Fang Xing was the one to initiate the first attack. Surprised and flustered, Hou Qing controlled his Flying Sword with one hand while hastily trying to throw the Ignition Pellet into his mouth with the other.
However, Hou Qing did not have enough Qi remaining to control his Flying Sword from such a distance, especially when it was faced with the mid-tiered [Nine Snakes' Sword]. Loud metallic sounds erupted out the moment the silver sword came into contact with the golden one, and even though the golden sword was stopped in its path by the silver blade, all nine of the snakes coiled around Hou Qing's weapon before unleashing themselves forward, swimming at a dangerous speed towards Hou Qing himself.
With a few clear swishing sounds, each snake penetrated his body one after the other.
Hou Qing released a loud howl. A total of nine places had been severely wounded or cut at the same time, and three of them had been purposefully controlled by Fang Xing towards both of his arms and his right leg. In an instant, two arms and a leg could be seen flying away from Hou Qing's body.
Hou Qing fell to the ground as he howled. The pellet he had held in his left hand rolled into the nearby underbrush, as he had lost control over the limb.
"I knew it! A sly bastard like you would surely have something up his sleeves even at times like this. What's this for?" With a cold smile, Fang Xing walked across to pick up the pellet before giving it a close look. "Ignition Pellet? I see, so you were willing to lose an entire tier of cultivation just to get me? Thank god I'm not stupid and decided to cripple you, first."
Hou Qing could only cry without tears as he lay face up on the ground. The only limb that was still attached was his now-useless left leg that had been splashed by the toad's toxin. He even suspected that the boy had intentionally kept this useless limb attached.
'You're not stupid, but I am….
'If only I had killed you before the Python Toad had shown itself….
'If only I had known that was the only chance to kill you….'
A sense of hopelessness swamped Hou Qing as he stared at the dirt-ridden Fang Xing, and the grin on Fang Xing's face triggered an outrage from deep within. "You son of a bi*ch, do you f*cking know who I am! You don't dare to kill me! I, Hou Qing, am an unrivaled genius that is destined to become a person of great importance and power in the realm of cultivators! How dare— You don't—"
"There isn't much I don't dare to do in this world." As Fang Xing held up his dagger, he looked to Hou Qing with an expression of pity.
"How… how can you kill me just like this? What happened to torturing me? What happened to 'pleasure'?" As Hou Qing sensed the increasing murderous intent coming from Fang Xing, the anger was suddenly replaced by horror.
"Only idiots will want to torture you. My first uncle had once said, 'You're only smart if you turn your enemies into corpses as soon as possible'." Before the sentence was even finished, Fang Xing had already sent a final jab into Hou Qing's heart.
Hou Qing's gaze stiffened together with deep despair and regret… and perhaps even some remorse.
Heroic passions, great ambitions, they all became a thing of the past. They vanished like smoke into thin air.
If Hou Qing had one last thought, it was 'If only I had waited a bit longer in line….'
"Still one more," Fang Xing remembered as he pulled his dagger out of Hou Qing. Qian had been tied up and left at the bottom of the cliff by Hou Qing. His life could not be spared, either.
After Fang Xing had swiftly taken Hou Qing's sword and waist sack, he slightly adjusted his left arm before taking off towards where Qian had been left. When Fang Xing arrived, however, he was shocked at what he found: Qian had long been dead and his body was as cold as ice. Some beast must have come to him after being driven by the scent of his bloody wounds.
Without any further concerns, Fang Xing returned back to the toad's side. Clenching his teeth, he realigned the broken bones of his left arm and then cut himself two wooden sticks to firmly hold his arm and—once that was completed—he dropped to the ground, exhausted. The entire journey from the moment he had left the sect with the men up to the point he killed Hou Qing had been exhausting. With only a single misstep in calculation, his life would have been long gone.
Even though at the end of the day he had become the sole survivor thanks to his determination combined with knowledge and experience well beyond his age, the amount of pressure he had been forced to bear on his tiny shoulders was also enormous. Up until now, his mental state had been extremely tense.
Broken bones were of no concern to Fang Xing. With his current level of cultivation and the knowledge of mending bones, he would only need to immerse it in Qi for two to three days before he would be able to move his left arm again. In about a week's time, it would be as good as new.
