Volume 3, Chapter 18 – Spirit Lizard

“General, why did you give her the campaign writ so easily?”

At the same time, in the command tent at the rear, Western Army Commander Zheng Xuliang loomed beside the chief seat, his burly frame tense as he looked at the man there in puzzlement.

He knew Lu Niezhi—and had known him for a long time.

Over twenty years ago, he’d been posted to Xifeng Circuit in Western State, just a minor pavilion chief. It was when Lu Niezhi passed that way and took a liking to his recklessness and ferocity that he picked him to serve as his personal guard. Only then had Zheng had the chance to rise through the ranks, rapidly promoted to general on the back of years of bloody battle merits earned at Lu’s side.

Xifeng Circuit was the westernmost circuit city on Great Yu’s borders. There were hardly any villages nearby. Aside from sandstorm-borne demons, what they had to face were the “Western Wu Ancient Clan” roaming the great plains.

The Western Wu Ancient Clan were a branch of the Wu. Like most of their kind, they refused to accept the rules and order of a human-ruled age. They still revered the Demon Court, followed demon law, and worshiped “Wu-Demon Totems,” wielding methods to drive demon beasts and extract mysterious power from Aberrations.

Ordinary civilians knew nothing of this, and Great Yu’s news would never report it. In most other circuit cities, the Wu were treated as savages far removed from urban civilization, much like those “Yamin” and “Yinxi” people in the foreign federations—ridiculous oddballs who liked to stick bird and beast feathers in their hair, drape themselves in pelts, and dance bizarre steps around bonfires.

When Lu Niezhi commanded troops out there, it happened to coincide with that Western Wu Ancient Clan reaching its own peak, urgently needing to expand its territory to breed more humans and demon beasts.

Clashes between the two sides were inevitable. Judging by the fact that Lu had since been promoted to Commander of the Imperial Guard and Zheng Xuliang to Commander of the Western Army, the outcome of that war was, of course, a crushing defeat for the Wu, who likely still hadn’t recovered their strength.

So Zheng Xuliang spoke to him very bluntly, and still called him “General” instead of the more formal “Drill Commander.”

“She’s a troublesome one,” Lu Niezhi said, lifting his cup for a sip, a flicker of regret passing over his long, narrow face.

A Divine Fetus great cultivator at seventeen or eighteen—if he could get hold of the secret behind that, couldn’t he break through and become a Divine Fetus immortal himself?

If it were only court grandees like Liu Gongzhu and Wang Anlai vying with him over her, he would certainly show no politeness; he’d find a way to squeeze some benefits out of it no matter what.

But the truth was it wasn’t just that handful. It was the whole world, including that one on the throne, all eyeing her.

That made this karma hard to accept. Lu Niezhi had to weigh whether being too close to Bai Xiang might bring calamity down on his own head.

After all, unlike other drill commanders, he didn’t have that kind of family background. Aside from the merits and connections he’d built up in the western lands early on, his only real backing was the favor of the Imperial House. He didn’t dare gamble even the slightest bit of risk.

“We’re not in a position to get tangled in this,” he said, raising one finger toward Zheng Xuliang.

“First the Reversal, now the Blood Sea… In this damned age, one mess after another keeps crawling out.”

“At a time like this, remember not to covet what isn’t yours.”

“Live long enough, and things will come knocking on their own.”

……

On the other side, within the Blood Cloud Great Marsh, Bai Xiang had already gone deep in.

The farther she walked, the denser the blood mist became. The feel of it against her skin and in her lungs was deeply unpleasant, like being stuffed into cotton batting, with a cloying, nauseating stickiness.

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“With this stench, there’s no way I’m wearing these clothes again when I get back.”

Bai Xiang frowned—but her attention was on other points.

Never mind that she possessed a soul-based supernatural talent and could anchor her own spirit with will alone. Just the raw strength of her spirit-soul after forming the Golden Core of the path of qi, which had soared dramatically, was enough for her to move freely through Shenli’s mist without relying on any special ability.

The blood mist’s function as a barrier all depended on Shenli’s properties. Bai Xiang wasn’t affected by that, so to her, the mist might as well have been air; even its effect on blocking vision was very limited.

