Sovereign to Immortality - Chapter 17 : Mountain-bumping Bull

Sovereign to Immortality Chapter 17: Mountain-bumping Bull

Su Baozhang progressed at a high speed, following Yang Junshan who always maintained a constant speed when moving through the mountain. Owing to his previous experience of collecting firewood in the mountain, Su Baozhang was familiar with walking on mountain roads, but he still couldn’t help gasping. Inside his heart Su Baozhang had a great admiration for Yang Junshan, who was three years younger than him.

The most curious thing was that even at such a constant speed, Yang Junshan could still manage to find useful items along the road. Now and then he pinched some indistinguishable wisps of fur from twigs, or flipped through grass and discovered some plants that were cut at the roots. Occasionally, when he stirred bushes and fallen leaves lying on the ground, footprints and excrement of some unknown beasts came into sight.

Though he followed him closely, Su Baozhang was bewildered at Yang Junshan’s diverse tracking skills. The slightest negligence would make him miss how Yang got his item. It made him dizzy.

In the beginning, Su Baozhang reckoned the reason why Yang Junshan refused his proposal to follow Zhang Yueming was his arrogance and pride. But now, after such a long trip, he was amazed at Yang Junshan’s skills from time to time.

The skills of Yang Junshan employed could only be mastered by veteran hunters, and Yang Junshan was in no way an experienced hunter. Could these abilities come naturally?

Brooding over these thoughts, he couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked, “Brother Junshan, where are we heading for? Do you have an direction?”

“Hope we could get there faster than the last time!”

Yang Junshan murmured to himself and then answered, “It is not far. There is a stream ahead of us and if I am right, the beast we are tracking should be drinking from the stream!”

Su Baozhang clasped his chopper tightly and swallowed with force. With hint of nervous excitement, he looked at Yang Junshan who drew an arrow, “Junshan, I shall lead the charge and you shoot the beast when chance presents itself!”

Yang Junshan nodded, replying in a low voice, “Take care. Run away if you must!”

 “Moo–!”

Hardly had his voice faded away when a powerful and penetrating low voice of a bull came from the distance.

Their countenances suddenly changed. Su Baozhang appeared to be delighted and worried, “It sounds like a mountain-bumping bull. It’s likely to produce yellow ox stone, a medium-grade spirit item. But it is tough to deal with a grown mountain-bumping bull!”

However, without any hesitation, Yang Junshan dashed in the direction of the roar, “It may attract others’ attention. Hurry up or we’ll be late!”

Within the short moment of Su’s absent-mindedness, Yang Junshan had already sprinted a long distance in the woods. Seeing this, Su Baozhang clenched his teeth and immediately ran after him, with his blue veins bulged due to his tight clasp of the chopper.

They passed through the forest. When they were running, Yang Junshan gave a few instructions to Su Baozhang until the babble of brook came near their ears. In front of them was an open green area in a valley, inside which a brook ran through naturally. A bull, 7 feet tall and 10 feet long, raised its head when it heard sound. It casting its eyes on Su Baozhang who was darting in its direction.

 “Moo!”

Su Baozhang was shocked greatly at this loud roar. After a second, he realized that Yang Junshan, who had run ahead of him, now was staying near the woods instead of rushing out with him.

In the meanwhile, the mountain-bumping bull charged at him directly. Its bulky figure smashed the ground, blasting continuous rumbling as well as large chunks of mud were flung behind it. The quaking ground numbed Su Baozhang’s feet.

Facing this mountain-bumping bull, Su Baozhang’s mouth was parched and his tongue scorched. He was so nervous and helpless that he even forgot about his cultivation in the last three or four years.

At this moment behind Su Baozhang, a brisk Twang rang and the quivering sound of bowstring still echoed in his ears. He gathered himself at once, noticing a shadow flew past his sight.

The mountain-bumping bull suddenly burst into a painful growl for, somehow an iron arrow, still quivering, had pierced its left foreleg. Without a support foot, the bull nearly fell on the ground when the tremendous impact from its body movement imposed on itself.

