Chapter 352: Thousand Transformations

Xu Yuan watched helplessly as the scammer ghost hid to one side and deliberately provoked three terrifying figures.

It felt very much like... an ant hiding and sticking out a leg, trying to trip an elephant.

The leader was on par with Qiu Ningtai's level.

And Qiu Ningtai could trade blows with the Ja-Ya regarding the "symptoms."

The subordinate who constantly sniffed the air with his nose was a seventh-rate Rank Dan Xiu.

A mouthful of fire burned the scammer ghost to ashes, and he found it amusing: "Yo-ho, a scammer ghost is hiding here; this is the first time I've encountered such a fiend."

Xu Yuan felt helpless; this scammer ghost... truly deserved to die.

After burning the scammer ghost to death, the three sniffed the scent again, continued searching for the Ghost-Needle Wood, and then slowly walked away.

Xu Yuan hesitated, unsure whether to follow the three.

That my lord asked, "Why is Deng Linyue still not seen?"

"Your subordinate has already arranged personnel to reveal the news of the Ghost-Needle Wood to him at the precise time; by rights, he should have arrived."

"He is the bait I released for the Ghost-Needle Wood to eat. If he does not come, we must find another piece of bait. When the Ghost-Needle Wood has consumed a powerful cultivator and is about to sprout its fourteenth eye, that True Seed will be in its most mature state."

Another subordinate then said, "Then shall we capture Qiu Ningtai?"

"No, that fellow may be a hypocrite, but his family's power is too great; there will be trouble in the future."

This my lord had narrow eyes, high cheekbones, and a date-pit-shaped face, with a sinister and ruthless countenance.

What left a deep impression was a patch of purple-black tattoo on his left face.

Xu Yuan was somewhat far away, and besides, he was in Lin Zi, where the line of sight was constantly blocked; he could only see vaguely that the pattern looked like a Yin Ghost or a Fiendish Beast.

It opened a huge mouth, as if devouring something.

The subordinate said, "But there are no other living people in this mountain to be found, let alone cultivators."

"Heh!" my lord let out a strange laugh: "How could there be none? Those mountain runners in the village seem very suitable to this my lord!"

"Massacre the village?" the subordinate hesitated somewhat: "These villages in the mountains are somewhat eerie; if those villagers fight us to the death, it will not be easy to deal with them."

my lord feigned anger and glared at him: "Nonsense! We are legitimate officials of the Huang Ming; do you think we are that band of bandits from the Demon-Extermination Army? Massacring villages at the drop of a hat? This my lord has his own methods to find those mountain runners."

"They like to run wild in the mountains and spend little time in the villages; we need only capture the mountain runners."

"Hehehe." The two subordinates stepped forward, clasped their hands, and apologized: "Your subordinate was wrong."

Xu Yuan had already secretly followed up, hearing this and frowning deeply.

That Rank Dan Xiu's nose was obviously several times larger than normal, thick and coarse; if one looked closely, one would discover it resembled a tiger's nose somewhat.

He constantly sniffed the air for scents.

After searching for a while, he suddenly trembled all over and could not stand.

Another person supported him, and he forcefully tore his nose off.

A large patch of living flesh on the nose was torn away.

The flesh not only refused to detach but spread out large patches of blood threads and flesh threads, each one trying to drill into his facial skin.

After the Rank Dan Xiu tore it off with all his might, he clenched his fist tightly; a ball of fire rose in his palm, turning this flesh back into a Strange Pill.

His nose was covered in fresh blood.

He hurriedly used a medicinal pill to treat it.

"The Yin Qi in this mountain is too heavy," the Rank Dan Xiu said. "The usable time of the Strange Pill is shortened by nearly half compared to outside the mountain."

If not removed immediately, this Strange Pill would go completely out of control, drilling through the flesh and into his brain.

my lord looked around and said helplessly, "This way we cannot find the Ghost-Needle Wood; let us first capture a mountain runner."

He then led the two out of Lin Zi and left; no one knew what methods he possessed to find mountain runners in the vast Dashan.

Xu Yuan quietly followed again.

After they left, a small grass blade tens of zhang away from where the scammer ghost had been burned to ashes suddenly began to sway.

Afterwards, Yin Qi surged out like a fountain.

The small grass grew rapidly.

In an instant, it transformed into a large tree.

The trunk was ancient, and the bark was rough and cracked.

Within those cracks, strange dark-yellow eyes flickered.

These eyes were different from human eyes and beast eyes alike.

The iris was dark yellow, the pupil blood-red, yet extremely small, only the size of a needle tip.

Each iris contained three pupils.

More than half of the thirteen eyes were on the trunk, while the rest hung from the treetops, vigilantly staring at all movements around.

The soil around it rapidly turned a gray-black color.

Beneath, the roots writhed constantly, and the ground undulated like water waves.

The "thousand transformations" of the Ghost-Needle Wood were not merely changes in appearance.

It was a true transformation into "another kind" of plant.

Even the scent changed into that of another thing.

That is why the Rank Dan Xiu smelled the Ghost-Needle Wood's aura nearby.

But after limiting the scope to this area, he could not find exactly where it was.

The Ghost-Needle Wood was terrified and furious.

The scammer ghost was its spy, yet it was not watching by the river, indicating that the river was no longer safe.

And those three people had been tracking it; despite its many transformations, it could not completely shake them off.

At least two groups in this mountain were targeting it!

Ghost Needle Tree found it hard to decide: flee this Great Mountain immediately, or take one last risk tonight and go to Pig-Call Rock again.

Somewhere on its trunk, a strange tree gall had already begun to grow.

It looked very much like... a malignant sore growing on a human body!

For a human, growing a malignant sore is never a good thing.

But for an evil spirit, this is a good thing.

For Ghost Needle Tree to grow its fourteenth eye, it also needed some external aid.

It had accidentally stumbled upon the battle between the Pus Crow and that human cultivator.

Those ailments could not only help it sprout its fourteenth eye, but also grant it the power of those ailments itself.

If successful, from now on, as long as it remained in Lin Zi, anyone who entered Lin Zi would fall ill immediately.

Right now, the fourteenth eye still lacked a bit of refinement.

If it supplemented a bit more "ailments" tonight, that should be enough.

It hesitated greatly, and the tree gall writhed along with it, as if something inside was influencing Ghost Needle Tree's decision.

Suddenly, a large white bird flew in from the distance.

This bird was extremely plump, so its flight posture was not particularly graceful or free.

It wobbled through several dozen zhang, and just as it seemed about to crash into a tree branch, it flapped its wings a few times separately, managed to rise a bit higher, then awkwardly dodged several branches before gliding straight into Ghost Needle Tree.

Thump!

Ghost Needle Tree was stunned; what was this thing?

The two claws of that big white bird gripped the trunk, but could not hold on firmly, sliding down a bit.

One of Ghost Needle Tree's branches hung down, with an eyeball dangling from it.

It saw clearly now; the reason it couldn't hold on was that they were not claws at all, but two webbed feet.

This thing was not some big white bird, but a big goose.

It hugged the trunk tightly, struggled to climb up a bit, then aimed at the tree gall and, like a woodpecker, began to peck and chip away with its flat beak: tuk-tuk-tuk!

(End of this chapter)