Stranger Danger

Chapter 108: Beauty Snake

The crier turned out to be an exceptionally beautiful woman lying on the ground. Most of her body was hidden behind a tree, her countenance alone was enough to cause both men to swoon on their feet. Her facial features were bewitching, soft, and loving all at the same time, and her brown eyes seemed to hold all that was good and beautiful in the world. To say that she was overflowing with charm would be an understatement, it was like she was pulling at their very soul.

“Save me, please save me…” The woman’s voice grew increasingly gentle and pleading when she saw them.

“Don’t worry, lass! I’ll save you!” Xiao Yang replied even as his eyes grew increasingly out of focus for some reason. His feet were carrying him toward the young woman before he knew it.

Is this what they call love at first sight? I can’t help but be drawn to her…

The young woman’s voice was like magic. It muddled Ye Qing’s mind until the only thought that was left was: Go to her, go to her, go to her—

“No!”

Ye Qing had just taken a few steps when his mindspace suddenly shook, and the Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method surfaced in his mind. When he regained clarity of mind, he looked at the woman once more and broke out in cold sweat immediately.

The woman was still beautiful, but that was only if he looked at the top half of her body. The bottom half of her beauty was a long snake tail that was covered in colorful scales. They shimmered eerily and hypnotically under the sunlight. It felt both paradoxical and chilling to see her calling out to them like nothing was going on while her lower half was coiled around the tree trunk.

Ye Qing sucked in a deep breath and caught Xiao Yang’s shoulder. At the same time, he imbued his spirit into his voice and uttered, “Careful, brother.”

“What’s wrong?” Xiao Yang blinked and regained his own clarity of mind. When he saw the snake woman for what she was, he jumped, “Mother of heavens! What the hell is this creature?”

“She’s the beauty you speak of, duh!” Ye Qing joked. “It’s the Beauty Snake, a Malice-class Stranger!”

“Beauty Snake?” Xiao Yang goggled. “That name sounds familiar. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of it before!”

And by that you mean you have no idea what a Beauty Snake is, and you need me to explain it to you like you’re a three-year-old. Got it.

And so Ye Qing explained, “The Beauty Snake is a Stranger with a human’s upper body and a snake’s lower half. It excels at hiding itself in the darkness and luring travelers to their doom using its exquisite countenance and some sort of hypnosis power. If the traveler fails to break out of the hypnosis, then the Beauty Snake will devour them beginning from the feet.”

“The victim would not feel any pain whatsoever as they are completely bewitched by the Beauty Snake’s countenance and charm. They might awaken when they’re completely inside its stomach, but by then, it would already be too late.”

“Oh, now I remember!” Xiao Yang tapped his palm in realization. “Do you know that the Beauty snake is actually quite famous among the nobility? Some wealthy, lustful men enjoy breeding Beauty Snakes or turning their heads into specimens for collection purposes. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I can understand why they want one!”

Holy shit there are scalies in this world and one of them is right next to me, Ye Qing thought in horror while stealthily stepping away from Xiao Yang. “Well, there’s a live one right in front of you. If you want to catch it…”

Xiao Yang waved him off. “Nah, forget it. It’s pretty to look at, but that’s all. Not only that, it might eat me alive, which is… huh… anyway, I’m not strong enough to handle it!”

Ye Qing: “...”

Is it just me, or did he just admit to having a vore fetish?

“Save me… save me…”

Meanwhile, the Beauty Snake was trying even harder to hypnotize the two men after they stopped in their tracks. Its facial features grew even prettier, and its voice even more bewitching than before. But since the two men were prepared, of course they did not succumb to its power as a matter of course.

A short while later, when the Beauty Snake finally realized it wasn’t going to work, her voice abruptly turned shrill and unholy. Its face became warped like that of a monster as well. A snake’s tongue flickered out of its throat, and a disgusting stench began to permeate the air.

“Still think she’s beautiful?” Ye Qing asked.

“...” Xiao Yang couldn’t say anything. If its face was as beautiful as a goddess’ before, now it was a kind of horror only a mother could love.

