Chapter 040: The Strange Man

Crouching down, he wrapped his head with his arms as the thick, pungent scent of blood assaulted his nostrils, causing him to furrow his brow slightly.

He stood up, casting a casual glance around, and was suddenly startled. In the deepest shadows of the alley, two dark figures had emerged without him noticing, silently drawing closer until they were now almost upon him.

His expression turned grim. Ever since he had begun to master the Demonic Bull Technique, his senses had become remarkably sharp; nothing, not even a fly, could approach without him noticing. Yet these two had come so close without arousing the slightest alarm in him, as if they were truly shadows themselves.

Could these be experts? Accomplices of the man he’d just killed?

Yao Qian took a closer look. The newcomers were a man and a woman. The man appeared to be in his twenties, clad in coarse linen, thin and dark-skinned, his hands rough with calluses—not the look of a martial artist, but more like a farmer. The woman was younger, seventeen or eighteen, average in appearance, her face pallid and her eyes dull and lifeless.

They moved like walking corpses, hollowed out and soulless, yet their steps were silent, stealthy as cats.

His frown deepened. There was something deeply strange about these two. He was no longer the idle, aimless man he once was; years of cultivation had given him an instinct for recognizing martial prowess. Yet these two felt utterly ordinary, their muscles slack, no hint of the force or spirit of a fighter.

But as they drew closer, a chill crept over him—a skin-crawling, primal sense of danger, as if he were being watched by venomous snakes. Every instinct screamed at him to flee; the feeling of imminent peril was overwhelming.

“Who are you?” he demanded, drawing his blade partway from its sheath with a metallic rasp and stepping back. “This is official business. Leave at once.”

But the pair continued their approach as if they hadn’t heard him, closing the distance in mere moments to no more than three paces apart.

At last, he could see them clearly. His heart lurched. In the darkness, he’d missed the detail, but now he saw the fresh, bright blood smeared around their lips. As they neared, the stench was suffocating—the rot of a wild boar dead for a fortnight and thrown into a river, nauseating and foul.

An alarm was blaring in his mind. A sudden realization flashed through his thoughts, making his face change.

Just then, from beyond the alley, faint and intermittent, came the piercing, chilling screams of the dying—ghostly, soul-chilling cries that set his nerves on edge.

Yao Qian kept his eyes fixed on the two figures, unwilling to let them out of his sight. Turning his back to them now would be a death sentence.

He retreated several steps, his blade fully drawn, the tip leveled at them. Cold sweat beaded across his forehead.

At that moment, the woman emitted a hissing sound, like a serpent flicking its tongue. With a sudden leap, she landed on the headless corpse slumped against the wall, mouth agape.

Yao Qian watched in horror as her lips split at the corners, the small mouth grotesquely widening to encompass the corpse’s neck. She sucked greedily, gulping down the blood that still seeped from the wound as though savoring the finest wine.

With every gulp, the body beneath her shriveled, the skin puckering and shrinking like old tree bark, the form itself withering in moments from that of a strong man to a withered child, dried out as if it had lain dead for years.

Though he had guessed at the truth—he’d even discussed it with Old Wang earlier that day—witnessing this horror in the flesh filled him with revulsion and terror.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

He trembled despite himself; the scene was almost more than he could bear. The murder, the consumption of human blood and flesh—he felt a profound, visceral disgust.

All of this took place in the blink of an eye.

The woman rose from the desiccated corpse, her gaping mouth slowly closing, returning to the semblance of a demure cherry-like smile. She hissed again, and the man echoed her. Yao Qian could not understand their words, but his expression grew darker still.

Everything had happened too quickly for him to escape.

Suddenly, the man turned his gaze upon him. The whites of his eyes gleamed with a look of contempt and derision, as if he were regarding a mere ant, a pig, a chicken—nothing more than food.

The man’s mouth split open into several segments, the flesh twisting, and a crimson tongue shot from his mouth like an arrow, striking toward Yao Qian.

The woman followed suit, spitting out her own red tongue, which lashed toward his head.

A black blur flashed before his eyes—they were upon him. He unleashed the Five Tigers Gate-Cleaving Blade, hacking down at the tip of the attacking tongue.

The dark shadow was knocked aside. He twisted his body, dodging both assaults.

But a numbing pain shot up his arm, and the grip of his blade throbbed with agony.

What on earth are these monsters? How can they be so tough?

He hadn’t used his full strength, only about seventy percent—enough to deal with any master like Yu Hongchuan. Yet such force, coupled with the razor-sharp edge of his blade, had failed to even scratch the surface of the shadowy appendage.

It was as if he’d struck pure metal—a clear ring of steel on steel echoed, leaving his ears ringing.

His first attack failed, and he staggered back several steps to dissipate the recoil.

Yet his gaze remained fixed on the pair. At last, he saw clearly what was at the tip of their red tongues—a thing like a tightly closed flower bud, armored in black chitin, its true nature hidden within.

Having missed, the man and woman snapped their tongues back into their mouths with the speed of frogs snatching prey.

They were quick, but so was Yao Qian. He crouched low, gliding like a serpent through grass, darting in close to the young man. With a powerful leap, he attacked like a hungry tiger descending from the mountain—the very essence of the Five Tigers’ Tiger Seizes the Corpse.

He thrust his blade with sudden, lethal force; the flash of steel pierced the young man’s chest, the tip driving deep through the heart and emerging from his back.

A stunning, flawless strike—swift and silent as a grazing antelope.

And yet, Yao Qian’s expression changed drastically as he looked at the young man before him.