Some time later, hunger finally struck Fang Xing as he sat on the ground. His stomach empty, he stood up and cut himself a grease-covered vine into small blocks in order to make a fire. He then crossed over to the side of the Python Toad and—with plenty of strength—carefully flipped its porous toxin-covered armor over to reveal some tender meat. Fang Xing had made several toad skewers within moments by using small branches he had picked up with a small chunk of the toad meat cut into smaller pieces, all ready to be roasted over his bonfire.
There was no salt, pepper, nor any spices for the meat, but the fat sizzled with its juice and revealed a mouth-watering aroma that left Fang Xing unable to resist.
Once the outside of the meat was covered in a thin crispy layer of gold, Fang Xing could no longer hold back and dived right into his delicious meal. It was still a little too hot, but the toad meat was so tender and smooth that Fang Xing had a hard time not swallowing his tongue along with the food.
After he'd finished off the skewers, Fang Xing hesitated on getting seconds, as he knew that these beasts were no ordinary animals. Their flesh and blood contained large amounts of Qi essence comparable to those of spirit pellets, and one could only handle so much at once. However, before he had made up his mind, the idea of eating more of this meat was suddenly halted; there was a strange feeling inside his lower abdomen and he could feel it bloat more than usual.
It felt as though something within was heating and rising upward. A violent force was gradually filling up his entire stomach.
"Hrm?" Wringing his eyebrows, Fang Xing couldn't help but be confused.
It was a familiar feeling, almost identical to the sensation he would have during those times he had consumed Hwa'jin: it was the feeling of excess Jing inside the body. Although, he clearly did not consume any of that weed….
Did the toad meat function as an aphrodisiac?
Still locking his brows, Fang Xing sat cross-legged before circulating the Jing within him. He was familiar with this conversion method, as this was how he had stepped onto the path of cultivation in the first place. Once it had all been converted, he began to feel hungry once again, and Fang Xing hesitantly went to cut off a larger piece of toad meat to roast whole this time.
Fang Xing wanted to do some experiments to find out if his guess was correct about the meat having the same aphrodisiac effect as the Hwa'jin. After he had consumed the piece double the size of the previous one, the same sensation as before came back, except this time his pants could be seen slightly raised between his legs. This was not normal for a ten, eleven-year-old child.
Still wanting more answers, Fang Xing went for an even larger piece after he had converted the second batch. This time, he was carefully experiencing and evaluating the changes within his body, gradually beginning to understand what was happening.
"Wha— this toad meat…. Has it already been digested?" To Fang Xing's astonishment, he had found the answer he had been searching for: the root of the problem did not lie within the toad meat, but his own body. The toad was a tier four beast that contained a large amount of Qi essence, and ordinary people would not be able to digest it as quickly as he had. Even if it was somebody of a higher cultivation tier—such as Hou Qing—they would still require at least a couple of days to slowly digest all of its essence completely.
Yet for Fang Xing, every single piece of this meat had strangely been completely digested and transformed into an extremely pure form of Jing by his body, and all within only a single burn of incense of time. All Fang Xing had to do then was simply convert it into Qi.
As in the past, converting Jing into Qi was many times faster than simply practicing Qi fluctuations or through the use of Spirit Stones, though since this method would harm the user's body, it could not be used frequently. Fang Xing had been a prime example of someone overusing this method, which had caused his mixture of black and white hair.
However, with today's discovery, it could be possible that as long as Fang Xing could get his hands on beast meat at all times, he'd be able to practice cultivation using this method without restraint since he would no longer have to worry about causing himself harm.
This theory had Fang Xing's eyes light up instantly and he immediately grabbed another piece of toad meat, and this time around he was able to focus on the actual digestion itself. He knew he did not have such digestive speeds before, just as he would feel bloated after eating too much chicken or pork. There had to be a reason he was able to break down the meat of a more nutritious and filling fourth-tier beast.
'With hair of white spanning three thousand yards, a revered spirit's scripture through which to know…'
Slowly, Fang Xing remembered something from a month ago from when he had swallowed the Demon Pellet by mistake: that strange, painful, yet beautiful dream.
Ever since that night, his cultivation level had shot straight up while the pellet inside his stomach had disappeared completely. It was also from that point onwards that his digestive capability seemed to have become quite powerful.
Could it be? Were the changes inside his body all because of that dream?
'With hair of white spanning three thousand yards, a revered spirit's scripture through which to know…'
The verse that seemed to belong to a song that wasn't a song, or to a poem that wasn't a poem, once again rose from the depths of Fang Xing's heart with unfathomable mystery….