Stranger Danger

“I can’t…”

The next moment, Blood Rakshasa let go of ‘Repentance’ and staggered backward. She grabbed a nearby stone pillar and began panting heavily like she was exhausted.

“Miss, you… can’t you feel it?”

A while later, Blood Rakshasa finally looked up at Murong Xianxian with disbelief and fear. The pain she suffered was akin to being dunked inside a pot of boiling oil and being cooked alive, or sitting naked in the coldest winter while a terrible hail was falling from the sky, or being cut into a million pieces by sharp blades, or being ground into paste inside a mill…

Long story short, it was horrible. Although it only lasted a few breaths, Blood Rakshasa felt like she had just experienced all of the eighteen hells. Death was preferable to this.

“I got used to it.”

Murong Xianxian said calmly, “It’s nothing special. If you were in my position, and you had to suffer for over eight hundred years without pause, then you’ll probably get used to it as well.”

Blood Rakshasa opened her mouth, but no words came out. The few breaths she endured had felt like an eternity, and each breath made her wish she was dead. She simply could not understand how Murong Xianxian was able to endure it for eight hundred years.

“Next. Don’t waste time, or ‘Repentance’ will return to its original position, and you will have to restart from the beginning,” Murong Xianxian said while looking at the others.

“Hurkk!”

Despite being mentally prepared, Cui Qiuyuan still let out a muffled groan when the unimaginable pain assaulted his body. Just like Blood Rakshasa, blue veins were bulging everywhere on his body as well. He lasted a couple more breaths longer than Blood Rakshasa, but in the end, he had to let go and retreat to a corner, wiping the cold sweat on his forehead.

Qu Langhuan went next after Cui Qiuyuan was done. She too couldn’t last more than a dozen breaths or so.

Now, it was finally Ye Qing’s turn, and he did not hesitate. He grabbed ‘Repentance’ and began pulling strongly.

As expected, a wave of terrible pain assaulted his senses immediately. But unlike the trio before him, he was a body-tempering warrior. Some of the pain he suffered before were even worse than this, so he could endure it.

However, the more he pulled, the worse the pain became. It wasn’t just physical pain either. His soul was showing signs of tearing as well. Not only that, the puny-looking peachwood nail was stupidly heavy. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he could now carry a literal mountain on his back, but half a mountain was well within his limit.

Despite this, he was unable to remove ‘Repentance’ immediately. Just like the others, he progressed at a snail’s pace.

“Hmm?”

Suddenly, Ye Qing lifted an eyebrow as if something had caught his attention. However, he schooled his features in an instant.

A couple more breaths later, Ye Qing let go of ‘Repentance’ and staggered away from Murong Xianxian. His face was ghastly white, and he even fell on his butt after a few steps.

“Cough! Cough…” Ye Qing coughed twice before regaining his composure and waving weakly, “I… I can’t… that’s my limit…”

Cui Qiuyuan, Qu Langhuan and Blood Rakshasa glanced at Ye Qing before exchanging another look with each other, though this one was far more hidden than any of their previous exchanges. Then, they returned to their gruesome task as if nothing happened.

The group of four would continue to take turns pulling ‘Repentance’ out of Murong Xianxian’s forehead. A dozen or so turns later, they were finally at the final hurdle. They should be able to remove ‘Repentance’ within this turn, if not the next.

Of course, it wasn’t without a cost. Cui Qiuyuan, Qu Langhuan, Blood Rakshasa and Ye Qing all looked like they were about to die from exhaustion. Their faces were as pale as a ghost, and their pupils were mostly unfocused.

“Hmm? Is it my turn?”

When Qu Langhuan let go of ‘Repentance’ and returned to the group, Ye Qing jolted awake and let out a murmur. He looked incredibly unsteady. It took him a painfully long time to stand up, and the way he shambled over to Murong Xianxian reminded them of a sleepwalker. When he grabbed ‘Repentance’ and pulled, pain returned to his face once more.

