Chapter 37: Power over Life and Death
As the teacup touched the table, the street outside the camp owner’s mansion filled with blood and corpses!
Xu Qing moved like a tiger, and wherever he went, blood blossomed. It was a ghastly sight as he slaughtered enemies with every step he took. Camp guards blocked the way to the mansion, and more guards rushed toward him from all other directions. At the same time, ten strangers in black robes appeared, cultivators from the caravan.
Whether guards or caravan strangers, they all had one target: Xu Qing.
The wind blew, lifting his hair away from his face as he strapped the unfamiliar sword back on his back and pulled out his dagger. Then, he seemed to become part of the wind itself as he went straight toward a caravan cultivator who was in the sixth level of Qi Condensation.
The moment they clashed, the enemy’s head flew into the air!
Blood sprayed out as more black-garbed men and guards advanced.
Xu Qing looked at the caravan cultivators, and briefly thought back to how it was the same day they arrived that Sergeant Thunder went out to buy food for dinner, and had returned sooner than expected. That must have also been the day the sergeant spotted his nemesis, which was why he ended up leaving the camp earlier than expected.
Xu Qing said nothing, but his killing intent grew more intense. He moved with even greater speed than before, not even making a pretense of retreating, and just charging forward.
Some distance away, on the eaves of the mansion, stood two people.
One was old, the other middle-aged. The old man wore a blue Daoist robe, while the middle-aged man was clad in fine garments. The former stood with his hands clasped behind his back, calmly watching the fight play out on the street. The latter sat there with a metal string between his teeth, also closely watching the action. Shockingly, that string was one of Crucifix’s bowstrings.
Crucifix didn’t use normal bowstrings. And generally speaking, metal strings like that wouldn’t snap easily, yet this man was slowly biting the string to pieces.
“Interesting,” said the middle-aged man. “He’s a body cultivator like me. But it looks like he’s in the sixth level. He should be more fun to deal with than that guy with the crucifix scar.”
“Are you going to handle this?” the old man asked calmly. “Or should I?”
Spitting out some saliva-covered bowstring, the middle-aged man grinned viciously and said, “We’re in territory controlled by your Golden Vajra Warrior Sect. And the camp owner is an elder in your sect. Furthermore, do I even need to mention that you’re a newly-appointed elder yourself?”
As the two men conversed, a boom echoed down the street, along with bloodcurdling screams. All eight of the camp guards and black-garbed men surrounding Xu Qing staggered away from him, blood spraying out of their mouths. All of them had been hit in vital spots, and it only took a moment for them to fall onto the ground. Then Xu Qing stepped out of the ring of corpses and kept moving.
His fur coat was drenched in blood. His hemp shoes were caked in black mud. His hair swayed in the wind. And his eyes… were as cold as the eyes of a lone wolf.
His right hand hung at his side, gripping his dagger, which dripped blood as he walked.
The eight corpses were in horrific condition, but he hadn’t killed them sadistically. No, he had struck grievous blows to vital spots. He attacked to kill and didn’t waste any movements. Because of that, the scavengers who were watching the scene play out were overwhelmed with shock and horror.
Not sparing a glance for the corpses, Xu Qing sped onward along the muddy street, his face completely expressionless and his eyes bloodshot.
His goal, the camp owner’s mansion, was barely more than 900 meters away.
As he neared, the surviving dozen or so camp guards and black-garbed caravan cultivators trembled and backed away from him.
He started moving faster. But then he looked up at the two figures standing on the eaves.
They had stronger auras than anyone else he’d killed so far, making them the most dangerous opponents he’d fought. But Xu Qing had known from the beginning that, once he started this slaughter… he had to see it through to the end. Furthermore, these people were standing between him and the camp owner’s mansion.
Therefore, he took a few more steps, extended his hand in the direction of the two men, and then made a beckoning gesture with his fingers.
“How arrogant!” said the old man in the blue robe, his eyes narrowing. Then, wind swirled beneath his feet as he walked off the roof and through the air toward Xu Qing.
