Chapter 914

Sha Jun, Ci Huang.

Note: Keep the quotes? The Chinese line includes Chinese quotation marks 「」. Should we keep them? The instruction: translate faithfully, preserve every paragraph break. It doesn't say to keep punctuation style. Usually we translate the content, not the quotation marks. But we should keep the meaning: The line is a quoted phrase: "Sha Jun, Ci Huang." We can output: "Sha Jun, Ci Huang." Including English quotes? The original had Chinese quotes; we can replace with English quotes or keep as is? Usually translation would use English quotes. I'll output: "Sha Jun, Ci Huang." with English double quotes.

Relic Bone Venerable muttered to the side: 'Your Majesty, this must be Sha Jun and Ci Huang waking up.'

Wu Tie raised his head to look at the grey-yellow sky; countless extremely fine sand particles drifted down slowly, evenly scattering onto the ground.

"Where do they come from?" Wu Yu, standing nearby, asked the Relic Bone Venerable impatiently.

"The two old monsters of the Northern Monster State are the oldest in seniority and the most unfathomable in strength." The Relic Bone Venerable said solemnly: "Just like the Four Old Ones of the Western Demon State—Lao Geda, Lao Juzi, Lao Maintou, Lao Wangzi."

Thus translation: '"The two old monsters of the Northern Monster State are the oldest in seniority and the most unfathomable in strength." The Relic Bone Venerable said solemnly: "Just like the Four Old Ones of the Western Demon State—Lao Geda, Lao Juzi, Lao Maintou, Lao Wangzi."'

The eldest of the Three Yellow Spring Venerables, strongest in strength, whose form is a jade-armored corpse, the Yellow Spring Corpse Venerable grunted with a muffled voice: 'In the past, the Northern Monster State and the Western Demon State had a conflict; the Four Old Demons joined forces, but they were almost buried alive by Sha Jun, and almost beaten into a sieve by Ci Huang alone.'

Note: The term meaning a muffled voice was translated as 'with a muffled voice'.

Wu Tie fell silent at once.

Wu Yu and several Wu Tribe Elders exchanged a glance, then immediately, with ashen faces, stepped back a few paces.

They had seen Lao Geda make a move; when Zhu Ganglie and the Golden-Eyed Demon Venerable joined forces, they were beaten to the point of barely holding on, showing how ferocious and tyrannical the Four Old Demons are.

They had seen Lao Geda make a move; when Zhu Ganglie and the Golden-Eyed Demon Venerable joined forces, they were beaten to the point of barely holding on, showing how ferocious and tyrannical the Four Old Demons are.

But even when the Four Old Demons joined forces, they had suffered losses at the hands of Sha Jun and Ci Huang.

One can imagine the strength of Sha Jun and Ci Huang.

"Such old monsters?" Wu Tie felt a bit of a headache.

"So, although the Northern Monster State has few Venerable-level beings, because these two old monsters exist, no one dares to underestimate them." The Yellow Spring Corpse Venerable said solemnly: "We all remember that when the Four Old Demons were defeated, they lowered their heads and admitted defeat, paying compensation to the Monster State with many demon offspring as sacrificial offerings."

Note: The term meaning demon offspring was translated as 'demon offspring'.

"After that battle, more than ten percent of the Demon State's territory turned completely into desert; later, after spending over a thousand years of hard work, they barely managed to restore the desert back to grassland."

The second of the Yellow Spring Corpse Venerables, whose upper body is humanoid and lower body a huge golden scorpion, the Scorpion Venerable lamented: 'Just that patch of grassland, because its earth veins were drained by Sha Jun, to this day its vitality has not recovered; aside from wild grass, nothing planted will grow.'

Note: The reference to the second Yellow Spring Corpse Venerable, whose lower body is a huge golden scorpion, was translated as such.

Wu Tie nodded, rose into the air, took a step, and arrived above the northernmost side of Dingbei City, a military city already encircled by desert.

This small military city, twenty-odd li in length and width, had evacuated all its residents; only a thousand-strong elite scout unit of the Sui Dynasty army remained stationed in the city, constantly observing the desert's movements.

But when Wu Tie arrived, this scout unit was also preparing to retreat.

Indeed, the giant cactus pillar transformed by Ci Huang had already sprouted directly from the lord's manor of the military city; a cluster a thousand zhang tall and dozens of zhang thick, the cactus pillar was densely covered in black and red poisonous spines, countless spines shooting out like bolts from a giant bed crossbow, 'whoosh whoosh whoosh' striking wildly throughout the city.

