Chapter 270: 270
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"I'm afraid I can't allow that."
Everyone turned to stare at me. Lian Rou, in particular, looked furious.
"Hey! You can't do that! You can't mean to leave her out here by herself!"
"No, I'm not suggesting that we abandon her. I'm just saying we can't allow her into the city." I gestured toward the raft. "Are you seriously telling me you don't find any of this suspicious and overly convenient?"
"What do you mean?" Yi Ding Si asked, confused.
"You're aware that the top three demonic sects are planning to siege Wu Ling City, right?" I pointed out. "And now we suddenly have a strange girl no one has heard of before, suddenly showing up and claiming that she's on her way to Wu Ling City. For some reason she survived poison that killed off her entire family, even though by right the poison should have killed her long ago. Don't you think it's a little too fortuitous that she's the only survivor, and she just happens to be heading toward the city that's going to be attacked by demonic sects in a few days? Normally wouldn't people be heading in the opposite direction?"
"That's true…" Tong Xue agreed as he flipped through his tablet. "And I've run her face through the city records. There's no record or files on her in the city. She's most definitely not a resident from Wu Ling City."
"I…I…" the girl stammered, her eyes wide. "Please…"
"Drop the act, girl." I sighed wearily. "I know you're not a real member of that family." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Am I right?"
"Right on." Tong Xue nodded as he scanned through his tablet. Calling up a screen, he conjured a huge holographic picture and displayed a family photo that featured the parents and the boy. "The Xia Family. The man is Xia Si Liao, aged forty-one, and the woman is his wife, Xia Di Yu, aged thirty-eight. Their son is Xia Liu, aged twelve. They are only a family of three who have lived in Wu Ling City for over thirteen years. They made no mention of having a daughter."
"That's…" the girl's jaw dropped. She was evidently shocked that we would check her background so thoroughly. I shrugged.
"I asked Tong Xue to check you out because there's something strange about you." I frowned and shook my head. "You think you're able to hide it, but I can sense the poison qi flowing through your qi channels. You're definitely a practitioner of poison arts. And that same venomous qi is what killed those three over there. You murdered them."
"…!"
The girl turned frightfully pale and began backing away unconsciously.
"How…how…?"
"Hey!" Lian Rou complained. Tong Xue and I turned toward her, wondering if she was going to insist on defending the girl. But she merely placed her hands on her hips, looking all upset. "You ruined my plan!"
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"What plan?" I asked, puzzled.
"We could have captured her! That's why I proposed bringing her into the city. We could capture her and probe her for information regarding the demonic sects' disposition and forces! But you just had to ruin everything!"
"Sorry, but I'm not taking any risk with her. Haven't you read The Celestial Zone?" I shook my head in disagreement. "Even if she fails to cause any internal damage after attacking people inside the city, she will steal our maps and defense formations, and bring them to the demonic sects. She'll sell our information out to them and allow them to find a weakness in our defensive formations. I can't allow that to happen. The risk is too great."
Having already seen what Three Star Toad did in The Celestial Zone, I wasn't pretty fond of letting her run amok in Wu Ling City. At least they had Da Nian Chu Yi to help them cure the poison, but there were still quite a lot of Mount Cloud Dream people who died to her poison when she fought her way out.
I had to say, for a supposed genius, Wang Chan was pretty naïve, taking an awful lot of risk to bring two total strangers into the heart of Mount Cloud Dream even though he was aware of the imminent attacks from the evil sects. Like…did he not figure out that they might be spies infiltrating Mount Cloud Dream? I know he was a kind-hearted fella who couldn't abandon people, but dude…that didn't mean you just let any random stranger right into your fortress, especially when you already know you were at war. In his defense, he was very young, and his senior Xue Wu pointed out that mistake to him.
As for me, who had already read The Celestial Zone and was aware of the aftermath, I knew exactly what sort of mistakes to avoid, and not to repeat the same error Wang Chan did. At least the first series was good, but The Celestial Zone II seemed to dump the character development and well-thought out plot elsewhere in favor of cool fight scenes. I kind of missed anti-hero Xue Wu…
"You've a good point." Lian Rou sighed and nodded, conceding. "I don't want to be responsible for the deaths of defenders."
"How…how did you know?" the girl gasped, gaping at Lian Rou. The comely girl merely turned back with a shrug.
"You're not the only expert on poison, you know. Like Fei Wu, I kind of detected the poison qi flowing through your body when I treated you. Plus I also caught a whiff of several different kinds of toxins on your body, different from the one used to kill the three over there." She narrowed her eyes. "That can only be possible if you're a practitioner of poison techniques."
The girl stared at us for a few moments, then she threw her head back and laughed.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
"What's so funny?" Yi Ding Si demanded.
"Her plan got found out, and she's stunned by how big a failure it was," Song Ting Yu explained kindly. "She's still surprised that such a foolproof plan could have failed. If it wasn't you guys but anybody else, she would have just gotten through the gates without any issues, and she could begin to carry out whatever subterfuge she had in mind." She covered her mouth and giggled, impressed. "Even I didn't notice the poison laced across her body."
The girl stopped laughing and glanced at us, her eyes narrowing. She clenched her fists and I sensed a spike in her qi.
"Well…since I've failed, I've no choice but to kill you all now!"
Her skin turned brown and boils erupted across her flesh. Noxious fumes began spiraling from her body, causing the plants and weeds around her to wither and dry up.
"Poison!"
Tong Xue and the rest quickly retreated, but I didn't. I merely stepped forward and did my best not to inhale the noxious fumes. Not because I would get poisoned, but because they were pretty unpleasant to breathe in.
"I don't know how you saw through my plans, but I'll just kill you and try again with another passer-by!"
"You'll be lucky if you run into people going toward Wu Ling City," I pointed out dryly. "Most people will be going away from Wu Ling City, given the imminent invasion."
"Oh, shut up!" the girl shouted, annoyed that I exposed the flaw in her plan so easily. "Mistress Bai Yue's schemes will never fail! If she says this will succeed, then it definitely will!"
