Chapter Eight: When the Moon Is Full, I Go Mad

Chapter Eight: When the Moon Is Full, I Go Mad

With a thunderous burst, a streak of black light shot out from the mass of black mist. The thick fog remained where it was, but Zhou Yu had already leapt high into the air.

The monkey with the strange face craned his neck and looked up. Wrapped in that black light, Zhou Yu shot straight upward, climbing so fast it seemed he was about to drill into the clouds. A black line of condensed energy formed in his wake, reaching toward the full moon hanging in the sky.

“Is he going to pluck the moon?” the monkey blurted out in shock.

Before long, the original black line had not yet fully faded when another streak came plunging down from the sky.

The monkey stared blankly at the descending line, utterly at a loss.

In his eyes, Zhou Yu—his face twisted in ferocity, his entire body shrouded in black radiance—grew larger and larger, until the sound of tearing wind reached him. Only then did he suddenly come to his senses, shrieked, and sprang aside, fleeing toward the distance.

Boom!

This time, not only the black bamboo grove, but even the land around it trembled several times under the force of the explosion.

Wrapped in that black light, Zhou Yu smashed into the ground and blasted out a massive crater some ten meters across. The force of the impact expanded the devastated central area of the grove by more than double.

The strange-faced monkey hid far away behind a black bamboo, watching. The bamboo before him had almost been entirely destroyed by the aftershock of that strike.

Holding a crab shell in his hand and shoving it into his mouth, he muttered, “Damn monkey... so fierce!”

In the great circular pit, Zhou Yu braced himself on all fours. His head jerked wildly left and right, then right and left again, as though searching for some target.

With every breath he took, great clouds of black mist poured from his nostrils. Around his body, the black radiance gradually became tangible, forming a bizarre suit of armor that covered him from head to toe.

It was black, yet transparent, and with Zhou Yu down on all fours, he looked astonishingly like a giant crab.

The monkey raised his head and glanced at the full moon. Some thought seemed to dawn on him as he said, “Oh, so the great crab has come back to claim a life! I’ve never done anything to hurt a crab, and every time I even greeted it. It won’t come for me. It definitely won’t come for me.”

A night wind passed. The black mist drifted away on the breeze, and the monkey’s vision suddenly blurred. When he looked again, Zhou Yu was gone from the field.

He hurriedly searched all around. Then, when he lifted his head by chance, he saw Zhou Yu crouching atop the black cylindrical pillar not far away, his hands and feet all braced against it as he scanned his surroundings, just then turning to look in the monkey’s direction.

The sight of those eyes, blood-red and filled with utter madness, startled the monkey. He subconsciously stepped backward.

But that retreat only drew Zhou Yu’s attention.

The corner of Zhou Yu’s mouth lifted in the slightest curve, and he smiled at the monkey.

To the monkey, it felt as though something terrible had set its gaze upon him. Cold sweat broke out all over his body, and that sinister smile from Zhou Yu nearly shattered what little courage he had left. With a terrified shriek, he turned and ran toward the outer edge of the black bamboo grove.

With a sudden burst, Zhou Yu vanished from the pillar. In the next instant, he was already behind the monkey.

With a cold smile, he drove a fist into the monkey’s back.

The blow nearly punched straight through him. A fist-shaped imprint appeared on his chest, the bones and organs inside shattered to pieces. Only that monkey hide of his, somehow impossible to break, remained intact. The monkey spewed blood as he flew like a falling star toward the edge of the grove, his life and death unknown.

Chapter Eight continued

After blasting the monkey away with one punch, Zhou Yu raised his head and roared to the heavens. His voice rolled like thunder, scattering the dust around him and all the bamboo leaves and dead branches littering the ground.

Boom!

He smashed a fist into the earth, caving the ground in completely. A ring of shockwaves spread outward with that strike, and anything touched by them, whether black bamboo or little blades of grass, was instantly reduced to dust.

