Pei Ye was about to leave at once when a "long-absent" pain suddenly struck his abdomen. Several tentacles surged out, bound the black-robed man who had yet to die completely, and turned him into a Dark Blue paste before absorbing every last bit.
No matter how many times he told himself that "it" was the one eating people, not him, the sight still made Pei Ye feel sick.
But he soon had no attention to spare for that feeling, because he distinctly felt a faint stirring from the Cocoon of Light in his abdomen as it consumed the body.
Its hatching had accelerated.
And with that faint stirring, an instinctive terror seized Pei Ye's heart.
There was no reason for it, no explanation, and no way to suppress it. It came from deep within his body-a terror of the thing beginning to awaken in his abdomen.
Pei Ye struggled to endure the feeling, turned, and continued sprinting.
Taking some time off!
Starting today, there will only be one chapter a day, probably for three days. Normal updates will resume on Saturday.
When I was posting one chapter a day earlier, I mentioned that I'd be away for four or five days this week, so I built up a little backlog then.
The problems now are, first, that the backlog is running low, and second, that the chapters I rushed out back then aren't good enough. Posting them as they are feels too slapdash, so I'm still planning to squeeze out some time to revise them.
To the many readers saying "too short" and "update faster," all I can say is sorry. Once these few days are over, I'll immediately throw myself back into writing.
Chapter 54: Pursuers
The second wave of black-robed men appeared a quarter of an hour later.
Warned by Zhu Gaoyang, Pei Ye first concealed himself to observe them. He counted roughly four or five; they must have gathered after receiving the first black-robed man's signal.
Knowing that waiting would only bring more, he quietly set Zhu Gaoyang down, then abruptly showed himself and seized the initiative, charging at the nearest black-robed man on his left.
But the man proved far more alert and swift than Pei Ye had expected. The instant he saw Pei Ye draw his sword, he kicked off a tree trunk and drifted backward, giving Pei Ye no chance to close in.
As Pei Ye's charge halted, the remaining black-robed men immediately surrounded him. The one before him, who had retreated several yards, also straightened with his hand on his saber.
Pei Ye surveyed his surroundings. Four or five black-robed men watched him like hungry tigers from varying heights, their stances grave and guarded. Clearly, they were wary of the earlier corpse that had left nothing behind but its clothing.
He held his sword across his body, knowing he still had to strike first.
His heart pounded like a drum, not from the pressure of being surrounded, but because the terror of the stirring in his abdomen had yet to fade. Unable to think calmly, Pei Ye sprang at one of them.
The man immediately retreated, while those behind Pei Ye pressed forward to support him.
Quail Head activated at that moment. Pei Ye planted a foot against a nearby tree trunk, abruptly wheeled around, and struck with his sword at the man behind him.
Within Quail Head's vision, shock appeared on the man's face. Then his body instinctively halted and retreated, true qi surging to greatly ease the awkwardness of the movement.
Seen normally, the black-robed man would have advanced and retreated like a phantom, seemingly without any inertia at all.
But under Quail Head, the transition between those movements was glaringly clear.
This man was plainly far inferior to the first one Pei Ye had chosen to ambush. Perhaps that was the difference between seventh growth and eighth growth.
Realizing he could not escape unscathed in time, the black-robed man decisively stopped and drew his saber, intending to exchange a blow with Pei Ye while waiting for his companions behind him to provide support.
Unfortunately, they had not seen the corpse whose throat had been sealed with a single sword strike, and thus had not realized this was a blow they could not afford to trade.
Already elusive, the sword technique, enhanced by [Quail Head], gave new meaning to the saying that speed alone was unassailable. The black-robed man abruptly lost all five senses and plunged into darkness. For a moment, he had no idea where his saber was cutting, while his opponent's sword had already bitten into his throat like a venomous snake.
His strike landed at once. Pei Ye shunned the mortally wounded black-robed man as though he were a snake or scorpion and immediately tried to leave, but he was still too late. The tentacles in his abdomen, already poised to strike, shot out like silk sprayed by a spider and instantly pierced the man's corpse.
