Chapter 36: Chapter 36: The Old Man
SPLASH. The sound of water echoed as a tense-looking Zhang Wenda quickly led Song Jianguo in retreat.
"What is it? What did you see? Say something!" Song Jianguo shouted, running behind him with her spear in hand. "What ’old man’?"
Zhang Wenda’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He didn’t answer, focused only on retreating toward the exit.
THUD. THUD. THUD. The strange, trembling sound echoed again. When Song Jianguo heard it and instinctively glanced back, she finally saw a colossal creature lumbering toward them.
It was a giant humanoid creature, at least ten meters tall, draped in a tattered cotton coat. Its face was covered in dark spots and its joints were twisted. Its toothless mouth and eyeless sockets hung slightly open, like three black holes on its face.
Beyond that, the equally massive cane in its hand seemed to be the key reason Zhang Wenda had initially mistaken it for an old man.
It had clearly spotted the two of them in the distance.
As the trembling sound rang out once more, the creature raised its decaying cane. It lifted a foot clad in black armor from the water and began to chase after Zhang Wenda and the others.
Seeing this, a chill shot up Song Jianguo’s spine, and she scrambled to keep up with Zhang Wenda.
"What is that thing?! Why is it chasing us?!" Song Jianguo yelled as she ran, ordering her other cats to scatter.
"I don’t know!" Zhang Wenda shouted back.
The moment he saw the thing, the name "Old Man" had popped into his head. He didn’t know what this thing was, but one look was enough to tell him it was extremely dangerous.
Fortunately, while it was enormous, its movements were only average.
The giant, decaying monster saw Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo getting further away and let out an indistinct mumble from its toothless mouth.
Then, it bent over, reached its right hand into the water, and gave a sharp pull. The entire surface of the library’s water wrinkled up like a rug being tugged.
This sudden turn of events was completely beyond Zhang Wenda’s expectations. He never would have imagined it had such an ability.
The two of them were tripped by the rippling water, stumbling and falling to the ground.
Pulled by the monster’s tug, the fallen Song Jianguo and Zhang Wenda were dragged rapidly backward through the water.
Just as they regained their footing, a cane with curved bamboo-like joints came swinging down from overhead.
A faint red light glowed on Zhang Wenda’s arm, and he leaped out of the water in an instant, dodging the monster’s attack.
However, Song Jianguo wasn’t so lucky. Just as she was about to dodge, branches sprouted from the cane and wrapped tightly around her.
Next, the monster raised its eight-fingered right hand, plucked a book from a nearby shelf, and opened it in front of the immobilized Song Jianguo.
As if under a spell, Song Jianguo’s eyes went blank as she stared at the book.
Seeing this, Zhang Wenda’s blood ran cold. He never imagined that this was the "Old Man’s" goal!
He grabbed a few coins from his pocket with his right hand, channeled the red light, and flung them with all his might toward Song Jianguo.
The lightweight coins, empowered by the force, struck Song Jianguo with incredible speed, stinging her sharply.
"Close your eyes! You have to keep your eyes closed! Don’t look! If you look too long, you’ll turn into a monster!"
As if angered by Zhang Wenda’s interference, the monster known as the Old Man twisted toward him, snarling some indistinct curse, and gave chase.
Zhang Wenda seemed to have found the trick to it now. Pushing off with his feet, he leaped rapidly between bookcases and shelves, doing his best to evade his pursuer.
However, he also knew he couldn’t just keep running. Each jump consumed some of his red light. At this rate, it would be depleted in three minutes at most. Once those three minutes were up, he’d really be finished!
Just then, Jianguo’s cats crept quietly along the bookshelves, closing in on the towering monster.
With a sharp meow, the Black Cats unsheathed their claws and leaped onto the monster.
The Black Cats’ attack bought Zhang Wenda a moment to breathe.
Watching the monster clumsily shaking its body in the distance, and Song Jianguo still clutched in its hand, he grew frantic with worry.
He wanted to save Jianguo, but with his current strength, taking on this behemoth was practically impossible. No matter how strong he was, it was useless against something like this.
’What do I do? What do I do?’ Zhang Wenda thought frantically.
Just then, the monster swayed and knocked over a mountain of books. White pages fluttered above the water like a flock of seagulls.
Zhang Wenda stared at the pages, stunned for a moment. He seemed to have found a way to deal with his foe.
’Since both the library and the Old Man monster seem to want us to "grow" quickly, my way out is to use them!’
Zhang Wenda looked up at the surrounding bookcases and shouted, "You want to give me knowledge, don’t you? You want me to grow up? Then give it to me! Give me the knowledge! I need knowledge that can increase my strength right now! I don’t even care if it speeds up the process of becoming an adult!"
As soon as Zhang Wenda finished speaking, a gust of wind blew in, carrying a small pile of black ash that gathered in front of him.
Then, as Zhang Wenda watched, the black ash seemed to reverse in time, coalescing amidst flames into a book the size of two palms.
*507: Preliminary Application of the Red Core.*
"Red Core?" Zhang Wenda glanced down at the red scar on his arm. He finally knew what this thing on him was.
He knew reading the library’s books was risky, but in this situation, he couldn’t afford to worry about that. He quickly opened it and began to read, scanning ten lines at a time.
Just as the monster shook off Song Jianguo’s Black Cats and stood looming over Zhang Wenda, his hand relaxed, and the book in it turned back into ash, disappearing on the wind.
He slowly raised his head to look at the monster before him, all fear gone from his eyes.
Zhang Wenda pulled a flashlight from his backpack with his right hand. He tapped the end of the flashlight lightly against his red scar. As the red scar’s glow was rapidly drained, a blinding ray of red light shot out from the flashlight.
As Zhang Wenda twisted his wrist, the vast, dazzling red light quickly condensed, finally forming a meter-long pillar of red light—or, to be more precise, a Light Saber.
"So, you can use a flashlight like this, huh?" Zhang Wenda said, looking at the new weapon in his hand.
The next second, a shadow fell over him. When Zhang Wenda looked up, he saw the massive bamboo-jointed cane smashing down on him with the force of a mountain.
SWISH! With a sound like a sharp knife slicing through paper, the cane—nearly as thick as two of Zhang Wenda’s waists put together—was easily cut in half.
An immense force erupted from Zhang Wenda’s feet. He instantly stomped through a bookcase, his body crashing into the monster’s chest like an afterimage.
Channeling strength into one arm, Zhang Wenda thrust his weapon deep inside. With a sound of tearing flesh, he effortlessly disemboweled the monster.
When Zhang Wenda kicked off and leaped back high into the air, he saw the monster toppling slowly backward.
He held his sword and pulled Song Jianguo, who had fallen into the water, to her feet. "Are you okay?"
Looking terribly pale, Song Jianguo shook her head and looked at the monster lying in the water. "Look, there’s something inside it."
"What?" Zhang Wenda stepped onto a nearby bookcase and cautiously approached.
And then he saw what was inside the Old Man monster’s body. It was a small child, completely rotten and dead. It seemed to be crying.
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