Zhou Yu did not stop. One fist after another, he kept pounding the ground as though he meant to bore straight through it. The booming impacts carried far into the moonlit night.

The ox-headed demon had received word from two subordinates and had now rushed to within ten li of the place. Suddenly, he felt the ground begin to tremble incessantly, and from the direction of the black bamboo grove came a series of muffled, thunderous strikes.

The ox-headed demon widened his bovine eyes in disbelief at the grove and unconsciously halted. From the distance, several ox-headed soldiers came stumbling toward him, crying out, “Monster! There’s a monster!”

When those ox-headed soldiers reached him, they dropped to their knees before the ox-headed demon with a thud, bowing their heads repeatedly while shouting wildly to the heavens.

The ox-headed demon barked, “Enough noise! You, speak!” He pointed at the squad leader.

The ox-headed soldier hurriedly kowtowed a few times and said, “R-Report to Great King! A massive explosion suddenly erupted in the forbidden ground. The entire grove has been destroyed! A terrifying monster appeared inside! I rushed back at once to report to Great King!”

In truth, although the black bamboo grove was not large, the outer areas could not see what was happening inside. When this ox-headed soldier spoke of a monster, it was partly to excuse his desertion of duty, and partly because the violent explosion and the roars from within led him to believe that only some unknown monster could have caused them.

As an demon king, the ox-headed demon had far broader experience. He stared at the black bamboo grove for a moment in silence, then said, “You remain here and watch that side. If anything else happens, report to me immediately.”

After speaking, the ox-headed demon turned and left with his two subordinates. After walking a short distance, he gave orders to another ox-headed soldier beside him. “Hurry and send word. Dispatch two of our people separately: one to report to His Majesty, and the other to report to the elder brother. Tell them the forbidden ground has been struck by disaster, and that the unknown being within may be about to emerge.”

The ox-headed soldier took his orders and left at once.

The ox-headed demon was deeply puzzled. He knew very well what level of energy he had just sensed. Even his elder brother, the Azure Ox Demon King, one of the Five Great Demon Kings, could not possibly unleash such power. Only a demon emperor could produce energy of that magnitude. He did not want to go courting death for no reason, so it would be better to spread the news first.

At the same time, he thought to himself that that demon monkey was likely as good as dead.

The monkey was not dead, but he was close. Zhou Yu’s punch from behind had nearly shattered his entire body. The terrifying defense he had always been so proud of had turned to mud before that blow.

The bones in his back and chest had been completely crushed. If not for the fact that his skin had not yet split, the monkey would already have been nothing but a heap of mush.

Blood poured from his mouth as he lay in a muddy pit a li from the black bamboo grove, groaning continuously.

He had never suffered such a grievous wound. This time, the confidence he had always carried was gone. At last he felt the breath of death. He recalled the road he had traveled: in his youth, rejected by his own kind, he had wandered alone to foreign lands. Then, having strayed into the territory of the panther clan, he had been stopped by several panther-headed soldiers. In a rage, he had fought back. Gifted beyond measure, he killed two of them, drawing the pursuit of a panther general. Across the thousand-li grassland, he was captured by that general and tortured in countless ways without dying. In the end, even the Panther King had been drawn into the matter.

At that time, the Black Mountain Old Demon happened to be touring the panther clan. Seeing that scrawny monkey survive after three direct strikes from the Panther King, he immediately took him in as a foster son.

From the moment he became the Black Mountain Old Demon’s adopted son, the monkey was no longer the wild creature trampled by all, wandering the world in disgrace. He became the foster son of the Black Mountain Old Demon, emperor among the kings of the demon race. Even the demon kings greeted him with smiling faces and attempted to curry favor.

All of this had been given to him by the Black Mountain Old Demon. So when the Black Mountain Old Demon was slain by White Bone Weeping, the monkey resolutely took up the road of resistance against White Bone Weeping.

