Stranger Danger

Unfortunately, the Human Skin Drum resurfaced after the You Dynasty was no more. It fell into the jianghu and entered the possession of monstrous, heartless bastards such as the Old Skinner, the Heartless Buddha, Demon Who Died Wronged and more, and they used it to kill countless people.

Every time the Human Skin Drum poked its head above the surface, it would cause a great massacre and chaos.

The last time the Human Skin Drum appeared was over a century ago. The Three Headed Buddha had used it to slaughter the warriors of wulin and use their skins to cause all sorts of havoc. Angered by his brazen crimes, the orthodoxy ultimately slew him at the Three Buddha Temple. The Human Skin Drum went missing after the Three Headed Buddha perished.

Ye Qing wasn’t expecting to find the legendary Strange Artifact in Gong Wuwei’s hands. He was quite surprised to say the least.

“If you know the Human Skin Drum, then you must know its powers as well,” Gong Wuwei said while staring at him. “So I’m going to give you another chance. If you withdraw now, I can pretend that this had never happened.”

Ye Qing shook his head. “Thank you for the offer, but I wish to test my might against the Human Skin Drum.”

“There is no helping someone who insists on drinking a forfeit…” Gong Wuwei uttered darkly before striking the other side of the Human Skin Drum.

Thump!

The leather vibrated, and the human skins worshiping the Human Skin Drum suddenly turned around to look at Ye Qing as if they were alive, blood pouring down their eye sockets. Considering that they were just a painting, this was anything but normal.

The next moment, the human skins crawled out of the Human Skin Drum. Dozens of them surrounded Gong Wuwei in just the blink of an eye.

The human skins’ strength were a mishmash of weak and strong. However, at least a dozen of them were Trueman or Half-Step Trueman. Ye Qing even saw Chen Wuxin’s skin among them. If he wasn’t mistaken, these skins belonged to the leaders of Mount Qi such as Ding Banshan, Yu Youya, Xu Laodao, Yin Haichao and more.

The Human Skin Drum’s greatest power lay in the fact that the human skins it controlled were exactly as strong as their victims when they were still alive[1].

“You can still leave, scion!” threatened Gon Wuwei with a perfectly cool expression.

Her face was impenetrable, but she was really worried on the inside. Having caught a glimpse of Ye Qing’s true strength from his stomp earlier, she wasn’t sure that a dozen of Trueman and Half-Step Trueman skins would be enough to kill him. That was why she had offered a compromise again and again.

“Haha! Are you afraid, Head Gong? If you’re afraid, you can surrender the Human Skin Drum to me. I promise I’ll let you live if you do so!” Ye Qing crossed his arms and countered with an offer of his own.

“In that case, I’m sorry for what I must do.” Gong Wuwei stopped wasting her breath and pressed the Human Skin Drum. As if on cue, the human skins immediately swarmed him from all sides.

Ye Qing took no evasive maneuvers whatsoever. Instead, he dashed forward and, while his fist intent circulated around his person like an endless river, threw a devastating punch.

“Break Through”

It was the same old technique as ever, and yet it was definitely smoother and more potent than before. His fist intent especially was fantastic.

If before “Break Through” was a lone cavalry that would charge forward no matter the circumstances, now it was an overwhelming force that would punch through anything and everything.

No one and nothing would remain standing before the practitioner when “Break Through” appeared.

Not only that, he was able to mix a tinge of “Break” from the “Three Origin Hammers” into the punch as well. Naturally, it became even more potent than before.

Boom!

The swarm of human skins were punched through in an instant. Anyone foolish enough to stand in its path was annihilated into dust.

Gong Wuwei’s eye twitched at the sight of this. A punch that annihilated dozens of Half-Step Trueman and Trueman skins in an instant? Just how strong was he?

The human skins who were lucky enough to be out of the way continued to swarm Ye Qing from all sides, but this time, he punched diagonally toward the ground like he was intercepting a stream.

