116: Chapter 116 Mysterious Red Substance
Whoosh—
A sharp sound of something piercing the air rang out. The two felt a flash of light pass before their eyes, and immediately after, the Bone Tiger's head rolled down, tilted to one side.
From its smooth neck, blood sprayed out like a water jet, drenching Li Yu. The thick scent of blood stung his nostrils; with every breath, he felt a fishy sweetness in his lungs.
The siblings were stunned and looked in the direction the light had come from.
"Sorry, I'm late."
Chen Qing stood at the doorway, panting. Perhaps from running all the way, her black clothes were soaked and clinging to her body, as if she had been fished out of the water, which only accentuated her shapely figure.
"Sister Chen Qing!" Li Meng shrieked and lunged toward Chen Qing.
Li Yu also climbed up from the floor, looked at the chaotic living room, and his mouth twitched slightly.
When Mom wakes up and sees this, she'll probably faint right back to sleep.
Li Yu walked over to Spirit Diagram Armor, cast High-Rank Spirit Probing Hand to examine it carefully, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, it just fainted; the rest were only skin wounds.
"You've worked hard." Li Yu soothed Spirit Diagram Armor, then raised his hand and retracted it.
He turned to check on Northward Sable.
With its small physique, its defense was much worse than Spirit Diagram Armor. The Bone Tiger's blow had broken a few of its bones, but thankfully, its life was not threatened.
"Brother, how is it?"
Li Meng and Chen Qing had been waiting on the side. They hadn't spoken while he was checking, fearing they would disturb him. Now, seeing him finish, they asked hurriedly.
Li Yu said, "Northward Sable has a few broken bones, but it's nothing serious. As long as we set them soon, it will be fine after a few days of rest."
"That's good." Li Meng breathed a sigh of relief.
Chen Qing lowered her head, guiltily saying, "I'm sorry, I caused you both to be in danger."
As a Guardian, leaving quietly and causing those under protection to almost die in a tiger's jaws.
It was simply a failure.
Li Yu did not blame Chen Qing but asked, "Is the matter resolved?"
Previously, he had been puzzled why Chen Qing was not there, even worried if something had happened to her. But seeing her attire and her clearly unstable breathing, he immediately understood.
Li Yu didn't know what kind of toxin it was, but he knew that to control someone as powerful as Chen Qing, the toxin must be very potent.
His side was dangerous, and her situation must not have been easy either.
Chen Qing looked at Li Yu's gentle eyes, felt a warmth in her heart, and nodded heavily, "It's temporarily resolved. It will be safe for the foreseeable future."
"That's good." Li Yu nodded, "Did something happen outside?"
Li Meng also said, "Yeah, I don't know what drove this Bone Tiger crazy, suddenly attacking us."
Mentioning this, Chen Qing's expression turned solemn.
"It's not just the Bone Tiger. A large portion of the beasts in the entire Ningyang City are showing signs of going berserk, killing many people. The whole city is in chaos. On my way here, I also killed quite a few beasts."
Li Yu and the others only then noticed that what was dripping from Chen Qing's clothes onto the floor wasn't water, but blood.
The thick, bloody smell was even stronger than the scent of the blood sprayed by the Bone Tiger.
But compared to this, they were even more shocked by what Chen Qing said.
"You said the whole city?" Li Yu frowned.
Li Meng was shocked and covered her mouth; her gaze toward the door was filled with fear.
Chen Qing nodded heavily.
Li Yu's expression immediately turned ugly.
First a beast tide attack, then beasts going out of control—is Ningyang City about to undergo a major upheaval?
If these beasts have the same symptoms, there must be a reason, right?
But what reason could make so many beasts...
Suddenly, a flash of light appeared in Li Yu's eyes.
Beast tide!
When the beast tide arrived, most of the Beast Tamers in the city went to battle. If there was an opportunity to make so many beasts go out of control, it must have been during the beast tide.
Thinking of this, Li Yu strode to the corpse of the Bone Tiger, knelt down, and flicked his hands rapidly, scattering fragments of golden light.
