The Great Worm Lich

At the same time, Zhang Lisheng felt an odd throbbing in him all of a sudden. He had goosebumps on his back. He shuddered, he thought to himself with changing expressions on his face. He stood up all of a sudden and walked to the pool in big steps. He woke up Tina and Trish who were sleeping. It would be ridiculous if the two girls were in deep sleep in the Amazon jungle. ‘Ahh’ Trish screamed just when Zhang Lisheng shook her sleeping bag, she woke up because of fear, then screamed while holding her arms before her chest, “What… What are you doing?”

“Hide in the pool with Tina,” Zhang Lisheng said without explaining further.

“What?”

“Hide in the pool, quick,” Zhang Lisheng urged and began chanting witchcraft incantation to expand Mountoad’s body to its peak. It then blindly spat a powerful cyclone far away into the dense jungle. The cyclone spread out at a speed which surpassed the sound barrier. A sharp ‘bang’ came when a large piece of land was destroyed with trees being broken.

A hurt wild beast’s roar came from the dark jungle after the loud thud came. Zhang Lisheng was relieved to hear that, while looking grim he spat a mouthful of black blood towards the direction where the roar came from. He shouted a Mandarin word that meant ‘assemble’. The two girls behind him who got out of their sleeping bags put on their jacket immediately. They hesitated but, they still hid in the pool following Zhang Lisheng’s order.

The pool was seven to eight meters deep, Mountoad had eaten all of the water boas and venomous worms living inside the pool since the beginning. However, the wizard worm could do nothing to the cold water temperature. It was a great choice to be camping in a sleeping bag by a chilly pool and a bonfire at the shore. However, the two ladies soon felt the coldness as soon as they soaked themselves in the pool. They had goosebumps, their fingers holding onto the shore were becoming weak from the coldness.

Tina’s head was the only thing showing as her body soaked in the water. By the bonfire, Tina looked at Zhang Lisheng who was standing not far away from them with his back facing them and said, “What’s wrong, Lisheng? It’s too cold in the water…”

Buzzing noise interrupted her complaint. Subsequently, with the help of the fire, the girl saw flying bugs all over the sky while crawling insects gathered into a black fog rushing from the jungle.

“Sh*t, sh*t, Lisheng run…” Tina was stunned at the moment as she supported her body to get up using both her arms holding onto the shore. She got out of the pool and grabbed a big branch that was burning in the fire with her hand filled with wet mud. She shouted as she ran to Zhang Lisheng while waving her hand, “Quick, quick…”

The sea of bugs halted automatically when they got close to Zhang Lisheng. He turned his head to look at Tina who was dumbstruck and said calmly, “Go back into the water Tina, it might be dangerous.”

“You’re a Chinese Lord of the Flies believer. No, you… you should be it’s descendent since you possess such ability!” Tina was stunned for a long time and mumbled as if she did not hear what the young man said. The Lord of the Flies or Beelzebub was named the representation of the devil in the bible. In English, it had the meaning of the lord of filth and ugly soul.

Hearing what Tina said, Zhang Lisheng turned his head and looked expressively at Tina who was dragging a burning branch in her hand, “Tina, indeed, I inherited the Chinese ancient spirit’s bloodline but it’s definitely not the devil. Island Dragon will come back to me in a while. I had a bad feeling that the monster that’s bugging it would come as well. Go hide in the water quickly.”

Tina nodded looking lost and hopped into the pool immediately. Zhang Lisheng, on the other hand, began chanting witchcraft incantation that went ‘pst shh…’ continuously as the fire was burning. The fire was shaking, giving a blurry image of the young man’s back. Not knowing how long had passed, the bonfire became weak from its intense burning. It was going out gradually.

Suddenly, lightning struck through the dark sky and heavy rain came subsequently. The very last embers of the bonfire were put out completely, the area around the pool fell into complete darkness. The ordinary flying bugs Zhang Lisheng summoned with witchcraft incantation were washed onto the ground. They flapped their wings hard but it was futile in the rain, they were waiting for death to come.

‘Bang…’ The thunder coming from the first lightning had just spread across the rainforest, the second lightning struck from the sky next. Under the flickering light, a black-scaled giant lizard which limbs were torn while dark holes filled its entire body showed itself faintly in the heavy rain. It dashed through a huge tree deep in the jungle towards Zhang Lisheng. There was a strange animal behind the giant lizard whose body was over one meter long with four wings that were as thin as a cicada’s wings. Its wings were over three meters long when they were fully opened, it had a hollow spike on its mouth and tail that looked like steel rods. It looked like a hornet that was expanded thousands of folds bigger, it followed closely behind the giant lizard.

Seeing that the giant lizard was coming at him, Zhang Lisheng did not have the time to dodge. All that he did was to control Mountoad next to him to expand its body to its peak. The second thunder came after the lighting, the wizard worm’s body turned into a shadow and vanished when it was about to smash onto the young man, Zhang Lisheng would probably turn into a meatloaf if the giant lizard did smash into him. The strange hornet that was hiding behind it was completely revealed.

