Chapter 43: Fierce Battle with the Centipede King

"Big Ginger, let's split up and run!"

Seeing the path blocked, A-Zi instead grew calm. Urging Jiang Mingzhe to leave first, she steadied her posture and squared off against the giant centipede.

She calculated rapidly in her heart: *I'll just stall this monster for a bit. Once Big Ginger gets far enough away, I'll leap into the Zhaqu River...*

Before the thought could even finish forming, rapid footsteps sounded. It was Jiang Mingzhe, who had discarded his bamboo tube and basket, rushing back with a hunting fork in hand.

"Who told you to turn back? Hurry up and go!"

A-Zi cried out anxiously, feeling a mixed surge of exasperation and warmth in her chest.

Seeing that Jiang Mingzhe refused to budge, she swiftly fished out an anti-toxin heart-protecting pill to hold beneath her tongue, drew her short blade, and lunged at the giant centipede.

This gargantuan centipede possessed a flattened body and long legs, its claws as sharp as knives. Its combat style differed vastly from ordinary centipedes.

Seeing A-Zi charge, it splayed its rearmost long legs to anchor itself, rearing the front half of its body upright while a dozen long, sharp legs stabbed and thrust wildly.

A-Zi wore a glove on her right hand and held the short blade in her left, deflecting and blocking the strikes one by one with rapid parries.

Realizing it could not easily subdue her, the giant centipede seemed to grow irritated. Straining upward, it supported its entire weight solely on its four rearmost, longest legs, raising the greater part of its body into the air. Dozens of long legs thrust out like a flurry of spears, producing a harsh, whirring sound in the atmosphere.

A-Zi’s pupils constricted. Knowing she could not withstand this, she immediately leaped backward to dodge.

Yet the moment she jumped, the giant centipede abruptly spat a stream of cyan mist, astonishingly fast and fierce.

A-Zi hurriedly held her breath, but still inhaled a small amount. In an instant, dizziness washed over her, and she staggered, nearly collapsing.

She shook her head hard, feeling her eyelids grow impossibly heavy. Her vision blurred into overlapping images, and the giant centipede appeared to fracture into three, charging at her side by side.

A-Zi knew in her mind that she needed to dodge, but her head was spinning so violently that she could not even figure out which way to step.

Her heart sank involuntarily: *So I am to die in this place... What a pity... I never managed to find...*

Just as she closed her eyes to await death, a mighty roar crashed into her ears. A-Zi’s spirits jolted, and she cried out in shock, "Big Ginger!"

Forcing her eyes wide open, she saw three giant centipedes violently thrashing as countless long legs scraped against one another with a metallic clang. Alongside them, three Jiang Mingzhes tumbled backward through the air in unison.

***

The moment the giant centipede lunged at A-Zi, Jiang Mingzhe had vaulted into the air, gripping the hunting fork with both hands and driving it fiercely into the centipede’s rear.

Jiang Mingzhe had intended to pin the centipede to the ground, but he had not anticipated that its dorsal carapace would be as hard as iron, nor that his hunting fork was any legendary divine weapon. Even with Jiang Mingzhe striking at full force, it penetrated less than an inch.

Smarting from the pain, the giant centipede lashed its tail upward. The hunting fork bounced off violently, sending Jiang Mingzhe hurtling backward against his will.

Amidst a flurry of scraping sounds, the centipede whipped its body around and lunged at Jiang Mingzhe.

Though temporarily out of immediate danger, A-Zi’s head grew increasingly foggy, and she longed to fall into an endless sleep. Yet the last shred of clarity in her mind shrieked incessantly: *I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep! Big Ginger is in danger!*

She bit down hard on the tip of her tongue. Through the sharp pain, her wits cleared slightly, and she immediately fumbled across her body for medicine to counteract the poison.

Meanwhile, Jiang Mingzhe had landed on the ground. Before he could even scramble to his feet, the centipede lunged forward menacingly.

Jiang Mingzhe could only roll away to dodge. As he rolled, he tore off his upper garment and tossed it aside. The centipede slammed into the clothing and began tearing at it furiously. Seizing the opportunity, Jiang Mingzhe scrambled up just as the centipede realized it had been tricked and lunged again.

At the very precipice of peril, Jiang Mingzhe had no time for hesitation. Facing the charging centipede, he executed a fluid cow-tail swing—swiveling his entire body sharply to the right. As the centipede planted its feet to spring, Jiang Mingzhe agilely whipped his lower leg around, shifting his center of gravity to pull himself back out of the way.

The centipede struck empty air, but its reaction was blindingly fast. Planting its front limbs, its wide tail swept horizontally across the ground.

This sweep closely resembled a sliding tackle on a football pitch.

Jiang Mingzhe leaped up to clear it, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him. Twisting his body horizontally in mid-air, he stamped down rapidly with both feet, landing one after the other directly onto the centipede’s back.

