The auspicious beasts protecting the palace buildings, so imposing and extraordinary, had vanished….
The columns, carved with dragons and phoenixes, were now missing….
The matchlessly extravagant wall decorations, which had once covered the outside of the palace buildings, were as bare as if they had been swept over by a fierce tempest….
There were thirty or so palace buildings which retained their original appearance. However, the other seventy or more had become nothing more than empty frames…..
Completely clean; spick-and-span.
Demoness Zhixiang stared in shock, and began to murmur to herself subconsciously, “Is the Heavenly Hound from Planet East Victory here? Or the Locust Immortal of Planet North Reed?”
Everything was too bare, as if it had been licked clean by a dog, or swept over by an army of locusts.
Even as Zhao Youlan and Zhixiang were struck motionless from shock, they saw Meng Hao standing in front of an intact palace building, viciously prying up a floor tile with a flying sword. The sword was broken and twisted, and seemed to emit shrieks of humiliation.
A bang could be heard as the floor tile popped up. Meng Hao waved his sleeve to collect it up. Licking his lips, he used the same techniques he had picked up while dismantling the other seventy buildings to continue his work. The floor tiles were sturdy, but once you got one up, collecting the rest was simple.
Meng Hao had long since caught sight of Zhao Youlan and Zhixiang. However, he didn’t spend any effort paying attention to them. He was immersed in his work of prying up the floor tiles. The two women watched on, stupefied.
Zhao Youlan was breathing heavily, her phoenix-like eyes filled with disbelief. It was as if this was her first time ever seeing Meng Hao. How could she ever have imagined that the cold, astute, vicious, and merciless Meng Hao, would do something like this?
“This guy really might have some Heavenly Hound blood in him. Or maybe he really has practiced some of the cultivation of the Locust Immortal. Dammit, he doesn’t even leave the floor tiles behind.” Zhixiang was panting. She could see the concentration in Meng Hao’s eyes, which caused her to feel a bit suspicious. “Isn’t he afraid of the curse?”
Zhao Youlan stared at the strange scene and suddenly started to think that this new Meng Hao was actually more terrifying than the usual Meng Hao. The fervor with which he was dismantling the palace buildings was beyond her comprehension. Because of that, she found the situation even more horrifying.
This was even more the case when Meng Hao finished with the floor tiles and then took away the guardian lions. After that, he cut down the pillars and then started to pull off the wall decorations. Zhao Youlan took a deep breath.
She almost couldn’t believe it. In fact, she was certain that if Meng Hao somehow found his way to the Five Poisons Tribe, something completely terrifying would occur. It would probably only take a few hours for the entire Tribe to be uprooted and wiped clean.
Zhixiang was filled with misgivings and hesitated for a moment. Finally, she called out, “Um, hey… Fellow Daoist….”
“Stop bothering me!” said Meng Hao, not even turning his head. He ripped a wall decoration off, then pulled out a flying sword to continue his work.
“You know,” replied Zhixiang immediately, “the big main hall in the center is made from even better material. That Celestial soil is even more refined.”
Her words caused Meng Hao to suddenly pause in the middle of pulling off a wall decoration. He turned to look over at Zhao Youlan and Zhixiang.
Zhixiang immediately continued, “Compared to the main hall, all the other materials in this place are like trash. The Celestial soil over there… um, the floor tiles over there are worth a hundred times more than the ones over here!
“Fellow Daoist, you’re clearly innately skilled and beyond ordinary. You have unique hobbies and are obviously a great man, an amazing hero! I think we really need to cooperate one more time, what do you think?
“You dismantle the main hall, and I’ll open the restrictive spells. That way, your dismantling work will go even faster. Then, we can split the treasures inside fifty-fifty. What do you say?”
When Zhao Youlan heard Zhixiang’s words, her face grew taciturn. There was no way she could associate the terms ‘great man’ and ‘amazing hero,’ with Meng Hao. The only thing she could see was a monster of dismantling.
Meng Hao’s eyes glittered, and he said nothing for the space of a few breaths, and then said, “Just wait a moment.”