Chapter 25: Taotail
…”Now that I know Wang Xi’s entire plan, and he is arrogant and overconfident, if that Song Yan is clever enough, he might just be able to turn the situation around.”
In a hidden cave, a young man in black robes sat cross-legged, holding an ancient flute of peculiar design in his hand.
“I wonder what treasures are inside the Cosmos Bag of an inner disciple of the Xuanyuan Sect?”
“It’s a pity that in the end, that Song Yan will learn the secret of this flute.”
Wan Songran smiled lightly, though his eyes held cold killing intent. “In that case, why not be honest with each other?”
“Oh?”
“Abandoning one’s own defensible territory to come knocking on the door… Hmph, they say the fox clan has superior intelligence, but I think they are nothing special. In the end, they are nothing more than beasts.”
“But this does make things simpler.”
Calculating that the time was about right, the young man rose from the ground and walked out of the cave.
Below the cave, the ground was littered with the dense corpses of wolf demons and fox demons. Wan Songran looked at the flute in his hand, grinning broadly, his eyes gleaming with delight and greed.
It was said that the Wan family ancestor was a great cultivator with heaven-reaching and earth-penetrating abilities, though his exact realm was known to no one.
Later, this great cultivator was harmed by treacherous people and perished in Danyang Prefecture, Chen State.
Afterward, the Wan family had prospered for a time, but due to making too many enemies and each generation of family disciples being less talented than the last, they gradually declined.
By now, excluding those with no cultivation aptitude, the Chen State Wan family had only around twenty true cultivators.
The situation was precarious.
Wan Songran was the most talented disciple of his generation, and the Wan family head had sent him to join the Lingfu Sect, one of the six great sects.
A month and a half ago, the previous head of the Wan family—Wan Songran’s grandfather—had summoned him back to the family and bestowed this strange flute upon him.
“What a bunch of stupid old fossils,” Wan Songran muttered to himself.
“With such a fine treasure, if properly utilized, how could my Wan family have fallen to this state?”
“But this is not bad. Let me, Wan Songran, lead the Wan family back to glory.”
He leaped forward through the air.
“He’s not done yet?”
He stopped on a tree branch, gazing into the distance.
“Awoo—”
At that moment, in a clearing not far away, a high first-tier wolf demon was locked in a fierce battle with a fox demon. The wolf king let out a furious roar that left Wan Songran dizzy even from afar.
“Even the Night Wind Wolf clan, with their incomplete spiritual intelligence, has such a terrifying roar.”
“Right now, my strength is lacking, and the flute’s sound can only slightly affect high first-tier demons, and only for one or two breaths at most. Trying to compete with these two beasts this way is nothing but a fool’s dream.”
“But…”
“Hmm—”
The flame mark on the great fox’s forehead had fully ignited. It slowly raised its head, fixing the Night Wind Wolf King before it with a cold, piercing gaze.
Those golden vertical pupils faintly radiated a brilliant, flowing light. The luminescence shimmered in the darkness like a death sentence.
“Boom!”
An explosive burst of flame hurtled toward the Night Wind Wolf King. The latter tried to dodge, but then a melodious flute sound echoed through the mountains and forest.
A momentary lapse and hesitation—that was all it took for the wolf king to take the full force of the flame’s impact, and it also threw the great fox’s demon technique into disarray.
The great fox glanced thoughtfully toward the north.
“Tch—”
“Ow…”
The wolf king let out a miserable cry. It seemed to sense something was wrong, but its limited spiritual intelligence prevented it from thinking further. It only urged itself to pour all its fury onto the nemesis before it.
The wolf king pounced viciously at the great fox.
“The Night Wind Wolves are bloodthirsty and warlike, and the Fire Pattern Fox commands demon arts. Once both are wounded from their battle, I can step in and reap the rewards. Two late first-tier demon cores! And all these demon corpses…”
“Wang Xi, oh Wang Xi, should I thank you or not…”
Just as Wan Songran was lost in his fantasies, a pair of keen eyes was also watching this battlefield.
Releasing his spiritual sense, Song Yan swept it toward the source of the flute sound, and sure enough, he discovered him.
“Wan Songran…?”
At only the sixth level of Qi Refining, he could command a pack of Night Wind Wolves including high first-tier demons. Was this flute truly that extraordinary? “No, those two great demons seem to have only been affected for an instant…”
The two demons clashed together again, and the flute sounded once more.
The great fox was about to dodge the wolf king’s wind-blade claws when it was confused by the flute sound and hesitated for a moment.
Pfft.
The blow nearly tore off the great fox’s right ear, and blood flowed freely from its eye.
“Ow—”
Song Yan lowered his head and asked, “Xiao He, this flute seems to be able to control demons. Are you… affected?”
“It seems… I’m just a little drowsy. Other than that, there’s no effect.”
Xiao He poked her head out and said softly, “This flute should only affect the demons she wants to command. If I stay alert, I’ll definitely be fine!”
Song Yan nodded, feeling somewhat reassured.
“Tch—”
The wolf king, seizing the moment when the fox was off guard, clamped its hind legs around the great fox’s neck, then raised its front paw and struck hard at its left eye.
The battle remained deadlocked. The wolf king’s body was charred in multiple places from the flames, and its left hind leg joint had been snapped by the great fox. But the great fox was no better off—its right ear was gone entirely, blood flowed ceaselessly from its right eye, and its body was covered in wounds. It gasped for breath.
“A final song for you both.”
Wan Songran smiled contemptuously, arrogantly treating these two demons as playthings in his hands.
The flute sounded, and the wolf king and the great fox lunged at each other for their final, desperate struggle.
“Fellow Daoist Song, now that you’ve seen the wondrous effects of my Taotail Immortal Flute, why not show yourself?”
Since Song Yan had deliberately sought him out using the transmission talisman, there was no need to hide any longer. He even deliberately released a trace of spiritual energy fluctuation to let the other party sense him.
He walked out slowly but said nothing, only watching as the two great first-tier demons in the clearing gradually lost their life force.
“Since you’ve come, I take it you agree.”
Between clever people, there was no need for things to be spelled out. The transmission talisman had clearly been an invitation to join forces against a common enemy.
“Who wants to kill us?”
“The Xuanyuan Sect. Wang Xi.”
Wang Xi?
Song Yan frowned. In their previous encounters, perhaps because he had been immersed in practicing techniques from the Sword Technique Compendium, he had not noticed anything unusual about Wang Xi.
“Why?”
“Tch…”
Wan Songran scoffed. “In the cultivation world, the strong devour the weak. Killing and robbing—does that really need a reason?”
“…”
“I, Wan Songran, cultivate for the sake of eternal life, for the sake of freedom and ease…”
A sharp light flashed in his eyes. “I simply refuse to be an insect or a beast in someone else’s eyes!”
“Tell me, what is your plan?”
Wan Songran raised an eyebrow. “Plan? There is no plan.”
“We wait for him to come to us, then use everything we have to finish him. Simple as that.”
This Wan Songran seemed to have great confidence in his own strength?
Song Yan felt somewhat puzzled. Even with this strange flute, how could two penniless outer disciples of lesser sects possibly match an elite inner disciple of Chu Kingdom’s greatest sect?
“The secret realm will only exist for half an hour. When the exit opens, it will only remain for a moment.”
“Wang Xi’s spiritual energy is already approaching this area.” Wan Songran’s expression was stern. Several Azure-Eyed Hawks circled and perched among the treetops. “The jade pendant at his waist can sense the exit’s location.”
“Only by killing him can we survive.”