txolops Chapter 16 One Man Guards the Pass
Chapter 16 One Man Guards the Pass
The Black-Scaled Demon King sat coiled on a throne made of piled bones. A giant python as thick as a bucket crawled into the cave, its scales rolled up and its flesh mangled.
"Your Majesty, the Azure Python Commander... is dead." The giant python pressed its head to the ground, its voice trembling. "The spirit mine has been destroyed, and all the human slaves have fled."
The Black Scale Demon King opened his eyes, a crimson glint flashing in his vertical pupils.
"Crazy!" He lashed his tail against the stone wall.
Stone fragments flew everywhere, directly hitting the giant python that brought the message and causing it to bleed profusely from the head.
"That useless Green Python can't even guard a mine!" the Black Scale Demon King roared.
He was a powerful demon at the peak of the Refining Spirit and Returning to Emptiness realm, who would dare provoke him within a thousand miles? Now, his lair had been wiped out by a few two-legged sheep. If word got out, how would he ever survive in the Hundred Thousand Mountains again?
"Sound the horn!" roared the Black Scale Demon King. "Call all the brothers! I'm going to devour those ants alive!"
'
Outside the cave, the mournful sound of a cow horn echoed.
More than three thousand snake demons emerged from the mud and treetops. They were densely packed, their fangs gleaming a ghastly green in the dim light. Following the lingering scent of blood in the wind, the mighty army surged towards the Firewood Shelter.
Inside the Firewood Shelter.
Huang Chen sat cross-legged on the stone bed. Suddenly, the tracking compass in his arms vibrated wildly, its needle spinning erratically.
He frowned and took out the array plate of the outer Five Elements Maze Array. On the array plate, countless red dots were rapidly approaching from the northeast.
"This is a real mess." Huang Chen gritted his teeth.
There are at least three thousand of these red dots. The leading dot is a deep, almost purple red, radiating an eerie, demonic aura. It's definitely being led by an old monster.
Huang Chen glanced outside the cave. The hundred-odd tribesmen he had just rescued were all wounded. In this perilous mountain range, how far could he possibly run with a group of old, weak, and disabled people? Going out would just be adding to the monsters' meal.
"There's no way to retreat." Huang Chen spat, "We can only push forward."
On the open ground outside the cave.
Ashi was leading a few young men, distributing fasting pills and roasted meat to everyone. The crackling fire dispelled some of the chill.
"My lord." Ashi saw Huang Chen come out and quickly went to greet him.
Huang Chen patted him on the shoulder.
"Call everyone over here." Huang Chen's voice wasn't loud, but it was cold and hard.
Soon, more than a hundred people gathered in the open space. There were elderly people, women, and a few teenagers. They looked at Huang Chen with hope in their eyes.
Huang Chen glanced at the pale and emaciated faces.
"A monster is attacking this way."
The crowd erupted in chaos. Some gasped, while women covered their children's mouths, trembling. Three thousand snake demons? That was a force capable of chewing them to pieces.
"Quiet!" Huang Chen shouted, silencing all other sounds.
"What's the use of being afraid!" Huang Chen looked at them coldly. "Running out means certain death. Staying here, relying on the formation, offers a sliver of hope."
He pointed to the outer stone wall.
"Humans weren't born to be food for these beasts. If you want to live, pick up your weapons and fight those bastards!"
Ashi was the first to step forward, clutching a bone spear tightly in his hand.
"The sir is right! We're going to die anyway, might as well take a few down with us!"
Several young men gritted their teeth and stepped forward.
"I'll give it my all! At worst, I'll be a hero again in eighteen years!"
The atmosphere was ignited, and fear was forced into a corner. Huang Chen drew his knife and wiped the back of the blade.
"Alright, tonight we'll show these worms just how tough the human race is."
A cold, mechanical voice suddenly rang in my mind.
[Ding! Emergency mission triggered: Guarding the Flame]
[Mission Requirements: Repel the Blackscale Demon King's army and defend the sanctuary]
[Quest Rewards: 50000 Merit Points, one random magic item]
Huang Chen sneered. Fifty thousand merits. This system certainly knows how to make empty promises at the right time.
However, the reward is indeed quite generous, but only if you can survive tonight.
"Ashi, take all the able-bodied men and go to the warehouse to move stones and splinters. Block the entrance, leaving only a half-meter-wide crack."
"Yes!" A-Shi replied and led his men to the warehouse.
Huang Chen strode to the narrow passage at the entrance of the shelter. On both sides were steep, sheer cliffs, leaving only a narrow path in the middle. The terrain was treacherous, making it an excellent blind spot that was easy to defend and difficult to attack.
