Chapter 760: Distorted Human Nature
Translator: Udeze Editor: Udeze
An adage says that the more beautiful the appearance of something is, the more dangerous it is. The same thing applied to this picturesque forested mountain. It seemed like a cluster of flowers and piles of brocades with trees providing pleasant shades, augmented with the misty white fog that added a bit of wonderland flavor to it. Yet, Tang Xiu and his men, who had passed through the bridge and continued forward for hundreds of meters, abruptly stopped as though they were about to face a formidable enemy.
It was a white pigeon. That’s right, it was the usual white pigeon, but with a body that was ten times larger than an ordinary white pigeon—comparable to an ox. At present, it was lazily strolling through the patches of flowers and grasses. Even though it noticed the arrival of Tang Xiu and his men, it just casually glanced at them and spewed out a spray of flames.
But then, the flowers and plants were instantly burned through when the blue flame touched them. Right as it landed on the ground, a soccer ball-sized stone exposed to the flame instantly burned into blackened ashes and scattered with the wind.
“This… is a freaking monster…”
Xue Sha was a very brave man, and yet he was still scared and stunned by the scene before him.
Tang Xiu gazed deeply at the white pigeon as his eyes slowly scoured the surroundings. Just a few seconds after, he found ants climbing a towering old tree. The ants were the size of an adult’s fist, and despite the tens of meters of distance, he could clearly see that it had sharp claws.
“Look over there…” Mo Awu suddenly whispered.
Tang Xiu looked at the direction he pointed and couldn’t help but twitch his eyes. In the bushes about forty-plus meters away, a hedgehog was drilling out from underneath. It was as big as the previously bull-sized white pigeon as it swayed its sharp spines regularly while its pointed sharp mouth exhaled out white air that was like a chilling wind in the winter, so cold that the flowers underneath it were covered with a layer of frost.
“Keep going forward.”
Tang Xiu did not sense any hostility coming from these beasts. Even when he intentionally approached the white pigeon, it only languidly looked at him before walking away, as though this was its own courtyard.
After half an hour, Tang Xiu was still calm although he was also rather surprised inside. But Mo Awu, Jin Shi, and the others were so shocked that they became numb. As they trekked all the way upward and hiked up for a quarter of its height under that special pressure, they had already encountered hundreds of animals, but the size of each of these animals were dozens of times larger than the ones in the outside world. These animals evidently had their own characteristics, but their common point was that they all could fly! Even a pig could tread in the air and had a slow flight ability.
“This is the haven of spirit beasts!”
Tang Xiu recalled the spirit beasts he raised in the Immortal World and let out a smile. All those spirit beasts had their own sentience, and some of them were very intelligent. For instance, a group of two-meter-high apes and monkeys. Although they were not hostile to the humans, oftentimes they played people by throwing melons and fruits.
“We can no longer trek upward, Boss,” Mo Awu breathed raggedly as he spoke with difficulty with a flushed face and sweat on his forehead.
Tang Xiu shifted his gaze to Mo Awu and also observed the others. Finally, he helplessly said, “Then just stay here since you can’t continue! Awu, you are wearing an interspatial ring, so you and the rest pick up all the herbs, fruits, and ores. Store all of them into your ring.”
“Yes!” Mo Awu slightly nodded. They did see many precious and rare herbs. Many of them were even thousands of years old. A massive number of trees had various precious fruits and they could smell their fragrance from far away, and they could find a few precious ores if they looked around. It could fetch a big price once they were to be sold in the outside world.
The mountain itself had no trails or roads.
Tang Xiu stepped on the stone to jump and jump again, continuing to climb under the pressure while picking up and storing all the precious herbs, spirit fruits, and ores he could find on the way into his interspatial ring. After spending a full two hours, he finally arrived at the point halfway up to the mountainside. But his harvest in these two hours had already surpassed all the herbs, spirit fruits, and ores he had obtained in the outside world.
“I can no longer climb up.”
Tang Xiu felt a bit regretful while helplessly looking at the majestic palace atop the mountain summit. The huge pressure was blocking his path forward. He was fortunate that his physical strength was far beyond that of an ordinary person’s, else he would not have been able to reach this mountainside at all. He did have the intention to use this huge pressure to help stimulate and temper the potential of his body, but recalling that he had yet to fully solve the Darkening Virus, he had no choice but to give up and planned to come back later.
On the way down the mountain, Tang Xiu encountered a few seven-plus-meter-high spirit beasts. One of them was a huge tiger that even its pressuring aura made Tang Xiu shiver inside. Fortunately, these spirit beasts did not have the intention to attack a human and simply ignored Tang Xiu’s arrival.
Whew…
Tang Xiu jumped from a huge boulder and appeared beside Mo Awu. Then, he said with a smile, “Tell everyone to gather here. We’ll leave this place.”
“There are so many resources here, Boss,” said Mo Awu quickly. “Coming here was quite difficult, so I think we should stay here for a while. We must pick up a bit more so we can have more resources in the future!”
