Volume One: The Sword of the Son of Heaven Chapter 83: The Monster

The barbarian who had come back from the dead appeared unspeakably eerie, like a ghostly general summoned from the underworld—fearless, ferocious, and unstoppable. While everyone was shocked, they also felt a growing sense of unease.

Ordinary barbarians posed little threat; there were fewer than a hundred in the mine at most. With the combined strength of Yun Que, Mu Qingyao, and their companions, they could have swiftly wiped them all out. But these undying barbarians were a different matter. Even if their individual strength was not remarkable, these immortal monsters could gradually drain their opponents’ spiritual energy. If they lost the ability to wield magical artifacts and had to rely solely on brute force, even Foundation Establishment cultivators would be at a disadvantage against the barbarians, let alone those in the Qi Refining realm.

The most frustrating part was that the barbarians could be resurrected more than once. Time and again, after falling in battle, they would rise once more to continue the fight! Dozens of barbarians fought as though they were an army of thousands.

Yun Que controlled his flying sword to sever a barbarian’s head cleanly; the corpse fell to the ground, but then the severed head rolled back onto its shoulders, as if stitched by invisible threads, and the barbarian soon rose to fight again.

Such a bizarre situation would give even the battle-hardened Mu Qingyao a headache. The problem was not the enemy’s strength, but that they simply could not be killed.

Zhou Yuanliang split a charging barbarian with his sword and cursed, “Why won’t they die? What miraculous pills have these brutes consumed? How many lives do they have? If we keep fighting, I’ll run out of spiritual energy, and they’ll just get back up and fight again!”

Luo Xiaoyu, clumsily wielding her dagger, managed to strike down an enemy. Wiping cold sweat from her brow, she said, “I’m almost out of spiritual energy. Qi Refining, first level, is so weak... He—he’s getting back up!”

The barbarian she had just slain slowly climbed to his feet again, his wounds already healed.

Mu Qingyao stopped attacking and instead began to defend, the Flower Spirit Sword darting before her eyes, piercing the hearts of barbarian after barbarian. She did her best to conserve her spiritual energy. The battle seemed endless; they would simply have to grit their teeth and endure.

Once again, Yun Que struck, beheading another charging barbarian. Just as before, the head reattached itself, and the barbarian rose once more. Yun Que kept his gaze fixed on the fallen barbarian, his eyes narrowing.

This time, he finally noticed something.

“It’s scorpions!” Yun Que revealed the secret behind the barbarians’ resurrection.

After the barbarians fell, tiny claws would appear on their severed limbs, and it was these claws that dragged the broken body parts or heads back to the torso, stitching them together. These claws belonged to black scorpions!

The barbarians’ bodies were infested with countless black scorpions. Unless every scorpion was exterminated, the barbarians would behave like puppets: even if dismembered, they would reassemble and continue fighting.

Facing another charging barbarian, Yun Que unleashed a flurry of sword strikes, hacking the foe into five pieces. This time, he saw it even more clearly: the exposed flesh bristled with black pincers, each dragging its attached limb toward the main body.

Because he had chopped the barbarian into bits, the reassembly was much slower than before.

“It really is scorpions!” Zhou Yuanliang also noticed the black scorpions. He mused, “If we chop them into mincemeat, surely they can’t survive that.”

Luo Xiaoyu nodded in agreement but then, thinking of something, began to gag.

At that moment, a swarm of black scorpions poured from the mine shaft, enveloping the pit like a black mist. Many of the scorpions began to crawl into the barbarians’ bodies—some through eye sockets, some through mouths, others through ears or nostrils. The scene was both bizarre and horrifying.

The barbarians into whom the scorpions crawled convulsed violently, their bodies swelling until they doubled in size. Both strength and speed increased dramatically!

“These aren’t ordinary scorpions—they must be some kind of demonic parasite,” Yun Que said, fixing his gaze on the distant elder with the long beard. The old man’s hands moved ceaselessly, as if in prayer.

