Stranger Danger

“You flatter me.” Xiang Weilong smiled proudly before looking at Sword Ghoul. “Are you satisfied now?”

To his surprise, Sword Goul replied coldly, “No. And I will not be until I confirm that he’s truly dead.”

As he said this, a hail of sword qi shot out of his body and penetrated the ground where Ye Qing was buried under.

Xiang Weilong scoffed at his seemingly paranoid action, “You are way too cautious, my man.”

“I agree. That young man took four of my granddaughter’s shots with his body after I poisoned him with my Soul Ender, and then he took a full-powered palm strike from Head Xiang. Even if he is still alive, I seriously doubt he’ll be able to do anything else.”

Nefarious Codger smoked his pipe before continuing in a lazy tone, “In the jianghu, they say that the older the person, the more cowardly they become. But you seem even more cowardly than I am, an old man.”

“Say what you want, but it’s always better to be safe than sor—”

Sword Ghoul was in the middle of replying when suddenly, his words died inside his throat, and unadulterated astonishment flashed in his eyes.

Xiang Weilong’s reaction was even more exaggerated. His mouth was agape, and his eyes were wide open as if he just saw a ghost.

A man covered in blood and soil.

A man who was standing behind Tyrant Bow with the ghost of a smirk on his face.

A man who was watching them with cold, emotionless eyes as if they were a bunch of clowns… or dead people.

Tyrant Bow did not understand why Sword Ghoul and Xiang Weilong were staring at her and her grandfather like they had seen a ghost. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at us like that? Did you see a ghost?”

“They’re not looking at you. They’re looking at me.”

A voice answered her question from behind her.

It was faint, but it chilled Tyrant Bow to the bone. She shivered like she had suddenly fallen into an ice-hole.

Nefarious Codger was a veteran who survived the jianghu to old age. He knew that something was wrong the moment he saw Sword Ghoul and Xiang Weilong’s face, and the second he heard the voice behind him, he reacted without bothering to turn around to face his opponent.

Nefarious Codger turned his wrist and swung his smoking pipe behind his back. Countless sparks and smoke immediately poured out of its chamber.

In that sense, the smoking pipe was a miniature volcano. When its chamber was flipped upside down, the “volcano” erupted and spat out a swarm of sparks that could burn heaven and earth, and a flood of smoke that contaminated everything.

Then, Nefarious Codger blanched. It was because a hand reached out from amidst the sparks and smoke and clenched. As if magic, dark yellow light gathered the surrounding spark and smoke abruptly flew toward the fist and gathered at the center. All of it.

Stunned, Nefarious Codger tried to run away next. However, there was nowhere for him to go; nowhere for him to hide despite how vast the world was. It was because the voice’s fist was heaven, earth, and the world itself. From the moment he entered the fist’s range, he had lost his one and only chance to escape.

That was why he could only watch as the fist shattered the chamber of his smoking pipe into pieces, snapped the handle in half, and landed squarely on his body.

Strangely, the contact made no sound whatsoever. There was no visible wound on Nefarious Codger’s body either.

An emotionless voice rang beside the old man’s ears, “You like poisoning others, don’t you? It is against etiquette to not reciprocate, so here. Have a taste of your own medicine.”

“What did you—”

Nefarious Codger tried to shout, but he was interrupted by a series of pops and cracks happening throughout his body. At the same time, a loud boom overtook his headspace.

Nefarious Codger abruptly realized that every meridian in his body had broken, and every bodily point shattered beyond reparation. Not only that, his headspace was cracked into multiple pieces, and his yang god was severely injured. It was to the point where it could no longer escape from his physical body.

That still wasn’t the worst thing that happened to him though. No, it was the terrible toxin that exploded inside his body.

By now, Nefarious Codger figured out that the seemingly harmless punch had really broken his meridian, shattered his bodily points, crushed his headspace, and even reversed all the toxins held within his smoking pipe into his body.

The sparks and smoke inside his smoking pipe were the products of all sorts of deadly toxins and contaminants blended into one. He knew better than everyone just how toxic it was.

It was why his fear and despair were also greater than everyone else’s.

