Elderly Martial Saint: Sixty Times the Cultivation Speed ​​at the Start

On the open ground, the faint sound of a snake's tongue flicking in and out was so faint it made one's teeth ache.

Wang Yue crouched behind the bushes, slowly raising his right hand and spreading his five fingers, making a preparatory gesture towards Yang Dongxi.

Yang Dongxi lay on the other side, his hunting bow fully drawn, the bowstring taut like a deadly line.

The arrow tip was aimed at the snake's left eye.

Sweat rolled down his forehead, dripped down his nose onto the back of his hand, and then slid from the back of his hand onto the bowstring.

That hand was shaking.

Yi Yang huddled in the back, his back pressed against the tree trunk, his old face scrunched up, a wood-chopping knife resting across his knees.

To outsiders, he looked like a country old man who was so scared he almost lost his soul.

But his eyes, peeking through the tangled leaves, clearly counted the positions of everyone.

Wang Yue suddenly clenched his five fingers.

Whoosh!

The arrow left the bowstring and flew away, cutting through the wind.

That arrow was ruthless.

Unfortunately, it was off by half an inch.

The arrow pierced the edge of the snake's left eye socket, causing its scales to crack and black and red blood to splatter out. The fishy and sweet smell spread instantly, making people's stomachs churn.

The giant snake suddenly raised its head, and its thick, long body sprang free from its coils. Its gray-blue scales rubbed against the decaying leaves, and the withered branches and rotten leaves of half a clearing were all swept into the air.

"Damn it!"

Liu Biao was halfway through his rant when the rest of his words got stuck in his throat.

The giant snake raised half of its body, and its right pupil shrank to a thin line.

Han Zhu gripped the iron fork, the veins on the back of his hand bulging, but his steps were a beat slower.

Chen Liu took a half step back, his boots sinking into the rotten leaves with an untimely sound.

Yang Dongxi's face turned pale; he hadn't even touched the second arrow yet.

Li Shun was the first to make a move.

He hissed, "Get started! Don't just stand there waiting for it to order!"

This brought them back to their senses.

Han Zhu and Liu Biao lunged out from the right.

Han Zhu thrust his iron fork straight at the snake's neck, the tip aiming for the side.

But when the snake twisted its body, its massive form was so agile it sent chills down one's spine.

The tip of the fork grazed the scales, scattering a few sparks.

"Open it for me!"

Liu Biao followed and chopped at the snake's belly with his short axe.

That axe blow landed squarely.

The snake's scales were thinner, and the axe blade cut two inches into them, spraying blood onto Liu Biao's arm—hot and foul-smelling.

The snake, in pain, swung its tail.

Liu Biao's axe was still stuck in his flesh, and there was no time to remove it.

boom!

He flew through the air, crashing through two bushes, and rolled to the ground, blood gushing from his mouth, his lower back seemingly collapsed.

But this man is ruthless too.

He gritted his teeth, grabbed a nearby tree root, and struggled to sit up, saying with difficulty, "I'm not dead yet!"

Yang Dongxi's second arrow had already hit the target from behind the bushes.

A hunter's skill ultimately lies in his tools of the trade.

This time, his hands didn't shake.

The arrow flew out and went straight into the wound in the snake's left eye, with the shaft penetrating halfway in.

The giant snake was in excruciating pain, its head thrashing about, leaving a dark trail of blood in the air.

It locked onto Yang Dongxi's location, spread its body, and rushed towards him, skimming the ground.

The bushes were smashed.

Li Shun intercepted from the left, drawing his waist knife, the blade grazing the snake's neck.

puff.

A deep gash was cut open on the side of the snake's neck, exposing half of its bone.

This knife wound saved Yang Dongxi's life by half.

The snake's head veered off course, yet it still smashed the bushes into pieces.

Yang Dongxi rolled on the spot to avoid the snake's bite, but not its tail.

Snapped!

The snake's tail swept across his calf.

The sound of a bone fracture is very crisp.

Yang Dongxi groaned and fell to the ground, his hunting bow flying far away.

"Press it down!"

Wang Yue charged out from the front, slashing diagonally with his waist knife.

The blade struck the dark markings on the snake's spine, wedging itself into the crevices of the scales.

With a forceful pull of his arm, he tore off a palm-sized piece of scale, revealing tender red snake flesh underneath.

Chen Liu gritted his teeth and delivered the final blow, stabbing the tender flesh with the short knife from the other side.

The giant snake went completely mad and its body began to twist and turn.

Chen Liu slowed down, and the snake's body wrapped around his right arm.

Click.

The sound of bones breaking reached everyone's ears, making their back teeth clench with nausea.

"what!"

Chen Liu screamed in agony as the dagger slipped from his hand.

The next instant, the man was thrown several feet away, his head slammed into a broken tree stump, his body twitched twice and then fell still.

Wang Yue's pupils constricted, and he slid a long trail in the bloody mud, narrowly avoiding the sweeping snake tail.

Yi Yang lay on the back, her eyelids drooping.

One dies.

He made a mental note of it.

It's not gloating.

On the battlefield, however, every time someone is lost, the situation changes.

The snake had many wounds on its body, and it was bleeding profusely, but the pain made it even more irritable.

It turned its head and looked at Yang Dongxi, who was lying on the ground.

The hunter's calf was broken, and he couldn't stand up, so he could only crawl backward.

Fingers dug into the rotten soil, fingernails peeled off, revealing a mixture of mud and blood.

"Help me!"

At this moment, Li Shun rushed in from the side and slashed at the side of the snake's mouth with his knife. The blade chipped, but the snake's head was deflected.

But the snake's tail swept in at the same time.

