Chapter 18: Chapter 18 Hui Qingyi [Red Fox]

The sound of deer cries grew increasingly intense.

Zeng Xiaoyi trembled as he huddled in the corner of the side room. He was not alone; two others, both odd-job workers from the Calligraphy and Painting Hall, were also in the room.

They had no understanding of what had happened inside the pawn shop, only that the outside world was extremely dangerous.

The day before they hid in the Calligraphy and Painting Hall, a large number of guards had been urgently deployed to the pawn shop, lying in ambush around the storeroom.

The oppressive atmosphere persisted until tonight, when the pawn shop extinguished all candles throughout the premises again.

Only the faint light of a fragmented moon behind the cloud layers offered the barest illumination, but for mortal eyes, the scene remained as dark as ink.

Zeng Xiaoyi wrapped himself tightly in a blanket. Though it was early spring, the lingering chill of winter coupled with the oppressive shadow of fear caused him to shiver uncontrollably.

"Xiao Yi, as long as we make it to daylight, everything will be fine," Lu An said, trying to comfort him. "Don't worry too much."

The speaker was Lu An, a man no older than his early twenties, but who had been eking out a living at the pawn shop for over a decade.

Zeng Xiaoyi couldn't resist asking, "Brother Lu, what about Uncle Guan?"

Lu An sighed. He reached out to touch the emaciated man beside him. Despite being a body corroded by the Death Disease, the man was inexplicably burning up with fever.

Something so unusual surely concealed demonic forces.

With immortality's effects, such stubborn ailments were unheard of except in children younger than five.

"Let's hope the sun comes soon," Lu An murmured, his voice heavy with foreboding. "Tonight seems bound to erupt with chaos."

Lu An sighed again and stood up, intending to retrieve another blanket for Guan Hai. But just then, a loud creak broke the tense silence as the window was blown open by a violent gust.

The biting mountain wind roared in, scattering small items across the room.

In the stillness of the pawn shop, such commotion was like a stone dropped into water, its ripples echoing across the mountain's emptiness in the dead of night.

Lu An gestured for Zeng Xiaoyi to remain silent. Then, cautiously, he crept toward the window.

He avoided exposing himself directly by sticking to the edge of the wall as he moved.

Zeng Xiaoyi watched Lu An intently, his nerves on edge. Just as Lu An reached the window to close it, he suddenly froze in place, his expression stunned and overwhelmed.

Unable to help himself, Zeng Xiaoyi followed Lu An's gaze, peering out through the window.

His pupils contracted.

A towering moose-like monstrosity some ten meters high was crawling toward the storeroom. A barrage of arrows rained down, attempting to halt its approach.

Hundreds of guards, their eyes bound with black cloth, continued to shoot despite injuries that had pierced their eardrums. Their movements with bow and arrows were driven entirely by instinct.

It seemed that by depriving themselves of sight and sound, they avoided provoking retaliation from the moose monster.

The moose monster's upper body was draped in snow-white, flawless fur.

Its head bore massive antlers resembling tree branches, fruiting grotesque clusters of Meat Tumor Fruit dangling from the tips. Over a dozen eyes on its face remained fixated on the storeroom.

While its upper body seemed somewhat normal, its lower body was bizarre and horrifying.

The moose monster had no legs to support its massive form, relying instead on countless human hands for movement, making its crawling motions unnervingly sluggish.

As it progressed, human hands snapped one after another, only to be mended by the Jade Liquid Spirit radiating from the moose monster.

Trailing behind the moose monster were dozens of grotesque human-faced deer.

The human-faced deer faltered under the arrow showers, suffering injuries or death, but they charged onward heedless of the pain, even as their guts spilled out or their bodies shattered.

Zeng Xiaoyi shuddered violently. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the horrific image of the moose monster had already been etched into his mind, impossible to erase.

Something seemed to stir faintly within his soul.

A few human-faced deer broke away from the herd and charged wildly toward the Calligraphy and Painting Hall.

After closing the window, Lu An cursed under his breath. He now understood why the Manager had repeatedly warned everyone to hide.

Because one glimpse of the moose monster's form ensured you were marked.

