49: Chapter 49 Wandering Souls

A single claw slashed down, the fierce wind arriving first. The three-zhang black claw, wrapped in thick ghostly energy, tore through the air with a piercing shriek. If this claw landed solidly, even refined steel would be shredded into scraps on the spot.

The ghost claw was three feet from his head when a sudden mutation occurred.

Wu Xi's skin rippled, and in the next instant, several tentacles burst out from his face!

The slick tentacles, covered in mucus, twisted wildly in the air.

With a tearing sound, his upper garments were shredded. Beneath his skin, layers of scales emerged—coin-sized, dark cyan in color, their edges gleaming with a cold, hard metallic luster.

The scales overlapped, spreading from his chest to his waist and abdomen, while his limbs underwent simultaneous deformity.

His ten fingers twisted with a crackling sound, his nails lengthening by half a foot. His ankle joints dislocated with loud pops, and a muffled thud echoed from his back as his flesh tore open.

Two long, narrow wings burst from his shoulder blades, a zhang in width. They had no feathers, only translucent wing membranes covered in dark purple veins.

The entire transformation took less than half a breath, and the ghost claw had already reached his head.

Wu Xi raised his right hand, the arm already transformed into a giant claw, and blocked upward.

Boom!

Two forces collided in one spot.

The ghost claw's five sharp blades struck the giant claw, sending blinding sparks flying into the sky.

Wu Xi's feet sank directly into the stone floor.

The bluestone beneath his feet shattered instantly, spiderweb cracks spreading in all directions. His knees sank abruptly, and the wings on his back spread wide, the veins on the membranes bulging as if about to burst.

The ghost claw had been blocked.

The Cave Master's jaw snapped open, the ghost fire in his eye sockets dancing wildly.

"Seed-Fetus Realm?!"

"That's impossible! A few days ago, you were just a Bone-Birth Realm ant!"

Yet, this Aura before him was undeniably that of the Seed-Fetus Realm!

The tentacles on Wu Xi's face writhed slowly, and a voice squeezed out from between the slick tentacles: "Nothing is impossible."

The skeleton frame shuddered violently, the ghost fire in its eye sockets shrinking to the size of needle tips.

Wu Xi leaned forward, his wings snapped shut, and he shot out like an iron arrow released from a bowstring.

The stone floor beneath his feet was kicked to powder, debris flying in all directions, some pieces clattering against the skeleton frame.

The Cave Master let out a wild roar, the ghost claw behind him rising again to sweep horizontally. The five sharp blades closed together, swiping towards Wu Xi's waist and sealing off all space for evasion.

Wu Xi flapped his wings violently, his body shifting three feet to the left with eerie precision, barely dodging the ghost claw. The fierce wind from the claw tips scraped against the scales on his waist, causing them to clatter and sparks to fly.

The moment he dodged the sweep, Wu Xi's right giant claw had already reached out, aiming straight for the Cave Master's throat!

The Cave Master jerked his head to the side, the giant claw grazing his cervical vertebrae and scraping off a layer of bone powder.

"Damn it!"

The Cave Master cursed, his skeleton frame retreating rapidly. He dared not clash head-on again, his skeletal feet tapping rapidly on the stone floor as he retreated violently.

The skeleton's jaw opened, emitting a dry, grating laugh like two stones rubbing against each other: "Good, very good. So what if you are in the Seed-Fetus Realm? Do you really think I only have this one trick?"

The Cave Master opened his skeletal maw wide, his upper and lower jaws stretching to the limit, his cervical vertebrae clicking. A piercing shriek that could shatter metal and crack stone erupted from deep within his throat!

The sound was like thousands of steel needles scraping against porcelain, like the wailing of countless wronged souls being crushed. It drilled directly into the eardrums, churning back and forth inside the brain, as if wishing to turn the brain matter into paste on the spot.

As the shriek rose, a cold wind was born.

A wet, cold, sticky, and foul-smelling wind instantly formed a massive black vortex.

The sound of the wind changed.