“Let’s get on with this already!” Xiao Yang humphed and stepped forward.

The air shook, and the earth shuddered when he took his first step. It was as if he was drawing power from all around him. Sensing the danger, the Beauty Snake recoiled and spat out a cloud of rainbow-colored gas. The gas looked colorful and smelled sweet, but it withered every plant that came into contact with it. It was clearly very poisonous. However, the poison gas abruptly burst into flames before it could spread closer, and the Beauty Snake with it as well.

“Craaaaaaah!” The Beauty Snake shrieked in pain while dropping on the ground and rolling back and forth like a log. Its flailing tail was powerful enough to break trees and crush stones, and yet it just couldn’t extinguish the flames on its body no matter what.

The flames were golden in color and exceedingly bright. It was also so hot that the surrounding air became distorted as if the forest had suddenly turned into a furnace. Naturally, the Beauty Snake was burned into ashes in just an instant.

What an incredible astral qi! Ye Qing thought as he observed the battle. As it turned out, Xiao Yang’s astral qi was a fire element astral qi just like Qing Kui’s, though there was of course a great difference between the two astral qis. If Qing Kui’s astral qi was like a monster in the dark ready to spill blood and gore at a moment’s notice, then Xiao Yang’s was like the midday sun; hot, bright and utterly fearless. It was no less powerful than Qing Kui’s astral qi!

“Game over. Now, let’s continue on our way!” Xiao Yang clapped his hands and looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Not yet. Give me a moment.” Ye Qing stopped Xiao Yang before charging his sleeves with qi and sweeping away the unnatural dust and heat in the surroundings. Then, he walked up to the tree where the Beauty Snake was coiled around earlier.

Xiao Yang’s golden flame was so hot that it could burn even a Malice-class Beauty Snake into ash. However, the tree was only scorched on the outside.

By now, Xiao Yang had noticed the oddity as well. “Huh? What is this tree? How did it withstand my Purple? Sun Gold Flame?”

Purple? Sun Gold Flame? Is that the name of his astral qi? I wonder what grade it is? Ye Qing thought but did not allow it to show on his face. He answered, “This tree is called the Beauty Tree. It is born when it is struck by lightning. Extremely tough and impervious to fire, water, wind and even the cold, it is an excellent material to make a Strange Artifact.”

“Of course, there is a reason why it’s called the Beauty Tree instead of the Lightning Tree or something. It’s because the Beauty Snake is born from it. So long as the Beauty Tree is still alive, a new Beauty Snake will replace the one that was killed.”

Ye Qing pressed a palm to the tree trunk and sucked in a deep breath. A toad-like croak erupted from his abdomen, and his palm crackled with lightning.

“Toad Force”

“Boundless Lightning Palm”

.

Rumble!

The tyrannical force poured into the Beauty Tree and easily exploded the tree trunk that withstood the Purple? Sun Gold Flame. The ghost of a Beauty Snake howled and flew out of the tree—it was obviously the Beauty Snake Xiao Yang had just killed—but it dissipated into nothing just as quickly.

One silver rune, get! Ye Qing thought happily when he confirmed that the Beauty Snake was truly dead. This was why he hadn’t attacked the Stranger sooner. One, it was to check out Xiao Yang’s abilities, and two, he knew that Xiao Yang would not be able to eliminate the Beauty Snake in one strike. Why would he exert himself when he could reap the rewards without?

“Most impressive, brother! You’re surprisingly knowledgeable, aren’t you?” Xiao Yang did not suspect a thing and sung his praises.

Ye Qing returned a humble smile and said, “You’re welcome. I am a scholar!”

“...”

We can still be friends if you never use the word “scholar” again!

Ye Qing and Xiao Yang resumed their journey after taking out the Beauty Snake. Coiled Snake Ridge wasn’t particularly tall, but it was winding, crooked, and circled back and forth like an actual snake. The path itself was extremely rugged and seemingly endless as well, not to mention the bountiful of sudden cliffs and scarps along the way. It was so infamous that someone had even made a short poem for it,

“Like an epic

the mountain twists and turns

Each step

Can be the step that leads to the heavens.”