He subconsciously reached for the storage bag at his waist, but his fingertips only touched a dry, empty piece.
"I'm so poor I'm practically bankrupt," he cursed under his breath, the thought instantly sinking into his mind.
Current balance: 10000 Karma Points
"System, open the store!" Huang Chen gritted his teeth, his eyes hardening.
He swiped rapidly across the light screen, his gaze fixed intently on the array and talisman bar.
[Ding! Consumed 8000 Karma Points to exchange for a set of 'Mysterious Yin Array Flags' (including a fragment of the Nine Kill Blood-Drawing Array diagram)!]
[Ding! Consumed 2000 Karma Points to exchange for five 'Tier 1 Blazing Flame Talismans'!]
With a chilling notification in his mind, the 10000 karma points were instantly cleared. Several small black flags radiating a cold, sinister aura and several pieces of yellow paper painted with crimson cinnabar appeared out of thin air in Huang Chen's hand.
"I'm going to gamble everything I have on this one shot." Huang Chen took a deep breath and acted without the slightest hesitation.
Clutching the Xuan Yin Array Flag, he swiftly traversed the narrow passage, following the directions indicated by the incomplete map in his mind.
"Bang!" With a slap, a black flag was deeply embedded in the hard bluestone ground.
"Bang!" Another array flag sank into the soil, its dark red array patterns flashing across the ground before disappearing.
Although it's just a broken formation, when combined with the existing Minor Five Elements Bewildering Formation on the outside, the power of this killing formation will definitely be enough to give those treacherous creatures a good beating.
After setting up the array flags, Huang Chen picked up the few Explosive Flame Talismans he had acquired with his entire fortune. Like a seasoned hunter, he affixed the talismans to the blind spots on the stone walls on both sides of the narrow passage, and carefully smeared them with a layer of mud and ash for camouflage.
After doing all this, Huang Chen stood up straight, vigorously patted the dust off his hands, and stared coldly at the dark valley entrance.
"Come on," he said, a bloodthirsty smirk creeping across his lips. "I've poured my entire fortune into preparing this lavish feast for you, all you can eat!"
Half an hour later.
The ground began to tremble slightly. A foul-smelling wind blew in from outside the valley, making people nauseous.
Huang Chen stood atop the stone wall, looking down. In the distance, trees lay fallen in swathes in the forest. A dark mass of snakes surged towards them like a tide.
The largest black snake was over ten meters long. Its scales gleamed coldly like black iron. The Black Scale Demon King had transformed into a half-human, half-snake form, carrying a steel fork.
"Search! Search!" The demon king's voice was as grating as a broken gong. "Don't let even a rat escape!"
The swarm of snakes rushed into the narrow passage. The first few dozen smaller snakes had just poked their heads in.
Huang Chen's eyes turned cold, and he made a hand seal.
"burst!"
The Explosive Flame Talisman stuck to the stone wall exploded instantly.
boom!
Flames shot into the sky, and rubble mixed with the severed limbs of the snake demon flew into the air.
"ah--"
Screams ripped through the night sky. The snake demon in front was blown to pieces, and those behind, unable to stop their momentum, crashed into it. The narrow passage instantly descended into chaos.
"There's an ambush!" shouted a snake demon leader.
The Black Scale Demon King pierced through the retreating leader with his trident.
"Stop retreating! Charge! Charge over the corpses!"
The snakes surged forward again. This time they were smarter and crawled along the rock face.
Huang Chen snorted coldly and activated the Nine Kill Blood-Drawing Array. The array flags on the ground lit up with a dark red light. An invisible suction force enveloped the entire narrow passage.
The snake demon that had just crawled in suddenly felt its blood boil uncontrollably.
"hiss--"
Several low-level demons, their scales oozing blood beads, collapsed to the ground, writhing wildly.
"A formation? These two-legged sheep actually know about formations!" The Black-Scaled Demon King watched from behind, his eyes blazing with fury. "Break it!"
Several enormous snake demons, despite the pressure of the formation, crashed into the stone walls on both sides.
The stone wall shook violently, and the light of the array flags began to flicker.
"The formation won't hold for long." Huang Chen scoffed, interlaced his fingers, and snapped them outwards, his knuckles cracking like popping beans.
He turned his head and glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ashi and the others who were guarding the cave entrance, trembling but not retreating an inch.
"Get ready to receive guests!" Huang Chen shouted, his voice booming like a bell, causing the pebbles overhead to fall in a shower.
