Chapter 120: This Humble Monk Kills in Dreams
“Hiss~ hiss~”
The little Grass Snake, Mo Lin, was slithering through the grass.
It was born in a spring, with no plan for the future. All it wished was to live each day peacefully.
Although such days were fairly comfortable, Mo Lin still felt something strange:
“Can I really live so comfortably?”
“It seems as if I was supposed to be doing something else?”
Mo Lin saw a Banded Krait ahead.
The venom of the Banded Krait was extremely potent. The little Grass Snake Mo Lin had no qualification to fight it, so he had no intention of entangling with it and prepared to retreat sensibly.
“Swish!”
At that moment, a snake fork suddenly appeared and forcefully pinned down the Banded Krait.
No matter how it twisted its body, the Banded Krait could not escape from under the fork.
A voice, still somewhat youthful yet brimming with excitement, rang out:
“Haha, Father, I caught a Banded Krait! Our family’s tax for this year is secured!”
Mo Lin looked up and saw a young boy pressing the Banded Krait to the ground with his snake fork, overjoyed. A snake basket hung at his waist.
Looking at the boy’s attire, even though Mo Lin had never seen a Human before, the word still instinctively flashed through his mind:
Snake Catcher!!
Behind the young Snake Catcher, an older man dressed the same way stepped out helplessly:
“Hong Wen, did you forget what I told you before we went up the mountain? Snake catching must be done together! If you got careless and were ambushed by another venomous snake, what then?”
Clearly, this man was also a Snake Catcher.
Hong Wen stuck out his tongue:
“Hehe, Father, I know I was wrong. But anyway, catching the Banded Krait is good enough, isn’t it?”
Hong Tianfeng helplessly put the Banded Krait into Hong Wen’s snake basket.
“You…”
Seeing the two Humans, Mo Lin’s heart instinctively surged with overwhelming fear. He knew—it was the natural fear of the weaker in the food chain toward the stronger.
He wanted to slip away quietly, but found himself unable to move.
At this moment, the older Snake Catcher gave a soft “hmm”:
“There’s another snake?”
Mo Lin was shocked—discovered!!
In extreme fear, Mo Lin instead burst out with his potential, preparing to flee into the forest. As a snake, no Snake Catcher could match his speed!
However, a snake fork landed precisely on his head, pinning Mo Lin firmly to the ground.
It was over!
Mo Lin felt he was on the verge of suffocation, pinned down by the fork.
Amid the suffocating lack of oxygen, Mo Lin felt his body being lifted up by Hong Tianfeng:
“Hmm~ just a harmless little Grass Snake.”
Hong Wen laughed beside him: “Hehe, Father, have you ever eaten snake meat before?”
Hong Tianfeng glanced at his son: “What, you want to eat snake meat?”
Hong Wen only chuckled without answering.
Hong Tianfeng thought for two seconds, then said:
“Fine, let’s use this non-venomous snake to add some meat for you three siblings today.”
“Long live Father!”
In the next instant, amid suffocation and helpless despair, Mo Lin felt his head mercilessly twisted and snapped by a pair of large hands…
“Hu! Hu! Hu!”
The Anaconda Demon Mo Lin once again awoke from his dream, feeling as if his head was splitting apart.
The memory of being killed by the Snake Catcher just now was so vivid, it felt as if it truly happened.
“What’s going on? This nightmare is far too real. Why does my head hurt so much?”
Having suffered two nightmares in succession, Mo Lin no longer dared to rest.
Each nightmare was more real than the last.
Even though he had now reached mid-Earth Rank, he was still shaken by the scenes within the dreams.
After wandering the mountains for two days, hunting a few Field Mice, some snakes, and even killing a few Humans that entered the mountains, Mo Lin’s mood eased a great deal.
“Though I don’t know why I’ve had such nightmares, in the end, a nightmare is only a nightmare. At its core, it doesn’t mean much.”
“It must just be because of recent stress, that I’ve had two nightmares in a row.”
“The time I promised the Mountain Lord to participate in the siege of the city is drawing near. Better to seize this chance to rest well.”
Thinking so, Mo Lin once again lay down on the ground and slowly drifted into sleep.
A middle-aged man in a rain cloak, with a snake basket at his waist and a snake fork in his hand, slowly appeared before Mo Lin:
“Amitabha.”
“Anaconda Demon, though you are mid-Earth Rank and skilled in martial prowess, one’s strength cannot be judged by only one aspect.”
“The souls of most Demonic Beasts cannot match their powerful bodies. You are the same. That is why you have fallen into my double-layered dream and cannot extricate yourself.”
Yes—the one standing before the sleeping Mo Lin was the wandering monk from White Horse Temple, Jingyue.
He was skilled in soul arts, and had specially woven a “Double Dream” for Mo Lin.
Do not be deceived by how Mo Lin appeared to be in deep sleep; even though Jingyue was standing before him, they were still within Mo Lin’s dream.
The real Mo Lin had been asleep from the very beginning.
He had never truly woken up.
The two days of wakefulness in between were nothing more than the first layer of the dream.
Within Mo Lin’s dream, whether it was the King Rat Snake strangling him to death, or the Snake Catcher killing him, these were all carefully crafted second-layer dreams woven by Jingyue.
In his “Double Dream,” every one of Mo Lin’s deaths was real.
That reality was not bodily death, but a kind of annihilation of the soul.
With every death in the dream, Mo Lin’s soul would be heavily consumed—until, one day, he died in the dream again and never woke up…
Though Wuzhen and Jingchen were both skilled in trickery through illusion, in Jingyue’s view, their illusions were the lowest grade, never even touching the soul.
His illusions could be called illusions in the truest sense—“Soul Arts” that could kill without a trace.
“May you remain asleep in the dream this humble monk has woven for you, never to wake again. Amitabha…”
Having spoken, the figure of “Hong Tianfeng” slowly faded away from before the coiled Mo Lin.
……
Not long ago, Mo Lin had carefully schemed and devoured Hong Tianfeng.
At this moment, he awoke from his sleep to find, to his astonishment, that he had undergone Demon Transformation.
“Was it that eating a Human allowed me to transform, or was it for some other reason?”
While Mo Lin pondered, two figures in Taoist robes suddenly appeared before him:
“Snake Demon, you dare to eat Humans! Your crime is unforgivable! Watch as we, Ding Fan and Xu Han, subdue you on behalf of the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring!”
With that, the two charged at Mo Lin with their magic tools and talismans.
Mo Lin, though a Snake Demon, had only just stepped onto the demonic path. Compared to the two Taoist priests of the Bureau of Heaven Monitoring, his strength was nothing.
Within a few moves, he was captured by Ding Fan, brought back to Hongjia Village, and killed.
Mo Lin awoke for the third time from being slain in a nightmare.
This time, unlike the first two times filled with shock and fear, he instead was thoughtful:
“No… something is wrong… something doesn’t add up…”