The Sacred Ruins

Chapter 65: The King of Taihang Mountains

Chapter 65: The King of Taihang Mountains

Translator: Mike Editor: Chrissy

Clonk!

The black yak kicked away the silver snake and scolded, “How dare you bastard challenge me?”

The yak did not mean to kill, so it was conservative in the force that came with its thump. Before knowing who the king of the beast truly was, the yak would still have some misgivings.

A black bear suddenly roared and bellowed. It stood on its hind paws, straightening up a torso that measured at least eight meters in length. Its body had drastically increased in size after mutation, and now, the bear was throwing its weight around by fiercely and ruthlessly pounding its chest with its almighty paws.

Roar!

After venting out the last blaring roar off its chest, a strike of lightning suddenly belched out from its mouth. It was a blinding bolt of electric arc which had a blinding feature that shocked many other mutated beasts around it. This bear was one of the heads of its division.

Clonk!

The black yak dodged the strike of the lightning as the arc landed on a giant boulder in the distance. The boulder weighed tens of thousands of jin, but it erupted into a million pieces.

The black bear continued to roar and bellow. One bolt of lightning after another, struck down to annihilate the world below. The arcs skimmed by the body of the black yak, but it was struck by none. The bear was a rare beast alright, since there had never been that many beasts who could master the power of lightning.

The black yak was fearless. It suddenly stood on its hooves and ceased its effort to dodge the devastating bolts. It greeted the homing lightning with its thick and formidable horns. Once it struck upon the yak’s horns, all bolts of lightning dissipated into thin air. They had been absorbed by the yak’s horns.

“Go!”

The black yak commanded. With a clanking clonk, a blinding arc that converged with electric energy suddenly emerged, hovering above the yak’s pointy horns. Then, at the speed of light, the arc was discharged and spiralled forwards, heading directly towards the roaring bear.

Boom!

The black bear was struck by the electric arc. The electric shock charred the bear’s fur and silenced its blaring roar. It was also sent into the air by the crushing force landed by the arc, then it bounced as it plummeted into a pile of pulverized stones.

“Aww...”

It was the roar of the wolves. There were two of them in the crowd, charging forward in a linear formation where one was tailed by the other. The leading wolf was cast in bronze, while the other was covered with a stiffened layer of stone.

Clonk!

The charging duo was met with the yak’s merciless thumps. The power that its hooves had delivered rendered the bronze wolf a twisted face, like a metal being beaten into sheer deformity; however, although part of its face had caved in as a result of the blow, it still maintained its integrity.

The bronze wolf cried an unearthly cry. Not a single bullet had ever stricken a hole through its fortified metallic skin. The wolf had always thought highly of itself, but now after the thump, it was but a deformed piece of scrap iron and nothing more after its body crushed into a boulder.

“Interesting!” The black yak gazed at the bronze wolf, but soon, the look on its face shifted. That stone wolf at the back had opened its gaping mouth and a miasma of yellow mist started belching out. The wolf was intending to petrify the yak with its mysterious power, and it had already taken effect on the yak’s tail.

“F*ck off!”

The black yak blared. It swung its front hooves, then with a thumping boom soon came the blood-curdling scream of the wolf. The wolf’s lower jawbone had been kicked off by the formidable yak then flung into a nearby batch of bushes.

Suddenly, the air became disturbed by a roaring gale. A python that measured at least ten meters in length had appeared amidst all the other chaos. Every piece of vegetation, be it bushes or grasses, all seemed to have gained intelligence; they expressed their fear and respect for the python by dodging aside and opening up a clear path ahead of the python’s slithering body.

It raced with the wind as it crawled forward. It opened its gaping mouth, breathing out an air of sanguinary bloodiness.

Yellow Ox recoiled in fear, hiding behind the black yak. Encountering a slithering worm-like creature was the calf’s darkest fear.

This was the snake who had been standing upright with its upper torso stiffened, the same one that crushed a chopper. This very snake was a combination of deadly power and jaw-dropping speed. It thrust its meat pie of a body forward, trying to smother the black yak with its strangling power.

