Two black shadows shot out.
Mid-air, they intercepted Snaggle-Toothed Rat Big Brother and the bat freak’s killing strikes — no need for Yue Yang to lift a finger.
They were, of course, Raven and Pelican, both bolstered by the “Giant’s Shadow” buff. Ordinarily, even with the forbidden power backing them, going toe-to-toe with Snaggle-Toothed Rat and the bat freak would have been extremely difficult. After all, the Five Sense Generals were the strongest divine-general-tier warriors of the Western Divine Nation, and in some respects the Five Sense Generals were not the slightest bit inferior to the Five Great Villains — in status and rank, they stood a full grade higher.
Raven flung his cloak out, blocking Snaggle-Toothed Rat’s attack. His body was pushed back slightly, sliding about a meter backwards.
Pelican on the other side was noticeably weaker. Big-Eared Bat’s heavy blow rebounded through him — his massive body was driven backwards a good ten-plus meters, thump-thump-thump — and he slammed hard into a meteor. The impact split the meteor apart, and his chest was so compressed he could barely breathe. Only after a long moment did he steady himself.
Even so, Pelican was ecstatic.
Because — back in the fight with the Five Great Villains, Hungry Ghost alone had easily crushed both him and Raven and taken them in a single strike.
Now, though there was still a slight gap, he no longer had that helpless, struggling feeling from before… He could go head-to-head. So what if he was slightly on the losing end? He had the Giant’s Shadow’s buff — the more he integrated with it, the more his strength grew. Right now he had a forty-fold boost; if he had fifty-fold, he could stand as immovably as Raven, and might even push this bat back… This Snaggle-Toothed Rat in front of them may have looked repulsive beyond belief, but in the strength rankings he was absolutely the top of the Five Sense Generals! If Raven could hold his own against Snaggle-Toothed Rat, then Pelican could hold his own against Big-Eared Bat!
Pelican’s battle spirit surged, and he roared like thunder.
He hoisted an enormous meteor with all his strength and hurled it at Big-Eared Bat. And in the instant the enemy dodged, Pelican charged forward like a war chariot.
Techniques mean nothing under absolute force and sheer body size!
Big-Eared Bat was hit dead-on by Pelican’s charge, and his entire body was flung high into the air as though rammed by a mammoth.
But Pelican had no time to celebrate — because suddenly he realized the airborne Big-Eared Bat had split into countless small bats, thousands upon thousands of them, spreading across the sky with rapid pat-pat-pat wingbeats. Like a black cloud, they circled overhead.
Before Pelican on the ground could react at all, dozens of bats swooped down and tore at his body from every direction. Compared to these agile bats, the giant-sized Pelican was clumsy. He couldn’t defend against the dense diving swarms. He could only furiously grab one from his arm and rip it apart, but that was nowhere near enough to stop the sheer number of bats attacking from all sides in continuous waves.
Small tearing wounds began to appear all over his body.
The moment blood was drawn, the bats went even more berserk.
Screech, screech.
Countless bats threw themselves down without regard for their lives, sucking blood from Pelican’s wounds.
Even a giant as robust as Pelican…
After just this brief blood-drain, showed the frailty of a sickly invalid.
His head reeled, his balance completely off. He waved his arms drunkenly, trying to drive off the swarm of bats filling the sky.
Even though dozens of vampire bats were caught in his grip and pulped into mush, many more evaded his blows and flew back up into the sky… Then something eerie happened — the bats that had drunk blood, their bodies flushed with countless wisps of black smoke, and they split apart with rapid pop-pop sounds, one becoming two. The ones full of blood could even split a second time — one becoming two, two becoming four! In an instant, these vampire bats had not only replenished their numbers but multiplied them. Yue Yang, watching from the side with his Heavenly Eye of Wisdom, saw the whole process: these vampire bats, from feeding on Pelican’s blood alone, had grown their numbers by at least five hundred.
Now there were over ten thousand vampire bats, and there was no telling how many warriors like Pelican — or stronger than Pelican — they had already devoured.
“This is bad.” Mao Podi realized the situation was awful. These vampire bats — killing them only made them more numerous. As long as they drank blood, they multiplied. How was anyone supposed to fight that?
“Big-Eared Bat, if you’ve got any guts, come fight me properly!” Pelican was practically choking on his frustration. He’d finally gained real strength, and now the enemy was pulling this shameless trick — refusing a straight fight and going low.