“No rush. Besides, this mountain won’t run.” Tang Xiu chuckled. “We have to solve the problem outside first, and only then can we have the spare time to seek cultivation resources. Worry not, though! I’ll call Xiaoxue after going out. I’ll tell her to come here with more people.”
Mo Awu understood in a flash and smilingly said, “Well, I was kinda afraid of being poor, to be honest. Don’t laugh at me, Boss.”
Tang Xiu just smiled in response and did not say anything. He understood Mo Awu’s mentality, to begin with. Speaking about it, the Everlasting Feast Hall indeed did not have many resources available. Though they had been buying massive quantities of medicinal ingredients, precious ores, and other cultivation resources through various channels as of recently, the Everlasting Feast Hall had a lot of people, while they also had to train a large number of children. Hence, the number of resources bestowed to everyone was truly very small.
Quickly after, Tang Xiu and the others left the place and headed toward the mountain foot, smoothly leaving the white mist covered area. After boarding the cars, they quickly left and spent half an hour traveling on the road. After determining that nobody was tracking them from behind, the four off-road cars straightly rushed toward Twin Brooks City. During this time, Tang Xiu ate a red hawthorn fruit, his hunger completely disappearing as the energy contained inside the red fruit integrated into his body. Also, because he had not had slept for nearly three days, he then slowly fell asleep.
Creak…
The sound of the brakes abruptly awakened Tang Xiu from his sleep. The inertia nearly made him hit the front chair. With wrinkled brows, Tang Xiu looked at the front and asked, “What happened?”
Mo Awu turned his head and answered, “There are dead bodies on the roadside, Boss. A lot of them.”
Tang Xiu frowned and after opening the door to get off the car, he immediately saw dozens of bodies on both sides of the road. Several bodies had even rotted, with insects around them making creaking, crunching sounds.
“They were not murdered, but… people infected with the Darkening Virus?”
Fury and intense killing intent blasted inside Tang Xiu’s heart toward the main culprits of this Darkening Virus—the people of the Stygian Club. He had received the news a few days ago that hundreds of people had died due to the outbreak of Darkening Virus, but he had yet to see the scene of the dead, hence did not have such intense anger like now.
But if at this moment there were any members of the Stygian Club, he could not wait to use all the means he had available to completely decimate these mass killers.
“Gather up the dead bodies, dig a grave and bury them!”
Tang Xiu issued the order and returned to the car. As he took out a cigarette and lit it up, he took two deep puffs. Right as he was about to call Gu Xiaoxue, he found that his cell phone had no signal. After some thinking, he called Mo Awu since he remembered that Division Commander Yang gave him some communication devices when he was leaving the military garrison compound, and all of them were stored inside Mo Awu’s interspatial ring.
After operating the communicator device, Tang Xiu dialed Gu Xiaoxue’s cell number and spoke, “Xiaoxue, I will send you a coordinate later. You are to come here and bring some people who are proficient in identifying herbs and ores. We have discovered a treasure trove mountain; the place has massive precious herbs and ores.”
“Understood, Grand Master.” Gu Xiaoxue replied.
“Anyways, how is Yan’er now?” asked Tang Xiu after remembering something.
“Master is still in the exquisite pagoda healing her injury every day. She occasionally comes out to stroll around, but her injury has become a lot better and is expected to completely heal within two years.”
“That’s great!” said Tang Xiu. “Tell her to keep staying in the Everlasting Feast Hall. I’m now carrying out an extraordinarily important mission outside. I don’t know when this issue will be handled properly for the time being, though. But you will understand the situation here when you arrive. Also, tell Yan’er that I will head directly to Jingmen Island when I’m done dealing with this matter.”
“Alright.”
After hanging up, Tang Xiu smoked two more cigarettes in a row, while Mo Awu and the others buried the dozen dead bodies. The place was quite remote. There were no villages or shops ahead, while the ambiance in the surroundings was dreadfully quiet.
However, when the cars just started, two cars came roaring from the front and headed toward them extremely fast. Their speed was nearly 180 km/h, and even after they saw four off-road cars in front, it seemed that these two cars did not have the intention of slowing down at all. On the contrary, its speed accelerated a lot as deafening metal music got closer.
It was a rampant and arrogant attitude! And also crazy beyond insanity!
The most shocking scene was that there was someone tied on the roof of the front car. And it seemed that it was a child.
“Block and stop them!” Tang Xiu’s eyes turned cold as he shouted.
Mo Awu suddenly turned the steering wheel and decelerated the car at once. The SUVs behind followed suit as he lowered the glass to hint the nearby Ye Shisan to stop the cars.
CREAAAAK…
The two cars hundreds of meters away suddenly slammed the brakes, stopping ten meters away from them. Only at this moment did Tang Xiu clearly saw that the one tied on the roof of the car was a teenage girl—ragged, battered, and bleeding.
“She’s still alive?”
Tang Xiu’s pupil suddenly contracted. After opening the door and going out, he watched as seven burly men jumped out of the two cars and rushed toward him, adding to the fury already stored within.