Chapter 46: Dragon!
Translator: Ninetales Editor: Fish Creek
Qin Mu stretched out his hand to grab one and carefully took a bite. It had a spicy flavor which was spicier than Butcher’s strong alcohols. In his stomach, there was a burning feeling, causing his vital qi to be abnormally active.
Circulating his vital qi, he actually felt a medicinal energy similar to the Vitality Reinforcement Pill which could raise his vital qi cultivation, however it didn’t have as much effect as Vitality Reinforcement Pill.
"Is this creature plant or animal?"
Qin Mu grabbed a few more and saw these creatures had no eyes, limbs or orifice. They need to use their whisker-like tentacles to absorb nutrients from the moss, thus he can’t determine whether they are plant or animal.
He only ate one while Hu Ling’er continued hopping around and eating to its content.
Walking deeper down, the air became cooler. Not knowing how far they went, they could hear the sound of trickling sound of water. There was a small and clear stream coming out the mountain wall. There were a few huge fish without any eyes living in the pool at the end of the stream. The few huge fish were also giving off a fluorescent glow. If they wanted to cross over, they would have to pass through the pool to get to the other side.
"These huge fish are very fierce, they will pounce towards any sound they hear and they are very powerful!"
Hu Ling’er whispered, "I shall throw the pebble over to distract the fish and we shall take the chance to rush over!" Once she had told Qin Mu her plan, she grabbed a pebble with her paw and forcefully threw it far away.
When the stone hit the wall, the few huge fish without eyes leaped out of the water and wiggled their tails in midair. Their four fins opened up like four wide wings and pounced towards the location of the sound!
"Now!"
Hu Ling’er guided Qin Mu and ran towards the other side of the pool. In the hurry, the youth heard a few crunching sounds and saw the weird fish colliding onto the wall and bit out a few huge holes in the wall with their ferocious mouths!
The exceptionally hard mountain rocks were like tofu in their mouths. If they bit into a human, the aftermath would be too horrible to contemplate!
As the human and fox ran to the other end of the pool, the few weird fish heard the sound of footsteps and flapped their fins to turn their direction, rushing towards them!
"Follow me, young master!"
Hu Ling’er rushed into the passage at the other end of the pool in an instant and Qin Mu followed. The passage wasn’t wide so the few huge fish couldn’t fly and had to use their four fins as legs to run after Qin Mu and the little fox in the passage!
"Are these still fish?"
Qin Mu’s scalp turned numb and quickly followed behind Hu Ling’er. The weird fish chased after them for a distance and returned back into the pool to hide after they couldn’t catch up to them.
Qin Mu let out a sigh of relief. The path in front of them gradually became wider and soon they had entered a trumpet shape cave. Suddenly the sunlight on crystalline waves shone down on him, making him look upwards and be stunned.
On top of his head, waves and waves of water flowed by. He could see schools of fishes swimming above him and even a huge golden turtle. There a huge fish that was like a small boat and also large-sized river beast.
A huge fish became excited when it saw Qin Mu and the little fox, making it open its ferocious mouth to pounce on them. However, it collided into an invisible water wall and bounced backward.
The huge fish shook its head in bewilderment and swam away.
"Surging River… This is the bottom of the Surging River!"
Qin Mu had a strange expression, "The Surging River is right on top of us yet the water is not flooding this place up…"
Looking forward, his heart tremored. One by one the dragon pillars appeared in front of him. Each of the dragon pillars was gigantic and dozens of yards tall. Standing tall under the river, the top of the dragon pillars was in contact of the river. The floor beneath their feet was paved out with white marbles. As the pavement extended out forward, there was a community of palaces just three hundred yards ahead between the two rows of dragon pillars.
The dragon pillars surrounded the community of palaces and withhold the river water from flooding in here.
However, many palaces had already fallen. Some huge change must have happened here causing this place to turn into ruins.
Hu Ling’er hopped around and stopped before the ruins of a palace. Qin Mu saw a mottled wall painting on a wall that was half collapsed. It was a painting of a dragon head elder inviting his guests to a banquet. The dragon head elder’s guests were all strange creatures. There was a tortoise back old man, a snake tail woman, monk and also human.
Crash.
A pillar collapsed and nearly crushed Qin Mu and the little fox.
Hu Ling’er came to a huge hall which was already half collapsed and said, "This was where I found the ancient books."
