Chapter 49: It’s Fine. I’ll Handle It

This scene stunned everyone.

No one had imagined Mi Suhui’s temper would be this explosive—he actually jumped straight into the Fallen Spirit Pool.

You had to know, that pool had dissolved one hundred thousand evil spirits. The baleful energy was terrifying. Even a Golden Core cultivator who fell into it might very well die with body and Dao both destroyed.

“Is he crazy?”

“Those three really are idiots!”

“One trying to net them, one spacing out, one jumping in to grab?”

The distant onlookers were all shaken, exclaiming in horror. In their eyes, Xu Gu’s trio clearly had something wrong with their heads.

Then their envy and hatred just burned hotter.

Three idiots could get so close to the Fallen Spirit Pool, but they couldn’t!
If it were them standing there, they’d definitely be able to hook Fallen Spirits, then command a hundred ghosts, become peerless great fiends, and dominate a region!

“…”

Xu Gu as well.

He was surprised too, of course—but not by the fact Mi Suhui had jumped into the pool. That Fallen Spirit really did deserve a beating. If you swapped in anyone who was fishing, they wouldn’t be able to endure it.

Let alone them—they were devil cultivators. Since when did their kind swallow this kind of humiliation?

What really shocked him was that Mi Suhui had directly unleashed a zhang-six golden body.

That was a great Buddhist trump card.

Even some profoundly cultivated enlightened monks couldn’t easily manifest it. And they were even more unwilling to use it lightly, because its killing power was too great and it harmed the balance of heaven.

And you’re using it to beat up a “fish”?

Good thing he’d wrapped it in dense demonic aura as camouflage. Otherwise, his righteous undercover identity would’ve been blown on the spot.

“Junior Brother Mi!” Kong Haoran’s eyes lit up at the sight, feeling more than ever that he’d made the right friends. How fortunate it was in life to gain a true confidant!

As he spoke, he dove into the pool as well.

He chanted flowing passages aloud; streamers of ink-black literary qi rose and coiled around him, forming a shield.

The two of them looked like a demonic monk and ghostly scholar, their aura overwhelmingly powerful. Both unleashed their strongest techniques, blasting straight toward the Fallen Spirit that had just toyed with them.

“My blossom now unfurls!”

“The Buddha proclaims: Hell hangs in the void!”

“Script-sword that severs the sky!”

“Buddha’s Wrath Vajra!”

“…”

Their killing moves fell one after another. The entire Fallen Spirit Pool boiled, the waters surging. Countless Fallen Spirits fled frantically; in their eyes—supposed to be dull and mindless—rare fear surfaced.

Especially that one Fallen Spirit being bombarded by Mi Suhui and Kong Haoran—its terror was extreme. Its face went pale, body trembling, panic beyond measure.

Never in its worst nightmares would it have thought that simply teasing them a little would invite such a calamity.

In almost an instant, its body was flayed open, screams ringing one after another. Its miserable wails echoed through the whole Fallen Spirit Pool, piercingly harsh, but there was still no sign of those killing moves letting up. All it could do was dodge again and again.

This was the most wretched it had ever been since coming to exist within the Fallen Spirit Pool.

It was on the verge of despair.

Whoosh—

Just as this Fallen Spirit was about to run out of strength and had nowhere left to hide, the sound of rolling waves erupted all around. Thick black water pillars, each as wide as a water barrel and filled with a strange, corrosive aura, surged up like ten thousand roaming dragons and swept toward Mi Suhui and Kong Haoran.

The other Fallen Spirits in the pool were finally fighting back.

“Not good.”

Their expressions shifted. Reluctant as they were, they didn’t risk it; both turned and retreated.

The pool water was highly corrosive. They had to pour immense power into their defensive techniques just to slow the corrosion—they couldn’t become truly immune.

After the battle just now, the protective energy around their bodies had already been almost eaten away. If they were struck by that many water pillars, then they really would be in trouble.

“Screee! Screee! Screee!”

Countless Fallen Spirits surfaced, all emitting weird shrieks, as if mocking their routed retreat…

Or angrily threatening them, telling them not to leave.

Mi Suhui and Kong Haoran paid them no mind. If they could win, they’d fight. If they couldn’t, they’d run. Even idiots knew that logic; how could they not?

On the bank, Xu Gu had already risen to his feet, grip tightening on the Nether Demon Staff as he watched the two below. If the situation turned bad, he’d intervene and pull them out at once.

With demonic seedlings this outstanding, how could he, the future Demon Lord, sit by and let them go to waste?

Fortunately, both knew their limits and withdrew in time. They didn’t suffer any serious injuries—nothing worth mentioning.

They had just been about to sit back down and rest for a while when—

Splat.

A Fallen Spirit gulped down a mouthful of pool water, then spat it out like a green poison arrow that streaked past, grazing Mi Suhui’s shoulder.

A bead of blood rolled down his arm.

