Chapter 378 — The Fall of a God

Shen Mu, Wang Muran, Mu Qingdai, and Long Yu had all been gravely wounded and could not move. Long Yu's legs were broken; Mu Qingdai lay unconscious from her hurts; nearly every bone in Wang Muran's body had been smashed to pieces. The worst of Shen Mu's wounds was still that punch he had taken while in shadow form—it had nearly shattered him outright while he was nothing but a shadow.

All four of them lay there. Long Yu's neck was bent crooked and his tongue lolled out; he had wrenched the neck himself, and that backward blow had almost snapped it clean through.

He watched helplessly as Long Qilin walked over; watched helplessly as the creature stretched out its long tongue and slathered it over him. The tongue rolled him head over heels, then licked him once more and flipped his face forward again. Still his tongue would not go back in.

Long Qilin licked him again, until Long Yu was soaked from head to toe.

A fury of itching broke out all over him—the maddening itch of broken bones regrowing, severed tendons re-knitting, flesh sprouting anew. He hurriedly roused his vital essence and used it to align his bones, lest they set crooked.

If a bone knitted crooked, then even after the wound healed he would be warped and twisted all over, and that would be a sorry business indeed.

Wang Muran lay nearby and watched him get plastered all over with slobber, Long Qilin's great tongue flipping their senior brother over and over like a spatula turning meat so it would not scorch; he could not help but snort and sputter with laughter.

The boy laughed until his wounds split and bled, laughed until the pain had tears streaming down his face.

Long Qilin walked over and stretched out its long tongue, and Wang Muran stopped laughing. The tongue came down over his face like an enormous sticky blanket that wrapped him up and rolled him head over heels.

Having dealt with Wang Muran, Long Qilin gave the unconscious Mu Qingdai a thorough licking too, leaving the girl drenched. The licking woke her; to spare herself embarrassment, she simply went on feigning unconsciousness.

Long Qilin started toward Shen Mu, and Shen Mu said, barely breathing, "Don't lick me. Senior Brother Long Yu, how are your injuries? There is dragon saliva in jade bottles in my Taotie Pouch—take one out and help me smear some on, and that will do..."

"Lick him! Fatty... Big Dragon, you must lick him!" Long Yu shouted in a fluster.

Wang Muran nodded vigorously and cried, "We all got licked—you think we would let him off? Big Dragon, lick!"

Mu Qingdai hastily opened her eyes too, no longer feigning sleep, and laughed. "Share the blessings, share the hardships. Big Dragon, lick!"

Shen Mu's expression changed drastically. He crawled laboriously to one side, but Long Qilin raised a claw and pinned down his trouser leg. Unable to crawl away, Shen Mu flew into a rage. "Fat Dragon, I am covered in poison! Lick me and in a moment the poison will flare and kill you—blood pouring from every orifice until you die!"

Long Qilin hesitated, and the other three all burst out laughing. "Who on earth smears poison on himself? Fat Dragon, lick away—if you die of it, we will see to the burial!"

Reassured, Long Qilin licked Shen Mu until he was turned belly-up and soaked through. This was the master who fed him, after all, so of course he had to take a little more care; he licked Shen Mu more meticulously than he had any of the others.

Shen Mu's face went ashen. Flipped this way and that by that tongue like a thing on a spatula, he did not move or struggle; he seemed to have accepted his fate.

Long Qilin withdrew its tongue, then noticed that it had licked Shen Mu's hair into disarray. It hastily and carefully licked his hair back into place, until it gleamed with grease.

"Enough, Fat Dragon..."

The Great Cult Master Shen said woodenly, "Enough, stop licking... all right, all right, it is already neat... do not lick anymore!"

Only then, seeing his anger, did Long Qilin reluctantly withdraw its tongue. It stopped rearing up on its hind legs and squatted down at Shen Mu's side.

A stubborn strand of Shen Mu's hair drooped down over the corner of his left eye. Long Qilin hesitated, stole a glance at Shen Mu's expression—his face was black as charcoal—and in the end could not help itself: the tongue flicked out at lightning speed and licked the strand back into place.

Shen Mu nearly went mad.

...

The great deer lay prone on the ground, the bones of all four legs shattered. A moment ago Shen Mu and his companions, shrunk to four tiny figures along with Lord Dragon Keeper, had fought a pitched battle on its back and given it a thorough working-over. Luckily its life was in no danger; its injuries, though, were truly severe.

The great deer caught sight of Long Qilin healing Shen Mu's wounds as well, and hastily puckered up its two lips. "Yoo-oo—Fatty, lick me, lick me!"

"Pah!"

Long Qilin spat out a mouthful of dragon saliva that landed right in front of the great deer, and said, nose in the air, "Rub it on yourself!"

The great deer was furious, but healing came first. It had no choice but to shift its body with difficulty and rub its wounds in the saliva, cramping with pain.

Watching it squirm back and forth in his own drool, Long Qilin felt immense satisfaction. This dead deer keeps taking me down a peg in front of my master and giving me no face. This time I will let it know what I am made of, and make a fool of it in front of its own master!

In that instant Fat Dragon felt that the sweetest moment of his life had not been when he clung to the young Patriarch's leg and scrounged a meal—it was this moment, here and now.

Shen Mu and the others gradually recovered some strength. Each sat up and circulated their vital essence to drive the clotted blood out of their bodies, so as not to leave hidden ills behind.

The three from Little Jade Capital had studied medicine as well, and were hardly unskilled, but set against Shen Mu they were a little crude, and in many respects they were not thorough.

Shen Mu drove the clotted blood from his own body, then once more roused his vital essence and squeezed the shattered bones out of him bit by bit. Then, with a low shout, his Primordial Spirit flew forth. It surveyed every limb and joint of his body, examining the condition of his flesh in detail, and the damage to his divine storehouses.

He examined himself with incomparable care, then drew the Primordial Spirit back inside and swallowed several Spirit Buddha Pills to swiftly replenish his spirit and lift his vital essence. Then he prescribed for the symptoms and refined pills to cure his hidden ills.

"A Primordial Spirit!" Mu Qingdai cried out, shock written across her face.

Wang Muran and Long Yu were shaken to the core as well. A Primordial Spirit was not something a cultivator of Shen Mu's realm could possibly refine—and yet Shen Mu had actually brought one forth!

Weak and small as Shen Mu's Primordial Spirit was, a faint shadow of a thing, it was unmistakably a Primordial Spirit!

That Shen Mu had refined a Primordial Spirit at the Six Harmonies realm meant he had seized the initiative in cultivation; his progress would be far swifter than other people's. What was more, the Primordial Spirit was one of the most important means of combat after the Heaven-Human realm, and to begin working with it now would be of the utmost importance to the growth of his strength in the years to come!

Just now, when Shen Mu had used his Primordial Spirit to open his eyes and examine himself, they had been thoroughly baffled, with no notion of how he had refined it.

"The Human Sovereign is truly extraordinary. I am utterly convinced."

Long Yu sighed. "To refine a Primordial Spirit at the Six Harmonies realm and even send it out of the body—the Human Sovereign's innate gifts and comprehension are indeed unmatched in this age!"