Scavenging

Chapter 24: Scavenging

Since he had already decided to leave, Li Huowang naturally had to suppress the hallucinations from reappearing. Otherwise, alternating between illusion and reality would make it impossible to accomplish anything.

To suppress the hallucinations, the Black Tai Sui that Danyangzi had raised was the key.

When the group reached the cavern, they stopped. They saw that the Black Tai Sui had actually crawled out of the black cauldron. This was the first time they had seen its true form.

It was a massive, slimy black body covered in mucus. At first glance, the covering on its body looked like fur, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a dense growth of dark, elongated tentacles or perhaps immature filaments.

The entire body expanded and contracted freely like a giant maggot.

Gashes dotted its bloated body. With every蠕动, a sickening stench sprayed out from them.

The sight terrified everyone. Their limbs went weak, and they nearly turned to flee.

But Li Huowang keenly sensed something wrong. The Black Tai Sui had shrunk considerably, and a black fluid was constantly seeping out from underneath it.

“What’s going on? Is its life linked to Danyangzi?” Li Huowang’s heart sank.

Thinking this, he ran out quickly. When he returned, he was holding some of Danyangzi’s remains.

Li Huowang rushed to the Black Tai Sui, dropped to one knee, and with effort, gathered the squirming mass of rotten flesh into his arms. He stuffed the remains in his hands into some of the gaps on the Black Tai Sui’s body.

If he hadn’t stuffed them, it might have been fine, but the moment he did, even more black water seeped out from its body, and it shrank even further.

Li Huowang’s face was full of panic now, as if the squirming,扭曲 black monster in his arms was not a monster at all, but his own sick child.

In his panic, he grabbed the Black Tai Sui by its sides and gently shook it. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t scare me! What am I supposed to do if you die?!”

The Black Tai Sui showed no reaction. There was no longer any sign of movement from any of its organs.

Seeing the Black Tai Sui growing smaller and smaller, Li Huowang gritted his teeth in desperation. He opened his mouth wide and bit hard into its body.

Li Huowang’s entire series of actions left Bai Lingmiao and the others utterly bewildered. They could only stand there, watching their blood-soaked Senior Brother Li hugging a squirming monster and tearing into it with big bites.

In their eyes, compared to the Black Tai Sui, Li Huowang was the real monster at that moment.

Gouwa sidled up to Zhao Wu and whispered, “Say… maybe we should go our separate ways? I’m really afraid that if I sleep next to him, he’ll eat me.”

A hint of fear began to creep into everyone’s eyes as they looked at Li Huowang.

After being concentrated, the Black Tai Sui’s flesh was noticeably firmer. Chewing it felt like gnawing on a tire.

But he couldn’t afford to care about that now. He swallowed large mouthfuls, but no matter how much he ate, he couldn’t keep up with the rate at which the Black Tai Sui was dissolving itself. Soon, nothing was left in his arms but a layer of black skin.

“Um, Senior Brother Li, are you full? If you’re full, can we set off now?” Gouwa asked carefully, trying to ingratiate himself.

Li Huowang regretfully threw the layer of fishy, stinking skin to the ground. He had no idea how long this would last. He could only hope to find another Black Tai Sui, or some other method, before the hallucinations came back.

“I’m going to change my clothes.” There was basically nothing else of value left. As for things like cultivation manuals or secret scriptures, he could forget it. Danyangzi hadn’t even known how to read.

Li Huowang took off his sticky, dirty Daoist robe and put on a new, clean blue one. He immediately felt refreshed.

After changing, Li Huowang led the others towards the entrance, explaining to them why he had done what he did.

When they understood that Li Huowang was trying to suppress the hallucinations by eating the Black Tai Sui’s flesh, the hidden anxiety in their hearts finally settled.

“Ah, so that’s what it was. I thought Senior Brother Li was just hungry,” Gouwa chimed in with a joke, lightening the mood with his flippant banter.

As they walked, a new side passage appeared in the tunnel. Li Huowang stopped for some inexplicable reason. The end of this tunnel was Danyangzi’s residence. “Should I go in and see how the three senior brothers’ fight is going?”

Although he didn’t want to get involved in their dog-eat-dog brawl, if he could help it, he didn’t want a new Danyangzi to emerge.

“Come on, let’s go take a look.” Li Huowang led his ragtag group of the weak and wounded towards it.

Arriving at the door, Li Huowang saw that the door he had just closed hadn’t been opened, proving no one had come out.

“Senior Brothers, are you done fighting? We’re leaving now,” Li Huowang called out loudly towards the room.

After waiting for a while with no response, Li Huowang pushed the door open. The pungent smell of blood hit them. A blood-soaked hand lay sprawled right in front of everyone.

Everyone’s gaze travelled upwards, and an even more bloody scene was revealed. Xuan Yuan was dead, and he had died horribly. His body was almost cleaved in two by a sword.

Changren was also dead, stabbed from behind with a sword. Xuan Yuan was a talisman practitioner, not a swordsman, so the only one who could have done it was his brother, Changming.

And the one who had survived to the end, Changming, was not in a good state either. Black threads strung with copper coins had pierced in and out of his body, sewing him entirely onto the wall. It seemed he had triggered one of Danyangzi’s contingency plans.

Changming wasn’t dead. His eyes, still full of desire, were fixed on the so-called Heavenly Scripture of Immortality.

“Cough… cough…” Seeing Li Huowang walk in, Changming, sewn onto the wall, seemed to want to say something, but the copper coins embedded in his neck had completely severed his trachea, preventing any words from coming out.

Li Huowang walked over to him, smiled, and bent down to pick up his sword.

It was a longsword, about one point two meters in length. Under the light of the oil lamp, the blade gleamed coldly. It looked very sharp.

After awkwardly swinging it a couple of times, Li Huowang said to Changming, “A fine sword, Senior Brother. It looks like you won’t be needing this for a while, so this Junior Brother will take it for now.”

“Although I’m not a sword cultivator, it’s better to have an iron tool in hand when out on the road than to go empty-handed. Don’t you think so, Senior Brother?”

Changming tried to convey something with his eyes, but Li Huowang clearly couldn’t understand.

Li Huowang fetched the scabbard from the dead Changren, sheathed the longsword, and slung it over his back.

Then came the most important part: the Heavenly Scripture.

Li Huowang turned and walked towards the scripture, which was now devoid of any protection.

It was at this moment that Changming suddenly struggled violently. With each struggle, the copper coins on the black threads dug deeper into his flesh. After a few struggles, the light in his eyes rapidly dimmed.

“Senior Brother Li, Senior Brother Changming is dead!” Gouwa exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock.

Li Huowang looked at the so-called Heavenly Scripture before him and let out a soft sigh. This thing, whoever knew where it came from, had caused the death of so many people.

Li Huowang leaned his head in closer, scrutinizing it carefully. This time, he was even more focused than when he was under Danyangzi’s coercion.

But he looked it over several times and still felt it was just a piece of scripture. Half-guessing, it seemed to be a passage encouraging people to do good.

Li Huowang took a step back. He slowly reached behind his back and drew the sword.

Clang!

The razor-sharp longsword slashed heavily down onto the stone slab carved with scripture.