Chapter 387: You Chase, I Run

Each scale on the python was bigger than a copper coin and far harder than one. Even with the youth’s men hacking at it with all their strength, they could barely damage it.

But when the youth bit down—

Crunch.

A scale shattered between his teeth, crisp as a potato chip.

He took two more quick bites, and several more scales simply fell off, exposing the tough, flexible hide beneath.

Only then did the giant python realize that something was very wrong. What it had wrapped around was not flesh with the usual softness and spring; instead, it felt like a wooden post. However, even a post that thick ought to snap under its coils.

Then the pain of its scales being torn off hit. The giant python glanced down just in time to see the youth open his mouth again and clamp onto the fresh wound.

That mouthful of neat, white teeth had turned into sharp, vicious points, like a shark’s.

The giant python felt a kind of agony that it could not even describe. It felt as though its blood and flesh were being sucked straight into the youth’s mouth.

To everyone watching, the snake’s thick body actually began to shrink. Around the wound, whole patches of scales sloughed off.

The giant python let out a garbled, strangled shriek and blasted the youth with a stream of azure flame.

However, this flame was not actually fire, but rather miasma—caustic vapors brewed from acid in its belly. This miasma was highly corrosive to all kinds of skin, and anything it touched split open, raw and screaming with pain.

Where the miasma swept past, the flesh on the youth’s face and neck truly did corrode, exposing red muscle beneath.

Yet despite the corrosion of his skin and flesh, he did not even flinch.

He simply closed his eyes.

The giant python had nothing left. It released him and fled into the trees.

“Fuck, your spit or whatever hurt like crazy! Do you really think I’m just going to let you run off? Hell no!” the black-clad youth snapped.

He grabbed the snake and yanked it back, then kept biting and swallowing it.

The giant python could feel itself going limp, like an empty sack. It screamed, “I’m a special envoy of the State of E’Ling! If you kill me, there will be consequences! E’Ling and Baoshu will never forgive you!”

The youth paused mid-bite, staring. “Wait, what? You’re not from the State of Shanyu?”

“No, no! I’m an envoy from E’Ling!”

“Show me your credentials.”

The giant python spat out a ceremonial staff.

One of the men stepped forward, lifted it with both hands, and respectfully presented it to the youth.

He held it up to the light and examined it carefully. “Hm, it really is an E’Ling envoy’s staff.”

His voice was full of unmistakable disappointment.

“You’ve got the wrong target!” The giant python frantically tried to pull its tail free. “Let me go, and my state will forget this ever happened!”

“So you’re an envoy too,” the youth said, smacking his lips, genuinely regretful. “Shame you’re not the one I’m looking for.” Then he shrugged. “But since I’ve already eaten half of you, I might as well finish.”

And he went right back to chewing, ripping into the snake with savage enthusiasm.

The giant python begged until its voice broke, but it did not matter. Blood dripped steadily as it was reduced to something close to an empty skin.

After eating that much flesh, the black-clad youth did not look bloated at all. He only belched contentedly, and the wounds on his face had already healed.

He tossed aside the snake’s corpse and wiped his mouth casually.

“Not from Shanyu. I got excited for nothing. Fu Jiu, weren’t you the one who said a special envoy from Shanyu would pass through the Three-Heart Plain?”

The region around Three-Heart Lake and its surrounding forest was called the Three-Heart Plain.

Fu Jiu, who was sweating and trembling, answered quickly, “Young Master, the intel I got was absolutely solid. If they didn’t come, it’s probably... probably because of the imperial nectar.”

Any diplomatic mission’s schedule could get thrown off by spirit rain.

“Probably?” The black-clad youth chuckled. “So you didn’t confirm it. Name your punishment.”

Fu Jiu’s forehead was slicked with sweat. “I still need to serve you. How about I cut off a finger?”

The black-clad youth considered for a moment before saying, “Fine, I’ll spare you this once.”

Afraid that the youth might change his mind, Fi Jiu gritted his teeth and quickly drew his blade, slicing off his little finger in one swift motion.

“Then we’ll deal with the rest in Fufeng City.” Out here in the wilderness, where else was he going to look? Better to wait at the destination. “For now, find that chunk of imperial nectar paste!”

Heaven-sent treasures belonged to whoever had the strength to claim them. Whoever was holding that paste right now, the youth was grateful to them for keeping it safe for him.

The black-clad youth pointed northeast and asked the crow perched on a branch, “You said he went that way?”

After watching the youth casually send the giant python to its grave, the crow’s confidence soared. It hopped down to the spot where He Lingchuan had vanished into the woods. “He went right between those two trees!”

The youth walked over, shut his eyes, and took a long, deep breath. He seemed to sort through the information in his head before finally saying, “Indeed, there’s no mistaking it. Under all that nectar scent, there’s still a human scent. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there. He worked all night. He’s soaked in imperial nectar.”

“Keep up if you can.” And with that, he plunged into the forest, tracking the trail by scent.

In terrain this rough, his speed was still far faster than any galloping horse.

The crow hurriedly flapped after him.

But after flying barely a few hundred meters, it cursed under its breath.

It had lost the black-clad youth.

* * *

He Lingchuan really was retreating northeast.

Here, towering trees blocked out the sky. The forest was so dense that you could not find a patch of blue bigger than your palm. This was exactly the kind of terrain he wanted to be in right now.

His horse was gone, but the tiger monster that was possessed by an evil ghost was still with him. With the mirror suppressing it, the tiger was not waking up anytime soon.

So He Lingchuan simply rode it like a mount, tearing through the woods for several kilometers.

