approached the Transforming Serpent. The little pinwheel decorating his hairpin slowly turned above his head, sending one icy blade after another dancing through the air. As Yu Chen raised his hand three times, the Snake Shadow Blade directly chopped off the Transforming Serpent's head.

Finally, Yu Chen extracted the Transforming Serpent's soul and used a soul-searching technique to probe its secrets.

Just as Yu Chen had expected, the Transforming Serpent had come looking for trouble because it had been drawn to him.

Yu Chen himself possessed a measure of divinity. After he began internal cultivation, the strengthening of his five viscera and six bowels drove a transformation in his bloodline, giving rise to an extremely faint trace of divine blood. It was far too thin to be of any use to ordinary people; it could neither prolong life nor grant any unusual abilities.

But that faint trace of divine blood, combined with the changes in his aura brought about by his dedicated cultivation of the Snake Shamanic Script, had caused even subtler changes throughout Yu Chen's body. To strange beasts with snake attributes like the Transforming Serpent, it was an extraordinarily tempting existence. Even from a great distance away, they could sense it.

As for why the Transforming Serpent had appeared here, it did not know either. In the few years since its birth, it had mostly acted on instinct and rarely left its habitat. Apart from this time, it only used flash floods during the rainy season each year to go down the mountain and seize flesh and blood for food.

Yu Chen carefully examined the scenes of the Transforming Serpent going down the mountain to seize food and discovered several figures that had left an impression in its memories. They seemed somewhat similar to himself.

Delighted, Yu Chen immediately skinned and dismembered the Transforming Serpent, intending to hurry to the places where it had seized food, following its memories, and take a look.