Chapter 961
is far from enough.
Ninety-three hammer blows. Four feet.
Pigsy put down the copper hammer and silently made a gesture towards Chu Yang.
All right.
Chu Yang went over to take a look. The crack had widened to four feet, enough for two people to pass side by side. The chiseled surface was rough but neat, with no loose rubble remaining.
He glanced into the crack.
black.
Pure, uncomplicated black.
He took the fluorite out of his storage bag and held it in his hand, raising it towards the crevice. The pale green light barely illuminated a distance of two or three feet in front of him—the stone wall, a damp stone wall covered with a layer of black, sticky substance, like solidified snake saliva.
The fishy stench in the air was more than ten times stronger than before.
Sun Wukong walked to the crack and shrunk his golden cudgel into a three-foot-long stick in his hand.
"I'm going in."
Chu Yang tugged at his arm.
“Brother Monkey, something just popped into my head—if you go in and find the snake demon still dormant, don't rush to attack. Use the end of your golden cudgel to test the hardness of its scales, find its weak points. Snakes' vulnerabilities are usually in their belly, lower jaw, and base of the tail. If its dorsal scales are so hard that even the golden cudgel can't break them, then focus your attack on its belly.”
Sun Wukong snorted.
"You think my old Sun's golden cudgel can't even smash a snake's scales?"
"I mean, just in case. Just in case. It never hurts to be prepared."
Sun Wukong rolled his eyes, stopped arguing, and squeezed into the crack.
His figure was quickly swallowed by the darkness.
Chu Yang and Zhu Bajie guarded the outside of the crevice.
The wait has begun.
The silence in the mountains and forests grew even deeper. Sunlight couldn't reach this side of the hillside—huge boulders and the surrounding withered pines blocked the light—the whole area was shrouded in a gray gloom, and even the temperature was a few degrees lower than elsewhere.
Chu Yang placed his left hand on the black dagger at his waist, gripped the fluorite in his right hand, and stared intently at the entrance of the crack.
Pigsy squatted on the other side of the crack, his rake resting on his knees, his two pig ears standing up high, like two radar antennas pointing towards the crack.
One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths.
Ten breaths.
Thirty breaths.
The time it takes to drink a cup of tea has passed.
The depths of the crack were as quiet as a tomb.
Pigsy's Adam's apple bobbed.
"Why hasn't Brother Monkey arrived yet—"
boom!!!
A thunderous roar erupted from the depths of the crack, and the shockwave, carrying debris and dust, spewed out from the crevice, covering Chu Yang and Zhu Bajie completely.
Then came a sharp, piercing scream—not a human cry, nor any common animal call, but an extremely high-pitched, extremely shrill sound, like a steel needle scratching on an iron plate.
Hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss—
The sound pierced through the rock wall and echoed throughout the entire Black Pine Ridge, shaking the few pine trees on the mountainside that were not yet completely dead, causing their withered branches to fall.
The snake demon was awakened.
"It's awake!" Pigsy grabbed the rake and jumped up.
From the crack came the sounds of fierce fighting—the clanging of metal against stone walls, the muffled thuds of flesh hitting the ground, the whooshing sound of the golden cudgel being swung in the narrow space, and the snake demon's continuous, sharp hissing.
Boom—another loud noise, the rock walls on both sides of the crack shook, and several pieces of rock rolled down from above the crack.
Then came Sun Wukong's voice, full of energy, which could be heard clearly even through the rock wall.
"Those scales are so hard! Take this, Old Sun's second strike—"
clang--
A crisp metallic clang rang out, like a hammer striking a bronze bell.
This was followed by a short, muffled groan—it was Sun Wukong's voice.
"Hiss—that beast's tail is powerful—"
Chu Yang's heart leaped into his throat.
Sun Wukong grunted. Although his physique wouldn't cause any real injury, the fact that the Great Sage Equaling Heaven could groan indicated that the snake demon was indeed quite powerful.
The fighting inside the crevice grew increasingly intense.
Chu Yang heard the sound of the stone wall cracking, the heavy friction of the snake's body sweeping across the ground, and a strange hissing sound—like some liquid splashing onto a hot surface.
Poisonous mist? No, that's venom sprayed by the snake demon.
hiss hiss hiss hiss—
"Pah! You, with your poisonous, rotten mud-like appearance, dare to spit in my face—"
Clang clang clang—three rapid, consecutive strikes.
Hiss—the snake demon screamed again, even more shrill than before, clearly filled with pain.
Sun Wukong has found a weakness.
"His belly is indeed soft—take my fifth hit—"
The sound of this strike was completely different from the previous ones. The previous impacts were clanging metallic sounds, indicating that they had hit hard scales. This time, the sound was a muffled thud—it had hit soft tissue.
