NOVEL NEXT Chapter 16: The River's Brood
Slowly the caravan trailed forward, quickly arriving upon the shore of a wide, surging river. Within the river flowed not water but almost black congealed blood so thick it was akin to a gel. The powerful scent of rotting flesh saturated the air surrounding the river, even more so than the rest of the Flesh Mountains. From her high position atop Zhang's lion of golden light, Bing Meilu looked down at the surging stream. The red liquid of the river was so dark it was impossible to see how deep it was with the naked eye. A powerful blood Qi emanated from the river, muddying Bing Meilu's senses. It would be virtually impossible to make out the Qi aura of anything over the river.
"This is the Ten Pustules River," Xia Xuefeng commented, drawing Bing Meilu's eye. "If we can safely pass this area, we'll soon reach our destination."
The entire caravan having trailed to a halt due to the presence of the river, the man with the silver axe slowly flew over the churning stream. Then, arm blurring, he drew and swung the weapon. An arc of silver light erupted from the blade, splitting into hundreds of crescent-moon shaped blades that slashed into the current. Soon after, hundreds of corpses floated to the surface of the river.
There were all sorts of strange-looking monstrosities, such as a long fish with green flesh whose skin was covered in hundreds of long spines. There were brown-furred creatures resembling beavers whose mouths sprouted dozens of jagged white teeth that protruded outwards and tiny white sardines covered in pulsating red tumours. There were even gigantic spiders whose legs had mouths at the bottom and long blue eel whose bodies crackled with purple thunder. Only in the Flesh Mountain would one find such strange demons.
Then, the man replaced his axe, raising his hands and clapping. As he did so, dozens of metal spurs flew forth from the sleeves of his slender silver robes. The metal bars flew over the river, forming a bridge that hovered several feet above the water. White light sprung forth from the bars, forming a wall of tubular light surrounding the bridge.
"Let's go!" shouted the man, waving his hand. Immediately, Zhang's lion leaped forward, careening through the air to and across the river. Meanwhile, the mortals of the caravan behind Bing Meilu began to slowly cross over the river, dragging their carts and wagons and products as hastily as possible.
Occasionally small demons would jump from the water, attempting to break through the barrier of light and devour the mortals inside. Sadly, they could not and were instead simply killed quickly by the caravan's handful of cultivators whose attacks passed right through the barrier of light.
Around half of the caravan had safely passed through the bridge when one such unremarkable beast leaped from the bloody liquid of the river. It was but a small serpent, skin covered in glossy black scales, and with two small bumps protruding from its head. One of the caravan's cultivators waved their hand casually at the mid-air snake, firing forth a small dagger of rock towards it.
The dagger whizzed forward, smacking into the scales of the small black snake. Yet, instead of being instantly killed by the attack, as all the other demons had been, the snake's body simply bulged slightly.
With a horrible hissing noise, black fog erupted forth from the snake body. Strange noises came from within the smoke, like the sound of bone snapping and the wet noise of flesh slapping against flesh. Seconds after, the smoke cleared, revealing not a small snake, but a massive, towering dragon. It stood fully three hundred meters tall, the body as thick as the trunk of a redwood tree. Its scales were pitch black, to the point they seemed to darken the air around them. Red eyes flickering with a malevolent crimson light, the towering monstrosity stared down at the caravan, mouth open to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth.
Instantly, the form of the man with the silver axe flickered across the sky, swiping his axe with herculean strength. A shockwave of air exploded from him as the weapon slammed against the Demon Beast's neck.
Crack!
Small fissures spread out across the surface of the axe, like a glass window that had been hit with a child's ball. The bald man looked down in shock at his hands as his weapon crumbled into dust.
The black dragon slowly turned its head to stare disdainfully at the frozen man. Its mouth opened and the beast roared. A pressure wave exploded from the dragon's mouth, rupturing through the air. The bald man flew backwards, knocked away by the air blast. Bone spurs that had stood by the side of the river shattered and tumbled over as the shockwave travelled by.
Bing Meilu's fingers flew to her ears, desperately blocking them to protect herself from the booming roar. A wet liquid dribbled out from her throbbing ears, down her fingers and onto her arms. Bing Meilu's eyes flickered to the side, inspecting the fluid. Splotches of dark red blood dotted her arm.
"My eardrums must have ruptured," Bing Meilu said aloud, noticing she could not even hear her own voice.
Forcing herself to ignore the constant burning pain, Bing Meilu turned to look at her servant. Beside her, she could see but not hear Xia Xuefeng sobbing and clutching her head, blood running out of her ears as well.
Then, Bing Meilu looked back up to gaze at the massive black dragon who had begun to devour the people still stuck on the bridge, easily tearing through the bald man's barrier. Beneath her, she felt Zhang's lion burst into motion, hastily bounding away from the river with incredible speed. Behind them, the people of the caravan began to hastily run as well, though they were quickly left behind by Zhang's speed.
---
Aiwa Satsushi stared down at the small figure floating by his neck. He took a single moment to enjoy the simple pleasure that was seeing the bald man's shocked face.
The 'Swordbreaker Scales' perk had been a prohibitively expensive upgrade to buy, but it was worth every point.
