NHWSG chapter 42

Sheng Zhao didn’t know who had let out that miserable scream just now. He instinctively shook off Hu Huanyang and tried to run towards them.

Hu Huanyang didn’t know where he got the strength from. He crawled up and hugged Sheng Zhao’s waist, too scared to speak coherently.

“Xiao Zhao, don’t be anxious—” Hu Huanyang hurriedly said. “You don’t know, not all monsters will be killed by lightning strikes. Some old monsters can withstand heavenly tribulations. Those big shots have lived for so many years and are definitely a thousand times stronger than us rookies, but you can’t!”

Sheng Zhao ignored him, struggling to break free from Hu Huanyang’s grasp, biting his teeth and trying to pry his hands off.

Hu Huanyang was irritated by his disobedience. “Didn’t you say he knows what he’s doing?”

Sheng Zhao could hardly hear what he was saying.

The heavenly thunder summoned by Zhang Jian was so bright that it could scorch one’s eyes. Sheng Zhao squinted and stubbornly tried to see Xing Yingzhu’s face in it.

Unfortunately, both the snake and the dragon were engulfed in the burning lightning. From Sheng Zhao’s perspective, he could only see a blurred silhouette entangled together.

Those two great monsters seemed to be still alive, thrashing wildly in the thick thunderstorm. Sheng Zhao could almost hear the sound of lightning burning their skin, and the constant roar from inside was overwhelming, making it impossible to distinguish who was who.

“This thunder—” Sheng Zhao’s voice trembled, almost biting his tongue as he spoke, “when will it stop?”

Hu Huanyang thought he had been scared silly just now. Now that he finally heard him speak, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“The thunder will stop when Zhang Jian kills the dragon,” Hu Huanyang said. “Once the dragon is dead, the thunder will stop.”

—When will it die, Sheng Zhao thought bitterly.

Zhang Jian, with the name of “orthodoxy,” was obviously more adept than Sheng Zhao. He wasn’t afraid of this thunder at all and stood quite close, the paper talismans stuck to his sword rustling in the air.

“Zhang Jian!” Sheng Zhao gritted his teeth. “Don’t just stand there and watch—!”

Zhang Jian turned his head impatiently and shouted, “Of course I want to kill it too! But can I?”

Sheng Zhao, in his desperation, suddenly remembered the impromptu theoretical lecture Xing Yingzhu had given him before.

“Xing… Xing Yingzhu said, just kill it, pull out its tendons,” Sheng Zhao said.

“Of course, I know!” Zhang Jian snapped at him. “But it’s not that simple! For such a big dragon, unless you find its core, you can’t break through its scales and pull out its tendons!”

As soon as Zhang Jian finished speaking, Sheng Zhao suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head.

He clutched his temple in pain, staggered, and almost fell to the ground.

Hu Huanyang was startled and rushed to support him.

“Xiao Zhao, Xiao Zhao?” Hu Huanyang asked anxiously. “Are you okay? Is it because you can’t bear the thunder—”

Sheng Zhao thought to himself, I’m not okay, I’m almost dying.

He felt as if a sharp spike had pierced into his brain, not only stabbing in but also stirring it around.

Sheng Zhao endured the dizziness and almost felt like he had lost half his life.

But just then, he suddenly felt something flash before his eyes in the haze, sparkling brightly.

Struggling, he wiped away the water droplets covering his eyes and squinted to look into the lightning.

With just one look, Sheng Zhao was stunned.

Suddenly, everything in the world seemed to slow down, even the falling raindrops slowed down. Sheng Zhao opened his eyes, and the scorching lightning seemed to be covered with a gray filter, no longer dazzling.

In this dim vastness, only a golden light was particularly prominent.

Following that light, Sheng Zhao saw a golden pill the size of a fingernail swaying up and down along with the struggling movements of the dragon.

“T-There.” Sheng Zhao muttered to himself.

“Xiao Zhao, what are you saying?” Seeing his blank expression, Hu Huanyang thought he had been too shocked and slapped his face hard, saying, “Xiao Zhao, wake up!”

At the same time, the falling thunder became heavier and heavier. In the blur, even Xing Yingzhu seemed exhausted, his tail slipping off the dragon’s body with a clear groan.

Sheng Zhao didn’t know how he could clearly distinguish his voice in the noisy thunder and rain, he just felt his heart tighten, and he became anxious.

“It’s there!” Sheng Zhao shouted hoarsely at Zhang Jian, “Zhang Jian—on its coccyx, the twelfth section from back to front, on the right rear!”

Zhang Jian turned back uncertainly, staring at Sheng Zhao with a completely unfamiliar look in his eyes.

He wanted to ask how he knew, and he wanted to say this was no joke, but when he saw the look in Sheng Zhao’s eyes, he couldn’t say anything.

It was a nearly desperate look. Sheng Zhao’s eyes were already red, and he was biting his molars tightly. He probably didn’t realize how disheveled he looked, just stubbornly staring at him.

In that instant, Zhang Jian inexplicably felt that what he said was true.

For a prestigious bloodline of orthodox inheritance, it seemed absurd to listen to an outsider’s words, but for some reason, Zhang Jian instantly believed him.

“You’d better be telling the truth,” Zhang Jian gritted his teeth and whispered bitterly, “Otherwise, forget Xing Yingzhu, I’ll have you killed.”

Though his words were complaining, Zhang Jian quickly took action. He turned the sword in his hand to his palm, then uttered a very short spell.

