Chapter Ninety-Two: Reaping the Rewards of Others' Strife

“Bad news. This red-maned tusk boar has companions. Second Brother, Third Sister, Fourth Brother, do not hold back. We must kill this beast as quickly as possible and hurry back and leave this place...”

The young man at the head of the group, who was controlling the flying sword, heard the distant reply of the wild boar and immediately turned pale. In the instant he warned his companions, he drove his artifact with all his strength at the boar’s head.

Though the red-maned tusk boar had not yet reached the second rank, it made up for it with hide as tough as armor. Just one of them was enough to force the four of them to exhaust every trick they had. If two more came, who would be the hunter and who the prey was no longer easy to say.

The other two men and one woman dared not slacken either. They hurriedly controlled their artifacts, slashing and hacking in a furious effort to kill the boar before them.

Yet the red-maned tusk boar was, after all, a late-stage first-rank beast. Its hide was thick and its tusks were as hard as low-grade magical artifacts. After crashing forward with desperate ferocity, it actually knocked the lead youth’s and the girl’s flying swords aside.

The flying swords of the other two did strike its body, carving wounds deep enough to show bone, but they were not fatal in the short term.

The boar’s cries grew even shriller. Not far away, the shrubs and grass kept trembling, and two larger red-maned tusk boars burst into view and charged straight toward them.

“Two peak first-rank red-maned tusk boars! Run!”

Seeing clearly that both were over three meters long and radiated an even more formidable aura, the lead youth’s face went deathly white. No longer caring about finishing off the gravely wounded boar, he recalled his flying sword and tried to escape into the air.

The girl he called Third Sister was no slower. With a beckoning motion, the artifact that had been knocked aside by the boar returned to her before her, and she leaped onto it, forming a seal as she rose into the air.

The other two young men also tried to flee, but the red-maned tusk boar, driven mad by its injuries, had already charged toward them. One tusk over a meter long slammed viciously toward Second Brother’s abdomen, and he was so frightened that he rolled sideways in a panic, barely avoiding it.

Fourth Brother was not the one targeted at first, but a barely visible, translucent blade of light shot out from the grass behind him and struck his calf.

The sudden agony made his spell to recall his flying sword falter at once, and he likewise missed the best chance to escape.

“Second Brother, Fourth Brother!”

“Second Brother! Little Brother!”

Already flying in midair, the lead youth and the girl saw two peak first-rank red-maned tusk boars surging toward the pair like a torrent pouring down a mountain, and both cried out in alarm.

Only, because they had been focused entirely on fleeing, they had not noticed that Fourth Brother, who should have been able to escape, had actually been ambushed by a tiny mosquito hiding in the grass and dragged into danger.

Xiao Wenzi had attacked Fourth Brother because his cultivation just happened to be at the peak of the seventh level, enough for Xiao Wenzi to absorb his blood and exchange it for system coins.

Forget talk of having no grudge between them. The cultivation world was never a place that cherished kindness and righteousness. More importantly, he was only a mosquito that needed to drink blood to grow. It was perfectly normal for him to use any means necessary in order to become stronger.

Seeing that escape was impossible, the two young men went ashen-faced. Yet neither of them was willing to wait for death. They both raised protective spiritual radiance around themselves and drove their artifacts to slash at the charging boars.

Crash, crash.

The difference in cultivation was far too great. When the flying swords struck the red-maned tusk boars, they only left shallow cuts, whereas the boars’ tusks easily shattered the two men’s protective light.

With no time to dodge, Second Brother and Fourth Brother were both slammed away by the boars in a miserable state.

Fourth Brother’s thigh was broken by the impact, and as blood spurted wildly from him, he sent out his resentful divine sense in all directions in his final moments, trying to find the one who had ambushed him. But just then the gravely wounded red-maned tusk boar rushed over to finish him off, and his consciousness instantly grew hazy.

Witnessing the deaths of their companions, the lead youth and Third Sister were filled with sorrow, as though they too felt the pain of the dead hare mourning the fox. But they did not dare stop to take revenge, because two larger red-maned tusk boars had already charged at them like madmen.

Ordinary low-grade magical artifacts had a hard time injuring such thick-skinned boars, not to mention spell attacks. At this point, if they wanted vengeance, the best course was to hurry back to their clan and have the elders and the senior branch uncles take action.

So they gritted their teeth and fled toward the distant sky. Though the red-maned tusk boars pursued in a frenzy, they could only watch helplessly as the two disappeared into the horizon, since they could not fly.

Thus, the enraged beasts turned back to the wounded boar again, intending to tear and gnaw the bodies of Second Brother and Fourth Brother to pieces to vent their fury.

Because the earlier boar had already lost too much blood, it was now lying there weakly, unable to move. Though it had not yet died, it looked utterly pitiful.

Thud, thud, thud. The red-maned tusk boars tore and bit at the corpse. Second Brother’s body was soon reduced to fragments, most of his flesh swallowed by the two beasts.

But just as they were about to dismember Fourth Brother’s body lying off to the side, a huge mosquito suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of them.

While the red-maned tusk boars had been chasing that pair of young cultivators, Xiao Wenzi had seized the chance to profit as a fisherman in troubled waters, and he had already sucked up quite a lot of blood.

Moreover, exchanging a seventh-level system coin for a middle-grade talisman required only a small amount of more than twenty coins, so it was not strange that he had been able to conceal himself in advance and launch a surprise attack.

With only a few feet between them, Xiao Wenzi kept flapping his wings, sending out blade-like arcs of translucent light, each one aimed with exquisite precision at their vulnerable round eyes.

The boar beasts had thick hides and rough flesh, but their eyes remained their fatal weakness. At such close range, they had nowhere to dodge. Once Xiao Wenzi’s ambush struck home, their basin-sized eyes were instantly turned into gaping holes spraying blood.

Of course, because he had to handle two massive targets at once, not every wing-blade hit. Only one boar had both eyes pierced; the other still had one intact right eye.

Still, the other side was a peak first-rank beast comparable to the Scale-Venom Python, and Xiao Wenzi was already quite satisfied with such a result. The instant he succeeded, he did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately activated his Swift-Demon Art to retreat to the rear.

Blood poured endlessly from the eye sockets, and the pain drove the red-maned tusk boars into furious roars as they crashed forward with reckless force.

Especially the one that had been blinded in both eyes. It had not even realized that Xiao Wenzi had already turned into a gray blur and fled. With a thunderous impact, it slammed viciously into the other red-maned tusk boar.

The boars’ tusks were sharp enough to rival ordinary low-grade magical artifacts. Under such a violent and forceful collision, by a cruel stroke of chance, one tusk pierced straight through its companion’s neck. The unlucky great boar let out several mournful cries before collapsing helplessly.

The wing-blade arcs that had pierced into the red-maned tusk boar’s head through its eye sockets had caused far more damage than what could be seen on the surface.

Blood flowed without end from the wounds, its nerves nearly in chaos. The bloodthirsty, maddened boar paid no heed at all to the tragic death of its companion. It yanked out its tusks and continued ramming about everywhere in a blind rampage.

But the true culprit, the little mosquito, had long since flown high into the sky. What could it do even if it exhausted itself to death?

Instead, in its indiscriminate frenzy, it also smashed to death the already gravely wounded red-maned tusk boar from before. Naturally, Fourth Brother’s corpse could not escape being trampled as well.

Still, it remained fairly intact, which did not hinder bloodsucking and the like.

High above, Xiao Wenzi looked down upon this scene, his heart overflowing with joy that he could scarcely conceal. He had never expected that profiting as a fisherman in troubled waters could be this easy.