He and It Chapter 142: The Serpent of Pharisee (8)

Chapter 142: The Serpent of Pharisee (8)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

After he executed the foolish liar, Echidna leaned down, spread his claws like a great eagle, and seized the wool in his hand.

The smell of the fleece soaked in balm, immediately brought back memories of last night’s experience. The snake demon stuck out his forked tongue and hissed erratically. His heart beat too fast for a moment, and he pulled up a torrent of venom that turned to mist and swam around his tail.

A human.

It was a human who wooed him, who praised him, who boasted about him. A human.

Echidna stared at the wool in his hand. He tentatively pressed it against his chest, but by now it was clammy and cold to the touch, not warm and moist as it had been last night. It was lifeless against his skin, like the skin of a dead snake, and it made him sick to his stomach.

The snake demon grimaced and threw it away with displeasure. He looked up in the direction of the palace gates, his eyes once again eager.

He must have gone in that direction. I will find him and seize him. As surely as the Heavens have shown me the bleakness of the future, I will seize him as I seize the thunderbolt, as I seize the hurricane, as I seize the bleeding neck of the stag!

Echidna swore fervently as he moved his body and soared into the darkness which even the firelight could not penetrate. He followed the steps of the unknown human being, and for the first time swam out of the depths of Arima’s palace.

The giants retreated in panic, their minds immersed in boundless fear. Where Echidna’s serpent tail swayed, darkness flooded, lamps were extinguished, torches were forbidden to burn, and the breeze that flowed through the palace also subsided, silenced as if it were dead.

Xie Ning knew nothing about that. He sighed and clutched his empty stomach, as he slowly held onto the wall in order to walk.

After having escaped a distance, he couldn’t run any further and he had to stop. He endured the discomfort of all-encompassing pain, as he moved forward step by step. Xie Ning deeply suspected that he must have suffered some internal injuries when he was hit by the snake whip, because when he gasped for air a little bit harder his chest hurt terribly.

However, since he had already escaped, there was nothing to complain about. Anyway, he was still alive, which was better than anything else.

Xie Ning comforted himself as he wrapped himself in the cloak.

By the way, the quality of the cloak was really excellent. It couldn’t have been handmade by some goddess or immortal, could it? If that was the case, I really owe that good fellow a serious favor…

After walking a while, Xie Ning stopped and scrunched up his face in confusion.

As a result of the pain and hunger, his eyes weren’t working well, and he had walked in the dark for a while before he realized that it was actually very dark around him. 

Echidna hovered above and stared at him.

Was that him? So small and helpless, pathetically shrunken, as he leaned against the wall of the corridor. Was that him? 

Echidna excitedly stuck out his black tongue as he savored the scent in the air. The human’s body was stained with a strong poisonous stench mixed with the rich scent from his hands, which formed a strange aroma of depravity and corruption that corroborated his identity.

The snake demon suddenly felt an infinite joy. He descended to the copper floor, his snake’s belly was light and soundless, and twisted like a goose feather drifting to the ground.

However, all the goose feathers in the world combined could not compare to Echidna’s wickedness and poisonousness. He explored the other’s body, secretly looked at the human’s face from the side, and saw that the person was pale with soft lips, very beautiful and lovely, and for some reason, he had a deep impulse in his heart. He wanted to try licking the human’s cheeks with his forked tongue to see if they tasted sweet to him.

Xie Ning inhaled deeply, and in the still air, he smelled a very familiar odor.

The smell of a snake.

Xie Ning’s body chilled, he already had a bad premonition in his heart. He slowly turned back. He glimpsed the darkness on either side of him, but around the top of his head, a hazy light radiated downwards.

Xie Ning slowly looked up.

–A pair of treacherous golden eyes, suspended in the air, were staring intently at him.

Echidna, “Hiss?” 

Xie Ning’s face was like gold paper. He instantly held his breath, while his heart thumped wildly, almost popping out of his mouth.

He thought he would cry out in fear, but in fact, although his lips moved slightly, he only uttered a weak, gnat-like “ah.” Under that eldritch gaze, Xie Ning could even see the reflection of his own eyes in them; like looking at exotic lanterns.

Sudden shock, imbalanced heartbeat, pain throughout the body, plus no food for more than ten hours…Xie Ning’s blood rushed from the soles of his feet to the top of his head and his eyes went black.

The human’s eyes closed and he lost all consciousness.

Echidna stared blankly at the human.

It was as if a river of ice water had been thrown over his head. The burning heat inside him dissipated, and the cold was worse than the bleak abyss of Tartarus.

The demon was too sad to speak. His mind was in a state of flux, and even the anger that had arisen in him was too deep to bubble over.

He fainted in fear at the sight of me. It is evident that his praises and boasts about me were not from his heart! A weak human being like him, he thought bitterly, must not dare to make up his own mind. By whose will did he dare to come here and make a fool of me? 

Echidna was hunched over as he gazed into the human’s face with a tired and indifferent expression. In his eyes, the face that was once so white and lovely was now as merciless and piercing as frost, full of hypocrisy and deceit.

The snake demon wandered around, as he hesitated for a long time between killing and not killing.

