< XD >
< The stench from your armpits does well to even overpower the smell of the demonic swines. Perhaps you are close to breaking through?>
< :D >
<…Leader, what’s a sounder again?>
< :\ >
To the far west of where An Ping, the Dark Star Mercenaries, and the gathered forces of the Dim Gold City were having their briefing alongside the cultivators from the various sects that had participated in the sect recruitments, and where a disgruntled fox princess was ruffling her lover’s hair because of her unbound jealousy, a horde of slimy red pigs roamed on a swampland covered in itchy poison ivy.
They were the Demonic Plaguehide Pigs. These monsters, reminiscent of a mix of scavenging hyenas and domestic pigs, exuded an oppressive, noxious stench of sulfur and decay, a nasty perfume that heralded their presence to the whole forest. Their slimy red skin full of warts and rashes, punctuated with sharp spikes and patches of scaly armour, shimmered in the dim dawn light, while their beady eyes betrayed their unending gluttony. Snouts sharp with no tusks but razor-like fur ground against the foliage, and their spindly hooved legs, adept at traversing the muck propelled them in a relentless search for food. A cacophony of eerie squeals and guttural snorts akin to the screeching of slaughtered livestock reverberated through the marsh every second as they foraged, their movements creating a discordant symphony that unsettled the very air of the swamp.
The swamp which always stank of rotten corpses decaying in the excreta of these giant porcus chaosfiends, the water far muddier than the bed of the dirt stream of Dim Gold City. The swamp was extensive, stretching to the north and west as far as the eyes could see, and being so close to the ocean made the water here far more saline than normal. Although many would argue that the water was salty due to the thousands of indigenous porcine chaosfiends that made the region home. Potty manners were the farthest thing from these beasts’ minds, if they even had a mind at that. They were extremely dumb yet equally ferocious creatures, easy to provoke and just as easy to fool.
That was precisely why An Ping chose them as a target. Four of her mercenaries now perched on one of the mangrove trees dotting the area, hidden by a canopy of heart-shaped leaves.
Although if the dainty woman with sides of her hair shaven and the axe-wielding hairy monster of a man kept arguing, their cover might not hold.
The leader of these two idiots shook his head, his hand retracing the lines of a blue bamboo artefact. The fourth and final member, a mute man with one eye and no tongue handled a similar artefact as he slowly gathered origin qi to the soles of his feet. The bamboo artefact in this lanky man’s hand was red, rather than blue.
All four had communicator tokens, and despite the unfamiliarity of writing words into the qi itself with nothing but their mental senses, the novelty of the artefacts had yet to wear off.
Below them, the sounder of pigs slowly moved in patterns of swirling red.
Oink!
Splash!
Squeal!
Numbering thousands, they thudded and shifted, making strange sounds from their tuskless red snouts. Their bisected hooves flattened the ivy down to the muddy waters, their rash-covered hide blazing bright with giant warts and pimples. Truly ugly these creatures were. It was gross to even imagine that in most parts of the Westmoon Kingdom, their meat was prized for unmatched deliciousness.
But the mercenary team of merely four were not here to fight them head-on, nor to hunt them for their meat and core.
The dainty woman snorted, giving a side eye to the hairy oaf. Her dao shard had long been ready. She slowly let the spirit qi branch out from her temple palace dantian, the water-aspected qi flowing through her form like dark rivers. She stuck her tongue out at her hairy teammate one last time–a form of good luck as she called it–before falling down into the swamp with a nearly silent plop.
A few of the red pigs twitched their ears, a few more snorted with inordinate amounts of snot, but the sounder kept moving nonetheless, ever so slowly heading north to the next grazing swamps.
<… XD >
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
< :*^ >
The banter went on as the woman’s dao shard almost melded her to the gross water of the swamp. She slowly crept her way to the very centre of the sounder, being careful not to let the hideous monstrosities step on any part of her watery body.
She was an assassin, and no mindless pig would find her out!
Minutes passed, the sounder was still far from their destination. The woman could only make her way in yard by yard, but she had to hurry up. The gaps created by the movement of the sounder’s formation would vanish as soon as they stopped. These chaosfiends were known to stick together in the thousands for heaven knows why, but having a wart-covered flubbery belly plop down upon her was not something she was looking forward to.
Not to mention, the chaos qi from these thousands of fiends would be enough to thrust her out of her liquid form. Whether she could escape with her life after that would not be up to her to decide.
Not because this sounder had thousands of fiends. No, the woman was an assassin. She could easily hoodwink these thousands of Imperfect Heaven 1st order pigs, no matter their cultivation stage.
It was their king she worried about.
An Imperfect Heaven 2nd order fiend, no matter how dumb, would surely have some vile tricks up its trotters. One on one she could take it, but with a thousand minions at its disposal? Soupy was sassy, but not suicidal!
A monstrosity of disease and gluttony, it was now walking lazily towards the north at the very centre of the sounder, its lesser brethren unconsciously following in its path from every direction.
And this king, precisely, was her target. And with zero blunders made along the way, she reached it.
The fiend's massive trotters thudded down onto the muddy swamp, creating craters in its wake. And the woman’s liquid form slithered between them with the precision of a viper, her dao shard pushed to the very limit so that not even a sesame seed’s worth of qi would leak.
