Chapter 479
Chapter 479
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 479
>Chapter Title: Counter
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With the friction of the fire striker, sparks fell onto Li Huowang's skin.
Boom! Amid the excruciating pain that nearly made him pass out, Li Huowang's entire body erupted into violent flames.
The extreme heat warped the surrounding air, and his body rapidly charred black.
But when he saw the nine-colored deer billowing with black smoke, Li Huowang's lipless mouth grinned sinisterly as he charged toward it.
When the flaming Li Huowang slammed heavily into that mass of flesh and blood, the lump instantly burst into flames, engulfed by roaring inferno.
As he watched the flesh twist and blacken under the intense blaze, Li Huowang breathed a slight sigh of relief. It seemed he had chosen correctly by not turning his skin into a lifesaving talisman before coming here.
But gradually, as the writhing flesh stopped moving, Li Huowang sensed something was off.
He rushed into the fire, raising the Violet Tassel Sword in his hand and slashing heavily at the charred lump, flipping it inside and out. Yet he found no trace of the spirit fiend he sought.
"It got away!" Li Huowang's face turned extremely grim. This spirit fiend was far more cunning than he had imagined.
"Let's see where you can run to!!" Scanning the surroundings, Li Huowang crouched down and pressed his hand against the weeds and deadwood on the ground. Soon, with him at the center, a ring of flames spread outward, climbing onto the surrounding peach trees like living creatures.
Like a contagious plague, tree after tree ignited, quickly turning the area into a sea of fire.
Standing amid the flames, Li Huowang scanned his surroundings, searching for any anomaly. Yet nothing happened. The spirit fiend hadn't been flushed out by the blaze—this thing was even harder to deal with than he thought.
"What now? If it escapes, tracking it down again will be a real hassle." After pondering for a moment, Li Huowang prepared to divine its location.
But just as he sliced open a gash on himself with his sword, he saw a patch of flame on the back of his hand suddenly come alive, burrowing straight into his wound.
"Damn it! The spirit fiend latched onto the fire!!" Li Huowang realized it then, but it seemed too late.
The flames on his body and the peach trees around him extinguished instantly. And his body began to collapse just like the nine-colored deer's had before—flesh, bones, skin, and hair gradually separating, melting into a puddle.
The agony of every inch of flesh tearing apart was vividly real to Li Huowang. The sensation of his entire body melting and ripping was a torment that could drive anyone to beg for death.
Yet at that moment, Li Huowang couldn't even die, because the spirit fiend was nearly taking control of his body!
He could feel its malice—pure malice that despised and loathed everything in the world, from inside to out, relentlessly assimilating his consciousness.
The spirit fiend didn't seem like some living creature at all, but the very embodiment of sin! Even the wickedest person would harbor some shred of good!
Feeling half his face slide off onto the ground, Li Huowang clenched his teeth and balled his fists.
"My body's perfectly healthy! There's no spirit fiend inside me!"
In a brief daze, Li Huowang's melted body suddenly restored itself, even his skin sacrificed to Ba Hui returning.
But Li Huowang knew this was just an illusion—he couldn't fool it for real yet!
Seizing that instant, Li Huowang bolted toward the edge of the peach grove on foot.
When he spotted the carriage again, his body collapsed like tofu. Just before his head separated, he shouted toward it,
"Li Sui! There's something in my body! Help me drive it out!"
No sooner had he spoken than Li Huowang's body turned into a writhing puddle of flesh, slithering deeper into the peach grove.
"Da-da-da." Rapid footsteps rang out. Under the spirit fiend's control, Li Huowang's eyes twisted around, spotting a skinless, raw-fleshed hound charging toward him on all fours.
"Dad, I'm here!!" Mid-leap, Li Sui's body disintegrated, flesh and tentacles swiftly merging into a mass that smashed down onto Li Huowang's puddle.
The two masses of flesh intertwined, twisting into a gigantic, tentacle-covered meat blob that rolled violently through the burning peach grove.
Li Huowang's face and Li Sui's face emerged sporadically from the blob, only to vanish quickly again. The mass would sometimes coalesce into humanoid form, then dissolve back into a puddle, unstable and erratic.
The spirit fiend seemed intent on claiming Li Sui's body as well, but it wasn't that easy. After all, the Black Tai Sui abomination was born for possession, and Li Huowang, having clawed back some control, was interfering too.
Faced with a two-against-one fight, the spirit fiend ultimately lost. When Li Huowang's body reformed into a massive fatty, his belly ripped open as something burrowed out.
Li Huowang tried to spot it but couldn't see a thing. He could only watch as two freakish toe prints in the ash-covered grass vanished swiftly around a distant corner.
That was the spirit fiend—it could never be seen by those burdened with the Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings.
"Dad, you okay?" As Li Sui emerged from Li Huowang's abdomen, his bloated body finally returned to normal.
Though his organs were a jumbled mess, with some even reconnected wrong, at least this time, his body was fully his own.
Staring at those two bizarre toe prints in the plant ash on the ground, Li Huowang clutched his abdominal wound, eyes burning with hatred. He'd endured every hardship, only to nearly fall here.
Gritting his teeth against the pain searing his skin, he followed the prints deeper in.
"Li Sui, wait outside. Rush in if I call for you! Otherwise, stay with Miao Miao!"
This time, Li Huowang moved slowly through the burning woods, proceeding with utmost caution.
He focused every ounce of attention, listening to every sound around him. If he couldn't see it, he'd hear it!
This thing was far more cunning than he'd imagined—he needed a one-shot kill.
Suddenly, Li Huowang heard faint rustling sounds coming from behind him.
He didn't react immediately but walked slowly forward instead. Spotting a tree hollow pierced straight through, he bent down and crawled inside, as if searching for something.
At that moment, behind Li Huowang, two sets of bizarre footprints appeared in the plant ash on the ground. It moved swiftly toward his feet, poised to burrow into the cracked flesh.
But the instant it entered, the spirit fiend realized something was wrong—this person's body was only the lower half. The upper half, head and all, was gone.
"Heh heh... Got you at last. Didn't expect me to use my own lower body as bait, did you?"
(End of chapter)