A normal person would be hardpressed crossing Coiled Snake Ridge in a single day, but Ye Qing and Xiao Yang were powerful warriors with excellent movement skills and great stamina. It took them only a short time to cross over half of the terrain. When they arrived at a hanging bridge, Ye Qing said, “We’re making good progress. At this rate, we should make it out of the mountains before night falls.”

“Yeah!” Xiao Yang nodded in agreement. “I can’t wait to get off these mountains. My feet feel like they might fall off my ankles at any moment.”

The hanging bridge was about thirty meters long. It was a series of wooden planks chained together by iron. There were no handrails. The hanging bridge was the only thing that connected the two hills, and it was suspended above a gulf of clouds. The scenery looked like something straight out of a painting or a celestial realm.

The duo encountered no danger until they reached the center of the hanging bridge. It was then the surrounding clouds suddenly churned unnaturally.

“Careful. Something’s not right!” Xiao Yang warned immediately. Right after that, a plethora of ethereal figures abruptly appeared behind them and walked forward like they were in the middle of crossing the bridge as well. Their silhouettes grew increasingly solid with every step until Ye Qing and Xiao Yang saw them for what they were. They were soldiers wearing armor and carrying sickle spears, but something wasn’t right about them. Their armor looked outdated, and sickle spears were oddly-shaped. It didn’t match the standard military equipment of Chu, Yan, Yong or Wei.

The soldiers were marching in full military formation, and they looked ready to fight at any moment. They were walking straight toward Ye Qing and Xiao Yang, but strangely, their footsteps made not a single sound, and the soldiers were staring straight ahead as if they couldn’t see the two warriors.

“That’s… the standard equipment of the You Dynasty!” Xiao Yang blanched. “They’re You soldiers! But this cannot be possible!”

Ye Qing knew exactly what he meant. A thousand years ago, You was an almighty empire that had unified the lands and ruled over the world. However, they had long been destroyed and consumed by Yan, Chu, Yong and Wei. Naturally, it was impossible for soldiers of the You Dynasty to still exist.

“No, they aren’t alive… this is an Anomaly!”

In this world, an Anomaly was a special kind of Strange Realm or energy. It could also be some sort of unknowable existence. No one knows where they came from, how they were formed, or even what kind of dangers they contained because some Anomaly were everchanging. They were also impossible to destroy. A powerful warrior could wipe every trace of an Anomaly from this world, and it would simply come back after a period of time. It was terribly strange to put it mildly.

Anomaly usually appeared in fixed locations, and it was usually impossible to predict how dangerous it was until it was too late. Some Anomaly were death traps with no possible escape, and some were completely harmless.

In other words, they were in deep shit.

“We need to go!” Xiao Yang uttered while looking like he had swollen something rotten, but Ye Qing shook his head and replied just as severely,

“It’s too late!”

He said this because the You soldiers were already right in front of them.

Ye Qing and Xiao Yang tensed up like drawn bows and channeled their energies. They were ready to react as soon as they perceived any danger. However, the You soldiers walked right past them as if they couldn’t see them. They kept going forward until suddenly, the foremost soldier looked over the bridge as if he saw something below. His look of surprise quickly morphed into abject terror as he opened his mouth and screamed something they couldn’t hear. It was as if they existed in a different spacetime.

Something more horrifying happened next. The screaming soldier’s head abruptly fell off his shoulders and spewed a fountain of blood! It almost looked like an overripe melon!

The soldiers fell into panic almost immediately. Everyone was looking down the hanging bridge to check what was going on, and whatever they saw had them so horrified that they were screaming like they had lost their minds. The next moment, one soldier exploded into several pieces as if he had been ripped apart by invisible hands, another lost his head as if he was hit by a giant hammer, a third soldier suffocated slowly like he was hanging from a rope, a fourth soldier abruptly went splat as if he had hit the ground at high velocity, a fifth soldier lost his flesh bit by bit like he was going through death by a thousand cuts until all that was left was a bloody skeleton, a sixth soldier burned into a pile of ashes and more.

It was a chilling sight to say the least.