Chapter 476 The Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit
Standing at the edge of Flying-cloud Stone, with strengths that matched even the gods of war, Xiao Ning and Gu Feng did their best to defend the rapidly-falling Flying-cloud Stone, protecting it from any more attacks from the soldiers of the Immortals’ League.

Fortunately, the flying conveyance was able to reach ground safely with Gui Xian at the helm. They were gliding at an altitude barely 300 meters above when Xiao Ning shouted, “Bail out!”

Everyone leaped off at his call and Xiao Ning and Gu Feng immediately pooled their powers together to conjure a magical bubble that swallowed up everyone to cushion their fall into a forest. Still, the soldiers of the League pursued them. As the Flying-cloud Stones of the Hit Squad hovered around to land, Gu Feng looked up at them and cursed bitterly. “Let me fight them! Enough running like rats!”

“Brother Gu Feng, no!” Xiao Ning stopped him. “Don’t forget they have Energy Cannons!” As if in a cue, a volley of energy whizzed by, dangerously close to them, before ending with a loud explosion not far away, reducing part of the forest into charred, smoldering snags.

“Run!”

The party of twenty-plus people ran deeper into the wildernesses of the Changyin Mountain Range where no sunlight could reach and in this dusk, the lumbering peaks looked no less ominous as the party plunged themselves into its shadows, with no sense of direction at all.

Having lost track of them, the Immortals’ League Hit Squad could do nothing than conduct carpet-bombings of the entire area, hoping vainly that any of their cluster bombs could hit and kill their targets. But instead, the explosions and tremors did nothing more than to awaken the unknown horrors that have been slumbering peacefully for eons underneath the underground bowels of the mountains.

An hour scarcely passed before darkness came and the entire mountain range was flooded by the pale gossamer illumination of the moon. Deep inside the thick of the wilderness, the shadows of the branches and thickets slanted and stretched sinisterly like talons and claws reaching out for them in the dark. Up overhead them on the jagged cliffs, howls and hoots of predators echoed across the valley, shrouding the forest in an eerily haunting ambiance.

“Cough! Cough!” Xiao Chen bolted awake, gasping for air before being hit with another fit of coughs. Even under the airy moonlight, he looked horribly pale. Ziyun’er held him up. “My Lord! Are you all right!”

“I, I… I’m fine…” Xiao Chen waved her off, his white lips struggling to speak. Gui Xian and Yi Tong looked at him in unison with deep frowns creasing at their foreheads. Their eyes met briefly but they said nothing.

“I’ll take care of him,” Huangfu Xin’er said curtly, taking him over into her arms. Holding his right arm, her eyes traveled to the bloody wound of his missing arm and felt a painful jolt in her heart.

But Xiao Chen turned his head to look at her, his face putting up a smile. Wanting to touch her cheek, a pang of pain came instead from his left arm which reminded him that he no longer had his left arm.

“The Headquarters of the Immortals’ League must have mobilized their forces in the Northern Continent. If my guess is right, their forces must now be surrounding this region,” None-flower Dust uttered suddenly.

Yang Qing and his men watched in morose silence. The seven swordsmen only followed Xiao Chen in order to escape Mount Wuyue together. They could have left after breaking free from the beleaguerment of the soldiers of the League trying to arrest them but honor demanded that they stay and fight together instead of leaving Xiao Chen on his own.

“We’ll fight to the death then! I have no fear of them! To our deaths it is!” A swordsman beside Yang Qing spoke fiercely.

But no one else answered his call. Xiao Chen looked up at the sky in reflection. “Was I here before? Yes, I was… Because of someone from Clan Zuoqiu pursuing Xian’er and me? Yes… We were outside Canglan City then… Then we came here… And we encountered Yu Yangzi… Then we met Su Xiaomei…”

“What will I encounter here this time? After being chased here by the forces of the Immortals’ League?” The Changyin Mountain Range experienced changes every few thousand years, having laid witness to many a great historical event and the changes of its terrain had hidden just as many secrets underneath its feet. The ancient remains of an unknown Immortal King and the ancient scroll now kept by the Xianyong Sect were all found here.

“We should find a place to rest and decide tomorrow,” Xiao Chen croaked after seeing the girls of the Levitating Dark Fragrance, all of whom were injured, and even some of them were with a few gravely wounded, including Qingluan at death’s door. Anymore further and Ziyun’er and her sisters might collapse.

