Tales of Herding Gods - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Beaten To Death

Translator: Ninetales Editor: Ninetales

Senior Brother Qu was finally frightened. “At this rate, he’ll beat me to death with that small wooden stick!”

He really wished that Qin Mu was holding a knife instead. Heck, even a blunt one was fine!

A small wooden stick naturally held very little power, but with all the beatings he had taken, his face had swollen like a pig’s. Even his eyes had become two slits, blurring his vision.

Black and green bruises marred his skin while some of his muscles had become paste from the thrashing. Even his joints had received preferential treatment from Qin Mu.

Qin Mu had purposely aimed for ligaments and tendons, not the bones. By tearing the ligaments and tendons, any slight movement would cause excruciating pain.

Being beaten to death by a small wooden stick truly was too horrifying. Since one wouldn’t die straight away, their pain and fear would increase by several times over the course of the beating.

The beast herd that had been running above their heads was nowhere to be seen now, having had dispersed the moment they made it out of the gate to the ruins.

Qin Mu’s strength was also diminishing. He had no idea how long he had swung his ‘knife’ around, but he couldn’t continue doing so. After all, not only had he constantly dodged Senior Brother Qu’s sword, he had also been avoiding the hooves and claws of the giant beasts they had been fighting under. His legs were also sore and swollen from continuously executing his irregular footwork.

Even though Butcher’s training frequently consisted of bouts of insanity, he still understood that Qin Mu had his limits and would never train him past the point of exhaustion.

Qin Mu no longer had the strength to continue swinging his knife and was relying on just pure willpower to keep going.

He knew that, as long as Senior Brother Qu had even the slightest bit of vital qi remaining, it was his head that would roll!.

He could only continue beating Senior Brother Qu to death!

Thud!

Senior Brother Qu collapsed to the ground, unable to endure the beating any longer. His treasure sword dropping with a clank.

Qin Mu threw his wooden stick away and grabbed the sword, but couldn’t lift it up. His arms were devoid of strength.

Qin Mu stumbled forward and kick the sword hilt instead. Its tip slowly angled toward Senior Brother Qu who, barely aware of his surroundings, tried his best to squirm away.

But he couldn’t. His ligaments and tendons were a complete mess. He couldn’t even lift a muscle.

Paralysed, Senior Brother Qu could only watch as Qin Mu struggled to adjust the direction of his treasure sword and kick it towards his neck.

It scraped against the ground, dragging dirt along as it moved in little increments towards Senior Brother Qu until, with one final kick, it pierced through his neck.

Blood flowed, pooling around the wound as he struggled to breathe and gurgled through the blood welling from his throat.

Relief washed over Qin Mu. His limbs went limp and he collapsed to the floor. He had never been so exhausted before.

Lying next to a corpse felt disgusting therefore Qin Mu tried to move away. Only, he had to give up because his body wouldn’t budge.

It wasn’t Qin Mu’s first time seeing a corpse. The woman who emerged from the cowskin and Senior Brother Qu’s junior brothers had become corpses as well.

Granny Si once brought him to a neighboring village to assist in delivering a baby. Aside from being a tailor, Granny Si was also a midwife who helped expectant mothers in the area give birth.

However, when they arrived, the village had become a graveyard. It didn’t matter if they were male or female, young or old. Everyone, including the expectant mother, was dead.

Qin Mu’s mind had gone blank, as if he were drifting through the sky, floating above the village and taking in the massacre. Granny Si had later woke him from his trance saying that the gruesome scene had scared the life out of him, forcing his soul to leave his body. She had to pull his soul back and stuff it back in.

Granny hadn’t told him who massacred that entire village, instead of telling him that such a thing was extremely common in the Great Ruins. In light of that, she sternly warned him…

“Never give your enemies any opportunities.”

Senior Brother Qu’s corpse made Qin Mu uncomfortable, but it wasn’t an uncommon thing in the Great Ruins. Here, the strong preyed upon the weak. It was the survival of the fittest. Having lived in the Great Ruins from a young age, Qin Mu had already become accustomed to the skirmishes between strange beasts. To him, Senior Brother Qu’s corpse was no different from the corpses of animals.

As he lay there trying to blend into the surroundings, Qin Mu suddenly heard footsteps approaching. He struggled to turn his head towards the sound and identify what was causing it.

To his complete shock, it was Senior Sister Qing who greeted him, her face swollen beyond recognition and resembling a pig’s. Step by step, she limped over to him using her treasure sword as a crutch.

Qin Mu tried to stand up, but his limbs were all swollen with pain. He could only wait there, silently cultivating the Overlord Body Three Elixir Technique.

