Chapter 208: The Serpent Playing Dead
Days later, Croak and Warble flew across the Eastern Sea with Xiao Nanfeng's main body, You Jiu, Ye Dafu, and a hundred other cultivators besides.
"Where are we headed, King Xiao?" Ye Dafu asked curiously.
"I know a certain green lobster king that's gone on an expedition, and it's willing to gift me the draconic vein embedded in its lair," Xiao Nanfeng replied, smiling.
"We're taking down a lair of lobster spiritbeasts?" Ye Dafu's eyes lit up.
"Lobster meat!" Croak croaked.
"Ye Dafu, you'll be responsible for surrounding the lair with a formation. Mr. Zheng, you'll manipulate the Ghosts' Parade to strike and batter them. You Jiu, you'll guard the perimeter and serve as a line of defense. Croak, Warble, you'll lead the charge against the lobster spirits. Everyone else will join you in killing them," Xiao Nanfeng instructed.
"Understood!" everyone chorused.
At the same time, in a region of particularly thick fog within the draconic palace, the green lobster king scuttled forward with the hundreds of cultivators and spirits it had caught. It looked at the thick fog before itself.
"I am a lobster of my word. Fight these skeletons thrice, and I'll let you go free. Today's the first time, and we'll strike immediately. Lad, you! Go use your Immortal relic in the fog and lure a skeletal dragon over," the green lobster king commanded.
Xiao Nanfeng's avatar walked out from the crowd. Over these last few days, he had seen how devastating such fights could be. He carefully retrieved the broken Immortal relic and infused a small amount of spiritual power into it, causing it to shine with radiant light.
He stepped into the thick fog and quickly lured a skeletal dragon over. The skeletal dragon looked on fiercely. It roared and caused a large quantity of fog around itself to dissipate.
It gave off a thick, viscous black aura. Just a little of the killing intent that it emanated made the cultivators feel as though they were unable to breathe.
"Is this the aura of an Immortal? How are we supposed to fight such a monster?!" one cultivator cried out in panic.
Most of them were Ascension-realm cultivators. For them to challenge an Immortal was like having ants challenge an elephant. They were doomed!
"Good work. Continue luring it over!" the green lobster king called out.
Xiao Nanfeng waved the Immortal sword in his hand, as though challenging the skeletal dragon, then retreated.
The skeletal dragon roared in outrage and chased after Xiao Nanfeng, moving so rapidly that it appeared behind him in no time.
Xiao Nanfeng immediately caused the Immortal blade to self-destruct, then tossed it behind him.
The Immortal blade exploded with roaring flames, causing the skeletal dragon to come to a halt. Xiao Nanfeng was sent flying by the force of the explosion.
"Who told you to destroy the Immortal blade now?!" the green lobster king thundered.
"You said to do so at an opportune time," Xiao Nanfeng countered, landing on the ground and continuing to run.
"Ridiculous! I told you to make it self-destruct after pitching it into the dragon's maw. Are you incapable of following simple instructions?" the green lobster king raged.
Xiao Nanfeng frowned. There was no time to do anything of the sort. This was an Immortal-realm skeletal dragon. Considering its speed, if he hadn't caused the sword to self-destruct when he did, he would already have been consumed.
This green lobster king was deliberately sending him to his death; he wasn't about to fall prey to its antics!
The skeletal dragon roared and charged forward angrily, but Xiao Nanfeng's speed was nothing to scoff at. Thanks to the destruction of the Immortal relic, he had enough time to run all the way behind the green lobster king, causing it to gnash its teeth.
"Raise the formation!" the green lobster king commanded.
From the fog appeared a radiant chain that tangled around the skeletal dragon and forced it to stop short. It roared in outrage as a plume of dust rose into the air from its thrashing.
"It's been restrained by an Immortal chain! Now, everyone, attack!" the green lobster king continued.
"Kill!" All the cultivators and spirits charged toward the skeletal dragon.
The skeletal dragon wasn't particularly intelligent; all it could do was struggle on the spot. A viscous black energy seeped out of its body.
The skeletal dragon roared in outrage, but the Immortal chain was doing its work. It gradually grew weaker under the cultivators' combined assault.
"Don't stop. Keep attacking at full force. This skeletal dragon can't regain its strength, so it'll grow weaker the more it's attacked. Once it drops to the level of a Wingform-realm spirit, there'll be nothing to worry about. If any of you slacks off, I'll kill you!" the green lobster king continued.
Suddenly, the skeletal dragon roared. Shards of bone shot out of its body like spears, pinning almost a hundred cultivators against the ground.
They screamed in pain, having lost much of their combat ability.
"This is one of its Immortal techniques. The more it uses it, the faster it weakens. If you haven't been killed, keep attacking the skeletal dragon! All of your bodies have been marked. If you dare run, I'll kill you!" the green lobster king shouted.
Even the wounded had no choice but to continue charging forward.
Xiao Nanfeng ignored the threat, stepped into the fog, and ran off.