Yet the demon kings, fickle as weeds on a wall, saw that the Black Mountain Old Demon had fallen and each one valued his own life above all else. Under those conditions, the monkey’s resistance army was mercilessly suppressed, and its total destruction had been inevitable.

After all these years of hardship, after even growing accustomed to feeding on earth, the monkey still had not given up on avenging his foster father. But he was ultimately too weak. Though he possessed an almost undying body, he had never killed even one demon king.

Blood continued to stream from his mouth. The monkey’s eyes were wide with unwillingness, his fists clenched. He thought back to the period after his foster father was killed, when he had been personally hunted by the new demon emperor, White Bone Weeping, yet still survived.

He had survived then by relying on that monstrous body of his. Although the injuries from that time were not as severe as this time’s, they were close enough. After that, he had nearly met face-to-face with all the demon kings, fighting again and again, never once winning, never once giving up.

How could he die so inexplicably? How could he possibly accept it?

The monkey’s gaze slowly grew firmer. Ignoring his injuries, he reached out with great difficulty, grabbed a handful of mud, and stuffed it into his mouth to stanch the endless flow of blood.

Chapter Eight continued

The entire black bamboo grove had already been utterly destroyed. Zhou Yu roared madly, as though proclaiming his own strength.

Looking around, there was almost nothing left standing in his sight.

“Kill.”

A single word, heavy with fury and release, burst from Zhou Yu’s throat.

Shrouded in black energy, his skin could not withstand such savage power and began to rot away in patches, as if burned.

Suddenly, the energy around Zhou Yu erupted once more, surging wildly, because he saw that a black cylindrical pillar still stood not far away. He let out a low, menacing roar toward it. In the eyes of the uncontrollable Zhou Yu, everything seemed destined to be ground into dust.

Yet for some reason, he did not attack the black pillar directly. Instead, he kept circling it, as though wary of the thing. Finally, when the energy around him had grown to its most violent peak and his skin had been scorched away almost entirely, leaving not a single intact patch, Zhou Yu launched his first attack on the black pillar.

He actually opened his mouth and spat out a black sphere of energy.

At first, the black energy orb condensed within his mouth, spinning furiously. Only when it had gathered into something almost tangible did Zhou Yu spit it out in a single breath.

Streaks of lingering lightning crackled over the black orb as it slammed into the black pillar.

The pillar did not crumble into dust. It did not even sway. Instead, the tremendous energy orb was swallowed whole.

Wrapped in black energy that formed a suit resembling crab armor, Zhou Yu saw that the attack had had no effect at all on the pillar. Driven mad, he lunged toward it.

His right fist, its surface coated in energy and taking the shape of a giant black crab claw, struck the black pillar in a single blow.

This time, the black pillar was smashed nearly flat to the ground by Zhou Yu’s strike, yet in the next instant it rebounded violently.

With a clang, the rebounding pillar slammed hard into Zhou Yu, knocking him flying backward and burying him deep in the earth.

“Roar!!!” From the great pit, Zhou Yu let out a savage howl. In an instant, he erupted with energy, blasting away the soil around him and leaping out of the crater. He hurled another punch at the black pillar, only to be rebounded once more and smashed deep into the mud.

Again and again, he charged. Again and again, he was flung back.

Gradually, the black energy around Zhou Yu began to weaken. He no longer attacked blindly in a frenzy, but instead hesitated and tried striking the black pillar with lighter blows.

This time, although the pillar rebounded, the force was not nearly so great. Zhou Yu barely held his ground and was not driven into the mud.

Suddenly, Zhou Yu threw his arms around the black pillar and tried to wrench it upward.

That black pillar was nearly three meters thick. With black energy covering his whole body, Zhou Yu’s arms and legs had effectively lengthened considerably, so he could barely wrap himself around the pillar.

“Roar.”

His feet sank deeply into the mud as Zhou Yu hugged the black pillar and strained with all his strength to pull it upward.