The Great Spirits and the Second Spirit

Chapter 360: The Great Spirits and the Second Spirit (Bonus Chapter, Thanks to the Alliance Leader Zhu Liuli’s Generosity!)

“Put it on. Naked doesn’t look good.” Hong Da handed his stinking beggar’s robe to the completely naked Li Huowang.

Li Huowang thanked him and draped the robe, which was hung with rusty knives, over himself.

Just as he reached out to put it on, Li Huowang saw his own bloody forearm.

The skin there seemed to have had something carved into it, but it was now completely fused together by the burns.

“Strange, what’s this about?” Li Huowang wondered in confusion, slowly lowering his hand and wrapping Hong Da’s robe around himself.

No longer naked, Li Huowang was about to turn and follow the Chief Recorder’s pace, but after just two steps, he stopped dead. “No… Something’s wrong!!”

Li Huowang quickly rolled up his sleeve, revealing the fused wound. He pulled out his dagger and sliced a cut into the skin beside it.

Gripping the skin, he yanked it hard. With a sound like tearing leather, the flesh and sinew beneath were exposed.

The characters had been carved deep, and they were clearly visible on the meat.

After staring in shock at what was written, Li Huowang whipped his head around and shouted at the Chief Recorder, “It’s a Heart-Turbid!”

Hearing this, the Chief Recorder’s expression instantly brightened. “Ah! I remember now! I summoned you all to help catch a Heart-Turbid!”

But the very next moment, the expressions of all three changed. The atmosphere became lethally heavy.

“This Heart-Turbid is already out! They’re hiding our memories of them!”

Li Huowang drew the Purple-Tasseled Sword, watching everything around him with extreme vigilance.

“Maybe even more than that,” he added. “Maybe the Heart-Turbid has already hidden some of our people, and we just don’t remember. Don’t look into its eyes.”

“Pa, pa, pa!” The Chief Recorder’s abacus beads clicked rapidly, as if he were calculating something.

When the clicking stopped, out of a group of five beads, three had been pushed up.

“Three people. The Heart-Turbid has hidden three people.” The Chief Recorder’s words sent a chill down Li Huowang’s and Hong Da’s spines. Three companions had been lost without them even knowing it.

Li Huowang’s right hand flew. He carved the Chief Recorder’s words into his own arm. That way, the Heart-Turbid couldn’t hide them.

“Let me try to force it out. You two, guard me!” The Chief Recorder slammed his abacus onto the ground and began furiously clicking it.

Hong Da’s expression turned grim as he walked over, pulling out handfuls of rusty knives. He arranged them around the Chief Recorder in the shape of a lotus, blade-sides facing inward.

With nothing else to do, Li Huowang could only stay on high alert.

Time passed. The Chief Recorder clicked his abacus again, and numbers once more lost their meaning. But this time, it wasn’t as effective as before.

Even as the Chief Recorder broke out into a sweat from his efforts, the Heart-Turbid remained invisible.

Li Huowang stared at his surroundings, his face dark. It was then that he noticed several new lines of text had appeared on his arm without him knowing.

It was his own handwriting. But the memory of writing these words had already been hidden by the Heart-Turbid.

“The Chief Recorder’s method is working, but it’s weak! We have to strain our ears, and we have to do it fast! It’s not just Tuoba Danqing and Liu Zongyuan that the Heart-Turbid has hidden. It’s also Miaomiao!”

“The Second Spirit never actually left! She secretly brought Miaomiao to help us! Go save them! We absolutely cannot let them end up like the Heart-Turbid’s family!”

Li Huowang’s body trembled. Goosebumps covered his entire skin.

Without hesitation, he tore the cotton wadding from his ears. He used his incredibly sharp hearing to observe everything around him.

At first, the noise nearly blasted his brains out. Every click of the abacus beads crashed in his ears like a clap of thunder.

“Dad, it’s too loud, it’s too loud!”

“Bear it! It’ll be over soon! We have to save your mother!” Li Huowang gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and focused all his energy on distinguishing the sounds.

It was very, very noisy at first. But as Li Huowang slowly calmed his mind, he began to hear other things.