They devoured the corpse with a gluttonous appetite, sweeping through it like a gale scattering clouds. His abdomen suddenly jolted. Pei Ye's face turned deathly pale, and he nearly collapsed.
In truth, it was only another tiny stirring, but Pei Ye felt as though his belly was about to burst and instinctively pressed a hand against it.
Pei Ye had never experienced such unbearable panic, to the point that he did not even notice himself murmuring, "Don't come out, don't come out..."
A calm, stern voice rang from his abdomen: "Steady your mind!"
Pei Ye took a deep breath and stood. Turning back, he saw that the remaining black-robed men had all stopped a considerable distance behind him, their bodies tense as though facing a formidable enemy.
Clearly, seeing their companion cut down with a single sword strike, unable to offer any resistance, had given them a new understanding of the youth's swordsmanship.
And the sight of him devouring a corpse before their eyes had further confirmed his identity.
They had turned back to surround and capture the escaped host upon receiving word from the purple-robed shadow emissary, and now they had actually encountered him.
Pei Ye knew he probably would not get another easy kill by catching them off guard like that.
But that suited him. He no longer dared kill anyone, either.
Judging that they would not dare approach again, Pei Ye held his sword and charged straight out.
Yet the moment he moved, his opponents blocked him without the slightest regard for their lives. Startled, Pei Ye retreated and was forced back into their encirclement.
Looking at their cold, solemn faces, Pei Ye understood-they were not afraid of dying at all. They were only afraid of dying too quickly and allowing him to escape.
Their purpose was to hold him here until the Purple-Robed Man arrived.
If he insisted on leaving, they were even willing to offer themselves as feed and make the cocoon in his belly hatch here, rather than let him carry away the Torchworld Cult's painstaking work to the Immortal Platform.
"Then come on." Pei Ye bared his teeth.
The relentless terror in his heart was also wearing down Pei Ye's patience. He charged with his sword again, this time with undisguised killing intent.
The black-robed men moved together to block him again. Pei Ye drove his sword through one man's throat, while another sword simultaneously pierced his waist.
The tentacles in his abdomen flew out to devour the badly wounded man before him. At the same time, Pei Ye turned and slashed, severing the forearm of the man behind him.
The black-robed men from the other two directions arrived simultaneously as well. In an instant, the battle became a brutal Sacrificial Exchange, except that he could target their vital points, while they sought only to rob him of his ability to move.
A sword and a saber targeted his arm and thigh respectively. If either succeeded, he would lose his mobility and be trapped here.
Though Quail Head could unravel a path to survival, his body had limits. Under the simultaneous assault of four men from four directions, Pei Ye could not cover every angle.
He could only choose what to sacrifice, thrusting straight at the throat of the man cutting at his thigh.
But he still did not put his full strength into that thrust. He deliberately left his opponent time to react, intending to force him back before turning to kill the other man and thus break the deadlock.
Yet the man before him merely charged forward coldly, seeming to see nothing but Pei Ye's leg, even offering his own throat to the blade.
Pei Ye could only grit his teeth and kill him. At the same time, savage pain shot through his left arm as the saber precisely severed his tendons and meridians.
The tentacles in his abdomen finished devouring the first man and lunged at the second. The Cocoon of Light stirred again, much more distinctly this time. The panic in Pei Ye's heart erupted, only to be cinched tight by something like a ligament-Quail Head's control over his mind.
"Don't panic. Strike," Black Chi said steadily.
The man who had severed the tendons in his left arm was the first one he had tried to ambush. The calmest and most alert of them all, he was already retreating swiftly.
Pei Ye struggled to suppress his panic, gritted his teeth, and twisted to strike. Perhaps out of instinct, this was not another [Clouded Sky Obscures Eyes, Lost Feathers]; instead, he unconsciously followed it with the second form.
