Chapter 74
Xiao Tangqiu’s whole body instantly got gooseb.u.mps with his scalp tingling seeing this dense wave of spiders. Although he didn’t want to think about this group of spiders at all, he couldn’t help his imagination running wild. Did the luoxinfu lay its eggs after eating empty those people’s heads? And then the spider eggs were incubated and born into those bodies, the small spiders becoming parasites and absorbing all the nutrients from the human body? And finally the new luoxinfu broke out?
Wait! This was not Aliens!
Tang Mianmian screamed, “Ahhhhh!”
Duan Hongzhen scoffed, “What are you screaming for? Grow a pair! Even the two girls over there didn’t scream!”
“Ahhhhhh! Spiders are my greatest fear!” Tang Mianmian screamed and was about to pounce on Xiao Tangqiu, but Xiao Tangqiu was pulled away by Shen Yuan. After he missed, he quickly turned and rushed towards Duan Hongzhen.
Duan Hongzhen was caught off guard by Tang Mianmian and was tightly grabbed. Tang Mianmian immediately climbed onto Duan Hongzhen like an octopus.
“Hey! Let go!”
“Not letting go! I’m so scared sobsobsob!”
“If you don’t let go, I will kick you!”
After Xiao Tangqiu was pulled away by Shen Yuan, he looked up and saw a puppet leaping towards him. He quickly raised the loaded crossbow and got a headshot. When his arrow pierced through the puppet’s head, the puppet collapsed, and then a ton of small black spiders crawled out from its eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.
“Aahhhh! There’s even more!” Tang Mianmian broke down even more.
Fortunately, Xue Junli fired the flamethrower and the spiders were quickly wiped out.
Every time a puppet fell, a large number of growing spiders would crawl out of the puppet’s body. Those small spiders seemed to regard the bodies of these newbies as a nest where food was stored. When the nest was overturned, they naturally crawled out everywhere.
When the last puppet fell, everyone turned their weapons and aimed at luoxinfu. They targeted the weakness of luoxinfu by threatening it with the flamethrower and attacked with everyone’s power. Finally, Yu Fuling cut off Luoxinfu’s head with her blade.
When the beauty’s head fell to the ground, Xiao Tangqiu instantly increased his vigilance, but nothing happened. Tang Mianmian heaved a sigh of relief, “It’s finally over… almost scared me to death!”
Duan Hongzhen sneered, “It’s just a bigger spider, what’s so scary? There will be more terrifying things waiting for you in the future.”
Tang Mianmian immediately trembled.
Duan Hongzhen picked up the head of the beauty with a smile, “You need to fight poison with poison. Come, take a look.”
Tang Mianmian immediately screamed, “Aaaaaaah, no don’t!”
Duan Hongzhen did not hesitate to throw the beautiful head at Tang Mianmian. Tang Mianmian reflexively caught it and as he was about to scream, the beautiful head who had closed its eyes suddenly opened them and several pairs of spider legs grew out from where it was cut off.
These pairs of spider legs were too small for its beautiful head. It looked a bit like a deformity from malnutrition, but it was still terrifying. Tang Mianmian screamed and threw the beautiful head to the ground. The beauty’s head with spider legs immediately fled.
Duan Hongzhen tched, “Actually growing back from a beheading?”
If he hadn’t thrown its head to Tang Mianmian just now and scared luoxinfu into revealing its abilities, this cunning luoxinfu would have gotten up again after they left and plotted against them!
He sneered and stepped on it without hesitation. Although luoxinfu’s body was extremely hard, after losing its huge and hard body, only a fragile head was left.
Luoxinfu’s head exploded with sprays of white liquid when Duan Hongzhen stepped on it. Xiao Tangqiu took a closer look. What was this white liquid? It was actually a bunch of white blobs densely piled up together!
“Fuuuuuuuck spider eggs are disgusting!” Tang Mianmian wailed while stomping on the spider eggs in front of him. These spider eggs were immature and naturally had no resistance. They were quickly squished.
“Waaaaa are they dead!?”
Xiao Tangqiu, “…Deader than dead.”
Tang Mianmian looked down and suddenly became nauseous, “Oh… I want to vomit.”
Xiao Tangqiu reached out and patted Tang Mianmian on the shoulder, expressing sympathy.
Shen Yuan glanced at Xiao Tangqiu and said expressionlessly, “I want to vomit too.”
Xiao Tangqiu, “No, you don’t.”
Luoxinfu was completely dead this time and Xiao Tangqiu breathed a sigh of relief. Kisaragi shook the Kagura Bell in her hand, probably to purify luoxinfu.
Everyone waited silently for Kisaragi to finish before they continued to walk towards Hundred Ghost Town.
As a result, along the way, they encountered a lot of monsters, these monsters were much stronger than the previous monsters. Everyone walked and fought, and it took a lot of effort to arrive outside of Hundred Ghost Town.
Tang Mianmian said quietly, “Why do I feel like we are journeying to the west to learn the scriptures, and we have gone through nine-ninety-one trials along the way…”
Xiao Tangqiu stretched out his hand and patted Tang Mianmian on the shoulder, “We have reached the holy lands of the west.”
