Chapter Ninety-Four: The Monkey and the Serpent

He Tian quickly realized he was wrong.

His instinctive guess had been completely off.

Blocking his path was not some golden medicinal insect, but a massive serpent.

A five-patterned snake.

He Tian drew a sharp breath.

The five-patterned snake was a notorious venomous serpent. Rumor had it that a single drop of its venom could kill a man, beyond all hope of cure.

And this one was monstrously huge.

Thicker than He Tian’s thigh, and coiled to a length of more than thirty meters, it looked at a glance like a towering mountain of flesh and scales.

Its head reared high, its enormous tongue flickering in and out as it stared hungrily at the backpack on He Tian’s back.

The golden medicinal insect.

Clearly, this giant serpent had come for the insect.

The insect was useful to martial cultivators; apparently, it was of great use to this serpent as well.

By all appearances, the snake had already gone beyond the ordinary and attained a monstrous kind of intelligence.

What He Tian could not yet tell was how strong it truly was.

But whatever its strength, its venom alone was enough to put He Tian on guard.

Behind him, the countless snakes had halted at a distance.

One by one they lifted their heads, watching He Tian and the colossal five-patterned snake.

It was obvious enough that the giant serpent had been the one driving the smaller snakes, forcing He Tian into this place.

And now it had gotten what it wanted.

He Tian tightened his grip on the sniper rifle.

This was no time for honor or chivalry. He had weapons, and using them was entirely in keeping with his style.

And at this point, there was no chance left of solving things peacefully.

Nor was this a good place to fight.

At the very least, with so many snakes around him, He Tian could not possibly devote himself fully to battling the giant serpent.

So he had to strike first.

He did not even bother to aim.

He Tian fired rapidly, five shots in all, and every one of them struck the giant snake’s body.

What frustrated him, however, was that none of the vital points were hit—the head, the belly, the seven-inch killing point—all had been evaded by the giant five-patterned snake.

The bullets had only struck its back.

Though they had penetrated the scales and drawn plenty of blood, the wounds were not fatal.

The giant serpent bellowed in pain.

Its tail lashed out violently, sweeping sideways and snapping every tree in its path clean in two.

He Tian’s pupils contracted. He moved at once, changing magazines with swift hands.

This time, the rounds he loaded were all a pale golden color.

These were small armor-piercing rounds, with tremendous penetration, and they would detonate on impact.

He Tian did not believe the giant five-patterned snake could survive those.

Their power was far greater than the specially made sniper rounds he had used before.

His speed in changing ammunition was astonishing.

But with that massive tail sweeping toward him, he was still badly affected.

Most importantly, the rear had already been sealed off by the overwhelming snake swarm. He could not retreat. He could only move forward, straight toward the giant serpent.

At last he finished loading the armor-piercing rounds.

But before he could fully evade, the tail still struck him.

In that instant, the inner force of the Three-Dragon technique spun wildly within his body and gathered along one side of him.

An immense force slammed into him, hurling He Tian backward through the air.

The brute strength of the giant five-patterned snake was so great that He Tian felt his body was nearly coming apart.

"I can’t be hit again!" He made the decision immediately. If that tail swept him again, he feared he would truly be shattered.

Still flying backward, He Tian forced himself to keep his balance. Ignoring the pain in his body, he fired again without hesitation.

Five shots in rapid succession.

The moment he had fired, He Tian decisively threw away the sniper rifle, planted a foot against a tree, and used the rebound to launch himself toward the distance.

Then he produced a lighter.

He snapped it open and hurled it to the ground.

The lighter shattered. A tiny flame sprang up, licking at the nearby leaves and dry grass.

Behind him came the giant serpent’s roar, and the hissing cries of pain.

And of course there was the relentless crack-crack-crack of giant trees being cleaved and snapped in two by that sweeping tail.

He Tian had no time to care about anything else. He ran with all his might.

He did not even have time to tell which direction he was going.

He had to get out.

That giant five-patterned snake could kill.

It was not an enemy one could fight head-on.

At last He Tian understood why the locals called this primeval jungle the Devil’s Forest.

With golden medicinal insects and that monstrous snake lurking here, the name was entirely fitting.

Yet even in his panic, there was still the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth.

If the giant five-patterned snake had been struck by armor-piercing rounds, it surely would not feel good.

Good.

He Tian knew very well that once a snake swarm had locked onto him, it would be hard to truly escape.