It was no longer just a howl; other things were mixed in. There was the faint, fragmented sobbing of a woman, as if she had been crying in the darkness for a hundred years; there was the hoarse sigh of an old man, like the last breath unable to be exhaled before death.

The two sounds intertwined, swirling in the vortex and surging toward Wu Xi from all directions, making one's scalp numb and hair stand on end.

Wu Xi stood at the edge of the vortex, the wind scraping against him. The damp, cold chill seeped through his scales directly into his bone marrow, and he was blown half a step backward.

The zhang-wide wings on Wu Xi's back snapped shut, completely abandoning the advantage of flight. He curled into a ball, his four giant claws reaching out simultaneously, his nails digging fiercely into the rock beneath his feet.

Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack!

Eight deep furrows were instantly plowed out, stone debris flying. He nailed himself firmly to the ground, like an iron nail hammered into wood, motionless.

At the same time, the tentacles on his face all spread out.

The dense mass of tentacles pulled taut, like countless antennas pointing in all directions. The suction cups at the ends of the tentacles pulsed continuously, capturing the trajectory of every wisp of airflow.

In just one breath, all the tentacles pointed uniformly at the same location.

In the center of the vortex, that fist-sized void. While the wind howled like thunder all around, there, it was deathly silent.

Now!

Wu Xi's four giant claws exerted force simultaneously, digging into the ground and kicking off fiercely!

Boom! The stone floor beneath his feet exploded into powder, and he shot straight into the center of the vortex like an iron arrow released from a bowstring!

The wind roared madly in his ears, his scales scraping and sending sparks flying, his bones creaking. He did not slow down, bracing against the force that could tear a person apart, and charged forward.

It was only an instant.

The surroundings suddenly went quiet.

The wind was gone, the sobbing was gone, and the sighing was gone. Wu Xi stood in the center of the vortex, surrounded by a rapidly rotating wall of wind; where he stood, there wasn't even a breeze.

This was the eye of the storm, and also the fatal weakness of this cold wind.

Wu Xi raised his right hand, his giant claw's five fingers closed, and like a fire-tempered blade, he slashed outward fiercely.

Rip!

The massive vortex was torn open from the inside. The wall of wind collapsed instantly, and those sobs and sighs were cut short, as if someone had grabbed them by the throat.

The scattered cold wind dissipated without a trace in just a few breaths.

Wu Xi slowly straightened his body, lifting his eyes to look at the Cave Master.

"You... just what kind of monster are you?!"

Wu Xi did not answer. The voice from between his tentacles remained short and low: "Anything else?"

The Cave Master opened his skeletal maw wide, and from deep within his throat, he spat out clusters of eerie green light.

One point, one cluster, like fireflies on a summer night, flew out from his mouth.

They were phosphorus fires, and also soul fires.

Each cluster was only the size of a fingernail, eerily green, floating in the air, drifting back and forth as if pulled by invisible threads toward Wu Xi.

In the darkness, countless eerie green light points surrounded him, making one's whole body go cold.

Wu Xi stood in place, watching the phosphorus fire approach.

He suddenly released his Seed-Fetus Realm Aura, the overwhelming pressure spreading everywhere. The phosphorus fires recoiled half a foot like a startled school of fish. But as he withdrew his Aura, the phosphorus fires immediately closed in again, closer than before.

"Go to hell!"

Amidst the roar, all the phosphorus fires lunged at Wu Xi simultaneously!

Just as they were about to touch his body, the tentacles hanging from Wu Xi's face suddenly came alive!

The tentacles straightened, rose, and spread out all at once, like a death flower suddenly blooming.

The suction cups at the end of each tentacle opened to the limit, revealing rings of dense, fine barbs inside.

Then, suck!

An indescribable, powerful suction force erupted simultaneously from the countless suction cups.

The surrounding phosphorus fires were gripped tightly by countless invisible hands, forced against their will to fly toward the tentacles, and were swallowed whole by the suction cups.

One cluster, two clusters, ten clusters, a hundred clusters.

The sky full of eerie green phosphorus fire decreased madly at a visible speed, like a receding tide, sucked into those dense suction cups. With each cluster swallowed, the tentacles lit up with an eerie green glow, traveling from the tips to the roots, and finally disappearing beneath his skin.