"You do realized it just failed, right?" I scratched my head. Then I glanced at Song Ting Yu and the rest. "And…yup, we just confirmed that she's from the Lunar Moon Sect."
"Hmm, I'll run some analysis and check out who she is," Tong Xue offered as he ran his finger through the touchscreen of his tablet. "Maybe I'll unearth some useful information on her skills, which you can counter."
"Be careful!" Lian Rou cried. The girl was already lunging at me, her poisonous palms lashing out toward me.
I smiled and met her palm strike head-on. Just like in the battle against Sha Chen, I stood my ground as our palms collided. Using Shadow Palm Strike, I forced her back.
"Hah! There is no antidote to my poison!" the girl crowed. "You'll definitely die now!"
"Uh huh." I shook my hands, but didn't panic. If I really wasn't confident that I was immune to her poison, I would have drawn my swords and cut off her hands. Actually, I should have done that, but I had this sadistic streak inside me. I mean, come on…who wouldn't want to see the expression on the girl's face when she realized her poison had completely no effect on me whatsoever? "So how long does the poison take to act?"
"…"
"…"
After a few seconds passed, the girl realized something was amiss when I didn't topple over, foaming at the mouth or whatever.
"How…how is this possible!?" she cried.
"Lady, I've fought against the Heavenly Venom King himself, and won. What makes you think you are better than him? Compared to him, your poisons are a joke."
The girl shuddered and she stared at me in dread. "You…defeated the Heavenly Venom King?"
"…yeah. What? You didn't know that?" I glanced at Tong Xue. "I guess we can assume that the demonic sects don't rely on the Internet to get their news."
"Or maybe she's been out working in the field for so long, so she wasn't able to receive any news or updated information," Song Ting Yu suggested.
The girl was staring at us as if she was wondering how we knew everything she did, right down to the smallest detail. To make matters worse, Tong Xue happened to stumble upon her information at that very moment.
"Aha! I found out who she is now! She's the Six Star Toad of the Lunar Moon Sect! She's known to be their poison master!"
"…Six Star Toad? Really?" I was burying my face in my palm. "Can't they be more original? I can't believe they just ripped off a character from The Celestial Zone and then multiplied her stars by two. Now we're not just making fun of Chinese web novels, we're also moving on to Singaporean wuxia comics? And face it, the first Celestial Zone was the best. It was only from the second series onward that the comics went downhill."
"Oh, just shut up! I'll have my revenge!"
Six Star Toad screamed as she charged at me again. This time, I drew Shadow Fox and chopped off her hands.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Six Star Toad shrieked as she fell back, blood spurting from the stumps that were what remained of her hands. She rolled about on the ground, not realizing that she was increasing her chances of bleeding to death if she did that. Well, all the better if she died from that.
She tried to kill me. That was more than enough reason for me to kill her. Actually, I should just kill her.
"You…you chopped off my hands!" Six Star Toad shouted at me.
"I should have chopped off your head," I muttered. Then I chuckled. "What, did you think I'm as naïve as Xing Yun or something? That I will just cut your hands and hope that you return to the righteous path? I'm not that stupid. People don't just suddenly turn over a new leaf just because they get their hands cut. They need a stronger reason than that to change or reform their character."
"Shut it!" the girl screeched. "I'll never forgive you! I'll kill you! I'll definitely take my revenge on you someday! You'll regret this!"
"I never expected you to forgive me." I sighed. "While I'm not a psychotic murderer who goes around killing everybody who offends me, I'm not naïve enough to spare everyone who tries to kill or murder me either. I know your kind. If I let you go now, you'll go on to kill more people in future. You'll rejoin Bai Yue and Lunar Moon Sect to invade Wu Ling City and inflict more casualties on the defenders. If by killing you now, I'll save more lives later, I'll gladly do it."
"…eh?"
Six Star Toad stared at me blankly, as if she didn't believe what she was hearing. She began backing away as best as she could without her hands.
"…you're really going to kill me?"
Was she seriously asking me that?
No, really? Was she seriously asking me that?
She came to kill me and my friends. She was responsible for a sabotage scheme that would result in the deaths of countless civilians and defenders in Wu Ling City. From the information Tong Xue pulled up on her, she was responsible for massacring hundreds of innocent victims in the past, having razed small orthodox sects with her incurable poisons.
Six Star Toad had indulged in killing, in genocide, in mass acts of murder. And now, when she was facing the prospect of her own death, she couldn't believe that someone was about to kill her. Really? Was she kidding?
"If you're not prepared to die, then you have no right to take the lives of others," I told her coldly. There must be something in my voice, for Six Star Toad suddenly jolted up and began scrambling backward.
"Please…no…please spare my life…"
"Did you spare the lives of any of your victims?" I turned toward the dead trio. The Xia Family, who Six Star Toad slew just to use as her cover. "Would you have let those three go if they begged you to?"
I mean, of course I knew they didn't beg her for their lives. They probably died without knowing what killed them. Six Star Toad poisoned their food or stabbed them in the back, killing them before they knew what hit them.
Even so, my point still stood. She ruthlessly murdered them without asking for their permission, and would likely have still killed them even if they begged for mercy. And now she expected other people to show her mercy because she asked them to?
"No, but…" Six Star Toad smiled. "I just need to buy some time."
She suddenly spat out several poisoned needles. Having engaged Sha Chen in combat recently, these seem to fly at me in slow motion, and I merely cut them down with Shadow Fox. Without hesitation, I surged forward and slashed at my assailant.
"No way! Impossible!"
Six Star Toad's eyes bulged when she realized that her sneak attack had failed…
…and then her head flew off. Blood sprayed the grass and ground, and the acidic bubbling that followed indicated how toxic even her blood was. Six Star Toad's headless corpse bobbed about for a few moments, and then it finally toppled over.
"That did it." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Got a lighter? We're going to burn the body. To make sure she's dead for good."