After an hour’s trek, they found a cave where they decided to spend the night in. They could not start a fire, fearing that one would alert any soldiers of the League lurking around to their presence. Yang Qing and his men kept watch not far away with Gu Feng and Xiao Ning guarding the entrance. Ziyun’er and the rest of the Levitating Dark Fragrance recuperated inside and the shelter allowed Gui Xian to help with Qingluan’s wounds. Xiao Chen rested not far away from the entrance, his countenance paling by the second as a layer of sweat slicked at his temples.

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee, Koo-chee!” Koo-chee screeched anxiously, circling around Xiao Chen like a distressed chicken. “I’m fine, Koo-chee,” a haggard and sickly Xiao Chen said to him.

Koo-chee groaned mournfully in response. Suddenly, it tore out of the cave and vanished. “Come back, Koo-chee! Don’t run off!” Xiao Chen cried, but to no avail.

Yi Tong stopped him from getting up. “It’s all right, Xiao Chen. Koo-chee is more intelligent than we often give him credit for. He’ll be fine.”

Xiao Chen softened. It was right. Koo-chee had been with him since the Miasma Mountain Range, surviving through so many gritting and fierce battles with him and had many a time showed more gumption than even that dratted Leopard Cat Spirit. “But how are they now,” he wondered, Xian’er and that Leopard Cat Spirit… Are they well at the Jade Qing Sect? This could be my end though and I may not yet see them again…” The thought of parting with Xian’er made him felt even sadder. “Brother Yi Tong, Brother None-flower… I’m afraid I have landed you both in a huge mess this time…”

“Hold it, Xiao Chen. We’ll speak nothing of that sort.”

Huangfu Xin’er walked over to him. She looked at his arm wound and the telltale rings around her eyes deepened. They had always loved each other so much even as children, feeling sad for each other whenever the other got hurt. And here was Xiao Chen now, missing an arm for her, and for all the good that the Heartless Cultivation Method could do, nothing would ever help restore him once again, and for that, it pained her immensely so.

“I’m all right…” Xiao Chen gasped feebly. Yet despite his smile, he seemed to have lost all color of his face and looked closer to be dying as if his very life was leaking out of the wound at his shoulder.

Sitting at a corner not far away were Gui Xian and Yi Tong, both looking equally bothered and tense. They knew what was coming, although they could not quite bring themselves to be truthful to the others.

Koo-chee reappeared suddenly after missing for almost half an hour, screeching “Koo-chee” agitatedly as it darted back into the cave. Ziyun’er walked up to him and crouched, asking him, “What’s wrong, Koo-chee?”

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee!” Koo-chee squealed and ran back towards the entrance of the cave where it stopped and gave Ziyun’er a knowing squawk, signaling at her to follow.

Ziyun’er followed him out of the cave. Gu Feng, who was watching at the mouth of the cave, saw her padding after Koo-chee. Fearing for her safety, he said, “Wait! I’m coming with you.”

The duo returned with Koo-chee after almost an hour, both bloodied and panting for breath. Gu Feng and his trusty Raging Dragon Blade were both greasy with blood as if he had been in a ferocious battle as he returned. With a curt look at the dismally lean and waned Xiao Chen, he wearily returned to his post at the mouth of the cave.

Whereas Ziyun’er was holding a little plant. A little shrub with seven fruits hanging from its bony branches, blazing bright red like flames. The fruits were all the size of walnuts, each not only oddly-shaped like a human heart, they were also beating spryly like a true human heart that one could feel goosebumps oozing just by looking at them!

“Wh-what are those…” Xiao Chen stammered, bewildered. Even with his vast knowledge, he had never seen something as morbidly weird as this.

“This is what Koo-Chee found for you, My Lord! I think he wants you to eat them!” Ziyun’er beamed excitedly.

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee, Koo-chee!” Koo-chee nodded his head frantically. It leaped up to pick a fruit from the little shrub and dropped it in Xiao Chen’s hand.

Xiao Chen stared at the fruit. In his palm. In the center of his palm, the large purplish-red fruit sat, pulsating grotesquely, as if alive. “How am I supposed to eat something as gross as this?!” But he remembered a similar occurrence long ago at the Devil Repressed Tower when Koo-chee had led him to a tree whose fruit had restored his powers after eating it.

“Wait a minute!” Gui Xian yelped suddenly and he came over, saying, “Let me have a look first!” But he froze when he saw the fruit, his eyes wandering to look at Koo-chee with disbelief.