High-Rank Spirit Probing Hand!
Chen Qing and Li Meng watched quietly. When Golden Scale Bubble Fish saw the golden light and wanted to approach, it was stopped by Chen Qing.
It was unconvinced, until a sword was placed in front of it.
It conceded.
Li Yu closed his eyes, using Spirit Probing Hand to sense the changes inside the Bone Tiger's corpse, from fur to flesh, from muscles to bones, from blood vessels to meridians.
Soon, he found an anomaly on the nerves distributed throughout its body.
On the nerves, whether thick or thin, there was faint red energy remaining—very weak, but clearly an external substance.
Following the nerves to explore, Li Yu frowned again.
"It's not here."
He turned to pick up the Bone Tiger's head and continued to use his High-Rank Spirit Probing Hand, finally finding the problem inside the head.
A large mass of blood-red, spiderweb-like substance was parasitic inside the Bone Tiger's head. At this moment, these substances were also dying off because the Bone Tiger was dead.
Li Yu opened his eyes again, a flash of light appearing in them.
"Any discoveries?" Li Meng asked impatiently.
"Hard to say. We'll only know after taking it out."
As Li Yu spoke, gray energy emerged from his hands. As soon as this energy appeared, Golden Scale Bubble Fish hid far away.
Intermediate Spirit Stripping Hand.
Li Yu placed the Spirit Stripping Hand on the tiger's head, and the gray energy seeped into it bit by bit.
Li Meng was curious, but Chen Qing watched carefully, her fingers curling slightly in nervousness.
She had a premonition that the ability Li Yu was using now was closely related to what he said about helping her detoxify.
"Hey! There's something!" Li Meng suddenly shouted.
Chen Qing hurriedly looked over and saw a wisp of red substance seeping out from the tiger's head, looking like spider silk or cotton wool—quite peculiar.
But one thing was certain.
Li Yu had succeeded!
He was truly able to extract the attached substance from inside the body without cutting it open!
This result made Chen Qing incredibly excited.
However, thinking of the location where the toxin was attached, she looked at her own chest, and the tactile sensation from the abandoned factory at night lingered.
Her heart felt itchy.
Chen Qing hurriedly collected her thoughts, though the tips of her ears were slightly red.
"Get a sealed bag!"
Li Yu shouted. In the palm of his hand, the extracted red substance was wrapped in gray energy.
Li Meng hurriedly found a sealed bag.
Li Yu put the red substance inside and withdrew the Spirit Stripping Hand.
"Brother, what is this?"
Li Meng curiously poked the sealed bag and was flicked on the hand by Li Yu.
"How come I didn't know before that your hands are so meddlesome? What if you get hurt?"
Li Yu scolded her. Seeing Li Meng sticking out her tongue with a silly look, he didn't scold her further and explained, "This is the only foreign substance on the Bone Tiger, found in its head."
"I don't know what exactly it is. Unfortunately, I only have one sample, so I can't verify its connection to the madness."
Speaking of this, Li Yu sighed.
Chen Qing spoke, "There are more samples."
Li Yu asked, "Where?"
Chen Qing pointed outside the door and said, "The hallway is full of them. I killed them."
All of them?
After being surprised, Li Yu rushed out the door, his eyes filled with a strong desire to know more about this mysterious substance.
Stepping out and walking down the stairs, sure enough, many beasts were lying scattered about.
Li Yu didn't care if there was danger around or if these beasts had owners; he went up to them and used Spirit Probing Hand plus Spirit Stripping Hand.
After checking seven or eight in a row, he extracted red, thread-like substances of varying sizes.
"How is it?" a voice asked.
"It's basically confirmed. The beasts' loss of control and rioting is inextricably linked to these substances."
As Li Yu spoke, he suddenly felt the voice was unfamiliar.
Turning back, he saw Chen Qing, Li Meng, and a large group of police officers and soldiers crowded on the stairs, watching him quietly.
The one who asked was a man in his fifties or sixties, wearing an officer's uniform, with one arm.