Behind him, Cui Qiuyuan, Qu Langhuan and Blood Rakshasa smiled sinisterly at the same time. Then, Cui Qiuyuan suddenly appeared behind Ye Qing like a ghost and thrust his fingers toward the back of his skull.

“Bone Divine Claw”

“To destroy an enemy’s head like destroying a piece of rotten wood.” That was how the manual had described the “Bone Divine Claw”. A martial art technique specialized at breaking through tough defenses, it was best used against tough-bodied body-tempering warriors. It could easily pierce through their tough defenses and kill them where they stood.

Ye Qing was a body-tempering Grandmaster, and Cui Qiuyuan knew better than to underestimate his vigor or tenacity. That was why he took aim at Ye Qing’s head. This would allow him to end the Grandmaster in one hit.

But why was he—or more accurately, all three of them—trying to kill Ye Qing in the first place? It was simple. One, Ye Qing was the only one among them whose origin was completely unknown. Keeping someone like him alive was basically a recipe for disaster. Two, eliminating Ye Qing meant they wouldn’t need to share the pie with another person, so why not?

Although Murong Xianxian claimed that there were more than enough treasures in the Demonbearer Abode for all of them, who in the world would complain about excess fortune?

Everyone was a miser before a big enough fortune. Everyone was a ruthless bastard given a good enough opportunity.

From the start, the trio had schemed to kill Ye Qing. Although they hadn’t verbally or even mentally communicated this beforehand, they didn’t need to. One look in the eye was all they needed to understand each other’s thoughts. After all, they were all old foxes who not only survived, but thrived in the jianghu for a very long time. If they couldn’t even do something like this, then they would be dead a long time ago.

The reason they hadn’t acted sooner was because one, they didn’t know how strong Ye Qing was and did not want to make the mistake of underestimating him. Two, there was no reason to not make use of Ye Qing and have him alleviate some of the burden of removing ‘Repentance’, not to mention that it would effectively weaken his strength.

As for them, it might looked like they pushed themselves to their limits every time it was their turn to pull ‘Repentance’, when in reality it was all an act. They were all conserving their energy for the inevitable surprise attack.

Now, they were one turn or two away from removing ‘Repentance’, and Ye Qing had become so weak that he could barely stay conscious. He was also in the middle of removing ‘Repentance’ and thus could not afford to split his attention.

Now was the time to execute their plan and reap the spoils.

The sneer in Cui Qiuyuan’s eyes grew thicker as his “Bone Divine Claw” moved closer and closer to Ye Qing’s head. Then, at the last possible moment, the young man suddenly bent his head backward, and Cui Qiuyuan just barely scraped past his forehead. His surprise attack had missed its target.

Cui Qiuyuan blanked out for an instant. Was it just a coincidence, or was it something far more sinister? The brief distraction was all Ye Qing needed to grab his wrist.

At this point, Cui Qiuyuan knew that Ye Qing had seen through his ploy. He tried to pull back his arm and mount a hasty retreat, but he felt as if his arm was being pinned under a sky piercing mountain. He might as well be an ant trying to topple a tree.

He was hiding his strength too?!

At that moment, the full scale of his and his cohorts’ mistake dawned upon him. They were acting and hiding their strength, but their target was acting as well. They thought the Grandmaster a fool, but he thought the exact same about them.

Cui Qiuyuan could only watch as Ye Qing’s left elbow sailed through the air and ripped through his protective astral qi like it was paper. Then, it landed squarely on his heart.

Pop!

Cui Qiuyuan’s body exploded in a shower of blood and gore just like that.

Cui Qiuyuan had just recently recreated his physical body using a Magia, which was why it was more fragile than normal. Not only that, the elbow strike he just took was one of the strongest he had ever received. Forget his current body, he wasn’t sure his previous body could have survived it.

“Who are you?!”

After his body exploded, Cui Qiuyuan’s yang god floated in the air and looked down on Ye Qing with hatred and fury. And how could he not be angry? This was the second time he fucked up and lost his physical body when he thought that everything was under his control, and it had all happened in the span of a couple of days. How could he not hate?

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