“Uncle… crazy…”

“No, that’s not it!” Clenching his jaw, Li Huowang pressed his hands against his own head, pushing inward with all his might.

Finally, some sounds began to grow clear. It was the sound of footsteps that would appear and then instantly vanish again.

“Over… here!!” Li Huowang’s eyes snapped open. With a flash of cold steel, he swung his sword straight at a tree trunk.

The tree, as wide as a man, was cleaved in two with a single stroke, revealing a ragged, shabby man.

The man cast a dull-eyed glance at Li Huowang. In an instant, the Purple-Tasseled Sword in Li Huowang’s hand vanished.

“Here we go again, huh!” Li Huowang thrust his hands into his own abdomen and snapped off two more ribs.

With a wet pfft, the Heart-Turbid doubled over in pain and screamed, just like Li Huowang.

Ignoring the searing agony, Li Huowang charged toward the Heart-Turbid with a roar.

The male Heart-Turbid glared at him with all his might. But to his shock, the ability that had always worked before had completely failed.

By the time he came to his senses, Li Huowang was barely three yards away, and Li Sui’s tentacles were already lashing out, ready to cover the enemy’s eyes at any moment.

Even in such a desperate situation, the male Heart-Turbid was unflappable. He jerked his left hand up, and a human figure materialized out of thin air, hurtling straight at Li Huowang. It was Tuoba Danqing, who had vanished earlier.

That wasn’t all. Liu Zongyuan was tossed out right after him.

When the third person came flying out, Li Huowang’s tightly wound heart finally loosened a little. It was Miaomiao.

Forgetting the male Heart-Turbid, Li Huowang instinctively opened his arms to catch her.

But the moment he caught her securely, their eyes met. Neither of them spoke, but there was so much contained in that single gaze.

Just as Li Huowang was about to set the girl in his arms down, Bai Lingmiao slowly began to fade away. She had been hidden again.

“HEART-TURBID!!” Li Huowang roared, veins bulging on his forehead as he charged forward.

But just as he was about to get close, another figure was flung at him. This time, it was the Second Spirit.

And so it went. The hidden things were hurled out like stones by the male Heart-Turbid, one after another.

Everything that had disappeared was thrown out and then vanished again.

When it came to using his ability, this male Heart-Turbid was clearly far more skilled than the female one.

Li Huowang knew this couldn’t go on. If they kept this up, the Chief Recorder wouldn’t be able to hold out.

And if the Chief Recorder collapsed, finding this Heart-Turbid again would be harder than reaching the heavens.

He had to think of a way to counter it.

Watching the two women being thrown at him again, Li Huowang hurriedly blinked at them. Bai Lingmiao gave a tiny nod.

Soon, Bai Lingmiao and the Second Spirit began to fade away again. The moment they reappeared, surrounded by debris, Li Huowang grabbed the ribs still jutting from his chest and twisted them violently.

The Heart-Turbid doubled over in agony. In that instant, the Second Spirit, still in midair, did a quick flip. She stomped hard on Bai Lingmiao’s foot with her embroidered shoe.

Using the backward force, Bai Lingmiao shot straight toward the male Heart-Turbid.

In that same moment, Bai Lingmiao reached out and grabbed for a sword lying nearby.

“Don’t take it!!” Li Huowang yelled in a desperate attempt to stop her. That was his vanished Purple-Tasseled Sword!

Bai Lingmiao knew. But in this situation, she had no choice.

Just as the Heart-Turbid, fighting through the pain, lifted its head, the Purple-Tasseled Sword pierced its forehead with pinpoint accuracy.

The moment the Heart-Turbid died, everything around them fell silent.

Li Huowang’s eyes went wide. His gaze was locked on Bai Lingmiao’s hand, which was still holding the Purple-Tasseled Sword.

“Heh-heh…”

Bai Lingmiao suddenly began to laugh. Her body hunched slightly as she laughed together with the Second Spirit. And then the laughter grew louder and louder.

“HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!”

Thank you to the Alliance Leader for the 100,000 Qidian coin tip!! Thank you, everyone. Happy 520 to you all!