A snake of this size was more than capable of strangling an elephant to death, crushing its bones to sheer pieces.

However, the black yak did not seem to be bothered at all. It let the snake exert its force to him at will as it tightened its grip; then with a sudden burst of force, the yak wriggled itself free from the snake’s smothering strangle. The yak was free, breathing air at will; but the snake, on the other hand, gave a blood-curdling scream as a section of its muscular torso burst into a gory mixture of blood and torn flesh.

The snake loosened its grip on the yak at once. At a supersonic speed, the snake narrowly escaped its demise. It fled to the summit of a mountain nearby. The bones underneath that layer of flesh was crackling in pain, sounding almost like being on the verge of snapping and fracturing.

Roar!

A horde of fearless beasts bellowed as they charged forward. They went in a crowd of a dozen, forming a sealed encirclement around the black yak and Yellow Ox.

“Don’t push me! I don’t want to kill you bastards!” the black yak warned. Going toe-to-toe against a horde of ravenous beasts was a dangerous commitment alright. Had it been another entity facing off a horde like this, he would have been good as dead for a long while now.

At the back of the horde, there were still hundreds of ferocious beasts, poised for a fight. The looks in their eyes were fierce and deadly.

“The beasts are fighting amongst themselves!”

An observer from within the mountain of White Snake exclaimed. For the desperate people who were surrounded in there, this was like a glint of light, a sparkle of hope and a shimmer of assurance. They saw this internal dissension amidst the beasts as a scarce opportunity for them to break through the encirclement and breathe the fresh air beyond the boundaries of the mountains once again.

“Don’t push me!”

The black yak warned again. Although most of the blows delivered by the beasts were fenced off, a few beasts still had managed to prove themselves as some of the most successful assailants by landing numerous scratches and punches on the yak’s body.

The yak’s eyes turned cold and so was its blood. There was a fearsome deadly intent breeding inside it. It slowly built up, becoming closer to the boiling point minute by minute.

Suddenly, it roared a deafening roar and cried an unearthly cry. The bellow sounded like a muffled thunder detonating in the air, shivering the woods that grew on the entire mountain range.

Boom!

Even the mountains were trembling in fear. Many boulders and pebbles were seen rolling down along the precipitous cliffs. Grasses and leaves were as well losing their lives as they shattered amongst all the other instigated chaos around them.

The crowd of beasts were astounded at first, but soon they realized that their noses and mouths had all started spewing blood profusely. Many of them even tumbled headlong to the ground then died.

Those who survived were truly shocked and startled. They could not cease their retreating steps as they both consciously and subconsciously cringed away from the yak. They now realized how deadly this beast was. Meeting the tough with toughness would yield them no good.

“Hiss! Hiss!”

That silver snake was still in the position of a commander, giving out orders to the beasts and pressing them to fight the yak with a fearless soul.

The snake took the lead itself. It launched itself into the air ahead of it like an electric arc coming in the form of a deadly bolt of lightning.

Clonk!

The black yak showed no more of its courtesy this time. It landed its hooves on top of the snake’s chopstick-length body then trampled it under its hooves.

The little snake moaned and groaned with agony. Its body had twisted out of shape. Even the rock on which the snake was trampled had been crushed and reduced to a mere pile of pulverized mess; in view of this, it was conceivable how much force the yak had exerted with its trample.

“Size of a chopstick; torso of a twig. How dare you challenge me?” said the black yak with a murderous look in its eyes.

Beyond the summits of these hills within the mountain of White Snake, the stranded mutants were desperate for an escape.

“Oh my god!” But suddenly, the face of every mutant turned pale as a sheet. Their eyes were overseeing a terrifying scene in the distance, and the sight of this scene let them come to a halt; some were so terrified that they had to retreat.

People raised their heads and looked forward, but they could not resist the trembles of their bodies. They could not believe what they saw, but the blood-curdling scene in front of them was indeed happening.

Boom!

