Chapter 002: Purging Fiend with Microbes, The Broken Horn Speaks

Gu Qingwei lay half-submerged in the cold, foul-smelling mire. Yet within his vision, the two rings of profound azure light awakened by the Myriad Transformations Seal illuminated the three inches of earth around him with absolute, crystalline clarity.

Beads of scarlet blood oozing from his fingernails seeped drop by drop into the mud.

In the microscopic realm invisible to the naked eye, the poison-devouring microbes nestled half an inch below the crust had resembled faint embers. But the instant they touched his blood—saturated with Crimson Fire Fiend-Qi—they trembled and danced like parched weeds welcoming a summer deluge.

Fine mycelial threads stretched, branched, and multiplied at an unfathomable speed, weaving a gossamer net of deep emerald light.

Gu Qingwei’s gaze remained as tranquil as still water. Even as his meridians convulsed from the scalding agony, the five fingers of his right hand buried in the silt stayed as firm as bedrock.

Gathering the wisp of faint divine sense remaining within his sea of consciousness, he stirred the dormant bronze seal suspended in his mind.

The Myriad Transformations Seal hummed faintly. A ripple of invisible azure resonance cascaded down the pathways of his arm, seamlessly bridging his internal five-element circulation with the mycelial web extending beyond his fingertips.

A spark of subtle fire delves into the deep mud;
Ten thousand mysteries align within an inch of soil.

"Open," Gu Qingwei murmured through dry, cracked lips.

The raging Crimson Fire Fiend-Qi that had been running amok within him, threatening to incinerate his organs to cinders, suddenly found a magnificent sluice gate!

RUMBLE!

The blinding crimson poison molecules surged forth like a broken dam. Following the channels of his right arm, they poured without resistance into the emerald mycelial web beneath the muck.

Deep in the scorched mire, the green threads flared and expanded. Far from being incinerated by the violent fire poison, the sacred microbes became voracious predators, dismantling, chelating, and precipitating the raging fiend-qi into a gentle, lukewarm, dark sediment.

Within a dozen breaths, the tearing agony receded like an ebbing tide.

Gu Qingwei felt the suffocating weight upon his chest vanish in an instant. A long-lost trickle of cool vitality flowed through his unclogged meridians.

"Hooo..."

He expelled a long, heavy breath tinged with a dark, pungent vapor, then pushed himself up from the icy sludge.

His coarse hemp robe was drenched in cold sweat, clinging tightly to his thin back. Though his limbs were still weak and his fingertips ached from the strain of driving the talisman, the lethal deadline hanging over his head had been severed by his own hand.

Manager Zhao’s venomous strike had failed to claim his life; instead, it had granted him his first glimpse into the microscopic creation of the Myriad Transformations Seal.

Night wind swept across the barren plain, carrying the sharp tang of burnt sulfur.

Gu Qingwei wiped the dark blood from his lips, leaned on the earth, and rose to his feet. His gaze drifted past the crumbling wall toward the rotting stump outside the shack.

Beneath the pale, chilly moonlight, he saw the battered ox curled by the mud puddle.

Its condition was dire.

Its sunken, cracked flanks rose and fell so faintly that each breath seemed as though it would be its last. The horrific laceration on its left hind leg had festered over a wide area, thick black pus oozing steadily into the poison soil, where pale maggots writhed in the rot.

More chilling still was its head. Its left horn had been violently snapped off at the skull, leaving a jagged, deadened bone wound leaking a sickening aura of necrotic death.

The large piece of moldy grain biscuit Gu Qingwei had offered still lay untouched at the edge of the puddle.

The ox lacked even the strength to part its jaws.

One man. One ox.

In this desolate wasteland abandoned by the entire sect, they stood face to face against the boundless dark of night.

Gu Qingwei looked at the grime upon his calloused palms, then into the cloudy, desolate eye of the beast.

During his three years in the Outer Sect's spirit fields, he had seen far too many laborers submit numbly beneath the lashes of the overseers. He had seen countless living beings discarded like worn rags once their blood and sweat had been wrung dry.

Because a life is cheaper than weeds, must it be trampled into dust without a word?

Gu Qingwei did not hesitate. Dragging his aching, trembling legs, he stepped through the mire and knelt before the great beast.

He rolled up his tattered sleeves and gently pressed his warm palm against the frozen, rotting stump of the broken horn.

