Stranger Danger

Pssh!

The wind stopped, and the rain ceased with a quiet spray of blood.

For a time, Slaughterer and Earth Walker simply stared at each other.

Slaughterer was clutching his throat with shock and puzzlement on his face.

And Earth Walker was smiling brightly yet unfeelingly while carrying a saber.

“You… You’re not Earth Walker!” Slaughterer said slowly. His voice sounded weak and heavy.

“That is correct. I’m not Earth Walker.” Earth Walker, or rather Ye Qing confirmed with the shake of his head.

“Who are you?” Slaughterer asked.

“I thought you were going to skin me alive, strip my bones, and light my soul on fire? How can you not know who I am?” Ye Qing chuckled while sliding his fingers across Red Sleeve.

“It’s you?!” Slaughterer’s face contorted, and his pupils narrowed in realization. At the same time, blood began seeping out of his fingers. “It was you.”

“Yup,” Ye Qing replied. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ye Qing, and I’m the one who killed Huo Hao and took Nanke.”

“By the way, did you know that Huo Hao also died after I beheaded him using Red Sleeve? It’s a mighty coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?”

“How did you know that we are coming for you?” Slaughterer asked puzzledly. It was clear that Ye Qing knew about their arrival. It was also clear that this was no hasty ambush. The man was obviously well prepared.

But how did he find out in the first place?

“Why don’t you guess?” Ye Qing asked with a raised eyebrow.

A snarl escaped Slaughterer’s mouth. “Since you know that I am one of the Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas, you must be aware of the consequences of murdering a member of the People of the Divine, don’t you?”

“Oh, I’m aware. The consequence of killing you lot is nothing at all.” Ye Qing scoffed. “After all, nothing happened to me when I killed Huo Hao. Why would it be any different now?”

“You cannot escape. You may kill me, but someone will take revenge for me!”

Slaughterer suddenly shouted like a madman. “It’s not just you. Your family, your friends, everyone related to you will die because of your actions!”

Ye Qing was unmoved by Slaughterer’s threat, however. He continued to smile as he said, “Someone? Oh, you think that Dream Master, Earth Walker and Dancer are going to take revenge for you. How amusing.”

“Don’t worry. I’m a man of my word, and I promise you’ll meet them in the underworld very soon.”

“You—”

Slaughterer wanted to say more, but the blood spilling through his fingers abruptly increased in volume. Before he knew it, his head had rolled right off his shoulders.

Clearly, Ye Qing’s earlier attack had severed his head.

“Huo Hao was much less talkative when I killed his ass. Why are you different?”

Ye Qing mused as he brought his foot down on Slaughterer’s head while channeling his astral qi. The head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter before his Burning Wind burned it all into ash.

After he was done with Slaughterer’s head, Ye Qing walked up to the man’s corpse and stared for a bit. Then, he removed a palm-sized pouch from his waist.

“A Nature’s Pouch? Now that’s what I call a rare find.”

A Nature’s Pouch was a storage-type Strange Artifact created using a Nature’s Shell. It functioned almost the same as a Nature’s Shell except that it was rarer and more valuable.

A simple sweep of his demonic thought was all Ye Qing needed to dismantle the restriction protecting the Nature’s Pouch. The content of the pouch was revealed to him immediately.

“Let’s see here. The Nether River Water, the Corpse King Gallbladder, the Mother Child Affinity Stone… wait a second, these are the items Amorous Mother bought during the Treasure Appreciation Auction. Why would he have them?”

The answer came to him almost immediately after he asked the question. Clearly, Slaughterer had robbed Amorous Mother after she left the Hill of Services. This would explain why Slaughterer and his friends hadn’t sought him out immediately after he left the Hill of Services. They probably thought that he was in the bag, and that there was no harm in hunting down some big games and earning some pure profit.

If Amorous Mother was dead, then Ancestor Greenwood, Weak Old Man and more were probably dead as well.

“Wait. What are the chances the Wenliang Pearl fell into Dream Master’s hands as well?” Ye Qing’s eyes immediately lit up when the thought occurred to him. When he looked down on Slaughterer’s headless corpse again, his eyes were awash with appreciation and gratitude. This man was no enemy. Nay, he was a benefactor! Not only did he give him his life, he even gave him his money and treasures! Where else would you find such a generous philanthropist?

