Chapter 188: How Can One Tell Male from Female?
Everyone hurriedly carried the dragon qilin and rushed outward. The dragon qilin was injured and limping, unable to move quickly. Fox Ling’er leaped onto Qin Mu’s bundle and immediately cast a spell, summoning a whirlwind that swept the dragon qilin into its vortex, carrying him along as they fled.
Behind them, Tianbo City, built upon the mountains along the river, was collapsing. Within the city, the enormous demon king was battling numerous powerful experts, yet it still found time to pulverize the flesh and blood of those it killed, using their bones and skulls to construct an altar. Bloody bones and heads flew through the air continuously, landing at its feet, quickly forming a layer.
It was only its power and consciousness that had descended; its true body remained in the so-called Dutian realm. However, its strength was already far above that of sect master-level experts.
Within the city, there was not only the Dragon King of the Dragon Gate Sect, a sect master-level expert, but also other powerful beings at the Life and Death realm and even the Divine Bridge realm. Yet even when attacking together, they could not harm the Dutian Demon King and were instead repeatedly wounded.
As for the troops stationed in the city, tens of thousands of cultivators, many were injured by the demon king’s roar and killed by its twelve beams of light. The city fell into chaos. Countless soldiers broke formation, scrambling to flee in all directions. Some jumped directly into the river, only to be smashed against the cliffs by the surging waves of the Yong River, their bodies shattered.
The soldiers in the city were mostly disciples from various sects and schools, lacking military discipline. When faced with such terror, they collapsed at the first touch, devoid of any morale, unable to gather their forces to form a formation and trap the Dutian Demon King.
When Qin Mu and Ba Shan Sacrificial Wine had ventured beyond the border for training, eight hundred grassland cultivators had been able to shatter Ba Shan Sacrificial Wine’s Precipice Heavenly Wall technique, forcing him to retreat repeatedly. Ba Shan Sacrificial Wine was a sect master-level expert, yet he was still driven back. In Tianbo City, there were tens of thousands of cultivators and martial artists. If they had joined forces, they might have been able to hold off the Dutian Demon King for a time. Unfortunately, the various sects were scattered like loose sand, unable to unite, each only concerned with saving themselves.
Qin Mu looked back and saw that Long Jiaonan was still chasing after them, but it didn’t seem like he was pursuing them specifically. “Right, Long Jiaonan is also fleeing for his life,” Qin Mu realized.
Boom—
A terrifying shockwave from the clash of powerful experts erupted. Buildings collapsed one after another, disintegrating in midair. Qin Mu and the others were lifted by the dreadful wave, flying through the air as countless people flailed and tumbled in all directions.
Boom, boom. Before they could even land, several more terrifying waves struck. Qin Mu was crushed, coughing up blood. He quickly grabbed the little fox from his back and held her close to prevent Fox Ling’er from being shaken to death.
A fourth wave slammed into them. Qin Mu grunted, activating the Overlord Body Three Dan Art. His body became incredibly hard, but he was still sent flying.
Thud.
Qin Mu crashed to the ground, rolling more than a dozen times before stopping. He had landed in a forest. Above the forest, fierce winds howled, shearing off the tops of countless trees. It was the residual energy of the techniques from the experts in Tianbo City.
Blood trickled from Qin Mu’s mouth. His eyes were wide, and his chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe. After a moment, he began gasping heavily, a rasping sound coming from his lungs—they had been injured.
He took a few deep breaths, then took Fox Ling’er out from his arms. She was also badly injured and unconscious. Qin Mu quickly retrieved a jade bottle from his Taotie pouch, pried open her mouth, and dripped a few drops of dragon saliva into it.
After a while, the fox slowly woke up. She was dazed for a moment, then said tearfully, “I lost Long Da!”
The dragon qilin, unable to walk, had been carried by Fox Ling’er’s spell on a whirlwind, floating in midair. The shockwaves had destroyed her spell, and the dragon qilin had been sent flying, high and far.
Qin Mu comforted her, “It’s okay. Long Da can heal himself. It’s just that his wound is on his rear, so I’m afraid he can’t lick it. Besides, I’ve also lost Shen Wanyun and the others.”
“Long Da is very valuable,” Fox Ling’er sobbed. “Shen Wanyun and the others aren’t worth much…”
Qin Mu stood up, circulated his primal energy to expel the blood clots from his chest, then picked her up. “Let’s go find them.”
Just as he said this, his body suddenly tensed. From deep in the forest came the sound of trees crashing down. A massive serpent slowly slithered through the woods, pushing trees aside as it came. That serpent was the same one that had destroyed the ship Qin Mu, Wei Yong, and the others had taken to the capital! The colossal beast raised by Long Jiaonan!
“Cough, cough, cough…”
Violent coughing came from the serpent’s head. Qin Mu looked up and saw a gaudily dressed man sitting on the flat head of the giant snake, coughing and spitting blood. His flowery robe was full of holes, his makeup was smeared, and he looked utterly disheveled.
“You destroyed Tianbo City! You destroyed my Dragon Gate Sect!”
Long Jiaonan staggered to his feet on the snake’s head, his expression caught between crying and laughing, his eyes fixed on Qin Mu. Qin Mu’s heart tightened. He stepped back slowly, unhurriedly.