"And also to erase any traces of her." Song Ting Yu nodded in approval. "That way, Bai Yue will have no idea what happened to the spy she sent to try and infiltrate Wu Ling City." She stepped forward and offered me a lighter. "Here you go."
"I'll also inform the authorities of the deaths of the Xia family.' Tong Xue looked pretty grim. I didn't envy him his duty. It was not pleasant to tell other people, especially their loved ones, that their family was dead. Good thing Tong Xue only needed to inform the authorities, and not any relatives of the Xia family, but it was still a somber affair.
"I'll leave that to you then." I nodded and then flicked the lighter's lid open, only to find that it wasn't burning Six Star Toad's corpse properly. Whoops. Burning stuff was a lot harder than just igniting it with a lighter.
We had to grab a barrel of oil from the bus, dunk it over Six Star Toad's head and disembodied body, and then I set it alight. We watched as the corpse blackened, incinerated beyond recognition by the flames. Even the withered grass that was struck by her poison and blood earlier was burned. I ensured that no stone was left unturned.
"That should do it." I watched the scene, satisfied, before returning to the bus.
"I've to admit, that was anticlimactic." Tong Xue shrugged as he boarded the bus behind me, giving the burned scene one last glance. "I mean, Six Star Toad wasn't known for her combat capability, but she has killed countless with her poison techniques."
"Dude, I just fought the Heavenly Venom King. Compared to him, this Six Star Toad was just a slime-level mob monster." I snorted derisively. "They are completely worlds apart. After an opponent like the Dark Sage, there are very few enemies who can compare."
That didn't mean I should let my guard down. Even if Six Star Toad wasn't a strong enemy, she still had the potential to kill me. That was why I defended against her poisoned needles rather than just let them hit me. I didn't want to get struck in a vital area and get hospitalized for the next few days again. Not when the invasion was approaching.
Best not to take any chances, even if I was immune to all toxins.
"Speaking of which, didn't you get hit by her poison? Why aren't you affected?" Lian Rou was looking at me suspiciously.
"You really don't know?"
Everyone turned to Song Ting Yu, who was looking all astonished. She glanced at me sharply, her silky lips turning into a pout.
"You didn't tell them?"
"Tell them what?" I asked guardedly. Song Ting Yu sighed.
"Never mind." She gestured toward me. "I'm sure you've heard of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber, right?"
"Yeah." Tong Xue nodded. Yi Ding Si also brightened up.
"I've watched the drama series!"
"Yes, the original novel was by Jin Yong/Louis Cha. But that's not the point. You remember Zhang Wu Ji?"
"Yeah, the protagonist of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber?" Tong Xue nodded again, his expression thoughtful.
"At the beginning of the series, wasn't he poisoned by a couple of poison arts practitioners? Then he went and learned the Jiu Yang Shen Gong or Nine Yang Divine Art. That renders him completely immune to poison techniques."
"Oh, you're right! Now I remember it!" Yi Ding Si nodded enthusiastically. "Zhang Wu Ji became immune to poison techniques after mastering the Nine Yang Divine Art!"
"And…Fei Wu's Heaven and Earth Formula is something similar." Song Ting Yu turned back to me with a smile. "Isn't that right?"
"Who knows?" I shrugged noncommittedly. "I've never learned Nine Yang Divine Art before. I don't know how similar Heaven and Earth Formula is to it."
"Cleverly avoiding the topic, huh? Song Ting Yu giggled. "But you do admit that Heaven and Earth Formula grants you immunity to poison?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
Everyone watched me, but I kept my lips sealed.
"That explains everything," Lian Rou finally spoke up. Sighing, she turned toward the front, where the confused driver was waiting. "Let's go."
"Go where?" the bus driver asked, puzzled. He was still staring out of the driver's window in awe, staring at the blackened remains of Six Star Toad's unrecognizable corpse and the funeral pyre we had just created.
"Back to Wu Ling City, of course," Lian Rou huffed.
"That's right," Song Ting Yu agreed, and her pretty face was curled in a grave expression this time. "Six Star Toad is just the beginning. If we want to protect Wu Ling City, we had better hurry and return as soon as possible."
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"I'm afraid I can't allow that."
Everyone turned to stare at me. Lian Rou, in particular, looked furious.
"Hey! You can't do that! You can't mean to leave her out here by herself!"
"No, I'm not suggesting that we abandon her. I'm just saying we can't allow her into the city." I gestured toward the raft. "Are you seriously telling me you don't find any of this suspicious and overly convenient?"
"What do you mean?" Yi Ding Si asked, confused.
"You're aware that the top three demonic sects are planning to siege Wu Ling City, right?" I pointed out. "And now we suddenly have a strange girl no one has heard of before, suddenly showing up and claiming that she's on her way to Wu Ling City. For some reason she survived poison that killed off her entire family, even though by right the poison should have killed her long ago. Don't you think it's a little too fortuitous that she's the only survivor, and she just happens to be heading toward the city that's going to be attacked by demonic sects in a few days? Normally wouldn't people be heading in the opposite direction?"
"That's true…" Tong Xue agreed as he flipped through his tablet. "And I've run her face through the city records. There's no record or files on her in the city. She's most definitely not a resident from Wu Ling City."
"I…I…" the girl stammered, her eyes wide. "Please…"
"Drop the act, girl." I sighed wearily. "I know you're not a real member of that family." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Am I right?"
"Right on." Tong Xue nodded as he scanned through his tablet. Calling up a screen, he conjured a huge holographic picture and displayed a family photo that featured the parents and the boy. "The Xia Family. The man is Xia Si Liao, aged forty-one, and the woman is his wife, Xia Di Yu, aged thirty-eight. Their son is Xia Liu, aged twelve. They are only a family of three who have lived in Wu Ling City for over thirteen years. They made no mention of having a daughter."
"That's…" the girl's jaw dropped. She was evidently shocked that we would check her background so thoroughly. I shrugged.
