Food Immortal Master, Section 20

Although blue-tinged blood kept flowing, the injury seemed to have little effect on the monster.

It tilted its head, neither roaring nor showing any expression, and slowly pulled itself free. Its body was still "growing," its scales gradually taking shape and hardening, its claws becoming longer and sharper. It grew stronger with every passing moment.

Unfortunately for it, the owner of the great halberd followed close behind. Several dozen yards shrank to a single step beneath Jing Ziwang's feet. He stamped it back down, then swung his iron sword and severed its tough, rigid neck.

The monstrous body stiffened. Its growth stopped, and its skin slowly dulled.

Jing Ziwang withdrew his foot and stood there, looking down at the corpse in silence.

Only then did Pei Ye arrive. He lowered his head, seeing the monster dead for the first time.

But when his gaze fell upon it, he too froze in place like Jing Ziwang, unable to say a word.

-A tattered, bloodstained cloth garment hung from the headless corpse, which looked as though it had stepped out of a ghost story. It was the very garment Meng Jiao had worn at noon.

"Is this your friend?" Jing Ziwang turned his head toward him.

With a heavy expression, Pei Ye slowly nodded.

Meng Jiao had been carried off by the demonic tiger. How had he become this monster? What exactly was the connection between the demonic tiger and the Torchworld Cult?

Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. The stirring cocoon of light in his abdomen pointed so clearly, so close!

He immediately drew his sword and slit open the corpse's belly.

Looking down, he saw its organs rapidly being "digested." Half had already become muscle enclosing blue scales, surging toward the limbs, while some still retained traces of the original liver, viscera, spleen, and stomach.

The bizarre sight made Pei Ye briefly forget what he had meant to do. He gathered his thoughts and was about to pinpoint the location when his pupils suddenly contracted.

Amid the writhing organs, the rough outline of a face was actually beginning to form!

Before his body could react, a vast but gentle force pushed him from the side. Pei Ye flew into the air and saw the face formed from those organs rapidly sharpen and take on depth, growing so enormous that it seemed about to burst the corpse's chest and belly.

No-it really did burst through the chest and belly and emerge!

The organs turned into ordinary flesh and even bone. Fur sprouted over them, and a pair of magnificent golden slit-pupiled eyes opened.

An enormous, striped tiger's head.

Meng Jiao's corpse became flowing flesh, swelling and restructuring behind it until it condensed into a colossal tiger's body.

Pei Ye had no time to wonder how a tiger larger than a thatched hut could fit inside a belly, because its target was precise and unmistakable: Jing Ziwang, standing right before it!

Its abilities were so powerful and uncanny, its bestial nature so cunning and vicious, that in this moment Pei Ye truly understood what a demonic scourge was.

When it had encountered Meng Jiao, their group had not even arrived yet, but it had already spared him rather than devouring him, keeping him as a springboard for an ambush on Jing Ziwang.

-It had deliberately released Huang Er as bait to lure in prey of finer quality and richer flavor!

Whether Jing Ziwang had worked out these twists was unclear. In any case, the strange spectacle before him did not frighten him into retreat.

This grandmaster had just turned fifty that year. From a common foot soldier, he had risen to become a fifth-rank commandant, commanding three hundred armored troops and investigating wrongdoing across the entire prefecture. There was no counting all he had seen and endured in the first half of his life.

He had never learned to bury his feelings behind the inscrutable reserve of a high prefectural official. His joy and anger always showed when he spoke, earning him frequent criticism behind his back. Yet, happily, the courage kindled by that anger had never faded either. Whatever his circumstances, whatever opponent he faced, Jing Ziwang had never backed down.

And he did not now.

Once their Meridian Tree took shape, cultivators could push open the barrier between heaven and earth and ascend to the Profound Gate, gaining access to the energy that permeated the world. Martial cultivators called it profound qi; spellcasters called it spiritual qi.

Put that way, it seemed spellcasters started out ahead of martial cultivators. In truth, they merely began from different starting points and arrived at the same destination by different roads.

A martial practitioner's cultivation depended first on the aptitude of their Meridian Tree, then proceeded through seed-breaking and the eight growth stages, until they entered the Profound Gate and mastered spiritual qi. A spellcaster's entry, however, depended on an innate ability to perceive the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, making those who could follow this path even rarer. After attuning themselves to spiritual power, they used it to cleanse and temper their bodies, then fostered the growth of a Meridian Tree.

