Chapter 286

She turned her head and asked He Lingchuan: "What about that monster?" "A patrol guard heard the noise and chased after it, saying he wanted to hand it over on my behalf." He Lingchuan sighed, "Thinking about it now, that person was very problematic."

"What kind of problem?"

"When he got close, the monster I caught stopped crying."

Sun Fuling didn't even raise her head: "Perhaps it was just a coincidence."

"I hope so." He Lingchuan scratched his head, "But I don't understand, why do these monsters always flock here?"

"Here?"

"Look, we alone encountered three, and caught two of them; and only six have been caught in the whole city." Panlongcheng was so big, why didn't the monsters go elsewhere? Sun Fuling thought for a moment: "Could their nest be nearby?"

"Perhaps." He Lingchuan also considered this point, "The sparrow hawk just said that the apothecary found by Commander Zhong believes that these monsters are all in the juvenile stage, and judging by their bone age, they haven't even been born yet."

"And I smelled a strange salty, fishy odor on the monster just now, wet and sticky, a bit like..." He Lingchuan's expression was strange.

"Like what?"

He Lingchuan hesitated; he really didn't want to say that word.

"Amniotic fluid?" Sun Fuling asked generously instead.

He Lingchuan could only say: "I guessed."

"If the most qualified apothecary says they are unborn infants." Sun Fuling fed the sparrow hawk meat earnestly, "Then your guess is very reasonable."

"In other words, they have such powerful combat ability just after being born?"

This went against biological common sense. Although some animals could hunt and survive on their own just after birth, like crocodiles, the juveniles were relatively weak, or even someone else's meal.

"Strength and weakness are relative." Sun Fuling analyzed, "Perhaps compared to their adult parents, they are already considered frail."

A giant whale calf is over a zhang long and weighs tens of thousands of jin just after birth; isn't it common for it to knock a person flying? To put it another way, the prey of these monster juveniles—humans—are too weak compared to them.

"Then we must catch them early." Otherwise, Panlongcheng would be in disaster, "No wonder three... no wonder no matter how carefully they search, they are hard to catch; where are you supposed to find things that haven't been born yet?"

No wonder the Three-Corpse Worms couldn't find these monsters; they were all hidden in the mother's body! The Three-Corpse Worms only drilled into the seven orifices, and at most one more, how could they drill into the mother's belly to check the fetus? "Eh? Wait!" He Lingchuan was startled, suddenly feeling something was wrong.

"What?"

"Hmm..." Since the Three-Corpse Worms could discover their mothers, why didn't they sound an alarm to the owner of the Great Fang Hu?

Could the monster's mother... not be a monster?

Sun Fuling finished feeding the dried meat: "We can look for the mother."

"..." She had hit the nail on the head.

"It's been so many days, every corner of Panlongcheng has been turned over and checked several times, but there's nothing." Sun Fuling said as a matter of course, "Then it must have been hidden by someone."

"Yes." What He Lingchuan thought was that the high-level officials of Panlongcheng understood the wonderful uses of the Three-Corpse Worms better than he did. They must have long inferred that the monster's "mother" could be a human.

He was just worrying about nothing.

"The question is, why do these monsters want to sneak into the city?" He Lingchuan boiled some water while lighting the fire, and Sun Fuling poured a bowl of hot water and placed it by the sparrow hawk, "Panlongcheng is extremely unfriendly to illegal intruders; what kind of monster would be willing to risk death to come in?"

Who wouldn't be afraid of fighting like this? The Xunzhou men directly in front of him couldn't help but dodge in all directions, and the occasional cold arrow was either dodged or knocked down by him, causing no harm.

These soldiers were agile, but in the face of the Qingbo Beast's impact and the sharpness of the Floating Life Blade, they had almost no ability to respond.

This was also the significant gap between a general and a soldier.

He Lingchuan himself didn't realize that as he reached this point, his bearing as a general was slowly emerging.

Suddenly, someone shouted: "It's him who injured General Baili!"

Finally, someone recognized him.

