Chapter 43- Debating the Dao of Cruelty

There was something awful about watching acid freeze and corrode flesh. The demonized hawk certainly thought it was awful. It screamed and thrashed wildly. Tian had to wedge himself into the widening wound to avoid being thrown away. He didn’t want to leave the stomach just yet. The acid was doing wonderful work for him. He’d let it work on the muscles and other organs for him first.

It was awful to hear the hawk scream. It had been awful to watch the centipedes thrash in agony as well. Each of them a tyrant, a venomous hunter with fangs longer than Tian’s legs. Each dying in the belly of a bird, no different from an earthworm. Now the bird’s stomach was eating the rest of its body. Awful to think about. It had also eaten him. Tormented him beyond words. He could feel the memory of the pain pressing up against his focus, pulling him back down. Trying to make him fall even now. Tian pushed past it. He would soar.

Tian tried to push the wound open a bit more with his legs, slipped and was flung through the gap. Sometimes, soaring starts with a dive.

It was dark and hot as hell. The fire qi prickled like needles against his skin and the corrupted flesh tried to taint him. It was as horrible as expected. He could barely move, pressed by the force of the emptying acid up against a wall of muscles. The acid had dug in here as well. His knife was gone- utterly dissolved. No matter. He had hands. He had two new fingers. He set to pulling the weakened flesh apart. And he wasn’t working alone.

Heavy thuds echoed through the flesh of the bird. He was starting to hear other noises, noises from outside. Were they on the ground, or fighting in the air still? The bird was thrashing around a lot, but he was practically wedged into the wall and long since lost any sense of which way was up.

There was a sudden feeling of weightlessness. Two questions were quickly answered. That up was that way, and that they had been fighting in the air. It seemed they were now falling. He tried to claw his way deeper into the meat of the bird. The memory of falling a long way into the acid lake that felt stone hard on impact was quite fresh. The bird was falling a lot further than he had, and the ground beneath was actual sand and rock. It suddenly jerked upward and the downward momentum slowed. Then the demon’s fall sped up again and they landed with a shake that rattled Tian’s brain.

Seems the bird wasn’t dead yet. Tian’s lungs were starting to burn. However long it had been, he couldn’t go much longer without air. He sped up the digging. It was like trying to pull through sheets woven from steel fibers. The muscle and fascia were immune to his prodding. Only the stomach acid had an effect. Tian could only help it along, trying to make gaps for it to seep into.

“Taste my sword, beast!” A voice bellowed from outside the bird. There was a ripping sound, but nothing penetrated. Tian grinned. It sounded like one of his brothers was working not too far from him. He gathered his little strength and climbed up. The pressure of the acid was decreasing, which wasn’t good for Tian.

It was getting harder to move. Were the attacks landing around here? He had no real way to tell. He just dug. Every handful of rotted flesh he tore away was a handspan deeper the acid could penetrate. The bigger the hole, the more stomach acid would fill it. Tian had turned into a brutal parasite. Having fed on the bird’s stomach, he now burned his way out.

“Holy Sword Art, Fourth Form! CUT!” There was the most extraordinary noise, then the bird fell over. The muscles twitched violently, spasming. They would have crushed Tian if so much of them hadn’t rotted away around him. The pressure on his body dropped massively. He kept digging. Some vital essence was leaching out of the bird. It was rotting even faster now. He dug and dug and-

“Careful, Brother! Something is crawling out of it!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll- wait!”

Tian waved his hands frantically through the hole, before ripping it wider and tumbling out.

He blinked in the light, trying to see what was going on.

“A demon! A human form demon!”

“Use your damned eyes! Does a demon have storage rings?”

“Ehh. I don’t actually know, Senior Brother.”

Tian rubbed his eyes furiously.

“Honestly, Junior, I don’t know either. Hey-”

Tian gave up on the rubbing and bowed. “West Town Outer Court Disciple Tian Zihao greets the Seniors. May I ask the Martial Uncles if I have reached Resupply Depot Number Four?”

“Ah. Yes, you have.”

“My thanks, Martial Uncle. Might I ask you to direct me towards Quartermaster Wu?”

“She’s a little preoccupied. Wipe your eyes, junior.”

Tian felt a cloth hit his face. He grabbed a canteen from his storage ring, wet the cloth and wiped his face clean. He looked around, and saw true slaughter.

The Martial Uncles in front of him wore the uniforms of the Inner Court. No longer elegant and beautiful, their robes were torn and their faces marred by blood and smoke. Both were wounded. They weren’t alone. The battlefield was covered in venomous insects and mutated beasts, while in the sky, black robed sorcerers riding clouds of hornets did battle with cultivators on flying swords.

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Tian looked around quickly. He couldn’t do anything about the battle in the sky, but the animals on the ground were Earthly realm. There were Earthly Realm heretics running around too. What he couldn’t kill, he could wound or distract. His strong brothers and sisters could finish the job for him.

“Sorry, you are the delivery boy? And you got eaten by the demonized hawk?”

“Being eaten by a hawk isn’t on the list of acceptable reasons not to complete the mission. Besides, if I can’t manage minor matters like delivering a package, my brothers will all look down on me.”