Before he finished speaking, he bent his knees slightly and leaped down like a tiger descending a mountain, crashing heavily into the center of the narrow passage! Two cracks were left in the bluestone ground.
Huang Chen faced the snake demon general who was as big as an ox at the front. His right arm muscles bulged instantly, and the veins coiled like dragons. He threw out a straight punch without holding back!
"Bang--!"
The dull, deafening roar was enough to make anyone's teeth ache. The snake's head, as hard as iron, exploded like a ripe watermelon under Huang Chen's devastating punch! Red and white sap mixed with foul-smelling venomous blood sprayed backward in a fan shape, drenching Huang Chen completely.
He didn't even blink, letting the scalding demon blood slide down his cheeks. Then, he twisted his waist sharply, using the force of the recoil to swing his left arm out like a thick iron rod, tightly gripping the vital spot of another snake demon that pounced on him.
"Break it for me!" Huang Chen's arm muscles bulged, and he let out a beast-like roar, actually using his bare hands to tear the snake demon, which was as thick as a water bucket, in two! Blood rained down, and internal organs mixed with broken scales were scattered all over the ground.
"Damn it, do you really think I'm made of clay?" Huang Chen wiped the blood off his face, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and his eyes were a hundred times more ferocious than those cold-blooded beasts.
The narrow terrain perfectly limited the snakes' numerical advantage; this gap, less than half a meter wide, became a natural meat grinder. At most, only three or four snake demons could squeeze in front of Huang Chen at a time.
At this moment, Huang Chen had completely transformed into a tireless human meat grinder. No weapons? His fists were the most terrifying weapons!
With a single punch, a shockwave erupted, completely crushing the chest of a snake demon; a backward kick, like a giant axe splitting a mountain, shattered the jaw of a venomous snake attempting a sneak attack. He even grabbed the tails of two snake demons, swinging them wildly like meteor hammers, smashing them against the stone walls on either side with a deafening roar, leaving a bloody mess. The wind howled from his punches, the sound of bones cracking was incessant, and severed limbs flew wildly through the narrow passage.
"Kill! Don't let Brother Chen take the brunt alone!" A-Shi, watching from behind, was furious, his eyes bloodshot. He led a group of young men to desperately thrust sharpened bone spears through the gaps, frantically harvesting the survivors who had been severely injured by Huang Chen.
A young man, caught off guard, had his left arm bitten hard by a half-dead snake demon, its fangs deeply embedded in his flesh. But instead of retreating an inch, he became ferocious, like a wolf cub cornered, and pounced, biting down hard on the snake demon's ghastly green eyeball!
"Go to hell, you beast!" the young man roared incoherently, tearing the snake demon's eyeballs, blood vessels still attached, out of his hand.
The fierce fighting turned this narrow passage into a true hellish inferno. Thick blood gushed down the sloping bluestone slabs, quickly forming a dark red river that emitted a pungent, fishy smell and submerged everyone's ankles.
Huang Chen's fists were torn and bleeding, with the white bone showing at his knuckles. His arms were convulsing slightly from extreme exhaustion. His chest heaved violently, his breathing heavy and hoarse like a broken bellows, each gasp carrying a strong smell of blood. But his legs, as strong as iron, remained firmly planted in the center of the narrow passage, like an insurmountable mountain, not retreating an inch.
Outside the narrow passage, the Black Scale Demon King stared intently at the human figure blocking the entrance. Looking at the piles of corpses of his descendants, who had been smashed into a bloody pulp by fists, he was so enraged that his scales stood on end and his throat emitted a hissing roar that sounded like leaking air.
"Useless! Thousands of demons, and you couldn't even take down a two-legged sheep without a weapon! You're all a bunch of useless trash!"
He slapped the few lesser demons blocking his way to the ground, slammed his thick snake tail on the ground, and, carrying the huge, gleaming steel fork, crushed the corpses on the ground, striding forward with overwhelming demonic energy.
"Tonight, I'm going to personally crush every bone in your body and skin you alive!"
Feeling the suffocating pressure, Huang Chen slowly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes meeting the Black Scale Demon King's scarlet and savage vertical pupils without fear.
He raised his bloodied and mangled right hand, casually wiping the bits of flesh and blood from his face. Without a knife or a sword, he simply clenched his iron fists, stained with demonic blood and with protruding knuckles, and slammed them together in front of him, producing a dull thud.
"Come on, old monster." Huang Chen grinned, revealing two rows of gleaming white teeth against his blood-soaked face. His smile was like that of a demon crawling out of hell. "I haven't had enough of punching with these fists yet! Let's see who dies first tonight!"