But he was unwilling to fight them on a battlefield of their choosing.

He needed to find another place.

And more than that, he had to face the giant five-patterned snake alone, without any other entanglements.

He also needed more preparation.

He threw away the pistol, the dagger, and a bottle of sedative. Everything else in the backpack was hurled aside as well.

With the weight reduced, his speed climbed to an entirely new level.

Before long, he could scarcely hear the giant snake’s cries anymore.

But He Tian did not stop.

He ran as fast as he possibly could.

If he could truly shake off the giant five-patterned snake, that would be better than anything.

"Damn it!" he cursed under his breath.

In his panic, He Tian realized to his dismay that he had gotten lost.

Even the communication device on his wrist had lost its signal. As for telling north from south, east from west, that was out of the question entirely.

He Tian chose a slightly flatter hilltop and hid himself quietly there.

Feeling the iron canister in his backpack, he let out a small breath of relief, though his heart remained heavy with helplessness.

If the snake swarm had earlier appeared because of the golden medicinal insect, then now it might very well find him again for the same reason.

And being lost, with signal lost as well, meant something else too, at least by He Tian’s experience and scientific reasoning: the magnetic field in this area was in total chaos. Something here was disturbing the normal field.

Or, put another way, a great danger must be lurking nearby.

He Tian, who had experienced such things in jungles all over the world, understood that very well.

Only, what danger this region held, he still did not know.

He had to find a way out of this strange area as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, even if the snakes no longer pursued him, he would still be trapped to death in this jungle.

Yet his usual calm prevented him from losing his composure.

Recalling the route he had taken, He Tian carefully analyzed his path.

All around was dim grayness.

In this primordial forest, gray was forever the dominant color.

Then, suddenly, a monkey appeared not far away.

It was not large, only a little bigger than an ordinary monkey.

But its eyes were bright and alive, full of a startling intelligence.

It hung from a branch with both arms and stared fixedly at He Tian.

For no reason at all, He Tian felt a chill rise along his spine.

In this area, not even a bird or insect could be seen.

And now a monkey had appeared.

How could that not seem strange?

He Tian raised his gun.

The Three-Dragon inner force began to circulate within him.

After that furious sprint, the blow from the serpent’s tail no longer seemed to have any effect.

That alone revealed how formidable He Tian was.

If an ordinary person had been swept by that giant five-patterned snake, his bones would probably have shattered on the spot.

The monkey chattered and leaped about on the branch.

Its eyes, when they looked at He Tian, held no trace of malice.

On the contrary, there was something remarkably gentle in them.

This puzzled He Tian greatly. He could not understand what was going on.

If it was because of the golden medicinal insect, he could be certain the monkey’s gaze was not fixed on his backpack. It seemed to be genuinely interested in him.

He Tian was baffled. He truly did not understand what was happening.

But at that moment, the monkey suddenly looked elsewhere.

The gentleness in its eyes vanished without a trace, replaced by a fierce and dangerous light.

Then came a burst of urgent chirping, as though it were issuing some kind of warning.

He Tian was somewhat puzzled as well, but very soon he understood.

A giant five-patterned snake had entered his line of sight.

It had found him here after all.

As expected, once He Tian carried the golden medicinal insect, there was no hiding from the giant serpent’s pursuit. The beast must have some special ability to sense the insect.

That was how it had tracked him here.

As for the monkey’s anger, it was likely because the giant snake had invaded its territory.

He Tian had encountered such situations before.

Some powerful animals had territories of their own.

And when one thought about it, humans had methods of absorbing power and growing steadily stronger as well.

So for animals that possessed certain advantages over humans, it was entirely possible for them to grow stronger too, given favorable or natural conditions.

In the past, whenever He Tian met such beings, he would keep well away.

He would never provoke them.

But now...

This time it was not He Tian who had provoked anyone; trouble had come knocking on its own.

Yet the monkey seemed to bear no hostility toward He Tian.

On the contrary, it was filled with hostility toward the giant five-patterned snake.

This made He Tian realize that, at the very least, he apparently did not need to truly confront the giant serpent just yet.

So He Tian finally let go of everything and watched calmly as the monkey moved swiftly forward to face the giant snake.

The monkey seemed to be communicating with it.

At first glance, the two of them seemed to belong to completely different levels.

And yet the giant five-patterned snake did not seem to dare look down on the monkey.

Its raised head turned from He Tian to the monkey, as though exchanging some words with it...