Chapter 303
Chapter 303
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 303
>Chapter Title: Impermanence
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A face stretched several feet long, with a blood-red tongue two or three feet long dangling from its mouth.
Beneath this terrifying visage was a hunched body over ten meters tall—this was a twisted, gigantic White Impermanence!
That wooden head swaying endlessly in the air before was merely a pendant hanging from its chest!
"Crack crack," accompanied by this bizarre sound, the White Impermanence half-squatted and peered and sniffed toward Li Huowang's direction, huffing and puffing as if searching for something.
Li Huowang was invisible right now, but clearly this thing could sense something. It was only a matter of time before he was discovered.
"This thing is absolutely not easy to deal with!" Li Huowang didn't hesitate at all and unleashed his trump card without a second thought.
He raised his right hand toward the White Impermanence, fingers splayed wide.
With a swift chop of his hand, "squish," his left arm severed cleanly and shot out at extreme speed, embedding itself right into the White Impermanence's eye.
As the White Impermanence opened its mouth and let out a deafening roar, Li Huowang leaped up without hesitation, sword in one hand, and jumped straight into its maw.
Its razor-sharp claws whistled through the air toward Li Huowang, but because its eye was injured, its aim was off—it merely left a deep gash on Li Huowang's neck.
The next moment, amid the constant sound of tearing flesh, Li Huowang slid straight down its throat.
Just as he was about to reach the bottom, a wooden mask from who-knows-where clamped directly onto Li Huowang's face.
In an instant, Li Huowang felt the world spin, his vision going dark as he lost the ability to breathe.
He shook his head violently, struggling to dislodge the thing from his face, but no matter what he did, the mask stayed firmly affixed.
Li Huowang immediately pulled out a thin willow-leaf dagger and jammed it along the edge of his jaw.
He pried up a large flap of his own facial skin and gasped desperately for air, but he sucked in nothing.
"What's going on?!" In his desperation, Li Huowang quickly scanned his surroundings.
When he saw neither Red nor the monk, alarm bells rang in his head, and he snapped awake.
The next moment, there was no gigantic White Impermanence around him. The misty forest was now brightly lit.
But the one thing that hadn't changed was that he still couldn't breathe.
His face turning purple from asphyxiation, he reached for his neck and felt a rope fully embedded in his flesh.
Gripping his sword hilt, he pressed his thumb down and slashed hard at the rope.
Accompanied by an utterly chilling scream, foul-smelling blood sprayed from the rope strangling Li Huowang's neck.
The rope snapped back into the woods, and Li Huowang plummeted from midair like a corpse.
"Daoist, Daoist, are you alright?" The monk hurried over, asking with concern.
Li Huowang clutched his neck and shook his head unsteadily as he stood. "I'm fine."
After answering the monk, Li Huowang immediately looked around.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, sprinkling onto the forest floor. The scene was so utterly normal, as if everything before had been an illusion.
"An illusion?" Li Huowang glanced at his intact left arm, a hint of confusion in his eyes.
But soon he touched the wound clawed by the White Impermanence's nail, and his gaze hardened.
"This absolutely wasn't an illusion. I just don't know what trick the thing I fought used."
Fortunately, that strike had injured it, so it probably wouldn't come back for a while.
"Oh no!" Li Huowang suddenly remembered something and rushed off to the left.
When he burst out of the woods and saw the Bai family members still huddled together with their wooden yokes, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good, no matter what, at least everyone's safe."
When Li Huowang approached, he clearly frightened the Bai family.
A daoist with a copper coin mask, blood streaming from his neck, approaching with sword in hand—who wouldn't be scared?
"Crack." The thick wooden yoke split open.
As Li Huowang hacked away with his sword to free them one by one, the Bai family realized this man had come to save them, and many of the women burst into tears.
In any clan, the elders always held the most sway, and Oxheart Village was no exception.
An elder with only one remaining lower incisor led the others in trembling to their knees before Li Huowang. "Thank you, benefactor, for saving our entire village."
Li Huowang quickly supported him with his hands. "Grandpa, don't do that—you'll shorten my lifespan. I was entrusted by Miss Bai Lingmiao to come rescue everyone."
At these words, several people in the crowd grew incredibly agitated. The beautiful woman who resembled Bai Lingmiao by seventy or eighty percent wept with joy and said to the sturdy man beside her, "Head of the house! The girl is fine! She's still alive! Our girl is still alive!"
With a "buzz," Li Huowang was instantly surrounded by Bai Lingmiao's relatives, all chattering at once so he didn't know which question to answer first.
"Enough!" A loud, resonant rebuke silenced everyone.
The speaker was the robust man supporting the one-toothed elder, his chin framed by a thick beard that gave him an air of stern authority even at rest.
"Can't you see the benefactor is injured? And is this the place to talk?"
With that, he clasped his hands in a fist toward Li Huowang. "I am Bai Sai, patriarch of the Bai clan. Benefactor, how about we leave this place first?"
Li Huowang touched the wound on his neck and nodded. "Alright, let's leave first."
Though he'd driven that thing away, there was no guarantee it wouldn't return with friends to settle the score.
Everyone, freed from their yokes, clustered around Li Huowang as they departed.
Along the way, the others clearly wanted very much to talk to Li Huowang, but out of respect for the man's prestige, no one dared speak.
Some couldn't hold back, though. Bai Lingmiao's mother held out a handkerchief with both hands toward Li Huowang.
"Benefactor, your neck is still bleeding. Use this to staunch it for now."
After Li Huowang thanked her and took the handkerchief, the woman couldn't help but ask, "How is my girl, Bai Lingmiao? Has she grown taller? Has she lost weight? Has she been bullied out there?" Her words brimmed with concern.
Looking at her, Li Huowang thought of his own mother, always worrying without end.
"Auntie, she's doing well, hasn't suffered much hardship. She just often speaks of you."
Hearing Li Huowang's answer, the beautiful woman couldn't hold back her tears again.
Li Huowang gathered his thoughts. He knew that until he got to the bottom of the whole story, this matter was far from over.
He turned his gaze to Bai Sai, who was supporting the one-toothed elder. "Patriarch Bai, could you explain what exactly happened? Why were you all captured? And what was that thing I fought just now?"
At Li Huowang's question, the murmurs around them quieted instantly as everyone looked over.
Bai Sai let out a long sigh before speaking. "Benefactor, to be honest, I have no idea why. Ever since my son picked up that stone, all sorts of strange things started happening."
"And now we've ended up like this, inexplicably fitted with wooden yokes and forced onward by those wooden-masked people."
"Luckily, benefactor saved us. Otherwise, who knows where they'd have dragged us off to."
Li Huowang's brow furrowed. The man had said a whole lot, yet it felt like he'd said nothing at all.
"Heh, Li Huowang, be careful. This kid's lying to you."
Li Huowang looked up toward Red, who had spoken.
(End of chapter)