At the moment, Mountoad released all of the air it had in his body all at once. The air turned into a spiral flow that could tear the sky apart, hitting the strange hornet’s wings on one side since it had nowhere to hide in mid-air. Its wings were torn apart. After losing two wings from the sudden attack, the strange hornet crashed onto the muddy ground without having the ability to control its body. It glided tens of meters away and brushed by Zhang Lisheng just inches away. He had muddy water all over his face. Later on, it flapped its perfect wings on the other side with all of its might and began flying again.

However, its other wing was broken in half when it was just less than three to four meters away from the ground. Subsequently, Island Dragon which was severely injured showed itself in the air. Its sharp front claws held onto the strange hornet’s body and pushed it onto the muddy ground.

‘Wuwu…’, a humming sound came from the injured strange hornet’s hollowed spikes on its mouth and tail at the same time. They then poked hard into Island Dragon’s body. Colorless blood and body fluid were drawn out of Island Dragon’s body. At the same time, the tiny insects Zhang Lisheng were controlling began to crawl onto the strange hornet’s body. Soon, they formed a black sphere made of hundreds of millions of tiny insects that were constantly moving.

At that moment, Mountoad expanded its body again and spat another spiral flow at the strange hornet. It tore the half side of the wings the strange hornet were left with into pieces. It was meaningless for the strange hornet to struggle any longer. A while after it smashed onto the muddy ground, Mountoad was tearing its body apart in pieces with its enormous tongue. It had lost its strength to fight back completely, the two wizard worms devoured it entirely together with the sphere of insects.

After they shared the strange hornet, there was new flesh slowly growing out of Island Dragon’s wounds. Very soon, it turned back to how it looked like. Zhang Lisheng could not help but felt relieved seeing that his wizard worm had healed. However, he noticed that Island Dragon would a release deep and soft hissing sound on its own since it was healed. Its long tail was getting thicker and eventually, it divided into three segments with a poisonous hooked sting at the tip like a scorpion.

At the same time, Mountoad which body was filled with toad skin had countless hollowed spikes growing out of its back like a porcupine. Zhang Lisheng was stunned to see the two wizard worms’ transformation. He tried controlling Mountoad to expand its body. To his surprise, Mountoad did not open its mouth this time. Instead, the spikes on its body stood up and an ear-piercing ‘tss’ sound went off. Its body expanded immediately and it spat a mouthful of breath after opening its dark mouth. It broke a huge tree far away.

After exhaling, the spikes on Mountoad’s body had the hissing sound again when its body was about to shrink. It halted its body from shrinking and let out another round of cyclone flow again. After controlling Mountoad to release cyclones for three to four times continuously, Zhang Lisheng controlled Island Dragon to turn invisible and dashed towards the dense jungle.

It did not create a commotion that was as big as Mountoad whereby it looked like it was launching a cannon. Island Dragon’s attack was fast and powerful as usual. What was new was that its scorpion-like hooked tail of three segments turned three huge trees into deadwood in a short few seconds when they stung the trees.

The two wizard worms’ transformation made Zhang Lisheng forgot about the joy of killing the strange hornet. He mumbled after being stunned for a long time, “There was a lizard during ancient times with scales on its body and nine tails that looked like a scorpion’s hooked tail below its body. It was silent when it crawled, the tails would kill things and humans wherever it attacked… But the wizard worm turned into an ancient creature after eating a big hornet without witchcraft incantation cultivation… How… How is that possible… but it has spikes on both its head and tail and it’s even bigger than a vulture, is that still a hornet?! No matter how mutated it is, how is it possible that the oxygen content in the air managed to evolve such an insect…”

The nine-tailed lizard Zhang Lisheng described was the recording of an ancient strange insect called the variegated racerunner in the ancient book What the Master Would Not Discuss. Ever since Island Dragon’s form changed, apart from its three-segment tail, it seemed exactly the same as the variegated racerunner.

As he was mumbling to himself and thinking hard that came to no conclusion, there was a soft call of distress coming from far away all of the sudden, “Lisheng, we really can’t take it any longer…”

Zhang Lisheng snapped out of his thoughts from the shock, he had just recalled that Tina and Trish had been soaking in the pool for an hour now. He stepped on the muddy water and ran to the pool carefully. He pulled out the two ladies whose lips had now turned purple strenuously. Noticing that the girls were still shaking after getting them out of the pool, Zhang Lisheng knew the girls would be ill if they went on like this.

All of the tents were with the guides, there had nothing to hide from the rain. It would be best if they had the choice to not hide under a tree in such a storm. Zhang Lisheng thought about it and controlled Island Dragon to run lightly to the pool, stood straight and shielded the three of them from the heavy rain.

Under Island Dragon’s tummy, he controlled Mountoad to grab dry branches from the dense jungle with its enormous mouth. He picked out pine tree branches with the most resin and shook off the tiny amount of pungent wizard worm saliva then began making a bonfire with some equipment. Island Dragon had a slender body, Zhang Lisheng vacated the driest part after making the bonfire, “Tina, sit here. Trish, sit opposite to Tina and warm your body.”