The snake demon let out an unprecedented scream.
The scream was so shrill that Chu Yang had to cover his ears. Zhu Bajie was even more exaggerated, pressing his two pig hooves directly onto his ears, his face scrunched up like a bun.
After the screams came a violent crashing sound—the snake demon writhed and struggled furiously in the cave, its huge body constantly slamming against the surrounding stone walls, making the entire mountain seem to tremble.
Gravel kept rolling down from above the crack, and one piece almost hit Pigsy on the head, but he brushed it away with his rake.
"Get away quickly!" Pigsy shouted.
Chu Yang did not retreat.
He stared at the entrance to the crack, his mind racing.
Judging from the sounds of the fight, Sun Wukong had seized the initiative. The snake demon, struck in the abdomen, began to lose its composure; its furious writhing was an instinctive reaction to pain and fear. Once the demon lost its composure, its defeat was imminent.
But he was worried about something else.
The Earth God said that the snake demon resides on the ley line node. What if the fight gets too intense and the snake demon smashes the ley line node in its rage? That node has already been eroded for more than half a year and is very fragile to begin with.
"Monkey King—" he shouted into the crack—"Watch out for the ley lines! Don't let that snake break the stone pillars!"
A response from Sun Wukong came from deep within the crack.
"Got it—you think I, Old Sun, didn't see it?—Hey, don't run—" Another loud bang.
Then--
Everything suddenly became quiet.
The sounds of fighting, screaming, and collisions all stopped abruptly at the same moment.
A deathly silence.
Chu Yang's heart was in his throat.
Three breaths later, Sun Wukong's voice came from the depths of the rift, tinged with a hint of dissatisfaction.
"That beast—it got away."
Chu Yang was taken aback.
"It ran away? Where did it run from? Wasn't it said that there was only one entrance and exit to the cave?"
Footsteps echoed from the crack, and Sun Wukong emerged from the darkness.
His face and body were splattered with a black, viscous liquid—the blood of a snake demon. The same substance was also smeared on his golden cudgel, emitting a strong, pungent stench in the air.
"The snake dug a secret escape tunnel at the bottom of the cave." Sun Wukong tapped his golden cudgel on the ground twice to shake off the snake blood. "I, Old Sun, struck its abdomen three or four times with my cudgel; its intestines were almost spilling out. Knowing it couldn't win, it plunged headfirst into a hole in the cave floor. That hole was deep and narrow, burrowing deep underground. I chased it for more than ten zhang (approximately 33 meters) before I couldn't catch it anymore—the cave walls were too tight, and I couldn't use my golden cudgel effectively."
Chu Yang frowned.
"It escaped underground?"
"Yes. And he escaped very quickly. To be able to move so fast despite being so badly injured, that beast is indeed quite capable."
Will it come back?
Sun Wukong thought for a moment.
"Probably not in the short term. I, Old Sun, broke four or five of its abdominal scales and injured its internal organs; it won't recover for at least a month or two. However, snake demons are extremely resilient; as long as it doesn't die, it will eventually heal. Whether it will seek another place to dwell or return for revenge is hard to say."
Chu Yang remained silent for a few moments.
This wasn't the ideal outcome. Ideally, the snake demon would have been killed with a single blow or captured alive, eliminating any future threat. But the snake demon escaped into the underground tunnels, a narrow space where Sun Wukong couldn't catch it, so it's not entirely his fault.
"What's the situation inside the grotto? What about the ley lines?"
"The node is fine. I, Old Sun, protected it. When the snake rolled around, I specifically used my body to shield the stone pillar twice—though I did scrape my back. The stone pillar is still standing, but it's covered in snake slough and black grime condensed from evil energy; it looks quite disgusting."
"What about the venom and evil energy left behind by the snake demon?"
"The cave was filled with it. The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in black slime and a grayish-white, malevolent mist. The snake had been coiled up inside for over half a year, and the entire cave was permeated with its aura."
Chu Yang nodded.
"I'll go in and take a look."
"You're going in?" Sun Wukong stopped him. "The poisonous gas inside is very strong. Someone with your Qi Refining stage constitution can't withstand it."
"I won't go deep inside. Just a quick look at the entrance will suffice."
Sun Wukong hesitated for a moment, then did not stop him.
Chu Yang squeezed into the crack by turning sideways.
Inside the crack is a natural passageway sloping downwards, about two zhang long, with varying widths. At its narrowest point, it is just wide enough for an adult to pass through sideways—and that is after Pigsy had carved it.
The walls of the passageway were covered with a layer of black, slimy mucus that gleamed with an unhealthy sheen under the green light of the fluorite. The air was thick with the pungent smell of snakes and an indescribable, sweet, putrid odor—the smell of evil.
