novelraw Chapter 118: The Gossip I'm Eating Is About Myself
Chapter 118: The Gossip I'm Eating Is About Myself
The clash between the two massive creatures instantly flattened more than a dozen residential buildings. Whether anyone inside had survived was anyone's guess.
The inner hall's senior brothers and sisters had all rushed over to join the fight, unleashing techniques and spirit tools against the pitch-black flood dragon's body, carving away great chunks of reeking, rotten flesh to expose the white bone beneath.
This was a ghost dragon.
The Old Blind One was dead, and from the degree of decomposition, had been dead for a very long time.
Standing on the rooftop and watching all of this, Li Qiuchen felt some of his lingering uncertainties suddenly resolve.
The temple at the bottom of the Dragon Scale River had never been the Old Blind One's cave dwelling. It was his tomb.
The water clan corpses inside had shown no signs of being bitten or cut down in battle, which meant they were simply "bodies," not the Old Blind One's food or his subordinates.
But why had a dead flood dragon been kept under lock and chain? And who had released it?
Li Qiuchen was still turning this over in his mind when a surging wave of demon energy erupted into the sky.
"Bastards!"That voice sounded remarkably familiar.
Boss Hu?
The moment Li Qiuchen placed it, a massive fox tail appeared in the sky, cracking down like a whip and sweeping several inner hall disciples who had taken to the air straight back to the ground.
The reason a fox demon could openly run a fur trading shop in Yun County was simple. He had enough strength to make those who looked unfavorably on demon clans sit down and discuss things calmly.
This was a fox demon at the Foundation Establishment realm.
If he wants to do business, let him do business. Why go out of your way to provoke something like that?
That was everyone's general attitude.
But in this moment, Boss Hu's sudden outburst threw an already chaotic situation into even greater disorder.
Whose side are you actually on?
Li Qiuchen was thinking it. Lord Chang the Eighth, whose mouth was never far behind his thoughts, had already shouted it out.
"Hu Damingbai, what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Stand down!"
It was Murong Feng who called the halt.
He had the clearest view from his position in the air.
There were a few other powerful figures in the county town of Boss Hu's caliber, but all of them were neutral parties, or rather had adopted the attitude that this wasn't their business and were standing to the side watching the entertainment.
Boss Hu had also been watching the entertainment. He had arranged a drinking session with friends that evening, and halfway through his drinks the fighting had broken out outside. He had stood up with his cup in hand, pushed the window open, and was just about to offer some commentary in the manner of a senior figure when he caught a flash of firelight in the darkness ahead.
A jolt of alarm went through him.
Something's wrong. That's my house!
Boss Hu lost no time at all. He vaulted out the window and crossed the air in great strides, charging toward his home at full speed.
He had only gotten halfway there when he ran into several inner hall disciples. In the dim light, they hadn't recognized who he was. All they could see was an enormous surge of demon energy that didn't look like anything good, and without a word they brought their spirit tools to bear on him.
With his Foundation Establishment cultivation, Boss Hu hadn't originally intended to bother with these youngsters. A casual wave of his hand sent them scattering to either side. But at that moment, one of the inner hall disciples drew a jet-black throwing knife from his breast pocket and hurled it at his back.
The knife sliced effortlessly through Boss Hu's protective true qi and struck him squarely in the back of the chest before he had any chance to react. Boss Hu stumbled, fell into the street, and spat a mouthful of old blood more than three feet across the ground.
Another traitor.
By the time Murong Feng noticed the commotion here, it was already too late. Boss Hu hauled himself off the ground in a towering fury, turned toward the inner hall disciples, and swept his hand through the air. The fox tail swept across and sent every one of them flying helplessly away.
At the same moment, on the rooftop on the other side, Tang Xiaoxue, who had just climbed up, suddenly lifted her nose and sniffed. "Hu Caiyi!"
Did Hu Caiyi have some particular scent?
Well, the girl did have a deep fondness for dusting herself with fragrant powder.
Before Li Qiuchen could say anything, Tang Xiaoxue launched herself three zhang into the air from the rooftop, spinning like a top and dropping down onto a dark figure flashing through the street below.
The figure stopped dead, raised its head, and spat a cloud of black fog that blew into Tang Xiaoxue's face. At the same moment something came shrieking through the air from the side.
A crack.
The earth-element bead Li Qiuchen had sent flying struck the figure in the face like a cannonball, knocking its entire head three inches to the side.
Tang Xiaoxue's pickaxe hit its face in the same instant. The extraordinary little tool, forged from its mixture of metals, caved through the skull like breaking dry wood and plunged into the chest cavity.