This was because the Meridian Tree not only generated and stored true qi, but also served as a lever for moving the spiritual qi between heaven and earth. Without a complete Meridian Tree, a spellcaster lost a major aid in wielding spiritual qi.

Martial practitioners needed physical aptitude; spellcasters needed spiritual sensitivity. Cultivators could thus choose a path suited to their own talents-though, of course, the overwhelming majority possessed neither.

Moreover, mastering spiritual qi did not mean a martial practitioner had to become a spellcaster. Their abilities remained bounded by what they had studied and practiced throughout the first half of their lives, and the legacies of the renowned schools included profound scriptures for wielding profound qi. Likewise, after their Meridian Trees took shape, spellcasters often lacked the energy to study the subtleties of true qi, much less grasp the martial principles within profound scriptures. They could only continue studying spiritual scriptures.

Returning to the present, Jing Ziwang had no sect background. All his martial skills came from the imperial court, and only after entering the Profound Gate at the beginning of the year had he been granted "Bì'àn Wounds the World."

This profound scripture drew its inspiration from Bian, the great immortal beast who had guarded the Southern Office for a hundred years. Ranked twenty-ninth in the profound scripture section of the Grand Canon of Spiritual Mysteries, it could only be learned by those who were upright and just, and was one of the seven scriptures available to Great Tang military officials after they entered the Profound Gate.

Jing Ziwang had studied it only briefly and had yet to comprehend its deeper marvels. But when he struck, Pei Ye suddenly understood why the grotesque sight of a tiger emerging from a belly had not changed his expression.

Once someone possessed power like this, many things truly ceased to be frightening.

The tiger's paw met his fist, and freezing cold abruptly blossomed. In an instant, fruit, vegetables, traces of water, the ground, and even the nearby thatched hut were coated in black-blue frost for several yards around.

Pei Ye scooped up the little girl beside him, who had just escaped the claws, and leaped backward, narrowly avoiding the spreading frost.

The trailing corner of his robe caught a trace of frost and stood rigid in midair. At his slightest touch, it shattered into pieces.

Frost clung to Jing Ziwang's brows, but even in that extreme cold, the power of Bì'àn Wounds the World erupted undiminished, instantly sweeping away everything around him.

Fruit, vegetables, buckets, and baskets became dust. The thatched hut broke apart and flew several yards away. Even the earth was flattened, leaving a clean, level stretch several yards across.

And that was merely the shock wave. A greater force erupted inside the tiger's body, nearly exploding its flesh. Its newly formed body was smashed apart again, and the shapeless mass of flesh shot into the air like a cannonball.

Jing Ziwang flashed after it, but his second punch failed to land: the mass of flesh suddenly sprouted two wings and soared high into the sky with a single beat.

Those who had entered the Profound Gate could not yet fly. Although Jing Ziwang could use bursts of true qi to step through the air in pursuit, his maneuverability would inevitably suffer. Against such a powerful enemy, he dared not place himself in a position where his movements would be hindered.

He drifted back to the ground. Above him, the tiger finally re-formed its original body.

It was indeed a "demonic" tiger. Not only was it more than twice the size of an ordinary tiger, but two crooked black horns, sharp as blades, grew from its head. Its eyes resembled those of a serpent or flood dragon, its tail bore a hooked blade, and its enormous wings spanned thirty feet.

Pei Ye had seen this image before. The Classic of Mountains and Seas described it as vicious by nature, fond of eating humans, punishing good and exalting evil, without loyalty or trustworthiness-a beast of absolute malice.

It was called Qiongqi.

Chapter 35: Crimson silk

Jing Ziwang looked up at Qiongqi. His punch seemed to have had very little effect on it; at least, no damage showed on the surface.

Yet after pacing a couple of steps through the sky, it did not hurry to counterattack from its advantageous height. It merely fixed its cold eyes on Jing Ziwang.

Jing Ziwang frowned. What was it waiting for?

He instinctively scanned the surroundings and the distance. Were people from the Torchworld Cult coming to help it?

But the next moment, he understood what it was waiting for. Not assistance from outside, but poison working within his own body!

A sensation of corrosion spread from the hand that had collided with the tiger's paw. Two deep-blue scales had already sprouted there.

Jing Ziwang's heart tightened. He immediately brought his vast reserves of true qi to bear, but that thing fed on true qi as well, rapidly consuming it.

Thanks to the depth of his true qi and his exquisite control, however, Jing Ziwang could at least isolate it from his flesh, temporarily "feeding" it with true qi.