Someone from the crowd was so terrified that their consciousness was no more. They fainted from fear then tumbled headlong to the ground.

It only took a few seconds before silence suddenly reigned supreme. Not even the timidest sound was echoing in the canyons between these great mountains.

In the distance, every beast had come to a halt and a silence too.

“Take this as a lesson, you bastard. Don’t you dare challenge the dignity of mine next time when you see me. Bow and pray that I won’t crush you like this time again...” Amidst the universal silence that had utterly enshrouded the place, only the yak was mumbling.

Standing behind the yak was the timid Yellow Ox. The calf was so terrified that the hair on its back had all stood on their ends. How the calf wished it could just pull roots and run, but it dared not to move a muscle.

“Moo...” Yellow Ox’s faintly made a sound of bellow, calling the black yak for a stop in its taunting mumble.

“Shut up!” unimpressed by Yellow Ox’s abrupt interruption, the black yak reprimanded.

Yellow Ox was on the verge of breaking tears. Chill ran through its back as its hair stood on their ends. The calf made another timid bellow, as if it had been trying to draw the yak’s attention to something of unparalleled threat and danger.

The black yak paused on its rambling words as well. In fact, the yak’s vigilance was sharper than anyone else. It was already alert to presence of something grand and monstrous behind its back, and just then, it could hardly remain in its composure, but it tried not to turn its head and look over its shoulder.

It was a monstrosity of a beast behind its back. It was a beast of paramount strength and power that had already stricken a boundless sense of fear in its opponents without its enemies looking.

However, regardless of the fear that had stricken its heart, the black yak still could not give in and admit its defeat. The yak was so domineering and overbearing only moments earlier; giving in now would be something that would truly cause it to lose face with the public. The yak could not let loose of its grip on the snake, but it needed to find a way out of this predicament right now.

But at last, the black yak chose to admit its defeat. It raised its trampling hooves, and with a hypocritical smile, it said to the snake, “What a naughty boy. You’re so naughty. But I’ll forgive you this time. Go, go home now little boy. Forget about what just happened. It was just a practical joke.”

Whoosh!

The silver snake fled away from beneath the yak’s hooves without any considerations for its words. It threw the yak an angry glance before it slithered off to the top of another boulder nearby.

The black yak slowly turned its head over its shoulder. Even though the yak had prepared its mind to be struck dumb by the monstrous beast creeping up to it, the sight of the beast when the yak finally looked back rendered the yak so terrified that it almost tottered and tumbled.

“Moo!”

The hair that grew on the yak’s back all stood on their ends. That pair of jet-black horns gleamed with an ominous black glow. There was a terrifying force compelling from the yak’s core that surged to the surface. The yak’s eyes widened, signifying that it was on high alert.

Inches away from the yak, there hung a monstrous creature off the cliff, staring down at the yak, suffusing the air around with a profound sense of terror.

It was a white snake!

The snake’s presence was profoundly domineering. It had an elephantine body and a colossal skull. The thickness of its torso struck fear in all who dared to behold. Its body was purely white, stained with no miscellaneous spots.

The section that hung weightlessly in the mid-air was over ten meters in length. Its basin-sized eyes gleamed with an indifferent silver glitter.

The snake was looking down at the black yak.

How could there possibly exist such monstrosity of a snake?

The situation was a knotty one for the black yak as well. It was only moments earlier when the yak was poking fun at the dwarfism of that chopstick-sized silver snake, but who would have thought that seconds later, its arrogance and its heinous mockery were to be punished by its peer at such a monstrous size. The sheer size of the snake was enough to render the yak fearful.

Over the hills on the inner side of the mountains of White Snake, every mutant was terrified as well. The flame ignited by the hope for a successful escape was now mercilessly quenched by the sight of this monstrous beast. A snake of this size had surpassed the size of every snake that had appeared in the recorded history. They were sure that this must have been the legendary king that was said to be behind the back of the beasts!

Chu Feng was perhaps one of the most terrified amongst all, because as someone local to the region, no-one could have known the region better than him.