Long Jiaonan was a formidable expert. He had once fought against the archer cavalry and sword guards outside the capital, and even they had failed to capture him, allowing him to escape unscathed.
“Who exactly are you?”
The giant snake raised its head, looking down at Qin Mu. Long Jiaonan shrieked, “Did the Yanguo National Master send you?”
Qin Mu said nothing. He retreated to a large tree, then suddenly dodged behind it.
Long Jiaonan screamed and reached out, his primal energy forming a massive hand that grabbed the tree and crushed it to splinters with a crack!
But there was no trace of Qin Mu behind the tree. Long Jiaonan went berserk. He raised both hands, and the ground shook violently. Sharp rock spikes shot up from the earth, taller than the trees, covering an area of dozens of zhang in all directions, forming a forest of stone.
“Escaped? You can’t escape.”
The giant serpent slithered forward, crushing the rock spikes as it moved. On its head, Long Jiaonan seemed injured, writhing like a human snake. After a moment, his head split open, then his face split, and a new head emerged from within. He continued twisting his body like a snake, and soon shed a human skin. Long Jiaonan stood up naked, took out a new set of clothes, and slowly dressed, looking around and giggling, “I know you haven’t gone far. You’re still lurking nearby. I can feel your gaze. You’re admiring my body…”
About a hundred zhang away, in the dense forest, Qin Mu crouched in the canopy of a large tree, his eyes fixed intently on the transformed Long Jiaonan. “The Dragon Gate Sect’s bizarre technique can actually shed an old skin for a new body. But wasn’t Long Jiaonan supposed to be the son of the Dragon King of the Dragon Gate Sect? Why does he have a plump chest like a woman…”
The moment he had hidden behind the tree, he had pulled his clothes over himself and teleported away, dodging Long Jiaonan’s lethal strike. However, his cultivation was not high, and he could only teleport a short distance—at most two hundred zhang—so he hadn’t left the forest.
What surprised him most was the profound technique Long Jiaonan practiced. Long Jiaonan had been injured, but after shedding his skin, there was not a single wound left.
Moreover, the Long Jiaonan who crawled out of the skin was naturally naked, and Qin Mu noticed that his body was different from his own, resembling a seductive woman’s figure.
“His chest is much more developed than mine. I can’t train to that level.” Qin Mu admired inwardly. “Is he male or female? Or is she female, but the Dragon King wanted a son, so he named her Jiaonan, meaning ‘delicate boy’? The Dragon King probably raised her as a boy, which turned her into this strange state.”
His gaze remained fixed on Long Jiaonan without blinking. At this moment, blinking—opening and closing his eyes—would reveal his position, allowing Long Jiaonan to pinpoint his exact location. Long Jiaonan’s techniques were so fierce and powerful that Qin Mu was no match for him or her.
Moreover, using the teleportation robe, he could only teleport three or four times before his cultivation was exhausted, making it hard to escape Long Jiaonan’s pursuit.
But keeping his eyes on Long Jiaonan was not a solution either. An expert like Long Jiaonan had extremely keen senses and could likely trace his gaze back to his location.
Long Jiaonan was still slowly dressing, her back to Qin Mu. Goosebumps appeared on the skin of her neck, and she giggled, “You’re staring at my neck. Is my neck beautiful?”
Qin Mu’s pupils contracted. The goosebumps on Long Jiaonan’s neck were shrinking in range—she had already determined Qin Mu’s exact position!
Qin Mu covered himself with his clothes. A thunderous boom sounded as his figure vanished in the explosion of a technique.
Long Jiaonan, her clothes half-open, withdrew her hand. The giant serpent carried her as she rushed over, but there was no sign of Qin Mu. Suddenly, she looked up and saw a figure in the air sprinting away, stepping through the void.
“You won’t get away!”
The giant serpent beneath her spewed demonic energy, soared into the air, and gave chase.
In midair, both of them saw the scene of Tianbo City and were horrified. The city, built on the mountains, had been completely destroyed, replaced by an altar made of blood and bones! The Dutian Demon King stood on the altar, delivering lethal blows to two people: one was the Dragon King of the Dragon Gate Sect, accompanied by his flood dragon, and the other was a sect master-level expert at the Divine Bridge realm.
These two were in dire straits, on the verge of being killed by the Dutian Demon King at any moment. From the demon king’s mouth came demonic language, even more obscure and profound than the demonic words Qin Mu had used to summon him!
Above Tianbo City, the sky spun and twisted. Suddenly, lightning flashed and thunder roared as the sky was torn open, revealing a dark space! Something seemed to move within that dark space. Suddenly, a strange figure with two heads and two eyes flew out of the wildly spinning vortex.
The strange figure stopped in midair and shouted something toward the vortex.
Buzz.
Countless black dots sprayed out from the vortex, a dark mass surging toward Tianbo City.
Those were the demons of Dutian! Tens of thousands of demons were pouring in from Dutian, killing each other. Their bodies fell like rain from the sky, piling up on the altar, making it grow larger and taller.
Blood rain began to fall from the sky.
Some demons, clearly of higher status, descended from the sky with staffs in hand, landing on the altar of Tianbo City. They gathered around it, chanting ancient and obscure demonic words. Above the altar, countless magnificent runes appeared, shining brightly.
“I might have caused a disaster even greater than drugging the Imperial Academy…” Qin Mu’s eyes twitched. He thought to himself.
—Second update at 6 PM today!