Li Shun leaped to avoid it, but his calf was still grazed. He staggered two steps when he landed, and the sole of his boot tore through the decaying leaves.

It's just these two steps.

The snake turned its head to deal with the enemy that had hurt it the most, and bit down on Yang Dongxi's shoulder.

The hunter let out a short, sharp scream.

The giant snake shook its head.

Yang Dongxi was thrown several meters away, his body hit the rocks and slid down, and he was not moved again.

Seeing this, Han Zhu seized the opportunity, raised his iron fork, and rushed forward, the tip of the fork piercing the snake's old wound.

This thrust went deep enough that the iron fork sank in halfway and became lodged directly on the snake's body.

The giant snake rolled around.

Han Zhu gripped the fork handle tightly with both hands, was pulled up and his body slammed into the tree trunk.

His chest collapsed.

Blood gushed from his mouth and nose.

His fingers loosened, and he hung from the tree root like a wrung-out rag.

From the start of the fight until now, only a little over a hundred breaths have passed.

Yang Dongxi died.

Chen Liu died.

Han Joo died.

Liu Biao was seriously injured.

Only Wang Yue and Li Shun remained alive and standing firm.

And then there's that old man, Yi, who was "terrified."

But the giant snake wasn't faring much better; its left eye was ruined, its neck was open, an iron fork was stuck in its abdomen, blood was everywhere, and its movements had slowed considerably.

Wang Yue was panting, blood dripping from his waist knife.

His gaze swept across the battlefield, then fell upon the bushes behind him.

Yiyang is still there.

That old man, surprisingly, hasn't run away yet.

Wang Yue's mind works very quickly.

Yang Bantou had instructed that they should find an opportunity to deal with Yi Yang.

This opportunity is practically handed to us.

Wang Yue drew his sword and chased after the giant snake, displaying impressive stance, but his sword strikes were wildly off-target.

He neither cut the snake's neck nor its wounds.

Instead, the snake's tail was slashed diagonally at the end, and the snake, startled, instinctively turned and charged in the opposite direction.

The direction was precisely where Yi Yang was hiding in the bushes.

Yi Yang had been paying attention to Wang Yue's actions for some time.

From the moment Wang Yue's first slash missed a vital spot, he knew that the constable's stomach contained not snake gall, but filth.

The gray-blue snake, its body stained with blood, charged forward.

The shrubs were broken.

Leaves and branches flew about wildly.

Yi Yang neither blocked nor actually dodged.

The moment the snake's head smashed through the bushes, he was thrown to the side and backward by the impact, tumbling into the dense forest.

Upon landing, its back grazed the tree roots.

The clothes were torn open.

The skin and flesh were cut and bled.

It really hurts.

But this injury is nothing to him now that he is in a state of Qi and Blood imbalance.

He landed and held his breath, his whole body went limp, and he lay motionless in the dead leaves.

The tip of my tongue was bitten raw by my teeth.

Half a mouthful of bloody foam squeezed from the corner of his lips, sticking to his gray beard.

He looked exactly like an old man who had been swept away by a giant snake; his death seemed quite reasonable.

Wang Yue looked back to confirm that he had completed the task assigned to him by Yangzhou University.

Amidst the smoke and fallen leaves, Yi Yang lay motionless in the grass.

Blood still clung to the broken branch.

The weight lifted from Wang Yue's heart.

But the giant snake was not dead yet.

It crashed and rolled, its body carving deep furrows into the ground.

Liu Biao dragged his broken ribs to his feet, picked up the short axe, his face covered in blood and mud, his throat sore and broken.

"brute!"

The short axe cleaved down, landing beside the wound on the snake's belly iron fork.

The wound widened, and blood splattered all over his face.

The giant snake let out a long hiss, its momentum much weaker than before.

It stopped fighting.

The snake stretched out its body and darted towards the depths of the mountains.

As it was leaving, its tail swept across Liu Biao. It was at its last gasp, but it could still be fatal if it hit a person.

Liu Biao was hit in the chest.

He fell backward, his sternum collapsed, and blood and foam came out of his mouth.

His fingers trembled a few times, and the short axe fell to the side of his palm, slipping out of his grasp.

The clearing in the woods was in complete disarray.

Seven people went up the mountain.

Now, only Wang Yue and Li Shun remain standing.

Wang Yue, panting with his hands on his knees, kept his eyes fixed on the direction the giant snake had gone.

The gray-blue snake, trailing blood, burrowed into the deep mountains.

He cursed, "Damn it!"

Despite his scolding, his eyes burned with passion.

Those were eyes filled with greed.

Li Shun stood to the side with a knife in his hand, his trouser legs stained red with blood, and there was no joy on his face.

Wang Yue turned to him and spoke quickly and softly.

"The snake is badly injured and can't go far."

He pointed excitedly in the direction where the bloodstains disappeared, saying, "It went deep into the mountains, most likely returning to its nest. Think about it, how many years has this long worm, almost a monster, been coiled up in Qingmu Mountain? How many live creatures has it eaten? Surely its nest has something in it?"

Wang Yue licked his chapped lips. "Snake gall, snake molts, snake eggs, and maybe even some spiritual items. If we take any one of these to the city, we can live a life of luxury."

Li Shun stared at the corpses scattered on the ground, remaining silent for a long time.

"Are you just going to abandon them?"

Wang Yue swept over the dead body on the ground, his tone as cold as if the dead were strangers.

"You can't take the dead with you. Go back and report it as a death in the line of duty, and the county will provide compensation. The living should collect what they're entitled to first."

Li Shun tightened his grip on the knife and then loosened it. He wiped the snake blood off the knife on his trouser leg and said:

"Walk."

The two followed the trail of blood into the deep forest.