Chapter 307: Taotie: The Corpse is Expanding!
Seeing the Golden-Horned Bronze Coffin being pried open a crack, Taotie’s eyes lit up.
“Tom, hold on!”
Taotie shouted urgently before suddenly letting go of his Mo Dao and using both hands to lift the coffin lid.
Taotie’s sudden release nearly made Tom curse out loud.
The hundreds of pounds of weight were now solely on him.
Tom almost buckled under the pressure.
Thankfully, Taotie was fast.
In just a few seconds, he managed to support the coffin lid.
“Ha!”
Taotie let out a low growl, his muscles bulging with power.
Bulging veins, wriggling like worms, surfaced beneath his skin.
“Lend me a hand!”
Taotie gritted his teeth and squeezed out three words.
Tom quickly released his spear, reached out, and together they lifted the coffin lid.
“Up!”
Taotie’s blood-red eyes gleamed as he let out a low roar, unleashing his full strength!
With a mighty heave, the hundreds-of-pounds-heavy coffin lid was violently flung off, crashing onto the ground with a thunderous boom.
The moment it hit the floor, the entire burial chamber seemed to shake.
Outside the Burial Chamber…
The mercenaries from Ragnarok, stationed outside the tomb, were startled by the deafening crash.
They immediately stood up, weapons ready.
Their squad leader, sensing something was off, cautiously peered inside the burial chamber.
Upon seeing the fallen coffin lid, his expression changed.
The squad leader didn’t know what Tom and Taotie were up to, but his gut told him it wasn’t good.
“Open fire!” he commanded without hesitation.
Before he even finished speaking, four mercenaries—some kneeling, some standing—raised their submachine guns and unleashed a barrage of bullets.
“Rat-tat-tat!”
The sudden gunfire made Taotie flinch.
He immediately ducked behind the coffin, but two bullets still grazed his scalp, burning two dark streaks into his hair and leaving behind blistering scorch marks on his skin.
“Hssss…”
“Damn, that hurts like hell!”
“These bastard stick-men… just you wait!”
Taotie rubbed his head frantically, cursing the Ragnarok mercenaries’ ancestors back eighteen generations.
His heart was still pounding wildly.
If he had been just a second slower, those bullets would have blown his head off—a clean headshot!
This time, Taotie had truly brushed past death.
Even with his usual recklessness, he was shaken, beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead.
“Shit, I almost died!”
He patted his chest, still feeling the lingering fear.
Meanwhile, Tom…
Tom, seeing Taotie’s close call, also felt a chill run down his spine.
He picked up his gun and fired two quick warning shots toward the chamber entrance.
Hearing Tom’s gunfire, the squad leader outside felt reassured and ordered his men:
“Cease fire!”
The previous burst had emptied an entire magazine each from four soldiers—over a hundred bullets gone.
Not wanting to waste ammunition, the squad leader decided a quick burst was enough to intimidate them.
If Taotie had heard that reasoning, he would have laughed for two years straight.
“You?! Trying to save ammo?!”
“You already wasted a whole thousand bullets earlier! If you gave those to Li Yunlong, he’d be storming Taiyuan right now!”
Back Inside the Tomb…
Once sure that the mercenaries wouldn’t charge in, Tom let out a breath and asked:
“Taotie, you okay?”
Taotie touched the burn blisters on his scalp and shook his head.
“I’m fine, just got my head roasted a bit.”
“Not sure if my hair will ever grow back, though…”
Tom took one look at the blistered skin and felt his own scalp tingle.
It looked… really nasty.
He figured Taotie’s hair was never growing back there—the hair follicles were toast.
After a few moments of silence, seeing no movement from the mercenaries, Taotie cautiously peeked over the coffin edge.
At the door, a mercenary was sitting there, but seeing Taotie, he didn’t even raise his gun.
This made Taotie bolder.
He quickly glanced inside the coffin.
Inside lay a lifelike corpse.
Although its skin was darkened from dehydration, and its hair looked like dried straw, the body remained intact.
It was clear this had once been a strong, bearded middle-aged man.
Just then—
As soon as the corpse made contact with fresh air, some chemical reaction occurred…
The body suddenly started to expand!
Thick, black hairs rapidly sprouted from its pores, weaving together like a dense coat.
Even its clasped hands were now covered in long, curling claws, and its fingernails grew sharp and black.
Seeing this, Taotie quickly ducked back down.
“Tom, we’re golden!”
“That thing’s definitely a real Jiangshi (hopping vampire)!”
Taotie grinned excitedly at Tom.
Hearing this, Tom grew curious.
Following Taotie’s example, he peeked into the coffin—and was stunned.
“Taotie, why is the corpse… growing hair?”
“Is it… molding?”
Tom exclaimed in shock.
“What do you know?!”
“That’s called expansion, you fool!”
“It’s a sign it’s waking up!”
Taotie shot Tom a contemptuous glance, looking at him like an ignorant foreigner.
Tom, however, ignored the look.
Instead, he furrowed his brows and asked:
“So… it’s really coming back to life?”
“Like those bug-controlled corpses we saw before?”
Taotie scoffed, shaking his head.
“Those were just fake zombies—puppets controlled by corpse worms.”
“This here is the real deal!”
“A true Jiangshi—super strong and bulletproof!”
“Those mercenary bastards won’t be able to do shit to it!”
“With this thing leading the charge, we can break out in no time!”
Hearing Taotie’s excited explanation, Tom’s expression darkened.
After a moment of thought, he sighed and asked:
“Taotie… can you control it?”
“What if it wakes up… and attacks us instead of the mercenaries?”
Tom’s words struck like a bolt of lightning.
Taotie froze, his expression shifting drastically.
His face darkened more and more.
“Taotie? You okay?” Tom asked, noticing his silence.
Taotie said nothing.
He just stared at Tom in grim realization.
