Story 7 - To Kill Demonic Vines (14?)
Since it had been a few minutes, I sent my divine sense into Hu Huan.
His organs and ridian blockages had already started the clearing process. There were a few areas where small bits of leftover toxins were sticking. This was worse than I originally suspected, but it wasn’t that bad.
The acupuncture had done its work, so I pulled out the needles.
To clear up his condition, I took back his cup of spring water, refilled it and added a shaving from a mild cleansing pill that could work for mortals.
It did have side effects. But I was sure those would be helpful.
Little Spring continued to chat at Hu Huan about what the mortal would have to do as the new head of his household. The poor kid blankly sipped on the drugged water with my forceful encouragent.
Once he’d finished the cup, I interrupted. “Hu Huan.”
He jumped and turned to face . “Before your mother died, she made a deal with to treat your disease.”
He blinked. “H-haven’t I already been cured?”
“You were being kept alive through force and had your pain receptors blocked. You were still on the verge of death. That’s why you barely looked any better.”
His mouth opened, but then his eyes turned to where a group of cultivators I’d seen work under the city lord were respectfully retrieving his mother’s corpse. The maids must have called for them earlier because they’d arrived within minutes of her death.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Your mother wanted you to live a long life and beco a governnt official. And as your benefactor, I want you to help many people and not give in to corruption.” I added that last part so he would strive to balance out so of the bad karma he’d accumulated by benefiting from the massacre. It would be up to him whether he succeeded or not.
Of course, asking him to do that could backfire, but I was willing to make the bet. The author may have made a Xianxia universe filled with assholes and immoral shits, but there were still a few decent individuals that helped make living here not a complete hell.
“I’ve finished your initial treatnt so you'll begin to feel healthy soon.”
He blinked, his eyes unfocused. Poor child was probably still in the denial stage of grief.
I cleared my throat. This next part might be hard on him. “Soti in the next few minutes, you’ll experience a pain in your stomach and the call of nature.”
His eyes grew wide, and he clutched his abdon.
“This is normal... The next hour is going to be very uncomfortable for you, but once you’ve excreted all the toxins, you’ll feel better than you have in your entire life.”
I had a feeling that this was about to kick start his anger stage of grief.
“Ah!” He pointed in a direction and ran off. Probably to go find a restroom sowhere.
Little Spring scowled at . “Couldn’t that have waited?”
“The kid had foreign energy infesting his system, barely keeping him alive.”
“You could have done the treatnt later,” Clear Eyes pointed out.
I narrowed my eyes at the teen. “Look, if I didn’t flush out those energies along with the impurities from his disease, then Demon Thorny Devil Vine may have used them to kill little Hu Huan before I could fulfill my promise. You think I’d let that happen?”
Both Little Spring and Clear Eyes Mad Tongue looked thoughtful.
Even if the things I did seed strange or eccentric, they always had a reason.
I crossed my arms and grinned evilly. “Besides, sotis, when you’re grieving, you need a distraction. And nothing distracts a person more than explosive diarrhea.”
Vaguely horrified expressions appeared on both of their faces.
The kid tugged at my sleeve. “Sister Lin, please never give explosive diarrhea.”
Mad Tongue looked pained. “If you ever feel the urge to help in my ti of need, please do not.”
I scowled. “I didn’t purposefully give... It’s a side effect! A side effect!”
Little Spring did not look reassured at all, but he still changed the topic. “While we have the chance, shouldn’t we go back and make more of those trick—”
The whole yard suddenly rumbled, cutting the kid off. A few of the gathered maids scread and crouched low or clung to wood columns. One of them accidentally sent the basket of laundry flying into a mud puddle.
From the dirt ground of the courtyard, a line of thorny, glowing pink vines grew up like so kind of eldritch… bush? Hedge maze?
It only ca up to my waist before it stopped growing, so it wasn’t all that impressive.
Still, what the fuck was this?
I sent out my divine sense, stretching it out as far as I could go without breaking the seal on my soul’s appearance.
The lines of bushes ran through the entire city in a familiar pattern.
In a dozen areas, massive pink wyverns used their braided wings to pull themselves from beneath the ground. Each was at least twice the height of the one we fought earlier.
A large swarm of demonic vine tumbleweeds rolled from each of the holes the wyverns made. They rampaged through the streets, knocking over citizens and smashing into cabbage stalls.
