Chapter 336 : Itchy Paws
The Nine Abyss Sect's Third Elder was no simple character. When the Nine Abyss Sect sent her to lead disciples to the Nameless Temple, it certainly wasn't to send them to their deaths. Not only had her cultivation reached the late Fusion stage, but she also carried numerous magical treasures.
That night when Jiang Mo and the others saw her entangled in battle with the stone statue formed from the abbot's evil thoughts, she had clearly been at a disadvantage when they left, trapped by the statue and unable to escape. This led everyone to believe she had met her doom, especially when they saw the abbot leading the monks in morning prayers the next day, truly believing she had died. Who would have thought that she had escaped calamity and had been hiding securely within the Nameless Temple all along.
Later at the dry well in the Buddhist pagoda, she suddenly ambushed Tan Xin. Though she failed in her attempt, she successfully trapped Jiang Mo and Yun Qingyue, causing them to fall into the dry well. After ambushing Tan Xin again, she somehow managed to escape from the abbot and Zhu Baiyi unscathed—truly remarkable.
Such a person would obviously be difficult to deal with.
From the moment Jiang Mo discovered someone in this underground world, she had been speculating about their identity—although her and Yun Qingyue's fall into the well was sudden and they hadn't clearly seen their attacker's appearance, in retrospect, it wasn't difficult to guess Third Elder's identity. Given the time and place, it wasn't hard to deduce who they might be facing.
In terms of cultivation level, Jiang Mo couldn't match Third Elder, but they were both at the Fusion realm, so there wasn't an insurmountable gap between realms. Because of this, she wasn't particularly afraid. However, this person was truly unpredictable, somehow managing to survive and hide within the Nameless Temple, requiring extreme vigilance—after all, the abbot had been a Tribulation Crossing realm powerhouse in life, someone even Sect Leader Zhu couldn't match.
Facts proved that such vigilance wasn't misplaced. Despite the White Tiger's quick reaction, she still suffered a disadvantage in their first encounter.
The White Tiger suddenly swiped with her paw, with golden light congealing into substantiality, instantly breaking through the darkness. But behind the darkness was another mass of blackness—this blackness wasn't due to the environment, nor was it demonic energy. Upon closer inspection, one would discover it was a swarm of tiny insects!
This underground world was filled with demonic energy. Normal creatures suddenly encountering such a drastic environmental change would likely struggle to adapt, or even explode and die. But these small insects were different—not only had they adapted well, but they also seemed innately able to devour demonic energy to strengthen themselves. From the moment Jiang Mo's attack illuminated the surroundings, the volume of the insect cloud could be seen expanding, instantly growing to more than double its original size.
The White Tiger was a timid tiger who feared not only ghosts but also insects. Her fur bristled immediately.
Her attack then struck the insect cloud. Her fierce offensive naturally had some effect—the insects directly hit by her attack fell like rain. However, the rapidly moving insect cloud wasn't easy to eradicate completely, and more insects timely evaded this attack.
Jiang Mo was terrified of insects. Originally, such small bugs might have been tolerable, but when clustered together, they made her scalp tingle. She didn't want to come into contact with this insect cloud and didn't dare imagine what abilities these small insects possessed. Without further hesitation, she opened her mouth and released a roar. The tiger's roar was a form of sound attack and a means of group assault. It not only made the small insects sway, about to fall, but also caused Third Elder, hiding in the darkness, to momentarily reveal her presence.
The White Tiger was at her most alert at this moment and immediately detected Third Elder's position. Compared to the dense swarm of insects, she clearly preferred to confront the main culprit, so she unhesitatingly charged in that direction.
Her movement was too fast. Third Elder had no time to dodge and didn't think she couldn't win anyway, so she recalled the small black flag back to her hand.
Jiang Mo had only seen her wielding a fire whip before and had never seen this magical treasure. However, this black flag was clearly no ordinary item. Just one glance, and she felt a sinister, vicious aura surrounding it, causing the tiger's instincts to dislike it.
Third Elder couldn't care less about her dislike. Once the small flag was in hand, she waved it, and a mass of black mist emerged from it. Jiang Mo thought it might be insects again, but this time it wasn't—instead, it was a mass of hideous, twisted ghost shadows, baring teeth and claws as they pounced toward her.
Fear what you fear most—quite vexing.
Jiang Mo steeled herself and met them head-on, while simultaneously the golden light around her body intensified. When the golden light shone on those ghost shadows, it was like acid, slightly dissolving and distorting their forms. Ghost wails rose one after another, seemingly filled with pain, but these ghost shadows didn't retreat in the slightest. Instead, they charged forward even more frantically as if enraged, truly fearless in the face of death.
The ghost shadows in front were dissolved, while those behind continued to charge forward, relentlessly, seemingly endless.
The protective golden light naturally consumed some energy, but since this was an innate divine beast skill, the overall consumption wasn't significant. Seeing this, Jiang Mo slightly relaxed and actively charged forward, trying to eliminate these ghost shadows as quickly as possible.
However, while her attention was drawn to the ghost shadows before her, she failed to notice the stragglers from the earlier swarm of insects—these small insects were far more formidable than the ghost shadows. Not only could they devour demonic energy to strengthen themselves, but their vitality was also tenacious, not something that mere protective golden light could eliminate. Additionally, though fierce when clustered together, they were individually quite small, and silently infiltrated through the golden light.
