socalfunplaces Chapter 1066 Just a Moment
Chapter 1066 Just a Moment
This time, Su Wanwan didn't use her eyes; she tracked its trajectory entirely with her aura. It pounced from the left front, targeting her calf. Just as it was about to bite, Su Wanwan raised her leg, her knee thrusting upwards and striking the wolf demon's chin.
It wasn't a very powerful blow, but the angle was tricky, hitting the wolf demon right at the joint where it opened its mouth.
The wolf demon's jaws snapped shut, biting into empty air with a sharp "crack" as its teeth collided. It was thrown back, its body tumbling through the air before landing with a limp.
Su Wanwan's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her throat, but she didn't stop.
Before the wolf demon could regain its footing, she took a step forward, her right hand forming a fist, the fingertips pointing towards the wolf demon's ribs. This was a move she had learned a few days ago when watching Chu Yang fight the fog wolf—not that she had truly mastered it, but rather imitated it. Her fingertips touched the wolf demon's fur, feeling as if she were poking into a piece of waterlogged cowhide, hard and slippery, offering no real leverage.
The wolf demon was enraged by this.
It wasn't injured, but rather touched by a small fox it looked down upon, a fact that in itself enraged it. Its amber eyes narrowed sharply, its pupils becoming slits, and it emitted a low, continuous growl, like an engine revving its engine.
It stopped testing the waters.
The real attack is coming.
The wolf demon was at least twice as fast as before. Su Wanwan's hearing could barely keep up with its movements, but her body couldn't. She knew it was coming from the right, but before she could even move her feet to the left, the wolf demon's claws had already struck her shoulder.
It wasn't biting, it was patting.
It slapped the mouse with its paw, like a cat teasing a mouse.
But the wolf demon's strength was many times greater than the cat's. Su Wanwan was sent flying to the left by this palm strike, her back slamming into the light barrier. The light barrier didn't stop her—because she was one of their own, the light barrier was unguarded against her—she passed through the light barrier, fell into the light circle, rolled twice on the ground, and landed face down on the bluestone slab.
My mouth tasted like rust.
She licked her lips and tasted blood—she didn't know if she had bitten her tongue or her lips, but there was blood anyway.
Chu Yang's voice came from above: "You're alright, you didn't cry."
Su Wanwan lay on the ground, rolling her eyes with all her might. She pushed herself up and found that she couldn't use her right hand—the shoulder that had been hit and her entire arm were numb, as if countless needles were pricking her.
She looked up at the area outside the aperture.
The wolf demon stood on the other side of the light barrier, licking its paws. It licked slowly and carefully, as if it were doing something that required serious attention. After it finished licking, it looked up at Su Wanwan and tilted its head slightly.
Su Wanwan clearly read one sentence from that expression: That's it?
She took a deep breath, moved her numb right arm, and the blood slowly returned to normal, allowing her fingers to move again. She stood up, dusted herself off, and walked back towards the edge of the light.
Chu Yang reached out to stop her: "Should we change to someone else?"
"No," Su Wanwan said.
"It's faster than you."
"I know."
"And I'm stronger than you."
"I know."
"So, how do you plan to fight?"
Su Wanwan thought for a moment and came up with an answer that Chu Yang would probably find unreliable, Sun Wukong would probably find very appealing, and Tang Seng would probably just chant Amitabha.
"We have to fight even if we can't win," she said. "Anyway, it's either them or me who falls today."
Chu Yang looked at her for two seconds and then withdrew his hand.
Sun Wukong laughed out loud, slammed his golden cudgel on the ground, and shouted, "I love hearing that. Go ahead, just call out if you can't win!"
Su Wanwan stepped out of the spotlight for the second time.
This time, she didn't close her eyes again, nor did she use the Moon Gazing or Breath Listening techniques. She kept her eyes open, staring intently at the wolf demon, clearing her mind of all the chaotic thoughts, leaving only one.
I'm going to hit it.
It's not about winning, it's about hitting the target. Even if you only hit it once, you have to make it feel the pain.
The wolf demon's ears perked up again when it saw her emerge. It seemed a little surprised—this little fox dared to come out after being knocked away once; she was a bit more troublesome than it had anticipated. But only a little. Its tail flattened again, its body lowered, preparing for a second attack.