Then Aiwa opened his mouth, unleashing one of his favourite skills, 'Rupturing roar'. It was an incredibly useful CC skill that debuffed all mobs in hearing range and he always used it before a farming session.
A bestial roar erupted from him, tearing through the air. The man by his neck shot backwards, knocked away by the power of his roar. Below, the humans of the caravan below let out shrill screams as the debuff hit them.
Aiwa's long neck snapped forwards, his jaw unhinging as he crushed his teeth downwards upon the thin shell of light covering the travelling group. The paper-thin protection shattered immediately before his powerful bite, exposing the juicy prey below.
A powerful suction force emerged from his mouth as he executed yet another of his favourite skills 'Devouring vortex'. Dozens of the small humans flew into Aiwa's opened mouth, and he crushed down upon them. Juicy liquid burst into his mouth, tingling upon his sensitive tongue. Bone crushed and flesh eviscerated, the broken corpses of the small humans slid down his throat into his gut.
Before Aiwa could even open the 'Demon-Beast System' and check how many points he had gained, he felt a powerful blast slam into his neck, knocking his head to the side.
The flying human had already recovered from Aiwa's skill? He must have some special resistance.
Turning around to once again face the bald mob, Aiwa activated his go-to opening attack 'Black flood'. Since it was categorized as a 'Bloodline Ability' and not a 'Skill' it didn't cost any Qi so he could use it as much as he wanted, provided he waited for the cooldown to end.
A pressurized beam of black acid erupted forth from his mouth, shooting towards the man, who dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding Aiwa's attack.
'Once they unlock flying, Humans are so annoying to kill,' Aiwa grumbled to himself, releasing a second blast. 'At least these guys always give me lots of points.'
Perhaps once Aiwa would have been appalled at the idea of killing a 'fellow' human, but that time was long gone. Years had gone by since he had awoken reborn as a small garden snake inside of a strange, fantasy world. Needing to kill humans to grow stronger, Aiwa had long since abandoned any sense of connection to his old race. Besides, there was nothing wrong with eating a human, or two or three or four-
After all, on Earth, humans had eaten plenty of other animals. This was basically the same thing. If they didn't want to get eaten, then why were they so tasty?
Sick of the human dodging his blasts of acid, Aiwa opened his mouth and fired a massive black web outwards at the human. The net sped through the air, wrapping around the small creature. Seconds later, dozens of small black spikes shot from Aiwa's mouth, stabbing into the human with incredible force.
Yet suddenly, he felt a powerful punch slammed into the back of his skull, knocking Aiwa's head into the water. Quickly pulling himself up, Aiwa turned to glare angrily at the man.
'How did he escape my net?'
Aiwa's eyes quickly flicked over to the black net which had landed upon the blood river's shore.
'A clone!' Aiwa realized. 'I should have known he would have something up his sleeves!'
However, Aiwa had wasted enough time on the stupid flying bastard and the rest of the mobs were getting away. Quickly activating several movement-related skills, Aiwa's body sprung into the air, shimmering wings of mist gathering around his slender serpentine body. Flapping his wings madly, he shot towards the fleeing humans, mouth opening wide.
Aiwa's body crashed into the ground and he quickly slid forward across the ground, gobbling up the humans from behind. Dozens of small notification boxes opened up in the corner of his vision as he devoured the humans.
'Why do I always forget to turn on 'Summarized notifications' before a fight?' Aiwa questioned, lamenting.
Noticing the flying human sneaking up behind him again, Aiwa slashed his tail through the air, knocking the bastard out of the sky. His tail rose and fell, dozens of times a second as he both drilled the man deep into the ground and continued devouring prey at the same time.
Having finished off the rest of the humans in the caravan, Aiwa turned his eyes to the massive golden lion, which speedily ran in the distance. Two young girls were sitting atop the animal, as well as one other strong human within it.
Suddenly a popup appeared before his eyes, shocking Aiwa.
Story Quest Unlocked: H̸̒͜e̵̺̚a̵̧̓v̴͙́ẻ̴͔n̴͕͝'̶͙̓s̸̭̍ ̶͕͗R̶̫͆ḙ̸͊t̵̺͑r̶͇̃ȉ̵̼b̷͈́ṵ̸͝ť̷̞i̴͉̔o̶̜̚n̵̦̉
Task: Slay and devour 'Bing Meilu', the young human girl wearing a blue dress.
Reward: Unlock Bloodline 'Crystal Heaven Dragon(Extremely Strong (10))'
Do you accept: Yes No
For a moment, Aiwa simply stood frozen, staring at the quest popup. W-what was this? He had never gotten a 'Story Quest' before! What did that even mean?! And what was with that corrupted quest name? Ignoring that, Aiwa stared at the reward, eyes going wide.
That reward was simply insane! Aiwa's current best bloodline was the Black Acid Flood Dragon, which was rated as 'Very Weak (2)'. How much stronger would an Extremely Strong Bloodline be?
His slitted pupils dilated as he stared at the running lion. If he had not been planning on killing it before, he certainly was now! Body bursting with excitement, Aiwa charged forward.