His vital qi slowly became active, gently welling up and flowing towards all of his aching muscles. Wherever his vital qi went the pain would lessen, his senses sharpening as the burning sensation died down.

Senior Sister Qing continued to limp towards him, step by step. Fighting Qin Mu had essentially left her legs crippled. Her face had also received countless kicks, the last of which is the most ruthless.

Qin Mu had put all of his strength into that kick, flattening her delicate features like the tail of a poison dragon. In its current, swollen form, her face looked as bloated as noodles that had been left to soak overnight.

All of her teeth were gone, blood and saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth and splashing to the floor.

Her hands, however, were surprisingly fine as they gripped her treasure sword in a way that clearly expressed her hatred and desire to rip Qin Mu into a thousand pieces.

Qin Mu tried to cultivate faster, urging the Overlord Body Three Elixir Technique to speed up. He wanted to regain his strength at a quicker pace, but the intense battle he had just fought simply took too much out of him.

Only by breaking the Spirit Embryo Wall and awakening the Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure could Qin Mu be considered a true martial practitioner. Beating a martial practitioner like Senior Brother Qu to death despite not being one himself could already be seen as a great achievement.

But that was all that it was.

He didn’t have the strength to continue fighting Senior Sister Qing.

Senior Sister Qing finally arrived in front of Qin Mu. She tried to say something, but her mouth and throat were so swollen that she could only let out a gurgle.

Frustrated, she lifted her treasure sword and fell forward, ruthlessly stabbing it towards Qin Mu.

But suddenly she froze, her treasure sword unable to continue downwards as if it had met an invisible barrier.

“What a cute little lady… this granny is quite fond of looking at you.”

An elderly woman appeared in their line of sight, walking towards them with a basket in hand. Fear flashed through Senior Sister Qing’s eyes and she trembled upon seeing the woman, slowly backing away from Qin Mu.

Before she could get very far, however, a voice boomed from behind her. “Mu’er, you actually used a tiny wooden stick to play around with my Pig Slaughtering Knife Skill and took five thousand four hundred and seventy-six strikes before finally bringing this young fellow down, yet what you ended up killing this little bastard with a sword!”

Struggling to turn her head, Senior Sister Qing saw people with grotesque appearances approaching. Among their number was a blind man with a cane, a man missing a leg, a man without any limbs, and a muscular man missing the lower half of his body.

One of the more able men carried the muscular man in a large bamboo basket on his back, and the others carried the limbless man on a stretcher.

All of these people looked extremely miserable. The only one of them that seemed relatively normal was the middle-aged man carrying the bamboo basket. However, his face was completely disfigured. It seemed to have been skinned, giving him a sinister, frightening appearance.

The muscular man who only had the upper half of his body was the one who had spoken. Rage consumed his fearsome face as he glared at Qin Mu and scolded him from afar.

“Looks like you still haven’t trained enough! If your knife skill was polished enough, you wouldn’t even need a small wooden stick or even a knife. You’d be able to chop him to death with your bare hands!”

“Granny Si… Grandpa Butcher… Grandpa Apothecary…” Qin Mu croaked, sighing in relief. “All of you… all of you are here?”

“We raised you with our blood, sweat, and tears! Of course we were worried!” Granny Si replied, snickering. “Since this was your first night away from home and you spent it with an unfamiliar woman, we just had to come take a look.”

Qin Mu blinked his eyes and asked, “How long have all of you been here?”

“We’ve been here since you were furiously clashing with that young fellow under the bellies of those beasts.” Butcher snorted. “How else would I know that you used a total of five thousand four hundred and seventy-six strikes?”

Qin Mu’s face blackened. These old geezers had clearly arrived early during the fight, yet they still let him fight to the death and nearly lose his life.

And then he realized why the herd of strange beasts hadn’t attacked him or Senior Brother Qu—

Butcher had scared them off.

“The people from outside the village said that granny and all the grandpas were bad people. Could that be true?” Qin Mu thought to himself.

“But… I think they’re good people,” he assured himself. “They must’ve watched from afar because they believed I could defeat that Senior Brother Qu…”

“An Overlord Body is far superior to a Spirit Body,” Blind said, propping himself up with his cane and smiling at thin air. “We’re all very disappointed that you’ve been reduced to such a miserable state.”

“Grandpa Blind, I’m over here.” Qin Mu coughed gently.

“I know where you are,” Blind said with a smile, reorienting himself. “You defeated that young fellow using a stick, which means I have taught you well. Don’t be proud of that though. You possess an Overlord Body, after all! It’s natural for you to be stronger than him. From today onwards, your training will be much more intense! Don’t make that bitter face…”

“Why are you so pleased with yourself, Blind?” Butcher said coldly. “He was clearly using my knife skill! And why are you lecturing a corpse?”