Chu Yang held his breath and walked to the end of the passageway, where a bright and open space suddenly appeared before him.
grotto.
The local earth god was right—the grotto was about three or four zhang square, and the dome was about one and a half zhang high. Under the illumination of the fluorite, the entire space presented a strange, pale white tone shrouded in green light.
The ground was covered with traces of the snake demon—thick, serpentine lines crisscrossed and coiled across the earth, carving grooves of varying depths. Scattered snake molts lay in the corners, translucent, like layers of peeled-off grayish-white stockings.
Black slime covered almost every stone wall. In some places, the slime had dried and solidified, forming a hard crust; in other places, it was still fresh, slowly dripping down the stone wall.
In the very center of the grotto, a stone pillar about three feet high protrudes from the ground.
That's the ley line node.
The stone pillar was entirely grayish-white, its surface covered with naturally formed patterns, resembling a solidified stone tree stump. Enveloped in evil energy and snake molts, the pillar's original appearance was almost impossible to discern. However, when Chu Yang probed it with a wisp of spiritual energy, he could still sense an extremely faint flow of spiritual energy within the pillar—like a nearly dried-up stream, barely perceptible, but not yet broken.
The ley line node is still alive. There's still hope.
At the base of the stone pillar, there was a dark gap in the ground—that was the secret passage through which the snake demon escaped. Fresh claw marks and snake blood were visible along the edges of the gap, indicating that Sun Wukong's final blows were clearly quite powerful.
Chu Yang did not venture any deeper.
He retreated to the entrance of the passageway and took a deep breath of the relatively fresh air outside.
"The situation is more complicated than I anticipated," he told Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie. "The concentration of evil energy and toxins inside the cave is very high; simply ventilating it won't solve the problem. The evil energy that has seeped into the stone walls and floor has become one with the rock; special methods are needed to remove it."
"What methods?" Pigsy asked.
Chu Yang thought for a moment.
"There are two approaches. The first is to use pure Yang energy to cleanse it. Evil energy is Yin and cold, and pure Yang energy can restrain it. If a large amount of pure Yang spiritual energy were poured into the cave, it could force the evil energy out of the rock walls and burn it away. But we don't have that level of pure Yang spiritual energy on hand."
"Is my Golden Cudgel considered pure Yang?" Sun Wukong asked.
"The Golden Cudgel was forged by Laozi to stabilize the seas; its properties are more neutral than purely yang. Furthermore, using it to strike stone walls to expel evil spirits is far too inefficient; we could keep striking it until next year and still not finish."
"What's the second approach?"
“Replace it with earth elemental energy.” Chu Yang took out the Earth-Nourishing Bead given to him by the Earth God from his pocket. “The Earth God gave me this. It contains a pure mass of earth elemental energy. Earth elemental energy is the energy of the earth vein itself, and it has a natural affinity with the rocks in the cave. If you place the Earth-Nourishing Bead next to the earth vein node and release it, the earth elemental energy will automatically seep into the surrounding rocks, like clear water washing away silt, squeezing out the evil energy from the cracks in the rocks.”
“But the problem is—” he weighed the Earth-Nourishing Bead in his hand, “this bead contains too little earth elemental energy. It’s only enough to clear the evil energy within a one or two-zhang radius around the node. The entire cave is three or four zhang square; one Earth-Nourishing Bead is far from sufficient.”
"What should we do then?"
Chu Yang looked down at the soil-cultivating bead in his hand, his mind racing with various possibilities.
Suddenly he raised his head.
"Pigsy."
"Um?"
"You just said that the Tianpeng Marshal's lineage uses a water-based technique for concealment—simulating the refractive properties of water with spiritual energy. So your spiritual energy attribute should be water-oriented, right?"
Pigsy scratched his head.
"Yes. My spiritual energy is water-based. Marshal Tianpeng governs the Milky Way, which is associated with water, so the cultivation methods of the Tianpeng lineage are all water-oriented."
“Water can cleanse.” Chu Yang’s eyes lit up. “Bajie, could you use your water-attribute spiritual energy to create a ‘spiritual energy flood’ in the cave—pour a large amount of water-attribute spiritual energy into the cave to wash away the evil energy on the stone walls and the ground?”
Pigsy's face wrinkled up.
"A flood of spiritual energy? You mean I should turn spiritual energy into water and pour it in?"
"It doesn't transform into actual water. It uses water-attribute spiritual energy to form a high-density spiritual energy field, covering the entire grotto. Water-attribute spiritual energy naturally possesses purifying and flowing properties. When it comes into contact with evil energy, it dissolves the evil energy from the cracks in the rocks, much like water dissolves salt, and then carries the evil energy down to the lower level—the secret passage dug by the snake demon." (End of Chapter)