The Offering

The battle in the cave shifted with every passing moment.

With most of the Renxiao thrown off by the phantom’s feint, Li Huowang had no intention of missing this opportunity.

He had figured it out now. This Daoist Renxiao was indeed powerful, but there was a prerequisite—like any ordinary Daoist, it had to perform a ritual before it could strike.

As long as he forced the thing into close combat, it wouldn’t have the breathing room to work its magic.

“Jump!”

Seven or eight black tentacles bent sharply, then sprang off the ground, the force of it launching Li Huowang straight at the Daoist Renxiao, which was still tangled in its own sheath of flesh.

A sharp clang rang out. The other’s peachwood sword cracked. The old nun’s weapon was brutally sharp—this Renxiao’s blade was no match for the military sword in Li Huowang’s hand.

Sensing defeat, the Daoist Renxiao immediately used the force of Li Huowang’s blow to retreat, pulling backward as quickly as it could.

Li Huowang wasn’t about to let it go. When the other stepped back, he pressed forward, giving chase without a pause. He wouldn’t give it even a single second to start a ritual.

Seeing its master at a disadvantage, a white horsetail whisk—its strands threaded with black talismans the size of fingernails—was hurled over.

The Renxiao’s long, thin nails hooked the whisk and wrapped it around Li Huowang’s weapon in a single, fluid motion.

Soft overcoming hard. The white strands of the whisk snapped one after another under the blade’s edge, but for the moment, they held fast.

The two sides were deadlocked again. Now it was a race—would Li Huowang cut through the whisk first, or would the Renxiao reinforcements arrive in time?

But Li Huowang just looked at the hideous monster in front of him and let out a cruel smile.

“You ganged up on me with your disciples first. Don’t blame me if I don’t play fair now. Do it!”

The words had barely left his mouth when the tentacles beneath him moved. Slithering up from under the hem of his robe, they reached his kit of torture instruments, grabbed one after another, and drove them straight into the Renxiao’s belly.

Soon, the thing’s opened abdomen was a churning, shredded mess.

As the Daoist Renxiao clutched its stomach and crumpled to the ground, Li Huowang pulled the Purple-Tasseled Sword free from the loosening whisk in one hand. He raised it high and brought it down.

The Renxiao’s head hit the floor.

Drenched in blood, Li Huowang turned to face the remaining Renxiao. Though they still outnumbered him, they stopped in their tracks. They were afraid.

“Forward!”

Burning with killing intent, Li Huowang roared and raised the Purple-Tasseled Sword high, charging at the swarm of Renxiao that outnumbered him a hundred to one.

Without their leader, the rest scattered. The moment their backs were turned, it became a slaughter. The only question was how many he’d cut down.

Two hours later, the cavern was nearly cleared. A few had fled, but the rest were no longer a threat.

The writhing tentacles moved like spider legs, dragging Li Huowang toward the lower half of his body that had been left behind.

He was exhausted, but he forced himself to stay lucid. Grabbing his own waist, he pulled on his lower half like a pair of trousers.

The black tentacles burrowed into the flesh, bridging the severed connection between his body parts.

At first, Li Huowang felt nothing from his lower half.

But gradually, his toes could move. The foot impaled by the black triangular flag began to feel pain again.

The circular talisman drawn on the ground had long since scattered. Li Huowang bent down and pulled the black flag out of his foot.

Standing up again, he surveyed the chaos around him. The place had become a muddy pool of blood. It was hard to find a single clean patch of ground.

With the enemy eliminated, Li Huowang laughed. He realized he laughed more now than he used to. In the past, he’d gone long stretches without laughing.

After a moment, he stopped. He reached down and touched his abdomen.

“Thanks. Looks like I underestimated you. You’re more useful than I thought.”

Then the fragmented sounds reached his ears again. Compared to before, after all the hours he’d spent teaching it, the words were still halting and broken—but at least it could express simple ideas now.

Li Huowang figured he should invest more effort into the Black Tai Sui from now on. For some reason, the Black Tai Sui he’d eaten seemed far smarter than the ones outside.

He wondered if it was because it had absorbed something from inside him.

“Could it be that the flesh and blood of a Heart-Element can make a Black Tai Sui develop sentience?”

For a moment, Li Huowang’s thoughts wandered. His body was a mess of wounds, and he was still in tremendous pain, but somehow, he had gotten used to it.

“Be careful. Black Tai Sui aren’t that generous. It crawled into your belly specifically to take over your body in the end.”

Hongzhong’s words wiped the smile off Li Huowang’s face. “That’s my business! Who asked for your opinion?”

“Can’t tell good advice from bad, can you?” Irritated, Hongzhong’s body flickered faintly before retreating back underground.

Li Huowang snorted coldly and pulled out the True Sutra of the Fire Vestments to treat his wounds.

Walking like a toddler learning his first steps, Li Huowang staggered through the darkness toward the cave where the babies had been.

The old people were still there. In this environment, they had nowhere to run.

“Pick up the children. We’re leaving.” Li Huowang’s voice was cold as he ordered them.

The remaining old people obeyed. None dared to argue—the Daoist robe he wore was still dripping blood.

They had gone looking for the Son of the Water to begin with, tricked or deceived, but their fundamental need was the same: they didn’t want to die.

Li Huowang counted. Thirty-one surviving infants. There had been more, but the chaos of the battle had destroyed a few of the cradles.

Stumbling along on unsteady legs, Li Huowang held a child in his single arm and led the trembling old people toward the cave entrance.

Just as they were about to leave, the headless body of the Daoist Renxiao suddenly moved.

Li Huowang tossed the child aside in an instant. With a sharp clang, he drew the Bronze Coin Sword and aimed it at the corpse.

When he saw it reach toward its chest as if to pull something out, Li Huowang swung his blade and severed its arm in one clean stroke.

As the arm fell, the pouch in its hand scattered.

Pellets wrapped in black talismans—Yang Life Pills—spilled into the semi-coagulated blood on the ground.

“Yang Life Pills?” Li Huowang prodded one of the pills with his sword tip, mildly surprised.

“What’s this? Trying to buy its life with Yang Life Pills?”

At that moment, the corpse moved again. It raised its other hand, gathered the bloodstained pills on the ground, and pushed them toward Li Huowang.

When it was done, the body went completely limp, no longer moving.

Li Huowang counted carefully. Seventy-nine Life Pills in total. If he ate them all, they might be enough to keep him going until he turned into a Renxiao himself.