"I asked Tong Xue to check you out because there's something strange about you." I frowned and shook my head. "You think you're able to hide it, but I can sense the poison qi flowing through your qi channels. You're definitely a practitioner of poison arts. And that same venomous qi is what killed those three over there. You murdered them."
"…!"
The girl turned frightfully pale and began backing away unconsciously.
"How…how…?"
"Hey!" Lian Rou complained. Tong Xue and I turned toward her, wondering if she was going to insist on defending the girl. But she merely placed her hands on her hips, looking all upset. "You ruined my plan!"
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"What plan?" I asked, puzzled.
"We could have captured her! That's why I proposed bringing her into the city. We could capture her and probe her for information regarding the demonic sects' disposition and forces! But you just had to ruin everything!"
"Sorry, but I'm not taking any risk with her. Haven't you read The Celestial Zone?" I shook my head in disagreement. "Even if she fails to cause any internal damage after attacking people inside the city, she will steal our maps and defense formations, and bring them to the demonic sects. She'll sell our information out to them and allow them to find a weakness in our defensive formations. I can't allow that to happen. The risk is too great."
Having already seen what Three Star Toad did in The Celestial Zone, I wasn't pretty fond of letting her run amok in Wu Ling City. At least they had Da Nian Chu Yi to help them cure the poison, but there were still quite a lot of Mount Cloud Dream people who died to her poison when she fought her way out.
I had to say, for a supposed genius, Wang Chan was pretty naïve, taking an awful lot of risk to bring two total strangers into the heart of Mount Cloud Dream even though he was aware of the imminent attacks from the evil sects. Like…did he not figure out that they might be spies infiltrating Mount Cloud Dream? I know he was a kind-hearted fella who couldn't abandon people, but dude…that didn't mean you just let any random stranger right into your fortress, especially when you already know you were at war. In his defense, he was very young, and his senior Xue Wu pointed out that mistake to him.
As for me, who had already read The Celestial Zone and was aware of the aftermath, I knew exactly what sort of mistakes to avoid, and not to repeat the same error Wang Chan did. At least the first series was good, but The Celestial Zone II seemed to dump the character development and well-thought out plot elsewhere in favor of cool fight scenes. I kind of missed anti-hero Xue Wu…
"You've a good point." Lian Rou sighed and nodded, conceding. "I don't want to be responsible for the deaths of defenders."
"How…how did you know?" the girl gasped, gaping at Lian Rou. The comely girl merely turned back with a shrug.
"You're not the only expert on poison, you know. Like Fei Wu, I kind of detected the poison qi flowing through your body when I treated you. Plus I also caught a whiff of several different kinds of toxins on your body, different from the one used to kill the three over there." She narrowed her eyes. "That can only be possible if you're a practitioner of poison techniques."
The girl stared at us for a few moments, then she threw her head back and laughed.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
"What's so funny?" Yi Ding Si demanded.
"Her plan got found out, and she's stunned by how big a failure it was," Song Ting Yu explained kindly. "She's still surprised that such a foolproof plan could have failed. If it wasn't you guys but anybody else, she would have just gotten through the gates without any issues, and she could begin to carry out whatever subterfuge she had in mind." She covered her mouth and giggled, impressed. "Even I didn't notice the poison laced across her body."
The girl stopped laughing and glanced at us, her eyes narrowing. She clenched her fists and I sensed a spike in her qi.
"Well…since I've failed, I've no choice but to kill you all now!"
Her skin turned brown and boils erupted across her flesh. Noxious fumes began spiraling from her body, causing the plants and weeds around her to wither and dry up.
"Poison!"
Tong Xue and the rest quickly retreated, but I didn't. I merely stepped forward and did my best not to inhale the noxious fumes. Not because I would get poisoned, but because they were pretty unpleasant to breathe in.
"I don't know how you saw through my plans, but I'll just kill you and try again with another passer-by!"
"You'll be lucky if you run into people going toward Wu Ling City," I pointed out dryly. "Most people will be going away from Wu Ling City, given the imminent invasion."
"Oh, shut up!" the girl shouted, annoyed that I exposed the flaw in her plan so easily. "Mistress Bai Yue's schemes will never fail! If she says this will succeed, then it definitely will!"
"You do realized it just failed, right?" I scratched my head. Then I glanced at Song Ting Yu and the rest. "And…yup, we just confirmed that she's from the Lunar Moon Sect."
"Hmm, I'll run some analysis and check out who she is," Tong Xue offered as he ran his finger through the touchscreen of his tablet. "Maybe I'll unearth some useful information on her skills, which you can counter."
"Be careful!" Lian Rou cried. The girl was already lunging at me, her poisonous palms lashing out toward me.
I smiled and met her palm strike head-on. Just like in the battle against Sha Chen, I stood my ground as our palms collided. Using Shadow Palm Strike, I forced her back.
"Hah! There is no antidote to my poison!" the girl crowed. "You'll definitely die now!"
"Uh huh." I shook my hands, but didn't panic. If I really wasn't confident that I was immune to her poison, I would have drawn my swords and cut off her hands. Actually, I should have done that, but I had this sadistic streak inside me. I mean, come on…who wouldn't want to see the expression on the girl's face when she realized her poison had completely no effect on me whatsoever? "So how long does the poison take to act?"
"…"
"…"
After a few seconds passed, the girl realized something was amiss when I didn't topple over, foaming at the mouth or whatever.
"How…how is this possible!?" she cried.
"Lady, I've fought against the Heavenly Venom King himself, and won. What makes you think you are better than him? Compared to him, your poisons are a joke."
The girl shuddered and she stared at me in dread. "You…defeated the Heavenly Venom King?"
"…yeah. What? You didn't know that?" I glanced at Tong Xue. "I guess we can assume that the demonic sects don't rely on the Internet to get their news."
"Or maybe she's been out working in the field for so long, so she wasn't able to receive any news or updated information," Song Ting Yu suggested.
The girl was staring at us as if she was wondering how we knew everything she did, right down to the smallest detail. To make matters worse, Tong Xue happened to stumble upon her information at that very moment.
