Free Web NovelChapter 37: Chapter 37—Uninvited Enemy
Chapter 37—Uninvited Enemy
Hua Mingyue stepped next to the boy, raised one finger, and tapped him lightly in the center of his forehead.
The boy stumbled back a step, rubbing his forehead with a frown. Then his body twitched—once, sharply—and fur began to spread across his right hand, then his left. He clenched both hands to stop it, but it wasn’t useful.
Within moments, he had gained two sharp fox claws. And then the transformation did not stop—nine tails as large as the boy himself erupted from his backside and swayed in the air.
"What—how is this possible?!" the boy screamed, staring at his own claws and golden tails. "I could only change one hand before. Just the claw—"
Hua Mingyue studied him with mild interest. "You ate it, didn’t you? The fox?" She covered her mouth with her hand fan. "Your body has been adjusting to it and absorbing it. It would have taken time on its own—but this goddess helped your body finish the process."
The boy froze. The memory surfaced—the dead fox in the forest outside the city, lying on the ground.
"What’s it to you?" he snapped, baring his new fox claws at her, his nine tails swaying faster.
Hua Mingyue scanned him. Apart from the furry claws and nine tails, the kid was still entirely human.
"Stop staring at me, lady." He hissed—and lunged at her.
Hua Mingyue sighed faintly. "You are too aggressive. Sleep for now."
She stepped forward faster than he could track, tapped his forehead again with one finger, and was already back in her place before the boy had registered her movement. Purple light flashed across his body. His form reverted—fur claws receding, tails dissolving. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious before he landed.
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On the other side of the invisible boundary, Lei Cheng had increased his strength and tried again as he failed to bring her out.
"Come out."
He directed multiple thick green vines through the domain wall from outside, coiling them around Xiao Ming—bound from shoulder to ankle—and pulled. The vines strained. She did not move. The moment they tried to drag her toward the domain’s edge, the boundary itself hardened—not a wall of stone or energy he could see, but something absolute. The vines slammed against it and stopped completely. Not a crack, not a flex, not the slightest give.
He tried again, adding more vines. They coiled around her from multiple directions, pulling together, hammering her against the interior wall of the boundary repeatedly, testing every angle.
Nothing. Not a single crack after several minutes of sustained effort. It was like trying to move a mountain by pulling on a blade of grass.
Inside the domain, Xiao Ming twitched, bleeding from her mouth. ’Backlash.’ She scowled. ’Damnit—I cannot get out.’ She wanted to scream at him, but couldn’t—her body was suffering seizures from the backlash of straining against the boundary from within.
Lei Cheng clicked his tongue. ’Tch.’
A gentle hand patted him from behind. He looked up—Hua Mingyue had appeared next to him, noiseless as always.
"What are you attempting?" she asked, folding one hand while fanning herself with the other.
"I wanted to test whether the domain would move with Xiao Ming if I forced her out," he said. "Whether the anchor is her body, or the land."
"The Bizarre Creature is fixed to the area once the domain forms," Hua Mingyue said. "That is a law of the Heavenly Dao. It cannot be broken unless one surpasses the Heavenly Dao itself."
"Wait—it can be broken? By someone strong enough?"
"In a sense," she said. "One who transcends the highest Heavenly Dao could break the land itself apart and carry that piece of ground away with the domain intact. The domain is rooted to the land it formed upon—it draws energy from the land and atmosphere beneath and around it. That is why it cannot simply be lifted free."
Lei Cheng looked up at the invisible dome. "So it is anchored because it is fed by the land. Break away from the land, and you break the supply." He paused. "But a floating piece of broken land drifting through the sky would attract no one except the foolish and the greedy."
"Do not underestimate the Heavenly Dao—you speak as if it’s common," Hua Mingyue said, with a quiet smile. "There are very few beings in all of existence who have surpassed it. They can be counted on one hand."
Lei Cheng wondered just how absurdly strong or knowledgeable Hua Mingyue might truly be.
"Existence," Lei Cheng repeated, noting the word. "Not just the world—existence."
’Novels changed my perception,’ he sighed, knowing well those who had suppressed Heavenly Dao and treated it as dust.
Hua Mingyue confirmed with a small nod. "Correct."
Lei Cheng asked, "Is it better to expand the domain than to break free of it?"
"Good." Hua Mingyue grinned. "You found out. Bizarre Creatures try to devour entire planets and realms instead of breaking free."
"Entire realms..." Lei Cheng exclaimed. The scale of it left him momentarily speechless. "It’s freedom in a sense. When an entire realm is under their domain, why would they feel tied to a place at all?"
"Indeed." Hua Mingyue nodded, sighing. "That is why even the strongest Bizarre Creature—despite being stronger than the heavens—never broke away." frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
’I need to kill them.’ Lei Cheng could not calm himself after understanding that a Bizarre Domain could take over entire realms.
"Did I do something wrong," he said quietly, "by making her marry Mo Ming?" The kindness from his past life on Earth still lived in him—knowing she might cause harm to humans who unknowingly wandered into her domain made him pause and question his own choice.
Hua Mingyue paused—just for a breath—then smiled. "Why are you concerning yourself with others? Our survival is what matters. Ours and the people close to us. Everything else is secondary."
Lei Cheng glared at her sideways. Part of him understood her. Another part refused to accept it.