Among the men Hong Chenglue left behind for the ambush, several had followed Baili Qing to raid Xinhuang Town, and they had a deep impression of how their general had been defeated. It was just that the visibility here was poor, and it wasn't until He Lingchuan killed several people in a row that he was identified.

He Lingchuan suddenly heard Shan Youjun's warning: "Watch your back!"

There was indeed a breeze stirring behind him.

He Lingchuan slammed himself low, his upper body pressed tightly against the Qingbo Beast's belly, and a red figure swept over the horse's back. If he hadn't dodged in time, he might have been knocked off the horse.

That thing even lowered its head in mid-air, opening its mouth to bite at his neck. He Lingchuan tilted his head, and it bit into empty air, but its upper and lower teeth made a crisp 'click' sound.

By the time the thing landed, He Lingchuan realized it was a giant red cat, its four limbs long and thick; one look and it was clear it had outstanding jumping ability.

Shan Youjun said urgently: "It doesn't eat sword attacks!"

He was currently entangled with another giant cat, and there were already several bloody welts on his body. This monster emitted a faint green light, and it didn't dodge or evade Shan Youjun's attacks because the blades passed straight through its body as if it were nothing!

This thing had no physical form? No, that wasn't right; it had no physical form when it dodged, entering a void state. Because it was also imbued with its master's Yuan power, Shan Youjun's weapons, which were also imbued with Yuan power, had no effect on it.

It could be said that they basically canceled each other out.

This blood cat was extremely fast, and when it ran, only a blur remained. Shan Youjun encountered danger several times, and his eyes and throat were nearly scratched.

He managed to see clearly that the wrinkled surface of the blood cat wasn't fur at all, but face after face of people! Faces of people with different features, expressions, and genders—some laughing, some angry, some crying, some screaming, but all silently.

He didn't know that this kind of thing was called a 'Chang Spirit'. The sun had already set, which was just right for it to come out and wreak havoc.

Just as Shan Youjun was fighting the blood cat with all his might, a shadow quietly emerged behind him, and a halberd stabbed toward his back.

It was Tao Ze, the Xunzhou general who led the ambush team.

The hair on the back of Shan Youjun's neck stood up; he knew it was bad, but it was too late to turn around.

Just at this moment, a long spear shot from the front, almost grazing his ear as it shot backward, hitting Tao Ze's halberd tip with a precise 'clang', knocking it off course.

It was He Lingchuan who had taken action, directly taking out the Tenglong Spear and throwing it like a javelin, narrowly saving Shan Youjun's life.

This move was a standard skill that everyone in the Dafeng Army knew; as a reserve patrol guard of the Dafeng Army, he naturally had to practice it hard. The javelin—no, the long spear—that He Lingchuan threw didn't have the imposing momentum of Xiao Maoliang's, but its accuracy and force were already becoming qualified.

After knocking the halberd off course, the Tenglong Spear flew diagonally and stuck into a tree trunk with a 'thud'.

The blood cat entangled with him also didn't dodge or evade his attacks, being very arrogant, so He Lingchuan just swung the Floating Life Blade once and split it in two.

This big cat didn't bleed, nor did it scream; it just fell to the ground and turned to ash, but the human faces covering its body floated out, turning into vengeful spirits howling across the field!

The halberd in Tao Ze's hand was named 'Red Tiger'; the souls of those who died under the halberd were likely sucked into the halberd body and filled into the blood cats transformed by the two Chang Spirits, providing them with a constant supply of energy.

Now that one of the Chang Spirits had been killed by He Lingchuan, the vengeful spirits trapped within immediately broke free, harboring vicious hatred, and began indiscriminate retaliation against the living things around them! Having stayed in the Chang Spirit's body for too long, they also became tainted with the Chang Spirit's characteristics; usually, they were formless and bodiless, only condensing into substance during the attack. The nearby Xunzhou soldiers didn't expect such a change, and in the blink of an eye, four were knocked down; some were burrowed into by the vengeful spirits through their mouths and noses, causing chaos in their brains, while others were eaten alive, screaming incessantly.