"Aha! I found out who she is now! She's the Six Star Toad of the Lunar Moon Sect! She's known to be their poison master!"
"…Six Star Toad? Really?" I was burying my face in my palm. "Can't they be more original? I can't believe they just ripped off a character from The Celestial Zone and then multiplied her stars by two. Now we're not just making fun of Chinese web novels, we're also moving on to Singaporean wuxia comics? And face it, the first Celestial Zone was the best. It was only from the second series onward that the comics went downhill."
"Oh, just shut up! I'll have my revenge!"
Six Star Toad screamed as she charged at me again. This time, I drew Shadow Fox and chopped off her hands.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Six Star Toad shrieked as she fell back, blood spurting from the stumps that were what remained of her hands. She rolled about on the ground, not realizing that she was increasing her chances of bleeding to death if she did that. Well, all the better if she died from that.
She tried to kill me. That was more than enough reason for me to kill her. Actually, I should just kill her.
"You…you chopped off my hands!" Six Star Toad shouted at me.
"I should have chopped off your head," I muttered. Then I chuckled. "What, did you think I'm as naïve as Xing Yun or something? That I will just cut your hands and hope that you return to the righteous path? I'm not that stupid. People don't just suddenly turn over a new leaf just because they get their hands cut. They need a stronger reason than that to change or reform their character."
"Shut it!" the girl screeched. "I'll never forgive you! I'll kill you! I'll definitely take my revenge on you someday! You'll regret this!"
"I never expected you to forgive me." I sighed. "While I'm not a psychotic murderer who goes around killing everybody who offends me, I'm not naïve enough to spare everyone who tries to kill or murder me either. I know your kind. If I let you go now, you'll go on to kill more people in future. You'll rejoin Bai Yue and Lunar Moon Sect to invade Wu Ling City and inflict more casualties on the defenders. If by killing you now, I'll save more lives later, I'll gladly do it."
"…eh?"
Six Star Toad stared at me blankly, as if she didn't believe what she was hearing. She began backing away as best as she could without her hands.
"…you're really going to kill me?"
Was she seriously asking me that?
No, really? Was she seriously asking me that?
She came to kill me and my friends. She was responsible for a sabotage scheme that would result in the deaths of countless civilians and defenders in Wu Ling City. From the information Tong Xue pulled up on her, she was responsible for massacring hundreds of innocent victims in the past, having razed small orthodox sects with her incurable poisons.
Six Star Toad had indulged in killing, in genocide, in mass acts of murder. And now, when she was facing the prospect of her own death, she couldn't believe that someone was about to kill her. Really? Was she kidding?
"If you're not prepared to die, then you have no right to take the lives of others," I told her coldly. There must be something in my voice, for Six Star Toad suddenly jolted up and began scrambling backward.
"Please…no…please spare my life…"
"Did you spare the lives of any of your victims?" I turned toward the dead trio. The Xia Family, who Six Star Toad slew just to use as her cover. "Would you have let those three go if they begged you to?"
I mean, of course I knew they didn't beg her for their lives. They probably died without knowing what killed them. Six Star Toad poisoned their food or stabbed them in the back, killing them before they knew what hit them.
Even so, my point still stood. She ruthlessly murdered them without asking for their permission, and would likely have still killed them even if they begged for mercy. And now she expected other people to show her mercy because she asked them to?
"No, but…" Six Star Toad smiled. "I just need to buy some time."
She suddenly spat out several poisoned needles. Having engaged Sha Chen in combat recently, these seem to fly at me in slow motion, and I merely cut them down with Shadow Fox. Without hesitation, I surged forward and slashed at my assailant.
"No way! Impossible!"
Six Star Toad's eyes bulged when she realized that her sneak attack had failed…
…and then her head flew off. Blood sprayed the grass and ground, and the acidic bubbling that followed indicated how toxic even her blood was. Six Star Toad's headless corpse bobbed about for a few moments, and then it finally toppled over.
"That did it." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Got a lighter? We're going to burn the body. To make sure she's dead for good."
"And also to erase any traces of her." Song Ting Yu nodded in approval. "That way, Bai Yue will have no idea what happened to the spy she sent to try and infiltrate Wu Ling City." She stepped forward and offered me a lighter. "Here you go."
"I'll also inform the authorities of the deaths of the Xia family.' Tong Xue looked pretty grim. I didn't envy him his duty. It was not pleasant to tell other people, especially their loved ones, that their family was dead. Good thing Tong Xue only needed to inform the authorities, and not any relatives of the Xia family, but it was still a somber affair.
"I'll leave that to you then." I nodded and then flicked the lighter's lid open, only to find that it wasn't burning Six Star Toad's corpse properly. Whoops. Burning stuff was a lot harder than just igniting it with a lighter.
We had to grab a barrel of oil from the bus, dunk it over Six Star Toad's head and disembodied body, and then I set it alight. We watched as the corpse blackened, incinerated beyond recognition by the flames. Even the withered grass that was struck by her poison and blood earlier was burned. I ensured that no stone was left unturned.
"That should do it." I watched the scene, satisfied, before returning to the bus.
"I've to admit, that was anticlimactic." Tong Xue shrugged as he boarded the bus behind me, giving the burned scene one last glance. "I mean, Six Star Toad wasn't known for her combat capability, but she has killed countless with her poison techniques."
"Dude, I just fought the Heavenly Venom King. Compared to him, this Six Star Toad was just a slime-level mob monster." I snorted derisively. "They are completely worlds apart. After an opponent like the Dark Sage, there are very few enemies who can compare."
That didn't mean I should let my guard down. Even if Six Star Toad wasn't a strong enemy, she still had the potential to kill me. That was why I defended against her poisoned needles rather than just let them hit me. I didn't want to get struck in a vital area and get hospitalized for the next few days again. Not when the invasion was approaching.
Best not to take any chances, even if I was immune to all toxins.
