Chapter 72
Chapter 72
“Golden Saddle Mountain is just ahead!”
Han Lie and his party of five found a spot to rest under a large, protruding rock in the desert.
Aman’s skin had been eighty percent ruined by the Thunderbird’s burns. He unwrapped the bandages covering his skin to treat his wounds one last time before entering the mountain.
Han Lie was a tall, burly man, but he was meticulous and gentle. After washing his hands, he helped Aman apply an ointment made from Immortal Grass to his back.
Wu Er, Wang Chang, and the others gazed into the distance at the rosy glow of Chixia Golden Saddle Mountain.
Wang Chang pulled a palm-sized wine skin from his breast pocket. He had carried it all the way from Yunwu County City, keeping it tucked against his chest.
It was meant as an offering for the brothers who had died in Golden Saddle Mountain.
The Great Xia’s brewing techniques were still quite crude, and the alcohol content of their wine was generally low.
Due to the high heat and the time spent against his chest, the wine in the skin Wang Chang carried had long since fermented and spoiled.
As soon as he opened the wooden stopper, it smelled as sour as vinegar.
Tears streamed down Wang Chang’s face as he poured the vinegary wine onto the red mountain rocks. “Brothers who are buried in Golden Saddle Mountain, please don’t be picky. Just have a sip.”
They were all comrades-in-arms who had come out of Luoyang together. Now, he couldn’t even recover their remains. The more Wang Chang thought about it, the more miserable he became, his face a mess of tears and snot.
Wu Er was also grieving, but his attention was elsewhere.
Wu Er licked the back of his hand.
He moved his hand out of the shadow and into the blazing sun.
A moment later, he hissed and pulled his hand back. A fresh sunburn mark had appeared on the back of his hand.
Wu Er’s expression grew increasingly grave.
When they had accidentally entered Golden Saddle Mountain before, they hadn’t passed through this man-eating wasteland of the Chixia Desert.
Instead, they had strayed in from the Mount Huo Range behind Golden Saddle Mountain while hunting the Monstrous Beast known as the Fei Fei.
At that time, though Golden Saddle Mountain was desolate, it didn’t have such extreme weather.
In just ten short days, the mountain had become as scorching as a charcoal brazier.
It seemed the Hanba in the mountain really was about to break out of its coffin.
Han Lie helped Aman tie the bandages, finishing with a knot under his arm.
Hearing Wu Er’s words, he grabbed a handful of sand from a rock crevice to rub off the oily residue of the ointment from his fingers. He looked toward the undulating mountain range in the distance, his expression solemn.
Suddenly, his ears twitched. He heard Qin Ying’s warning.
“A large swarm of Fei Yi has hatched and is heading your way!”
“Do you need help?”
Qin Ying wanted to see if a combination of insecticide and an igniter could achieve a mass-kill effect.
Facing the Supreme Deity’s kind inquiry, Han Lie said, “Thank you for your benevolence, Supreme Deity.”
The others had grown quite accustomed to Han Lie suddenly talking to thin air over the past few days.
Knowing he was communicating with the Supreme Deity, they felt only envy.
They all turned to watch, wanting to see what instructions the Supreme Deity had given.
Han Lie shifted his tone and shook his head. “But the Supreme Deity has already given us Toad Venom to restrain the Fei Yi, and we have plenty of Fire Oil.”
“If we still required your intervention under such circumstances, such incompetent fools would not be worthy of worshipping you.”
Hearing this, Qin Ying, outside the box, curled her lips in approval.
“Very well!” She glanced at the approaching Fei Yi swarm in the distance and commanded, “Then go! And don’t die.”
As Han Lie spoke, Aman pulled up the bandages masking his face.
Wang Chang, who had been weeping while mourning his comrades, wiped the tears and snot from his face with a sleeve.
Wu Er checked the Fire Oil.
Cheng Xuan and Zhang Fang, who had remained relatively silent and lacked much of a presence, silently drew their blades.
They moved quickly, placing the bird Stomach Sacks filled with Fire Oil within reach.
Hanging from their necks, alongside those almost toy-like Peachwood Talismans, were small cloth pouches containing pieces of Toad Venom.
*Rustle, rustle, rustle…*
The endless rustling sound came from all directions, making it impossible to tell exactly where the enemy was attacking from.
But Qin Ying could see clearly. A black mass of snakes was surging across the dunes, heading straight for Han Lie and his men with precision.
