Chapter 88 — The Heavenly Demon Horde

Out of those black demon clouds a huge head thrust forth, its face covered in curling whiskers, its eyes spitting fire, and it looked all around. Then the demon cloud shrank with great speed, and the huge head shrank with it, until the cloud was no more than a few paces across and there appeared an ugly woman whose mouth was full of thick yellow teeth like iron spikes; on her back she carried a blood gourd as tall as a man, and the shrunken demon cloud was burrowing into the gourd's mouth. Then another woman rose into the air and stood atop the grey mist — a woman of lovely features, white skin and fair face, a graceful figure, full breasts and a slender waist, but from her back grew a thick, long scorpion's tail, its barb swinging to and fro.

The two women swept their gaze in every direction and did not find Shen Mu; then suddenly the sound of a keen sword cutting air came out of the grey mist, and before the scorpion-tailed woman could react, a blade of sword-light swept in flat and passed across her throat. The scorpion-tailed woman clutched her throat, trying to set her head back on her neck, but the head would not obey her and slid down.

It was the most basic sword art the Village Head had taught him: the Cut. The ugly woman gave a shrill shriek, and the demon cloud poured out of the gourd behind her; within the cloud stood a giant with only an upper body, its two fists as great as mountains, and with hands clasped together it smashed down from the air at the place the sword had come from!

Boom.

A muffled sound came, and out of the grey mist came a stifled grunt.

The ugly woman's eyes lit up, and the half-bodied giant in the demon cloud hammered its fists down there again and again! The half-bodied giant struck several hundred blows, and when the ugly woman saw the gore smeared on its fists she smiled, and her figure sank into the grey mist until her feet were on solid ground.

Her primal weapon was no common thing — it was that blood gourd.

The half-bodied giant in the gourd was the divine ability her cultivation had produced, and nurtured in the blood gourd it had been tempered by her until it was like steel and iron, its power terrifying.

The ugly woman landed and walked to the place where the half-bodied giant had been hammering, and saw a corpse smashed to powder there; her face changed greatly — this was no human corpse, but the corpse of one of her own kind! At that very moment her heart went cold behind her, and the Chubao Sword thrust out through her back.

Behind her, Shen Mu had crept up without a sound; he drew the sword free and was gone, his figure vanishing into the grey mist. Mist lay in heavy folds, and for Shen Mu, trained in the Lame Elder's Heaven-Stealing Leg Technique, it was the perfect ground for assassination!

He roamed through the mist, and whenever he heard a sound he stole toward it, blade or sword, one blow to kill! The grey mist was vast and grew ever thicker, until at last even Shen Mu's Nine Heavens of the Sacred Pupil could not see far.

Suddenly a pitch-black tentacle swept past before him.

Shen Mu stood motionless and let it pass. Tss, tss, tss — a fine, faint sound came, and strand after strand of spider silk flew past him and joined into a web.

The silk trembled; something seemed to be standing on the threads, drawing them taut, and they gave off a music like plucked strings.

More and more silk appeared, until it had gradually canopied the space around Shen Mu.

And in the mist more tentacles whirled and danced in the air, trying to drive him out. Shen Mu frowned.

Qi flowed quietly into his white glove, and the loose thread of the glove quietly lifted its head like an exceedingly slender spirit-serpent.

This fine thread crept without a sound onto one strand of spider silk, wound its way along, and from that strand climbed onto another.

This white glove was the text of the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra, made of countless tadpole glyphs, able to grow long or short, thick or thin; Grandmother Zhu had woven that treasure into a glove for Shen Mu to wear on his hand.

Shen Mu willed the Great Nurturing Nether Demon Sutra into motion, making the fine thread overlap with the spider silk; after a moment, the threads of the white glove on his hand had come away until only five fingers remained.