Chapter 409 – Cathulhu is a Fisherman!
While Clem was in space, an invisible hand seized her body and pulled her and her comrades to the ground. Without the ability to resist, she fell and slammed into the planet below.
"GAH!"
All heads coughed and were stunned. The impact caused a 100 kilometers wide crater and a massive shockwave, which expulsed the cloud and trees in a radius of 1,000 kilometers. As if the world was being destroyed, the ground turned red because of the impact and collective heat.
Although the apocalypse-like scene seemed terrifying, Xiaomao and Amon levitated in the sky, ignoring the collapsed ground. Xiaomao blankly stared at his prey while Amon raised her arms to protect her face from the small pebbles and black dust.
Xiaomao resisted the strong gale and silently whipped the fishing line toward the hydra. The fishing rod shone and the line slithered in the air as if it was alive. The small hook at the end of the line transformed into a small arrowhead and pierced something invisible 50 meters away from the black dragon's head.
The black dragon opened his eyes in a jolt. He sensed a sharp pain in his heart, but he couldn't find any assailant nearby. He looked around in panic.
It was too late for him to react. Xiaomao reeled in the fishing line, which pulled the invisible object that the hook was latching on.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!" The black dragon head screamed. He thrashed his head and neck around as if someone was crushing his heart and bones to pieces.
"NOOOO!! MAKE IT STOP!!"
Firecracker, the red dragon head, raised his neck and looked at his colleague. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, "Something's amiss!"
"Damn right, something's amiss!" Clem complained and turned her head around. "Only sages can pull us to the ground like this, but all sages are on our side! That's definitely Xiaomao's protagonist power!"
All heads but the black dragon looked around, searching for the culprit. However, they couldn't find Xiaomao no matter how hard they tried – Domains, Qi sense, sight, smell, and karma reading skills failed to pick up Xiaomao's location.
"AAAAAAAH!!"
The black dragon's head suddenly exploded from the inside. Then, his dantian crystal and soul shot out of his neck, flying toward an area with thick black dust.
All eight heads noticed it instantly. They turned around in unison.
"OVER THERE! Use the dantian detonation domain!" Commanded Clem.
The domain was self-explanatory. It was the exclusive power of all Yamato no Orochi's successors, which could instantly destroy any deity or immortal's dantian crystal by just chanting a dragon-language spell.
DING
All eight heads received a game system notification.
<Karmic Soul Collector has collected Dragon God Noir's soul.>
<Dragon God Noir has died. He cannot be resurrected unless you return his soul to the body.>
"WHAT?!"
Clem and the seven dragons were astonished. They had never heard of this artifact before.
"That must be Xiaomao's personal weapon! If we kill him, we can steal his artifacts and secrets!" Firecracker suggested.
"NO! That's the way a 3rd rated antagonist becomes food for the protagonists! We'll abandon Noir and get out of this world ASAP! I'm activating the teleportation spell!"
Clem sweated profusely. As cowardly and despicable as she was in the past, she detached her head from the body of the hydra and vanished, teleporting out of this planet alone.
The other seven heads were shocked once again when Clem suddenly removed herself from the unified physique of Orochi. But as they were distracted, the fishing line and the arrowhead bait returned.
SWUA
The bait pierced something in front of the white dragon. He instantly screamed in agony.
"HEEEEEELP!! SOMETHING CRUSHES MY HEART!!"
"..."
It was too late. The white dragon suffered the same fate as Noir - His head exploded, and his soul was stolen.
The six remaining dragons clicked their tongues. They turned toward the general direction where the fishing line came from.
Firecracker rallied his colleagues.
"Don't be discouraged! Clem is just a cowardly backstabbing bitch. We are deities, but Xiaomao is just an immortal. He is relying on the treasure's power. Once we disable his treasure, he is dead meat!"
The rally worked like magic. The remaining heads stopped looking at the white dragon head and activated their mandate domain, unleashing another volley of hell at the cloud of black dust.
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK
Once again, the time stopped, and all domain abilities were paused.
Firecracker bellowed and dispelled the time domain. However, it wasted a split second of his valuable reaction time.
A split second was enough for another ability to hit Firecracker and his friends. The same fishing line returned. But this time, the thin line was as straightened as a sword. It swung down and cleaved their massive body in half!
"!!!"
The massive hydra body was split into two. The six unharmed heads detached from the main body and transformed into six separated dragons.
When all dragons left the main body, the large torso withered and rotted, leaving only black dust and bones. Firecracker and the five dragons coughed blood as their Orochi Array in the body was broken.
"Dammit! My precious hard work!" The pink dragon complained. She turned around and glared at the fishing line. "I've had enough! You will die by my-!"