Qin Mu walked closer. In the dilapidated hall, Qin Mu saw a hidden stone chamber built into the wall. The stone door had already collapsed. That was why the chamber was discovered by Hu Ling’er.
The stone chamber was already empty as the items inside were probably shifted away by Hu Ling’er.
"If you continue forwards, there would be great danger!"
Hu Ling’er pointed at the towering doorway ahead and nervously said, "It’s very scary!"
Qin Mu looked at the doorway and he could faintly see a palace behind it. It was still pretty complete and hadn’t collapsed yet. However, what’s strange was there seemed to be a dense fog covering up what was inside, thus Qin Mu couldn’t see clearly what’s inside. He could only feel that the palace was floating in the fog while being faintly discernible.
"There’s a terrifying fellow inside…"
Hu Ling’er’s voice trembled and said, "Once you reach the door, you’ll be able to feel his aura, then you will turn wobbly and be unable to stand…"
Qin Mu walked forward and Hu Ling’er mustered its guts to follow behind him. When they reached the doorway, Qin Mu could feel an extremely strong baleful atmosphere hitting him in his face, causing him to shudder in fear. It was half the sky being covered in dark clouds on a sunny day right in front of him and in the pitch black clouds, there was an extremely huge beast staring at him!
Divine, dignified, it’s power was not to be crossed. At the same time, it was a savage and sinister beast. This was the great danger Hu Ling’er had talked about!
Qin Mu took a deep breath and stabilized himself. His spirit also returned back to normal.
"Heaven’s Eyes, Awaken!"
The vital qi formation crisscrossed in his eyes and created a layer of pupil markings as he looked into the dense fog behind the door.
Beside him, white fox’s body had already gone weak and collapsed onto the floor with her belly on the floor. With difficulty, she moved her body slowly back to the direction where they had come from.
Qin Mu picked the limp white fox up, "Don’t grab me, my heart is beating very fast, I’m going to die…"
"You’re not going to die, the things in this dragon palace are however dead."
Qin Mu laughed, "Guess what I saw?"
Hu Ling’er didn’t reply and waved her limbs in the air. Her tail also wagged left and right, seemingly trying to crawl away, unwilling to stay here for even a moment.
Qin Mu laughed, "I saw the Surging River Dragon King!"
"Ahhhh—"
The little white fox gasped and fainted, her limbs turning straight and stiff. Qin Mu waited for a moment and the little white fox secretly opened one of her eyes to look around. Qin Mu teased her again, "Surging River Dragon King."
Hu Ling’er’s limbs became even stiffer and closed her eyes again.
"The Surging River Dragon King is dead." Qin Mu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "There’s only its bones left. Who knows how long the dragon king had been dead for. I managed to see his dragon bones in the fog."
Hu Ling’er immediately opened out her eyes, "It’s dead?"
Qin Mu nodded his head, "You can finally be at ease this time. Follow me in?"
Hu Ling’er immediately shook her head and Qin Mu could only helplessly put her down. However seeing the white fox continued to weakly crawl outside with her tummy on the floor, Qin Mu picked her up again and placed her on his shoulder. Walking towards the door, the white fox was extremely nervous. With her furs all standing on ends, her claws gripped tightly onto Qin Mu’s shoulder and her terror-filled eyes stared widely at the front, not daring to move even an inch.
As Qin Mu walked into the fog, Hu Ling’er gripped even tighter and her furry tail became extremely stiff.
After so many years, the dense fog didn’t dissipate at all. However what’s weird was that Qin Mu couldn’t feel any humidity walking in the fog. He could only see droplets of water floating in the fog, quiet and unmoving.
He then saw numerous broken jades floating in the sky and other than that, there were also pieces of spirit weapons, broken bones, all silently floating around, as if there were not an ounce of weight. When he was in the doorway, he only saw the dragon bones and didn’t see the rest of these kinds of stuff.
There must be a bitter battle here, even the skeletons and spirit weapons of experts were shattered! What exactly happened here? Did it happened before the Great Ruins’ catastrophe or after?"
Qin Mu suddenly felt a sharp pain on his scalp. It was Hu Ling’er who had been scared to death by a floating skull and had jumped onto his head while gripping his scalp tightly, her body arching from fright.
The white fox trembled in fear, making Qin Mu’s scalp trembling as well.
"Dragon!"
White fox screamed and swooped down from Qin Mu’s head, clinging to his back. With her limbs latched onto Qin Mu waist, Qin Mu looked like he was carrying a white fur backpack.