Volume 2: Breaking into Fengdu Chapter 79: Silver Crown Golden Light

Everyone wanted to be the mantis stalking the cicada, but being the mantis wasn’t so easy—one careless moment and the mantis might become the cicada instead.

Before Zhuo Shaoyu could give orders to attack, he felt the ground beneath his feet suddenly shift. Relying on his four-meridian innate martial artist talent of “light as a swallow,” Zhuo Shaoyu touched the ground with his toes and rapidly retreated. With a tremendous crash, the edge of the large pit where he had been standing actually collapsed into a slope leading straight to the bottom.

The originally square pit with iron spikes covering the bottom had made it difficult for the snake demon to climb out. Now it was perfect—a slope had appeared on the northern side of the pit, and the Silver Crown Snake trapped inside swayed its body and crawled out.

“Shoot arrows!”

Zhuo Shaoyu, retreating in shock and fury, roared loudly. The Ghost King Gate disciples surrounding the area immediately fired their strong bows in unison, finally blocking the Silver Crown Snake that was lunging toward Zhuo Shaoyu.

No one had expected the trap used by the righteous sects to contain the demon snake would actually collapse. When people came to their senses, they immediately cursed the righteous sects’ despicable tactics. This wasn’t a trap for the snake demon at all—it was clearly a trap prepared for Ghost King Gate.

No wonder the righteous sect people had abandoned the Silver Crown Snake without looking back the moment they saw Ghost King Gate surrounding them. They intended to use this snake demon against Ghost King Gate and other evil sects.

Zhuo Shaoyu was already grinding his teeth in rage. He was a four-meridian innate martial artist, but facing a snake demon alone, he still wasn’t a match. If he hadn’t retreated quickly just now, he would definitely have been injured.

“Attack!”

Waving his long sword, Zhuo Shaoyu roared with a grim expression. Thousands of Ghost King Gate disciples immediately surrounded and attacked, encircling the snake demon completely.

The snake demon’s escape from the trap greatly exceeded Ghost King Gate’s expectations. Despite the large number of attackers, the snake demon wasn’t easy to deal with. A fierce swing of its tail left several people with broken bones and torn tendons. When its great mouth opened, a Ghost King Gate lackey was immediately split in two, not even managing to scream.

Without reaching the innate realm, one couldn’t harm true demons. Though Ghost King Gate had many disciples, only the innate masters mixed among the crowd could truly threaten the Silver Crown Snake.

On the chaotic battlefield, rotting leaves flew everywhere. Zhuo Shaoyu, as Ghost King Gate’s Grand Guardian, held the highest position in this operation, but he didn’t join the battle.

Behind Zhuo Shaoyu stood seventeen young men, each with eyes like lightning and extraordinary bearing, all very young—the oldest no more than thirty.

“The righteous sects are quite calculating. Yu Cheng and Yu Ruyi are impressive, actually thinking of such a clever method. Want to lure us into a trap? They think too highly of themselves.”

Behind Zhuo Shaoyu, a black-clothed youth with his hands behind his back spoke. He had slender eyebrows and narrow eyes that seemed always to be smiling, though the smile was cold. This was Ghost King Gate’s Second Guardian, named Yang Ge, who like Zhuo Shaoyu possessed four-meridian innate strength and carried a heavy crossbow forged from refined iron on his back.

“After we kill the Silver Crown Snake, it will be time for Azure Cloud Pavilion and Jade Sword Gate’s destruction!” Yang Ge’s slender eyebrows suddenly rose as he said coldly: “All eighteen guardians are here—do they still think they have a way out? Big brother, let’s act. Deal with this beast quickly so we can send those righteous sect people to the afterlife.”

Actually, without Yang Ge’s reminder, Zhuo Shaoyu also wanted to act now, but he always felt something strange about today’s righteous sects.

Not only had the righteous sects become clever, using the snake demon as bait to create a double trap, but their escape route had specifically chosen the nearby barren mountain.

Four halls had already gone to surround the mountain. This barren mountain wasn’t large—the thousands of people from four halls could almost surround the entire mountain. Weren’t those righteous sect people trapped in a dead end?

