Chapter 43: Old Scraggly Hair
The "household staple medicine" did not disappoint Si Chen.
Within a few breaths, the depleted Spiritual Energy and exhausted soul within his body had recovered by more than half.
The Cultivators and demon-race members he had rescued from the blood pool followed close behind. The demon-race members in particular had spontaneously gathered around Chifeng, forming a loose protective ring around Si Chen at the center, their eyes carrying a wary edge as they watched the human Cultivators nearby.
The interior of the Dragon's Fall was like a massive labyrinth, its passages crisscrossing in every direction.
Their group moved with considerable noise. Heishan charged at the front, his enormous bulk nearly filling the passage from wall to wall.
"Fuck that Lü Ci — don't let me catch you! I'll squeeze your eyeballs out! ......"
He cursed without pause as he ran, starting with Lü Ci himself and working his way up through eighteen generations of ancestors, a torrent of foul language that bounced and echoed endlessly through the confined space.
A case of redirected hatred, if nothing else.
The group advanced in a great procession, occasionally running into scattered human Cultivators along the way.
At the sight of this spectacle — especially the mountain-shaking bear at the front, bellowing obscenities at Lü Ci's ancestors while running — those Cultivators went pale with fright, pressing themselves flat against the walls to clear the path, terrified that one slow step might make them the target of this clearly furious bear's rage.
Along the way they passed many stone chambers and halls of varying sizes, their interiors flickering with spiritual light, clearly concealing no small number of treasures.
Si Chen even spotted a Cultivator in a nearby stone chamber, his face alight with wild joy as he snatched up a long sword gleaming with cold radiance — judging by its Spiritual Energy fluctuations, it was no low-grade item.
But before the man's smile could fully form, the sword in his hand gave a violent shudder. Boom — it exploded. The man didn't even have time to scream before he was blasted into a bloody mess.
Did anyone really think that old Flood Dragon would let you walk off with his treasures so easily?
Of course, there were genuine Magical Artifacts and spirit materials that some Cultivators did manage to find and pocket, drawing red-eyed latecomers to fight and kill over them.
Si Chen didn't spare any of it a second glance. None of it held the slightest interest for him.
Heishan and Chifeng were even more impatient — they only wanted to find that old scraggly-haired Lü Ci as fast as possible, put on a good show in front of their brother, and claw back the face they'd lost earlier.
The human Cultivators who had come along with them were quickly drawn away by the treasure-filled halls, gradually falling behind.
But not a single one of the demon-race members was missing — they stayed firmly at Si Chen's side throughout.
This alone showed that the two races truly had different natures.
Heishan's nose was extraordinarily keen. He sniffed sharply, then turned back to Si Chen with a rumbling voice: "Brother, we're close! That old scraggly hair's stench — and those two lackeys of his — they're right ahead. No mistake!"
"Hm? There's also a... very strange burnt smell."
"Burnt smell?" Si Chen paused slightly.
"That's right," Chifeng beside him also twitched his nostrils. "It smells like... something got struck and scorched by lightning, but not quite — more domineering."
Hearing this, something stirred faintly in Si Chen's heart.
Lightning?
It made him think of the Yang Thunder he had been searching for all along.
"Who cares what smell it is!" Heishan was already too impatient to wait, his bear paws scraping restlessly at the ground.
"Find that old scraggly hair first!"
He let out a low roar and surged forward again with heavy, thundering steps — faster this time, carrying the fierce momentum of someone about to settle a score.
Sure enough, the further they went, the wider the passages became, and the more Cultivators they encountered.
These people clustered in groups of three or five, craning their necks to peer ahead, their faces written with resentment and frustration. Hushed complaints drifted clearly to Si Chen's ears:
"Fuck, the Liuyun Sword Sect is way too overbearing! The place inside is huge — what gives them the right to drive everyone else out?"
"Exactly! Just because you're Nascent Soul Stage you get to hoard everything for yourself?"
"Shh! Keep it down! You want to die, don't drag me into it! Didn't you see those few who pushed back earlier? They got blasted out by his sword-qi and they're still over there coughing up blood!"
"Sigh, what can you do when someone's fist is bigger than yours........"
Heishan heard this and erupted in fury, quickening his pace while unleashing a torrent of abuse: "Hoarding everything? I'll make sure he can't even eat hot shit! Lü Ci, fuck your mother, you grave-robbing old bastard......"