“He’s the one controlling the parasites—a master of venomous arts!” Yun Que’s eyes flashed coldly. He unleashed two flying swords, sending them arcing past the barbarian warriors, targeting the long-bearded elder directly.

Capture the leader to rout the enemy! If this man was the one controlling the scorpions, killing him would solve their predicament.

As the two swords flew forth, Yun Que summoned a third flying sword, which shot off after the first two.

Three swords unleashed at once!

Seeing Yun Que manipulate three flying swords simultaneously, Mu Qingyao and Zhou Yuanliang were astonished. In battle, fluctuations in spiritual energy made one’s cultivation level easy to discern, and they could tell Yun Que was at the fifth level of Qi Refining. Normally, someone at this level could control, at best, two flying swords. How could he wield three? And he did so with apparent ease, as if it were an everyday feat.

What would seem impossible for others was effortless for Yun Que. In truth, he could control up to four flying swords without using his full strength.

The long-bearded elder remained unmoved as the swords approached. Two barbarian guards stood by his side, each stepping forward to block a sword with their heavy sabers. In the instant the first two swords were parried, Yun Que’s third sword suddenly accelerated, bypassing the guards and streaking toward the elder. Its speed increased sharply, its aura surging—a killing blow imbued with the soul of an otherworldly sword.

This strike was blindingly fast. The guards had no time to react; they could only watch as the sword shot toward the elder. Strangely, neither guard showed any alarm; they seemed unconcerned for their master’s safety.

At the very moment the flying sword was about to strike, a black shadow suddenly arced up behind the long-bearded elder. With a sharp clang, Yun Que’s third sword was deflected, shooting past the elder’s ear—its attack thwarted.

At last, everyone saw clearly: the shadow behind the elder was an enormous scorpion tail! It was the venomous stinger that had blocked the third sword. Even more horrifying, the tail was connected to the elder himself—it was part of his body.

Monster.

A cold, chilling word echoed in everyone’s hearts. The barbarian elder with a human body and a scorpion’s tail was not as feeble as he appeared; he was the strongest of them all.

Yi Hongwen, who had been forced into the fight, was now deathly pale and stammered in terror, “Let’s run! He’s a monster! We can’t beat him!”

He had already been poisoned; his strength was barely a tenth of normal. It was all he could do to protect himself.

“Run where?” Zhou Yuanliang snapped. “If you don’t want to die, you’d better show us what you’re really capable of.”

“I—I don’t have any real skills! My cultivation is all from pills!” Yi Hongwen cried hysterically. “I already gave you the Thousand Leaf Sword—what more do you want? I have no strength left, I just want to survive!”

In the distance, Mu Wan, hiding behind the barbarian sorcerer, was overjoyed to hear this. She laughed gleefully. “So the Thousand Leaf Sword is with you! Today, the Flower Spirit and the Thousand Leaf gather together—truly, heaven favors me! With both swords, my position as head of the Mu clan will be unassailable!”

The long-bearded elder nodded and smiled. “Patriarch Mu, as you wish.”

Hearing herself addressed as clan head, Mu Wan’s pride soared, and she burst into wild laughter.

The barbarian warriors fought with even greater ferocity. Not only had their bodies doubled in size, but their blows were more than twice as powerful as before; a full-force strike could even shatter a flying sword.

The group was now locked in a desperate struggle. Not only did they face undying barbarians, but they had to beware the deadly scorpion venom. Gradually, they were forced back into a corner of the mine.

“The scorpions are manageable; sword energy can block them. It’s these undying brutes that are impossible to deal with. If this continues, we’ll be worn out before long.” Zhou Yuanliang saw through the enemy’s tactics: they meant to trap and exhaust them.

Mu Qingyao had no better plan and could only defend passively. As for Luo Xiaoyu and Yi Hongwen, neither was of any help.

At that moment, Yun Que cut down a barbarian warrior and used two flying swords to pin the creature’s bisected body to the ground.

“You all hold them off for a moment—I want to try something,” he said, opening his storage ring’s spirit beast space and releasing several corpse-eating insects.