Chapter 78 Three Similar Elements

The scene in front of me was so magical that I sat there stunned for a moment. As I stared at Fatty’s hands, I could see the light and shadow reflected in the water change color under the firelight. It seemed to contain several complex colors before it eventually became transparent.

“The things in the water flow through the stone and the color-changing microorganisms in it mimic the texture of the stones here,” Fatty stared at it and whispered. “The water acts as a protective coating as it flows over that thing.”

“Don’t popularize science.(1) What do we do now, give him this shit?” I asked.

Zhang Haixing was facing that thing and was much closer than we were. Her body was tensed up but she didn’t even let out a sound, showing that she had obviously seen the real world.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Fatty said. “We’re now at a disadvantage since it caught us off guard. But this distance is too close so let’s retreat first.”

I was a little reluctant to give up my precious excrement, but the thing opposite us was too big. Under our flickering light source, the metal armor covered in various colors looked like animal scales, which was very terrifying. There was gold, dark gold, green gold, silver, and inside the old-fashioned armor, I could make out some kind of tempered poisoned steel of the same color.

I couldn’t get a good look at this thing’s head with all the water currents that were blocking my view, but I knew that the thing itself was huge. If this was the King of Hell, it should ride on something close to the size of a hippopotamus. Zhang Haixing’s small body really wasn’t good enough.

Fatty wanted to go over and pull Zhang Haixing back, but after he took a few steps towards her, the thing started to approach her. When it leaned its head down from that great height, I could finally get a good look at its face.

Surprisingly enough, it was a bronze mask. The mask hadn’t oxidized but its original golden luster was mottled with some black rust spots. The approaching face forced Fatty back and then looked at Zhang Haixing carefully.

We couldn’t see Zhang Haixing’s expression but we knew that it couldn’t be good. Then we saw the thing’s hands begin to move as those spider-like arms behind it slowly assumed the appearance of some Buddhas portrayed in religion.

“Thousand-Armed Guanyin Corpse.” It suddenly dawned on me that this was a thousand-armed Guanyin corpse in armor. This was another King Wannu.

Bronze door, canyon, thousand-armed Guanyin…it was all such a familiar combination.

The last thousand-armed Guanyin corpse was killed by explosives so this thing wasn’t as powerful as we had originally thought. I took a deep breath and slowly got up, but at this time, I suddenly heard Zhang Haixing make a strange sound.

It was a series of sounds similar to “gegegegegege”.(2) Fatty and I looked at each other and I suddenly had a bad feeling. The head of the Guanyin corpse instantly responded and also made a very similar strange sound.

As Zhang Haixing continued to respond, the thousand-armed Guanyin corpse immediately stopped looking at her and turned its face towards us.

“It’s better to know a foreign language than anything else these days,” Short Feng said as all of the color drained from our faces and we began to retreat.

The huge armor trembled with the movement but there was no sound, making the whole scene reminiscent of a mime performing in the rain. I unexpectedly thought that it was a little artistic.

As I retreated, I began to make a “gegegege” sound as well. Fatty and Short Feng looked at me in surprise and asked, “You too?”

“It doesn’t matter, just try it!” I said before continuing to make that weird noise. But the armored corpse continued to approach us without pause, those countless arms twisting and looking utterly strange.

“Shut up, I don’t know how to make that sound. Do you even know what you’re saying? Maybe he thinks you want a one-night stand.” Fatty was furious. “I’ll die if I die, but I don’t want to lose my virtue.” As he spoke, he began to observe the surrounding terrain, but there weren’t any natural weapons around and we had absolutely no chance of beating this thing.

<Chapter 77><Table of Contents><Chapter 79>

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TN Notes:

(1) Popular science is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience (it basically dumbs it down so the general public can understand it). Info here.

(2) Oh my God you guys. If you have time, put this in google translator and do the sound/microphone thing: 咯咯咯咯咯咯. I’m dead lol. My dictionary said the onomatopoeia is “gurgle” but this is so much better.

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Updated 2/12/2022