But a sanguinary Koo-chee peered intently at Gui Xian, his eyes yawning wide with confidence as it nodded profusely, squealing “Koo-chee! Koo-chee!”

Gui Xian took one of the fruits in his fingers and studied it closely for seconds until he finally looked at Xiao Chen. “Thank the stars, boy. This is the Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit. A fruit so priceless that it grows only once in ten thousand years, making it even rarer than a fully-grown Spirited Lingzhi.”

“The Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit?” Xiao Chen muttered under his breath, still perplexed how Koo-chee was always able to find strange and rare fruits like these.

“Heh heh heh,” Gui Xian sniggered suddenly and said, “You’re in luck this time. Not only you’ll be able to have an arm back… Heh heh heh… I’d like to see how would the dogs of the League fare against you later… Enough talking for now. Eat up. Eat the Fruit and I’ll tell you more.”

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee!” Koo-chee agreed by nodding incessantly, looking positively thrilled. “Will this really help?” Xiao Chen wondered, Then it might help Qingluan and the others… Seeing through his thoughts, Gui Xian remarked, “It’ll be of no use to them. The Fruit is only for you for it is too strong for them. The girls would immediately bleed through every orifice of their heads and die a most painful death if they took this.”

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee!” Koo-chee squealed again, urging him to consume the fruit. “All right, Koo-chee, I’ll listen to you,” Xiao Chen chuckled. He deposited the Fruit into his mouth and bit hard. Crisp juice burst against his taste bud and filled his mouth. Xiao Chen gagged and gulped it down with some difficulty. The Fruit tasted a hundred times more bitter than the fruit he ate at the Devil Repressed Tower!

The taste was so bitter, almost rank, that Xiao Chen could not take it anymore. He gagged, his eyes smarting with tears and nearly threw up if not Koo-chee who pounced at him and brandished its claws, clamping his mouth shut.

“Hmm! All right! I’ll swallow it! Gerroff, Koo-chee!”

With tremendous frustration, Xiao Chen finally swallowed the fruit with his eyes welling with tears. The Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit was so bitter that he doubted if any other mage could ever endure its flavor.

“Koo-chee! Koo-chee!” Koo-chee bounded around happily. He scampered to the small tree and picked another Fruit and dropped it in Xiao Chen’s lap. “What?! Another one?!” He grumbled.

“Hum… Koo-chee!” Koo-chee grimaced and planted his paws at his waist, glowering at him as if incensed. Xiao Chen exhaled wearily and smiled. He swallowed the second fruit, feeling the sharp pangs of bitterness that almost forced him to vomit. But he could never consume a third ever again. The bitterness was just too much for him to handle.

“No, I won’t eat it again. I’d rather lose my arm. So you’d better stop forcing me, Brother Koo-chee…” Xiao Chen shook his head adamantly.

That left Ziyun’er and the rest of the Levitating Dark Fragrance with troubled frowns. “Our Lord hasn’t even wrinkled a brow even when he’s lost an arm… Yet here he is, refusing to eat the fruit like a child refusing his dose of medicine…” Ziyun’er frowned and muttered, “But My Lord…”

“No, that’s enough,” Xiao Chen cut her off flatly, “I’m not eating another one no matter what.”

An irate Koo-chee groaned at him relentlessly, still trying to push him into eating another Fruit. Suddenly, Huangfu Xin’er appeared from nowhere and snatched the Fruit from his paws, surprising Ziyun’er and everyone else.

“All of you, out!”

It was a stern cry that no one dared to oppose. Gui Xian, Ziyun’er and everyone else retreated out of the cave, leaving only Xiao Chen and Huangfu Xin’er alone inside. Xiao Chen stared at her, staggering backward hesitantly, “Urm… Xin’er… What are you doing…”

Huangfu Xin’er drew closer to him until they were a mere hair’s breadth apart and he could smell her breath. She looked at him coolly in the eye, suddenly shoving the Seven-apertured Octarine Core Fruit into her mouth and began chewing on it hard. “Xin’er, what are you…” Xiao Chen gasped, startled. But before he could speak anymore, her lips closed in on his.

He shuddered, feeling unable to breathe. The pungent and sharp taste of the Octarine Core Fruit dribbled from her mouth into his and for that very moment, it no longer tasted bitter.

He raised his right arm and his hand stroked the hair on her back.