Chapter 8: Granny’s Skin (1/2)
Chapter 8: Granny’s Skin
Translator: NinetalesEditor: Ninetales
”Granny once said that, if I got lost in the Great Ruins and couldn’t return to the village, I shouldn’t panic,” Qin Mu thought to himself calmly. ”There are many remnants of civilization in the Great Ruins. If I can find one to hide in, I might be able to survive. Two conditions need to be met for a remnant to be considered safe. First, it has to have stone statues similar to the ones in the village. Second, I need to check if there are a large amount of strange beasts in the remnant. Most are intelligent, so they’d know where to go to escape the darkness…”
Many remnants of civilization existed in the Great Ruins. Qin Mu had passed by traces of abandoned cities and villages earlier on. Considering their crumbling fences and dilapidated walls, they were extremely ancient. However, he hadn’t had time to stop and check if they had stone statues.
All of a sudden, the entire world went eerily silent, so quiet that it could drive a person insane.
The setting sun had already reached the horizon, only half of it visible.
Immediately after silence fell upon the Great Ruins, the beating of wings could be heard. Looking up, Qin Mu saw a huge flock of giant birds flying overhead, forming a dense cluster in the sky. Then the ground began to tremble, and the forest around him began to fall apart. One by one, strange beasts split the earth, emerging from tunnels they had been digging and began to scramble frantically.
Qin Mu even heard water erupt from the swamp, looking over to see a few scarlet fish several yards in length leaping from the water’s surface and using their fins to flee on land as if they were legs!
The sight confused Qin Mu. Were fish still considered fish if they could sprint on land?
”All of these strange beasts are heading the same direction. I’ll definitely be able to hide from the darkness there!”
Spirits high, Qin Mu dashed alongside the beasts.
As the sky grew dimmer and dimmer, the darkness in the distance came swarming in like a tidal wave. That darkness was nothing like a simple transition between day and night. It resembled a huge flood, engulfing every mountain, valley, and all of the wilderness it came across. Even though it wasn’t his first time seeing the darkness overtake the land, Qin Mu still considered it an extremely stunning sight.
The darkness flooded towards Qin Mu and the herd of strange beasts like a torrential downpour, yet all of the animals continued to furiously charge in its direction.
Qin Mu hesitated for a moment.
Was there really a safe place ahead in which he could take shelter from the darkness
Wouldn’t he suffer a tragic end if that weren’t the case?
”The darkness is fast approaching. Even if I turned back now, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the village. I’d never be able to outrun the darkness.”
Gritting his teeth, he desperately rushed forward.
”No use worrying. I can only continue running with the beasts!”
Three miles down the river that ran by Disabled Elderly Village, the battle between Granny Si and the Li River's Five Elders had reached a breaking point. Originally, only four elders had been attacking Granny Si. However, since they hadn’t been able to promptly take her down, the fifth elder who had been watching the battle from the cliff, Qi Yanbing, joined the fray. Adding him to their onslaught, they set up their Five Elements Devil Purifying Trigram.
Up to this point, Granny Si had only been able to just barely fend off the attacks of the four elders. However, her strength surprisingly increased when Qi Yanbing added to their efforts. Even their Five Element Devil Purifying Trigram could not trap this old woman.
This realization startled the five elders, and they soon grew frustrated. Only now did they figure out that this old woman wanted to take care of them all at once. To that end, she had pretended to be weak, intent on luring Qi Yanbing into the battle and prevent him from escaping.
Light on her feet, Granny Si flickered through the area like a phantom. The silver needles from her basket moved as if they had minds of their own, instantly covering the Li River's Five Elders in wounds. Threads that had been attached to the needles were now running through the five elders, binding their souls and bodies and preventing them from moving.
Granny Si walked towards them, scissors in hand and a bright smile on her face. ”Granny me hasn’t treated human skin for a long time… I wonder if my skills have gotten rusty…”
As soon as she came to stand in front of Qi Yanbing, he suddenly opened his mouth. A silver pellet shot from his mouth and streaked towards Granny Si’s face.
The moment the silver pellet came into contact with the air, it grew in size. The pellet instantly became a hundred times larger, expanding into a sphere made of ten thousand pure sword lights!
This sudden change caught Granny Si off guard, and she immediately moved backward in retreat. Her body went bizarrely limp, and like an earthworm squirming through the air, she dodged the sword lights. At the same time, she threw out the scissors in her hand. Like two silver dragons, the scissors flashed through the air, cutting and snipping at the sword lights.
As nimble as she was, Granny Si had still been caught off guard.
One of the myriad sword lights had managed to strike her from behind, and since she was a hunchback, the sword light had essentially found her blindspot.
Soon enough, the sword lights that had filled the sky vanished as pieces of broken swords came crashing to the ground, covering several acres of the area.
The silver pellet that the sword lights came from returned to its original, diminutive size and fell to the ground with a crack.
Granny Si returned to the ground as well, pulling the sword out of her back with a frown.
”You still dodged it…” croaked Qi Yanbi, the leader of the five elders. Despair filled his face as he cried, ”Six thousand eight hundred and forty-two swords were hidden inside that silver pellet. Yet… at such a close range… you still managed to dodge them! You definitely aren’t an ordinary figure among the devils... but an old woman like you has never been seen among their number. Just who are you...?”
The second he asked that question, he noticed something strange about Granny Si’s back. Although her hunchback did have a wound that the sword caused, there wasn’t any blood flowing from it. Instead, light shined on it, revealing that the inside was hollow.
”This isn’t your true appearance.” The realization made Qi Yanbing’s hair stand on end. ”You’re… you’re wearing someone else’s skin…”