Wu Long is the centipede spirit among the Seven Monsters of Mount Mei in Investiture of the Gods. He joins Yuan Hong late in the Shang war, when the dynasty is running out of ordinary commanders and increasingly depends on strange beings from the mountains. In human form he enters the army as an armed officer, fighting with paired sabers beside Chang Hao and the other spirits rather than remaining a hidden cave monster.
The Mount Mei group helps Yuan Hong attack the Zhou camp and repeatedly frustrates Jiang Ziya’s generals through transformations that conceal each creature’s true nature. To break that advantage, Yang Jian borrows Yunzhongzi’s Demon-Revealing Mirror. The mirror exposes Chang Hao as a white snake and Wu Long as a centipede, giving Yang Jian the knowledge needed to choose a counter. Wu Long can fight in formation, but his real threat appears when pursuit forces him out of human shape and black mist closes around the enormous insect body.
Yang Jian answers the centipede not with a stronger weapon but with transformation. He becomes a five-colored rooster, flies into the mist, and tears Wu Long into several pieces with a single pecking attack. The episode fixes Wu Long’s level within the novel: he is no equal of Yuan Hong, the group’s leader, yet he is more than a common soldier and cannot be defeated until an immortal first uncovers his original form and then invokes its natural enemy. His death removes another of the seven supernatural defenses protecting Shang’s final march.
