Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1469 - Vine Demon
Chapter 1469 – Vine Demon
Whenever Liu Wuxie took a step, he moved with extreme caution; the environment here was far more complex than he had imagined. The astral clouds blocked his divine sense, but they couldn’t hinder his Ghost Pupil.
Ghost Eye allowed his gaze to pierce the clouds and capture everything within his field of vision.
“There are other cultivators here,” he muttered under his breath.
Just moments earlier, he had seen many cultivators flying toward the deeper regions of the Astral Sea just like him, and it made him wonder if something had happened inside. He sped up, but still kept a safe distance behind the crowd.
“Help!” Faint cries suddenly drifted over from the left.
With a flash, Liu Wuxie activated the Nine Heavenly Dragon Forms and soared into the sky.
He saw a stunningly beautiful woman hanging in mid-air. She was bound tightly by vines, and she was struggling to break free. The plea for help had come from her, but Liu Wuxie didn’t rush in; instead, he hovered about a hundred meters away and stared at her.
“Save me…” The woman turned toward him the moment she noticed Liu Wuxie. Her voice was heartrending and sorrowful, tugging at the heartstrings, and her beauty was bewitching enough to seize a man’s soul at first glance.
All of a sudden, the Heavenly Dao Book released a faint radiance, and his mind snapped clear in an instant.
“What a brilliant art that even I almost fell for it,” Liu Wuxie muttered. For a brief moment, he had actually lost control of himself and drifted toward the woman, but the Heavenly Dao Book’s timely warning brought him back to his senses.
He immediately activated Ghost Eye again and took another careful look at the woman.
“A ten-thousand-year Vine Demon,” he said, his eyes turning cold as murderous intent surged through him; he had nearly fallen prey to this Vine Demon’s trick.
These Vine Demons had been living for countless years, and they often transformed into all kinds of enchanting women to charm passing cultivators. Once their prey stepped into range, the vines would erupt, bind the victim, and slowly devour them.
“Young Master, hurry up and save me!” the Vine Demon wailed. Unaware that Liu Wuxie had already seen through her identity, she continued to act like a fragile, helpless woman. Her face was exquisite, her figure voluptuous, and her eyes seductive—an appearance that could stir any man’s heart.
Coupled with her pitiful expression, she exuded a fatal allure.
When Liu Wuxie shifted his gaze beneath the Vine Demon, his heart jolted at what he saw. Several skeletons lay concealed amid the dense vines below, all that remained of cultivators who had passed by and fallen into her trap.
“How do you want me to save you?” Liu Wuxie asked with a faint smile. The Vine Demon held powerful wood-attributed energy, and if he could absorb it, he could strengthen the Ancestral Tree.
“These vines have entangled me. Can you help me cut them? This way, I can break free,” the Vine Demon said, giving Liu Wuxie a suggestive look. Her clothes barely covered her skin, and a vine suddenly tore through her outer coat, revealing a nearly transparent undergarment.
As she twisted gently against the vines, her chest rose and fell in a way that would make most men lose control of themselves.
However, Liu Wuxie stood firmly where he was. He knew this bewitching “woman” was an old witch who had been living for countless years, and that her current form was nothing more than an illusion.
Her actual appearance was so sinister it could make one nauseous at a glance.
What Liu Wuxie saw through Ghost Eye was not a breathtaking beauty, but an ink-green ancient vine tree with wrinkled bark for skin, shriveled lips, jagged fangs, and sharp claws that could rip a human body apart.
“I’m in a hurry. You can wait for someone else to save you instead,” Liu Wuxie said as he turned away. Saving his third senior brother took priority, and while the Vine Demon contained a vast amount of wood-attributed energy, she didn’t possess any fragment of the Great Dao of Wood.
Only a fragment of the Great Dao of Wood counted as a true wood-attribute treasure, something that could help him make a breakthrough to the fourth-level Void Realm, just like when he refined the Great Dao of Water’s fragment in the past, which had greatly strengthened the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art.
“Don’t go! What will become of me if you leave?” The Vine Demon begged, still trying to coax him back.
Faced with her desperate pleas, Liu Wuxie’s indifferent back finally pushed her beyond her limits.
“Human, you’re courting death!” The Vine Demon suddenly dropped her act and reverted to her proper form.
She now looked exactly as Liu Wuxie had seen with Ghost Eye. Her body was ink-green, her feet were twisted vines, and sharp claws extended from her hands. Her head wasn’t huge and resembled a round fruit, but it bore a fanged, ferocious face.
Liu Wuxie felt his stomach churn as he compared this grotesque form with her earlier seductive appearance; the contrast was jarring.
“You’re finally willing to show yourself?” Liu Wuxie asked as he came to a stop. He watched as countless vines surged toward him. This Vine Demon had lived for over ten thousand years, and all the vines in the area were effectively her limbs.
In the next instant, the Heretic Blade appeared and cleaved down from above, shattering every vine that lunged at him and turning them into fountains of viscous liquid spraying across the sky.
