In the Gladiators’ Plaza, countless maggot-men rose up out of the mountain of corpses.
Some were much like ordinary men, save that their bodies were blood-red all over, or pitch black. But others differed enormously in form — not merely ten times a man’s height and bulk, but grown with all manner of fangs and feeding-parts, horns and feelers, compound eyes and long snouts, spined arms and elephantine legs. Some were wholly monstrous in appearance, bearing no human shape at all, revolting and terrifying to behold.
Thousands upon thousands of maggot-men, parasitized out of the mountain of corpses, evolved to maturity — and now, at the command of Poison Maggot, first of the five great evildoers, they came surging forth and raced at speed to every part of the sky-hanging mothership.
To hunt out any survivors who might be hiding.
Very soon, refugees concealed in sealed chambers were sniffed out by their keen sense of smell, surrounded and set upon; or the creatures massed their strength and smashed the doors in, tearing those pitiful survivors apart and devouring them…
Flower Duck and Guoguo were running for their lives in a frenzy, fleeing headlong without choosing their path, a great swarm of maggot-men hard on their heels.
They were among the survivors who had been hiding in a cabin and sniffed out.
Yue Yang, who might have sheltered them, had already left the cabin, accompanied by Raven — gravely wounded, but restored to the use of the forbidden power now that he’d recovered an ancient relic fragment — and by the blood-soaked giant Pelican. They had gone to meet the three star bandit chiefs, Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo.
Easily as Yue Yang had defeated Hungry Ghost, forcibly sealing him away in the Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, it did not mean he would grow careless. Hungry Ghost’s strength was, in truth, among the shabbier of the five great evildoers: inferior to Nether Flame and Phantom in power, and inferior to Flying Corpse and Poison Maggot in wit. Apart from his perverse appetites and his vicious heart, Hungry Ghost ranked last among the five.
And a strong practitioner of the dark path like him — a man who could beat Raven and Pelican with ease — was nothing but a foot soldier to the eight great divine nations. Never mind the eight divine lords; set against the various marshals of super-divine-general strength, he wasn’t worth a fart.
The enemy of my enemy is my ally.
Whatever the calculation — and given his present need to preserve his cover — Yue Yang felt that going to rescue Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo was a good thing.
Until he had a clear reckoning of the eight divine lords’ strength, Yue Yang had no wish for them to focus all their attention on him. Unless there was no other way, he’d rather explore the Mountain Beyond the Mountain quietly. Once he had all the intelligence on the place, then he could issue his challenge. It wouldn’t be too late.
“Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo — are they really tied down by Marshal Griffin, Great General Golden Eagle, and the reception envoy Mao Podi?” Yue Yang had an uneasy premonition; he felt the matter was not so simple. His senses were ordinarily far inferior to Princess Qianqian’s, with her Six Senses Gift — but in battle, his instincts and predictive faculties were at their peak, on a par with Princess Qianqian’s, and at certain moments even a little beyond them.
“We’ve seen all five of the great evildoers. It can’t be them. And apart from them, who else is there?” Pelican rumbled his objection. Even now, he could not accept the fact that this rookie newcomer was a super-powerhouse who had saved his life.
“If the one behind the five great evildoers has come as well, things will turn very bad indeed.” Raven sighed as he flew forward, not without worry.
“You mean Gu Hai, Left Marshal of the Western Divine Nation? He’s never gotten along with Griffin and Golden Eagle. If he shows up here, Griffin and Golden Eagle are bound to grow suspicious — they might even attack Gu Hai directly!” Pelican might look a coarse brute, and act rashly and impulsively as a rule, but at critical moments he could in fact be trusted: a man rough on the outside but shrewd within, muddled about trifles and sharp about what mattered. By his impulsive temperament and consistently low-wattage behavior, one would think it impossible for him to accept that this rookie newcomer had become his savior — and Raven had worried about exactly that. But in fact, the moment Pelican opened his eyes and saw the heavy God-Extinguishing Mystic Metal armor Yue Yang wore, he’d privately been certain. It was only his mouth that stayed unconvinced.