Seeing this scene, Tao Ze, the owner of the Red Tiger Halberd, was also deeply surprised and had no choice but to withdraw the Yuan power from the Chang Spirits.

After the faint light around these vengeful spirits disappeared, they would be blocked by the Yuan power on the Xunzhou soldiers' bodies, at best bounced away, at worst knocked apart, no longer posing a threat.

But Tao Ze couldn't understand how He Lingchuan had been able to easily kill the blood cat just now? This kind of Chang Spirit maintained a void soul body when it hadn't bitten its opponent.

Of course, he didn't know that the Floating Life Treasure Blade in He Lingchuan's hand had a characteristic called 'Void-Breaking', which could deal with formless and bodiless things. Clearly, the Chang Spirit met this standard; would Floating Life be polite to it?

He withdrew the Yuan power from the Chang Spirit, and the pressure of the remaining blood cat on Shan Youjun was immediately greatly reduced. As an aggregate of vengeful spirits, it didn't pose much harm to the Xiazhou soldiers imbued with Yuan power.

Shan Youjun caught his breath and turned back to single-handedly fight Tao Ze.

At this time, white smoke filled the field, and the Xunzhou men were wary of the blade in He Lingchuan's hand, not daring to rush in rashly. He Lingchuan seized the opportunity to jump to the ground, rushed to Mao Tao, who was breathing his last, and pried open his mouth to stuff in a life-saving elixir.

He had taken this kind of medicine himself—after being knocked off a cliff by a leopard demon, it had indeed kept him alive for two hours, and he had only taken half a pill at the time—he knew it was effective, but it was so precious that it was hard to find even with heavy gold.

The elixir melted as soon as it entered his mouth, but Mao Tao had no luck enjoying it. He stared at He Lingchuan, using all his strength to squeeze out a few words:

"Go... go quickly!"

Just after speaking, his eyes went blank.

Medicine cannot cure the dead or the mortally wounded. His heart had been pierced through; it was already a miracle that he had lasted until now. Medicine was useless.

Shan Youjun shouted: "We have to go!"

With the enemy in front, he didn't shout the word "Proprietor".

At this time, two Xunzhou soldiers had already blown their whistles, and the sharp, urgent sound echoed throughout the forest.

Hong Chenglue's team was not far away, and they would surely come to support upon hearing the whistle.

With two against hundreds, and they weren't General Red, they would surely die.

He Lingchuan gritted his teeth, closed Mao Tao's eyes, then jumped onto the Qingbo Beast and charged toward Tao Ze.

The Qingbo Beast was about the same size as a normal horse, but its starting speed was faster, reaching top speed within three zhang.

Tao Ze was fighting Shan Youjun, and the white smoke was about to dissipate, at which point his soldiers could swarm in. Who would have thought that at this moment, the wind was howling in front, and He Lingchuan was charging over with his horse! Tao Ze had already heard his men shouting and knew that the youth in front of him was the culprit who had injured Baili Qing, and he had only used one move. He hadn't gone to that raid in person, nor did he know that He Lingchuan had happened to trigger the 'Army-Breaking' characteristic of the Floating Life Blade at that time, which was why he was so fierce. He only knew that his own strength was far inferior to Baili Qing's, and he was currently entangled by Shan Youjun, so his heart went weak. How could he dare to take He Lingchuan's moves head-on?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 277 =====

These people greeted him and then winked, because Sun Fuling was right beside him.

The shopkeeper was a white, chubby man named Bai Guo, with a slightly round belly and a smiling face, looking like a proper businessman at first glance.

It turned out this was his third branch opened in Panlongcheng.

The shop rent on Wang Lin Street was frighteningly expensive, and the shops that could survive here were of two kinds: either the business was booming, or the goods were expensive and in demand. Yunlingdao was the latter.

As soon as he heard He Lingchuan was the landlord, his enthusiasm doubled; he served tea and water, and said that if the landlord took a fancy to any magic tools in the shop in the future, he could buy them at a 10% discount—

As long as the rent for next year was a bit more favorable to him.

(End of chapter)