Chapter 110: AND IT STRIKES

CHAPTER

110

AND IT STRIKES

JIEYUAN

—∞—

As if the menacing, unblinking, slitted stare of the green snake head wasn’t bad enough, the green half of the snake lifted itself higher into the air, arching its upper half. The hiss came next, and the sound of it could’ve frozen flame.

Jieyuan snapped a glance at Meiyao. She was still standing over the white half of the snake, which, thank the Heavens, was concentrated on her. Even with Meiyao’s back in the way, that only blocked the middle third of the snake’s head–its two massive, burning eyes were well in sight, and fixed on Meiyao.

That was only part of the problem solved, though, and whatever Meiyao was doing right now, it didn’t seem to be working on the greener, meaner half of the issue.

Gritting his teeth, bracing himself, Jieyuan moved his right foot slightly to the side, and pressed it a bit into a dry branch. It started to crackle. He kept both snake heads well within sight, searching for any changes, any attention sent his way, but nothing.

He drove his foot down harder, snapping the branch. Still nothing. Neither head so much as twitched. The green head was hissing louder, but it was still completely focused on Daojue.

Jieyuan decided to risk it.

“Meiyao,” he said, lowly, quietly. He paused for a bit. Still neither head seemed to notice him. All right. “Something’s wrong. The green head’s got some sort of problem with Daojue.”

He was ready to shut his mouth at a moment’s notice—ready to jump straight into a fight—but there was no need. The green head was fully absorbed with Daojue, and the white one with Meiyao.

“Not Daojue,” Meiyao said back, just as quietly. The white head’s stare waved slightly, and Jieyuan tensed, but it didn’t react otherwise. “It’s Gleaming End. The green head… wants it, I think.”

Jieyuan focused on the green head, on its molten, burning yellow eyes, and then back on Daojue, who shifted Gleaming End slightly to the side, probably on purpose after hearing Meiyao’s words. And as Daojue did so, the snake’s pitch-black slits tracked the movement.

Not Daojue, Gleaming End. But why? None of the beasts they’d come so far had ever paid Gleaming End any attention. What made this snake any different—

Snake. This was the first snake they’d come across so far, Jieyuan realized. And he recalled that time he’d used Fatebloom Sacrificed, and how his soulsense had been somehow altered—how he’d been able to sense things he hadn’t been able to before. Strange, unsettling impressions. In particular, he recalled the impressions he’d gotten from all the gleamstone objects, from the Liangshibai, and most of all, from Gleaming End.

Crystal. Corruption. And snake.

Jieyuan frowned. He didn’t know what that meant, but he was sure that was the connection here, the reason for the snake’s interest. What to do about it, though? That was the question that mattered.

It wasn’t like Daojue could throw Gleaming End away. He doubted Daojue would agree to it—and even if he did, Jieyuan wasn’t sure it’d be the right move. Gleaming End was their only Orangesoul weapon—and possibly their only means of dealing with higher-realm creatures.

Meiyao hadn’t gotten the chance to use Divine Nature Resonance on an Orangesoul beast yet—her control over them was too shaky for her to risk upsetting them with a sudden transformation. She could use it on them—she’d used it on the Sacred Source—but they didn’t know how far the resonance extended, whether it’d also increase her chromal weight to match. It was one of the few doubts that remained about her bloodskill.

Either way, Gleaming End was their trump card. They couldn’t just give it up. But if not that, then what? What were their options?

The green head’s hisses grew louder, and there was movement from the left as the white head started to turn away from Meiyao. Meiyao immediately stepped closer, and the white head snapped back to her.

Jieyuan wasn’t at all reassured, though. The green head was still making some very unkind eyes at Daojue, and worse, if that just now was any indication, Meiyao’s hold on the white head was slipping.

Options. Come on. First off, he had to assume the snake was at Orangesoul, because if he was wrong and it was Yellowsoul they’d be dead and there was nothing they could do to change that. So he had to believe they had a chance, otherwise there was no point.

Running… would be suicided with extra steps. The snake would be able to follow them through the pockets, and even if it was just at first-sign Orangesoul, it should still slither like lightning. They’d also risk literally running into other beasts, and as bad as the situation looked already, Jieyuan didn’t doubt for a moment it could get worse.

Fighting it was, then. At least for that, there was one silver lining—this pocket was larger than normal. Facing a beast this big in a normal-sized one would’ve been made a rusted deal rotten.

Jieyuan took deep breaths, adjusting his grip on the Shifting Feathers—even though they wouldn’t be of much help here. No, the only things that would be making any difference against an Orangesoul here were Gleaming End and Divine Nature Resonance. That didn’t mean he had to settle for being completely useless, though.

“Meiyao,” Jieyuan said, “tell me its properties. Its beast-skills.”

“It has two—” Meiyao started to speak.

But then the white head jerked away from her and rose sharply into the air. And like its green twin, it fixed its eye onto Daojue. Onto Gleaming End.

And then Meiyao shouted something and the snake—both heads, together—lunged at them. At Daojue.

Jieyuan threw himself out of the way barely a moment after Meiyao did, and the next instant the snake was on them, its body a white and green streak as its heads plunged down towards Daojue.

Daojue jumped to the side, taking the left like Jieyuan had, but even as he moved he flicked out Gleaming End, stabbing it toward the nearest snake head—the green one.

Gleaming End cut into the beast just under the massive yellow, cutting a scarlet line through its scale. The sound of it was almost like a bell chiming, sharp and ringing, as the tip of the spear shredded the scales.