“Fifth and Sixth.” Zhuo Shaoyu ordered with a grim expression: “Circle around to the back mountain and assist the four halls. Make sure to trap the righteous sect people to death on this barren mountain. Since they want to die, I, Zhuo Shaoyu, will fulfill their wish!”

The two guardians ranked fifth and sixth received orders and departed for the back mountain. Both had three-meridian innate strength. With these two, containing Yu Cheng and Yu Ruyi would be more than sufficient, not to mention there were also four hall masters surrounding the mountain.

“Attack! Kill the snake demon first!”

Zhuo Shaoyu’s eyes turned cold. Following his command, the guardians behind him charged toward the snake demon one after another, while he, the Grand Guardian, remained motionless.

Ghost King Gate’s eighteen guardians were all at least three-meridian innate martial artists. If below three meridians, one wasn’t qualified to become a guardian. When these people attacked, combined with the innate martial artists from four halls, the giant snake demon was immediately forced to retreat continuously. Many sword wounds appeared on its body, and dark green snake blood splattered throughout the bamboo forest.

Thousands of people dealing with one snake demon was almost a sure victory. How could Zhuo Shaoyu, the Grand Guardian, personally enter the fray?

“So lively!”

When Xu Yan followed the sounds to find this place, he happened to see a group of people surrounding a large snake and wildly hacking at it.

It really was wild hacking, because the enemy was a demon—snake demons wouldn’t exchange moves and techniques with martial artists.

Some innate masters had true qi covering their sword blades. When they struck the giant snake, they could leave sword marks. The brighter the true qi on the sword blade, the deeper the sword marks left on the snake’s body. In contrast, those ordinary martial artists, even fighting desperately, couldn’t harm the demon snake in the slightest.

Standing on a mound of earth, Xu Yan shaded his eyes with his hand and watched the excitement. This was his first time seeing a battle between over a thousand people and a snake demon.

Excitement aside, quite a few people were dying. In the short time Xu Yan had been watching, thirty to fifty martial artists had lost their lives, with countless more injured.

“What a powerful snake demon! Why does it have a crown growing on its head?”

Muttering to himself, Xu Yan curiously stared at the distant snake demon. In his eyes, golden light faintly surged within the snake demon’s silver crown, and there were blood-colored rings in the snake’s eyes that were about to form two complete circles.

The golden light in the silver crown couldn’t be seen with Xu Yan’s right eye, while the blood rings in the snake’s eyes could be discerned by both eyes.

Only Xu Yan’s left eye was strange, indicating that only he could see the golden light in the snake’s crown. Since his right eye could also see the blood rings in the snake’s eyes, ordinary people could probably see them too.

The distant snake demon was somewhat similar to the demon wolf from Old Grave Mountain—both had blood rings in their eyes that were about to form two complete circles. Xu Yan didn’t know what the blood rings in demons’ eyes meant, but he could roughly guess that the blood rings in demons’ eyes should be related to the demons’ strength.

Could it be that the more rings, the more powerful the demon?

Crack crack crack!

While Xu Yan was pondering, the demon snake had taken countless sword and blade strikes. In its fury, it swung its tail, instantly sending over ten Ghost King Gate disciples flying, and a patch of green bamboo was snapped in half.

The falling bamboo blocked his view of the excitement, so Xu Yan walked down from the mound, searching for a suitable place to watch the show.

Circling around several green bamboo stalks, Xu Yan was about to jump onto a blue stone when he suddenly noticed someone clinging to a bamboo tree not far away.

Actually, it wasn’t clinging—it should be called hugging. That person was hugging the bamboo tree with both arms and legs, making a pose as if he’d crashed into it and died, rolling his eyes back with his tongue hanging out long, a large wooden stick thrown beside him.

Curious, Xu Yan walked closer, circled around, and asked: “Eight Fingers Wang, you really died with your eyes wide open. Let me help you close them.”

Saying this, Xu Yan touched the other person’s eyelids, wanting to close his eyes for him. This made Eight Fingers Wang grimace, but he didn’t dare shout loudly. Lowering his voice, he said: “Close what eyes? Can’t you see I’m playing dead!”