Chapter 235
Chapter 235
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 235
>Chapter Title: Death
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In the dim and pitch-black rock cave, the echoes of "ding ding ding~ dong dong dong!" bells and drums blended into one continuous sound.
Accompanied by this noise, Wandering Lord, the two gods, and the other fellow disciples fought together against the lion dance.
Li Huowang didn't go over to help, because he saw the lion dance that had been on top earlier coming down as well. He couldn't let this ghostly thing run over and catch them in a pincer attack.
With a "clang," Li Huowang drew his sword and charged toward it with surging killing intent.
Below the lion's body covered in white tassels, dozens of pitch-black bare feet flailed wildly, charging ferociously at Li Huowang.
Soon, both sides saw each other's faces and the killing intent in each other's eyes.
As the two crossed paths, the massive lion body enveloped in a foul stench slammed heavily into Li Huowang, its white tassels scraping across his body.
Yet Li Huowang, who was hit, felt no damage on his face. He directly raised his longsword and slashed toward the empty space beside him.
The two quickly passed each other, and the end result was that Li Huowang was unscathed, while several bare human feet were left beneath the lion dance—these had been severed by Li Huowang.
Just now, Li Huowang had merely been an illusion. The lion dance hadn't attacked him at all. Even before rushing over, Li Huowang had already swapped the positions of his real body and illusion.
Seeing the unscathed Li Huowang, the giant lantern eye on the left side of the lion dance gradually shifted upward, revealing a pitch-black round hole.
Seven or eight dry, black hands like those of monkeys stretched out from within, clinging below the eye like protruding eyelashes.
Immediately after, more than a dozen eyes of various sizes crammed into that massive eye socket. The man's face twisted into a sinister expression as those ten-plus eyes fixed on Li Huowang's true body.
Li Huowang gritted his teeth, coldly eyeing the thing before him. No matter what it was, it wasn't a lion dance! Absolutely not!
"Thud." Tossing aside the crutch under his arm, Li Huowang slammed his severed foot heavily onto the ground, glaring at the thing in front of him with eyes full of killing intent.
"Come on!"
He held his longsword horizontally before his face, steeled his resolve, and directly thrust his left hand onto the blade.
With a light whoosh, two fingers splattered with blood flew into the air, swelling up. Sharp bone spurs burst through the skin and flesh, spiraling toward the lion dance.
The flying fingers were extremely fast. Before the lion dance could dodge, two bleeding red moles appeared on its massive round face.
Li Huowang's two fingers had pierced through the face and were still drilling deeper. Accompanied by the sounds of tearing flesh and blood, thick black blood slowly trickled down those bare feet.
The one controlling the lion dance was injured, but they still didn't want to give up. The lion body shook violently like a beast flinging its limbs, and the strips of white tassels on its body flew up, drifting toward Li Huowang.
Such things naturally couldn't trouble Li Huowang. An iron clamp appeared in his hand. He reached into his mouth and yanked hard, pulling out two molars.
The white teeth tumbled through the air and suddenly exploded. The flying shards of teeth effortlessly severed the white tassels, which fell limply to the ground.
The lion body was also sliced by the tooth shards, red blood staining its white form, making it look utterly wretched.
Seeing this, the lion dance seemed to know it was outmatched, but it made no sound. Instead, the human legs beneath the lion body flailed continuously, attempting to retreat into the darkness with its battered form.
Li Huowang naturally wouldn't let it escape like that. He reached into his mouth with the clamp once more.
Facing Li Huowang's onslaught, the injured lion dance couldn't hold out for long and was soon killed by him.
Without even catching his breath, Li Huowang rushed nonstop to help the others. With his joining the fray, that battle held no suspense either.
As Li Huowang leaped onto the lion's head and slashed down fiercely with his sword, he circumcised the edge of the massive dead man's face in a single ring, peeling off the entire skin.
Without its face, the entire lion dance collapsed. With a "boom!" it crashed heavily to the ground, thick black blood gradually seeping out from beneath the lion body, staining everything below red.
Li Huowang pulled his sword from the lion's back, flipped down, and panted as he looked at the others, still shaken.
"Everyone okay?"
"Nothing much, just that Gao Zhijian's left ear got brushed by a white tassel and shifted down an inch. Those white tassels must be what touched Sun Baolu back then," Chun Xiaoman replied.
Glancing at Gao Zhijian, whose one ear was now higher than the other, Li Huowang nodded. He then wiped the blood from his sword with his hem and sheathed it.
He turned around and carefully examined these two bizarrely shaped lion dances.
Behind the massive, flat human faces weren't Qingqiu folk holding up lion heads, but a swollen, mushy mass of flesh and blood.
The entire lion dance was one entity. Whether the hands propping up the lion body or the feet moving below, all came from some twisted, terrifying creature.
Inside the bloody lion dance hung various organs suspended by blood vessels, perfectly confirming Li Huowang's suspicions.
Li Huowang didn't know if it had grown like this or been made this way by humans, but either truth pointed to one bad outcome—or an even worse one.
Even more chilling was that they didn't just exist in this dark underground; they openly appeared in the Qingqiu above as well, treated as part of everyday life by the Qingqiu folk.
And what made Li Huowang feel a pang of sorrow about himself was that he realized he wasn't surprised at all.
"My heavens, what the hell are these?" The terrified Gouwa stood by, jaw dropped.
"It... it wasn't like this at all," Sun Baolu said, his expression incredibly complex as he stared at everything before him. The perceptions of over a decade were overturned by this scene.
"Senior Brother Li, what... what's going on with them?"
At this moment, standing beside the male lion, Li Huowang had no interest in the Lion Dance Palace's issues in Qingqiu. He was just a passerby, after all—what happened outside had nothing to do with him.
Right now, he was pondering a problem that directly concerned him.
Li Huowang used his sword to carefully poke through the organs inside the flesh, seemingly searching for something.
"Senior Brother Li, what are you looking for?" But Li Huowang's next words left the questioning Gouwa baffled.
"Death."
"Huh?"
Li Huowang offered no explanation, furrowing his brows as he pondered the massive remains before him.
"Something's off. Zhengde Temple worships the Flesh Buddha Ancestor, so they use flesh and blood. The nuns at An Ci Nunnery have rotting bodies, so they exploit rot. But that giant cauldron over there was dedicated to death, and this lion dance just now didn't use death at all."
With this thought, Li Huowang turned to look toward the giant cauldron again. "Could it be that besides the Lion Dance Palace... there are other sects beneath this grassland??"
The idea sent an inexplicable chill through Li Huowang's body. This place was far livelier than he'd imagined.