"A demon plant whose spines causes one to experience their worst nightmare when pricked by it," explained Wu Xingyu.
Song Yehai placed the needle still coated with the spine's filling inside an empty bottle along with three spine specimens, and then stored it in his sleeve. "So these people were all pricked by it?"
"Seems like it," Wu Xingyu brought his flute to his lips.
At the sound of the next note, the outlines of the souls broke apart, twisted, distorted and then took shape of clear visuals depicting a group of travellers braving through the harsh deserts when they were ambushed by quicksand.
The caravans and the camels that were tied to them were instantly devoured. Several men slipped and were swallowed up. Just as hope seemed lost a massive creature with bat wings swooped down and grabbed onto the smallest boy. He screamed and struggled as he was carried miles away by this evil-looking animal before getting dropped on the standing Nightmare Cactus.
One by one the bat-winged creature picked up the people trapped in the quicksand and dropped them onto the Nightmare Cactus. A single prick was more than enough for them to lose their minds as amidst the unimaginable fear of their worst nightmares. They ran in circles, hands clutching their heads and occasionally swaying side to side in complete madness and hysteria.
Like a spiked club the cactus swung one of its thickest arms, bludgeoning the boy in the torso. His body, perforated into a gruesomely disfigured corpse with the spines sticking through to the back, was stuck onto the cactus and lifted into the air. Blood dripped into a puddle that trickled into the roots. A woman and a man, briefly snapping out of their hallucinations, fell on their knees, their faces distorted with grief and agony.
The man then got onto his feet and charged at the cactus but he met the same fate before he could retrieve the boy's corpse. The woman ran next, thought it looked more like she intended to join her husband and her son rather than try and save them herself. The cactus dug a massive hole in the ground and dropped its catches inside. Its roots encroached onto the family of three as it refilled the hole.
The remaining travellers, immersed in their nightmares, did not seem to notice the cactus devouring the family. In a short while they were also beaten, riddled with holes and dumped into pits at the cactus' roots.
"So that's how it is," Wu Xingyu momentarily lowered his flute, catching his breath before he began playing his music backwards. The images rewinded until the first appearance of the bat-winged creature. He held onto the note for about three seconds, pausing the scene in that moment.
Song Yehai took a closer look at this creature. "Who is that?"
Wu Xingyu shook his head. "I don't know."
They carefully studied this person, or animal, noting any specific or eye-catching detail before Wu Xingyu continued playing the next scene. The bat-winged creature scooped up the people with two arms separate from his wings and was strong enough to hold onto them in spite of his prey's struggles and resistance.
"Bat wings, human height and limbs," Wu Xingyu listed the traits. "But he's a demon for sure."
"He could only pick up one at a time," observed Song Yehai. "He may not be very strong."
"He may be here."
Song Yehai nodded as the two of them turned to the horizon. A solo sandstorm wide enough for only one person inside travelled towards them. Its speed slowed once it reached them and the silhouette of a tall and lanky man draped with a large cape that had curved edges appeared. As the sand settled Song Yehai and Wu Xingyu could see the man carrying a maniacal smile, revealing uneven, fang-like teeth and a tongue as long and flexible as a snake's.
"Two men, huh?" his voice was raspy with a hungry edge. "It's been a while since people came to my desert! What a great catch for my beautiful cactus!"
"Your cactus?" repeated Song Yehai.
"That's right!" affirmed the man haughtily, his grin dropping at the sight of his uprooted cactus. "What have you done to my cactus?"
"Who are you?" demanded Wu Xingyu.
"I believe I asked first!"
A burst of spiritual energy from Wu Xingyu and Song Yehai simultaneously startled the man into trembling. Judging from the combined wavelengths that rippled through him, both cultivators before him were at least the level of masters. He quickly brushed aside his fears and donned back on his feral, unhinged demeanour. "You don't know who I am?"
Song Yehai and Wu Xingyu both shook their heads.
"I am the king of the deserts!"
The grandmasters' expression remained flat.
"Are you one of the Demon Lord's underlings?" asked Wu Xingyu.
"Of course I am! I am Bat of the Killing Immortals Sect! You can also call me the Bat King. I am the most powerful demon in this desert right now!"
Song Yehai appraised the man, long greasy hair messily tied up and running wildly with the winds, red markings in zigzag streaks on his tanned, sunken cheeks, tight-fitting dark clothes and boots made of sand-proof materials. "No you're not."
Bat glowered at him. "You dare underestimate me?"
"I'm not, but I do dare."
Wu Xingyu snickered.