This time it didn't circle around or test the waters; it charged straight at us.
Su Wanwan did not dodge.
She knew she couldn't dodge it. She was slower than it, less agile, less experienced, and inferior in every way. The only thing she was better at than it was one thing.
She has menstrual blood.
After seven days of cultivation, the lunar energy had accumulated within her body to a degree that she herself didn't fully understand. Normally, this lunar energy resided quietly in her dantian, like a calm lake, waiting for her to gradually mobilize and utilize it. But now she didn't have time to mobilize it little by little; she needed to unleash the entire lake in an instant.
She didn't know if this would rupture her meridians, but she couldn't care less.
The moment the wolf demon pounced, Su Wanwan forced out all the lunar energy in her dantian at once.
It wasn't from the palm of her hand, nor from her fingertips, but from her entire body.
The moment the moonlight erupted from her body, a silvery-white halo exploded around her. The halo spread outwards, forming an invisible wall that slammed into the charging wolf demon. The wolf demon was thrown backwards by the sudden shockwave, tumbling three times in the air before crashing into the stone wall deep within the hall with a muffled thud.
A shallow dent was smashed into the stone wall.
The wolf demon got up from the ground, shook its head, and for the first time, a different expression appeared in its amber eyes—not fear, but shock. It raised its head to look at Su Wanwan, its mouth slightly open, its tongue sticking out a little. The whole wolf looked like it had been hit on the head with a brick and hadn't yet realized what had happened.
Su Wanwan herself didn't realize it either.
She stood there, her body still radiating a silvery-white light, like a burning human torch. Her dantian was completely empty; all the lunar energy had been emptied from her at once, replaced by an unprecedented feeling of weakness, as if a huge hole had been hollowed out of her body, and cold wind was blowing in, making her shiver.
But she smiled.
She looked at the wolf demon, who was completely dazed from the impact, and grinned. The blood on her lips hadn't been wiped away yet, and her smile probably didn't look very good, but she didn't care.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
The wolf demon's eyes changed.
The shock subsided, replaced by something more dangerous—seriousness. It finally stopped treating Su Wanwan as a little fox that could be easily swatted away. Its body tensed even more, the gray-black of its fur deepened, and the mane on its back stood even straighter, each hair pointing towards the sky like a needle.
Its size is increasing.
This wasn't the kind of growth that a fog wolf would feign; it was a real, visceral increase in size, with its muscles and bones growing larger. Its limbs became thicker, and claws, each two inches long, extended from its toes, gleaming coldly in the moonlight. Its muzzle grew longer, its teeth protruding from beneath its lips, its canines crossing like daggers, and saliva dripped from between its teeth, making a soft "hissing" sound as it etched a small pit into the stone surface.
Su Wanwan's smile froze on her face.
This is not a patrol.
This was something at least two levels higher than a sentry post. Bai tide's judgment was wrong—or the crack in the seal was much larger than she thought, allowing a higher-level wolf demon to infiltrate.
"Retreat!" Chu Yang's voice came from behind, carrying an unusual urgency.
But Su Wanwan didn't have time to back out.
The wolf demon pounced so fast that she didn't even have time to close her eyes. She only saw a gray-black shadow rapidly enlarging in her field of vision, felt a stench of blood rushing towards her, and smelled the strong, pungent scent of its natural enemy that made the fox demon instinctively want to flee.
Then she heard a very soft and crisp sound.
It looked like something had broken.
It wasn't her bone.
It is the heart of the moon.
A thin, silvery-white membrane suddenly appeared in the air between her and the wolf demon. The wolf demon's claws struck the membrane, shattering it into countless tiny fragments like glass. But the fragments didn't scatter; instead, they hovered in mid-air, slowly rotating like a silvery-white snowfall.
Su Wanwan's face was reflected in every fragment.
As Su Wanwan looked at the fragments, something suddenly clicked in her mind, as if a lock had been opened.
She saw it.
She didn't see it with her eyes, but with those fragments. Each fragment was like a small mirror, and each mirror reflected a certain relationship between her and the wolf demon—not a relationship between human and beast, not a relationship between prey and hunter, but a relationship between the moon's energy and the wolf's energy.
