Chapter 69, Xu Hei’s Instinct

Translator: Tamon

 

Hei Huang was just as stunned by Xu Hei’s scales’ sudden appearance.

 

“I thought I told you to run! Why did you come back?” Hei Huang snapped.

 

Xu Hei was underground with a bald and bleeding tail. He didn’t have the time to explain. “Hei Huang, could I control the puppet?”

 

Hei Huang flinched. “Ancestor Ban Shan, you mean?”

 

“Yes!”

 

Hei Huang was nervous. “You’ve practiced the puppet art, so of course you can, but with your current Divine Sense, it would only twitch and fall.”

 

A Golden Core puppet wasn’t some stick on a string. It required a tough Divine Sense to even budge, let alone use magical arts.

 

Xu Hei was dead set on it. “I want to try.”

 

“Uh…” Hei Huang blinked.

 

He had considered letting Xu Hei give Ancestor Ban Shan a spin, having matching earth spirit root and all. The result just might get them out of this pickle.

 

Nevertheless, Xu Hei was at the 7th layer of the Awareness Stage with limited Divine Sense. His control of a Golden Core puppet was nonexistent.

 

In this crisis, Hei Huang couldn’t spare the luxury of thinking over every aspect, however, giving in. “Fine, I’ll help you try, but you must match my actions. The second our actions differ, we’re through!”

 

Hei Huang came to a compromise with both controlling it.

 

Xu Hei rushed next to Ancestor Ban Shan and placed his Divine Sense mark.

 

He felt a connection with the puppet, but Xu Hei felt the world pressing down on him, impossible to lift a single hand. The severe weight made it hard to even breathe.

 

“Xu Hei, are you sure? Just let it go. The puppet can use two more arts, enough to cover your escape. Make your decision!” Hei Huang urged.

 

Xu Hei set his jaw and swallowed a blue pill.

 

For a brief period, the Divine Surge Pill amplified one’s Divine Sense, not dissimilar to the pill Chen Daoling swallowed on his mad hunt for his life.

 

Boom!

 

Xu Hei’s mind exploded, and the pressure eased up. He tried lifting a hand, and the puppet obeyed.

 

“You… moved it!” Hei Huang was stunned.

 

[Just a Divine Surge Pill and he can do it. How many secrets does Xu Hei have?]

 

He Luohua was in no hurry to attack, finding collecting the scales to be far more important. [They’ll make for a good Golden Core magic treasure.]

 

“To show my gratitude for the wonderful gift you gave me,” she hinted at the scales, “I’ll give you a quick death.”

 

He Luohua raised a finger and sent the three flying swords at them. The chipped blades could still take lives all the same.

 

Xu Hei’s eyes were icy. He showed no fear as he faced the strongest opponent in his life.

 

“Earth Shield!”

 

Ancestor Ban Shan extended its palms, and the earth rose to form three hard shields that blocked the swords.

 

The swords pierced the Earth Shields but were now stuck in them.

 

“What?!” He Luohua voiced hers and Hei Huang’s shock.

 

The Earth Shield was a 2nd-grade magical art, somewhat usable in the Foundation Establishment Stage, but in the hands of Ancestor Ban Shan, its power was out of this world, blocking a Golden Core flying sword.

 

Since it was a low magical art, the drain on the Golden Core was minimal, around a tenth.

 

Hei Huang’s breathing hiked up.

 

Xu Hei’s mind spun, and his eyes went black as he verged towards unconsciousness.

 

“I can’t black out now. I must hold on!”

 

Xu Hei took three more Divine Surge Pills.

 

“Xu Hei…” Hei Huang froze.

 

Was this the same scared Xu Hei? The same paranoid Xu Hei who never left home unless he was armed to the teeth?

 

This was not the black snake he knew.

 

Xu Hei’s mind cleared with the help of the pills, while his eyes bled as he stared with utter madness at the old hag.

 

“Hei Huang, I don’t know why, but this is my instinct!”

 

Xu Hei had Ancestor Ban Shan place its hands on the ground. “Earth Spike!”

 

He Luohua panicked at the sudden dread. “Damn it!”

 

She flashed backward at full speed as a veritable cliff jutted up from beneath her with such speed it glanced her wrinkled cheek.

 

Even that proved to be too slow, evident by the grazed face and the broken and bleeding nose.

 

“Earth Spike?” He Luohua stared at the jutting pillar of rock.

 

Calling it a rock pillar wouldn’t do the now mountain justice. It was over three hundred meters tall! [Since when did Earth Spike become so deadly?]

 

Boom!

 

She could spare no moment of rest for another mountain pierced the clouds.

 

He Luohua was forced back with every Earth Spike, as many as a dozen littering the once flat ground in the span of a moment. She ended up with a ruined hand, many wounds, and a broken magic treasure.

 

He Luohua broke a Golden Shield Talisman to block the next attack and used a sail to carry her five hundred meters in the air.

 

She ought to be safe at that height.

 

He Luohua panted, her wretched state entirely her fault for underestimating the black snake. But the hard part should be over now.

 

“Flower Storm!” He Luohua threw needles below like a veritable storm.

 

Xu Hei fended them off with a shield.

 

“Let’s see how long you last. Ancestor Ban Shan’s Golden Core is almost spent.”

 

He Luohua sneered, easily picking up on the enemy’s glaring flaw.

 

The demons lasted so long because of the corpse.

 

Every magical art worked on Spiritual Energy, no exceptions, and to employ arts strong enough to fend her off, the Spiritual Energy had to come from the corpse’s Golden Core.

 

A dead relic’s Golden Core was no match for hers.

 

Low earth magical arts had a meager drain, but the previous flurry of attacks took out a third of the Golden Core’s reserves.

 

“How is it, Xu Hei?” Hei Huang asked.

 

He no longer saw Xu Hei as a junior but as an equal.

 

[I’ll have to gamble!]

 

Xu Hei gnashed his fangs, a new, incomplete, and top art coming to mind.

 

Mountain Tying Gulf!

 

It was the strongest earth magical art in the Augury Sect with great power in the Golden Core Stage. But Xu Hei didn’t have the cultivation to wield it. Except through Ancestor Ban Shan.

 

[I only know its first half and have to guess, or create, the rest.]

 

Even before Xu Hei came back, he considered this point and even had an idea to come up with the missing half of the art.

 

Xu Hei was a natural when it came to mastering magical arts, a rare kind of knack allowing him to pick up any art at a glance. Pulling off Earth Armor and Earth Spike on his very first try proved it.

 

In this current crisis and bereft of choice, Xu Hei worked his gift to a point where he surpassed himself.

 

[Come on!]

 

In that brief instant, a flawless magical art took shape in Xu Hei’s mind with the first half as the basis.

 

Xu Hei flashed his eyes open with a crazed glint and determination.

 

He swallowed another Divine Surge Pill as the Demon God Cauldron activated to absorb the pill’s power and restore the snake’s sharp wits.

 

“Old crone, leave or die!” Xu Hei hissed with bloodshot eyes.

 

Mountain Tying Gulf!

 

Ancestor Ban Shan’s palm touched the ground as his Golden Core shrank to a speck.

 

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