The more he cursed, the fouler it got, a barrage of obscenities blasting through the passage like a string of firecrackers.
The Cultivators ahead who had been complaining were startled, staring open-mouthed at this profanity-spewing giant bear.
Then they looked past it — Goodness! Behind the bear came an entire army. That "demonic cultivator" Si Chen was seated atop the third-rank tiger demon, surrounded by a dense crowd of demon-race members radiating fierce auras.
The group hurriedly stepped aside, terrified of blocking the way.
Watching this murderous procession charge straight toward Lü Ci's defensive position, their faces first showed shock and fear — then, unable to help themselves, a hint of gleeful anticipation crept in.
Serves you right, Lü Ci, hoarding it all for yourself!
At the end of the passage was an extraordinarily wide cave mouth, but it was sealed completely shut by a curtain of relentlessly churning, razor-sharp sword light.
Clearly this was the sword formation Lü Ci had laid down to prevent anyone from entering.
"This old scraggly hair really thinks this place is his own home?!"
Heishan's fury shot straight to the crown of his head, his bear eyes bulging wide.
"Break it open!"
Heishan roared, his broad bear paws condensing every ounce of his demonic power. With a furious palm strike, he slammed directly into the sword formation!
Boom——!!
That sword formation — which posed a lethal threat to Core Formation Stage and Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators alike — could not even hold for three breaths under Heishan's crushing blow. It shattered into a sky full of flowing light and vanished without a trace.
"Your grandfather Heishan is here!"
Heishan roared and charged in first. Chifeng and Si Chen followed close behind, and the demon-race members surged in howling after them.
The Cultivators who had been blocked outside, seething with anger they hadn't dared to voice, exchanged glances. No one knew who made the first move, but they all came rushing in after them in a great wave.
A fool doesn't pass up a free opportunity — what if there were scraps left to pick up?
The crowd instantly erupted into a commotion, everyone scrambling to rush inside.
* * *
The scene inside the cave made everyone freeze for a moment.
It was an underground space several times larger than the blood pool hall they had seen before, its ceiling lost in darkness above. Countless glowing crystals were embedded in the surrounding rock walls, illuminating the entire cavern as brightly as daylight.
And the most striking sight of all was at the very center of the cavern — a massive shape coiled like a small mountain...
The corpse of a Flood Dragon, long since drained of all life!
Even after untold ages of death, it still radiated a heart-palpitating pressure.
Great swaths of scale had been stripped from the dragon corpse and cast out as bait, leaving the dull, darkened flesh beneath exposed and looking rather decrepit.
Most striking of all were the thin threads of violet lightning that flickered intermittently through the gaps in the dragon corpse's flesh, emitting faint crackling sounds.
And at the center of the coiled body, something hidden beneath the dragon's massive bulk radiated heart-palpitating waves of energy.
Lü Ci, the two Core Formation Stage Elders, Young Master Fang, and his grey-robed guardian — all of them were standing before the dragon corpse.
They appeared to be studying how to extract whatever lay beneath the dragon's body. At the sound of the commotion, they turned their heads in unison.
When Lü Ci saw Si Chen — completely unharmed — and especially when he sensed the calm, steady aura emanating from him, his pupils contracted sharply, his face written with utter disbelief:
"You...... you're actually not dead......?"
He had clearly sealed this young man and that group of madmen together inside the blood pool hall! Even if he hadn't been torn apart by those lunatics, there was no way he could have recovered this quickly!
Young Master Fang and the grey-robed elder also looked somewhat surprised at the sight.
Si Chen looked at this old fellow who had caused him trouble time and again. The cursing cadence of Heishan's tirades still echoed in his mind, and almost instinctively, the words slipped out before he could stop them:
"Old scraggly hair — surprised to see me?"
The moment the words left his mouth, even Si Chen himself was taken aback. He didn't normally talk like that.
Chifeng beside him was visibly stunned, his tiger face full of astonishment, as if to say:
Brother, you've picked up some bad habits!
Heishan, meanwhile, first froze — then a look of "the young one is teachable" satisfaction spread across his bear face, and he even slapped his thigh with a bear paw: "Yes! That's how you curse him! Curse this old stick to death!"
Lü Ci's face instantly shifted from shock to the color of a pig's liver, his entire body trembling with rage.
He was the esteemed Sect Master of the Liuyun Sword Sect, a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator — when had he ever suffered such humiliation?
And to be publicly insulted with such crude language by a Foundation Establishment Stage junior, no less?!