Chapter 125: Chapter 32: Spear of Justice
’Only an idiot wouldn’t use poison when they have it!’
Watching the Demon General’s Beast Taming turn pale and hack off its own left arm and shoulder with one slash, Su Zhou, who had just landed nearby, couldn’t help but grin. "Thanks to the lesson from Red Land, I figured out long ago that your humanoid form is just a target."
"But so what if it’s a target? Poison doesn’t care if you get stabbed in the appendix or the heart. Whether the organ is useful or not, it’s still going to get poisoned!"
[Red Land Demon Poison Attaching Spirit: A highly corrosive hemolytic toxin that circulates with bodily fluids, destroying all tissues and organs in its path. It causes severe blood contamination and obstructs nutrient exchange between the systems of carbon-based lifeforms.]
[Dark Earth Vein Crystal Attaching Spirit: Upon impact, it ignores physical defense and damages Spiritual Energy, leaving the target weak, exhausted, and dizzy.]
[Exorcism Rune: Upon impact, it damages Spiritual Energy. It is most effective against non-corporeal targets.]
The dark-green Cross Spear head flickered with a tri-colored Spiritual Light. This series of so-called "righteous" enchantments was enough to make any villain who understood its power tremble in fear!
’Su Zhou had never been one to mind using poison. Sure, crushing others with physical strength is satisfying, but isn’t poison a part of my own power too? Aren’t both the Dark Earth Vein Crystal and Red Land’s Evil Soul just spoils of war and part of my Divine Techniques?’
’There’s nothing to be ashamed of—taste my righteous, poisonous spear!’
After a quick glance at the surrounding wolf pack locked in a fierce battle with Zhou Buyi and the others, Su Zhou plucked a pre-prepared, diamond-shaped iron block from his waist. He aimed at the pack, infused it with Spiritual Power, and threw. Without bothering to check the result, he raised his spear again and charged toward the Demon General’s Beast Taming, which was screeching furiously as it rushed him once more!
’Why does this poison look so much like that bastard Red Land’s Demon Poison... Dammit! It’s one thing to die, but to have your own weapons used against you by the enemy is another!’
This time, however, it was the Demon General’s Beast Taming that was hamstrung, cursing to itself. It had just forced the Red Land Demon Poison out by sprouting wooden roots and had regenerated its arm, but the act had consumed far too many of its reserves. It really did not want to do that a second time.
So, instead of the "trading injuries" tactic favored by Undying Demon Generals, it began to fight conservatively. Its two Riding Blades parried the Long Spear in an impenetrable defense. Whenever it felt things were getting dangerous, it would have the cyan Wood Centipede whip its tail and force Su Zhou to retreat.
CLANG! The two figures blurred, blade and spear meeting with a shriek of scraping steel. But for once, Su Zhou was outmatched in strength. With the power of man and centipede combined, the Demon General’s Beast Taming’s charge sent the lunging Su Zhou flying. He was forced to flip backward several times in mid-air before landing heavily on a pine tree that groaned under the strain.
"Again!"
But this was merely a minor exchange. Su Zhou immediately put power into his legs and stomped hard on the pine trunk. Amid the CRACK of the trunk snapping, he launched himself at the Demon General once more!
Suddenly, a scene similar to the one in the Hongcheng sewers began to play out in the forest. Su Zhou used his high mobility, taking advantage of various leverage points throughout the snowy woods to launch a multi-pronged assault. The Demon General’s Beast Taming, which held the advantage in strength, found its wolf pack blocked by Zhou Buyi and the others. The pack was even steadily losing ground to the trio, who had consumed a pill. It was now completely on the defensive, able to do nothing but parry.
’A miscalculation—I figured that young Grandmaster might be powerful, but I never expected these three ordinary Postnatal Martial Artists with him to have a Bottom Card or two!’
The Wood Armor Gray Wolf was its pride and joy. A typical Postnatal No Rank Martial Artist would find a single one to be a handful; being surrounded by three was practically a death sentence. Now, a pack of nearly a hundred was being held back by three juniors at Postnatal Tier One and Tier Two. This was far beyond its expectations!
But the Beast Taming wasn’t worried, because its objective had never been to kill Su Zhou and Zhou Buyi’s group on the spot.
What it needed was to hold them back!
BOOM! The two clashed again, and this time, Su Zhou poured all his strength into a mighty downward swing of his spear. He snapped the Demon General’s parrying arm and even shattered the spine of its humanoid form... but the humanoid figure had no vital organs. As long as it wasn’t pierced by the spearhead, such damage was useless. It healed quickly and resumed its block.
’This is getting a little tricky,’
Su Zhou thought, now finding the situation rather tricky. Ever since it learned his spear was poisoned, the Demon General had switched to a strategy of seventy percent defense and thirty percent offense. The moment things looked bad, it would have the Wood Centipede whip its tail or even roll to dodge a direct hit from the spearhead.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to stab the Wood Centipede... but just like the one he encountered in the sewers, its body was covered in a layer of anti-freeze mucus. It was so slippery that he couldn’t get a purchase on it. Even when he did manage to pierce it, the creature simply shuddered, shed that part of its wooden carapace, and then regenerated to purge the poison.
A domesticated War Beast was indeed more formidable than a wild one in this regard.
Su Zhou knew perfectly well that the enemy would die if he just wore it down, but time was something he didn’t have. He needed to kill this Demon General quickly and lead his team in a retreat, lest they get surrounded by four to five hundred Demon Soldiers, some of whom were even armed with True Qi Cannons. That would be no laughing matter. No matter how valiant he was, he couldn’t possibly fight so many Martial Artists at once, let alone when they were armed with crossbows, guns, and cannons.
The situation became bizarre. A ten-meter-long general riding a Wood Centipede was fighting like a low-life street thug. The moment things went south, it would just drop to the ground, and the centipede’s tail would start whipping around wildly. Good grief, a tail that weighed at least two or three tons, swung with the immense strength of a Spirit Plant Demon Beast—the vicious wind it generated could send a person flying like a piece of paper!