The first form stripped away all your powerful armor to see whether you still possessed a steadfast and courageous heart; the second stripped away even that steadfast courage to see whether you could still swing your sword in a state of panic and confusion.
Pei Ye swung it. This form was [Snowy Night, Fallen Life, Soul-Shattering Terror].
His opponent's composed retreat suddenly faltered, and terror appeared on his cold face.
This had nothing to do with whether he feared death. The sword intent acted directly upon his state of mind. Amid that panic, Pei Ye stepped forward in pursuit and pierced his heart with a single thrust.
A cold blade arrived from behind at the same time. The man whose forearm Pei Ye had severed seized the moment when he could not bring his sword back in time and drove a sword into his torso.
Pei Ye turned his head coldly and gripped the blade embedded in his body.
Starting from his hand, a bitterly cold frost climbed along the sword and, in an instant, thickly encased the black-robed man's body.
The black-robed man shattered inch by inch, like glass.
Pei Ye pulled the sword out of his body and released it. The blade shattered into powder-fine grains of ice.
Chapter 55: A Sprout
Pei Ye glanced at his hand. With a thought, frost covered the wound and stopped the bleeding.
At some point, the panic in his heart had subsided. Pei Ye watched the tentacles swiftly finish feasting on the corpses. His abdomen stirred again, but he no longer felt much of anything.
The Cocoon of Light had shrunk into a tiny ball, with two feeler-like things extending from it, one pointing up and left, the other up and right.
After being "fed" multiple times, it had finally broken out of its shell.
In the normal Martial Dao cultivation system, this was called "meridian tree first growth."
After those two branches emerged, Pei Ye distinctly felt its absorption of mystic qi accelerate. In fact... it was a little too fast.
For a normal meridian tree, every branching was a hurdle, requiring a martial artist to cultivate diligently and build a deep foundation before making a breakthrough.
Yet this seed seemed to need no assistance from its host whatsoever. It could grow rapidly all on its own, as though it were a real tree.
Of course, a normal dantian seed could not absorb Heaven and Earth Profound Qi, either.
Returning to the present, "Dragon blood" flowed smoothly through his body, and his wounds began to heal.
Pei Ye caught his breath and went back to carry Zhu Gaoyang.
Zhu Gaoyang had not been idle during his time hiding here. He had wiped the disguise off his face, and now pointed at Pei Ye, signaling that he should stop wearing his handsome face.
Pei Ye wiped away his disguise and returned to his original appearance.
"You can use that freezing ability now?" Zhu Gaoyang asked.
"Yes." Pei Ye nodded. "I don't know why."
"Has the seed made progress in hatching? I saw it swallow quite a few corpses."
"No." Pei Ye went briefly dazed, then shook his head.
Zhu Gaoyang relaxed a little.
Pei Ye came back to himself and sneered. "What, are you thinking about killing me again?"
Zhu Gaoyang sighed. "To be honest, if I knew for certain that killing you would settle everything once and for all, I really would do it. But judging by how easily it transferred from Qiongqi to you, a host seems to be nothing more than an object it can replace whenever it likes.
"I can't move, either. If I killed you, the two of us and this seed could only lie there waiting for the Torchworld Cult to come pick it up. Better to let you carry it and run for a while. Besides, this thing hasn't shown much capacity for disaster yet."
"Maybe by the time it erupts, it'll already be too late to do anything."
"Then there's nothing we can do." Zhu Gaoyang fell silent for a moment, then smiled. "One of us is weak and the other crippled. Can we really expect some perfect solution?"
Pei Ye nodded. "More importantly, you might not be able to kill me now anyway."
"..." Zhu Gaoyang could not help curling his lips, his long, narrow eyes creasing into smiling crescents as he looked at Pei Ye with a warm, almost tender expression.
Pei Ye recognized that expression. When an eight-year-old child who had just joined the Martial Arts Hall raised a fist at him and said, "I'll definitely beat you within three years," he would wear that very expression, pat the child's head, and say, "All right."
Before you continue