Mutated Tao

Chapter 549: Xu Nian

Thump, thump, thump!

Heavy and chaotic footsteps pierced Li Huowang’s ears through the earth. The myriad of footsteps made Li Huowang's expression become serious.

It had been some time since he arrived in Great Qi, but he had never heard such a large commotion before. The wave of enemies this time couldn't be trifled with.

I must bypass this commotion first, no matter what it is! Li Huowang closed his eyes, then stood up without hesitation and rushed in the completely opposite direction.

Li Sui’s tentacles emerged from her body and probed around rapidly like a white cane for the blind.

“Daoist, you can open your eyes now; there’s nothing dirty around.”

Li Huowang slightly opened one eye when he heard the monk’s words. He found himself inexplicably in a chaotic graveyard.

Under the Natural Disaster, the entire graveyard looked anything but peaceful. Some things were crawling around aimlessly in the distance.

Li Huowang ignored the terrifying environment, then immediately crouched down again and listened intently.

He didn’t come to Great Qi with the intention of killing evil spirits. Since Great Qi was becoming increasingly dangerous, he needed to find Shangji Guankou and leave as quickly as possible.

Li Huowang gathered his spirits and rushed toward the direction Zhuge Yuan had pointed out. He thought to himself, “Brother Zhuge, how far are we from Shangji Guankou? I’m afraid that we’re running out of time.”

However, Li Huowang realized that Zhuge Yuan hadn't responded. After asking a few times in a row, Zhuge Yuan finally reacted. He had one hand behind his back while he silently looked around the chaotic graveyard.

“Not far, almost there,” Zhuge Yuan said in a deep voice and silently observed the scattered corpses.

Li Huowang seemed to understand what Zhuge Yuan was thinking.

As a Storyteller in the past, Zhuge Yuan had always been ready to share information about the Great Qi, and he had never been shy to advertise that he was from the Great Qi.

Upon seeing that the Great Qi had been reduced to such a state, Li Huowang believed that Zhuge Yuan definitely wasn't in the best mood right now.

More importantly, Li Huowang couldn’t console him now, since the situation in Great Qi currently wasn’t looking too optimistic. He didn’t know what kind of more scary outcomes there would be in the future.

But Li Huowang couldn’t afford to consider such major issues, since he was too busy handling his own affairs.

He had just prepared to continue on when a cold wind blew past, causing half of his body to lose sensation momentarily.

Here again?! Li Huowang took the bronze coin sword from Li Sui’s tentacles and swung it toward the direction of the cold wind. It cut off a large chunk of darkness, revealing a piece of human skin floating in the air.

The piece of human skin immediately opened in the air when it saw that Li Huowang could still move. It resembled a big bird as it swooped toward him.

Just as Li Huowang tightened his grip on the sword hilt, prepared to cut the piece of human skin in half, it suddenly went limp and floated gently to the ground.

“Huh?” Li Huowang was extremely puzzled. He used the bronze coin sword in his hand to pick up the piece of human skin. Why did it suddenly stop moving?

When he saw that the piece of human skin was indeed dead, Li Huowang exerted some force with his wrist and split apart the skin on the bronze coin sword.

The white human skin shifted from Li Huowang’s sight, and a strange face was revealed.

It was a woman’s face with a red heart drawn on her brows. Her unblinking eyes made her appear extremely strange in the darkness.

However, that alone wouldn’t have frightened Li Huowang. Her face was coated with rouge, and it was split apart to reveal white paper with messy calligraphy underneath the skin.

“Is it you?” The woman stared straight at Li Huowang, her voice delicate as she uttered this inexplicable question.

Li Huowang wouldn’t waste any time conversing with such things. He tightened his grip on the spine sword and swung it toward the strange face without any hesitation.

“It’s you; it’s really you. Are you okay?” the large face shifted to the left, almost sticking to the crack while dodging the attack.

A pale green glowing stone was hurled into the distance, and the green light illuminated the darkness, allowing Li Huowang to see the woman clearly as the green light illuminated the darkness.

The only thing human about her was her face; she had a huge and sturdy four-footed beast body, which was covered in dark brown fur.

She had a fiery red mane, and her limbs had three claws; she also had a lion-like tail, which swayed from side to side as she moved.

A piece of rusty armor engraved with green fangs hung around her chest with chains. It made her look even more ferocious and terrifying.

What is this thing? Li Huowang’s expression turned very ugly. Just from its appearance, it was clear that this thing was rather different from the ordinary evil spirits he had dealt with previously.

“What do you want? We can talk!” However, the other party did not respond to Li Huowang’s negotiation at all.

What’s going on? Could it be that she’s just learning to speak and can’t understand human speech?

Just as Li Huowang was thinking this, the creature had already rushed up, with its three sharp claws whistling toward Li Huowang.

Li Huowang’s body flashed backward as he shifted ten feet in an instant to avoid the attack. The corpse on the ground took the blow for him.

Following that, Li Huowang witnessed a chilling scene. The semi-rotten middle-aged corpse aged rapidly at a rate visible to the naked eye, and it eventually turned into an old man.

Li Huowang swung his spine sword, but the opponent easily dodged the crack.

“Brother Li, be careful; this is a Nian.”

“Nian?”

“Yes, not Wan Nian[1], but Xu Nian[2]. Don’t have any physical contact with her, or she’ll take away your lifespan.”

Li Huowang found himself in a precarious situation, as he was unable to touch or hurt it.

Li Huowang had planned to retreat back to Great Liang using the crack, but Xu Nian seemed to have seen through his moves. Every time he cut open a spacetime rift in front of him, she'd rushed over immediately to disrupt him.

Li Huowang could only keep retreating under the constant pressure, and his expression became increasingly solemn. In the end, he grabbed two ribs from his belly button and thrust them forcefully into his own chest.

Xu Nian howled with her legs raised.

Li Huowang unleashed his killing intent and roared, “So you know what’s pain, too!”

Taking advantage of his opponent’s pain, he pulled out a dagger and opened his Daoist robes. He picked out a bloody piece of human skin, which flew up and landed on the Xu Nian’s head.

Blurry facial features flashed intermittently on the human skin. Xu Nian shook her head but couldn't shake off the human skin.

1. The raws for this is 卍年. I found nothing about it ☜

2. The raws for this is 虚年. While the search came up empty, there is actually something called a Nian(年)beast and a nominal age(虚岁). The Nian beast is a mythological beast that barges into homes during the night of the New Years to eat people. The Nominal Age is when a person is counted as one year old on the day of birth, and becomes one year older, each year, on the day the Chinese New Year is celebrated. This means that, in China, nominal age is usually exaggerated by one to two years as compared with actual age. ☜

Chacha and Char's Thoughts

The enigmatic Xu Nian. Credits to 格子的乱七八糟!

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