Chapter 100 – Sea Serpent (2)
The stone column broke. Ye Chen parried his sword with a cold look in his eyes and made a crescent-shaped stroke that flew towards the Head.
Puff!
The Head had never expected that Ye Chen would not have any intention to avoid or back off from the attack. Ye Chen broke off the stone column and immediately launched an attack at the Head, who did not seem to even react as the sword cut his body.
Fog swirled around and the shape of Head’s body changed rapidly, from a person into a lizard-like monster with four dark red, disgusting tumors on its head. It opened its mouth and the whole hall was filled with fog and was being swallowed into its stomach.
Ye Chen looked around, the previous luxurious hall was actually a dirty cave. Those six middle-aged men were actually just skeletons with black skulls, sitting there on the floor. Moreover, there were a large number of bones of the dead piled up at the side all the way to the seat of honour, it was the red carpet from before.
When Ye Chen looked back, he saw that the small room at the sideways of the hall was actually a cave, about few feet in size. Below the cave was a giant pit which was filled with steaming greyish liquid and vaporizing sticky bubbles. Once the bubbles burst, the air that was stored inside the bubbles corroded the cave walls leaving behind large charred marks.
Although he knew that everything that happened just now was all just an illusion, Ye Chen still could not help but take a deep breath. If he had not noticed everything earlier and fell into that greyish liquid, there would not be anything left of him. The most terrible thing was, if he was not mistaken, this lizard-like monster was supposed to be the rare Sea Serpent monster that lived on the True spirit continent, it loved to eat the brains of humans and take people’s memories as its own. Using those memories, it would create a mirage according to the memories in its mind and would disguise it as a vivid dreamland, causing humans to be unable to point out the real from the illusion.
Sea Serpent monsters could undergo evolution, and could even be divided into different levels of strength based on the number of tumor like bumps that grew on their head. If there was only one bump, then it was a Stage-One monster. If there were two then Stage-Two, four then it was a Stage-Four monster. Yet, Ye Chen was not even afraid of it, because when compared to other monsters at the same level, Sea Serpent monster was the weakest one.
"Where is the little girl?" Ye Chen gazed at the monster.
The monster growled with its small eyes full of malice.
Ye Chen wrinkled his eyebrows and suddenly remembered that Sea Serpent monsters could actually not speak. Only in the world of illusion, did people think that it could speak with humans, while in fact it was actually people’s imagination in addition to the atmosphere and condition, the monster never actually speaks though.
"In that case, there is no use in keeping you alive." The previous stroke already injured the sea serpent monster, making it lose control of its mirage Qi. Unafraid of the monster’s mirage Qi, Ye Chen stomped and released his internal energy, a stroke of three swords attack flew towards the monster.
Bang!
The monster was pushed by the forceful internal strength from the three swords attacks and slammed against the cave walls. Suddenly the monster opened its mouth to spit out a cloud of fog that was burning like a flame towards Ye Chen.
"Let me destroy your mirage Qi!"
Ye Chen did not dare to face directly with the fire suspecting a fraud. He then retaliated back with a powerful Zhen Qi palm and all of a sudden, the flames mixed with his palm’s Zhen Qi and returned back to the Sea Serpent monster.
A horrible scream was heard.
The monster’s abdomen was hit, it now had a hole that was bleeding and dispersing a stinky smell.
"It’s really a trick!" The palm hit itself had no attribute, but it could still integrate with the monster’s attack unexpectedly causing the monster to be severely injured.
However, Ye Chen did not know that the mirage Qi of the Sea Serpent monster contained five different kinds of vitalities and vitality of fire was one of them. The fire ray just now was the essence of fire that was stored in the monster’s body. Once blown out, it was difficult to increase it again. Since Ye Chen was difficult to defeat, the monster used mirage Qi to conceal the fire before taking it back halfway through once it spouted out the fire power, it was just to give people an illusion.
If Ye Chen was being careless, there was a great possibility that he would have fallen miserably for a very simple trick.
This monster had wisdom level comparable to that of humans, cunning and insidious. It is indeed a nemesis to the humankind.