Immediately after, Zhang Jian wiped the blood on his hand onto the blade—his cinnabar had fallen off, leaving him no choice but to resort to this.

Suddenly, the copper coin sword in Zhang Jian’s hand emitted a brilliant light, and there was a faint silver glow on the blade. Zhang Jian glanced deeply at Sheng Zhao, said nothing, then suddenly bent down, like an arrow leaving the string, and dashed into the scorched earth struck by lightning.

His movements were agile like a monkey, and he seized the opportunity to jump onto the tail of the dragon and climb up.

The dragon, being struck by lightning and struggling for its life, was too preoccupied with Xing Yingzhu to care about Zhang Jian, a mere minion.

But once Zhang Jian left, the lightning lost its restraint, shining brightly and striking the area with great force, creating a large pit.

Hu Huanyang, a young fox demon, couldn’t bear such a huge heavenly thunder. He stumbled in place, almost falling to his knees. He painfully covered his head, and blood trickled down from his lips.

“Hu Huanyang!” Sheng Zhao exclaimed, “Are you okay?”

“Fine…” Hu Huanyang whimpered, in extreme pain but still determinedly reaching out to grab Sheng Zhao’s clothes, “You, don’t leave me—boss told me to watch over you.”

But Sheng Zhao was destined to disappoint him. He gritted his teeth, forcibly pushed Hu Huanyang’s hand aside, and dragged him away from the center of the thunderstorm.

Hu Huanyang thought he had finally come to his senses, but who knew that as soon as Sheng Zhao dragged him out for more than twenty meters, he suddenly reached into his arms without warning, pulled out a few of Zhang Jian’s remaining talismans, and then turned and ran.

Hu Huanyang subconsciously wanted to grab him, but when he reached out, he only grabbed air.

At this point, Sheng Zhao himself didn’t know what he was doing. He acted purely on instinct, and rationality had long been thrown out the window.

He picked up a piece of rubble from the ground, scratched the tip of his left middle finger, and then smeared the blood on the talisman paper.

“Ordinary people drawing this is useless!” Hu Huanyang shouted behind him, “Xiao Zhao, drawing talismans requires skill—”

Before Hu Huanyang could finish his sentence, he suddenly realized that Sheng Zhao’s drawing didn’t seem to be done by an amateur—it was a simple exorcism talisman drawn purely by instinct. Apart from being slightly crooked due to trembling hands, he had drawn everything a talisman should have.

In the blink of an eye, Sheng Zhao had run to a position close to the center of the array. He could almost feel the scorching heat not far away, hot and dangerous enough to kill with a touch.

Sheng Zhao’s knees weakened, and he fell to the ground, slapping the talisman he held onto the ground haphazardly.

At the same time, Hu Huanyang saw clearly that the thunder, which had been raging due to the lack of someone to suppress it, suddenly subsided a lot, as if—just as Zhang Jian had been standing there before.

Who was Sheng Zhao, Hu Huanyang looked at his back in horror, thinking that he was just an ordinary person from left to right, how could he suppress the array for Zhang Jian.

However, Sheng Zhao didn’t realize what he had just done. He raised his head, only to see Zhang Jian climbing up the dragon’s back. The copper coin sword in his hand flashed with silver light, and Zhang Jian forcefully pressed it down, piercing the dragon’s vital point fiercely and deeply into its flesh.

At that moment, Sheng Zhao distinctly heard something shattering under Zhang Jian’s sword.

The dragon suddenly raised its body and let out an extremely miserable roar, as if it were its last gasp, abruptly knocking Xing Yingzhu off its back.

Xing Yingzhu was forced to suffer a high-level thunder attack along with it, covered in debuffs, naturally unable to muster the strength to return like the dying dragon. The whole snake fell to the ground, and its tail was stepped on by the dragon’s claw.

Zhang Jian was almost thrown out by this action. He tightly grasped the sword handle, his body swinging in the air like a kite, only biting down on his last bit of stubbornness and not letting go.

Sheng Zhao was about to urge him on when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a flash of light in the corner of his eye. He looked up abruptly and saw a larger thunderbolt brewing in the dark thunderclouds.

Sheng Zhao didn’t understand these things, but in an instant, he had a very bad premonition.

“Zhang Jian—” he suddenly shouted, “Hurry—”

But he was too late.

Before Sheng Zhao could finish his words, the lightning bolt, carrying the wrath of heaven, had already struck down. Sheng Zhao’s ears couldn’t bear such a loud noise, and for a moment, the sounds of the world fell silent, leaving only the faint buzzing of white noise.

The dazzling light made his vision blank. He stared blankly in the direction of his memory, collapsed onto his chest, and couldn’t even exhale for a while.

Where was Xing Yingzhu, Sheng Zhao thought blankly. With such a big lightning bolt, was he okay?

All the thoughts in Sheng Zhao’s mind were suddenly completely wiped out in an instant, leaving his mind empty, unable to even write the word ‘worry.’

After who knew how long, Sheng Zhao still hadn’t come to his senses, but suddenly felt something approaching in front of him. Then, a hand inexplicably reached around, pressing against his back and pushing him forward forcefully.

Sheng Zhao staggered and collided with a cold embrace, with a faint mist of moisture lingering around his nose.

A hand reached over, wiping under his lower eyelid. Then, a voice that sounded like a smile but wasn’t came from beside his ear, so familiar that it made Sheng Zhao want to cry.

“Sheng Zhao, why are you crying?”