Bat's cape fluttered up, straightening outwards to take the shape of two giant bat wings. They flapped rapidly, starting a twister. "Have a taste of my powers!"
The twister vanished in a poof before it barely touched the two grandmasters. Bat jumped back in shock. "What the hell? What happened to my twister? Who the hell are you two?"
"You are not fit to know who we are," scowled Wu Xingyu. "We'll be taking your life here!"
Bat placed two fingers into his mouth and whistled loudly. Footsteps running over the sand could be heard approaching them. They belonged to three men who stood before Bat and kneeled reverently.
"Your Majesty," they greeted in unison.
"Kill these two!" the Bat King ordered his subordinates.
The first one to attack was tall and thin with a pale complexion unfitting of an inhabitant of the deserts. Billows of smoke scarfed tangibly around his long arms and legs as they rose to the sky and stuffed the air with their ashy odour. He targeted Song Yehai, striking with his bare hands that had claws on each digit. Song Yehai effortlessly blocked him with his sword when he was ambushed, as he could foresee, from behind.
The second subordinate to strike was a little shorter than the first with darker skin and a toad-like face. His moves were rather sluggish and predictable, providing barely any assistance for his partner as he also used his claws. With single swing Song Yehai pushed the two of them back.
"Just who are you?" demanded the smokey man, only to be met with cold silence. He decided to introduce himself, albeit rather brusquely, "Disciple Yan of the Killing Immortals Sect under the Bat King. This is my junior martial brother Feng."
"Song Yehai of the Sea Dragon Sect," Song Yehai returned the courtesy.
Yan stumbled upon hearing the name. "Song Yehai?"
The subordinate pounced at Wu Xingyu like a wolf, growling and snarling as he did. He had a decently muscular physique, slanted eyes and an angular jaw covered with stubble. Armed on his fists were four metal blades twice the length of his fingers protruding out of his leather wristlet gloves. He swiped them aggressively but Wu Xingyu dodged every strike nonchalantly, his growing indifference angering him.
"Are you looking down on me?"
"Yes," answered Wu Xingyu honestly.
"Fuck you!" caught in his rage, the man blindly charged forward, giving Wu Xingyu an opening to land a powerful kick in his stomach, sending him right next to Yan and Feng.
"You useless trash!" berated Bat.
"Forgive us your Majesty," implored Yan. "But there's no way we can beat them."
"Why is that?"
"Because that's the Moon Dragon Grandmaster. And the one beside him must be the Snow Phoenix Grandmaster."
"The Moon Dragon and the Snow Phoenix?" Bat repeated in horror. He quickly reeled himself to appear composed, but it was frail and unconvincing. "Is that so?"
"There's no doubt about," affirmed Yan.
"You two grandmasters must've put a lot of effort just to travel through the Desert of No Return," sneered Bat. "What brings you two all the way here? Don't tell me it's just to tear out my cactus and rip it into bits?"
"It's been killing people in inhumane ways for long enough," said Wu Xingyu. "And those people were all brought here by you. We'll have to kill you and your subordinates as well."
Yan and Feng trembled and glanced nervously at Bat.
"Kill us?" exclaimed Bat. "We are demons! It's only natural for us to hunt humans! And you're going to kill us for it?"
"Yes we are," asserted Song Yehai.
"It's my right to hunt and kill humans and feet them to my cactus to make food for me and my subordinates! How else do expect us to survive?"
"Then don't even think about surviving!" Wu Xingyu opened his fan and threw it at Bat, who shielded himself with his wings but was still pushed back.
Song Yehai took on Yan and Feng while the metal-clawed man kept his distance. He calculated the odds of their survival and deemed it not in their favour.
"Your Majesty, I'll go to the next nearest base of our sect and get reinforcements," and with that he scampered off.
They were in the middle of a desert. It would take at least a whole day to reach the next nearest base of the Killing Immortals Sect. There was no question that Bat, Yan and Feng could not hold off the two grandmasters who defeated their Demon Lord by the time the metal-clawed man could return with the reinforcements.
"WOLF! YOU FUCKING TRAITOR!" bellowed Bat. Exerting a burst of strength he pushed the fan into the direction of his escaping subordinate. The fan chased him briefly until it was summoned back by Wu Xingyu.
"Let's see if you can take on me," Bat bent down, getting into a rather crooked stance.
"You are not a match for me," said Wu Xingyu.
"You're right. Both grandmasters are indeed more powerful than me, but you are now in territory! You haven't seen the full extent of my abilities yet in this desert."
