294: Chapter 290: Tao and Saint?
294: Chapter 290: Tao and Saint?
Sitting cross-legged on the meditation cushion in the middle of the Cultivation Room, Chen Hai made some minor adjustments to his posture and soon fell into a trance.
His mind guided by the Divine Soul’s imprint left by the Black Water Leech Emperor, it was like dialing a number he already knew.
Visualizing the Black Water Leech Emperor had become a path well trod for Chen Hai, devoid of much difficulty.
He was in a state of mystery so profound, wholly absorbed.
Time passed indeterminately, until Chen Hai finally sensed that everything around him had become dim.
It was as though he were in an immeasurable void, with neither sun nor stars in sight.
Only the grim and immense figure of the Black Water Leech Emperor spanned the horizon.
Because of its presence, all color drained from the world.
It was as if its existence alone could represent the entire universe.
When Chen Hai had just borrowed the Nameless Ancient Book from Limp Zhang and sat beside the small river not far from his school to try visualization for the first time,
He was merely an ordinary person, with a weak Divine Soul.
Back then, the Black Water Leech Emperor he glimpsed was vague and blurred, far from clear.
Yet even so, at the first sight of its enormous body spanning the sky, his vision darkened as blood constantly seeped from his eyes.
And he was uncontrollably jolted from that state.
Gasping for breath, Chen Hai lay on the ground for a long while before he could finally gather enough strength to stand up.
Compared with his first visualization of the Black Water Leech Emperor, what he saw now was much clearer.
From the Emperor’s body, he discerned an endless weariness and an indescribable aura of death and twilight that wrapped around its mighty form.
“Something’s not right…
Why is the middle section of the Black Water Leech Emperor’s body so thick?”
“Could it be that it swallowed something it can’t digest, and that’s why it looks like this?”
His Divine Soul was already six or seven parts similar to that of the Black Water Leech Emperor.
The biggest difference was that Chen Hai’s Divine Soul was not as condensed and was countless times smaller.
The first time he visualized the Leech Emperor, he didn’t see clearly enough to notice these details.
But now, at a glance, Chen Hai noticed that the middle section of the Black Water Leech Emperor’s enormous body was completely out of proportion to the rest of it.
When his gaze truly fell upon the Emperor’s body, particularly that incongruous section,
Through its figure, he seemed to see another enormous shape, at times turning into a benevolent old man, at times a robust man, at times a graceful lady, and sometimes a small child.
Then, the giant figure turned into a massive Curved Eel.
The Curved Eel, also known as the Earth Dragon, in modern parlance, is essentially a worm.
In the Material World, in Yanhuang Country where Chen Hai lived, whether leeches or earthworms, both were equally hideous.
The Curved Eel he saw was a giant earthworm magnified countless times.
Whether it had burrowed into the belly of the Black Water Leech Emperor on its own or was swallowed by the Emperor was unknown.
These two terrifying entities seemed to be entangled in battle, at a stalemate.
The Black Water Leech Emperor, covered in death and twilight, in contrast, the giant Curved Eel it had swallowed, appeared in better condition, despite being weary.
“Dao…”
“Saint…”
Just as Chen Hai was trying to observe these indescribable terrifying entities more carefully,
Two large characters surged into his mind.
Then, his vision blurred as he involuntarily snapped out of that profound, indescribable trance.
Blood began trickling from the seven orifices on his face.
He felt extreme weakness and then everything went dark as he lost consciousness.
…
The night was deep outside, and a crescent moon hung in the sky.
At the mouth of Liuhua Alley, a black sedan slowly came to a stop.
The car door opened, and several small figures quietly alighted.
“Damn it, Murakami Taro gave us bad intel.
We wasted two days in West Mountain and didn’t even catch a glimpse of the target.”
“The target has been staying in his courtyard house here all these days.”
“You all know the location; this time, we absolutely cannot allow any mistakes!”
The speaker stood about 1.6 meters tall.
His name was Hirano Keiji, who appeared to be the leader amongst them.
That height was considerably short, but as a general amongst dwarves, he stood tallest among his two companions.
True enough, nowadays the average height of the people from Japan isn’t much different from those in Yanhuang Country.
However, some ancient Sects, to maintain the purity of their bloodline, have not engaged in selective breeding on a wide scale.
Such practices, which may prevent them from growing taller, still make sense within their rationale.