Startled, the centipede surged forward. Jiang Mingzhe bent his knees, crouched, and held his arms half-spread, struggling desperately to adjust his balance. Miraculously, he managed to stand firmly atop the centipede’s back.

During his school days, Jiang Mingzhe had once been infatuated with football and skateboarding, though limited by his physical conditioning back then, his skill had been merely average. Now, however, with his mastery of inner energy, those techniques that had once been difficult to grasp came to him effortlessly.

Unable to shake him off, the centipede began to writhe, its segments shifting endlessly into shapes resembling 'S' and 'C'. Finding his footing compromised, Jiang Mingzhe suddenly caught sight of the two golden feelers thrashing wildly atop the centipede’s head. Reaching out with both hands, he grabbed them in a tight grip!

With this move, it was just like having reins while riding a horse, or a steering wheel while driving a car. Not only did he secure a purchase to steady his center of gravity, but he also gained the ability to steer the giant centipede.

One must understand that although centipedes possess eyes, their eyesight is extremely poor, relying primarily on these two antennae to perceive their environment. Now tightly clutched by Jiang Mingzhe, the creature’s sense of direction and distance instantly plunged into chaos.

When Jiang Mingzhe exerted force with his left hand, the centipede turned left; when he exerted force with his right, it moved right. When he applied pressure with both hands simultaneously, the centipede would leap and glide.

Convinced that Jiang Mingzhe was facing mortal peril, A-Zi, in her dizzy haze, rummaged frantically through the lining of her belt until she fished out a *Spirit-Rhino Miasma-Repelling Pill*.

***

This pill was one that Old Freak Ding had specially refined and left over from his previous forays into the southern frontiers, which A-Zi had cajoled and pestered him into giving her. Now, it finally proved useful.

Though the pill was no larger than a mung bean, its efficacy was truly astonishing. According to the *Shennong Ben Cao Jing*: "Rhino horn excels at neutralizing all manner of toxins, malevolent poisons, and pestilential miasma." Against the centipede venom afflicting A-Zi, it was the precise remedy. Scarcely a moment after swallowing it down, the sensations of dizziness and lethargy abated by more than half.

"Thank goodness, the medicine works!" A-Zi’s face lit up with relief, and she hurried off to rescue Jiang Mingzhe. "Big Ginger, I'm coming to save—huh?"

It was then that A-Zi realized the scene before her bore no resemblance whatsoever to what she had imagined. Jiang Mingzhe was currently having a lively time playing with the Flying Centipede Emperor.

A-Zi watched with her own eyes as the giant centipede sprang from the ground while Jiang Mingzhe, clutching its antennae, stood steadfastly upon its back. His semi-long hair streamed in the wind like an immortal swordsman soaring through the skies on a flying blade.

The toxins in A-Zi’s system had not yet entirely cleared. Witnessing this astonishing spectacle, for a moment she found herself unable to tell whether it was real or merely a hallucination.

"Senior Sister!" Jiang Mingzhe spotted A-Zi as well and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Are you alright? Hurry up and leave, take Little Ginger with you, I'll find my own way back later!"

A-Zi closed her eyes and focused on regulating her breathing for a moment, feeling the poison recede significantly further. When she opened her eyes again, she finally confirmed it was no illusion, and shook her head repeatedly. "No! We came together, we leave together! The White and Blue Twin Fiends share a deep bond of loyalty; if I were to just abandon you, what kind of Senior Sister would I be?"

"Listen to me! This centipede can't do anything to me right now, but it seems I can't kill it either—I can only wear down its stamina. You go first, I'll follow right after!"

As Jiang Mingzhe spoke, blood from his right hand was trickling continuously down the centipede’s antennae. However, because the giant centipede was moving at blinding speed and A-Zi’s mind was not yet fully clear, she failed to notice.

As it turned out, this Flying Centipede Emperor not only possessed razor-like arthropods and an iron-hard carapace, but its two antennae were also exceptionally tough, covered moreover in countless microscopic barbed bristles.

Jiang Mingzhe’s left hand, protected by a pearl-fish leather glove, was naturally unharmed, but his right hand had been lacerated with numerous cuts. That was why he kept urging A-Zi to leave first—he was terrified that the searing pain might cause his grip to slacken ever so slightly, flinging him off the centipede's back. Should he fall off, getting back up would likely prove a thousand times more difficult.

Yet no matter how he argued, A-Zi stubbornly refused to budge. Jiang Mingzhe sighed inwardly, thinking: *It seems until I thoroughly finish off this centipede, this deadlock will never end. But this creature is built like solid iron—how on earth do I kill it?*

Then he heard A-Zi call out, "A centipede has incredible endurance, and this Flying Centipede Emperor possesses infinite strength to boot. How could it be so simple to exhaust its stamina? If anyone is going, you should go first. Once you're far enough away, I'll just jump into the river—I can easily escape that way."

A surge of delight washed over Jiang Mingzhe: *Of course! Centipedes can't swim; that's actually a brilliant solution!*