Pale Wing

Pale Wing

Whoosh!

Just as Xiao Liang was about to intervene, the Clawed Zombie moved faster than he did.

The Clawed Zombie let out a shriek like that of a little girl. Its backward-bending leg joints let it burst forth with the speed of a hydraulic spring!

In the span of a single instant, the Clawed Zombie slashed its blade across the root.

With a soft squelch, that crimson vein-like root was severed at the waist, spraying blackish-red foul blood.

"ROAR!!!"

Just as the Clawed Zombie was about to seize the Corpse Demon Pill, a massive figure as large as a giant slammed into it bodily and sent it flying.

The Clawed Zombie flew sideways like a rag doll, smashing into the stadium wall and splattering into a puddle of bloody pulp.

This chain of events unfolded with lightning speed. Xiao Liang immediately suppressed his urge to enter the fray. It seemed these two mutated zombies were no pushovers either.

Though they did not know what the Corpse Demon Pill was, they instinctively sensed that this strange pill contained exceptionally high-grade evolutionary energy.

It was even faintly more enticing than the thousands of pounds of demonic beast flesh from before.

"Looks like the Giant Zombie will be the final winner. Not bad!"

A faint smile appeared on Xiao Liang's lips as he watched the Giant Zombie grab the Corpse Demon Pill. After a human-like moment of hesitation, it swallowed the pill down its throat.

Rip!

At that moment, a long, thin vascular root coiled around the Giant Zombie's thick neck and cut deeply into its flesh like steel wire.

The faintly glowing Corpse Demon Pill became stuck in the Giant Zombie's throat, unable to go down.

"Was that a coincidence? If it was deliberate, then this Flesh Flower's intelligence is absurdly high!"

Even Xiao Liang was amazed by that move. In his eyes, zombies possessed nothing but ferocity; they had less rudimentary intelligence than beasts.

Not to mention anything else, the fact that the Clawed Zombie instinctively knew to avoid obstacles while chasing flesh had already surprised him.

Let alone how the Flesh Flower had launched its vascular roots at precisely the right moments twice in a row.

It was as though a shrewd predator lurked behind it, leisurely toying with the food on its plate as it considered where to take the most elegant first bite.

Naturally, the Giant Zombie, strangled by the neck, was unwilling to await death. Blackish-red veins bulged across its enormous hands as it reached for the roots, intending to tear them apart by brute force.

Before it could exert any strength, however, four more roots shot through the air and bound the Giant Zombie's limbs.

With a fierce yank, they actually hoisted the massive Giant Zombie into the air.

No matter how the Giant Zombie struggled, it had nothing to brace against in midair. It could only roar repeatedly. Even the Corpse Demon Pill in its throat fell out and was swallowed by a vascular root like a snake's mouth, rapidly traveling through an inner passage toward the Flesh Flower at the center!

The Clawed Zombie had recovered from the earlier blow by now. It abruptly accelerated, preparing to repeat its old trick by cutting through the vascular roots and seizing the Corpse Demon Pill.

But the moment it stepped within thirty feet of the Flesh Flower, a vascular root far more grotesque than those on the outskirts pierced through its abdomen like a spear, nailing it to the wall.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Three vascular spears pierced the Clawed Zombie's body in rapid succession like machine-gun fire. At last, they plunged deep into its body and began sucking frantically.

The Flesh Flower at the center grew increasingly vivid and alluring because of it, while the Clawed Zombie that Xiao Liang had favored most shriveled into a wrinkled skin, like a tomato drained of all its juice.

That Corpse Demon Pill also entered the Flesh Flower in the blink of an eye.

The Flesh Flower, which had previously swayed occasionally like seaweed, now froze completely still. No one knew what change was taking place within it.

Still, the Corpse Demon Pill would not be easy to refine anytime soon.

"What terrifying devouring power. No, the Giant Zombie!"

After recovering from his shock, Xiao Liang looked toward the Giant Zombie and saw that, without his noticing, its struggles had weakened by more than half.