There were way more of these vine entities than we’d thought.
This could only an that our enemy was already in the Nascent Soul realm.
And Salamander was off fighting that hyperintelligent vine fucker!
Unfortunately, I didn’t have ti to worry about him. I had to believe that Elder Grass Sprout could reach him before his situation beca too dangerous.
Because, being the formation master I was, I knew that this whole fucked city was in a massive slaughter formation.
And this palace was right in its center.
The only good news was that a demonic-type array of this size and level would take around 25 minutes to beco fully lethal. Then everyone would die.
There wasn’t a lot of ti.
But it would be enough to get to and destroy the Life gate and Death gate flags.
We just needed to reach them before the demonic formation fully activated. Well, this city didn’t have a flying ban. So... I pulled out my flying sword spiritual tool and attempted to activate it. It refused to even hover a foot off the ground.
It just figured that whoever set this situation up would add a fucking flight ban to their goddamn city wide trap.
I sent a telepathic ssage to everyone, ::Stay calm. Our situation seems bad, but it’s not the worst. The city is in the middle of a slaughter formation activated by Demon Thorny Devil Vine. We’ve uncovered his involvent in disseminating the plague, so he must have decided to cut his losses. He’s going to use this formation to steal all the life energy from the city.::
Frankly, using an energy-expensive array like this wasted a majority of the power he would gain from this city — which was probably why it was his last resort.
Fairy Swift Dove’s calm voice entered my mind, ::Senior Lin! Should we help the alchemists retreat?::
::We are not going to leave all these people to fend for themselves. Besides, the new flight ban surrounding the city will make it quicker to stop the formation than to escape.::
::But how are we going to destroy it? We didn’t bring a formation master with us who’s strong enough to dismantle sothing of this level, right?!:: Drunken Blade sounded stressed.
::Don’t you dare underestimate . I am a formation master of sufficient level and I’ve already calculated where the Life and Death gates are.:: I hope that information helped steady the others. ::We’re splitting into two groups because we have to get to them as fast as possible.::
Speaking of which, I started running in the direction of the Life Gate and motioned for Little Spring and Clear Eyes to follow.
::Fairy Swift Dove, I need you to lead the sword cultivators and alchemists near you to the Death Gate. It’s closer to you.::
ntally, I sent her a map where the Death Gate would be located... right on top of where a vine wyvern perched.
As rapidly as possible, I explained what they could expect fighting it, how to defeat it, and how to get the flag underneath it. ::Also, I need you to wait for my signal. While pulling out the flags at separate tis. will still interrupt the formation, the only way to kill it quickly is to pull them both out at the sa ti.::
::We’ll wait until we can’t.::
::Good. We’re dealing with a highly intelligent demonic cultivator here. Stick together and watch each other’s backs.::
::Yes, Senior Lin!::
Ah, it was so nice to work with competent people. No complaining that we should leave the city to fend for itself. I didn’t even get a, ‘This isn’t what I signed up to do.’ Just a simple yes and doing their utmost to follow orders.
The Daoist, forrly known as Young Master Zhang, ran around a corner and reached our team. Of course, now he was called Spear that Weaves Through Lightning.
“Senior Lin!” He said with a huge grin on his face as he fell into step beside us. “I’m here to aid this side, so it isn’t uneven.”
“Good!” I wouldn’t look down on any extra help, even if he wasn’t as useful as an additional foundation establishnt cultivator.
“Also, they sent with a couple batches of trick pills.” He brought out two bottles. I took one and waved the other back to him.
The spear cultivator would need it more.
***
I sped up.
That was when a crowd of several dozen burst from the buildings that lined the street and blocked our path.
I was honestly just going to sidestep them all and keep going... but I slowed to a stop.
Because these people had glowing pink vines wrapped around each of their limbs and horrible expressions on their faces.
They shuffled toward us on stiff legs controlled by demonic vines.
Moans of pain escaped from several of them, echoing through the once quiet streets.
The only thing this situation needed was one of them saying, ‘brains,’ while holding their arms out.
Wait a second! Earlier today, hadn’t I compared this demonic disease to the black plague if a zombie virus caused it?
When did I take over Clear Eye’s job as the damn crow’s mouth of the group?
And why did Demon Thorny Devil Vine bother making motherfucking Vine Zombies?!
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