Collect

Chapter 212: Collect

The fact that Peng Longteng could still move after losing her head was something Li Huowang had never anticipated. Consequently, he was completely unprepared for it.

Moreover, having had his skin stripped from his body, his consciousness was nearly obliterated by the pain, and his movements had become agonizingly sluggish. There was no time to react; all he could do was watch helplessly as the enormous halberd came crashing down towards his skull.

“Is this it? Am I going to die?” The thought surfaced in Li Huowang’s mind, but instead of fear, he felt a flicker of relief.

In that hair’s breadth of a moment, a figure leaped high into the air with a furious roar, slamming into Peng Longteng’s left shoulder. The impact knocked her heavy, armored form slightly off balance.

The giant halberd cleaved down, missing Li Huowang’s left side by a hair’s breadth. Even Li Huowang himself was astonished to have survived such a certain death.

Blinking through his blurred vision, he saw that the person who had crashed into Peng Longteng was Gao Zhijian.

The next instant, a crimson figure pounced over to Li Huowang. The beast’s head beneath the red bridal veil snapped open its gaping jaws, clamped down on Li Huowang’s scorched-black neck, and scrambled away on all fours, rapidly retreating from Peng Longteng’s vicinity.

Dragged along the ground like this, Li Huowang stared at the white clouds in the sky and smiled inexplicably. There were people risking their lives to save him… that was a good feeling.

The charred Li Huowang was pulled to the side, and the beast’s head beneath the veil released him, immediately turning and charging back towards the distance.

The enemy could still move. Li Huowang refused to just lie there waiting. Struggling to sit up, he spoke to Gouwa, who was rushing over to him. “Go… get the Thousand Greats Record back for me.”

Gouwa swallowed nervously. He wanted to reach out and support Li Huowang but didn’t know where to start. “Senior Brother Li, what Thousand Greats Record? Where is it?”

“It’s… it’s…” As Li Huowang raised his mangled finger to point at the foot of Peng Longteng, a figure darted out. It was Chun Xiaoman, who snatched the Thousand Greats Record from the ground.

Before Li Huowang could speak, the battle situation shifted abruptly. With a wet pfft, Gao Zhijian’s robust body hung limply from the heavy halberd.

The gap in strength was too vast. He was no match for her.

“Give me the Record! Now!” Li Huowang’s eyes were bloodshot. He took two steps towards her, only to stagger and fall. His body was too weak.

At this moment, he was like a man made entirely of charcoal, pieces crumbling off him with every step.

Chun Xiaoman looked at Li Huowang, who was in an utterly miserable state, then at Peng Longteng, who was shaking Gao Zhijian’s body off her halberd.

Steeling her heart and gritting her teeth, she spread the Thousand Greats Record open on the ground. Raising her longsword, she aimed it at her own left arm and chopped down without hesitation.

The severed arm, separated from Chun Xiaoman’s body, rapidly turned to an iron-grey rust. The hair on the arm thickened and lengthened, writhing and lashing, before finally transforming into a mass of tentacles. These tentacles, following the motion of the arm, twisted and burrowed into the soil.

Just as Peng Longteng raised her giant halberd with both hands and prepared to charge at Li Huowang, the thing erupted from the earth, slamming into her breastplate with tremendous force, sending her towering form flying backwards.

The impact was immense; the giant halberd was nearly knocked from Peng Longteng’s hands.

At that moment, the crimson-veiled woman who had just arrived planted all four limbs on the ground and launched herself into the air. The outlines of three rotting wolf skulls pushed out from beneath the veil, sinking their fangs deep into the heavy halberd in Peng Longteng’s grip.

From a distance, the spirit-drum and the chant began, perfectly timed.

“Dong dong dong! The Ao Fish holds the earth, the earth holds the sky; a pair of orioles keep watch at its side. When the Ao Fish blinks, the earth does move; when the Ao Fish turns, the earth shakes the heavens, and the world is overturned! Dong dong dong!”

The woman twisted in mid-air, contorting her body to an angle no ordinary person could achieve. With this rotational force, she finally wrenched the giant halberd from Peng Longteng’s grasp.

Peng Longteng, decapitated and disarmed, had her fate sealed. The tentacles from Chun Xiaoman’s stump lashed out, wrapping tightly around her entire form.

The woman in the red bridal veil spat the halberd to the ground and, with three beast skulls hovering around her, strode towards Peng Longteng.

The hard armor plates were torn away, followed by Peng Longteng’s flesh. Under the tearing of sharp fangs, deep white bone began to show through the blood and meat.

Seeing that everything was over, Li Huowang, who had been held together solely by sheer will, quickly sank into unconsciousness.

His final words before losing consciousness were, “Quick… save Gao… Zhijian.”

Lying in a hazy daze, Li Huowang teetered on the edge of death, his consciousness blurry.

“So tired. No… I can’t give up. Someone is waiting for me.”

“Others paid such a price to save me. I absolutely cannot die…”

“Who? Who is watching me? Who are you?”

How much time passed, he didn’t know. Extremely weak, Li Huowang slowly opened his lone eye. The familiar swaying motion told him he was lying on an ox-cart.

He shifted his gaze downwards and saw Bai Lingmiao, her eyes a little red. She was holding a clay pot and using a cloth to dip into something that looked like yellow butter, gently applying it to his body.

Li Huowang struggled to part his cracked lips, which had stuck together. Traces of blood dripped from the corners of his mouth. “How is Gao Zhijian?”

His hoarse voice made Bai Lingmiao jump. Clutching the pot, she leaned closer to his head, tears welling up in her eyes again.

“How is Gao Zhijian?” Li Huowang asked again. What worried him most now was Gao Zhijian, who had been impaled on the halberd.

Bai Lingmiao gently tugged her sleeve to wipe away her own excited tears. “He’s fine. I invited the Immortal to save him. The blow didn’t hit his vital spot.”

“Then… that’s good.” Li Huowang smiled. He tried to struggle upright, but Bai Lingmiao quickly stopped him.

“Senior Brother Li, you can’t move yet. I’m applying rat oil for you. My mother always said rat oil is the best thing for burns.”

Li Huowang complied. Lying there, his entire body charred black, he let her apply the oil, over and over again.

Through Bai Lingmiao’s account, Li Huowang learned everything that had happened after he blacked out.

No one knew exactly what technique Peng Longteng had cultivated, or how she could still move without a head. No one else knew.

The only thing they knew for certain was that this executioner, whose hands were stained with so much blood, was finally dead. Death had come for her, a kind of cosmic justice.

Peng Longteng’s bones were incredibly hard, impossible to break apart. Only after all her flesh and blood had been torn away, leaving her a complete skeleton, did she finally stop moving.

With the immediate crisis resolved, the others hurried through the mountain pass and into the territory of Qingqiu to avoid retaliation from the remaining convict-soldiers.

The ox-cart was quiet for a while. Then, Bai Lingmiao spoke with some hesitation. “Senior Brother Li, that divine ability you have to regrow your hand… could you teach it to Sister Xiaoman? She lost her hand.”

“Even though she always says it’s nothing, she’s still so young. She has her whole life ahead of her.”