SWUA
Because they wasted too much time doing nothing, the fishing line acted like an assassin's steel wire and sliced the pink dragon into 30 pieces. Her severed face slipped and fell on the ground while the fishing hook picked up her soul and returned it to the fisherman.
.
Meanwhile, Xiaomao levitated in the black cloud, swinging his fishing rod with one hand. He picked his nose with the other hand and flickered it away, which accidentally fell on the soul of black dragon Noir.
Amon widened her eyes, watching the carnage in astonishment. She rubbed her eyes twice and pinched her nipples to check if she wasn't dreaming.
"What is going on?"
"Just stay there and watch, munya. Once I'm done with those geezers, we'll have a dragon steak party."
"B-But I'm a dragon, too. Cannibalism is a bit…"
"Then, you can just eat other steaks while I eat the dragons, munya."
"…"
Xiaomao cracked his fishing rod like a whip. A second later, the hook pulled the white dragon's soul to him. The angel furrowed his brow and looked at the soul in frustration.
"This is taking too long. Let's do something we've never tried, shall we, munya?"
The fishing rod hummed while Xiaomao transformed into an oversized catopus. His head alone was one -meter tall, but he came with twenty tentacles. He also stopped time, distracting the dragons and stopping the oncoming domain abilities before they could hit him or Amon.
The fishing rod multiplied into twenty, matching Xiaomao's tentacle arms. Each arm coiled around a fishing rod, and they moved in unison, attacking the remaining dragons.
One of the fishing lines turned into a sword and cleaved the massive hydra body in half. Five went after the pink head, but she transformed into a dragon first. Because the fishing lines had been cast, the lines cut the pink dragon into pieces.
The other lines and hooks also went after the remaining dragons. But again, Xiaomao was annoyed for some reason.
"Why do I feel like I haven't used the full potential of this fishing rod, munya?"
The fishing rod also glittered in response. It extracted a drop of chaos element essence and a wisp of Xiaomao's positive karma to hint at him.
"Hmm. So, should I spend more essence and karma on you, munya?"
The fishing rod hummed again in agreement. Seeing how the sentient weapon reacted to his words, Xiaomao grinned and injected a star-worth of chaos essence and his remaining pure karma energy around him into the weapon.
SCREECH!!
The 19 clones of the fishing rod and the real one screeched in unison. They vanished from Xiaomao's tentacles. Then, a wisp of karma memory entered Xiaomao's mind.
Once again, Xiaomao had a realistic daydream.
.
.
The wooden cabin in the forest was always peaceful and tranquil, except for the certain non-stop wailing noise of a young catopus, which came from a nearby river bank.
"MASTER, HELP!!"
The fisherman elder laughed as he pulled his soul-bound weapon, the fishing rod "Karmic Soul Collector", to reel in the bait on the hook. Coincidentally, the hook was latching on the young catopus' neck choker.
The elder used Mu-Nyang as bait to attract a massive river horn snake. It widened its mouth and chased after the living bait. Terrified for his life, the young cat cursed his parent while he absorbed whatever Qi was in the area to reinforce his stellar constellation domain barrier.
CRACK
The barrier cracked as the fangs of the snake sage easily destroyed the puny power of an immortal. Mu-Nyang cried a waterfall and trembled, wishing that everything was just a dream.
BOOM
The fishing line suddenly split into a hundred threads. The main line still pulled Mu-Nyang, but the rest transformed into cathulhu tentacles. Half of them stabbed the river horn snake's body while the other half pried its mouth open.
The elder fisherman leisurely walked on the river and unhooked Mu-Nyang. He put him on his shoulder and petted him, "Well done, Mu-Nyang. You have condensed another Hydro Star."
Mu-Nyang never stopped crying, "I don't wanna train anymore, munya. Spare me."
"This is for your growth, child. This realm is full of entities and sages. An immortal like you are nothing but an insect to big guys like them. If you don't train, you'll be eaten one day."
"I don't wanna get eaten, munya!"
"Then, get stronger."
"I don't want to train either, munya!"
"Then, get eaten."
"NOOOOOO!!"
"YEEEEEEESS!!"
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"
"YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!"
Mercilessly, the fisherman threw Mu-Nyang into the giant snake's mouth. Then, he commanded the fishing line tentacles to forcefully close its mouth and destroy its brain.
BOOM
The large snake's brain exploded from the inside. However, the body still tried its best to survive. It produced digestive fluid and attempted to dissolve whatever was inside the snake's stomach.
"NOOOOOOO!!"
The cat's cry continued. The fisherman laughed while he carefully observed Mu-Nyang with his domain, getting ready to pull him out.
.
Xiaomao reopened his eyes after he took a few seconds of a short nap. He remembered the technique now.
"Oh, boy. I was a dick, munya."
A bitter smile appeared on Xiaomao's face. He swiped a drop of his tear and sent a command to the fishing rod.
"Karma Switch!"