A watery appendage reached out from her body just as she made her way to the spot directly under the imperfect heaven 2nd order pig’s belly. Her qi churned, and the appendage released a faint miasma, the numbing agent made from countless treasured herbs and fiend parts.
There was a pause, ever so slightly the king of pigs swerved left.
Tumbling sounds came over from above but the woman could not sense what was happening. There were loud oinks and a few wet squelches.
BOOM!
An explosion rocked the forest.
The woman held her breath. She had to if she wanted to survive, but the tears fell uncontrollably, mixing into her soupy form.
The woman did not dare breathe or speak, the chaos qi corrupting everything in a thirty-metre radius. But she had the communicator.
< XD >
Soupy literally had no choice but to trudge through stink and sewage, but faithful to her mission, she kept up with the hulking, jiggling fiend. And a few moments later, everything resumed as normal.
Except one wart under the Demonic Plaguehide Pig King’s belly.
The one-eyed mute man stood up, and with a dark gust of wind, he was gone. The wind headed east, towards a route marked by tiny inscriptions on the mangrove trees, pointed at the direction of the valley where the chaosfiends led by the Four Fears Chimaera were about to clash with the voidfiends led by the Bone-eating Putrid Python.
More minutes passed. The hairy man had stopped his banter with Soupy on the communicators, and the leader prepared his spirit qi in case anything went wrong.
It shouldn’t.
The plan was simple. The blue unit of the Twin flare would burst the moment the woman reached safety.
It had a certain kind of ‘qi’ that would drive these pig fiends mad, the qi from the local Lichenskin Goblinsnakes, the main predator of these pigs around this part and chaosfiends who in turn were preyed upon by them too.
But just injecting a shock of qi into the pork sounder would not be enough to lure these thousands of fiends towards the valley. As such, the flares were twins, linked by divine sense that would transfer the qi signature from under the pig king's belly, towards the red unit of the Twin flare in Lanky’s hand within mere breaths.
< :) >
< Soupy? >
< I’m out. Heading your way.>
Nothing more needed to be said. The leader pushed the mental trigger.
And a cloud of blue fire rose right at the centre of the sounder, followed by an equal parts fearful and equal parts furious oink from the imperfect heaven 2nd order Demonic Plaguehid Pig.
The sounder scattered like disturbed ants, the grunts of disgruntled pigs rose to the heavens. The swamp quaked by the thousands of angry trotters changing the flow of the very terrain from north to west.
And the plan was complete.
All that was left was for Lanky to reach the valley with the murder of chaosfiends chasing him. He would then throw the red flare unit in the middle of the voidfiend army, and that was that.
< Good. Hairy, keep masking our trail. We return before the team that’s going to lure out the knot of Lichenskin Goblinsnakes with the flares made from Demonic Plaguehide Pig cores. No way are we—>
< ୧(๑•̀ᗝ•́)૭>
< \(◣ _ ◢)/ >
< An enemy? What—?>
“What?” Hairy yelled in rage. “Who dares!”
That’s fine. Leady thought as he eyed the new arrivals who had shown themselves. They wore rags, madlanders and native ren alike, led by a strange madlander woman whose smile reached past her ears and into her neck. And she stank, far more than Hairy, of the accursed void corrupted qi.
“Cultists. What are you fine folks doing here?”
“We have come to deliver your head, oh foolish heretic of the moon.” The cultist woman spoke, her aura rose alongside her army of zealots.
Three imperfect heaven 2nd realm cultists, with the woman definitely in the peak stages of the same realm. And many more 1st realmers. No doubt the assailants going after Lanky and the ones fighting Soupy were just as troublesome.
Leady dodged the simultaneous attack from eight sides, cutting off the lone strand of spirit qi that had been feeding into the second communicator in his possession.
“Give up! You cannot win, oh foolish child who dared to taint the emissary’s plans. Deliver your soul to our lord!” The cultist woman laughed, her voice deceptively mellow, her strikes clad in deathless qi.
She was right.
It would be impossible to win against all these cultivators by themselves. But they could stall.
Until reinforcements arrived.
***
At the same time, in Dim Gold City.
Wang Gangbao had just finished washing up. Ding Shi was asleep in their room, his father out to play mahjong with his drunk mates.
The young boy sat down on one of the chairs, a small piece of paper in his hands.
He had gone to the Dim Gold Hotel today. He had wanted to speak to the cultivators. But his soul screamed not to.
Then he met a very beautiful yet very scary maid. She gave him the paper, it was a yao charm. His soul was still screaming, but it hurt less now.
“Oh, you fool.”
Came a hoarse voice. It was the old beggar.
“Why, did, you, not, listen?” Said the decrepit old thing. He was smiling, his lips reached behind his ears.
“It’s you guys.” Gangbao said, swallowing a thick gulp.
They were covered in rags, but Gangbao knew who they were. Behind the beggar stood the madlander helper girl. And many other people. People? No… Gangbao gripped the paper charm in his hand as it let out a warm light. He did not know what it was for, but surely it could–
“Have you come to change my head?” The boy asked before he could finish that thought, terrified out of his skin. He did not know why he asked that, but Ding Shi’s hysteric ramblings suddenly popped into his mind.
The old beggar laughed. These intruders, they were not people.
They stank after all.