Ye Chen’s pupils shrank to a point, he was determined to kill. This monster absolutely should not be kept alive or else misfortunes or incessant calamities would happen.
“You, Die!"
Ye Chen shouted out loudly, at the same time he waved his fist and sword and struck at the monster.
Snip! Snap! Bang!
The Sea Serpent beast sank down to the ground, motionless just like a broken gunny sack. To prevent anything unpredictable from happening, Ye Chen attacked a few more times. It was only after the monster became a deformed corpse did he stop.
Ye Chen walked to the side of Sea Serpent monster’s corpse and took out a fist-sized core from the monster. It was misty white and overflowed with fog, just glancing at it was enough to cause hallucinations, truly a terrible thing.
Ye Chen took a large jade box from the storage ring and put the monster’s core in it. Only after placing the jade box inside did Ye Chen sigh with relief. He then looked around, hoping to find any traces or clues for his mission.
Earlier in that dreamland, the monster was able to describe the characteristics of the master’s granddaughter, meaning that it should have seen her before, but had no idea whether she was still alive or not. If anything had happened to her, there was nothing that Ye Chen could do, after all, this had been dragged on for too long. Besides, that treacherous Sea Serpent monster was not a vegetarian, human brain was its favourite…
Wait, it was not true. Ye Chen suddenly shook his head.
“The sea serpent monster could not speak, everything that happened in the dreamland was just my imagination. Just how did it know the features of the master’s granddaughter? Could it be that that was my own memory, that monster hallucinated me and made me hear what I want to know, meaning that no matter who, as long as he or she is in the dreamland, everything will seem very true and real, including the content of the conversations as whatever a person wants to know would be answered by themselves.”
With a wry smile, Ye Chen had to hand it to the monster, if not for his high alertness and being doubtful of things in his surroundings due to his abnormally powerful spirit power, perhaps he really would have been tricked by the monster with its evil magic.
After a careful search, Ye Chen left the cave after confirming that no traces could be found.
Outside the cave, the ground was overgrown with weeds, just like a wasteland. The stone bridge was just a piece of fallen stone. As for the gully, it was real and below it was the lake water.
Ye Chen followed the road that he came from before and went down the mountain.
After a moment.
The ship was in sight. There were a dozen people standing there, including a young girl in yellow dress. The girl was very beautiful, temperamental and clean.
That girl was actually the master’s granddaughter, Qu Xinying.
"Ye warrior, I have found my granddaughter!" The old man, Master Qu smiled.
Ye Chen touched his nose, "That\'s great."
Qu Ming asked, "Did anything happened over at your side?"
"No, everything was fine." Ye Chen did not want to overcomplicate the matter. Since all of them came here just to find Qu Xinying, there was no need to mention the Sea Serpent monster.
"Good, let\'s go back! It\'s getting late." The old man nodded.
The Iron Ship was stopped near the shore, everyone boarded the ship and began to sail back based on the route they followed to arrive.
On their way back, they met with a lot of demon beasts and it became more dangerous as it was almost late in the evening. Fortunately, there were Ye Chen and Qu Ming who helped in protecting the Ironwood Ship, so they did not go out of the correct route.
When the last ray of daylight died in the horizon, they finally reached Panshan Island. The whole night passed without a word!
On the morning of the second day, Ye Chen took his leave.
As for Qu Ming, he seldom came back, so he was going to stay for a few days, after all, the curse of Panshan Island would only occur between the second and the third month. The first and second month would be safer. Plus, he had been back for only a day.
The Ancient water lake was glittering with sunlight, he stepped on a trunk and moved forward rapidly.
"This coming June is the Sky Cloud Martial School’s inner disciples ranking martial tournament, I have no idea how powerful those top ten great disciples are." His white robe was fluttering.
Ye Chen peacefully pondered as he stared entrancingly at the beautiful lake’s scenery.
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Translated by : Sheryl, Ace
Edited by : Nathan, Jaggerjakk, Orphire
From XianXiaWorld