Chapter 189
Chapter 189
After wrestling with the enormous toad, I had not consumed very much qi.
My dantian remained full, ready to unleash another barrage of talisman arts at any moment!
My physical stamina, however, had been severely depleted.
After all, martial arts and boxing techniques emphasized explosive power above all else.
According to Master, when true experts fought, life and death were decided within a short time. No one could possibly trade blows for ages like people did in television dramas and movies.
The human body had only so much stamina, and the essence of martial arts lay in drawing out the greatest possible amount of a person’s strength!
A Roaming Body Step like the Spider Treading Water Formation, for instance, required the muscles to contract with enormous force in an instant, stretching the fascia and producing explosive speed.
That placed an immense burden on the body!
Even using it once would probably leave the muscles aching faintly for more than ten hours.
Using it repeatedly placed them under even greater strain.
But the benefits were enormous as well…
Not only had I once again avoided the beast’s pounce and poisonous gas, I had even circled behind it and reclaimed the advantage.
“Now’s my chance!”
My gaze sharpened as I drew the ritual blade from the sheath at my waist.
The qi in my dantian surged wildly through my meridians, into my palm, and from there into the blade.
At the same time, I stepped forward and plunged the ritual blade fiercely into the toad monster’s back!
Squelch…
The sound was like a sharp weapon puncturing tough leather. The toad monster’s skin looked slick and slimy, yet it was as tough as cowhide!
If the ritual blade had not possessed a powerful innate ability to destroy evil, its dull, unsharpened edge could never have pierced the creature.
The instant the blade entered its back, poisonous green pus flowed from the wound. Some even sprayed outward!
When the droplets landed in the muddy water, they hissed like water splashed into a pot of boiling oil. The sight was horrifying.
I could not imagine what would happen if any of it splashed onto a person.
Would it be like sulfuric acid?
Clearly, the fleshy lumps covering this creature were intensely poisonous. Not only could the holes at their tips spray gray toxic mist, but puncturing them made dark green venom spurt out…
Fortunately, seeing those lumps spray poison gas earlier had put me on guard.
The instant I stabbed it with the ritual blade, I dropped low again and executed the Spider Treading Water Formation, tapping rapidly through the splashing mud and dodging away.
But using the Spider Treading Water Formation twice in succession placed an enormous burden on my muscles. My calves in particular ached fiercely.
“If the beast can still leap around after taking a stab from my ritual blade, I’ll be in serious trouble. Of course, that probably isn’t possible.”
I thought to myself.
My physical stamina and qi were both heavily depleted by then.
Although drawing turbid qi into my body on New Year’s Eve had greatly improved both my physique and the amount of qi I possessed, I could still drive the ritual blade for only one strike…
At most, I no longer became weak and utterly powerless after using it as I had before. Now, I could at least retain a basic ability to fight.
Sure enough!
With the beast’s level of cultivation, it was not strong enough to withstand a killing blow from my ritual blade.
The moment it was struck, the flesh around the wound began visibly decaying.
Its skin turned the grayish white of weathered stone, and the discoloration rapidly spread across the rest of its body.
Croak, croak, croak!
It cried out in thunderous pain. No longer daring to fight me, it desperately tried to flee.
But the ritual blade embedded in its body continued radiating an intensely yang aura that ate away at both its flesh and demonic energy, draining its strength without end…
The sturdy fishing net wrapped around its entire body slowed its hopping escape even further.
Of course, I could barely run by then either–especially through a muddy rice paddy like this. I could not catch up with the enormous toad.
But I felt no urgency…
because I knew the beast could not escape!
Sure enough,
less than a minute later, before it had even crossed the shallow rice paddy, it could no longer move.
It collapsed into the muddy water. Its body continued decaying as it twitched faintly.
Weak croaks still escaped its mouth.
Croak… croak, croak…
All the vicious ferocity and violence it had displayed at first were gone. Only the feeble struggle of a dying creature remained.
I circled around to face it from several yards away and stared at it from a safe distance.
My tone was indifferent as I said,
“Beast, transforming from a lowly toad into a monster with awakened intelligence must have been an exceedingly long and difficult process, one that demanded extraordinary luck.”
“You should have cherished that fortune. You should have cultivated diligently, performed good deeds, accumulated merit, and become a benevolent monster. Only then could you avoid calamity and endure for many years.”
“Instead, you chose to become an evil monster. Not only is your body filled with vicious, sinister energy, but you devour people at the slightest impulse!”
“In Mafang Village alone, you’ve recently eaten two living people. Who knows how many evil deeds you’ve committed over the course of your long life?”
“Today, I act on behalf of Heaven and execute you. Dying at my hands and beneath this ritual blade is more fortune than you deserve.”
As I spoke, a trace of genuine regret seemed to appear amid the hatred in the toad monster’s eyes.
In truth, whether one was human or monster… following the righteous path of cultivation meant progressing very slowly.
Following a crooked and evil path, however, could perhaps produce astonishingly rapid advancement.
Many intelligent beings could not resist that temptation.
The green light in the toad monster’s eyes dimmed steadily until it faded and vanished altogether.