She clicked her tongue and relented. "This goddess will tell you—you did the right thing. Had Xiao Ming managed to form her domain with someone whose luck was considerable, the domain would have covered a vast portion of Azure Cloud City. She told you herself: among the three of you, even a single person’s luck compatibility is enough, it could have covered a quarter of the entire city." She smiled gently. "As it stands, she was weakened by being forced to anchor to Mo Ming’s inadequate luck."
"I could have simply made Mo Ming marry another woman," Lei Cheng muttered with a frown. "Broken the fox mark that way, broken the Bizarre Rule, and killed her."
"No—that wouldn’t have worked." Hua Mingyue raised her voice.
She reached over and rapped the top of his head lightly with her knuckles. Lei Cheng rubbed his head, glancing at her.
"Idiot," she said, without heat. "Did you genuinely think Mo Ming would have agreed to marry just any woman? And would any woman have agreed to marry a middle-aged man like him?" She broke her composure. "That man was entirely driven by desire. He agreed to marry Xiao Ming for one reason—because she was beautiful. Without her beauty and your illusion working together, he would never have walked to that podium willingly."
Lei Cheng pressed a hand to his forehead. "I forgot about that. Finding a willing bride for him in a short time would have been impossible."
Hua Mingyue smiled—softer this time, almost gentle. "Yes. Be confident in yourself. This goddess will back you up."
For some reason, the words felt strangely reassuring.
Lei Cheng grinned at her words. "Okay—my backer." His eyes gleamed with determination.
Hua Mingyue grinned widely, hiding her mouth behind her fan.
Lei Cheng looked one last time at the invisible boundary of the domain—the empty air that held an entire world inside it—and exhaled.
"I’ll definitely kill you." He declared.
Not only for the people of Azure Cloud City, but also for himself. It had been a single day since he had arrived in this body, and he had faced all of this because of her.
He let the vines retract and dissolve, releasing Xiao Ming. From somewhere inside the domain, he heard the muffled sound of her dropping to the ground, followed by the soft exhale of someone finally breathing freely.
He stood in the cleared courtyard for a moment, looking at nothing in particular. Then he turned and walked away without looking back. The remaining vines outside the domain vanished as he released them.
Inside the domain, Xiao Ming rose slowly from the ground and sat there for a moment. Then she tilted her head back.
"Lei Cheng, you dandy." Her eyes blazed with deep red killing intent. "Just wait. When I become powerful, I will take over all of Azure Cloud City. And then I will toy with you."
Lei Cheng and Hua Mingyue stepped out through the ruined gates of the Xiao household compound into the street beyond. Laid out just in front of the gate, still unconscious and draped across the ground in his tattered yellow robes, was the boy.
Lei Cheng glanced down at him.
"Take him," Hua Mingyue said, before he could form a question.
"Take him?"
"As your servant. This boy has immense potential—he is a genius on the path of Bizarre Cultivation."
Lei Cheng nodded, bent down, hoisted the boy up onto his shoulder with one arm, and started walking.
He had moved perhaps a few meters when—whoosh!
He looked up.
’Bizarre Cultivator.’
A figure descended from the sky—a winged cultivator in a black robe, gray energy radiating from every surface of his body. The wings folded as the figure landed in the street ahead with quiet, precise force.
Thud!
Before Lei Cheng had fully processed that, a second sound came from further down the street.
Boom! Boom!
Something was bouncing toward him—a great rolling shape that hit the ground with each bound and cracked the road under its weight. It came around the corner and stopped in the street directly in front of him.
Lei Cheng stared.
It was a sphere of a man—several meters in diameter, wrapped in a black robe, limbs almost comically inadequate for the body they were attached to. Short arms and legs protruded from an enormous mass of flesh. The head perched on top was even smaller than the limbs—a round, scowling face set in a body that seemed to have decided bulk was the only cultivation path worth following. The ground beneath him had cracked when he landed.
Thud!
Lei Cheng and Hua Mingyue stared. Despite everything, they both broke into laughter—"Ahhhaha!"—the absurdity of the figure too immediate and too complete to resist. Even Lei Cheng forgot his caution for a moment.
The laughter died when the two cultivators exploded.
Gray energy detonated from both of them simultaneously—a shockwave that threw Lei Cheng several meters backward and dropped him flat on his back. The unconscious boy flew even further, tumbling along the ground and coming to a stop several meters away. Hua Mingyue had simply vanished before the wave reached her.
Lei Cheng pushed himself upright, wincing.
"Who are you?" he called out, his voice steady despite the ringing in his bones. "And what do you want from me, seniors?"
The enormous round cultivator narrowed his small eyes to slits and barked: "You dandy—Lei Cheng—the entire city knows your name. The fox is a Bizarre Creature. How are you still alive? And why do you reek of Bizarre energy?"
The winged cultivator furled his wings tight around his body like a cloak. "I fought that elder fox. It killed two of my fellow Daoists without effort. You are a mortal with no cultivation whatsoever. How did you survive?"
The round one hissed, "Fellow Daoist Po—stop wasting time. Let’s just kill him."
"Yes." The winged cultivator rose back into the air, gray energy blazing brighter. "Fellow Daoist Shen, you are indeed right."
’Shen.’
Lei Cheng went still.
The name clicked into place. His eyes narrowed immediately. Bizarre Cultivator Shen—the one who had helped Mo Ming and Mo Yong infiltrate the Lei household.
He had not gone looking for this enemy.
This enemy had come to him.