“I will take you to the lair,” he said at last to himself, coldly resolved, “For my oath cannot be broken! Not even by myself. I will bring thee back to my lair, and there, as thine own master, I shall have to torture thee into a full disclosure of the circumstances of this matter.” 

With that, he opened his iron hand, pinched the human boy’s waist, lifted him up easily and swept him back to the depths of the palace.

At the entrance of the palace, the four-armed giant waited bitterly, worried that Echidna really could not restrain his inexplicable anger, and on impulse broke through the palace and tumbled up the sacred mountain of Olympus. That kind of war, without any warning, would surely cause Gaia, the Mother of the Earth, to be blamed as well.

Therefore, upon seeing Echidna return, the four-armed giant was greatly relieved. Together with that happiness, he spotted that the snake demon was carrying the human, which he had seen yesterday, in his hand and concluded that Echidna went out in order to catch the escaped slave. So he scurried out of the palace gate for the first time and hurried over, ready to present a lot of good words to stabilize his master’s heart and mind.

“Master, how did you catch this thief?” The four-armed giant asked. “This little man, however, harbors a very cunning heart. Yesterday, I ordered him to serve you, and assigned him a bucket of oil, but I did not want him to escape. Polluxaeus previously used a snake whip on him, but now I do not know where he is. How strange. Is it that some Olympian god is secretly aiding this man?” 

Echidna was paying attention to what he said, and stopped for a moment in apprehension.

So it was you who, in my name, ordered the other giants to make him suffer with a serpent’s whip? Maybe that’s why he now fears me…

For a moment his countenance was fierce, then abruptly he showed such joy that the clouds dispersed; but the joy could not last long and soon Echidna’s expression grew somber again.

Never mind. Let us not delude ourselves with vain hopes. Elpis, who governs it, has never been gracious to me, and she, like all the Gods of Heaven, desires my speedy demise! ¹

“Polluxaeus is dead,” Echidna snapped. “Go and gather up his body, and throw that heap of rubbish down the bottomless chasm, for this is the end of his lies!” 

The four-armed giant got a shock, and couldn’t manage to say anything before the snake demon had already passed him, slithering straight into the forbidden palace.

In fact, the palace’s architecture connected in all directions, not just what Xie Ning observed of the vertical structure. As he carried him, Echidna left the giant’s body behind and turned into his lair, the same place Xie Ning had seen in his vision that day.

The demon rushed into the territory, his powerful tail swirling and sweeping, shaking off scattered skeletons, all the bronze horns and the hardest skulls; parts that Echidna did not want to digest.

He had intended to throw the human to the ground in front of the throne, but as Echidna was about to raise his hand to do so, he hesitated.

He could feel how small and fragile the other man was, as he hung limply between his fingers. If he exerted himself a little, he would break the human’s bones and make him cry out in pain.

Should I do it? 

Echidna sharpened his fangs. Though he was a wicked demon, yet the thought of how gently this man had anointed him last night, complimented him, and burned him with the warmth of his fingers…He felt a sudden reluctance.

Echidna inclined his head, looked at the human’s hand, and saw those little white fingers, hanging down and shaking pitifully.

The snake demon hissed angrily. He hooked a gold-threaded cushion with its long tail and threw it to the hard ground, thought it over, then hooked another, and another…and then tossed the human toward the hard ground, so that he landed on top of the mountain of cushions.

That’s my punishment! I didn’t drop him, he thought angrily. I put him down casually.

After having passed out for about half an hour, Xie Ning woke up, starving.

“Ouch…” He raised his hands and pressed them to his temples. He felt like his limbs were buried in something soft that made it difficult to move. Xie Ning’s eyes were bleary, and he tried to exert strength from his waist, but the muscles of his waist were sore, and his body couldn’t find any strength from anywhere.

Wait, how did I fall asleep? What was I doing before I fell asleep? 

Xie Ning was confused for a long time, as he tried hard to dig up the memories from his mind. He only remembered that he woke up that morning, then escaped from the underground palace. He felt like the path under his feet was getting darker and darker, and finally, he saw…

The movement of rubbing his temples stopped abruptly.

Well, in the end, he suddenly saw a pair of golden eyes, which made him pass out.

That’s the lesson, class, so whose eyes are they? Xie Ning laughed in his heart. Haha! Of course their Echidna’s!

God, just think of me as a good dragon. Lord, give me a break.

But, why am I still alive? Echidna didn’t eat me. Does that mean I still have a chance to be saved? 

Xie Ning tried to open one eye.

Good, nothing in front of me. Open the other.

Good, still nothing in front of me…

Gold and jewels clashed with each other, and emitted a crisp ringing sound, and a deep, dark luster like a rope flowed around a throne made of snakes. Echidna slowly moved his huge, long serpentine body. His black hair shone like waves, half covering his brown skin with its gorgeous golden tattoos.

A brilliant light shone down upon him, as the ancient demon opened its golden eyes, then slightly opened its ebony lips marked with gold, to reveal fierce fangs and a forked black tongue.

…Something.

Xie Ning sucked in a breath of cold air.