Its eyes became hollow and lifeless gray.
Its soul had scattered. It was completely dead!
Whew…
At last, I released a long breath and relaxed.
My legs weakened beneath me, and I dropped into the muddy water with a splash.
The battle with the toad monster really had consumed an enormous amount of my stamina and qi…
Now that I had won and all danger was gone, I no longer cared about maintaining my image. I sat directly in the mud and gulped down breath after breath.
I saw Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu peering cautiously from the distance, so I shouted,
“Chief Ma, Uncle Lu, I’ve killed the toad monster. You don’t need to worry anymore. Come over and help me figure out what to do with the body.”
Only after hearing my shout did Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu hurry back along the ridge.
They jumped into the shallow rice paddy as well and waded through the muddy water until they reached me and the toad monster’s corpse.
“Big! It really is enormous. A toad this size could scare a man to death.”
Only then did Ma Dayue have the leisure to circle the toad monster’s corpse and exclaim over it repeatedly.
Sixth Lu, meanwhile, remembered his dead friend Wang Qingzhu. He glared at the giant toad’s corpse through clenched teeth, kicked it hard several times, and muttered a stream of filthy curses…
I understood how he felt, so I did not stop him.
The toad monster was dead, and because the miraculous ritual blade had killed it, both its demonic energy and potent venom had dispersed. It no longer posed any threat to ordinary people.
Otherwise, kicking its corpse as Sixth Lu was doing would probably still have felled him with poison gas.
After venting for a while, Sixth Lu calmed somewhat and rubbed his reddened eyes.
Then he bowed deeply to me in gratitude.
“Thank you, Young Mr. Wu! If you hadn’t stepped in so generously, there’s no telling how many more people this monster would have harmed.”
Beside him, Ma Dayue hurriedly chimed in.
“Exactly! Young Mr. Wu truly is the disciple of an expert. You already have the bearing of one yourself. It’s deeply admirable.”
I waved a hand and replied with a smile,
“I’m not as noble as you two elders make me sound. Killing the toad monster rid the people of a menace and earned me merit. I’ll also receive a substantial fee and improve my own abilities. Three benefits from a single act.”
I was not someone who hid his thoughts, so I spoke very frankly.
Uh…
Of course, I was also reminding Sixth Lu not to forget the large reward he had promised!
He hurriedly thumped his chest.
“Don’t worry, Young Mr. Wu. The moment we get back, I’ll present you with the twenty-thousand-yuan fee.”
I nodded, then instructed the two men to fetch gasoline or something else flammable so we could burn the corpse. I also asked them to bring two sharp machetes. First, I wanted to cut open the beast’s belly and take a look inside.
If any undigested bones remained, we could find a place to bury them properly and let them rest in peace…
The victims had already died such miserable deaths. Leaving them inside a toad’s belly would make their fate even more wretched!
And so, Ma Dayue and Sixth Lu hurried off to gather more people and prepare everything I requested.
I rose from the muddy water, pulled the ritual blade from the toad monster’s body, rinsed it briefly in the mud and water, then returned it to its sheath.
Afterward, I slowly climbed onto the ridge and waited there.
…
Before long, the two men returned with all the tools I had requested and seven or eight able-bodied young villagers.
When the young men saw the dead toad monster in the paddy, horror spread over every face. They whispered among themselves, and when they looked at me, their eyes held a trace of awe.
Without saying much, I took a machete and cut open the monster’s belly in front of everyone.
Sure enough, the remains of two human skeletons were still inside!
Clearly, they belonged to Zhao Zhiming and Wang Qingzhu.
But which was which?
For now, we probably could not tell from the bones alone…
We could only remove them together and place them somewhere for safekeeping, then wait to see whether the mortal authorities from the township or town had any way to distinguish them.
Zhao Zhiming had been the village’s hooligan and scoundrel, while Wang Qingzhu had been Sixth Lu’s best friend.
Their funerals would certainly be conducted on different scales, so the remains had to be identified correctly.
To my immense delight, however, the beast’s stomach contained not only two partially digested human skeletons but also a smooth, perfectly round bead!
It was roughly the size of a pigeon’s egg, dark green and faintly luminescent, with the moist luster of fine jade.
“Could this… be the legendary demon core? What an unexpected surprise!”
Delight spread across my face.
Then again, this toad had grown so enormous and lived for who knew how many years. It was only natural for a demon core to have formed inside its body.
Of course, the term “demon core” sounded very mysterious and impressive.
But in truth, some ordinary people had seen similar things…
In the countryside, for example, chickens, dogs, and old oxen sometimes lived to a very advanced age.
When they were slaughtered or died naturally, people occasionally found similar solid lumps inside their bodies.
Country folk and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine called them chicken bezoars, dog bezoars, ox bezoars, bovine gallstones, and other such names. They were highly valuable and could be used medicinally to treat all manner of difficult illnesses.
In a sense, those things also counted as a kind of “demon core”–or, more precisely, the crudest embryonic form of one.
Naturally, so-called “dog bezoars,” “ox bezoars,” and “bovine gallstones” could not compare to the one in my hand!