Immediately after the poison exploded inside his body, his flesh began festering inch by inch, smelly blood and pus began seeping out of his pores, and countless contaminants filled with pain, resentment, deathly stillness, hatred, despair and more began wreaking havoc inside his brain. It was an experience worse than death itself.

The worst part? He couldn’t do anything.

He wanted to run away, but he was unable to move even a muscle since his meridian and bodily points were destroyed.

He wanted to abandon his physical body and escape with his yang god, but his mind was currently in a weakened state because his headspace and spirit were forcefully shattered.

He wanted to drop to his knees and beg for mercy, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his tongue rotted into a pool of liquid flesh, and his teeth fell off his gums one after another. He could not say a single word in this state.

He could not run or beg for mercy. He could only endure what felt like an eternity of horrible pain and despair.

“What did you do to grandpa? I’ll kill you!”

It was only now Tyrant Bow realized what was happening. She lifted the gigantic bow behind her back and attempted to smash it down on Ye Qing’s head.

That’s right. The man who appeared behind Tyrant Bow’s back and gave Nefarious Codger a taste of his own medicine was none other than Ye Qing.

Tyrant Bow was gigantic, and her bow even more so. The combination of monstrous woman and weapon made a noise that sounded like an avalanche and ripped a hole in space itself. Ye Qing was hardly small, but he positively looked like a child underneath the bow.

He did not try to dodge out of the way though. He simply lifted his arm in an uppercut.

The falling bow exploded into smithereens, and his fist continued forward and landed squarely on Tyrant Bow’s chest.

The young woman’s supposedly invulnerable Tyrant Body was shredded as easily as paper. Ye Qing punched right through her chest and crushed her heart in an instant.

The battle sounded like it took a long time, but it really only happened in the span of seconds. It was only after Nefarious Codger was ruined, and Tyrant Bow was dead that Xiang Weilong and Sword Ghoul finally reacted and attacked.

Xiang Weilong took the lead and thrust his palms forward like a dragon swiping at its opponent. The pressure, the intent, and the power of a dragon were fully infused into his palms, and they warped the space around him long before his attack reached Ye Qing.

As for Sword Ghoul, countless sword qi leaked out of his skin and pores and formed a massive cyclone around him. He was a walking disaster in his current form, and he did not hesitate to press forward.

Rumble!

The next moment, palm force and sword qi engulfed Ye Qing completely. Everything within a hundred meters of the combatants transformed into a deadly storm that ripped the clouds into shreds and carved up the ground like tofu.

However, both men blanched in the next moment. It was because Ye Qing slowly walked out of the storm of sword qi and palm force looking completely unaffected. It was almost as if he was walking through a cool breeze instead of deadly energies that could break mountains and split oceans like nothing.

“We need to retreat,” Xiang Weilong said with a deep frown. Anyone with a pair of eyes could tell that their assassination attempt had ended in failure. It was time to escape.

However, as he was turning around to make a run for it, a powerful blast of sword qi struck his back and sent him careening toward Ye Qing.

“Sword Ghoul! You!”

The blood drained away from Xiang Weilong’s face. The surprise attack could only have come from Sword Ghoul.

“Please buy me some time, Head Xiang.”

Underneath his hood, a cold smile spread across Sword Ghoul’s face. “Don’t worry. I’ll inform Dragonmount Duke about your death.”

As he said this, a flash of sword qi appeared beneath Sword Ghoul. He was far, far away by the time he finished his sentence.

“You will not get away with this, Sword Ghoul!” Xiang Weilong screamed with fury. At this point, it was clear that Sword Ghoul had tricked him hook, line and sinker.

Suddenly, every hair on Xiang Weilong’s body stood on end. It was because a fist had suddenly appeared right before his eyes.

The breath of the reaper breathing down his neck, Xiang Weilong stopped caring about Sword Ghoul and dodged the incoming fist with inches to spare. Then, he launched a palm strike at Ye Qing’s chest.

Considering what he just went through, his reaction was suboptimal to say the least. That was why Xiang Weilong went all out. The palm strike let loose a deafening, tyrannical roar that sounded like a dragon who was very, very unhappy that it was awoken from its slumber.

He did not think that the palm strike would be able to kill Ye Qing. All he wanted was to buy himself a moment to breathe.

He had several life-saving Strange Artifacts on his person. One breath was all he needed to activate them and escape.