“That’s the theory, but I doubt it will play out that way.” Raven felt the situation would only worsen, never improve.
“The three bosses — Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo — aren’t so easily brought down. They may well be on their way to find us. Once we link up with the three of them, we’ll cut our way out!” Pelican kept up his optimism; that was simply his character, to think of everything on its brightest side.
“Would that it were so.” Raven was no optimist and could not manage it.
“Something’s coming.” Yue Yang sensed a commotion ahead.
The three of them halted and made what preparations they could — and then countless maggot-men came surging out of the ship’s corridor ahead, blotting out the light, packing the whole passage to bursting. Many, unable to move along the floor, climbed instead onto the ceiling or the corridor’s two walls and accelerated after their prey.
Ahead of the maggot-men, several soldiers and merchants fled for their lives, stumbling and scrambling, out of their wits with terror. Those who lagged were torn apart on the spot, reduced to a spray of shredded flesh and blooming blood, and devoured in an instant.
The two remaining soldiers hadn’t the courage to fight back. Weapons in hand though they were, they didn’t dare turn to face the enemy for even a moment; they simply ran flat out for their lives, rounded a corner from another corridor, and came racing straight toward Yue Yang.
Raven had not meant to concern himself with these survivors; he could scarcely protect himself, let alone anyone else.
But among the fleeing crowd, he saw a mother and daughter, faces streaming with tears, falling behind the rest… A maggot-man with a bony, hooked, scorpion-like tail growing from its back was jabbing at the pair with that hooked cord of bone, snarling with laughter, as though it meant to skewer mother and daughter together upon it. The mother, straining with everything she had, dodged left and right — and though she had long since exhausted her strength, she would not give up, shielding the daughter in her arms with all her might as she fled onward.
“…” Raven’s expression changed, and he made to fly forward at once, to save the mother and daughter about to fall into that fiend’s maw.
“Black Leaf, don’t do anything so stupid!” Pelican hurried to stop him.
“Get out of my way.” Raven was enraged — because thanks to Pelican’s obstruction, he had been too late. The long-tailed maggot-man ran the young mother clean through, the barb entering at her back and bursting out through her belly.
And then it wrenched the hook sideways, splitting the young mother’s chest and abdomen wide open, sending her bloody organs spraying across the floor.
No one dared stop, or turn back to save the pair. The soldiers and merchants, catching sight of Yue Yang and his two companions, rushed toward them as though granted new life, seeking a strong man’s protection. And as Raven prepared to spring forward and save the daughter, who still survived under her mother’s shelter, Pelican once again blocked his path with that mountain of a body.
Pelican seized a corner of Raven’s cloak and roared: “Fifty, sixty thousand people aboard this ship — all of them dead. How many can you save? Even if you save her now, can you protect her? There are more and stronger enemies ahead of us — we may not be able to handle them ourselves. How do you expect a small child to survive? Save her now and all you’ve done is give her a little longer to live. Insist on this and you’ll only multiply her suffering. Black Leaf, be reasonable. This is not the time for such things. You’re cleverer than I am — you should understand this better than I do!”
Raven roared back in anguish: “Back then, Boss Winged Tiger did exactly this — he saved me from the jaws of death! Without him there would be no me today. Go and ask him why he didn’t act reasonably then!”
The young mother, mortally wounded and dying, held her daughter up with both hands, straining to keep the maggot-man’s barb from reaching the child.
She lifted the darling of her heart high above her.
Even knowing full well that nothing could be salvaged.
To guard her daughter one second longer was the greatest wish in her heart…
Seeing this, Raven very nearly wept. “Mother! Back then, my own mother protected me exactly like that. I, Black Leaf — I absolutely cannot stand by and watch such a thing. To save her is to save myself; it is to fulfill my mother’s wish from all those years ago. Thornton — get out of my way!“
He gave his cloak a mighty snap, and blasted Pelican’s enormous frame clean aside.