She could sense qi presence and, with Jade Spirit assisting in her mind, build a full 3D model of the surroundings. The weeds on the edge of this great marsh were bursting with life-force. As long as she moved close and carefully felt it out, she wouldn’t get lost even with her eyes closed.

Soon, in her senses, she picked out several winding paths.

Following one of the paths up a slope, cutting down a few hanging willow “man-eater” tree demons along the way, she suddenly emerged from the bloody haze to see an ancient-style manor nestled against a sheer cliff.

The manor was a typical Great Yu neo-classical complex: a wide front gate, high walls, black tiles. In the ring of weeds outside the gate lay at least a hundred animal skeletons of various kinds. No birdsong or insect chirping could be heard anywhere around, only the roar of the river waves crashing.

The atmosphere was eerie, but Bai Xiang felt no fear.

She strode forward, invisible sword-Qi swirling around her and sweeping aside all weeds and bones. At the gate, she lifted her gaze to the plaque above and saw three large characters: Qingyuan Manor.

It didn’t look like anyone had been coming and going. Had the people inside all fled after Yao Qingyuan’s incident?

With one stroke, she cleaved the heavy wooden doors in two and stepped into the front courtyard, carefully taking in the surroundings.

There were two ginkgo trees in the courtyard, their trunks so thick it would take several people to encircle one. The brick and tile underfoot were covered in rotting branches and leaves built up over the winter. Her boots crunched loudly with every step, and now and then she caught sight of a few long worms slithering below.

None of that was particularly unusual. But Bai Xiang seemed to sense something. She quickly moved beneath the ginkgo on the left and frowned at the west-facing side of the trunk.

The bark on that side had been worn away in a layer.

On the trunk she found two four-toed claw marks sunk deep into the wood, each about the size of a human head.

Sweeping away all the dead leaves and debris nearby, she could see more partial claw prints remaining.

She crouched and picked up a dark green-black scale from between the blades of grass, narrowed her eyes, and looked in the direction where the tracks led—that is, toward the inner hall.

If she had to guess, she would say this was some kind of sauropod or reptilian creature using the tree trunk to scratch its back.

Very big.

With claw prints the size of a human head, by lizard proportions its body length from head to tail had to be over five meters.

And very smart.

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It knew to stand upright to get its back against the bark.

Bai Xiang suspected this was a demon beast that had escaped from the manor laboratory.

Yao Qingyuan was a firm believer in science. The experimental equipment in the manor was richer and more advanced than anything she’d seen anywhere else.

This wasn’t a guess. When she’d received Bai Nianchan’s fragmented memories back then, she’d glimpsed scenes of that corpse being studied here.

With her ability to sense qi presence as an early warning, she wasn’t afraid of anything lurking in the dark. She stepped straight into the inner hall and began searching through the manor.

The decor here wasn’t especially ostentatious, but all the materials used were rare and precious. The whole place radiated a kind of low-key luxury.

On the wooden floor, Bai Xiang found several more embedded claw marks and some dragged bloodstains.

In several places, floor and walls had collapsed. Judging from the fracture lines, they’d been smashed in by enormous force.

But she couldn’t sense any large living creature.

Had it found no people here to eat and left the manor already?

Following the path laid out in the memory fragments, Bai Xiang quickly located the reception hall, where she immediately spotted her little aunt’s remains.

It took up an entire wall.

Antlers, tiger heads… layer upon layer of vicious demon heads and torsos, their skins pulled tight over bone frames to make specimens and displayed here as trophies.

Mixed among them were a few human specimens, men and women both. Some of the “humans,” on closer look, weren’t actually human, but human-shaped figures overlaid with various demon characteristics—

Fangs, scales, exoskeletons, and the like.

Bai Xiang guessed these were humans who had initiated the Demon-Transforming path.

Either enemies of the Prince of Nanling who’d been killed and moved here—or experimental subjects, and rare ones at that.

Bai Nianchan’s remains were on the right side of the doorway ahead, second row from the bottom.

