Chapter 280 - The Divine Winery
“This is the Divine Winery that produces all the wines for the gods.” said the propitious lantern quickly.
It then quickly explained, "The wines produced here are divided into different categories. The higher quality wines will be supplied to the gods with higher positions and vice versa. The dangers that lurk within the winery are those wine bugs and the wine barrels."
“The Divine Winery?”
The interest of Zhong Yue and the others were piqued up as they had never expected to discover such precious locations here, no wonder that exploded Qi Practitioner shouted so happily.
Zhu Jushan even started the swallow his saliva as his inner glutton was aroused from the propitious lantern's mention of the divine wine.
"I wonder if there are still divine wines left in the divine winery," wondered Zhu Jushan.
The four then quietly walked towards the Divine Winery under the guidance of the propitious lantern. There were thousands and thousands of them in the Divine Jungle, but only those that managed to obtain a head by devouring people seemed to possess intelligence while those without heads had only one instinct – and that was to devour heads!
And instead of being a token of luck as their names suggested, these lanterns became one of the threats in the Divine Jungle, threatening the lives of those who intruded the jungle.
It was not long after they started moving towards the Divine Winery, they heard waves of shrieks, seemingly released by other Qi Practitioners that fell into the hands of these murderous lanterns.
And now, they were near the so-called "precious" place, only about half a mile away. But they remained quiet and walked carefully, fearing that they would accidentally draw the unwanted attention of these propitious lanterns. These lanterns were as fast as lightning, and their roots could not only grow in an instant, they were also extremely robust, even Zhong Yue could not escape if these roots tied him. If that scenario came to be, then he would be having his next cup of tea with the gods in heaven or demons of hell.
"You have to cover up your head; these propitious lanterns would not come after you if they can't see your head."
The captured propitious lantern conveniently became a traitor of its kin as it said, "The reason why we love to devour heads is that after eating a head, we could acquire our own brain and grow our intelligence. We would not even be interested in you if you weren't able to serve such a purpose."
The four of them then quickly took out their spare clothes and wrapped them around their head, and the results were visible in almost an instant; the lanterns stopped coming after them, and they instead turned their attention to the other intruders in the Divine Jungle. They continued roaming around on their own as they went after them.
Not long later, they finally arrived at the Divine Winery where flags waved happily in the sky. The winery was built at the side of the mountain with a river flowing out in it, and the divine winery was incredibly spacious.
The winery clearly was unable to escape the ravages of time, turning into ruins adorned with shattered tiles and fallen pillars. The base of the structure, however, managed to remain intact and the four of them could easily see how prosperous this winery must have been back then. Judging from the space that the winery occupied, they could only begin to imagine the sheer volume of divine wine that was brewed here and supplied to the gods and heavenly Monarch.
So weathered, will there still be some divine wine left?"
Zhu Jushan looked around but all he saw was broken barrels, and he said in disappointment, "This place appeared once long ago in the Lesser Void World, and the old hags probably looted all of the remaining divine wine…."
As soon as he was done talking, another group of Qi Practitioners arrived at the Divine Winery as well. Judging from their attire and appearance, these guys were most probably from the West Barren, and immense killing intent rose within them as soon as they saw Zhong Yue. Just when they were about to attack, the faces of one of them darkened, and he quickly signaled his friends to stop by sending them a message through his psyche. His message seemed to give them a shock as they promptly restrained the actions they were about to take.
“He is the Zhong Shan Clan’s member from Swords Gate, it is best if we do not provoke him….” said the Qi Practitioner to his friends.
Suddenly, the earth trembled vigorously and a three to four feet tall wine barrel crawled out from the ground.
Dong——-
The wine barrel landed on the ground heavily, and from the barrel came two incredibly muscular hands while a face appeared in the middle of the barrel.
As the barrel stared at Zhong Yue and the other three with its eyes, Zhong Yue was in shock as he felt everything suddenly went extremely weird as the lanterns were alive and now the barrels!
"My guess is that there is still lots of divine wine in this huge barrel." murmured Zhu Jushan.
“I still don’t have legs….”
The wine barrel’s eyes rolled around before it landed its vision on Zhu Jushan and it immediately plunged towards him while it shouted, “Give me your muscular legs!”
Upon seeing this, Zhu Jushan saw Zhong Yue, Qiu Jin'er, and Ao Shanshan move a few steps away from him as soon as he wanted to ask for help from them.
"Are you for real?" shouted Zhu Jushan as he charged back towards at the wine barrel. The Zhu Jian Celestial Race was ranked second in terms of physical strength in the entirety of the West Barren, but Zhu Jushan was sent flying away before letting out a shout and spitting out blood from his mouth as soon as he clashed with the huge barrel!
The barrel continued flying in the air, and it landed on Zhu Jushan heavily. It immobilized him with its heavy weight. It then stretched out its arms and began moving Zhu Jushan into its body!
“Stop looking, help me!” shouted Zhu Jushan.
Zhong Yue took out his Golden Peng Sword and swung at the arms of the wine barrel. To his surprise, the Golden Peng Sword failed to slice the barrel's arms off.
So hard!
Zhong Yue had a shock, and he started circling around the barrel. He unleashed a blade storm around it, and he finally sliced its arms off after a few hundred strikes.
