Chapter Ninety: Cleverly Using the Rules to Enrage the Monster Serpent

What Shang Lu had not expected was that, no sooner had the multicolored cord bound the strange serpent than a burst of flame erupted.

This fire did not come from the cord itself, but was kindled by the mucus coating the serpent’s body.

The serpent had sensed danger and meant to burn the cord to ashes.

Shang Lu inwardly cursed his own carelessness.

He truly had not imagined that the creature’s slime could ignite on its own.

Yet before long he eased.

The instant the mucus caught fire, the radiant glow on the multicolored cord flared brilliantly and transformed into five shamanic seals.

These five seals not only protected the cord, keeping it from being consumed by the inferno, but also shielded Shang Lu’s hand, greatly lessening even the sting of the burn.

More than that, the five seals formed a fetter, locking the serpent down with unyielding force.

Even if Shang Lu let go, the creature could not break free of the cord.

The power of the multicolored cord far surpassed Shang Lu’s expectations. Delighted, he at once repeated the trick, using his own body as bait, and caught two more strange serpents, binding them with the cord as well.

The three serpents lined up in a row. The strange fire that blazed upon them could not scorch through the cord, nor could their mouths gnaw through it. They could only thrash in fury, to no avail, hissing angrily all the while.

Though Shang Lu could not understand them, he was certain the three were cursing him, and cursing him most vilely.

“Constable, you brought more of that cord? Wonderful! If you have any to spare, give us a few too!”

Liu, one of the constables, had evidently once served on a mission with a shamanic priest and recognized the cord at a glance. Seeing Shang Lu use it to bind the serpents, he was overjoyed and hurriedly called for help.

In truth, Shang Lu needed no urging; he was already moving to rescue them.

Dodging yet another serpent’s sneak attack, he did not immediately seize it, but instead sprang in a single bound to the side of Liu and the others.

He not only gave them the cord, but also helped capture two more serpents.

Once the constables had the multicolored cord in hand, their morale surged.

Earlier they had been panicked and helpless. Besides the serpents’ insidious choice of where to strike, the greater reason was that they had no means of countering them.

Even if the serpents were chopped apart or trampled to pulp, they could still regrow in short order.

With no hope of victory in sight, their spirits had naturally collapsed. Had the fog not made running about even more dangerous, they would already have scattered in all directions, fleeing for their lives.

Now that they had the cord, they still could not kill the serpents, but they could bind them and keep them from turning their mouths toward their backsides. The constables felt, at last, that they were back in business.

Yet before long, they discovered that things were not as easy as they had imagined.

Watching Shang Lu catch and bind the serpents made it seem effortless.

But when they tried it themselves, they found the task extraordinarily difficult.

The serpents were too slippery, and too hot. Apart from Liu and Huang, whose cultivation was higher and who could rouse their vital blood to sheath their hands, none of the others could manage it.

Fortunately, the constables quickly adjusted. Instead of forcing themselves to catch the serpents, they began assisting Shang Lu, Liu, and Huang.

Some helped lure the serpents with their own backsides; others hacked the creatures into several segments, so that the three men could capture them more quickly and with less effort.

In the midst of all this, there were also constables who, through a misstep, ended up being ambushed by the serpents themselves.

“Ahhh!”

One constable had been swinging his blade at a serpent when his expression suddenly changed. He screamed and flung away his knife, then reached back with his other hand toward his rear.

Hearing the cry, Shang Lu rushed over at once.

Only when he drew close did he see that the constable had indeed been ambushed.

More than half the serpent’s body had already wriggled inside him, with only a section of tail still outside.

Shang Lu hurried forward, seized the tail, slipped the multicolored cord around it, and hauled hard.

“Pain! Pain! Pain!”

The constable’s cries turned even more pitiful.

The serpent’s mouth, bristling with needlelike fangs, had clamped tightly onto his intestines. The harder Shang Lu pulled, the more the man suffered.

Still, the constable understood that Shang Lu was saving him.

If the serpent were not dragged out, and truly burrowed into his belly, the matter would be far worse than pain.

Fortunately, before long Shang Lu had pulled the serpent free, dragging out a spray of blood and filth with it.

Unable to complete its burrowing assault, the serpent was filled with rage.

It twisted its head around, trying to bite Shang Lu and the cord.

Shang Lu had long been on guard. He drove a short blade straight into its flower-like mouth.

Though this could not kill the creature, it jammed the mouth open, leaving it only able to clatter its teeth against the blade, unable to harm Shang Lu or the cord.

With his other hand free, Shang Lu swiftly adjusted the cord’s position and tightened it with force.

This time, the serpent was bound utterly and could no longer gnaw at the cord.

The constable, who had nearly been successfully gutted through the rear, slumped to the ground, drained of strength.

His expression was most peculiar: amid the pain, there was somehow even a trace of relief…

With the help of the multicolored cord, Shang Lu and the others soon captured and bound all the serpents that had been burrowing into people’s backsides.

After struggling for a while, the serpents discovered they could not break free of the cord. In their furious hissing, they one after another expired from sheer rage, bursting into puddles of mangled flesh.

Once it was confirmed that every serpent was truly dead and would not rise again, the constables finally let out a long breath.

A head count revealed that only eight of them remained alive.

Two had injuries to their backsides.

One was the man Shang Lu had saved. The other had simply been lucky; the instant the serpent bit him, he moved, and the creature only tore into his cheek of flesh, leaving a wound that was not serious.

The five constables who had died were all taken down in the serpent’s first wave of ambushes.

Their corpses lay on the ground, their bellies rising and falling from time to time, as though something inside were still writhing about.

Shang Lu strode to one of the bodies and slit open its abdomen with a knife.

No blood flowed out. Most of the organs within had already been gnawed away.

These serpents, though only as thick as a finger and as long as chopsticks, could swallow organs and blood far larger than their own bodies.

Yet after feeding, their bodies did not seem to swell at all.

Had the organs and blood been digested at astonishing speed once they entered the serpents’ bellies, or had some secret art transported them elsewhere?

Shang Lu was deeply curious.

Annoyed at being interrupted in the act of feeding, the serpent flew into a rage and immediately tried to spring out from the constable’s belly and burrow into Shang Lu’s, to devour his entrails clean.

This serpent clearly did not know what had become of its companions. The moment it emerged from the constable’s belly, Shang Lu subdued it and bound it to the multicolored cord.

The reflexes and hand speed Shang Lu had honed under Third Madam’s training were put on perfect display at this very moment.

He then slit open the bellies of the other four corpses in turn and bound the serpents he found within with the cord.

After these five serpents had also died of fury, Shang Lu used the same cord to bind the hands and feet of the five corpses.

Not only that, he also gathered a few stones, soaked them in black dog’s blood, and stuffed them into the mouths of the bodies.

Only then did he instruct the uninjured constables to carry the five corpses on their backs and take them out of the fog for burial.

After all, they had served together; Shang Lu did not want to see his comrades left to rot in the wilderness.

At the same time, he also wanted to see whether these corpses would turn into monsters once they were carried out of the dense fog.