“Divide”

“Divide” was not what it was before either. It was now mixed with “Suppression Hammer”’s power to quell the eight directions, freeze the five phases, suppress the four seas, seal yin and yang and lock Primal Chaos.

As a result, the human skins charging toward Ye Qing abruptly froze as if someone had cast a freezing spell on them. Their Magia and astral qi were frozen in mid-air as well.

Next, Ye Qing lifted his fist half an inch and gave them a taste of their own medicine. The frozen Magia and astral qi immediately shot back toward their owners several times stronger than it was.

It was like lightning had exploded around Ye Qing out of the blue. The human skins had no choice but to collapse to the ground like wheat, and most of them never hit the ground before they disintegrated into dust.

Gong Wuwei could hardly believe her eyes. In just two punches, the young man had nearly wiped out every human skin she was controlling. Just what kind of monster was he?

Not wanting to wait until Ye Qing cleaned up everything and came after her, Gong Wuwei stroked the drum again and summoned a new army of human skins. It wasn’t as nearly as easy as the first time though. Every time she summoned a human skin, a patch of skin about the size of a palm would be stripped from her person. At the rate she was summoning, it wasn’t long before she was bleeding from every part of her body.

There was no limit to how many human skins the Human Skin Drum could control at the same time. Its only restriction was that it could not control a human skin that was higher than its own grade. Since the Human Skin Drum was a Disaster-class strange Artifact, the strongest human skin it could control was a Trueman or a grandmaster.

The Human Skin Drum had existed for over a thousand years and came across at least a dozen owners. Coincidentally or not, all of them were famous, powerful figures of the jianghu. Logically speaking, it should own an insane number of Trueman and Grandmaster skins.

In reality, every single master it ever had was a troublemaker of some sort. They were either rebels, wannabe kings, rogues, megalomaniacs and so on, and not a single one met a good ending. That was why most of the Trueman and Grandmaster skins stored inside the Human Skin Drums were either damaged or destroyed. Otherwise, Gong Wuwei would have summoned more in one go.

More importantly, the stronger the skin she summoned, and the greater the number of skins she controlled at once, the more it depleted her strength. If she couldn’t meet its demands any longer, then there was a high chance she would be consumed by the Strange Artifact itself.

Therefore, it wasn’t that Gong Wuwei did not want to attack Ye Qing with a bigger, stronger swarm of human skins. She literally couldn’t.

Right now, she had already reached her limit. If she summoned any more skin than this, the Human Skin Drum would start feeding on her flesh and blood.

“There is no need to go so far.”

Ye Qing shook his head and briefly lamented the fact that Gong Wuwei had gone so far as to sacrifice her appearance for power. Then, he slowly began walking forward.

Every time he took a step, the ground would shake once. He ignored the human skins charging him from all sides. He had just taken his third step when the human skins were less than a meter away from him.

There exists a world within three steps of space. There may be ghosts and gods within inches of space.

As soon as his foot touched the ground, the human skins around him abruptly disintegrated into dust.

“You wouldn’t have suffered needlessly if you had just given me the Human Skin Drum,” said Ye Qing as he made a grab for the Strange Artifact.

Tang tang tang…

It was at this moment something unexpected happened. The sound of a qin suddenly appeared inside his head. It was melodious, beautiful, and evocative before the notes could even form a tune.

For the first time, Ye Qing blanched slightly. He jumped away from Gong Wuwei even though his hand was literally inches away from the Human Skin Drum. It was because the qin sound had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Worse, he hadn’t heard it through his ears. It had appeared directly inside his head.

This was just the beginning. Every time Ye Qing retreated a step, his surroundings would warp significantly. Just three steps later, Ye Qing discovered in astonishment that he was standing in the middle of a grassy plain. Gong Wuwei and everyone else were nowhere to be found.

[2]

1. Which the Skinner at the very beginning is not, which is why this is a menace and that isn’t except to low level villages. Though, it seems like they should be a set. ☜

2. Ooh, I’ve been waiting for this. ☜

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