Chapter Forty-Three: Minors from the Mountain Cave, Please Proceed with Caution

Swish!

The sword’s light sliced through the cold moon, struck by the great ape’s fist, yet it cleaved the beast's hand in two, scattering silver sparks and blood. In an instant, flesh and bone parted company—the ape’s thick arm was reduced to a bare white limb.

With a furious bellow, the giant ape roared, but a heartbeat later, the sword’s radiance flickered at his throat.

Boom!

Crash!

The ape’s neck and head were reduced to bloody fragments, bone and flesh flying everywhere, brain matter arcing into the air.

No sooner had the beast fallen than the swarm of insects—those writhing in the firelight and those lurking in the shadows beyond—rushed forward, flooding over and piling upon the ape’s remains.

Luo Zu couldn’t fathom the reason for this, but it didn’t stop him from ordering a retreat.

It seemed that was their only adversary.

A single giant ape-demon.

The fire still raged, the corpses of the insects exploding as they burned, filling the air with muffled pops like bamboo stalks bursting in a blaze.

The inferno would burn for some time yet, but Luo Zu knew he could not tarry here; soon, the commotion might attract many more ancient beasts seeking a meal.

At that moment, the female giant had already shrunk to her normal size, hefting her great bone club and calling for her people.

Luo Zu glanced around to see that his own companions, summoned by Ironhead, were already gathering in orderly ranks. The healers among them tended to the wounded, but most were only exhausted, not gravely hurt.

The other group was not so fortunate. Already hounded for some time, Luo Zu had done what he could to shield them, even drawing the brunt of the insect horde’s attention. Still, nearly half had perished—seven in all!

Most had died of sheer exhaustion, then were torn apart by the insects—a truly tragic fate.

The woman wasted no time on grief. Or perhaps she was simply accustomed to so much death; she seemed unmoved by the loss. She led her surviving kin straight to Luo Zu and his party, leaving their fallen where they lay—by now, consumed by the flames, their bodies nothing but ash and memory.

She stepped before Luo Zu and immediately began to speak—in the old tongue of the shamans?

Luckily, Luo Zu understood the general dialect, and so did the woman; had it been some obscure tribal language, he’d have been at a loss.

She first expressed her gratitude: “Thank you, honored human warrior.”

Luo Zu nodded. “This is no place for talk. Let’s leave at once.”

He looked into the distance, already spying the elongated shadow of a massive creature drawing near.

His suspicions were confirmed: the violence had indeed attracted a prehistoric beast.

Luo Zu recognized the monster at once—it was the local “lord” of these lands, a thousand-foot colossus with the head of a bull and the body of a tiger, discovered by the hunting party last year.

This beast was not only massive; it possessed many sinister abilities. It could spew corrosive, foul-smelling slime, and its hide was tougher than any refined steel Luo Zu knew of. Even wielding his great sword at full speed, Luo Zu could not pierce it, and any spell of fire or the like would be quickly suppressed by the beast’s boiling blood. No magic could take hold on its body.

Thus, when faced with such a foe, Luo Zu’s only recourse was flight.

But before retreating, Luo Zu sent his sword sweeping through the sea of flames, scattering the rabid insects gnawing at the ape’s corpse, and split open the left side of its chest, retrieving a heart as big as a man—gray-black and monstrous.

He had no particular fetish for collecting hearts. Earlier, he’d stabbed at the left side of the beast’s chest but failed to kill it, which made him suspect the heart was not there—or perhaps it had two hearts, or perhaps its heart was in its foot…

With a single stroke, his question was answered: the heart was indeed on the right side.

It was idle curiosity, nothing more, but the sight that followed was startling. The insect horde grew even more frenzied, throwing themselves at the gray-black heart and abandoning the ape’s body as if they’d been gnawing all this time solely in pursuit of that organ.

“He belonged to the Vengeful Pheasant Demon tribe,” the woman explained, having witnessed the scene in the firelight. “They say he planted a brood-mother cocoon within his heart, using it to command these insects. But now that he’s dead, the cocoon linked to his life must have perished as well.”

Breeders of venomous worms, even in this era? Luo Zu raised an eyebrow but said nothing more.

Unlike Xi, this woman seemed very knowledgeable.

Luo Zu then tossed the heart high into the air and cleaved it open with his blade, revealing within a peanut-sized cocoon.

It held not a trace of life. With his spirit focused through his great sword, Luo Zu confirmed it.

Yet such a thing was clearly valuable—judging by the insects’ madness, he could see that used wisely, it could become a potent weapon in magical combat.

Whoosh!

The great sword, with the brood-mother cocoon impaled upon it, returned at great speed, trailing a gust of wind.

The insects tried desperately to pursue, but Luo Zu quickly stowed the cocoon away into his pocket-dimension gourd, severing its connection to the outside world.

Instantly, the insect horde fell silent.

Those who had been bracing for another attack could only watch as the insects ceased their struggles and surrendered to the flames.

“Let’s go,” Luo Zu called, and led his people away from the scene.

By now, the bull-headed tiger demon was drawing ever closer.

If they delayed, they’d soon be tasting a hotpot broth made from cow dung.

Fortunately, the beast seemed to be strolling leisurely, like a lordly elder ambling past an unremarkable market. Luo Zu and his party, swift on their feet and aided by his wind-riding magic, outpaced even the fastest horses.

Soon, they’d taken refuge in forested mountains well known to the “Cave People,” and began to rest and recover.

They drew water and distributed dried rations, and Luo Zu saw to it that everyone was well cared for.

Meanwhile, the wounded from the woman’s band were given immediate treatment, lest they perish after such a long flight.

One man’s belly had been torn open, yet the hardy constitution of the ancient human race kept him alive.

Luo Zu laid his hands upon him, and a vibrant green glow shimmered at the man’s abdomen, staunching the bleeding, rearranging the organs, and sealing ruptured bowels.

But that was the extent of his healing; these ancient humans were of formidable size, unlike the miniature folk in his gourd-world, and Luo Zu himself was only a “pseudo-immortal” at the threshold of divine refinement, unable to raise the dead or regrow flesh and bone.

The other wounded were likewise tended by Luo Zu and the healers in his group, and only then did he have the leisure to hold a serious meeting with the woman called Tang.

This conference was attended by all the “Cave People,” with nothing said that the tribe’s youngest could not hear.