But then Daojue was through, landing beside Jieyuan as both heads reared back together, and the green head wasn’t just hissing anymore, but growling, low and deep and rumbling. A bright-red line undercut its eye, bleeding—but it looked superficial. It didn’t look like Daojue had done much more than annoy it.

And then the white head lunged forward, mouth open. Jieyuan barely caught a glimpse of fangs the size of arms and the color of ivory before he jumped out of the way again.

This time Daojue didn’t move—he stood his ground and stabbed Gleaming End forward, straight toward the lunging beast’s massive yellow eye. At the last moment the snake veered off course, barreling half into the denser mist marking the boundary of the pocket.

Daojue tried to adjust Gleaming End to land the blow anyway, but the snake was faster. The spearhead caught it over its eye, cutting another shallow line. But even as the white half barreled past, the green head was bringing up the rear, following up with another lunge.

“It’s got two beast-skills!” That was Meiyao, shouting. Jieyuan glanced over at her, saw that she’d crouched down close to the floor, was hunched over. “The green head can spew poisonous mist, and the white one can bend the earth.”

It can what. But Jieyuan couldn’t pay Meiyao or her words any more attention as Daojue lunged over to where he was. Like the last two times, Daojue tried to counterattack as he moved, but this time he missed the mark completely, Gleaming End cutting nothing but empty air.

Daojue’s feet had just touched the ground when the white head, recovered, shot forward again, crossing over the green head as it tried to get at Daojue. The snake passed right between them, slicing through the rope connecting him and Daojue. Jieyuan had bigger concerns at the moment, though.

“HEY!” Jieyuan called as he dashed to the side, waving his arms. If he couldn’t do it any damage he could at least distract it, create some opportunity for Daojue to attack—but the snake ignored him completely as it plunged down toward Daojue.

He wasn’t even good for bait, apparently. Jieyuan watched, uselessly, as Daojue barely avoided the strike, backing away again, this time coming dangerously close to edges of the pocket. The green head then slithered right past Jieyuan. He moved out of the way—but he might as well have stayed put, because the snake ignored him completely.

Daojue somehow managed to duck and dash under the white head, then barely dodged the green one’s lunge. In doing so he put some distance between himself and the edge of the pocket. One of his counterattacks succeeded, too, and the white head now had a cut near its nostril.

Daojue had broken through to fifth-sign Redsoul just yesterday, and he was using his newly increased speed and strength to the fullest.

Come on, Jieyuan pressed himself. Daojue was holding his own, but he didn’t know how long that’d last, and the cuts he was managing to land weren’t bringing them any closer to bringing the beast down. And there were the two beast-skills Meiyao had mentioned—

Wait, where’s Meiyao?

Jieyuan glanced back, following the pull of the remaining length of rope. She was still at that same spot from earlier. He still couldn’t see her clearly, with her bent-over, crouched position, but he could tell something was off about her, anyway. About her overall shape.

She seemed thinner, longer. She wasn’t so much as bent down as she was coiled into herself. And then he noticed how she had her right arm, her saber arm, down to the elbow into the thick undergrowth before—and probably at least up to half her forearm inside the earth below.

“What are you—”

Jieyuan cut himself off as Meiyao uncoiled, her spine unfolding as she rolled back to full length and then some more. She must’ve grown at least a foot, but whatever she’d gained in height, she didn’t gain the width to make up for it. If anything, she’d lost width. Her body was thin as stick. Her robes simultaneously stretched tight against her length-wise as they hung loose by the sides. Her face had changed, too.

Her eyes had turned yellow, slitted, and small, thin, scales had grown around them, white and green. The rest of her face—her now gaunt, long face—was scale-free, but as it caught the glow of the viridian mist, her skin shimmered faintly, revealing vague, indistinct patterns like translucent scales.

If he hadn’t gotten so used to Meiyao’s transformations, Jieyuan might’ve stared. But as it was he just took it all in before dipping his gaze lower to see Meiyao pull her right arm—her much longer right arm—out of the ground, and with it, her saber.

Like most cultivators Meiyao wore a shroud over her saber, the bandage-like white cloth wrapped tightly around it, keeping it obscured from both sight and soulsense. But now there was something else covering it. Earth. A uniform layer of brown, seemingly paper-thin and tapering to an edge at the cutting side of the blade that looked as sharp as that on the metal.

Then Meiyao moved. She became a streak as she rushed forward, moving soundlessly in a fluid-like, sinuous slither-run that was faster than anything Jieyuan could’ve managed.

A blink later, and she was past him. Another, and she was surging into the air, her earth-wrapped saber swinging toward the green head just as it was raising itself back up for another strike.

The snake had ignored Jieyuan—and it looked like it was ignoring Meiyao too, but just as Meiyao was about to drive her saber home into its snout, the snake jerked its head to the side, and Meiyao ended up slashing at its mouth. The result wasn’t a cut, though, but a gash—full, hand-sized scales were shorn off as the saber cut sideways into its mouth.

The green head hissed sharply, recoiling—and Jieyuan noted how the white head, lunging at Daojue, didn’t seem to take notice. But then his focus was pulled back into the green head as the space under its head suddenly swelled grotesquely, before it spewed a thick, dense cloud of dark green gas at Meiyao, who was still mid-air, falling to the ground.

The green gas enveloped Meiyao whole, and the snake kept spewing it until the substance was rolling off against the ground. The gas was many shades darker than the mist, and even from where he was, Jieyuan was immediately struck by the pungent, acrid sting of acid. Where the gas touched the undergrowth, it sizzled and fumed.

“MEIYAO!” Jieyuan screamed.