Considering the thick fog in the vicinity, no one would notice him in the heat of battle. He had wasted more than enough time with the green lobster king in order to get a better sense of the situation, but he had gained what understanding he needed by now. There was no reason to stay any further; he had to collect what lengths of red rope he could find.
There were rumbles everywhere; the green lobster king wasn't the only group fighting these skeletal dragons. Other spirit kings had their own makeshift battalions, and there were almost twenty skeletal dragons engaged in the vicinity of the fog. Elemental lightning, fire, and wind could be sensed all over.
With the Mirror of Truth, Xiao Nanfeng could keep an eye on the battlefield at large. Many of the weakest cultivators, forced into being cannon fodder, had long since perished.
Suddenly, he saw a length of red rope that had been discarded by ruins around which a battle had taken place. His eyes lit up as he rushed over.
"These cultivators really don't know how precious this red rope is, do they?" Xiao Nanfeng retrieved it immediately.
As he rushed through the battlefield, he collected ten lengths of red rope in no more than two hours.
Xiao Nanfeng beamed. "I made the right choice in coming here. It's amazing. There's red rope all over!"
He walked over to the site of another battle, where a skeletal dragon had been trapped by an Immortal chain. Hundreds of cultivators were attempting to weaken the skeletal dragon with their combined efforts, and there were corpses scattered all across the ground. Xiao Nanfeng recognized one of them.
"Serpent?" Xiao Nanfeng cried out.
It was the shameless serpent that he had first encountered in the undying realm, which Xiao Nanfeng later found out was the dragon prince of the Eastern Sea Draconic Palace.
At this point, however, the serpent was a sorry sight. It was bloody all over and was lying in a pool of blood, no longer breathing. There were countless bone spears embedded in its body. It looked so wretched that Xiao Nanfeng almost didn't recognize it.
"So this is how the Eastern Sea dragon clan meets its last... Well, I haven't had a chance to try dragon meat yet. Maybe I'll have a taste." Xiao Nanfeng sighed,
then tugged on the carcass, intending to send it into his storage ring.
"Ouch! Who's pulling on my whiskers?!" The serpent suddenly opened its eyes.
Xiao Nanfeng was so startled that he released the serpent immediately.
"You? What are you doing here?" The serpent stared at Xiao Nanfeng.
"You're not dead?"
The serpent twisted its body. The bone spears clattered as they fell to the ground. Many had been clenched under its armpit, making it look as though they had penetrated its body—but it was just an illusion. It wasn't hurt at all!
Xiao Nanfeng then looked at the desiccated corpses around the serpent. He understood what was going on now. The serpent had smeared the blood from these corpses on its own body.
"You were pretending to be dead!"
"Shush," the serpent hissed.
"What are you doing here? Where's Blue Lantern?"
The serpent sighed in grievance.
"Master Blue Lantern told me he was going to bring me to the draconic palace in search of great opportunity. We had just arrived when we encountered a skeletal dragon. The moment Blue Lantern struck and destroyed it, he was grabbed by a red whip and taken away, leaving me alone in such a dangerous place!"
"And then what happened?"
"What else? Do you know how much I've suffered all this time?" The serpent grew angrier and angrier as it spoke.
Xiao Nanfeng sighed, guessing its plight. The shameless serpent had likely been caught by a spirit king to be used as cannon fodder.
"How pitiful." Xiao Nanfeng clicked his tongue.
"Hold on, those spirit kings mark all their prisoners with spiritual marks! Only those marked cultivators are allowed onto the battlefield. You're not with us, so what are you doing here? Aren't you afraid you'll be caught?"
Xiao Nanfeng didn't explain. He said, "I'm searching for something."
"For what?"
"For this. You've been here for some time, haven't you? Where do you think I can find more of these?" Xiao Nanfeng showed the red serpent a few lengths of red rope.
The serpent reared back as if electrified. "Do you want to die? You're picking up these lengths of red rope? Take them away from me, away!"
"It's fine. Relax," Xiao Nanfeng stated.
The serpent was still jittering. It seemed to have had some traumatic experience with these red ropes during this period of time.
"Serpent, why are you pretending to be dead again? Strike with me!" a giant crab spirit shouted from the distance.
When the serpent turned and saw the crab's furious expression, it stiffened, then turned back toward Xiao Nanfeng. "It's all your fault! I've been exposed again."
However, Xiao Nanfeng was nowhere to be seen. He had already escaped back into the fog.
The serpent stiffened, not having expected that Xiao Nanfeng would run off and leave him behind.
"Who are you talking to? Get over here now. Do you want me to beat you to death?!" the crab spirit howled.
The serpent was almost on the verge of tears. "Xiao Nanfeng, that damn brat! Nothing ever goes right when I'm around him!"
"Get over here now!" the crab spirit howled again.
The serpent, aggrieved, had no choice but to slither back to the crab spirit and begin fighting the skeletal dragon again.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l