The so-called mountains of White Snake were granted with such a name because it had always been rumored that there, amidst the depth of the jungle, slithered a white snake. Although the rumor had been circulating amongst the neighborhood for centuries, no-one had truly believed the existence of such snake.

It was once said that the snake had been practicing Taoism for thousands of years before it reached such an otherworldly size that was far beyond the norms.

But who would be so gullible to believe a word of this?

Right now, Chu Feng was witnessing the existence of the snake with his own eyes. Despite it was a sight much to his disbelief, he still had to stand in awe to admire the sheer size of this beast.

Boom!

Suddenly, an earth-shattering force started quaking the mountain and trembling the earth. The snake had at last fully showed itself from its hiding. It winded its way down by the cliff then curled up in the gorge below, forming a separate hill on its own—entirely made of the its flesh and meat.

If the snake were to stretch itself, it could well reach from the summit of one mountain to that of the other.

All the pythons that were known to men were no longer than a few meters, but the biggest and the longest were like midgets in face of this one.

Although this snake had not mutated, the form and the constitution of its body granted by its thousands of years of life, absorbing the quintessence of the heaven and the earth, had allowed it to become an almost invincible beast. The snake had already been the very definition of terror and dread long before the world had gone through that series of upheavals.

What the snake’s power could truly enable it to do was greatly unfathomable.

The snake could command all the mutated beasts that were active in the region. It could unite beasts of all species, ensuring them to be free from clashes. This had undeniably proven the position of the snake as an overlord of the beasts.

“The king of Taihang Mountains! The king of the Northern Region! Please accept my apologies for causing disturbance in your territory. I’m Demon Ox from the Western Region, and I was only passing by today. Sorry to have offended you, but I do wish that you, my lord, would be generous enough to forgive and forget.”

The black yak spoke in a genteel manner, smiling both placatingly and apologetically. It spoke humbly and modestly.

In the distance, the mutants were as well inwardly disturbed. They were casting their gaze at that white snake in the distance, but the fear inspired by the sight of the snake had been causing their hearts to palpitate sporadically.

“There is no other way than to lend the yak a helping hand, or we’ll all die here. None of us is a match for this monstrous snake.”

That hale and hearty elder from Deity said.

The elder from Bodhi was by his side, and beside him stood Jiang Luoshen, Lin Naoi and Silver Wing. They had come together to find some possible solutions to the situation at hand.

Silver Wing’s face had lost all its rosiness; it had now turned pale as a sheet, because by his reckoning, he would more than likely fail the combat against the snake even if he were in his best state.

“Let the Buddhist disciples to come to blows!” Jiang Luoshen said. There was no longer the hearty smile on her face; instead, there was only solemnness and graveness.

Deity had also made the same decision.

“Let the Son of the Thunder take the post!” Lin Naoi said with great resolute. She was just as charming and calm as always. She remained calm and composed even in life-threatening situations like now.

“A good neighbor is more helpful than a brother who is far away. By the time our reinforcements come, everything would have perhaps become unredeemable.”

“Let’s turn to the departments concerned for help. The government won’t abandon us. They will come and lend their helping hand!”

In the end, the crowd reached a consensus, and that was to work along two lines at the same time. They agreed that it would never hurt to get more people to help and lend their power and ability to a noble cause.

In the distance, the negotiation between the snake and the black yak had utterly crumbled on itself, because no matter what the yak said, it received no responses from the snake. The white snake only coldly looked at the yak with an indifferent coldness in its eyes.

“How dare you scorn me like that, you bastard white snake? I’m the king of all oxen, so you think I will fear you? Let’s fight this out then.”

“That’s exactly what I had been planning. You’re the first mutated beast who dares to call itself a ‘king’ in front of me, so I really want to see what really makes you qualify as a king?” the white snake finally said. Its voice was clear, and the language it spoke was fluent and authentic. The snake’s voice resounded between the mountains before echoing in the great canyons that formed in between.