"Speaking of which, didn't you get hit by her poison? Why aren't you affected?" Lian Rou was looking at me suspiciously.
"You really don't know?"
Everyone turned to Song Ting Yu, who was looking all astonished. She glanced at me sharply, her silky lips turning into a pout.
"You didn't tell them?"
"Tell them what?" I asked guardedly. Song Ting Yu sighed.
"Never mind." She gestured toward me. "I'm sure you've heard of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber, right?"
"Yeah." Tong Xue nodded. Yi Ding Si also brightened up.
"I've watched the drama series!"
"Yes, the original novel was by Jin Yong/Louis Cha. But that's not the point. You remember Zhang Wu Ji?"
"Yeah, the protagonist of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber?" Tong Xue nodded again, his expression thoughtful.
"At the beginning of the series, wasn't he poisoned by a couple of poison arts practitioners? Then he went and learned the Jiu Yang Shen Gong or Nine Yang Divine Art. That renders him completely immune to poison techniques."
"Oh, you're right! Now I remember it!" Yi Ding Si nodded enthusiastically. "Zhang Wu Ji became immune to poison techniques after mastering the Nine Yang Divine Art!"
"And…Fei Wu's Heaven and Earth Formula is something similar." Song Ting Yu turned back to me with a smile. "Isn't that right?"
"Who knows?" I shrugged noncommittedly. "I've never learned Nine Yang Divine Art before. I don't know how similar Heaven and Earth Formula is to it."
"Cleverly avoiding the topic, huh? Song Ting Yu giggled. "But you do admit that Heaven and Earth Formula grants you immunity to poison?"
"…"
"…"
"…"
Everyone watched me, but I kept my lips sealed.
"That explains everything," Lian Rou finally spoke up. Sighing, she turned toward the front, where the confused driver was waiting. "Let's go."
"Go where?" the bus driver asked, puzzled. He was still staring out of the driver's window in awe, staring at the blackened remains of Six Star Toad's unrecognizable corpse and the funeral pyre we had just created.
"Back to Wu Ling City, of course," Lian Rou huffed.
"That's right," Song Ting Yu agreed, and her pretty face was curled in a grave expression this time. "Six Star Toad is just the beginning. If we want to protect Wu Ling City, we had better hurry and return as soon as possible."
"I'm afraid I can't allow that."Everyone turned to stare at me. Lian Rou, in particular, looked furious."Hey! You can't do that! You can't mean to leave her out here by herself!""No, I'm not suggesting that we abandon her. I'm just saying we can't allow her into the city." I gestured toward the raft. "Are you seriously telling me you don't find any of this suspicious and overly convenient?""What do you mean?" Yi Ding Si asked, confused."You're aware that the top three demonic sects are planning to siege Wu Ling City, right?" I pointed out. "And now we suddenly have a strange girl no one has heard of before, suddenly showing up and claiming that she's on her way to Wu Ling City. For some reason she survived poison that killed off her entire family, even though by right the poison should have killed her long ago. Don't you think it's a little too fortuitous that she's the only survivor, and she just happens to be heading toward the city that's going to be attacked by demonic sects in a few days? Normally wouldn't people be heading in the opposite direction?""That's true" Tong Xue agreed as he flipped through his tablet. "And I've run her face through the city records. There's no record or files on her in the city. She's most definitely not a resident from Wu Ling City.""II" the girl stammered, her eyes wide. "Please""Drop the act, girl." I sighed wearily. "I know you're not a real member of that family." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Am I right?""Right on." Tong Xue nodded as he scanned through his tablet. Calling up a screen, he conjured a huge holographic picture and displayed a family photo that featured the parents and the boy. "The Xia Family. The man is Xia Si Liao, aged forty-one, and the woman is his wife, Xia Di Yu, aged thirty-eight. Their son is Xia Liu, aged twelve. They are only a family of three who have lived in Wu Ling City for over thirteen years. They made no mention of having a daughter.""That's" the girl's jaw dropped. She was evidently shocked that we would check her background so thoroughly. I shrugged."I asked Tong Xue to check you out because there's something strange about you." I frowned and shook my head. "You think you're able to hide it, but I can sense the poison qi flowing through your qi channels. You're definitely a practitioner of poison arts. And that same venomous qi is what killed those three over there. You murdered them.""!"The girl turned frightfully pale and began backing away unconsciously."Howhow?""Hey!" Lian Rou complained. Tong Xue and I turned toward her, wondering if she was going to insist on defending the girl. But she merely placed her hands on her hips, looking all upset. "You ruined my plan!" Find authorized novels in Webnovelfaster updates, better experiencePlease click www.webnovel.com for visiting. "What plan?" I asked, puzzled."We could have captured her! That's why I proposed bringing her into the city. We could capture her and probe her for information regarding the demonic sects' disposition and forces! But you just had to ruin everything!""Sorry, but I'm not taking any risk with her. Haven't you read The Celestial Zone?" I shook my head in disagreement. "Even if she fails to cause any internal damage after attacking people inside the city, she will steal our maps and defense formations, and bring them to the demonic sects. She'll sell our information out to them and allow them to find a weakness in our defensive formations. I can't allow that to happen. The risk is too great."Having already seen what Three Star Toad did in The Celestial Zone, I wasn't pretty fond of letting her run amok in Wu Ling City. At least they had Da Nian Chu Yi to help them cure the poison, but there were still quite a lot of Mount Cloud Dream people who died to her poison when she fought her way out.I had to say, for a supposed genius, Wang Chan was pretty nave, taking an awful lot of risk to bring two total strangers into the heart of Mount Cloud Dream even though he was aware of the imminent attacks from the evil sects. Likedid he not figure out that they might be spies infiltrating Mount Cloud Dream? I know he was a kind-hearted fella who couldn't abandon people, but dudethat didn't mean you just let any random stranger right into your fortress, especially when you already know you were at war. In his defense, he was very young, and his senior Xue Wu pointed out that mistake to him.As for me, who had already read The Celestial Zone and was aware of the aftermath, I knew exactly what sort of mistakes to avoid, and not to repeat the same error Wang Chan did. At least the first series was good, but The Celestial Zone II seemed to dump the character development and well-thought out plot elsewhere in favor of cool fight scenes. I kind of missed anti-hero Xue Wu"You've a good point." Lian Rou sighed and nodded, conceding. "I don't want to be responsible for the deaths of defenders.""Howhow did you know?" the girl gasped, gaping at Lian Rou. The comely girl merely turned back with a shrug."You're not the only expert on poison, you know. Like Fei Wu, I kind of detected the poison qi flowing through your body when I treated you. Plus I also caught a whiff of several different kinds of toxins on your body, different from the one used to kill the three over there." She narrowed her eyes. "That can only be possible if you're a practitioner of poison techniques."The girl stared at us for a few moments, then she threw her head back and laughed."Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!""What's so funny?" Yi Ding Si demanded."Her plan got found out, and she's stunned by how big a failure it was," Song Ting Yu explained kindly. "She's still surprised that such a foolproof plan could have failed. If it wasn't you guys but anybody else, she would have just gotten through the gates without any issues, and she could begin to carry out whatever subterfuge she had in mind." She covered her mouth and giggled, impressed. "Even I didn't notice the poison laced across her body."The girl stopped laughing and glanced at us, her eyes narrowing. She clenched her fists and I sensed a spike in her qi."Wellsince I've failed, I've no choice but to kill you all now!"Her skin turned brown and boils erupted across her flesh. Noxious fumes began spiraling from her body, causing the plants and weeds around her to wither and dry up."Poison!"Tong Xue and the rest quickly retreated, but I didn't. I merely stepped forward and did my best not to inhale the noxious fumes. Not because I would get poisoned, but because they were pretty unpleasant to breathe in."I don't know how you saw through my plans, but I'll just kill you and try again with another passer-by!""You'll be lucky if you run into people going toward Wu Ling City," I pointed out dryly. "Most people will be going away from Wu Ling City, given the imminent invasion.""Oh, shut up!" the girl shouted, annoyed that I exposed the flaw in her plan so easily. "Mistress Bai Yue's schemes will never fail! If she says this will succeed, then it definitely will!""You do realized it just failed, right?" I scratched my head. Then I glanced at Song Ting Yu and the rest. "Andyup, we just confirmed that she's from the Lunar Moon Sect.""Hmm, I'll run some analysis and check out who she is," Tong Xue offered as he ran his finger through the touchscreen of his tablet. "Maybe I'll unearth some useful information on her skills, which you can counter.""Be careful!" Lian Rou cried. The girl was already lunging at me, her poisonous palms lashing out toward me.I smiled and met her palm strike head-on. Just like in the battle against Sha Chen, I stood my ground as our palms collided. Using Shadow Palm Strike, I forced her back."Hah! There is no antidote to my poison!" the girl crowed. "You'll definitely die now!""Uh huh." I shook my hands, but didn't panic. If I really wasn't confident that I was immune to her poison, I would have drawn my swords and cut off her hands. Actually, I should have done that, but I had this sadistic streak inside me. I mean, come onwho wouldn't want to see the expression on the girl's face when she realized her poison had completely no effect on me whatsoever? "So how long does the poison take to act?"""""After a few seconds passed, the girl realized something was amiss when I didn't topple over, foaming at the mouth or whatever."Howhow is this possible!?" she cried."Lady, I've fought against the Heavenly Venom King himself, and won. What makes you think you are better than him? Compared to him, your poisons are a joke."The girl shuddered and she stared at me in dread. "Youdefeated the Heavenly Venom King?""yeah. What? You didn't know that?" I glanced at Tong Xue. "I guess we can assume that the demonic sects don't rely on the Internet to get their news.""Or maybe she's been out working in the field for so long, so she wasn't able to receive any news or updated information," Song Ting Yu suggested.The girl was staring at us as if she was wondering how we knew everything she did, right down to the smallest detail. To make matters worse, Tong Xue happened to stumble upon her information at that very moment."Aha! I found out who she is now! She's the Six Star Toad of the Lunar Moon Sect! She's known to be their poison master!""Six Star Toad? Really?" I was burying my face in my palm. "Can't they be more original? I can't believe they just ripped off a character from The Celestial Zone and then multiplied her stars by two. Now we're not just making fun of Chinese web novels, we're also moving on to Singaporean wuxia comics? And face it, the first Celestial Zone was the best. It was only from the second series onward that the comics went downhill.""Oh, just shut up! I'll have my revenge!"Six Star Toad screamed as she charged at me again. This time, I drew Shadow Fox and chopped off her hands."AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"Six Star Toad shrieked as she fell back, blood spurting from the stumps that were what remained of her hands. She rolled about on the ground, not realizing that she was increasing her chances of bleeding to death if she did that. Well, all the better if she died from that.She tried to kill me. That was more than enough reason for me to kill her. Actually, I should just kill her."Youyou chopped off my hands!" Six Star Toad shouted at me."I should have chopped off your head," I muttered. Then I chuckled. "What, did you think I'm as nave as Xing Yun or something? That I will just cut your hands and hope that you return to the righteous path? I'm not that stupid. People don't just suddenly turn over a new leaf just because they get their hands cut. They need a stronger reason than that to change or reform their character.""Shut it!" the girl screeched. "I'll never forgive you! I'll kill you! I'll definitely take my revenge on you someday! You'll regret this!""I never expected you to forgive me." I sighed. "While I'm not a psychotic murderer who goes around killing everybody who offends me, I'm not nave enough to spare everyone who tries to kill or murder me either. I know your kind. If I let you go now, you'll go on to kill more people in future. You'll rejoin Bai Yue and Lunar Moon Sect to invade Wu Ling City and inflict more casualties on the defenders. If by killing you now, I'll save more lives later, I'll gladly do it.""eh?"Six Star Toad stared at me blankly, as if she didn't believe what she