“I’m not afraid I can’t catch up to you!” On the other side, Raven pursued Snaggle-Toothed Rat with equal frustration.
“What an idiot!” Snaggle-Toothed Rat’s speed was like lightning. But that wasn’t the important part — the important part was that earlier, in his surprise attack, he had successfully spat a mouthful of “plague venom” into Raven’s face. The poisoned Raven wasn’t in immediate mortal danger, but his speed was dropping fast, ultimately not much better than a tortoise’s. With every step Raven took, his body grew heavier.
The poisoned Raven hadn’t lost much combat strength.
But he had lost his speed.
Without speed, in front of a formidable enemy like Snaggle-Toothed Rat, Raven was as good as dead!
Mao Podi grew anxious. He flew forward, hoping to intercept Snaggle-Toothed Rat — this Big Brother of the Five Sense Generals — for Raven, before Raven fully lost his speed…
But little did he know, that was exactly what Snaggle-Toothed Rat had been counting on.
Snaggle-Toothed Rat slid straight through Mao Podi’s “Earth Pierce” without the slightest effect.
The instant Raven caught up.
With those oversized front teeth.
Viciously.
Snaggle-Toothed Rat bit down on Mao Podi’s arm.
Mao Podi felt no pain at first — he was still trying to stab Snaggle-Toothed Rat with his spear. But the enemy flashed away in a blink, and Mao Podi hadn’t so much as caught a single rat-hair off this Big Brother of the Five Sense Generals. As he turned to give chase, his body staggered. Before his eyes, everything inexplicably darkened. Suddenly, he felt his arm no longer belonged to him — it was impossibly heavy. His eyelids felt like they were weighted with lead. Wave after wave of exhaustion assailed his body. Mao Podi knew perfectly well that this was a deathly dangerous battlefield, but he couldn’t fight the profound urge to sleep.
Yaaawn~
After that first yawn, Mao Podi could no longer resist his body’s desperate need for sleep.
He drove his silver spear mercilessly through his own palm, hoping to use pain to hold off the drowsiness. But — it did nothing at all.
His hand was pierced clean through, blood streaming down. But the pain, in the face of that overwhelming drowsiness…
Was completely smothered…
Like a golden mountain collapsing, a jade pillar toppling — Mao Podi crumpled headlong onto the meteor’s surface. His hand ran with blood, and he was utterly oblivious to it, snoring away as if he’d gone straight into a deep sleep!
“There’s no one in this world who can withstand Slumber Rat’s ‘Hypnotic Bite’.” Snaggle-Toothed Rat gave a cold laugh. He was standing right beside Raven now, the two of them less than three meters apart. But Raven couldn’t lift a hand against him.
Raven at this point felt his body running hot in waves, then cold in waves.
His whole being was weak.
He couldn’t even bring himself to move a single finger.
He knew perfectly well an enemy stood right in front of him, but he couldn’t reach out. His hands were clenched tight, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. If not for his overwhelming will forcing him to stay upright, he too would have collapsed like Mao Podi.
“Watch out.” Raven called out to Yue Yang, using the last of his strength. “Snaggle-Toothed Rat is covered in poison!”
“You still counting on him? With a rookie like this, I won’t even need ten seconds to finish him off!” Big-Eared Bat, now recomposed from the countless vampire bats back into human form, cackled loudly. He didn’t consider a lower-tier opponent like Yue Yang a threat at all — a rookie who hadn’t even reached divine-servant tier, who could even stand in this meteor belt at all, was already impressive; and now he wanted to fight? Besides, even if Yue Yang had divine-general strength, was he any match for Snaggle-Toothed Big Brother and himself?
“Er, Big-Ear, you’d still better be careful!” Snaggle-Toothed Rat was always cautious. Even though Yue Yang’s displayed strength was pathetically weak, he sharply noticed that this rookie’s attitude wasn’t like an ordinary newcomer’s — at the very least, there was no panic or fear at all on this rookie’s face. Extremely abnormal!
“Snaggle-Toothed Big Brother, are you kidding me? Give me one second and I’ll one-shot him…” Big-Eared Bat didn’t think Yue Yang could survive even a single move.
Yue Yang hadn’t said a word.
He’d been observing.
Whether the Five Great Villains or the Five Sense Generals, they all had one thing in common.
Namely — they had completely fused with forbidden power, and in some specialty they pushed it to the absolute extreme, drawing out that aspect’s peak strength.