“Understood!” The other two shorter figures, looking at each other, nodded in unison, and responded.
“In addition,” Hirano Keiji continued, “according to the information provided by Murakami Taro, it is very likely that a Taoist expert is protecting the target.”
“Once this person appears, do not hesitate, show no mercy and kill!”
Hirano Keiji spoke again, giving his instructions.
“Hirano-san, the Taoist practitioners of Yanhuang Country, when it comes to face-to-face combat, are simply no match.”
“For this mission, our Iga School has dispatched two Medium Ninjas and one Upper Ninja.”
“The Taoist expert guarding the target, as long as he dares to show up, is undoubtedly destined to die!”
One of the other two, the guy with a face that looked like a pancake, scoffed disdainfully and chuckled.
“The Taoist practitioners of Yanhuang Country are indeed weak when facing the enemy head-on.”
“However, we have very limited information on that man; we are completely in the dark about what techniques he possesses.”
“I remind you two to be cautious to ensure no one gets the drop on us!”
With a displeased face, Hirano Keiji scanned his two comrades and huffed lightly.
He waved his hand: “Move out!”
The next moment, a puff of smoke rose from his position.
When the smoke cleared, Hirano Keiji, who had just been there, had completely vanished without a trace.
His two comrades followed suit, similarly disappearing in a plume of smoke, and their whereabouts became unknown just as suddenly.
However, compared to Hirano Keiji, the methods of these two were obviously inferior.
After all, it seemed as though they had thrown something on the ground to create the smoke that emerged.
Hirano Keiji’s disappearance, on the other hand, was without any warning, and the smoke that rose from his position seemed completely natural, with no additional actions observed.
…
Inside Liuhua Alley, at the entrance to the cultivation room of Chen Hai’s quadrangle dwelling,
Sitting in a chair with one leg crossed over the other, Bai Xiaohang took out his lighter and reached into his pocket.
He only pulled out an empty cigarette packet; not a single cigarette remained inside, smoked down to the very last one.
At least a dozen stubs littered the ground at his feet.
Compared to Tian Mingjian, this guy simply couldn’t sit still.
In the beginning, when he was guarding this place, he managed to settle down.
But in less than an hour, he was overcome with boredom and felt unbearably idle.
With nothing else to do, he would smoke.
One cigarette after another, with his smoking frequency, a newly opened pack couldn’t last long at all.
Lifting his wrist, he checked the time displayed on his watch.
It was already past one o’clock in the morning; even if he wanted to go out and buy cigarettes, there was nowhere to find them at this hour.
“I wonder if the boss has any cigarettes at home?”
“He’s still in closed-door cultivation; it would be really inappropriate for me to rummage around his house looking for cigarettes.”
“There don’t seem to be any spare cigarettes in the car either.”
“How can I get through this long night without cigarettes?”
His eyes whirling, Bai Xiaohang, looking desperate, sighed deeply.
For a heavy smoker like him, the urge to smoke for a pick-me-up and not finding any was like ants crawling all over his heart!
With a grimace, after pondering for a moment, he picked up the stubs from the ground.
Then he teased out the little remaining tobacco from the stubs, bit by bit.
“Fish heads and tails make the meal; these are the cigarettes I’ve smoked myself, not someone else’s!”
“Repurposing these is not a big deal to quell the cravings…”
While reassuring himself, Bai Xiaohang rolled the tobacco from the stubs into a roll with paper torn from the packet.
“Ahhh, satisfying…” Soon enough, a makeshift cigarette was ready.
He placed it in his mouth, pulled out his lighter, and lit it up, taking a satisfying drag.
“Damn, guarding the boss, the days aren’t easy!”
“I wonder how Tian Mingjian managed to endure guarding the boss for seven or eight months!”
“In the future, such arduous tasks should be left to him…”
With the cigarette flickering in his mouth, Bai Xiaohang muttered to himself.
Not far away, under the moonlight, among the shadows cast by several large trees in the courtyard, several patches of shadow, like living things, were inch by inch edging closer to Bai Xiaohang’s position.
Unaware of this, Bai Xiaohang showed no signs of noticing.
Until one shadow, stealthily, moved to just a few meters away from him.
Only then did he feel a sudden alert in his heart, sensing something was not quite right.
“Who…” In a flash, he stood up with a swift exclamation, his piercing gaze scanning the surroundings.