Seeing this, Sun Baixu folded his arms again and stood off at a distance to enjoy the spectacle. In his eyes, Ergoudan was already a dead man. The Blood Corpse Worm, though nowhere near fully grown, was by no means something an ordinary person could contend with—especially not against such a foolish response as Ergoudan's. Sun Baixu reckoned that even if he himself were in the boy's place, he could not have come away unscathed. After all, a Blood Corpse Worm a dozen meters long was no laughing matter.

After holding deadlocked like that for a moment, the soil beneath Ergoudan's feet began to stir, and the Blood Corpse Worm suddenly roared and surged skyward, so swift and so violent that it made the heart quail. Forget trading blows with it head-on—the mere gale it whipped up around itself was more than a man could bear.

"A fool is a fool. Serves him right to get eaten." Sun Baixu gave a contemptuous sneer. By now Ergoudan's figure was gone from the ground, clearly swallowed whole in a single gulp. Though the Blood Corpse Worm preferred to feed on fresh blood, grown to this size it did not mind simply swallowing a man down; it was one of its favorite methods of attack.

But the very next instant, Sun Baixu was stunned. There, perched atop the Blood Corpse Worm's head in midair, was a human figure—none other than Ergoudan, the very one who had just struck that fish-catching pose.

"Still alive? What kind of dog-shit luck is that?" Sun Baixu was dumbfounded for a moment. He had assumed Ergoudan had been swallowed in one gulp. Yet even so, he still did not take Ergoudan seriously. Escaping that first gulp only proved the fool had good luck; it proved nothing else. Sooner or later the worm would fling him off, and he would meet the same end as before.

The Blood Corpse Worm thrashed wildly through sky and earth like a beast gone berserk, and Ergoudan clung fast to its brow, refusing to let go even if it killed him—man and worm whirling madly through the air.

Sun Baixu watched with a smile on his face, head tipped back. Five minutes passed, and the two were still careening about. At last the smile on Sun Baixu's face gradually faded. Something did not seem right here.

The Blood Corpse Worm's speed had begun to flag, yet Ergoudan still stuck to it like a plaster, stubbornly refusing to come down—and in fact he even looked somewhat sprightlier than before.

A moment more, and the timbre of the worm's roars began to change, shifting all at once from savage ferocity to something almost pitiful—its roars had turned to wails. Now Sun Baixu dared idle no longer. He made to step in himself and pluck Ergoudan down, but before he could move, a shower of blood suddenly rained from the sky.

Breathing in that familiar reek of gore, Sun Baixu froze in his tracks. Ergoudan had already landed back on the ground, and beside his feet lay the enormous Blood Corpse Worm, a dozen meters long. What made Sun Baixu's heart pound in horror was that the worm had been torn open starting from its mouth—ripped apart by brute force, the gash a full meter wide.

"Waaaah!" Sun Baixu flew into a fury on the spot. However tenacious the Blood Corpse Worm's vitality, its head had now been torn clean in two—how could it possibly live?

This was the treasure he had relied upon above all else. Whether he could one day bestride the world and command the wind and rain depended entirely on this Blood Corpse Worm he had schemed so hard to smuggle out—and to think it would be lost at the hands of such a fool! Where did the fool get such strength, to tear the Blood Corpse Worm in half with his bare hands?

"Disgusting! Absolutely disgusting!" Oblivious to all else, Ergoudan frantically hunted about for leaves to wipe his hands. They were covered in the Blood Corpse Worm's blood and slime, a texture out of a nightmare that made the scalp crawl. Even a rough-hewn fellow like Ergoudan could not stomach it.

"You dared kill my Blood Corpse Worm?" Sun Baixu stared at the worm lying motionless on the ground, his eyes splitting with rage, his head swimming. This was the treasure in which all his hopes and all his heart's blood were invested—and just like that, it was gone?

"A disgusting bug like that, of course it had to be killed. It's been stealing all the chickens and ducks in the village, and it stole my family's cow too. You think I'd let it live?" Ergoudan still had no idea the creature had already taken several human lives. Suddenly he thrust out a hand at Sun Baixu. "Pay up."

"Wh—what?" Sun Baixu was momentarily dazed, staring blankly at Ergoudan, unable to fathom what he meant to do.

"It's your worm. It stole and ate all that stuff—aren't you supposed to pay for it? You think I'm easy to push around?" Ergoudan said with a frown, while in his heart he earnestly set about tallying up the sum. So many chickens and ducks had gone missing from the village, and his own family had lost an old yellow cow on top of it—this compensation could not come cheap. But the exact figure he could not work out on the spot. Maybe he should just drag the thing back and go door to door collecting?

"Ha! Hahahaha!" Sun Baixu suddenly burst into crazed, hysterical laughter. Just as Ergoudan was silently wondering whether the man really was a lunatic, Sun Baixu suddenly lunged and seized him by the throat, his face hideous. "I, Sun Baixu, had my grand design ruined by a fool—so it turns out I'm the real fool!"

Caught off guard, Ergoudan was seized by the neck in an instant. He had no means of defense, nor any exceptional resilience to speak of, and in that moment he was plunged into a desperate strait of life and death.

"You deserve to die! You deserved to die long ago! A single foolish notion of mine has brought about such a calamity—now you can go to hell!" Sun Baixu, crazed, clamped both hands around Ergoudan's throat. He gave no thought now to any martial technique; against a fool no technique was needed. All he wanted was to strangle this fool who had ruined his grand design.

Then Ergoudan suddenly drove a fist at him, landing square on Sun Baixu's chest.

Bang! Sun Baixu was sent flying backward on the instant, leaving a lurid arc of blood in the air behind him, smashing through three large trees before he finally crashed to the ground—and it was a long while before he stumbled shakily back to his feet.

"You... just what manner of monster are you?" For the first time, a look of dread appeared on Sun Baixu's face.

True, the only strength Ergoudan had shown so far was a single trait—sheer brute force—and ordinarily that would be nothing to fear. But when his brute force had grown great enough to tear a Blood Corpse Worm apart alive, and even to send a Foundation Establishment grand-completion expert like himself flying with one punch, then the man had to be regarded in a different light.

Any ability, pushed to its extreme, becomes a terrible thing—even the stupidest, clumsiest brute strength. For however artless brute force may be, once it grows great enough it can still beat a man to death. As the saying goes: brute strength defeats ten skills. (To be continued.)