The barrel then retaliated by ramming into Zhong Yue, sending him flying away but Zhong Yue did not let it go easily! As soon as he was sent flying away, he hurled his sword out towards the wine barrel, and the sword danced around the barrel, landing many strikes onto the wine barrel.
Suddenly, the top of the barrel was sliced apart by the Golden Peng Sword and from the barrel came insects chirping and countless wine bugs flying out.
Upon seeing this, Zhu Jushan screamed, and he waved his hands around in an attempt to chase the bugs away. All in a sudden, he caught onto a wine bug, and he realized that these bugs looked just like fireflies, except they were much bigger with four pairs of wings and he continued to observe the bug while it struggled to get away.
These bugs were transparent, and in their stomachs was one little wine barrel that was also transparent. But there was a little bit of wine in it that kept shaking around as the bugs flapped their wings.
Happiness struck Zhu Jushan in an instant, and he shouted, "Don't let these bugs get away!"
With the four pairs of wings, these bugs had incredible speed, and in just an instant, more than half of them had flown away.
As Zhong Yue regained his balance, he hurled out the skin of Kui Long, shrouding the bugs with the cowhide while Qiu Jin’er and Ao Shanshan created used their soul weapons that looked like a net, trapping the bugs in it.
The other celestial race Qi Practitioners felt envious, and they could only watch as the bugs flew away. All of a sudden, the ground around the Divine Winery quaked tremendously again, and another huge wine barrel jumped out from the ground, and this caused the other Qi Practitioners to feel extremely happy. They quickly surrounded the wine barrel and out of their expectations, one of them got crushed by the wine barrel in just one swift punch!
The remaining ones had a shock, and another Qi Practitioner was grabbed by the wine barrel before the Qi Practitioner was hurled into the barrel.
Po po——-
Noises could be heard, and shockingly, a pair of legs grew from the wine barrel, and it started walking around excitingly while shouting, "Legs, I have legs now! Guy, come out, this is our chance to get our legs!"
Dong dong dong——-
Quakes even stronger than previously occurred and countless wine barrels crawled out from the ground. In almost a blink of an eye, hundreds of these barrels emerged from the ground, surrounding Zhong Yue and the others before they lunged towards them!
Zhong Yue's face changed rapidly, and as he retracted his Kui Long skin, he shouted, "Retreat at once!"
Meanwhile, more and more wine barrels appeared and they charged towards the remaining Qi Practitioners in high speed, catching them and killing them so that they could get their own legs!
Zhong Yue and the other three quickly retreated while these wine barrels went after them. These wine barrels were quite fast in the air, and they possessed even quicker speed underground. All of this made it even more difficult to escape from them.
If it were just one or two of these wine barrels, Zhong Yue would be able to risk getting hurt and slice the top of the barrels open to catch these wine bugs. But once it turned into hundreds upon hundreds of these barrels, he understood that he didn't stand a chance against them at all!
However, if they kept on moving while fighting, he could still be able to cut open one or two of the top of these barrels as long as the four of them worked together. Zhong Yue was responsible for cutting off the top of these barrels, and the others were responsible for catching the wine bugs that flew out from the barrels.
Soon, another barrel was sliced apart, and just when the wine bugs flew out, Qiu Jin'er, Ao Shanshan, and Zhu Jushan used the Kui Long skin and caught every wine bug in the barrel.
And at other sides, there were also many Qi Practitioners that were risking their lives doing the same thing, except they suffered heavy losses as compared to Zhong Yue and his friends.
Fortunately, because of the Lang Ya Board, these Qi Practitioners did not really die as the board would still revive them outside.
As they continued to catch the wine bugs, the sky turned dark and suddenly, from afar flew wave after wave of the propitious red lanterns. Most of them had their own faces after they devoured heads of the unlucky Qi Practitioners. They flew around happily while they continued to sing the same song over and over again.
Thousands and thousands of these propitious lanterns lit up the dark surrounding around the Divine Winery, and they started singing at a faster and faster pace, "Wine God~~~ the wine thieves are stealing your wines~."
This is… these lanterns are not singing for the sake of it. They are trying to revive the Wine God through the singing! Thought Zhong Yue.
Upon hearing this, Zhong Yue, who was dealing with the third wine barrel, quickly abandoned his opponent before shouting, "Quick! Leave this jungle at once!"
The four then quickly ran out from the jungle, and suddenly, the ground in front of the Divine Winery exploded as a gigantic insect skeleton crawled out of the resultant crater! It was a thousand-legged, centipede dragon that was about a hundred feet long. Its legs were also like bone wings!
This centipede dragon that had only his bones remaining bore a terrifyingly godly aura; it seemed to still be replete with vitality despite having been dead for millions of years! It then flew and glided in the air as it flapped its bony wings with wine barrels attached to them.
As it flapped its legs that looked like wings, these wine barrels would go up and down with its wings before the centipede dragon threw them down at the Qi Practitioners like a bombardier. While the wine barrels regained their balance and started chasing after these Qi Practitioners, the centipede dragon shot out godly rays from its mouth that evaporated everything they touched.
"The wine thieves! They're here!" shouted the lanterns in unision as they continued to followed behind Zhong Yue and company.
And in an instant, Zhong Yue sensed an incredible godly aura surging towards them; and all he saw was the centipede dragon changing its path and start chasing them as he looked backward.