Chapter 480: Not One Less!

Chapter 480: Not One Less!

Upon realizing that its short moment of freedom was coming to an end now that it had run into a jailer... the head was profoundly furious.

If it had been an ordinary jailer, it might not have been a big deal. The head could have made a big scene and probably pulled the wool over the eyes of someone unfamiliar with it. But when facing Xu Qing, it didn’t dare to bare even a hint of its teeth. All it dared to do was flee. Not even it was sure how many times Xu Qing had killed it. Xu Qing’s methods were profoundly brutal, and what was more, the fluctuations of godly authority he emanated were terrifying. And then there was that shadow of his....

The head could remember not too long ago how Xu Qing would awaken in D-132, and the first thing he would do was stomp the head out of existence. No matter how many times the head experienced that, it never got used to it. All it did was instill a deep terror of Xu Qing into it. It trembled in fear as it fled, and the stone lion ahead of it was in the same position.

Xu Qing wasn’t in a rush. He watched coldly as the head and the stone lion ran from him. Now that he wasn’t under the influence of D-132, some of the memories of that time were returning to him. One thing he now recalled... was why he had always snapped those bamboo slips. They had gathered godly power from D-132, and were also full of the amnesiac destiny aura. What was more, being all piled together caused the bamboo slips to change on a substructural level.

Every time I woke up and realized that, I wanted to use the power of D-132 to create a special treasure.

With such thoughts on his mind, he summoned the hellspirit bloodwing and then shot forward with such astonishing speed that he instantly caught up with the head.

All the head saw was a blur, and then Xu Qing was in front of it. It shrieked in absolute terror as Xu Qing lifted his foot.

“AIIIIEEEEEE! Not this again!” It instinctively closed its eyes, and then a loud thump rang out. Examine the origin of this data, deeply intertwined with n0v[lbin★

Xu Qing stomped his foot onto the head, causing it to burst. Then he looked placidly at the stone lion.

“Get the hell back here!”

The stone lion stopped in place and shivered. It didn’t dare to continue fleeing. Thinking back to how many times Xu Qing had burned it to death, it obediently turned back around, then skipped back to Xu Qing, wagging its tail like a puppy. When it reached him, it dropped to the ground in front of him in obeisance.

Xu Qing coldly examined the lion. Whether it was because of his memories or the information carved onto the broken bamboo slips, he knew that this stone lion was the cloud troll from D-132. More precisely, under the effects of the destiny aura, it looked like a cloud troll. But this headless stone lion was its true form. That was why the head had made such a big deal about Xu Qing putting him in that specific cell. It was because it wanted to become the stone lion’s head.

As Xu Qing considered those things, the chunks of flesh that had been the head flew back together. A moment later, the head was whole again, and it immediately started shrieking.

“Exalted Jailer, I—”

Xu Qing stomped on it. Another thump rang out as it exploded yet again.

The stone lion shivered and wagged its tail even harder.

The head recovered fairly quickly, and immediately began moaning. “I’m done for. Done for! Without the amnesic effects of D-132, I simply—”

Thump.

As for the other missing parts, one finger and one eye, there were no clues regarding their whereabouts. They had gone into hiding somewhere, and the presumption was that if further intense searching was carried out, they would be found. But because of the war, the swordsages didn’t have that spare time to work with.

If what the head just said was true, then the finger from D-132 was hiding somewhere in Daybreak Prefecture.

As Xu Qing considered matters, the head blinked rapidly a few times. It was very pleased, as it was thinking that if Xu Qing went looking for Sir Inkwell, then either Xu Qing would end up dead and the head would have his freedom back, or the old Paintfolk bastard would also end up captured, and there would be a big D-132 reunion party.

As far as the head was concerned, it was too unfair that all the other D-132 cellmates were free, while it wasn’t. It would be much better for them all to be suffering. Having reached the conclusion that this was definitely the best way to think about it, the head continued speaking.

“Exalted one, back when the Corrections Division exploded, that old fart Sir Inkwell ran off with the god’s finger and—”

“I’m not a fan of lies,” Xu Qing said coldly.

The head shivered and quickly spoke in a different tone of voice. “It was the god’s finger! Hē clearly has thoughts of being independent. Instead of responding to the call of the other body parts, hē fled with Sir Inkwell. Me and the lion here had no choice but to follow along.

“Ehhh... while we were traveling, I heard that old fart Sir Inkwell talking to the finger. From what I could hear, I think hē wanted Sir Inkwell to paint something.

“Of course, hē’s a god. Very different from us. So Sir Inkwell said that a painting like that would need special paint. And that’s why they went to Daybreak Prefecture, to look for the legendary remains of the fallen sun, and use them as the main ingredient in the paint.”

The head didn’t dare to hide any elements of the story, and in fact took great efforts to include every detail. After all, if Xu Qing got the sense he was lying, he knew he would pay the price.

After some more thought, Xu Qing patted the stone lion’s neck, and the lion bounded forward toward Daybreak Prefecture.

As the prefecture got closer, Xu Qing mentally reviewed everything he knew about it. Daybreak Prefecture was unlike Sea-Sealing County, or any of the other prefectures, for that matter. It contained virtually no dry land. Instead, it was a massive, incomparably deep pit covering ninety percent of the prefecture.

Legend had it the huge pit was really a crater that resulted when the broken face of the god arrived, and one of the suns perished. When it fell, it created that massive pit.

Thus, Daybreak Prefecture was like a bottomless abyss, a lake so big it was like a sea. In fact, it was called the Abyssal Sea. The surface of the pitch-black sea was dotted with occasional mountain peaks that stuck up out of the water. Over time, the tips of those huge mountains came to be occupied by humans and nonhumans alike. The mountains were very unique in that they were made of a black, crystalline substance that came to exist when the sun fell and released incomparable heat. That was one of the reasons why this prefecture was known for producing cloudmother stones.

In the middle of the Abyssal Sea and all the mountains, there was an extremely large mountain called Mount Daybreak, which was where Daybreak Prefecture’s Swordsage Court was located.

What was more, the sun wind in Daybreak Prefecture was stronger than in surrounding areas. It blew constantly, year-round, and never abated. As a result, Daybreak Prefecture was a place where teleportations weren’t possible, and flight was extremely limited. Instead, over the years that had passed, cultivators of the various species took to traveling on huge ships.

To accommodate those huge ships, the borders of Daybreak Prefecture featured numerous harbors. Right now, Xu Qing was looking at a mid-sized harbor. He was in disguise, and he had masked his aura. He had also disguised the stone lion and the head.

The huge harbor reminded him very much of Seven Blood Eyes. After all, the Abyssal Sea was reminiscent of the Forbidden Sea. It was even the same color.

A wharf stretched out into the water, but there were no ships docked. That said, a lot of cultivators were waiting on the wharf. There were a handful of humans present, but the majority were nonhumans of every shape and size.

The buzz of conversation reached Xu Qing’s ears as he approached.