Chapter 13: Postwar Affairs

Through Li Mingxing’s grip and crushing force, the unicorn lost its footing and toppled to the ground. Yet even then it did not yield; instead, it drove its horn straight toward Li Mingxing’s eyes. That was the unicorn’s only means of attack, after all, for its body possessed no arsenal as varied as the lion-scorpion’s.

With that thrust, Li Mingxing suddenly felt something within his blood vanish. Then his scorpion tail drooped limply.

At once he understood: the unicorn had dispelled part of his poison constitution. For Li Mingxing, this was a grave blow. If he had merely been wounded, the medical tent stood behind him; so long as he was not dead, he could be treated at any time.

But his poison constitution was different. He had worked so hard to raise it to level one, increasing his chance of successfully refining poison by seven percent. If it were negated like this, all that effort would be for nothing.

At the thought, Li Mingxing bellowed again and clamped his jaws onto the unicorn’s throat, tearing at the flesh without pause.

Under Li Mingxing’s assault, the unicorn had no chance to fight back, much less to use its detoxifying power to dispel Li Mingxing’s poison constitution.

As the unicorn’s silver blood poured into him by mouthfuls, Li Mingxing felt the strength in his whole body ignite as if set aflame.

He knew this was the reaction of the unicorn’s blood within him, and the realization only made him more feverish. He drank greedily, even beginning to devour the unicorn’s flesh.

By then, Li Mingxing’s own troops had already wiped out the forces brought by the unicorn. All sixty elves and all sixty dwarves had perished.

Every weapon on their corpses was taken away by the harpies, while the centaurs received the heads of sixty elves as sacrificial trophies.

As for the sixty dwarf warriors, their bodies became the collection of the gray dwarves. As Blackstone Warrior put it, once they had left the tribe, this was the only chance they had to advance by way of these hill dwarves.

They cut off the beards of every hill dwarf they had slain and wound them around their weapons. From the solemn, almost reverent expressions on their faces as they did so, it seemed this was a chance to elevate their very souls.

When all this was done, every one of Li Mingxing’s subordinates stood at the place where Li Mingxing had fought the unicorn, watching him with eyes closed as he tore and bit ceaselessly at the beast’s body.

After such a length of battle, the unicorn’s horn had already been ripped out at the root by Li Mingxing and tossed aside.

Now the top of the unicorn’s head was spraying silver blood in great gouts, though that blood was no blessing to Li Mingxing. Whenever it touched him, wisps of pale smoke would rise.

Yet Li Mingxing seemed not to care. Instead, he kept smearing the unicorn’s blood over himself. By the time the blood had run dry, he had only coated his back.

He moved the spirit coin formed from the unicorn’s soul, then ordered Blackstone Warrior to collect the white-hot stone the unicorn had dropped. After that, he drew his claws across his own back, forcibly peeling away the scales and beast hide stained with unicorn blood.

All at once, everyone present was shocked by Li Mingxing’s actions. But they were either troops he had brought with him or units he had taken under his command in this hidden world, and not one of them cared about Li Mingxing’s followers. So although they were astonished, they made no move, only watching the changes in him.

Once he had torn away the skin from his back, Li Mingxing’s blood-soaked flesh began to regenerate at astonishing speed. The newly grown skin and scales were still purple, but thin silver edges could already be seen tracing the rims of the scales.

In truth, Li Mingxing had only decided to do this after he swallowed the unicorn’s blood. This method was, in fact, the growth path of the lion-scorpion. Though the lion-scorpion was born with the powers of lion, dragon, and scorpion, the bloodline of the dragons made its growth painfully slow.

In order to increase their growth rate, lion-scorpions had learned a method: they would smear themselves with the blood of creatures at their own level, or even stronger, and then tear off the skin that had been soaked through.

The skin that grew back would inherit the power of the blood’s owner, allowing the lion-scorpion to grow at a staggering pace.

To Li Mingxing, this was like playing a game: when killing monsters and gaining experience no longer made his character stronger, he had to switch to equipment that boosted his attributes.

And the lion-scorpion hide was part of that equipment, while an enemy’s blood was like an even better piece of gear.