The bull maintained its position with great effort while gurgling blood was oozing from the wound. However, it did not flinched after the injury. Instead, its eyes soon glowed red and two white breaths spurted out of its nostrils. The bull seemed to be more irritated and fiercer!

After coming to himself, Su Baozhang recalled what Yang Junshan had told him. With a shout, he dashed towards the wounded bull that hadn’t recovered yet, clenching his chopper with all his spiritual power. Gleaming with a light of spiritual nimbus, the chopper went for the injured left foreleg.

Though its front hoof was almost pierced by the arrow, the mountain-bumping bull dipped its head and continued to jump, dash, and flicked its horns.

If it had been others, they would have been bumped and thrown off by the giant bull’s attack.

Keeping Yang Junshan’s words in mind, Su Baozhang lowered his body the moment the mountain-bumping bull dropped its head. Su Baozhang did a somersault, and the bull’s aim reached no target. Now he was near its foreleg. Immediately the chopper swung at the leg with cold light.

There was another snarl of pain. Su Baozhang tumbled a long way on the ground before he could see the outcome of this attack. Then the bow-strings twanged twice behind him, which turned the snarl into howls.

With a loud sound of some heavy objects crushing against the ground, Su Baozhang turned around finally and noticed that the bull was convulsing with its left foreleg totally broken. One iron arrow penetrated its neck and another one, which was the true culprit for the death, pierced straight into its right eye and went inside its head.

No one knew whether it was out of skill or just luck!

A thought occurred to Su Baozhang, and then he let out a sigh of relief. Anyway, they had slain this colossal beast together in the end, which he had never imagined before!

There might be medium-grade spiritual item in its body!

Thinking of the spirit item, Su Baozhang got excited at once. Apart from that, the cattle-color stones made of a grown mountain-bumping bull were one of the most appealing treasures. One important reason was that once the spirit of cattle-color stones was awakened, the spiritual power inside cultivators would become strongly resistant to poisons. Although they couldn’t block all poisons, the stones were still good enough to catch their eyes.

Picking up his chopper, Su Baozhang hurried to the bull. After walking several steps, he found that Yang Junshan still didn’t show up. His heart sank but his feet were moving fast toward the bull.

The chopper flung at bull’s neck. Despite the clear sound of chopping, it was only a couple inches deep into the flesh. Blood was splashed over his face, and he found his chopper was blunt.

It didn’t matter since the wound was severe enough to claim bull’s life. Su Baozhang frowned and stepped further, trying to cut its belly open.

From downstream and opposite bank came rustles and noise. Obviously, bull’s snarls and howls caught the attention of other teenagers. They were rushing here!

Su Baozhang became more and more anxious and nervous. Nevertheless, the chopper being no longer sharp and afraid of exerting too much strength to do damage to the cattle-color stones in its stomach, he found it laborious to open bull’s belly.

A cold sound came from behind with a breeze. He turned back, only to find a cold-light dagger, nearly half a meter in length, stabbed into the ground.

He exclaimed, “Wow, it’s Zhang Huzi’s cold-light dagger!”

With the assistance of the dagger, the task of incision became easier. However, youngsters who traced the sound appeared from the forest. Most of them noticed the bull on the bank and Su Baozhang who was searching spiritual items inside its stomach.

The mountain-bumping bull! The beast that could breed medium-grade spiritual items!

Two of them coveted the bull, bawling in loud voice, “Stop! Leave the bull to me!”

“What! Everyone involved has his share. You can’t take all alone!”

“Damn it, it’s mine!”

“Damned thing! Stop it!”

Some teenagers who were standing dozen steps away hastened to draw bows, aiming at Su Baozhang. Su Baozhang seemed to fail to detect the danger, his hands operating on the bull faster. The momentum of arrows declined after covering such a long distance, not to mention some of them diverted from the original route. Even if one or two arrows reached the other bank, they were easily shielded and blocked by the bulky body of the bull the moment Su Baozhang lowered himself.

By then, Su Baozhang, tainted with blood, burst into laughter. A thumb-sized yellow thing appeared on his moving hand, flickering with a spiritual light.