These phosphorus fires capable of corroding the Divine Soul were actually swallowed by him directly, fused into his own body, and turned into nourishment!

In two breaths, the phosphorus fire was sucked clean.

The surroundings fell into darkness again, leaving only the faint glow remaining on Wu Xi's scales, flickering in the dark.

The Cave Master was completely stunned, his entire skeleton frame trembling violently, his upper and lower jaws clattering open and closed, unable to even speak a complete sentence.

The ghost fire in his eye sockets shrank to two needle-sized points, filled with bone-deep terror.

"You... how could you—"

His words were cut short before he could finish.

Wu Xi slowly raised his head, the voice from between his tentacles lower, colder, and harder than before: "The taste isn't great."

Click, clack.

"Good... good..." The Cave Master's voice was filled with a desperate madness: "Since you want to force me, then let's die together!"

The skeleton's hands spread wide and slammed fiercely onto its own chest bone!

Bang!

A hideous crack was struck into the hard chest bone. Invisible, damp, foul energy surged madly from the crack.

It was Ghost Miasma, condensed from a hundred years of resentment, corpse energy, and filth.

The Cave Master's laughter came from the darkness, dry, hoarse, and filled with the thrill of victory: "With Ghost Miasma entering your body, even if you are in the Seed-Fetus Realm, you must die for me!"

Wu Xi's mutated glands became active to the extreme instantly. His body after the transformation could already secrete mucus; at this moment, he pushed this ability to its peak.

With a thought, all the glands in his body went to work.

Foul-smelling, slick, transparent mucus seeped madly from the gaps between his scales, becoming thicker and thicker like a layer of dense gel, instantly covering his entire body.

The mucus and the Ghost Miasma collided.

The two equally damp and sticky substances instantly began to bite and devour each other.

The fishy sweetness of the mucus tightly wrapped around the rot of the Ghost Miasma, and that bone-eroding foul energy was madly swallowed and dissolved by the mucus.

In just one breath, the alternating cold and heat on Wu Xi's body weakened instantly. The scorching fire energy was suppressed, and the bone-chilling cold also slowly receded.

Wu Xi moved through the Ghost Miasma like a fish swimming in water, silently approaching the direction of the Cave Master.

The Cave Master was still laughing.

The ghost fire in his eye sockets reignited, thinking victory was secured: "Why don't you speak? Come out! If you have the guts, take another move from me!"

No one answered, and the laughter slowly stopped.

He turned his head abruptly, the ghost fire in his eye sockets scanning wildly toward the thickest part of the Ghost Miasma.

There was nothing.

"You—"

He had just spat out one word.

A giant claw covered in dark cyan scales with pitch-black, hook-like nails suddenly pierced through the mist in front of him.

No warning, no sound of wind.

The giant claw was only an inch from his chest bone.

There was no time to react at all.

Pfft—

The giant claw pierced straight through.

Crack! The hard chest bone shattered into powder instantly. The entire chest bone was completely pierced, the claw tip emerging from the spine on his back, bringing with it a string of broken bones and a sky full of black ghostly energy.

The Cave Master's skeleton frame froze instantly.

He looked down at the hideous hole in his chest, the ghost fire in his eye sockets flickering violently twice before instantly dimming.

"How... could..."

Wu Xi's giant claw slowly withdrew from his chest, bringing with it a gush of black ghostly energy.

The Cave Master's skeleton frame began to tremble madly. Starting from the large hole in his chest, spiderweb-like cracks instantly covered his entire body.

Crack, crack, crack.

The chest bone shattered, ribs broke one by one and crashed to the ground.

The spine snapped in the middle, and his upper body tilted forward. The bones on his arms fell off one by one, like a dead tree chopped down at the waist.

His lower body was still standing, but his upper body had completely gone limp.

He knelt to the ground, his kneecaps hitting the stone floor with a dull thud, the ghost fire in his eye sockets flickering like a candle in the wind, ready to be extinguished completely at any moment.