Like a bird skimming the night sky, Raven’s movement technique carried him with incredible speed straight at the mother and daughter.
But he was too late… The long-tailed maggot-man had already dragged the feeble, strengthless young mother before it with its barbed tail, and raised its talons high. Before Raven could arrive, it snarled with cruel laughter and brought them slamming down — meaning, right before Raven’s eyes, to annihilate in a single blow the treasure the young mother had spent her last strength defending.
“NO—” Raven cried out in despair, as though seeing the small child he had once been, killed for want of a rescuer.
“Kekeke!” The maggot-man seemed to relish this despair and anguish in its enemy.
The talons came crashing down.
And then things turned in a way not one soul present had foreseen. Those talons — which could have sliced the little girl to fragments with ease — not only failed to inflict the slightest injury, but with a sharp crack were sheared off clean at the arm and fell to the floor.
The young mother, who had closed her eyes to await death, opened them weakly and found a man in heavy armor standing before her. From his body radiated a mysterious light — so serene, so warm… The young mother could not help offering up the treasure in her hands, and, overcome with joy, tears springing like a fountain, she asked: “Are you the legendary divine lord? I beg you — have pity on my daughter. Please, grant her a road to live! Her birth is lowly, but that is no fault of hers…”
Yue Yang reached out and took the little girl, who had fainted from sheer terror.
He nodded to the dying young mother. “You are a great mother. Because of your protection, your daughter will be saved. It was not I — it was you who gave your daughter new life.”
“If you don’t mind, I would be willing to raise her as my own daughter.” Raven flew over then and stood at Yue Yang’s side, giving the young mother his guarantee. At the same time, with a sweep of his cloak, he brought a fist down like a meteor and pulped the enraged long-tailed maggot-man into paste. Seeing powers such as these appear, the maggot-men dared make no rash move for the moment, and fell back to regroup for a joint assault.
“Thank you.” The young mother breathed her last with a face full of release — and though she died, there was nothing left in her heart to hold her back; she went with extraordinary peace.
“Raven, are you mad? Do you imagine carrying a little girl will make the enemy stay their hands? Give her to those soldiers; let them take her away. The most we can do is clear out this batch of monsters for them!” Pelican felt that taking a small girl along would be an enormous burden — and that if Raven insisted on it, in the end he wouldn’t save her, and would drag them all down besides.
“No. To me, she is me. I absolutely cannot abandon her — to do so would be to abandon the boy I once was, and to betray the mother who died protecting me!” Raven refused flatly, and took the little girl from Yue Yang’s arms, cradling her gently against himself.
“You are utterly beyond reason!” Pelican seized Raven by the collar in fury and roared like thunder: “These are two entirely different matters — and this is not the moment for your willfulness! Are you going to go save people or not?”
“I am. But I’m bringing her.” Raven gently wiped the tear-tracks from the sleeping girl’s cheek.
“You’ll be the death of me!” Pelican, in a towering rage, hammered his own chest with his fists, as though he bitterly regretted ever having known a friend like Raven.
Yue Yang cleared his throat.
Reminding the pair not to forget he was still there.
As Pelican and Raven turned to look, Yue Yang lightly raised his right hand, summoned his grimoire, and smiled faintly at them: “If you two don’t mind, I could put her inside for a while. Don’t worry — I’ve absolutely no intention of stealing your daughter.”
Seeing this, Pelican and Raven wore no expression of relief at a problem solved. Their faces were filled with shock.
“You — you actually have a grimoire? This is the legendary summoning grimoire, isn’t it?”
Yue Yang was quite at a loss for words.
The legendary summoning grimoire? Does no one in the Mountain Beyond the Mountain have a grimoire?
(End of Chapter 1148)