The tide of snakes was so thick it even covered the color of the Rose-colored Sand.
Qin Ying didn’t have trypophobia, but she still felt a subtle sense of unease.
Along with the psychological discomfort, a faint sense of tyranny welled up within her.
She really wanted to just stomp them all to death!
Looking back at the rock where Han Lie and the others stood, it was like a tiny, isolated island.
Qin Ying licked her lips, suppressing the urge to crush everything with her Silicone Spatula, and watched patiently.
Even a ‘Bogus Heavenly God’ should take pleasure in seeing their Vicar and Believers grow.
In the short time Qin Ying’s mind had wandered, the leading swarm of snakes had already surged onto the hill.
Han Lie and his men were dealing with the Fei Yi using their old method: burning Toad Venom to drive the snakes into a frenzy before incinerating them with Fire Oil.
Heaps of snake corpses piled up on the barren rocky hill.
As the fierce fires raged, Qin Ying, worried, used a spray bottle to sprinkle water over Han Lie and the others to cool them down, lest they be roasted alive in the high temperatures.
The timely rain Qin Ying sent down was clearly extremely effective. The large droplets washed away their sweat; Han Lie and the others felt instantly refreshed, their spirits bolstered.
Thus, a strange spectacle formed on the crimson desert.
Under the extreme heat, a wall of roaring fire blazed.
Yet, a heavy rain favored only a single crag in the desert, pouring down exclusively upon that spot.
Qin Ying, who had been observing closely, keenly noticed something: although these newly hatched Fei Yi had the appearance of adults, they were significantly weaker than the ones she had seen before Yunwu County City.
Their level of ferocity was far inferior.
Furthermore, although they had all emerged from Golden Saddle Mountain, they seemed to always revolve around a single point.
From her Divine Perspective, Qin Ying could better identify the critical point by following the movements of the snake swarm.
Seeing that Han Lie and the others could manage for the time being, she shifted her focus and switched to a higher perspective.
From there, she could indeed see that the unending stream of snakes had a center.
Qin Ying looked at the Silicone Wok Spatula in her hand.
It was a pink, heat-resistant silicone tool she’d bought online for twenty yuan; its length was just right.
As soon as the thought struck her, she acted.
She gripped the spatula and began to poke at the writhing ball of snakes.
The massive sphere was composed of surging snake bodies. The deformed forms of the Fei Yi intertwined and squirmed, their matte black scales enough to make anyone’s skin crawl.
With a look of disgust on her face, Qin Ying slapped the ball of snakes with her spatula.
As the Silicone Wok Spatula struck, she could feel a slight squelch and a sensation that was both springy and hard.
Perhaps it was the scales, or perhaps the snakes’ bones… regardless, it was a mix of revulsion and a strange sense of satisfaction.
Qin Ying raised her hand and slapped again, looking very much like a chef stir-frying a delicate dish.
After a few strikes, the spatula was covered in black and red.
It was stained with the corpses of Fei Yi that looked like tiny threadworms, dyeing the originally flesh-pink Silicone Wok Spatula a different color.
Qin Ying didn’t even notice the slightly pathological, low laughter escaping her lips.
From the perspective of the World in the Box, the giant Spoon descending from the sky again and again gained an aura of immense tyranny simply due to its gargantuan size.
Wang Chang, whose face was blackened by the smoke of burning snakes and streaked by the falling rain, couldn’t help but look at Han Lie.
He lowered his voice and asked weakly, “Does our Supreme Deity… have some kind of personal grudge against snakes?”
Han Lie turned his back and didn’t answer.
He couldn’t exactly say that the Supreme Deity was laughing while she fought, could he?
This… was likely because the Supreme Deity was angry to see the Fei Yi bringing calamity to the mortal world.
After coming up with this flawed justification for the Supreme Deity, Han Lie’s expression turned solemn, and he convinced himself first.
Just then, Qin Ying let out a soft “Huh?”
“What is that thing?”
She had scattered the snake swarm and spotted a strange object amidst the pile of snake corpses.
A matchbox-sized thing that was being carried along by the Fei Yi.
It looked like a Coffin.
Qin Ying remembered what they had entered Golden Saddle Mountain to find and hastily tried to pin the Coffin down with her spatula.
Only this time, the spatula hit nothing but air.
Seeing that things were going south, the Coffin actually dove into the sand, vanishing in an instant and leaving behind nothing but a mountain of snake corpses.