Chapter 86: Sitting on the Mountain, Watching Tigers Fight

At the foot of the mountain.

Zhu Dongfeng, who had rushed over in a hurry, had not even caught his breath before he heard a voice coming from the mountain:

“Is the Mountain Lord present! I, Jingchen, and my disciple Wuzhen wish to ask for some guidance from the Mountain Lord’s brilliant skills. We hope the Mountain Lord will not begrudge us a few pointers!!”

Followed by a tiger’s roar:

“Roar! Roar! Roar!!”

Zhu Dongfeng’s expression tightened:

“Mountain Lord? Jingchen, Wuzhen?”

Among the three, even the weakest Wuzhen had already been at the upper profound rank for many years. The other two were earth rank existences.

Jingchen and Wuzhen appearing here was already strange enough, but why did the Mountain Lord also appear at this moment?

And it even seemed as if it was about to fight against the two monks of White Horse Temple?

Something was off, very off.

Zhu Dongfeng grew more anxious in his heart. With these three gathering together, who knew what chaos would break out? Did Su Bing and Lin Shuang happen to run into them? Were they safe?

Hopefully those two children did not run into these people and foolishly charge straight up!

Zhu Dongfeng stomped his foot hard and immediately shot into the sky.

......

Although the “illusion” set up by Wuzhen was extremely exquisite, even the earth rank Mountain Lord was caught off guard and fell into it.

But very quickly, it realized the illusion.

Its nearly ten-meter-long tail swept toward the Wuzhen inside the illusion.

The heavy iron tail carried a whistling gust as it directly struck, shattering the “Wuzhen.”

Immediately after, the Mountain Lord sniffed the air and directly caught Wuzhen’s scent in the wind:

“Found you!”

Following the scent, the Mountain Lord lunged fiercely toward Wuzhen’s true position!

Wuzhen was only profound rank, how could he possibly dodge the Mountain Lord’s pounce? He was instantly pinned to the ground.

Wuzhen cried out in rapid succession:

“Golden Circlet, Golden Circlet!”

The golden circlet in Wuzhen’s pocket flew out in response, swelling with the wind, transforming into a ten-meter-wide ring that slipped directly around the Mountain Lord’s neck.

“Small, small, small!”

Wuzhen shouted three times again, and the golden circlet began to shrink continuously.

At first, the Mountain Lord dismissed the golden circlet with disdain, trying to directly pry it off with its claws—

Back when humans had carried weapons to hunt it, it had always snapped them apart with a single break, whether it had been weak then or later, when it became the overlord.

However, to its surprise, even when its claws used seventy percent of their strength, not only did the circlet not break, it could not even stop it from continuing to shrink.

Only then did the Mountain Lord realize that this golden circlet was no ordinary item, and it hurriedly backed away.

“What a pity. If the golden circlet had managed to firmly lock around the Mountain Lord’s neck, then this battle would already be over.”

Wuzhen calmly climbed back to his feet, no longer looking the least bit disheveled. With a twist, his form actually changed into that of Jingchen.

The figure standing where Jingchen had been originally now revealed itself to be Wuzhen.

“！”

So, the one the Mountain Lord had smelled earlier was not Wuzhen at all, but the earth rank Jingchen!

This was not an illusion that a profound rank like Wuzhen could create—it was an earth rank illusion!

Jingchen recited a Buddhist verse, smiled faintly, and said:

“Foolish Tiger, Wuzhen is my disciple. Since the disciple knows such techniques, how could I, the teacher, not know them as well?”

Clearly, the Mountain Lord had thought it had broken through Wuzhen’s illusion, but instead it had fallen straight into the second layer of illusion meticulously crafted by Jingchen.

Mo Lin, hidden in the shadows as he watched the two monks and the tiger clash, saw through everything and could not help but mutter in admiration:

“A bunch of old slicks of the jianghu, each slipperier than the other.”

No wonder Wuzhen had gone out of his way to bring his teacher to face the Mountain Lord together.