"What now, Brother Lu..."

Zeng Xiaoyi stammered, his face pale. Lu An's grave voice cut through his panic, "You need to get Guan Hai out of the Calligraphy and Painting Hall. Stay as far from the storeroom as you can."

Zeng Xiaoyi remained frozen, prompting Lu An to bark, "Did you hear me?!!"

"Brother Lu, look at Guan Hai!"

Zeng Xiaoyi pointed at Guan Hai in shock. Guan Hai's body issued cracking sounds as his bones collided within, a stench thick with rot filling the room.

Guan Hai let out a guttural roar, ripping off his clothes with tremendous effort. His abdomen, decayed beyond recognition due to the Childhood Death Disease, was a festering mass.

Soon, enormous bone-like antlers sprouted from the top of his skull. His body fell forward to prostrate on all fours, while his skin grew dense clusters of fur.

In mere moments, Guan Hai transformed into a four-legged human-faced deer.

And it wasn't just Guan Hai; throughout the pawn shop, odd-job workers afflicted by Death Disease began to undergo the same transformation, becoming human-faced deer one after another.

With the inevitable upon them, Lu An calmed down, unbothered by the grim turn of events. He smiled wryly and said, "Zeng Xiaoyi, looks like the two of us aren't making it out of here."

Zeng Xiaoyi struggled to his feet, but his legs had already given way and turned to jelly.

The human-faced deer took their final form, with Guan Hai's distorted, horrifying expression staring out from the deer's head, his eyes glimmering with insatiable greed.

"Eat... eat... eat..."

Only despair remained for the two.

With immortality in effect, death was a luxury. The horrifying prospect of being devoured alive loomed over them.

BANG!!!!!!

While Zeng Xiaoyi and Lu An were frozen in shock, the human-faced deer suddenly exploded into gore, spraying blood and broken bones over their bodies.

Only then did the pair realize that at some point, tiny motes of dust had begun to float in the room.

Li Mo stood shirtless in the moonlit corridor, his Red Fox tattoo on his left arm appearing ready to leap out from his skin.

He tucked away his spiritual tablet, which had just delivered information about the pawn shop to him.

Killing a single human-faced deer earned a Mid-grade Spirit Stone.

Cultivators lurking in the shadows were already itching to strike.

Humans die for wealth, birds for food.

Cultivation was inherently tied to resources. Facing human-faced deer posed risks, but as long as their Three Elixir Field remained unharmed, death was an unlikely fate for those with immortal bodies.

Behind them, Guan Hai's corpse began to writhe, blood and flesh moving erratically as though attempting to reassemble itself into another human-faced deer.

Under the stunned gazes of Zeng Xiaoyi and Lu An, Li Mo pulled out a strand of Mist Fog Silk Thread and cut the corpse into over a dozen pieces instantly.

BOOM!!!

The wall beside them burst apart suddenly, revealing three human-faced deer charging straight for the pair of odd-job workers.

Li Mo lashed out with Mist Fog Silk Thread, cutting chunks of flesh from the human-faced deer. Their wounds sizzled as Spirit Power corroded them.

However, the human-faced deer born from the moose monster were different.

They possessed Jade Liquid Spiritual Power, forcibly mending their injuries as they relentlessly attacked Zeng Xiaoyi and Lu An.

Li Mo bound the human-faced deer's limbs with Mist Fog Silk Thread, but it only delayed them by a few moments.

Seeing this, Li Mo swiftly closed in on the human-faced deer, pressing his right hand to his scorching-hot tattoo, his entire being surging with boiling blood.

"Fox."

Li Mo formed a strange hand gesture, its silhouette cast onto the wall by moonlight, resembling a fox's head outlined in shadow.

The Red Fox tattoo vanished.

His flesh rapidly withered, his Middle Dantian drained of Spiritual Power.

Emerging from the shadowed silhouette, a two-meter-tall Red Fox lunged forward, tearing the head off one human-faced deer while the remaining deer grew even more frenzied.

The Red Fox was temporarily formed from Li Mo's flesh and Spiritual Power, exhaling dense clouds of crimson mist.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com