The moonlight is cool, while the wolf's aura is warm.
The moon's energy is still, while the wolf's energy is dynamic.
The moon's energy spreads outward, while the wolf's energy contracts inward.
They are not opposites, but complements. Like yin and yang, like water and fire, like night and day. They are a pair by nature, one in the light and the other in the dark, one above and the other below, forever entangled, forever in conflict, but forever inseparable from each other.
Su Wanwan suddenly understood.
Bai tide's statement that wolves are naturally adversaries of foxes isn't without merit. But the reverse is also true—foxes are adversaries of wolves. They restrain each other, like two flints striking each other; sparks fly when they collide, and whoever gets ignited first loses.
But the spark itself does not belong to either party.
That was something new.
Su Wanwan reached out and caught a silvery-white fragment.
The fragments melted in her palm, seeping into her skin and flowing through her veins to her limbs and bones. In her dantian, the pool of water she had just emptied rose again, not with lunar energy, but with something else—thinner, lighter, and sharper than lunar energy, like a thin blade, moving through her meridians, cutting open all blockages and soothing all hidden wounds wherever it passed.
She looked up at the wolf demon.
The wolf demon was also looking at her.
For the first time, a hint of uncertainty appeared in his amber eyes.
Su Wanwan raised her hand, joined her index and middle fingers together, and gently drew a line in the air.
There was no sound, no light, and no fancy effects.
But suddenly a gash appeared on the wolf demon's shoulder blade.
Its fur was torn open, exposing the muscle, and fresh blood gushed from the wound, flowing down its gray-black foreleg and dripping onto the bluestone slab, forming a small pool of dark red blood.
The wolf demon did not howl.
It lowered its head, looked at its wound, and then licked it with its tongue. Its tongue had barbs, and as it licked the wound, it rolled blood and bits of fur into its mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and swallowed it.
Then it raised its head and looked at Su Wanwan.
This time, there was no anger, no resentment, no bitterness in its eyes.
There is only one very pure thing.
Recognized.
It bowed its head slightly towards Su Wanwan.
It wasn't submission. Wolves don't submit to anyone. It bowed its head only because Su Wanwan had just done something worthy of its submission—she, at a lower level, had defeated it using wolf-like methods.
No, it's not about winning.
It was an injury.
But that's enough.
The wolf demon turned and limped deeper into the hall, disappearing into the dark shadows. Its silhouette was small, a size smaller than when it arrived—not because its body had shrunk, but because its imposing aura had receded. It was no longer the suffocating predator it once was, but simply a wounded wolf seeking a place to lick its wounds.
Its footsteps grew fainter and fainter, the sound of its claws scraping against the stone slabs grew softer and softer, until it finally disappeared completely into the darkness.
The cracks in the seal have closed again.
The black mist seeping from the gaps in the runes vanished instantly, as if sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. Only the light of the moon remained in the hall—silver-white, warm, and like a mother's embrace.
Su Wanwan stood outside the circle of light, her finger still in the same position it had been pointing out.
She looked down at her fingers, then at the pool of wolf blood on the bluestone slab, and then slowly, very slowly, she squatted down.
She didn't cry.
But she felt like her mind wasn't in her body anymore.
No, it's not that it's not there, it just drifted away. It drifted to a very, very far place, to a place without sound, color, or temperature, circled around there, and then drifted back. When it returned, it brought something with it.
That thing has no name.
If I had to give it a name, I'd probably call it "Tao".
It's not the kind of Tao that involves cultivation; it's something more fundamental, simpler, like eating when you're hungry or drinking when you're thirsty. It's about why the moon's energy overflows from the moon's heart, why the wolf's blood flows from the wound, and why her slash just now created that wound.
There is a thread connecting all these things.
A very thin, almost invisible line connects all the seemingly unrelated things.
Su Wanwan saw the line.
It only lasted a moment.
But in that instant, countless images, sounds, and smells exploded in her mind—not her memories, but the memories of Yuehua, the memories of this stone wall, the memories of this wolf demon, and all the memories of this land's journey from barrenness to prosperity and back to barrenness. All these memories flooded into her mind like a torrent, overflowing from her pores and transforming into the ever-brightening silvery-white halo surrounding her. (End of Chapter)