It was all because of this trump card.

With the double illusion—truth and falsehood intertwined—combined with the golden circlet as a killing move, even the Mountain Lord, who had dominated these mountains for many years, could fall into the monks’ hands if caught off guard.

“Roar! Roar! Roar!!”

The Mountain Lord, startled into cold sweat by Jingchen’s deceptive techniques, grew even more furious.

Within the tiger’s roar, however, there was also a faint trace of excitement.

It had been a long time since anyone had dared to provoke it like this.

Today, even if there had been no matter of the Purple Crystal Dragon Ore, it absolutely would not spare these two monks.

It wanted to have a proper battle with them!!

The Mountain Lord pounced at Jingchen once more.

Jingchen, his face serene, recited “Amitabha” and said:

“I am not me, yet I am me. Foolish Tiger, are you certain the one you face is truly me?”

The battlefield once again descended into chaos, illusions overlapping with reality, dazzling and bewildering to the eye.

Taking advantage of the clash between the Mountain Lord, Jingchen, and Wuzhen, Mo Lin shrank his form down to the size of a little grass snake, nestled into the weeds, concealed his presence entirely, and leisurely watched the battle of two monks and one tiger.

So this was what it meant to “sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight,” was it not?

In the Black Bear’s original plan, the demonic beast lying in this position should have been it.

But unfortunately, the Black Bear was already dead inside his stomach, now a part of his body.

And since its body was part of his body, its plan naturally became Mo Lin’s plan.

As for the battle between the Mountain Lord and the two monks, who won and who lost—he did not care in the slightest.

Because to him, the only thing that mattered was the Purple Crystal Dragon Ore.

Unfortunately, the Mountain Lord was the original owner of the Purple Crystal Dragon Ore, while Wuzhen and Jingchen, like him, were coveting the Mountain Lord’s ore.

All three were eyeing it like tigers watching prey.

Since that was the case, Mo Lin would much prefer they fought all the more fiercely.

Best if all three had their brains—tiger brains and human brains alike—smashed open, leaving no one to contest the ore with him.

Just then, Mo Lin’s eyes flickered.

He suddenly felt a surging force emanate from behind him, a force no weaker than his own.

Was today some kind of great celebratory day?

Why was everyone coming to join the fray?

No.

Mo Lin’s heart sank.

From this suddenly emerging force, he felt an overwhelming grief.

And its source was—where Su Bing and Lin Shuang’s bodies lay!

......

Zhu Dongfeng’s hands trembled, nearly unable to grip the Silver-Ring Blade he held.

He stared at the scene before him: Lin Shuang’s half-body lay lifeless, eyes devoid of spirit, while beneath her upper half was the lower half of a man’s body.

Both wore the distinct uniforms of Six Gates.

Zhu Dongfeng could not believe it. He had originally dispatched his two most promising children on a task that, though risky, was by no means supposed to be life-threatening.

Why, why, why had they not even lasted until he arrived to support them?

They were the ones he had poured years of effort into training, destined to become pillars of Six Gates in the future—those very youths, now gone!

Why!!

“Ahhhh!!”

Zhu Dongfeng roared in anguish, striking the ground with a single slash, carving a deep trench several meters wide and more than ten meters long!

“Roar! Roar! Roar!!”

As if echoing Zhu Dongfeng’s outburst, a tiger’s roar erupted from the mountain, startling countless birds into flight.

Shuddering in his grief and fury, Zhu Dongfeng seemed to realize something.

Mustering his courage, he looked once more at the mutilated corpses of Lin Shuang and Su Bing.

Though the flesh was mangled beyond recognition, with years of experience as a constable, Zhu Dongfeng could still sharply discern that both bodies had been torn apart by the same pair of massive claws.

And at this mountain, the only one with such enormous claws capable of delivering fatal blows to Su Bing and Lin Shuang was none other than...

Grinding his teeth, Zhu Dongfeng spat out two syllables, laden with hatred:

“Mountain! Lord!”