Chapter 66: Python Grows Double Wings

From the moment he returned to Hong Mountain, Mo Lin had already made a series of plans for collecting vengeful souls.

Although a forceful massacre of the village could swiftly eliminate everyone, because it happened too suddenly and ended too quickly, the villagers would not have too many feelings before death—such as hatred, reluctance, anger, or fear.

What kind of anger and hatred was the strongest?

Was it failing right after meeting the Boss in a game?

Was it being unable to answer the very first question in an exam?

No.

It was when someone had beaten the Boss down to just a sliver of health, only to be killed in one blow.

It was when someone’s long-awaited hope was just about to be fulfilled, only for it to end in failure.

It was when someone had just grasped hope, only for it to turn into despair in the blink of an eye.

Only at that time would anger and hatred be at their most intense.

Mo Lin’s plan was simple: first, let the villagers sink into the fear he created—snakes taking revenge on Hongjia Village.

Then, he instructed Gong Yang to cut off their retreat, plunging them into utter despair.

At that moment, his own appearance would give them a sliver of hope for survival—compared to the emotionless vengeful snake horde, Mo Lin, who possessed intelligence, would clearly give them the illusion of being able to beg for mercy.

Even if this hope was faint to the point of almost not existing, there would surely be some who, collapsing in despair, would cry out to him for salvation, because that was the weakness of human nature.

Even if this weakness was them offering their own lives for the sake of those they cared about more.

At that moment, Mo Lin would put forth his demand: all snake-catchers must sever their lower bodies.

First despair, then hope.

The villagers of Hongjia Village, who from the beginning had already lost all real chances of survival, would naturally rush desperately toward this narrow “door of life” that could close at any moment.

Yet, once they squeezed through this door of life at a heavy price, only to find that behind it was actually a door of death,

and once they realized they no longer had the strength to return to the so-called door of life, then the emotions that had struggled on the line of life and death for so long would inevitably erupt at this moment, forming even more intense, heavier anger and hatred.

“No!”

From losing hope, to seeing hope, and finally discovering it was actually despair, this violent emotional upheaval made Hong Tianxin go mad on the spot.

Dragging his mutilated body, he used his blood to draw a line that still clung tightly to his severed lower half upon the corpse-strewn dirt path.

He came before Mo Lin, using his “powerless” hands to pound endlessly against Mo Lin’s scales:

“You demon, beast, accursed spawn…”

Mo Lin looked coldly down at this half-body man who was not even one-tenth of his height, without a shred of pity in his heart.

Humans did not care about the suffering of beasts, just as demonic beasts could not empathize with the sorrow of humans.

When he was just a small grass snake, he had not questioned why Hong Tianfeng and Hong Wen refused to spare him.

Just so, at this moment, he would not spare Hongjia Village.

Past cause, present effect.

Mo Lin lowered his head, opened his jaws, and gently pushed Hong Tianxin away—he did not eat him.

His kin had not yet died; how could he be the first to leave?

With a thought from Mo Lin, the entire snake horde immediately began slithering toward the women and children.

“Ahhh! Save us!”

“Father, save me! Mother, what’s wrong, wuwuwu…”

“I beg you, I beg you, don’t come closer!”

“Spawn! You’ve already ruined the master, now you want to harm my child too?!”

In order to grasp at a chance to live, the villagers of Hongjia Village personally broke apart their strongest weapon against the snake horde—tight unity and all the snake-catchers.

Now, all the strong snake-catchers, dragging their half-bodies, glared with bloodshot eyes as the snake horde advanced toward their kin, but could only cry out hoarsely:

“Run!”

“Run into the deep mountains!”

“The farther you get from the snakes, the better!”

They no longer had the luxury of hoping that all their kin could survive tonight’s massacre.

Even if they fled into the mountains filled with lurking dangers, even if death threatened at every step, as long as they escaped the hands of this python demon before them, there was still a glimmer of hope.

Under the snake-catchers’ warnings and the mothers’ selfless protection, a few nimble children truly managed to dash beyond the encirclement of the snake horde.

However, since Mo Lin had built the stage, he would make sure the story reached its perfect climax in this act.

In the next moment, under the disbelieving eyes of Hong Wen, Hong Tianyun, and all the villagers, the scales on the upper middle part of Mo Lin’s body suddenly swelled outward, forming a pair of wings that blotted out the sky.

No—it should not be said that the scales swelled outward.

Rather, from the very beginning, those wings shaped like snake scales had always been pressed flat against Mo Lin’s body!

“Ying… Yinglong…”

Dragging his half-body, Hong Tianyun stared blankly at those wings on Mo Lin.

In truth, he had long felt that Mo Lin’s appearance was somewhat strange.

Even for a python twenty meters long, its upper body seemed swollen to an abnormal extent.

But since Mo Lin always kept his lower half coiled, he had mistaken it as simply never having seen such a large python demon before.

Coupled with tonight’s tense emotions, Hong Tianyun had not thought too much.

After all, when those wings were folded tight against Mo Lin’s sides, they really did look almost exactly like snake scales.

Only when Mo Lin spread his wings did Hong Tianyun suddenly realize—so his upper body had always been hiding a pair of wings.

Mo Lin looked at his twin wings with great satisfaction, fanning them to stir up violent gusts of wind.

The origin of these wings came from none other than the Black Eagle, Pearl, whom he had slain, transformed into a zombie, and ultimately devoured.

Although Pearl, also a Profound Demon, had still not helped him break past the boundary of the Earth Rank, through his devouring ability Mo Lin had extracted one crucial talent from the Black Eagle Pearl—flight!

For Mo Lin, this was simply an unexpected windfall.

On Hong Mountain, the flying python that Hong Jing saw before his death was naturally him as well.

The Guangya recorded: “With scales, it is called a Flood Dragon. Without horns, it is a Chi Dragon. With horns, it is a Qiu Dragon. With wings, it is a Yinglong…”

Strictly speaking, normal snakes, pythons, and anacondas, even Flood Dragons, did not have wings.

Even most true dragons were the same.

Only the Yinglong—this great god who embodied creation, formation, and destruction, ancestor of the phoenix and qilin, revered as ‘The Yinglong God Who Assists Heaven and Protects the Realm’—possessed a pair of wings.

According to legend, Yinglong had helped Nüwa mend the heavens, aided the Yellow Emperor in seizing the throne, and assisted Yu the Great in taming floods, earning deep respect from humanity.

And yet, Mo Lin, still just in his python stage, had already grown a pair of wings.

If a tiger growing wings was called Qiongqi, then with me, Mo Lin, growing wings, calling myself a makeshift Yinglong would not be excessive, right?

Mo Lin spread his wings, soared into the air, and flew toward the fleeing children of Hongjia Village.

“Spawn! Spare them! They are innocent!”

“Bastard! Even if I die, I will never forgive you!”

“Why would Lord Yinglong slaughter our Hongjia Village?! Could it be that our Hongjia Village truly committed too many sins, deserving this retribution?!”