On the snow-white tiger fur, a small black insect landing would normally be extremely conspicuous, but in just a breath or two, the small insect shrewdly hid among the black stripes. Then it crawled down along the tiger's fur, and upon reaching skin and flesh, opened its mouthparts and bit down fiercely.
The White Tiger's physical body was naturally robust—even superior magical tools might not breach her defense. Yet this small insect was truly formidable, actually managing to bite through skin and flesh, burrowing inside. At this moment, the White Tiger's attention was completely occupied by the numerous ghost shadows. Being bitten by a small insect was truly painless, and she hardly noticed. It wasn't until she finally broke through the ghost shadows to reach Third Elder that she suddenly heard the system's alarm—
"Warning, warning, foreign power invasion detected, system initiating virus elimination procedure..."
Hearing this, Jiang Mo was momentarily puzzled, wondering how she had encountered a virus program while in the cultivation world. Fortunately, the system's virus elimination didn't significantly affect her. Her cultivation over these years hadn't relied solely on the game system's upgrades, so she only paused briefly before fiercely attacking Third Elder again.
Third Elder, as the instigator, naturally knew the White Tiger had been infected and was calculating the timing for a fatal strike—the White Tiger before her was still young, but her cultivation level was unexpectedly high, indicating her extraordinary talent. Most righteous sects enshrined divine beasts, and out of consideration for their own divine beasts, they would show some courtesy when encountering such a cub. But she was different; the Nine Abyss Sect didn't believe in enshrining divine beasts. In her eyes, the White Tiger before her was premium material—the tiger's skin, meat, bones, blood, including its soul, she wanted it all!
From the moment she saw Jiang Mo, Third Elder's eyes were filled with greed, so she struck without hesitation. However, she never anticipated that the Soul-Devouring Insects wouldn't work—the White Tiger only paused slightly before resuming her attack as usual.
They finally confronted each other directly. Setting aside bizarre magical tools like the black flag, the White Tiger wasn't afraid of close combat with her at all!
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In the battle between the White Tiger and Third Elder, neither emerged unscathed.
Third Elder's advantage lay in her stronger battle experience and higher cultivation level, while the White Tiger had tough skin and flesh and naturally countered evil forces. They fought for almost half a day, and in the end, Third Elder reluctantly withdrew. The White Tiger, covered in wounds, didn't dare linger outside and returned directly to the Innate Space.
Perhaps from exhaustion, or perhaps because she was already seriously injured, Jiang Mo collapsed as soon as she entered the space, making a loud "bang."
She was partly unable to support herself and partly deliberate—before transmigrating, Jiang Mo had been an ordinary person. While not pampered, the worst injury she had ever suffered was a fall or a twisted ankle. How could she have experienced such physical suffering? Even in the cultivation world, she had been well-protected most of the time. Apart from being tricked by a system task once before, this was a rare instance of injury.
During the fight, her nerves had been tense and she hadn't felt much, but now that she was back in her absolutely safe domain, Jiang Mo had only one thought: It hurts so much, I need Senior Sister to take care of me, I need Senior Sister to comfort me to get better!
Sure enough, she heard her Senior Sister's anxious call, and when she opened her eyes, the entire tiger was stunned.
This... this... this... The person before her was indeed her Senior Sister, but how had she transformed into this appearance? The subtle changes in her facial features were secondary—looking carefully, the changes from before weren't actually significant—but how had her Senior Sister's long hair turned completely white?!
The White Tiger, who had just been pretending to be incapacitated while lying on her side, flipped over to stand up, but fell back down due to exhaustion: "Sen-Senior Sister, what happened to you?!" This was her Innate Space where there wasn't even a living creature, let alone any danger. Could it be that her Senior Sister had experienced a cultivation deviation? The White Tiger sniffed carefully and discovered that the aura around Yun Qingyue had indeed undergone some subtle changes.
Yun Qingyue, however, had no time to explain her situation. She placed both hands on the enormous White Tiger, who was almost as tall as her even while lying on its side. As her hands parted the scorched fur, she could see a series of whip marks that had burned large patches of skin and flesh.
Her heart ached immediately. As her fingertips barely touched the burnt areas around the wounds, she felt the White Tiger inhale sharply, her body trembling slightly.
"You, you encountered Third Elder?!" Yun Qingyue waved her hand to form frost covering the wounds, asking with worry and heartache. The wounds immediately reminded her of Third Elder's flame whip.
After the ice compress, the fiery wounds felt much better. The White Tiger gave a muffled "mm" in response but wasn't in a hurry to describe her encounter. Instead, she anxiously asked: "Senior Sister, what exactly happened to you? Your hair..."
Although her Senior Sister's white hair looked ethereal, she had also liked her previous black hair. More importantly, compared to the color of her hair, Jiang Mo was more concerned about what she had experienced to undergo such a change—because Yun Qingyue normally behaved so ordinarily, except for certain special moments, she had almost forgotten that her Senior Sister actually possessed demonic beast bloodline.
Yun Qingyue's hand, which was searching for medicine, paused, and her tone had already returned to its usual calmness: "Perhaps... my bloodline has awakened."
The White Tiger was slightly taken aback, only now remembering that her Senior Sister wasn't human either. So, they were now two furry creatures sticking together? Thinking of this, the White Tiger's massive paws secretly opened and closed, feeling... somewhat itchy.