“What a good man…”

Ye Qing grinned as he put away the Nature’s Pouch and got ready to leave. “So… who’s next?”

“Whoever I choose, I’ll need to separate the group first. It’ll be risky to fight all three of them at once.”

His plan was nothing special or even complicated. To sum it up, it was divide and conquer.

Earlier, he used the Annon Sutra to confirm that he had four pursuers in total, and none of them were Grandmasters. The strongest warriors of the group were Dream Master and Earth Walker, both Half-Step Grandmasters, and the weakest—albeit just slightly—were Slaughterer and Dancer, who were both late-stage Spirit Masters.

Moreover, all four men hailed from the mysterious Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas. They were definitely stronger than your conventional Spirit Master or Half-Step Grandmaster.

That was why Ye Qing didn’t ambush them while they were still together. He was strong, but he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that he was strong enough to defeat the four of them combined.

It was a different story if they were split up though. He was confident that he could kill them all one on one. But how should he enact his plan?

Thankfully, luck was on Ye Qing’s side. He found this ancient city not long after he began his search for a suitable ambush spot.

The ancient city was plagued by a Stranger called the Endless Wall, though of course it was neither endless nor a type of wall. The Endless Wall was a fog-like Stranger that caused anyone who entered its range to become lost. The victim would think that they were traveling in a straight line, when in reality they were walking in circles. They would not be conscious of the fact either. On top of that, the Endless Wall was a fog-like Stranger, so it was extremely difficult to eliminate or repel.

The good news was that the Endless Wall did not possess any other ability. It wasn’t particularly harmful either, and the method to dispel the Endless Wall’s power was actually quite simple. One simply needed to wipe a virgin boy’s piss on their eyelids, and they would be able to see through the fog and find their way out.

Of course, if the victim wasn’t a virgin boy, nor did they have virgin boy piss in their possession, it was still fine. They simply needed to wait until dawn came, and the sunlight would automatically dispel the Endless Wall.

Therefore, forget a warrior, even an ordinary person could deal with the Endless Wall with ease.

The Endless Wall’s presence was extremely helpful for Ye Qing though. It allowed him to lure his pursuers deeper into the city, divide and conquer them one by one.

That said, Endless Wall was an extremely common wilderness Stranger. Even if his pursuers were the most sheltered warriors ever, they should have heard of the Stranger at least once. Therefore, depending solely on the Endless Wall to separate his enemies was an unreliable strategy to say the least.

Luckily for Ye Qing, he also had the “Children of Blood Demon”, Corpse Ship edition. Not only could it block vision and sound, it could isolate energies and spiritual senses as well. This meant that he could use the Endless Wall as cover and isolate his enemies using his “Children of Blood Demon” as he pleased.

Since the group of four entered the ancient city, he had been watching them from the shadows and searching for an opportunity to separate the group. It didn’t take long. When he thought that the time was right, he used his demonic thought to influence Slaughterer’s emotions and caused him to leave his own group of his own volition. The rest was history.

As for why he picked Slaughterer, the reason was simple. One, Slaughterer’s impulsiveness and recklessness made him all too easy to be influenced by his demonic thought. Two, Slaughterer was the weakest of the four, and you always picked off the weakest link first.

After Slaughterer left his group, Ye Qing immediately morphed his body to resemble Earth Walker and used the “Paranirmitavaśavartin Heavenly Demon Sutra” to copy the warrior’s aura. Just in case, he also used his demonic thought to influence Slaughterer into letting down his guard. That was how he was able to kill the man effortlessly.

One down, three more to go. Already, Ye Qing was wondering who his next prey was going to be. Just like before, he was going to split up the group, pretend to be one of them, and kill them one by one.

Someone might say that his tactic was underhanded and despicable, but this was a life-or-death situation. Anything was acceptable when one’s life was on the line.

Ye Qing was so engrossed with plotting his next move that he failed to notice that Slaughterer’s headless, still standing body was undergoing a subtle change.

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