The voice was that of a female. It was bitingly cold, but it was tuneful and melodious alright. It sounded like a sound that passed down from the heaven, but the chilliness in the voice made it sound as if it had come from the Moon Palace.

Every mutant felt numbness on their scalp. There was also an unspeakable sense of chill running down along their spines. They were astounded by the sight of seeing two primitive beasts mastering the language of humans. It was truly horrifying.

“Before anything else had happened, hand out the pine cone first,” the white snake said.

“Fine. Catch it!”

The black yak violently jerked aside its head then there came a purple pine cone rolling out from its ears, plummeting to the earth.

Suddenly, the yak flung its hooves. Boom! It kicked straight into the falling cone with an unmeasurable force. The cone exploded almost at once.

Tens of hundreds of cone seeds flung into every direction, scattering every inch of the soil around the region!

The force with which the yak struck was so great that the flying cone seeds all landed and scattered tens of hundreds of meters away from where the snake and yak stood.

“Get all of them back! Now!” the white snake ordered. It was still the voice of a fine and charming lady, but it had gotten much colder than before.

Boom!

The white snake finally committed to its killing actions. It dove down its gigantic body, directing all force it could deliver at that yak.

Yellow Ox was expecting the yak to make a big show its martial prowess by directly confronting the white snake, however, to the calf’s astonishment, the black yak suddenly became a gale of black wind, carrying itself hastily away from the scene of action.

The velocity at which the yak fled was so great that it made a blaring sound that deafened all those who were around when it scurried away.

Wasn’t the yak going to fight the snake to a bitter end? Why was it running? Yellow Ox gazed at the yak’s scurrying silhouette in utter astonishment.

“Don’t be stupid, silly! Run! Just run!” the black yak shouted after it had turned into a black blowing gale, making off with everything as it hastily escaped for the world outside.

The look in the eyes of the white snake was cold and frosty. It expanded its monstrous torso, uncurling it into something just like a silver river. It pursued its target at about the same terrifying speed, almost surmounting the barrier of sound.

The hasty speed caused the air to tremble and vibrate. The turbulent fluttering air gave birth to a deafening sound of explosion.

Both the prey and the hunter had surpassed the speed of sound!

People were terrified as they watched that monstrous snake rose high into the air like a dragon with a torso that measured several hundred meters in length. The dragon-like creature soared into the air, then vanished in people’s line of sight.

“Run!”

Many mutants from the crowd were screaming. They saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for them to run for their lives.

The mutants had also committed into ferocious actions. They roared as they fearlessly pounced on the mutants whom they saw as their common enemies. Some were also looking for the cone seeds that had been scattered around in the soil of the bushes.

The mutated beasts flooded the entrance to the inner section of the mountains of White Snake. The fight between the beasts and the humans finally broke out in a major scale. This bloody conflict would only end when either party eventually died out.

On the battleground in the dense grasses, there was a man lying supine. The man’s skin was as yellow as a topaz. It was gleaming with glitters as well. He had been stamped on by a wild boar the size of an armored car. The crushing weight of the boar had not even left a bruise on his topaz-like skin, but the pain did awaken the man at least.

The man was Kong Kim.

The calf and the yak did not kill him after they had beaten the daylight out of him; instead, they dumped him somewhere with a thick growth of grass.

Kong Kim was awakened by the pain. The moment when he finally opened his eyes, the sight of a hill-like boar was right in sight. The boar was trampling him underfoot, sniffing at about his face with its pig-like nose.

“F*ck me! A cow and a calf, and now what? A pig?” Kong Kim flew into a rage.

He was exacerbated alright. It was only moments ago when the torment done by a pair of damnable cows on him just ended with him losing consciousness and falling into a dead faint, only to be awakened up by a rancid pig sniffing dangerously close to his nose and mouth.

His lung was about to explode in anger!

“You’ve pushed me too far!” Kong Kim angrily ranted.

He had always been able to keep calm whatever happened, but today’s encounter had truly driven him insane. He exerted all strength that had been stored in him, strenuously turning his body to crush the ghastly boar under his body.