The demon stared at him, its eyes as cold as ice, intimidating and creepy.

The room was silent. Not to mention a needle, even a feather could be heard when it fell on the ground. Xie Ning choked for a long time, before he spoke with difficulty, breaking the frozen atmosphere.

“Hello…” Xie Ning said stiffly. “I, uh, I…” 

Echidna towered over him, his brow suggesting stifled brutality. “Who sent you here?” 

Perhaps due to his long, forked tongue, his enunciation wasn’t as clear as a human’s, but rather curled around a hissing ess that vibrated with resonance from his chest. It was as if he were speaking an ancient and obscure language that Xie Ning could only half understand.

“No…no one sent me,” Xie Ning’s expression was lost.

Facing a Primordial God, he couldn’t help but step back. If the Echidna in his visions and the Echidna he saw with his own eyes were two species; then the Echidna with his eyes open and the Echidna in his sleep were two completely different feelings.

In front of this golden-eyed, human-bodied, serpent-tailed demon, the charm of blood and savagery came to him, with such a surging, wild wave of life force that was so majestic it reached a demonic degree. Xie Ning didn’t feel like he was staring at a living being, but instead he felt like he was facing the richness of a great river, an immaculate celestial body, and the chaotic, unrestricted wilderness itself. He could even hear a song, like an old mystic, wailing under the light of the full moon, so that distant towers were struck, and countless bells tolled, and there was no time at all. A thousand years was a moment, and a moment was a thousand years.

Echidna’s approaching body suddenly lurched, and in his sight, human tears overflowed the sockets of his eyes, and flowed silently down his pale cheeks.

However they were not tears of fear, nor were they tears of pleading. He had seen how shrill pleas for forgiveness could be. This human’s tears were not hysterical. On the contrary, they were filled with…They were, on the contrary, filled with an emotion Echidna could not describe.

Xie Ning continued to sniffle slightly, as he clutched his stomach, frustrated beyond words. Tired, hungry, uncomfortable, anxious, full of low self-esteem….With his negative physical and mental states, all of them rose in his throat and Xie Ning suddenly broke down and bawled, ” I…I can’t draw!” 

Echidna, “Hiss?” 

How was it possible for a human being to draw this? I saw him from afar. I thought I had touched him in the flesh, and could imitate him superficially on paper, but what was the difference between that and drawing a tiger from the model of a cat? I’m afraid I’ll never be able to understand the true essence and soul of the man, and even if I do, how can I express it on a thin piece of paper? 

He had completely forgotten his situation. That he was face to face with a ferocious demon.

Hunger made him dizzy, Echidna’s beauty made him lose his mind. Xie Ning’s old habits flared up again. Since he’d crossed over, countless people praised him, countless people worshiped him, and every day in Iolcus was a joyous one. Xie Ning thought he would be cured, that the beast of greed in his heart, so bloated, would burst and never be hungry again with so many compliments and affirmations, but when he looked at the living, wide-eyed, undulating Echidna, the beast instantly came back from the dead and lifted its ghostly head in the center of his heart.

How much of yourself did you owe to modern painting techniques, when you gained the admiration of others? He grinned sourly. His talent couldn’t match his insatiable ambition, and he suffered as you did!

Echidna spun around in bewilderment and disbelief as he looked at the human crying in front of him. He grabbed his long hair and pulled at it, as he tried to figure out what was going on. His anger and sadness were gradually replaced by surprise.

The human hadn’t been afraid. He hadn’t begged for mercy, and hadn’t regarded him as an ancient enemy, as the heroes and gods had done. His tears reeked of bitterness, but it was not the bitterness of the loss of a lover, a friend, or a child, nor the bitterness of the loss of a family, a country, or an unfortunate destiny. It was a bitterness Echidna had never seen before in all of mankind.

“What are you crying for?” the snake demon asked, puzzled, while he continued to cry his heart out. “Stop your tears! Tell me the reason at once. Perhaps I can grant you true forgiveness.” 

When Xie Ning didn’t answer, Echidna stretched out his arms, and, thrusting them beside his ribs, lifted him up like a puppy, and held him squarely to chest.

“Strange man,” Echidna said curiously. “Are you afraid, or are you not afraid? If you were afraid, you dared to weep in my presence as no one else has; if not, why did you faint on the ground at the sight of me? I ask you, was it you who anointed me last night and praised me for my beauty?” 

Xie Ning was dizzy and nodded listlessly.

Echidna then asked, “Then why did you faint at the sight of me?” 

Xie Ning spoke without thinking, as he replied wilfully, “I was hungry.” 

Surprisingly, he was just hungry!

Getting that unexpected answer, his depression was swept away, and Echidna’s eyes shone with joy. Among all his rejoicing, he was especially glad that his hesitation and forbearance had prevented him from making a big mistake and killing his precious person.

He coiled up his body and placed Xie Ning in the center of his long, heavily encircled tail. The thought that the human had spoken from his heart made him so happy that he couldn’t control himself. Even the tip of his tail stood up and quivered.

Alas and alack. I will take him in my hands and feed him little meat pies, thought Echidna happily. But why is he crying?