Queen Medusa

Over mountains and through winding streams, Chen Cang came face-to-face with a brand-new empire.

This empire was called Chu Yun. Poison masters ran rampant here, and its overall strength was no less than that of the Tianxing Empire. Even across the entire northwest, it ranked among the foremost powers.

At the same time, this was a dream destination for anyone with the Woeful Poison Body. In the original course of events, this was where Xiao Yi Xian had risen to prominence.

Without the city lord's protection, Chen Cang acted with extreme caution. Before entering Chu Yun, he disguised the Void Pegasus Beast, mixing tree sap with muddy water to dye it a shit-yellow color and conceal its dazzling silver radiance.

The price was an angry Void Pegasus Beast, which rubbed against Chen Cang like mad until he was filthy too.

Now both man and horse were dirty and bedraggled. Anyone who saw them would assume they were refugees who had crawled out of some remote mountain hollow.

"You ungrateful little thing. I'm doing this for your safety! The people of the Chu Yun Empire are vicious, and they especially love eating horse-type magical beasts. Something as tender as you would be their favorite. If they spotted you, there'd be dozens of ways to cook you waiting in line. I'm looking out for you, and you won't even appreciate it."

"Slow down, slow down! Not so fast. Right now, you're just a scrawny, malnourished little country horse. Going too fast will make people suspicious. Stay in character, understand?"

At the gates of a city called Black Marsh City, Chen Cang led the Void Pegasus Beast along while muttering under his breath. Their filthy appearance filled everyone around them with disgust, and no one wanted to get close.

Thanks to their decent disguises, man and horse entered the city without trouble and replenished their supplies.

Then, without wasting any time, they immediately left through the other side. Only when there were fewer people around did they gradually pick up speed.

As far as Chen Cang was concerned, the Chu Yun Empire was merely somewhere to pass through. He had no intention of staying.

Yet despite all his caution along the way, poison masters still intercepted him several times.

Some wanted to force him into their sects.

Some simply wanted someone to test their new poisons on.

Once, he even encountered a Dou Ling poison master who said he had taken a liking to him and intended to accept him as a disciple. After Chen Cang refused several times, the man flew into a humiliated rage and tried to kill him outright-if he could not have him, he would destroy him.

Deep down, Chen Cang disliked trouble. As for those who blocked his path, if he could humanely dispose of them, he tore them out root and branch. If he could not handle them, he relied on the Void Pegasus Beast's speed to escape.

All in all, there were scares but no real danger.

After ten days, he finally crossed the Chu Yun Empire, and the reddish-yellow desert came into view in the distance.

"Past this fortress is Tagor. I wonder what things are like in the Jia Ma Empire now."

Despite being about to leave the Chu Yun Empire and its wonderfully wholesome folk, Chen Cang did not seem particularly happy.

Over the past few days, he had keenly sensed that although he seemed perfectly normal on the surface, something might actually be wrong with him.

Take his killing of the poison masters who had blocked his way. It had clearly been his first time killing anyone, yet he had felt no turmoil whatsoever, and his handling of the aftermath had been exceedingly practiced.

Friends who killed people regularly all knew that behaving like this on the first try was almost impossible-unless one was a born psychopath.

Chen Cang naturally was not. After reflecting on it, he realized that the root cause lay in the memories he had read in the past.

Without his noticing, those memories had influenced him.

This forced Chen Cang to ponder: as the volume of memories he read grew ever larger, would he become completely numb and lose his humanity altogether?

After thinking it over and over, Chen Cang reached a conclusion: he had so much idle time that his balls ached.

The defenses of a border fortress were a far cry from those of cities within the empire. Whether entering or leaving, everyone had to undergo a strict inspection.

In other words, Chen Cang and the Void Pegasus Beast's disguises were essentially useless here. They would inevitably be seen through.

Therefore, if he wanted to keep the Void Pegasus Beast from attracting attention, he could not play by the usual rules.

One word: charge!

Chen Cang read the memories of several soldiers and learned that a Five-Star Dou Wang guarded this place.

That was a respectable level of strength, but it was still nowhere near enough to intercept the Void Pegasus Beast.

Still, to minimize the commotion as much as possible, Chen Cang waited quietly through the day.

That night, the moon was hidden and the wind blew hard, severely limiting visibility.

Chen Cang exclaimed that Heaven was helping him, then immediately mounted the Void Pegasus Beast and set off.

Even the Sixth-Tier Magical Beasts of the Black Eagle Mountains could not match the Void Pegasus Beast's speed, let alone these soldiers guarding the city. They heard only a sharp rush of air. By the time they looked up, all they could see was a blurred figure receding into the distance.

It looked like a person, but not quite; like a horse, but not quite.

A person riding a horse?

What a joke. What horse could fly that high?

They had never heard of such a thing!

Noticing the commotion on the walls, the defending general quickly arrived.

"What happened?"

"Reporting to the general! A mysterious expert seems to have just passed overhead. They were too fast for us to see which esteemed figure from our empire it was."

The soldiers saluted and reported, not daring to conceal anything.

The general glanced toward the pitch-black distant sky. "What expert? It was just a bird. Don't jump to conclusions when you haven't seen clearly. Nothing of the sort happened."

"You're right, General!"

And so, through an unexpected twist of circumstances, Chen Cang entered the Tagor Desert without causing so much as a ripple.

This was a world of yellow sand. Endless dunes stretched to meet the horizon, and those living amid them could scarcely imagine where the sand might end.

Even at night, a scorching brightness permeated the air.

His feet sank into the sand with soft puff, puff sounds, sending up little wisps of dust.

After briefly savoring this novel experience, Chen Cang leaped onto the horse's back and began his crossing of Tagor in earnest.

Meanwhile, his mouth never stopped moving.

"I really don't know why Father sent me to the Jia Ma Empire. Father is known as the Sky-Watching Venerable. What exactly is so special about this place?"

"Mother is about to break through to Dou Zun. I need to cultivate hard too. I can't disgrace them."

"My eldest brother is only a Three-Star Dou Zong. One day, I'll catch up to him, step by step."

"My second brother is a shameless scoundrel who stole my supreme bone. He has already paved his own road to death! I swear I'll avenge this grudge. Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west-the tides will turn. Just you wait!"

"I hear this desert is the territory of the Snake-People Tribe, and Queen Medusa is renowned far and wide as a powerful expert. Holding up an entire tribe alone and keeping it from being bullied-what an admirable woman."

"I rescued eighteen snake-women from an auction house in the Chu Yun Empire yesterday. I wonder if they've managed to escape back here?"

"..."

On and on Chen Cang babbled, constantly urging the Void Pegasus Beast to accelerate. He had not been this nervous even when crossing the Chu Yun Empire or the Black Eagle Mountains.

After all, Queen Medusa was no easy opponent, and she was immensely powerful, already close to becoming a Dou Zong.

If she noticed any disturbance, even with the Void Pegasus Beast's innate gifts, their chances of escaping her grasp were probably only thirty or forty percent at best.

Thus, Chen Cang could not afford to be careless.

After a night spent with his heart in his throat, a vast human city finally entered Chen Cang's sight, and the great stone hanging over his heart at last settled.

What Chen Cang failed to notice was that, high in the sky over a thousand meters behind him, a voluptuous figure was watching his retreating back.