Mi Suhui: “…”

The strike hadn’t been powerful, nor had it carried any poison.

The damage was minimal, but the insult was enormous.

Mi Suhui had calmed down more or less after coming ashore—he was a monk, after all, with a good temper. But now his anger flared up again in a flash, his face going black; he felt like he was about to explode.

He’d actually been provoked by a “fish.”

“Let go of me. Today this little monk is absolutely sending it on to rebirth,” Mi Suhui roared, eyes wide, chest heaving.

Kong Haoran, still adjusting his breath after climbing ashore, was momentarily stunned—I’m not even holding you—and then snapped back to reality. He hurriedly grabbed Mi Suhui and tried to talk him down:

“Forget it. Don’t stoop to a ‘fish’s’ level. Rest for a few days. We’ve got lots of time anyway. Sooner or later we’ll clean them up.”

“Since Senior Brother Kong has spoken, I’ll let them cling to life for a few more days,” Mi Suhui said coldly.

Xu Gu: “…”

These two really knew how to put on a show.

But his attention soon shifted away from their antics, drawn instead to the drops of blood Mi Suhui had spilled on the ground.

“…This is dragon blood? What’s dragon blood doing here?”

Xu Gu’s brows arched. He looked up sharply at Mi Suhui’s shoulder—the wound was already about to close, and the blood gathered at the edge of the cut was clearly also dragon blood. His confusion only deepened.

A moment later, as something clicked, his expression turned to realization—and then to wordless exasperation.

“What is it, Senior Brother? Something wrong?” Mi Suhui asked, uneasy.

Had that water arrow really been poisonous? Otherwise, why was Senior Brother Xu staring at his blood like that?

Xu Gu didn’t answer him. Instead, he asked, somewhat oddly, “You’re human, right?”

“Of course. Why?” Mi Suhui looked baffled.

“And this blood?” Xu Gu pointed to the red droplets on the ground.

“…My blood,” Mi Suhui said, scratching his head, unsure.

“Then it’s fine,” Xu Gu replied, finally certain. He couldn’t help but laugh, his expression shifting through surprise, shock, and a sort of speechless amusement, leaving Mi Suhui and Kong Haoran both staring.

They thought for a second that Xu Gu might be having an episode.

Rumor had it, before he’d gone undercover in the Devil’s Den, he’d been a little deranged on Little Cool Mountain.

“So this is the true usage of ‘everyone as a dragon,’” Xu Gu mused silently.

Because the explanations of his word-entries tended to be so abstract, he could only guess at some of them. Others he had to grope his way through. Only now did he feel he’d really understood how that Everyone a Dragon entry worked.

“Really nothing wrong?” Kong Haoran asked with concern.

“It’s fine,” Xu Gu smiled. “I just figured out a problem with a spell.”

“I see.” Kong Haoran and Mi Suhui both relaxed. Kong Haoran then suggested, “We just tested whether we could go down into the pool and grab Fallen Spirits.

“It’s possible.

“As long as you coordinate with us.”

The reason they hadn’t called Xu Gu along earlier was that they were worried about him. After all, even if he came from an hidden sect, he only had three spiritual roots. He couldn’t have more trump cards than they did; if he rushed into danger with them, it would be risky.

Now that they’d probed things, they could invite him in on the plan.

But as soon as he finished speaking, the pool water in front of them roiled. One Fallen Spirit after another surfaced, jade-green eyes glinting as they drew up dense, extreme yin baleful qi, fixing their stares on the three of them.

The pressure bearing down on them was immense.

“This…”

“This is bad. We startled the snake out of the grass.”

Mi Suhui and Kong Haoran’s faces sank. They realized the situation had turned against them. The other side was taking them seriously now. With this many Fallen Spirits on guard against them, if they went down alone, unless all six of their group were present, they’d just be delivering themselves as food.

“Looks like we’re going home empty-handed,” the two exchanged a helpless glance.

In this state, forget about going down into the pool—there was no way they’d even be able to fish anything up.

In truth, not catching anything wasn’t the worst part. What galled them was that those things dared to mess with them like that…

Even now, they were still spitting water arrows at them!

“I’ll handle it,” Xu Gu said quietly.

His gaze swept past the Fallen Spirits who were provocatively eyeing him. His face was calm and frosty as he patted Kong Haoran and Mi Suhui’s shoulders. “Watch closely. This is how you fish.”

As he spoke, the tiger that had just finished digging the den burst out of the hole, fur standing on end. Sensing something terrible coming, it roared and tried to bolt.

At that moment, the cave it had dug erupted with boundless ghostly radiance. Deep, intricate Dao patterns spread out, chilling to the core. It was like a black hole that devoured heaven and earth, sucking everything nearby into its maw.

In an instant, the entire Fallen Spirit Pool started surging, the waters rushing toward that tiger-den in a roaring torrent.

(End of this Chapter)