Everyone was exhausted. Even if they were tough, they were still exhausted by this time. Although these monsters were not endless like the zombies, they were exceptionally powerful, especially the monsters that carried demonic aura.
Xue Junli suddenly said, “It seems that there are more and more monsters.”
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “It’s true. When we came here before, there weren’t so many monsters…”
When they came to Hundred Ghost Town before, although they had encountered a few monsters, there were only two or three small fries that were not ferocious. This time, the monsters they encountered were not only extremely vicious, they were also powerful.
At this moment, Kisaragi suddenly spoke, “We’re here.”
Everyone looked up and saw that the strange and familiar Hundred Ghost Town was not far away. They hadn’t left Hundred Ghost Town for long, but it seemed to have gone through a lot. The whole village had become even more dilapidated and the people inside had disappeared.
They looked around in Hundred Ghost Town and discovered that all the villagers had disappeared, and even the strange female village elder had disappeared.
“Strange, where are the villagers?”
Xiao Tangqiu was only short digging three feet into the ground to search. If he didn’t know that it was impossible, he would suspect that Hundred Ghost Town had a cellar and the villagers ran into the cellar to hide. But Hundred Ghost Town was so poor, there couldn’t be any extra food to store in some cellar.
“Have you searched all places? No person anywhere?”
Everyone shook their heads.
So strange. Was it possible for all the villagers to disappear into thin air overnight in this huge Hundred Ghost Town?
As everyone was silent and puzzled, a thought suddenly flashed through Xiao Tangqiu’s mind, and then he slowly said, “Maybe… we already saw it.”
Duan Hongzhen raised his eyebrows, “What do you mean? Do you mean…”
Xiao Tangqiu pointedly said, “Aren’t there more monsters outside than when we came last time?”
Xue Junli said softly, “Are you saying that all of the villagers of Hundred Ghost Town have become monsters?”
Xiao Tangqiu nodded, “Otherwise, there’s no explanation why the villagers of Hundred Ghost Town disappeared or why the monsters suddenly increased.”
Xue Junli frowned, “Even so, the number is not right. The villagers we saw that day are far more than the monsters we have seen. Even if the villagers really turned into monsters, then where did those monsters go?”
The two of them realized at the same time and shouted in unison, “Kisaragi Shrine!”
Xiao Tangqiu and Xue Junli looked at each other, then Xue Junli’s gaze darkened, “Go! Let’s go to the shrine!”
Everyone turned and set off towards the Holy Mountain.
For some reason, the way to the Holy Mountain was calm and nothing happened. They didn’t encounter even one monster. But for Xiao Tangqiu, the calm was like the calm before the storm.
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, wondering if it was his illusion. The closer they were to the Holy Mountain, the fewer monsters there seemed to be, as if those monsters were afraid of the Holy Mountain… But when they first came to Hundred Ghost Town, they clearly saw a lot of monsters here, so why couldn’t they see any now?
There was a bad premonition in his heart. They finally came to the foot of the long, climbing trail to the mountain G.o.d.
But they didn’t see even the hair of monsters, much less meet any. The entire Holy Mountain was clean, just like a real Holy Mountain.
After a while, they came to the top of the Holy Mountain. Just as before, they did not see any shrines, and naturally they also did not see the remaining villagers.
Xiao Tangqiu sighed, did they hit a dead end again? He subconsciously turned his head to look at Kisaragi and saw her slowly shake the Kagura Bell in her hand.
He had seen Kisaragi use the Kagura Bell many times by now, but this time it seemed to be very different. Kisaragi softly sang an unfamiliar melody that sounded like an ancient mysterious spell while shaking the bell.
With Kisaragi’s singing and the clear ring of the Kagura Bell, a torii gradually appeared in front of them, followed by an ancient shrine.
At the center of the torii, there was an old plaque with the words “Kisaragi Shrine” written on it.
Kisaragi put down the Kagura Bell in her hand and said solemnly, “We’re here.”
They finally arrived at the Kisaragi Shrine. Unlike the Kisaragi Shrine from centuries later, this was the real Kisaragi Shrine, the Kisaragi Shrine that truly enshrined a mountain G.o.d.
Xiao Tangqiu looked up at the shrine in front of him. To his surprise, although this shrine was old and worn, it looked very magnificent. It was more elegant than the Kisaragi Shrine centuries later and it gave him a feeling of true worship towards the mountain G.o.d… Maybe because of this, his inner foreboding only got stronger.
He finally couldn’t help but say, “I have a bad feeling…”
Tang Mianmian jumped, “Shut up!”
He looked around while covering his chest with his hands, and waited fearfully, but nothing happened.
So he slowly put down the hand over his heart and laughed at Xiao Tangqiu, “It seems that your crow’s mouth is not working!”
Xiao Tangqiu gave a dry smile and was about to speak, but at this moment, the whole Holy Mountain suddenly shook!
Xiao Tangqiu, “…”
…It wasn’t that it didn’t work, it was simply delayed!