Astral clouds drifted in from the surroundings, drawn by the surging air currents, and wrapped tightly around Liu Wuxie. The Vine Demon’s movement range had to be limited; otherwise, she wouldn’t have stayed rooted here, disguising herself as a victim to lure passing cultivators.
Liu Wuxie’s destruction of so many vines pushed the Vine Demon into a frenzy. Vines burst out of the ground like roots gone mad, twisting into all kinds of shapes as they wove themselves into a cage that sought to trap him.
If Liu Wuxie continued to fly straight upward, he could cross into the more dangerous outer world and leave the Outer Astral Spacetime behind.
The vines crisscrossed so densely that they left him almost no room to maneuver.
Right then, the Vine Demon unleashed her actual attack—a cloud of red mist that surged out and wrapped around Liu Wuxie.
When the red mist enveloped him, he lost sight of his surroundings.
“Crimson Fiend!” he muttered, his expression turning grim. He immediately sealed his five orifices, cutting off his breathing to avoid inhaling the mist. Even so, a wave of dizziness crashed over him as his vision flickered and a group of naked women appeared, swaying in a seductive dance as they approached.
Liu Wuxie’s eyes gradually lost focus, and his mind teetered on the brink of falling into their tender snare. Once he succumbed, he would sink into a bottomless abyss.
Suddenly, a faint smile curved Liu Wuxie’s lips. With the Heavenly Dao Book and Ghost Eye’s help, he had already seen through the illusion. What stood before him weren’t naked beauties, but pink skeletons.
He remained motionless as the skeletons drew near. Just as they were about to reach him, a powerful shockwave erupted from him as he unleashed the Great Five Elemental Mythical Art, which descended from the sky and crashed into the skeletal figures.
With a thunderous explosion, everything within a radius of a hundred meters fell silent as the pink skeletons burst apart into foul-smelling pus. These were the remains of the cultivators the Vine Demon had killed; the Vine Demon had reanimated their bones to ensnare Liu Wuxie.
Who could have imagined that Liu Wuxie had been acting all along, biding his time for the perfect moment to strike?
The sudden counterattack stunned the Vine Demon, and she staggered backward in a panicked retreat. The sheer force of his attack tore apart all the surrounding vines, exposing the bare gray-white ground beneath.
Every illusion vanished as well; they only lasted for a dozen or so seconds before Liu Wuxie shattered them.
“How is this possible? You’re only at the Void Realm, and how could you possibly see through my illusion?!” the Vine Demon snarled. When her illusions collapsed, she suffered severe backlash.
She couldn’t comprehend how Liu Wuxie had done it when even high-level Earth Immortal cultivators struggled to resist her bewitchment.
Over the past thousand years, only a handful of cultivators had escaped her grasp, and they were all peerless experts. This was the first time she had encountered someone like Liu Wuxie, who shrugged off her snare and recovered so quickly.
“You talk too much,” Liu Wuxie said. He didn’t know how many humans this Vine Demon had hunted so far, but he saw no reason to spare her life.
Executing the Dragon Grasping Hand, Liu Wuxie reached out toward the Vine Demon. At ten thousand years of age, she had only just reached maturity; if she had lived for a hundred thousand years, he would have chosen to flee without hesitation.
Vine Demons at ten thousand years were still relatively weak. Due to their low cultivation, they relied mainly on illusions to charm others into dropping their guard.
The Dragon Grasping Hand condensed into a divine dragon’s claw that plunged toward the Vine Demon’s head.
Her expression changed drastically as she swiftly formed seals, summoning vines to coil around her in a desperate defense.
When the dragon claw descended, the vines shattered on impact, and the Vine Demon spat out a mouthful of blood. Her form compressed into an ink-green snake that slipped into the surrounding vines, trying to vanish from sight.
“Do you really think that you can fool my senses?” Liu Wuxie sneered.
Other cultivators would struggle to find the Vine Demon after she hid, as she could merge into the sea of vines, but nothing could hide from his Ghost Eye.
He unleashed the Dragon Grasping Hand once more, slamming it toward the hidden Vine Demon, who screamed and fled frantically.
Yet no matter how wildly she ran, she remained within a radius of a thousand meters, tethered by her roots deep underground. If she left the vicinity of her roots, she would lose their nourishment and wither, let alone be Liu Wuxie’s match.
The Vine Demon moved with startling speed. Liu Wuxie attacked several times, but she slipped away from each strike.
“Let me see where your roots are,” Liu Wuxie said as he summoned Ghost Pupil to look beneath the vines. Tracking the Vine Demon’s roots among them by ordinary means would have been extremely difficult.
Combining Ghost Eye with Ghost Pupil, he scanned the area, and in less than a minute, he located her roots. They were nearby and were constantly channeling streams of energy into the Vine Demon.
“Time to end this now,” Liu Wuxie said, calling the Heretic Blade to his hand. As he formed seals, the blade flared with dazzling light and shot straight into the ground.
Once the beam plunged below, he formed seals, controlling and guiding it ever deeper.
“Young Master, please don’t kill me!” the Vine Demon cried out as she dropped to her knees, hoping that Liu Wuxie would spare her life.
