"Get out of the way! He's going to activate the Sacrifice Body Technique!"
The young man with bristling hair grabbed the long-haired middle-aged man and made to flee.
"Wait!"
But the middle-aged man seized the young man's hand.
"Wait until he chews them down!"
The middle-aged man stared fixedly at the green-robed man's movements.
Seeing this, the green-robed man abruptly stopped shoving his hand into his mouth. He stared hard at the two of them, then let out a shrill, grief-stricken howl. His eyes grew even more vicious, and he bit down savagely, severing both the index and middle fingers of his left hand at once before charging at the two men from Redwood Ridge.
The older man from Redwood Ridge pulled the younger man back, neither hurried nor slow. He kept the distance just right, preventing Toad from escaping while keeping himself out of harm's way.
The man from Hundred Barbarian Mountain must have seen no hope of survival. After chewing and swallowing those two fingers, he seemed to become addicted and devoured all his remaining fingers in one go!
Then his belly began to swell and contract, as though something were inside it.
Seeing this, the man from Redwood Ridge apparently decided that his enemy was certain to die. He began pulling the younger man away, fleeing back along the way they had come.
"Hahaha! I'm going to die, but you won't get away either!"
The man from Hundred Barbarian Mountain had blood all around his mouth. Who knew how he could bring himself to bite down like that? He had eaten most of both palms. He roared:
"My body for kindling, my life for firewood, my blood as the guide-Asura Bloodflame!"
The moment his words fell, an eerie bloody light suddenly emerged, burrowing out through the crown of the Hundred Barbarian Mountain disciple's head!
That bloody light seemed to be some strange kind of flame. As soon as it emerged, it burned every scrap of Toad's robes away. Then it burned off his skin, leaving him looking like a man made entirely of blood.
"Aah-hahaha-"
The man shrouded in bloodflame howled, seemingly in agony one moment and ecstasy the next.
The blood-soaked man fixed his sights on the two fleeing men from Redwood Ridge and gave chase, moving several times faster than before.
He raised his hand and hurled two streaks of bloodflame. They flew so fast that the fleeing pair had no chance to dodge. Instinctively, they raised their hands to block, and the bloodflame landed on them.
"Aah-"
The bloodflame instantly burned away their clothes and skin, then began eating into their flesh. Unable to bear it, the young man cried out. Gritting his teeth, he drew a short blade from behind his waist and cut away the flesh burning with bloodflame.
The middle-aged man acted even faster. The instant the bloodflame touched him, he gouged away the affected skin. Then he took a red wooden stick from inside his robes. It was about the size of a chopstick. He pressed it against his bleeding arm and tensed his muscles, sending blood streaming over the stick.
Seeing the blood-soaked man closing in, the middle-aged man steeled himself and drove the wooden stick straight into his arm.
"Aah!"
The middle-aged man screamed in pain.
"Uncle!"
The young man's heart clenched at the sight. "Let me do it!"
The middle-aged man had no attention to spare for him. He chanted, "With blood as the guide-Redwood Transforms into a Flood Dragon!"
Bloody light rose from the wooden stick, which had nearly pierced all the way through his arm. It seemed to exert some kind of suction: not a drop of blood from his arm reached the ground, all of it drawn into the stick.
Just as the blood-soaked man was about to seize them, the wooden stick finally drank its fill. It pulled free of the middle-aged man's arm on its own and shot toward their pursuer like an arrow.
A flood dragon had been finely drawn on the stick in ink, while the rest of its surface was densely engraved with characters as tiny as fly heads. As it shot through the air, both the characters and the flood dragon seemed to come alive. The dragon left the stick, and the tiny characters clung to its body, seemingly becoming its scales.
The flood dragon swimming out of the stick swelled in the wind until it was the size of a giant serpent. In a single gulp, it swallowed the blood-soaked man charging toward it!
Inside the red flood dragon, the blood-soaked man dissolved completely into a mass of bloody light. He vanished from the world without even uttering a dying scream.
The red flood dragon suffered after swallowing that bloody light, too. It thrashed through the air. On closer inspection, the wooden stick that formed its true body, hidden inside its dragon form, had already begun to blacken.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man and the young man hastily cast several talismans onto the red flood dragon. Only then did it gradually steady itself.
The red flood dragon opened its mouth and spat out a streak of bloodflame. But the flame had lost its vicious aura. It suddenly flew away through the air, carrying with it all the blood essence of the young man called Toad.
The dragon form dispersed, and the wooden stick fell to the ground. A charred black patch had appeared over the dragon's head on the stick.
The young man helped the middle-aged man sit down, took a medicine jar from inside his robes, and poured out some powder. He applied it to the middle-aged man's wound first, then his own. After that, he quickly retrieved the wooden stick, blew tenderly on the charred patch, and tucked it back inside the middle-aged man's robes.
The middle-aged man put the stick away, rose with a pained grimace, and led his nephew back to where the green-robed man had stopped earlier.
"Uncle, what are you doing?"
The young man was puzzled.
The middle-aged man motioned for his nephew to be patient. He looked toward the cave where Yunqi was hiding, his gaze seeming to pierce through the screening trees and vines before its entrance. He called out:
"Fellow Daoist, we have disturbed your quiet cultivation. Please come out so that we may apologize to you in person."
Only then did the young man understand. He immediately fixed his eyes on the cave entrance and tightened his grip on his blade.
The middle-aged man shot him a glare, warning him not to act rashly.
Under their watching eyes, a youth in blue Daoist robes emerged from the cave, a longsword hanging at his waist. A white dog followed behind him.
At the sight of the white dog, both men's expressions relaxed at once. The young man blurted out:
"Are you Miao? Which lineage do you cultivate under? The Immortal's Cave or the Azure Dragon Cave?"
The middle-aged man glared at him again, then smiled at the young Daoist, nodding and bowing his head.
The young Daoist also lowered his head with a smile and addressed them in turn:
"Uncle!"
"Brother!"
Now even the middle-aged man's expression relaxed considerably.
"Young lad, which mountain and stockade are you from? We're both from Rong River Stockade on Four-Ring Mountain."
The young Daoist shook his head. "Uncle, I'm not Miao. I merely lived in a Miao stockade for a long time."
Their expressions shifted slightly. Pointing at the white dog, the middle-aged man said:
"If you're not Miao, how can you have a White Dragon with you? Why would the Miao give you a White Dragon? Oh! You saved a Miao person's life! A child's life?"
The young Daoist had not known there was so much significance attached to this White Dragon, enough for the man before him to deduce so much at a glance. He pointed at their wounds and said:
"Uncle, Brother, come inside and sit down."
With that, he went into the cave first. The white dog wagged its tail and followed.
The uncle and nephew exchanged a look, then went inside as well.
The three settled into their seats, and the white dog sat pressed close to the Daoist's feet.
The young Daoist looked the youngest, yet he was the calmest and most composed of them all.
Seeing this, the two Miao men took the initiative to introduce themselves.
The middle-aged man spoke first. "Lang Shanliu, from Rong River Stockade on Four-Ring Mountain, under Redwood Ridge."
The young man followed immediately. "Hu Jinliu, from Rong River Stockade."
Here's the second chapter! Please vote and recommend, and feel free to leave comments and messages!
Before you continue