Bat's body made cracking sounds at every joint, though he showed no discomfort as he twisted and deformed at every location into a cloaked behemoth with a satanic face. Lifting his arms he unveiled his heavyset torso that was made of multiple deformed heads clumped together in a grotesque mass of dark, raw flesh.
"Now I am invincible!"
"You look so ugly," remarked Wu Xingyu bluntly.
"Shut up!"
Feng wielded a sword with a wavy blade that he used to clash with Song Yehai's sword while Yan compressed handfuls of smoke the size of cuju balls and hurled them at him. Song Yehai stealthily manipulated Feng straight into the trajectory of a thrown ball. It dispersed immediately on impact, covering him from head to toe with soot.
"You idiot," chastised Yan.
"You threw it at me!" retorted Feng.
The soot had also gotten into Feng's eyes. While he was blinded, Song Yehai pierced his sword through his chest and then pulled it out to dodge another incoming smoke ball. Yan kept throwing until it seemed that he could not make more smoke balls. They splashed open like water when they hit the sand, mixing black with yellow before rising like steam. Yan was able to command every individual particle to form an ashy twister around Song Yehai. He attempted to shrink the twister when a sharp pain penetrated through his chest.
A sword had pierced through his heart from behind. It had the ends of a whip wrapped around the hilt. The whip was coming out of the sand. It pulled out the sword of him and dragged it into the sand as it burrowed itself back inside.
Erratic lashes from within the twister dispersed it. Song Yehai stood composedly as the slowly dissipating winds around ruffled his hair and his robes, one hand holding the handle of his whip and the other hand holding the hilt of his sword, its blade cleaned off blood after burrowing through the sand. Yan and Feng's bodies were collapsed at his feet, spasming until their last breaths.
Bat made a lunge at them and grabbed their bodies with his large hands. He swallowed Yan first in one mouthful, and then Feng before burping loudly. Wu Xingyu and Song Yehai grimaced as they stepped back, hoping not to have any contact with the revolting expunged air.
Bat's body began to distort further where a burst of stifling, acrid smoke erupted from his shoulders and shrouded him completely in a miasmic cloud. Once it dispersed the smoke lingered around his arms like floating chains. Two more heads squeezed their way out on his body. Though warped and hideous, one of them bore some resemblance to Yan, and the other to Feng.
"He ate his own subordinates to increase his powers?" said Song Yehai in disgust.
"It doesn't look like it did much for him," scorned Wu Xingyu.
Bat let out a roar before to the skies before stretching his arms and shoulders. "Now that I have Yan and Feng's powers, I can crush the two of you like ants!"
Wu Xingyu sent sequence of air blades to slice around the smoke chains, shattering them in the blink of an eye. "I think it's us who will be crushing you like an ant."
Before Bat could react his arms received enough lashes from Song Yehai's whip to cleanly amputate them.
"You can't defeat me that easily!" boasted Bat as his arms began to regrow, along with four more appendages resembling elongated, bony and wonky arms protruding from the sides of his torso. Smoke chains were wrapped around them and dragged along the sand.
"Regeneration," identified Song Yehai.
"That's right!" Bat flung forward a smoke chains, forcing Song Yehai and Wu Xingyu to jump out of the way of getting hit. "This was Feng's ability! And four extra arms was Yan's ability! Unfortunately both of those idiots could never fully develop their abilities."
"Because they knew the moment they did was the moment you were going to steal it from them," retorted Wu Xingyu.
"Silence!" Bat lashed a chain at Wu Xingyu, who countered it with his sash. The strip of cloth dispersed the smoke and disintegrated the entire chain. It reformed in the next second and snaked at Wu Xingyu again.
"Try this then!" Bat attempted to strike Wu Xingyu with his palm when he was blocked and struck in the face. The moves occurred and landed so fast on him he had barely any time to react.
Song Yehai indiscriminately whipped away the chains coming after him until there was no more left, and he turned to lashing at the heads growing on the body. Every lash drew out a piercing scream.
The chains in Bat's hands were suddenly severed by purple air currents in the shape of blades. The purple fan flew at Bat's body, decapitating a number of heads. Like apples falling off a tree they plummeted to the sand and bounced crookedly about before rolling away. It seemed that they were unable to regenerate the same Bat's limbs could.
"That fan can cut my heads off?" shrieked Bat in a panic. "It's a holy weapon?"
"That's right," Wu Xingyu shook off the blood soaked in the feathers.
Bat looked more carefully at it. "Peacock feathers? The Purple Peacock?"
Red streams gushed out from where the heads were chopped off. Weakened and delirious, Bat fell on his knees. "What's this?" he exclaimed as he stared at the red patches in disbelief. "I… my powers… I'm losing my powers!"