That brief contact had already made him understand: completely removing this substance that transformed people into demonic monsters would require at least an hour of painstaking separation. Qiongqi overhead clearly would not give him that time.

Yet if he allowed the substance to remain inside him, his strength would rapidly diminish until he could no longer resist.

He could only take the offensive and end the battle swiftly.

But his opponent strolled leisurely through the sky, already beyond defeat's reach.

For a moment, the scene fell still. Jing Ziwang looked up expressionlessly, his thoughts unreadable.

He had only seven or eight minutes.

Meanwhile, as Qiongqi flew into the sky, the direction indicated within Pei Ye's abdomen shifted with it. He finally confirmed the seed's location beyond any doubt-inside the tiger's body.

He immediately called to Little Chi within his abdomen. Soon, that unmistakably calm voice answered, "What is it?"

"I found the seed." Pei Ye looked at Qiongqi overhead. At a distance, the demonic beast seemed to have lost some of its oppressive presence.

But Black Chi said, "So it's here."

"What?"

"Go. Leave immediately," Black Chi said evenly. "Forget the seed. Your life matters more."

"...Is this Qiongqi really that powerful?" To Pei Ye, Jing Ziwang had held the absolute upper hand in their exchange just now. He simply could not reach it anymore.

"This is the great enemy I needed to make a pact with you to face," Black Chi said.

"What?!" Pei Ye abruptly lowered his head, as if trying to meet Little Chi's eyes within his abdomen.

To him, the mysterious divine chi that could enter dreams stood a level above Jing Ziwang. How had this Qiongqi reduced such a being to such desperate straits?

"It grows stronger every day at an unbelievable speed," Black Chi explained. "A stronger body, more abundant spiritual qi, or one bizarre ability after another-this is nothing like an immortal beast's normal growth.

"A few days ago, it suddenly acquired another ability: freely manipulating its own flesh. It cut off its wings and turned them into another version of itself, which went somewhere unknown. The original body remaining here to fight me became much weaker. At the same time, you and I formed our pact. With its strength waning and mine growing, I said our situation had improved somewhat.

"Now it seems that duplicate went to your side to hunt," Black Chi said. "Leave at once. That man has become its chosen prey. His death is certain."

Pei Ye hesitated. "Since all it has here is a pair of wings, why don't we try killing it-"

"Impossible," Black Chi interrupted, calm and certain. "Trust me. Leave immediately."

Pei Ye still hesitated. It was not greed for the dantian seed that held him back, but his unwillingness to abandon Jing Ziwang while the battle remained deadlocked. Perhaps, at the critical moment, even his own meager strength could change the outcome.

"Pei Ye." Black Chi's voice suddenly turned cold.

"What?" Pei Ye paused.

"We have a Shared Fate Pact."

"..."

Pei Ye understood what Black Chi meant. Their fates were bound together. Just as he bore the risk of Black Chi's defeat and death, Black Chi bore the risk of his death as well.

"Our bargain was 'I help you, then you help me.' I saved your life from Immortal Lord Spirit Summoning. Now it is time for me to collect my payment," Black Chi said coldly. "Your life no longer belongs to you alone."

Pei Ye silently looked at the ground. He was just about to nod when the wind overhead suddenly tightened, and Qiongqi plunged straight down.

Jing Ziwang had sat down cross-legged where he stood, holding a strange bead that radiated red light, and begun dealing with the corrosion in his arm.

The sight was quite familiar to Pei Ye. It followed the same idea as when he had baited Wu Zaigu into drawing his blade in the wine cellar, then turned back with a killing move. But what was Jing Ziwang's killing move? Wu Zaigu had seen through his intentions then. Would Qiongqi fall for it now?

"Go, quickly," Black Chi urged again from within his abdomen.

Although Qiongqi's descent was fierce, its charge checked just before reaching Jing Ziwang. It held back seventy or eighty percent of its strength, clearly intending only to probe and harass him.

Jing Ziwang drifted backward, coming close to Pei Ye.

Only then did Pei Ye see the scales on his hand, and his heart sank.

Jing Ziwang's expression did not change. He still held the bead, seemingly having anticipated that Qiongqi would not commit itself to an all-out attack, and had not interrupted his efforts to expel the poison.

Qiongqi licked its claws. Its golden eyes turned savage, and the wind abruptly intensified.

Across several yards of sky, like a cloak shaken open, deep-blue frost bordering on black intertwined with dazzling white flame. Qiongqi was like a cold moon embraced by the sun as it pounced.

This time, it held nothing back, unleashing its full strength without the slightest warning.