As if sensing the youth's intent, the ox's tattered right ear twitched slightly. A faint ripple stirred in its cloudy pupil. A low, raspy grunt rose from its throat, and it weakly twitched its muzzle, trying to pull its head away so the boy would not waste his remaining vitality on a ruined carcass.

"Do not move," Gu Qingwei said softly, his tone carrying an unshakeable weight. "We both struggle in the barren mud. You did not abandon the bread of life I gave you; I will not watch you rot in this ditch."

As his words fell, Gu Qingwei closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

Within his sea of consciousness, the ancient bronze talisman began to spin and chime!

HUMMM—!

A sharp pain, like ten thousand steel needles stabbing directly into his soul, exploded through his mind!

The Myriad Transformations Seal manipulated the creation and dissolution of matter at the microscopic scale; every use demanded intense mental fortitude. Purging his own fire poison had already drained most of his energy, and now, forcing open the life-resonance once more sent waves of dizziness crashing over his senses.

Gu Qingwei’s face turned as pale as parchment. His teeth ground together with a brittle crunch, and his lower lip split, leaking a thin trail of bright red blood.

Yet the hand resting on the broken horn did not tremble in the slightest.

The microscopic sight descended with full clarity!

Within Gu Qingwei’s perception, the sluggish, parched qi pathways of the old ox unfolded layer upon layer.

These were no ordinary cattle veins. Deep within its skeletal frame lay the faint, ancient remnants of massive, primordial meridian channels—blocked by years of accumulated fire poison and bone necrosis, like a forgotten mountain range buried beneath ash.

"Gather!"

With thought as his blade, Gu Qingwei endured the agonizing backlash of his spirit to channel the acoustic micro-vibrations of the seal.

Gentle, resilient strands of azure life-force flowed from his palm into the shattered bone wound like countless invisible, artisan hands.

Subtle dust enters the marrow, turning decay into life!

Under the washing tide of microscopic power, necrotic bone film and crusted blood scabs were peeled away and dissolved inch by inch. The foul, rotting flesh was cleansed, revealing a moist, jade-like sheen on the newly forged bone beneath.

Moving swiftly, Gu Qingwei laid his other hand upon the maggot-ridden wound of the ox's left hind leg.

Streams of cleansing light formed tiny motes that encapsulated and expelled the filthy parasites and festering fluids.

The fractured bones aligned with the precision of a master carpenter joining beams, and the jagged edge of the broken horn began to sprout a fresh, slate-blue keratin ridge. Tender pink flesh surged outward, smoothly sealing the horrific wound!

Cold sweat poured down Gu Qingwei’s forehead like rain, striking the ox’s weathered snout and shattering into mist.

Within his mind, the ring of light around the bronze seal spun to its absolute limit, emitting a strained chime.

The moment the last strand of earth-fiend death-qi was purged from the ox’s heart meridians, Gu Qingwei’s consciousness faltered. He collapsed backward onto the earth, gasping violently for air as stars burst across his vision.

Yet in that very heartbeat—

THUMP.

A resonant, thunderous heartbeat, like a war drum echoing across an ancient battlefield, boomed from deep within the old ox's massive chest!

Qi and blood, long thought extinguished, rushed back through the beast’s hundred vessels like melting river ice in early spring.

Its patchy, dry coat took on a faint, healthy luster beneath the night wind. Slowly, the ox raised its great head. The gray deadness in its eyes had receded entirely, replaced by a profound azure radiance that seemed to hold centuries of worldly sorrow and ancient wisdom.

Its colossal frame arched under the moonlight, and its freshly mended left hind leg planted firmly upon the solid earth.

A cool breeze rustled the quiet night.

The ox did not bellow in wild triumph as an ordinary beast might. It simply turned its massive head, its weathered, ancient eyes gazing long and deep at the pale, exhausted youth whose eyes burned like stars.

Crack... crackle...

Deep in the ox’s throat, heavy cartilage shifted with a grinding sound like ancient millstones turning.

The air seemed to freeze.

Then, a hoarse, deep, world-weary sigh—resonant as the toll of an ancient brass bell—spoke from between the beast's warm teeth:

"Foolish boy... Why waste your spirit on a dying ox...?"

The night was as deep as ink, the wasteland silent as the grave.

Sitting in the mud, meeting the ancient gaze of the ox, a clean, untroubled smile finally touched Gu Qingwei's lips.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Gu Qingwei and the old Kui-ox's journey to turn toxic wasteland into an immortal harvest, please consider hitting that Follow button and leaving a Rating/Review. Every favorite and rating helps this humble barren ridge grow more than you know!