The shock wave from Wen Ning's trident sent the villagers kneeling beside the well tumbling in every direction.
The couple staggered backward under the impact, and the woman's grip loosened.
He snatched the child back, blanket and all.
The little girl had cried herself hoarse. She huddled in his arms, trembling nonstop, her tiny hands clutching his clothes.
Wen Ning held the child with one arm and leveled the Phoenix-Wing Gilt Trident before him with the other, sweeping the crowd with a gaze as sharp as a blade.
"Who else wants to try?"
The villagers knocked down by the blast lay sprawled on the ground. Some covered their heads; others were still mumbling something indistinctly. For the moment, none dared move again.
Just then, the battered door of Erping's house creaked open, and someone slowly emerged.
Wen Ning looked up and frowned. That face was far too distinctive.
It was densely covered in large lumps, packed one against another. The largest were the size of copper coins, the smallest like grains of rice. Mottled green and red, they gleamed with oil, as though a toad had draped its skin over a human body.
There wasn't a single smooth patch on the entire face. Only two yellow eyes sat sunken among the lumps, darting back and forth.
Wen Ning shifted the child farther behind him, and the light on the Phoenix-Wing Gilt Trident brightened.
The man stopped five or six paces from the well, tilted his head to study Wen Ning, then suddenly grinned.
"Well, well. A deity's come to visit."
His voice was thick and sticky, as though he had a mouthful of phlegm lodged in his throat. It made the listener's skin crawl.
Wen Ning's gaze instantly sharpened.
How could an ordinary person recognize what he was at a