was hearing. She began backing away as best as she could without her hands."you're really going to kill me?"Was she seriously asking me that?No, really? Was she seriously asking me that?She came to kill me and my friends. She was responsible for a sabotage scheme that would result in the deaths of countless civilians and defenders in Wu Ling City. From the information Tong Xue pulled up on her, she was responsible for massacring hundreds of innocent victims in the past, having razed small orthodox sects with her incurable poisons.Six Star Toad had indulged in killing, in genocide, in mass acts of murder. And now, when she was facing the prospect of her own death, she couldn't believe that someone was about to kill her. Really? Was she kidding?"If you're not prepared to die, then you have no right to take the lives of others," I told her coldly. There must be something in my voice, for Six Star Toad suddenly jolted up and began scrambling backward."Pleasenoplease spare my life""Did you spare the lives of any of your victims?" I turned toward the dead trio. The Xia Family, who Six Star Toad slew just to use as her cover. "Would you have let those three go if they begged you to?"I mean, of course I knew they didn't beg her for their lives. They probably died without knowing what killed them. Six Star Toad poisoned their food or stabbed them in the back, killing them before they knew what hit them.Even so, my point still stood. She ruthlessly murdered them without asking for their permission, and would likely have still killed them even if they begged for mercy. And now she expected other people to show her mercy because she asked them to?"No, but" Six Star Toad smiled. "I just need to buy some time."She suddenly spat out several poisoned needles. Having engaged Sha Chen in combat recently, these seem to fly at me in slow motion, and I merely cut them down with Shadow Fox. Without hesitation, I surged forward and slashed at my assailant."No way! Impossible!"Six Star Toad's eyes bulged when she realized that her sneak attack had failedand then her head flew off. Blood sprayed the grass and ground, and the acidic bubbling that followed indicated how toxic even her blood was. Six Star Toad's headless corpse bobbed about for a few moments, and then it finally toppled over."That did it." I glanced at Tong Xue. "Got a lighter? We're going to burn the body. To make sure she's dead for good.""And also to erase any traces of her." Song Ting Yu nodded in approval. "That way, Bai Yue will have no idea what happened to the spy she sent to try and infiltrate Wu Ling City." She stepped forward and offered me a lighter. "Here you go.""I'll also inform the authorities of the deaths of the Xia family.' Tong Xue looked pretty grim. I didn't envy him his duty. It was not pleasant to tell other people, especially their loved ones, that their family was dead. Good thing Tong Xue only needed to inform the authorities, and not any relatives of the Xia family, but it was still a somber affair."I'll leave that to you then." I nodded and then flicked the lighter's lid open, only to find that it wasn't burning Six Star Toad's corpse properly. Whoops. Burning stuff was a lot harder than just igniting it with a lighter.We had to grab a barrel of oil from the bus, dunk it over Six Star Toad's head and disembodied body, and then I set it alight. We watched as the corpse blackened, incinerated beyond recognition by the flames. Even the withered grass that was struck by her poison and blood earlier was burned. I ensured that no stone was left unturned."That should do it." I watched the scene, satisfied, before returning to the bus."I've to admit, that was anticlimactic." Tong Xue shrugged as he boarded the bus behind me, giving the burned scene one last glance. "I mean, Six Star Toad wasn't known for her combat capability, but she has killed countless with her poison techniques.""Dude, I just fought the Heavenly Venom King. Compared to him, this Six Star Toad was just a slime-level mob monster." I snorted derisively. "They are completely worlds apart. After an opponent like the Dark Sage, there are very few enemies who can compare."That didn't mean I should let my guard down. Even if Six Star Toad wasn't a strong enemy, she still had the potential to kill me. That was why I defended against her poisoned needles rather than just let them hit me. I didn't want to get struck in a vital area and get hospitalized for the next few days again. Not when the invasion was approaching.Best not to take any chances, even if I was immune to all toxins."Speaking of which, didn't you get hit by her poison? Why aren't you affected?" Lian Rou was looking at me suspiciously."You really don't know?"Everyone turned to Song Ting Yu, who was looking all astonished. She glanced at me sharply, her silky lips turning into a pout."You didn't tell them?""Tell them what?" I asked guardedly. Song Ting Yu sighed."Never mind." She gestured toward me. "I'm sure you've heard of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber, right?""Yeah." Tong Xue nodded. Yi Ding Si also brightened up."I've watched the drama series!""Yes, the original novel was by Jin Yong/Louis Cha. But that's not the point. You remember Zhang Wu Ji?""Yeah, the protagonist of Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber?" Tong Xue nodded again, his expression thoughtful."At the beginning of the series, wasn't he poisoned by a couple of poison arts practitioners? Then he went and learned the Jiu Yang Shen Gong or Nine Yang Divine Art. That renders him completely immune to poison techniques.""Oh, you're right! Now I remember it!" Yi Ding Si nodded enthusiastically. "Zhang Wu Ji became immune to poison techniques after mastering the Nine Yang Divine Art!""AndFei Wu's Heaven and Earth Formula is something similar." Song Ting Yu turned back to me with a smile. "Isn't that right?""Who knows?" I shrugged noncommittedly. "I've never learned Nine Yang Divine Art before. I don't know how similar Heaven and Earth Formula is to it.""Cleverly avoiding the topic, huh? Song Ting Yu giggled. "But you do admit that Heaven and Earth Formula grants you immunity to poison?"""""""Everyone watched me, but I kept my lips sealed."That explains everything," Lian Rou finally spoke up. Sighing, she turned toward the front, where the confused driver was waiting. "Let's go.""Go where?" the bus driver asked, puzzled. He was still staring out of the driver's window in awe, staring at the blackened remains of Six Star Toad's unrecognizable corpse and the funeral pyre we had just created."Back to Wu Ling City, of course," Lian Rou huffed."That's right," Song Ting Yu agreed, and her pretty face was curled in a grave expression this time. "Six Star Toad is just the beginning. If we want to protect Wu Ling City, we had better hurry and return as soon as possible."