Looking carefully, dense blood vessels had grown along the edges of the roots binding the Giant Zombie. They stabbed viciously into its body, continuously extracting some kind of substance.

"Damn it, I can't let the Giant Zombie be devoured too!"

Xiao Liang felt a headache coming on. He took a deep breath and activated Ghost Shadow Step. His figure immediately became like a phantom untouched by gravity, descending from the stadium's steel framework to the ground in several flickering leaps.

His boots landed on the stadium floor. Ignoring the sticky, nauseating sensation beneath his feet, Xiao Liang raised a hand and pinched an Explosive Flame Talisman between his fingers.

"Go!"

The talisman in Xiao Liang's hand was swiftly ignited by spiritual power, transforming into a blazing fireball the size of a human head and blasting apart the roots binding the Giant Zombie.

Yet when the Giant Zombie fell to the ground, it only made a dull thud, and Xiao Liang immediately sensed something was wrong.

When he stepped forward to inspect it, he found that although the Giant Zombie still had a trace of life left, sixty to seventy percent of its insides had already been sucked dry. Only an empty shell remained beneath its outer layer.

The Clawed Zombie was dead. The Giant Zombie was crippled.

Xiao Liang's heart instantly turned cold.

In Xiao Liang's ideal script, either the Giant Zombie or the Clawed Zombie would seize the Corpse Demon Pill, evolve into a zombie, then devour the Flesh Flower to enrich its foundation.

Then he would act, using the blood essence imprint within the Corpse Demon Pill and the secret technique recorded in the jade slip to subdue it as his life-bound spirit zombie. That would be the end of it!

He had never expected the Flesh Flower, which he had regarded as an after-dinner snack, to be so bizarre and overbearing. The two mutated zombies had barely managed to struggle before being completely devoured by it.

"Now that it's come to this, I have to retrieve the Corpse Demon Pill. I can't come away with nothing, even though I've already lost everything!"

Xiao Liang let out a long breath. He could only blame himself for being too greedy.

There was nothing wrong with greed. His mistake was failing to succeed.

He stepped into the Flesh Flower's territory in the North District. Clusters of roots on the ground surged toward him. These things posed some threat even to martial arts masters of the Sky Mist Continent, even innate masters.

But they could do nothing to a cultivator.

With Ghost Shadow Step at mastery beneath his feet, Xiao Liang's figure flickered unpredictably, as though he had no physical form. He effortlessly passed through the outer region.

Within thirty feet of the Flesh Flower, the roots were far faster and more vicious. The Clawed Zombie had died here.

But they still fell somewhat short against Xiao Liang. Whenever one was truly impossible to avoid, he casually flung out a Wind Blade Talisman, shredding it into pieces and carving a path forward!

"Strictly speaking, you still belong to the category of mundane creatures. The fact that you can make me use spell talismans is already astonishing!"

Xiao Liang sighed. He could hardly imagine what peerlessly vicious creature this Flesh Flower might evolve into if it had been born on the Sky Mist Continent and absorbed the inexhaustible spiritual energy between heaven and earth.

He approached the Flesh Flower's main body and rapped on its exterior. It actually rang like metal, completely unlike anything formed from flesh and blood.

"Tch, it's pretty tough!"

Xiao Liang was about to use the Falling Thunder Talisman, the most powerful single-target talisman among those he had purchased.

But at that moment, something unexpected happened.

The network of roots that had originally covered nearly half the stadium suddenly lost all activity, withering into dry, hardened strands that collapsed onto the ground.

"Hm?"

Nourished by spiritual power, Xiao Liang's spiritual senses had become exceptionally sharp.

He detected that all the energy and precious substances within those roots had been plundered in an instant and drawn into the Flesh Flower.

Something seemed to be gestating within it.

Rip!

The petals at the top of the Flesh Flower tore apart, and a pale, bone-white wing abruptly unfurled. It resembled a bat wing and carried a bewitching, soul-stirring aura.