Her lower body had likely been destroyed during experimentation. Only her upper skeleton, draped in human skin, remained embedded in the wall. A layer of white gauze had been wrapped over the outside, and her hair had been dressed in a refined noblewoman’s style.

A head of glossy black hair hung down, and beneath the fringe lay two tightly closed eyes.

Bai Xiang reached out and flipped open the eyelids, finding only empty sockets beneath.

Then she pried open the lips, and saw no shriveled tongue inside either.

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Gouging out the eyes and cutting out the tongue—tortures performed on a dead body.

Yao Qingyuan must have loved that dead son of his very much.

At this point, Bai Xiang could no longer muster much anger in the face of the scene. She took a brocade cloth from a nearby table and chairs, spread it on the floor, then sliced her sword through the wall to pry out Bai Nianchan’s half-body remains and wrapped them up. But in her head, she was mostly thinking… Did Yao Qingyuan know his son had been a God-Vein Demon?

Bai Nianchan had killed his son because she sensed he was an Aberration. She’d originally assumed Yao Qingyuan knew this. For someone that cold-blooded, sacrificing a son shouldn’t have been anything major.

But looking at the torture inflicted on her little aunt’s corpse, things clearly weren’t that simple.

Just what was he in league with?

If he didn’t know about the God-Vein Demon, were “they” planning to use it to erode Yao Qingyuan?

Had her little aunt accidentally ruined their schemes?

The whole affair was bizarre. A chill rose on the back of Bai Xiang’s neck.

Just then—she suddenly sensed a qi presence in the corner of the hall beginning to “wake up.”

An enormous surge of life-force and blood energy was curled up in the shadows of the hall’s far corner. As it revived, it flowed in a slow pulse, blending with the sound of waves outside the windows.

Reptile… so it hibernates, huh.

Without hesitation, Bai Xiang flicked Feixiang Heaven out, wrapping it in qi-sha and thrusting straight toward that spot, about to skewer the shadow.

“Spare me, Immortal!”

A voice like distant thunder boomed from over there. “This lowly one has always eaten only evil men! I’ve never taken the life of a single innocent!”

The corner of Bai Xiang’s mouth twitched, and her sword stopped in midair, tip hovering just in front of a patch of scales.

As the other’s massive body crawled out, she finally saw it clearly… It was a monster over six meters long.

Thick limbs, heavy dark green-black scales.

Its head was something between a lizard and a crocodile, a mouthful of curved teeth jutting out. Strangest of all, on its head, set to either side, were four huge blood-red eyes.

“Many thanks, Immortal…!”

Carefully avoiding the sword tip, the thing braced its back against the wall and pushed with its hind legs, suddenly straightening up to stand on two feet. Its foreclaws clasped together as it bowed to Bai Xiang, looking a bit ridiculous.

“Many thanks, Immortal, for sparing my life!”

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Whoosh!

Recalling her natal sword, Bai Xiang frowned at the creature. “Tell me what you are.”

“This lowly one should count as a demon…” the monster said, scratching its head in a very human way. “This lowly one still has some human memories… but a lot of things are blurry. I only remember waking up down below, then going mad and eating many evil men… After that I just kept lying here sleeping, until Immortal startled me awake.”

How could a demon have human memories?

And that way of referring to itself… creepy as hell.

Bai Xiang gave her sword a light shake and ordered, “Turn around.”

The monster flinched. “I… Immortal?”

“Turn. Now.”

It was clearly unwilling, afraid Bai Xiang would take the chance to kill it.

But it feared even more the terrifying qi presence she was emitting.

Others might not be able to sense it, but it could see a pool of water.

A deep, quiet surface, calm and restrained.

But beneath that surface, the qi was razor-sharp and violently raging, a chasm as bottomless as a torn-open sea. It couldn’t even form the thought of opposing it.

So it chickened out, obediently turning around and presenting the back of its head to Bai Xiang.

Footsteps sounded behind it, and something cold slipped between the scales at the back of its skull, gently prying a few times.

“Immortal?”

The monster asked.

“You really are partly human.”

Bai Xiang sighed. At the back of its head, she’d seen a surgical incision.

“These lunatics.”

“They fused different brains together.”