Having replaced the skin on his back this time, Li Mingxing felt as though he had merely changed his cloak. He tested his condition, and this painful skin-shedding had granted him a twenty percent increase in speed and a five percent increase in strength.

In addition, he had partially mastered the unicorn’s detoxifying ability. His poison constitution attribute had now become: level one poison constitution, a general constitution skill; increases the success rate of making poisons by seven percent, poison resistance by thirty-five percent, the success rate of poison research by three percent, and the success rate of making antidotes by ten percent.

Li Mingxing had little interest in the two altered attributes. Only after his new skin and scales had fully regenerated did he turn back, point to the unicorn’s corpse on the ground, and say, “The two of you handle this corpse. Divide it up, make soup, and let the harpies and centaurs drink it.”

“What about the dwarves?” Blackstone Warrior asked from the side. As residents of the hidden world, they existed to survive; they did not care whether what they ate had once been human or had always been beast.

“The dwarves won’t benefit from eating it. Your own nature is already dark, and it would only clash with your attributes,” Li Mingxing said, shaking his head. “If we catch a nightmare beast next time, maybe I’ll let you have that.”

“Then why give it to the harpies and centaurs? That would be a waste for them too,” Blackstone Warrior said, still somewhat dissatisfied. It was clear he had already begun to regard the unicorn’s corpse as some universal elixir.

“The harpies control lightning. If we can add a flash element to that lightning, the effect may be even better. As for the centaurs, I hope they can gain even a little of the unicorn’s ability to move freely through the woods. Even a little would be good.”

After hearing Li Mingxing’s explanation, Blackstone Warrior said no more, only muttering to the gray dwarves about what a pity it was for such fine meat.

Compared with Li Mingxing, the other apprentice hero in this hidden world was not nearly so at ease. Just now, he had received word that another of his followers had fallen in battle, and the message had almost made him spit blood.

One must know that this apprentice hero himself followed a mage path; all his fighting was done by his three followers.

And now, with two followers dead in an instant, he would ultimately have to enter the fray personally and put himself in the most dangerous position.

In that case, his chances of safely returning to the real world would grow smaller, and everything he had would vanish like smoke.

At the thought, the apprentice hero felt cold all over. After pacing around several times, he took out two white-hot stones and shouted loudly, “Kang Quan, Kang Quan, get out here!”

After he called twice, a figure darted in.

If Li Mingxing had been there, he would certainly have been greatly shocked, thinking that this apprentice hero himself had terrible luck, while his underlings were exceedingly fortunate.

For the one who came running in stood about eight feet tall, covered from head to toe in gray long fur, looking for all the world like a great gorilla. His arms nearly hung to the ground, and the nails on his ten fingers gleamed coldly like metal.

This was clearly the juvenile form of the most powerful physical war beast among the beastmen: the biological tank known as the behemoth.

And from his footwork and manner of movement, it was obvious that he had also learned a great many martial skills. These were not the fanciful flying techniques of wuxia tales, nor the crude, straight-line combat arts common to the hidden world.

He had learned genuine skill from the real world, and in an environment like this hidden world, such abilities were one of the best ways to improve one’s fundamental strength.

Arriving at the apprentice hero’s side, the follower named Kang Quan asked respectfully, “My lord, you called for me?”

“Kang Quan, tell me—how are things going between you and the two green dragons?” the apprentice hero asked, glancing at his subordinate.

“I can already walk before them. It’s just that they seem to think I still have room to grow, and that now is not the time to fight them,” Kang Quan replied after thinking for a moment.

“So that means you still haven’t fought them, then. In other words, you haven’t left the deepest impression on their hearts yet,” the apprentice hero said, his voice growing somewhat impatient.

“That is correct, my lord. But I have already demonstrated my abilities before the two green dragons, and they also believe my strength is fairly high.”

“Just fairly high is useless. You need them to think your strength is remarkably great—so great that, with you at their side, they can defeat anything.”

“But my lord, that was not your plan at the beginning.”

“That was then. Now that Gu Qiang is dead, I need subordinates, and those two green dragons are the best followers available,” the apprentice hero said, waving the two white-hot stones as he shouted.