Note: The onomatopoeia was translated as 'whoosh whoosh whoosh'.

A few scouts were accidentally struck by the poisonous spines; spines as thick as a wrist pierced their bodies, and when Wu Tie arrived, those scouts had already lost all breath, completely dead.

"Sha Jun, Ci Huang, come out and talk." Wu Tie looked at the huge cactus pillar in the city and said in a deep voice: "What do you want?"

"Whoosh," a gust of wind rose several thousand zhang high from the flat ground; in the desert ahead, countless sand particles rose up, forming a huge, deathly pale face hovering in the void, its hollow eyes staring fixedly at Wu Tie.

Note: The onomatopoeia was translated as 'whoosh'.

"Offerings… to the Holy Ancestor…" the huge face transformed by Sha Jun muttered coldly: "We… have lost five Monster Venerables, leaving only us two old monsters… we… want to offer… more Monster Venerables…"

Wu Tie coldly gazed at that huge face.

After careful calculation, adding the Black Flower Samsara Buddha and the Bronze Great Square Mirror slain by the Five Elements Daoists just half a month ago, the Northern Monster State has indeed lost five Monster Venerables.

Does the Northern Monster State now have only these two old monsters left?

In other words, the Northern Monster State originally had only seven Monster Venerables. These two old fiends could no longer hold back, so they jumped out, wanting to restore the Monster State's strength?

The Northern Monster State itself has the smallest population among the four rival states, and… you also cannot clearly define whether they are beings of flesh and blood or some other inexplicable existence.

Using the monsters of the Monster State as offerings—whether the gods above will accept them—is a question.

So, the two great old monsters personally took action, coming to the Sui Dynasty to capture people?

"Once we have gathered enough offerings to sacrifice ten Monster Venerables, we will leave." In the center of the military city, the huge cactus pillar's surface displayed a twisted face full of sharp teeth: "Otherwise, we will slaughter straight from here to Sui Du."

Wu Tie sneered: 'Firewood Transmission Grand Formation, aren't you afraid?'

Sha Jun and Ci Huang laughed wildly together: 'Does the present Sui Dynasty still have the Firewood Transmission Grand Formation? The Nine Kings are in revolt—hey, hehe—they're busy saving themselves; where would there still be any Firewood Transmission Grand Formation?'

A faint glimmer of extremely fine light flashed in Wu Tie's brow; he opened his brow's divine eye and seriously swept his gaze over the desert ahead.

With his current strength, a single glance can see every speck of sand and dust within a hundred million li clearly. Moreover, the penetrating power of this divine eye is extremely strong; even if the sand and dust are buried tens or hundreds of thousands of li underground, he can see them clearly through the rock layers.

In his vision, the sky-filling, toiling earth-yellow qi swayed; strands of earth-yellow qi like blood vessels surged rapidly from the north, eroding and swallowing countless large and small tracts of land along the way.

Under the contamination of this earth-yellow qi, the other grand dao principles in the void became much dim and dull; only the vivid, mainly green-hued variegated qi mixed within the earth-yellow qi stood out clearly.

Wu Tie, through these strands of earth-yellow qi and strands of variegated qi, quickly traced them back.

One hundred li, one million li, ten million li…

Eighty million li out, in a expanse of flowing sand, Wu Tie discovered two extremely fine points of light.

One earth-yellow, one dark green; meanwhile, on the dark green point of light, faint blue, red, purple, etc., patterns appeared.

The two points of light were incredibly fine—actually a thousand times smaller than the finest dust falling in the air. Wu Tie firmly confirmed that these two points of light are where the true forms of these two old monsters reside.

It is unimaginable that this sky-covering, earth-enveloping sand, stretching billions of li, which has given rise to countless giant cactus pillars that have caused heavy losses to the northern garrison's Ci Huang, their true forms are such minuscule points of light.

Moreover, on these two points of light, Wu Tie could find no causal entanglement, no trace of fate or the river of time.

They seem to have sprung into existence out of nowhere, abruptly existing in the world, acting according to their own instincts.

As expected of the old monsters of the Northern Monster State, their modes of existence are so strange.

But Wu Tie has already found their true forms, so the following matters are easily handled.

The Yin-Yang Daoist appeared out of thin air beside Wu Tie; the innate spiritual treasure Yin-Yang Two-Qi Bottle was suddenly sacrificed, and two streams of spiritual light, one black and one white, howled as they sprayed out, fiercely sweeping toward the desert eighty million li away.