Even so, the figure somehow wasn't dead. It lurched forward two unsteady steps, then burrowed into the ground with a soft sound and vanished.
Tang Xiaoxue didn't hesitate for a moment, swinging her pickaxe down at the street. Bricks and stones shattered and flew in all directions, but beyond gouging out a small pit, she found nothing.
"Stop digging, it's an earth-burrowing technique."
Li Qiuchen caught up and put a hand on her shoulder.
Tang Xiaoxue turned around. Dark mist was coiling across her face. Both eyes had been stung red by the black fog, and tears and mucus were streaming freely.
"I smelled Hu Caiyi! The scent was on that thing!"
"Her father will go and save her."
"What if there isn't time?"
Faced with Tang Xiaoxue, her face streaming, barely able to open her eyes, and yet stubbornly set in her expression, Li Qiuchen couldn't help but sigh. "Then what do you suggest?"
"I'm going to save her!"
"You can't even open your eyes. How are you going to save anyone?"
Tang Xiaoxue grabbed Li Qiuchen's sleeve. "She sent you that old mountain ginseng!"
"This isn't about the money... the main thing is it's dangerous."
"I'm not afraid of danger!"
"Fine, fine, young miss. Go home and I'll go. Alright?"
"We go together!"
Tang Xiaoxue grabbed Li Qiuchen's sleeve and wiped her tears and mucus against it firmly. "Stop underestimating me all the time. I'm Wulala! I have the power of Super Wulala!"
What in the world is Super Wulala power? Can you transform into some kind of magical girl?
Li Qiuchen gave up and produced the Hundred-Li Soul-Chasing Smoke. "Same rules as always..."
"I know! I follow your lead!"
"Correct."
Li Qiuchen pinched out a small amount of powder from the box and scattered it at the spot where the figure had disappeared. The moment the powder touched the air it ignited without flame, transforming into a brilliant trail of smoke that drifted away into the distance within his field of vision.
He still didn't understand exactly what kind of technique made this work, or what would happen if the target changed direction midway. But one thing Li Qiuchen was now certain of was that when he had fled for his life across hundreds of li without being able to shake Tu Feiyun's pursuit, this was absolutely what had been responsible.
Terrifyingly effective.
Just thinking about the fact that Tu Feiyun had more treasures than just this one gave Li Qiuchen a headache.
If he ever truly fell into that person's hands in the future, how was he supposed to run?
The enemy below was still drilling through the earth at full speed, apparently under the impression that hiding underground would let them escape any pursuit from above. Quite naive.
Between the built-up area of Yun County and its outer walls lay a large stretch of abandoned buildings, still faintly preserving the silhouette of the prosperity that had existed there thousands of years ago. At night, however, they made an ideal setting for hide-and-seek.
The four Chang brothers holding the city's gates had their attention fixed entirely on the pitch-black ghost dragon in the city center and paid no notice to the small creatures moving beneath their feet.
Li Qiuchen suddenly stopped and pressed himself into the shadow of a building to the side. Within moments, the sound of rapid running came from a street nearby.
He looked over in the moonlight and found that the person running was none other than Young Master Liu.
Where had he come from? How had they let him get out?
Li Qiuchen found it baffling, but this wasn't the moment to assign blame.
He was following the dark figure, and Young Master Liu was fleeing for his life, and the two directions happened to coincide.
So it really was you all along.
That being the case, the great black fish spirit that had gone after Hu Caiyi on the Dragon Scale River almost certainly hadn't been a coincidence.
And tonight's operation wasn't limited to abducting Hu Caiyi.
If he hadn't happened to be cultivating in the cellar and stumbled upon that female ghost, Tang Xiaoxue would likely have been taken as well.
What did the two of them have to do with any of this?
Li Qiuchen stayed in the shadows and watched Young Master Liu step into the ruins of an earthen tower. He looked again at the trail of colorful smoke ahead of him, which was drifting straight downward into the ground.
Hidden underground... there had to be defenses. The entrance to that tower had an ominous air about it. If he followed Young Master Liu inside, he might walk into an ambush.
Tang Xiaoxue peered around and asked quietly, "It's underground? Should we dig..."
"When would we ever finish digging?"
"I have a way!"
Tang Xiaoxue jumped down from Li Qiuchen's back, closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and drew in a long, deep breath, then abruptly held it.
Her white hair lengthened in an instant. The two small ghostly horns on her head shot up by an inch and turned blood red.
When she opened her eyes again, a layer of gold had settled over both of them.
Li Qiuchen stared.
Good lord, it's actually a Super Saiyan... no wait, a Super Wulala transformation?
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