The pitch-black mouth of the pot looked like a bottomless pit, facing the Suanni's corpse, which seemed cast from solid gold.
Everyone in the village, young and old, stood in a circle around it, their eyes gleaming green like wolves that had starved for half a month.
"Skinny Monkey, why haven't you started cutting yet?"
Ermeng's father was an impatient man. Holding a chipped mountain-cleaving axe, he finally lost patience.
"If you're tired, let your uncle chop it up for you! This golden lion looks tough. Don't chip that stone knife of yours."
The burly man wasted no time. He swung his hundred-pound axe down on the Suanni's foreleg, which was thicker than a man's thigh.
Clang!
A crisp ring sounded. Sparks flew three feet into the air.
Ermeng's father let out a howl. The web of his hand split open, blood streaming down. Half the axe blade flew off, while the remaining half twisted into a corkscrew.
As for the Suanni, not even its outermost skin had been scratched. Its golden fur glittered in the sunlight, as though mocking the frailty of ordinary iron.
Gasps rose all around.
"This... this is a primordial remnant?"
Shi Linhu picked up the broken axe, his face pale.
"It's this hard even when it's dead? If it were alive, wouldn't we be nothing more than scraps to fill the gaps between its teeth?"
This wasn't meat. It was a lump of diamond covered in fur.
Shi Hou crouched beside the pot, playing with the gray Stone Knife in his hand, not surprised in the least.
"Uncle, save your strength."
He reached out and knocked on the Suanni's huge head, producing a dull thudding sound.
"When it was alive, this thing breathed clouds and mist and tempered its body with lightning. Its flesh had long since been forged into copper skin and iron bones. Never mind your axe—even our village's ancestral Treasure Weapons might not be able to cut it open."
"Then what do we do?"
Shi Hao grew frantic. His little hands tugged at the Suanni's tail as he stamped his feet in distress.
"Being able to see it but not eat it is worse than killing me!"
Shi Hou stood up and dusted off his backside. Red warnings refreshed frantically across his vision.
[Cooking difficulty: hell level. Requires high-tier true fire for refinement.] [Estimated blood qi consumption: 1,000,000 points.]
A million? I wouldn't fetch that much even if I sold myself.
"We'll try another way." Shi Hou's gaze landed on the pile of "ransom" they had just seized.
The Purple Mountain Marquis Estate's Blood Phoenix Pills, the Thunder Clan's thunder source stone, the Golden Wolf Tribe's century-old spirit herbs... and heaps of ore and essence jade radiating precious light.
To everyone else, it was treasure. To him, it was firewood.
"Little One."
Shi Hou beckoned.
"Go bring that pile over."
"Sure!"
Shi Hao didn't know what he was planning, but anything Skinny Monkey said was bound to have something to do with food. With his immense strength, he scooped up the priceless Treasure Weapons and spirit herbs in his little arms and dumped them beneath the pot in a clattering heap.
"Skinny Monkey, are you going to..." The old clan chief, Shi Yunfeng, felt his eyelids twitch wildly.
"The heat's not enough. We need stronger fuel." Shi Hou grinned, revealing a mouthful of stark white teeth.
He swept his right hand.
"Ignite!"
Hum!
The rune array beneath the pot lit up, and an overbearing suction instantly engulfed the treasures.
Crack!
The Thunder Clan's thunder source stone was the first casualty. The ore, capable of forging divine weapons, shattered instantly and turned into a stream of pure blue lightning-fire that burrowed beneath the pot.
The century-old herbs followed. Their juices were squeezed dry and transformed into green essence to feed the flames.
Boom!
Multicolored flames erupted beneath the pot. The temperature soared and the air warped. The beards of several villagers standing nearby curled on the spot.
"Oh, my mother!"
Shi Linhu dropped onto his backside. Pointing at the refined-iron dagger melting in the fire, he trembled with heartache. "That's a treasure! That's the Purple Mountain Marquis Estate's dagger! How... how could you burn it?!"
"What a waste! What a monstrous waste!"
Shi Shoushan clutched his still-aching lower back, so furious he nearly passed out. "Skinny Monkey, you little bastard! Those spirit herbs would've been perfect for the children's medicinal baths, and you're burning them for fuel?!"
The entire village went mad.
Shi Hou turned a deaf ear.
As the "astronomically priced firewood" burned, a strange aura of the Dao rose beneath the pot. The Suanni's golden fur, as hard as divine iron, began to soften.
"Now!"
[BPM: 180. Track: "Flight of the Bumblebee."] [Blood Qi Value consumption: 500,000] [Begin cooking?]
Shi Hou's eye twitched violently. At a time like this, do I even have a choice?
Begin!
A dense barrage of notes pounded down like a torrential storm.
Shi Hou moved. The Stone Knife in his hand became a gray tempest.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!
The dull impacts were gone. Now the blade flowed as smoothly as if he were slicing tofu.
He was too fast. No one's eyes could follow his movements. All they could see was a great sheet of golden light peeling away-the incomparably precious hide, removed intact.
Next came the membranes and bones. Like a crazed master anatomist, Shi Hou worked over the enormous beast with his eyes closed, guided by touch alone. Every cut landed precisely on the weakest junction of the lightning laws.
This was art.
In half an incense stick's time, the hill-sized Suanni became chunks of translucent meat, neatly stacked inside the Stone Pot. The pile of treasures had likewise been reduced entirely to ash.
"Water!"
Shi Feijiao and the others instinctively poured dozens of buckets of mountain spring water into the pot.
Sizzle! The cold water hit the pot, sending white steam billowing into the sky.
An unexpected change struck.
The Suanni meat inside the pot seemed to come alive. Its lingering runes flashed, and the lightning power went berserk upon contact with water!
Boom!
A thunderclap exploded. Half the water they had just poured in was blasted out. Golden lightning serpents shot forth, lashing madly at the walls of the pot. The enormous black pot, weighing thousands of pounds, shook violently, as though it might explode at any moment.
"Oh no! The pot's going to explode!"
Shi Yunfeng was horrified. "Its cultivation was too deep! The lightning laws haven't fully dispersed!"
If it exploded, losing a pot of divine meat would be the least of their worries. Once the lightning burst loose, these children would lose a layer of skin even if they survived!
Shi Hou pressed down hard on the lid, his arms jolting numb.
[Warning: energy runaway! Someone with Thunder Dao talent must enter the pot to suppress it!]
A human stirring rod?
Shi Hou abruptly turned toward Little One, who was hiding behind Shi Linhu and drooling.
"Little One!"
Holding down the bucking lid with all his strength, Shi Hou put on a kindly smile. "Do you want to eat this meat?"
Shi Hao nodded furiously. "Yes!"
"Good. That's the spirit."
Shi Hou freed one hand and pointed at the enormous pot spewing lightning. "This soup's too nourishing. Someone needs to get in there and help it flow."
"Huh?"
Shi Hao looked at the lightning serpents darting around inside the pot, his little face turning pale. "Skinny Monkey, you... you aren't planning to stew me, are you?"
The lid was nearly beyond his control.
"Enough chatter! Whether we get to eat this meal depends entirely on you!"
"In you go!"
Shi Hou suddenly reached out, seizing Shi Hao by the back of his collar from a distance.
Under the horrified eyes of the entire village, he tossed the future Desolate Heaven Emperor, the Sole Sovereign Across the Ages, straight into the scalding pot of oil as though throwing in a radish.
"Off you go!"
Before you continue