Essence Devouring Art

Wu Dao’s guess was correct.

Zhao Wei hadn’t returned all night. His fate was unknown.

After an anxious night of waiting, the three Boxers left behind in Pan Shui Town—Zhang Long, Li Hu, and Cui Mountain—finally realized something was wrong. They rushed into Canyun Mountain before dawn.

Three Boxers.

All of them were masters at the Peak of Internal Strength. Their Leg Strength, Eye Power, and Perception Power far surpassed those of ordinary people, and they quickly found the tracks left by the group the previous night.

With uneasy hearts, the trio followed the trail. Just as the sky fully brightened, they finally reached the forest battlefield from the night before.

The choking stench of blood.

It filled the air again as the wind passed.

The ground was littered with severed limbs and dismembered torsos. Most belonged to Red Armored Bat Foxes, but human fragments were mixed in among them!

"A disaster..."

Zhang Long knelt and pulled a tattered piece of Zhao Wei’s clothing from the muddy bog of flesh and blood. The color drained from his square-jawed face.

"Over here, too. I think this is Mengqingshan’s..."

"A shattered sword from the Heaven-Reaching Flow!"

"And here’s some of Mao Ba’s damaged talisman paper."

"A scrap of Wu Dao’s clothing."

A gasp. "Even Eagle Shark, who was in the Cocoon-Breaking Realm, is dead!"

...

The three searched for a while.

As they discovered more items left behind by the group, their hearts filled with both shock and fear.

It was hard to imagine.

Just what kind of brutal slaughter had taken place here the night before.

One expert at Breaking the Cocoon.

Five masters at the Divine Power Peak.

All of them had been wiped out!

That’s right.

In the eyes of Zhang Long and the other two, Mao Ba and Wu Dao must also be dead, since they too had left "belongings" behind.

"Over here!"

Suddenly, Li Hu cried out from a distance, his voice strange, as if he had encountered something utterly terrifying.

The other two hurried over to him.

Deep within the forest, trees were toppled and the ground was torn asunder, a huge area utterly devastated. It looked as if two Ancient Fierce Beasts had battled here the night before.

And at the far end of the battlefield...

...a grotesque monster’s corpse lay silently on the ground. It was missing its upper half, and having lost all its Spirituality, it was already dissolving into a puddle of pus and rotting flesh.

Fetid fragments from the upper half of its body were scattered all around.

It seemed...

...it had been killed in a single, fatal blow!

A single strike had blown its upper body to pieces, killing it instantly!

’Who possessed such power?’

The three men, including Zhang Long, were horrified. Their first thought was that Zhao Wei’s group had been ambushed by a third party while they were focused on their own hunt.

Moreover, the power of this ambusher surpassed even the Foundation Establishment Realm!

"Ahem, stop guessing. It was probably that bastard Wu Dao."

As the three stood there, shocked and uncertain, a weak voice drifted out from the shadows.

"Who’s there?!"

The trio’s expressions changed as they shouted in alarm.

But when they got a clear look at the figure emerging from behind a tree, they froze.

If their senses hadn’t told them he was a living, breathing person, they would have thought a corpse had come back to life.

"Daoist Mao Ba, what happened to you...?"

The three stared with strange expressions at Mao Ba as he emerged from behind a giant tree that would take several men to encircle with their arms.

Because...

...Mao Ba’s current appearance was simply too bizarre. His head was tilted at a ninety-degree angle, resting on his left shoulder, forcing him to look at them with crossed eyes. He looked like a specter.

"Alas, my skills were lacking. I’ve made a fool of myself."

Mao Ba shifted his stance so he wouldn’t have to look at them with crossed eyes, his face a mask of bitter self-mockery.

After fleeing earlier that night, he had been on the brink of death.

If he hadn’t brought enough countermeasures with him on this trip, he would have been laid to rest forever in some nameless patch of wilderness.

But even after paying a great price to expel the Demon Smoke the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui had left in his body, he was still suffering from a side effect—his neck was crooked.

For a long time to come, until he broke through to the Dao Fire Realm, thus Breaking the Cocoon and reforging his body, he would be forced to look at people with crossed eyes.

He had risked returning to the battlefield for one reason. After he recovered, he had reactivated his Cyan Crane, only to discover that it had completely lost its target.

Such a phenomenon...

...could only mean one thing—

The Flesh and Blood Tai Sui was dead!

When Mao Ba learned this, he was stunned and ashamed, his emotions a complex storm.

He had assumed that the members of the Cloud Heaven Flow had somehow turned the tables and killed the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui.

And he, Mao Ba, who prided himself on belonging to an Immortal Righteous Sect, dedicated to slaying demons and upholding justice, had instead abandoned the Cloud Heaven Flow and become a shameful deserter!

To ease his guilty conscience, he had returned to this mountain forest, hoping to do something—anything—to atone.

As for sharing the spoils...

...the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Who could have ever imagined...

"Alas, such is the turn of fate."

Mao Ba let out a mournful sigh. ’One wrong step, and every step after is wrong. Life’s fortunes are far too bizarre.’

"Daoist, why do you say Wu Dao did it?"

Seeing the sorrow on Mao Ba’s face, Zhang Long and the others knew without a doubt that Zhao Wei’s group had perished.

But what they didn’t understand was...

...how could Wu Dao, a mere Divine Power Realm cultivator, possibly have the strength to be the ambusher?

"Look around, and you’ll understand. I have never in my life encountered someone so ruthless."

Mao Ba’s face was grim as he pointed to a row of bite marks gouged into the earth nearby, along with a few scattered fragments of a human tongue. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

And all around them...

...if one looked closely, they could also find scraps of Wu Dao’s clothing, bits of human tissue, and even half of a face that had been torn off.

That face.

Who else could it belong to but Wu Dao?

They were all quick-witted men. From these clues, it wasn’t hard for them to picture the ghastly scene of the final battle.

Wu Dao was indeed in the Divine Power Realm.

But he had hidden his true nature far too deeply.

By some unknown means, and after paying an extremely heavy price, he had killed the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui. Finally, he had dragged his half-dead body away, taking the prize with him.

Seeing their silence, Mao Ba added through gritted teeth, "When I fled, the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui was already at the end of its rope. It was impossible for it to still possess this kind of destructive power."

Do you know what that means?

"It means this Demon watched with his own eyes as the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui killed them, then waited for it to eat its fill—to fatten itself up—before he made his move!!"

"That... surely not..."

Zhang Long and the other two were so startled that the hairs on their arms stood on end, even though they wouldn’t have considered themselves particularly good men.

But what Mao Ba was describing...

...was simply too horrifying for them to comprehend.

’What’s the difference between that and just eating people directly?’

No matter how chaotic the world became or how dark the human heart, devouring one’s own kind was an act of last resort, something only done by those with absolutely no other way out.

While it was true that demons grew strong by harming people, the saying "out of sight, out of mind" applied. When slaying a demon, a cultivator would typically ignore such things.

But not Wu Dao.

He had watched a monster eat people with his own eyes, then eaten the monster. He was no different from a wild beast; a normal person could never cross that psychological line.

But...

Zhang Long and the other two instinctively glanced at the bite marks on the ground and the fragments of tongue. Just looking at them made them feel a sharp, phantom pain.

Wu Dao was clearly not a normal person!

Therefore...

...that would explain why he was so ruthless.

A man who could be so cruel to himself would surely stop at nothing when dealing with others.

They couldn’t even imagine...

...what kind of inhuman retaliation they would suffer if they ever made an enemy of someone like Wu Dao. The mere thought sent a chill down their spines.