Only when the trees began to thin did he leap off the tiger’s back. He picked a big tree and climbed up until he was over sixteen meters up. Then, he found a comfortable branch and settled in.

This tree was lush and thick with leaves. The branch he chose had an excellent view and overlooked a game trail.

Through gaps in the canopy, he even spotted the crow passing overhead several times, cawing angrily in frustration.

He had chosen this spot because if he went too far, he would not be able to receive the eyeball spider’s live broadcast clearly.

Watching all those martial artists and monsters butcher each other over rumors the crows had spread, he felt even more convinced that he had made the right call by leaving early.

And the black-clad youth’s guess had not been wrong either. He Lingchuan had been thinking that once the fighting by the lake started to wind down, he might even circle back and pick up a bargain or two.

But with the eyeball spider acting as his little cheating window, he did not need to go watch in person. So he never got shaken out of hiding by the youth’s violet-gold hammer. Instead, it was the sneaking giant python that got catastrophically unlucky.

The moment the black-clad youth appeared, though, He Lingchuan had gone on full alert.

That face was handsome enough, sure, but that guy was not human, at least not really.

After all, what kind of normal person had eyes and teeth like that?

After watching him eat the giant python and hearing his exchange with the crow, He Lingchuan immediately slid down the tree, jumped back onto the tiger, and forced it into a full sprint.

Watching that monster fight, he could tell the black-clad youth had handled the giant python with insulting ease. This meant that he almost certainly still had cards that he had not shown.

He Lingchuan did not like his odds against someone like that.

More importantly, he was carrying a fortune. Jade does not smash itself against porcelain. With that much imperial nectar on him, he had zero interest in gambling his life against some unknown freak.

He had planned to rely on Mountain Monarch Bo’s camouflage snakeskin to slip by, but the youth’s nose was sharper than a hound’s. He could hide his own aura, but he could not hide the smell of imperial nectar clinging to him.

As He Lingchuan urged the tiger onward, his mind raced. An idea formed fast.

He took a wide detour.

If the crow had been able to see him from above, it would have noticed that he ran in a huge U-shaped route, looping right back toward Three-Heart Lake.

On the way, he even blundered into two wild monsters’ territory and earned two furious warning roars.

It was two enormous wild boar monsters that were almost as big as the tiger he was riding.

Behind them yawned a massive earthen burrow.

Everyone knew wild boars loved living in holes.

The moment He Lingchuan saw that burrow, he practically hit the brakes. The tiger he was riding stopped immediately.

The two boar monsters immediately snorted and bellowed at him to get the hell out. After an entire night of imperial nectar frenzy, their small eyes were blood-red, and white foam clung to their mouths.

And then He Lingchuan suddenly stripped off his outer shirt and pants.

He stripped so fast that neither boar could even react.

The boars froze. Their next warning snorts died in their throats.

Is this... something we’re supposed to be seeing?

Then the clothes flew straight at their faces.

The boars tried to toss them aside in fury until their snouts twitched.

Eh? Imperial nectar?

The scent hit them like a punch.

Huh?

Wait...

They lit up with glee, grabbed the clothes in their mouths, and stuffed them into the burrow. After all, the spirit rain had been falling on those clothes all night.

Now dawn was here, the rain had ended, and a bonus delivery had arrived. It was high time for them to retreat underground and digest their gains properly.

The boars turned tail and waddled back in.

He Lingchuan, now in nothing but his inner layers, rode the tiger in a quick loop around the burrow, then bolted toward the lake again.

* * *

Barely fifteen minutes later, the black-clad youth actually caught up to the burrow where He Lingchuan had stopped.

He stared at the burrow and frowned.

He had followed the scent here, and the strongest concentration was coming from inside.

So they hid underground?

Well, it’s not like that’d be strange.

Dawn was near. Whether monster or human, anyone would want a safe place to process what they had gained overnight.

And besides, how would his target even know he was chasing them?

So the black-clad youth hesitated only a moment before crouching and slipping into the burrow.

He stayed inside for a good several minutes.

What happened down there, no one outside could see. The only thing that left the burrow were high, frantic squeals that came echoing out.

Eventually, the youth crawled back out, face set.

His clothes were black, so bloodstains did not stand out, but the smell of blood was thick on him, and a few specks had splashed his face.

The burrow had been too narrow to dodge any of the blood.

The first thing he did after emerging was look up at the sky.

Time’s running out.

He swept the area again and finally reacquired the scent trail.

This time, he moved even faster. When he passed two spotted deer grazing nearby, they only looked up blankly, not even sure what had just rushed by.

After a few hundred meters, a clear animal trail led toward a bamboo grove.

The youth had barely reached it when the ground suddenly shook, and then—

BOOM!

The ground exploded.

The blast was no joke. It punched a crater about two-thirds of a meter across and roughly half a meter deep, flinging soil into the air over an area of about six meters wide before it rained back down.

The sound was loud and traveled far. Nearby birds and beasts scattered in panic.

The black-clad youth himself was sent about three meters up into the air, but he managed to gracefully land back down on the ground, appearing to be completely unhurt.

His clothes and shoes, however, were shredded.

He looked absolutely wrecked. If he sat by the road into Fufeng City with a cracked bowl, someone might actually toss him a coin.

“Tsk, still too impatient,” he muttered. If he had not been in such a hurry, he would have noticed the faint scent of gunpowder hidden in the soil.

However, he did not pause to brood. He pushed on, chasing into the bamboo grove.

And then, all at once, the forest opened up—

There was nowhere left to run. Straight ahead lay the main lake of Three-Heart Lake, vast and misty, stretching out in shimmering waves.