Of course, the price they paid for it was enormous. Ordinary people might not know, might even envy their strength — but through Yue Yang’s Heavenly Eye of Wisdom, he could see that the Five Great Villains, no less than the Five Sense Generals, could no longer truly be called “human.” They no longer possessed “human bodies”; they would never again have the qualification to contract a summoning grimoire… They could never have descendants, never reproduce, never return to human form, never contract a grimoire, never advance further. Forever they would stay in this “not quite human, not quite ghost” state!
To push this mutation to its extreme, both the Five Great Villains and the Five Sense Generals had used certain extreme methods. The Five Great Villains, for instance, had completely fused with certain abilities… The Five Sense Generals had each fused with a different war beast, borrowing the beast’s specialty to strengthen themselves.
Hungry Ghost’s ability was corpse-eating — as long as there was a corpse, he was an undying existence.
This corpse-eating ability included his own body’s corpse.
He could equally “eat” his own body to be reborn.
To truly kill Hungry Ghost, one had to completely annihilate him… Yue Yang had seen through this, but had chosen not to act. He was planning to bring Hungry Ghost back to study slowly.
The special ability of the Snaggle-Toothed Rat Big Brother in front of him was different from Hungry Ghost’s. He relied on the combined enhancement of multiple types of rats’ special abilities.
To deal with these rat abilities, one had to use special methods.
Yue Yang then turned his gaze on the sneering Big-Eared Bat. Needless to say, this guy had fused with various types of bats — especially vampire bats — to strengthen his body. To kill an enemy who could easily dodge attacks via ultrasound, who excelled at flight, and who could simultaneously replenish himself by drinking blood, one also had to use a little trick. Pelican’s brute force alone wouldn’t work!
Seeing this clearly, Yue Yang felt he could act now.
Forbidden power.
He himself had no interest in it.
But earlier, in Sea Fatty’s body, he had discovered a similar forbidden power. Though not identical, out of curiosity, Yue Yang had been mulling over how to expand it on Sea Fatty’s behalf. That was why he had wasted so much time researching it — hoping to accumulate some experience, so that Sea Fatty, that guy with eighteen generations’ worth of terrible luck, could finally catch a break for once!
“One-shot? No, I don’t want to do that. I want to torment you nice and long — I want to torment the pleasure right out of you!” Yue Yang, for his part, didn’t forget to helpfully advise Big-Eared Bat: “If you feel pleasure, shout it out! Don’t hold back on my account!”
“You dare speak to me like that? You’re just asking to die!” Big-Eared Bat, provoked, was instantly overcome with rage and pounced viciously.
“Why is it, every time I speak honestly, no one believes me? Aren’t you the one forcing me to lie? Aren’t you the one forcing me to become a bad kid? Aren’t you the one corrupting me — pure of heart, dedicated to good, this promising young man? If I fail to become a pillar of the nation, that’s on you! If I have no way to serve my motherland and contribute my brick and tile to the Four Modernizations, that’s on you too! You do all this harm to me — how am I supposed to deal with you?” Yue Yang, for his part, extended a hand and clamped it around Big-Eared Bat’s throat, lifting him into midair, and — with perfectly reasonable manner — cross-examined the desperately struggling but utterly helpless Big-Eared Bat.
Snaggle-Toothed Rat’s jaw hit the floor with a clang.
This wasn’t scientifically possible!
How could things have turned out like this?
If Big-Eared Bat could speak right now, he’d absolutely be crying out for justice — “Your Honor of the clear sky, I’ve been wronged!” Whether or not Yue Yang was pure of heart could be set aside for the moment, but whether Yue Yang could become a pillar of the nation, whether he could contribute his brick and tile to the Motherland’s Four Modernizations — that truly had nothing at all to do with Big-Eared Bat!
If Big-Eared Bat could speak, he’d definitely say — this isn’t just being a jerk, this is straight-up screwing me over!
But no man whose neck was being lifted mid-air by another could open his mouth to speak.
More importantly — the Yue Yang who was lifting him had never been the sort of man who could be resolved by mere speech. Because you see, aside from reason, Yue Yang would try every possible argument — everything except reason!
Against a man like that, what could you possibly do?
If Yue Yang hadn’t decided to let Big-Eared Bat experience the legendary pleasure of being tormented, he would already have deployed his personal specialty — “convincing others with virtue”!
(End of Chapter 1151)