This sight caused the guards, the black-garbed cultivators, and the scavengers to reel in shock. They all knew that only Foundation Establishment experts could walk on air.
To them, a Foundation Establishment expert might as well be an immortal in heaven. There were many people who never even laid eyes on someone like that. And any person who reached Foundation Establishment could become the patriarch of a small organization like the Golden Vajra Warrior Sect, or the founder of a small clan.
But this blue-robed old man clearly wasn’t a Foundation Establishment expert. He had only just stepped into the eighth level of Qi Condensation. His ability to walk on air was just a trick that had something to do with the wind technique he cultivated. It didn’t give him much of an advantage in battle. Nonetheless, it was enough to shock the bystanders.
Xu Qing, on the other hand, didn’t care. The moment his opponent walked toward him through the air, he secretly dispersed a packet of poison powder and then shot forward. He moved so quickly that he left behind a blur of afterimages. And before the old man in blue knew what was happening, he found, to his shock, that Xu Qing was right beneath him.
Xu Qing unleashed a fist strike, and the spectral hobgoblin appeared, howling noiselessly. The old man in mid-air had no time to avoid the strike, and could only perform a frenzied incantation gesture to throw up a defensive barrier. A boom rang out, and cracks spread out over the barrier. Meanwhile, the old man staggered back under the force of the blow. Then Xu Qing’s black iron skewer appeared, flashing as it shot toward the old man.
Thump!
A small shield appeared and blocked the skewer.
The shield collapsed, and the power of the skewer vanished. But behind the destroyed shield, the old man in blue was coughing up blood, and looked to be in very bad shape.
The old man looked like he was about to speak, but before he could, Xu Qing stamped his right foot down and shot toward him.
The old man’s pupils constricted with rage as he waved both hands out, causing a wild wind to fill the area. Then he inhaled deeply, and the wind raced into his mouth, causing his face to turn red and the brutal, killing intent in his eyes to surge.
He was about to exhale when, all of a sudden, his expression flickered, and his eyes bulged. Black patches appeared on his skin, which were a sign of poisoning. He started to tremble.
“You….”
Before he could say anything else, Xu Qing was upon him. His dagger moved so fast that it turned as red as flame, like a soldering iron that slashed through the old man’s throat.
Blood sprayed, and he let out a miserable shriek before Xu Qing grabbed his head with his other hand, and ripped it off the torso!
It all happened so quickly!
Then, Xu Qing took the greenish-purple head and threw it toward the eaves, where the shocked middle-aged man was only just standing up. Afterwards, Xu Qing reached out and made the same beckoning gesture as before.
Everything went quiet.
The scavengers, the guards, the caravan members, all of them were battered by massive waves of shock, and simply stood there trembling.
“S-so… so strong….”
“Was that poison…? It was so deadly!”
The middle-aged man on the eaves looked down, his heart pounding.
“Is everyone from the Golden Vajra Warrior Sect such trash?” he said. “I can’t believe he was trying to show off in the middle of a fight!!”
He knew full well that the old man in blue was no weakling. His wind technique was spectacular. However, his attempt to show off by walking on the air lost him the initiative, and by underestimating his opponent, he failed to detect the poison until he had already inhaled it. In the final analysis, sect cultivators often lacked the ferocity and resourcefulness that scavengers developed naturally in their struggle to survive.
With such thoughts on his mind, the middle-aged man took out seven or eight packets of poison repellents and antidotes, and consumed them all. Then he gritted his teeth as popping sounds rang out from inside him. He was already tall and sturdy, but now his body bulked up even more as he jumped off the roof eaves and dropped toward Xu Qing like a diving falcon.
Xu Qing looked up, his eyes hardly visible through his long black hair. Then he dashed toward his opponent.
A boom rang out when they clashed, and the middle-aged man shook from head to toe as they backed away from each other. A look of astonishment was visible on the middle-aged man’s face, whereas the force of the impact brushed Xu Qing’s hair aside, revealing his bloodthirsty eyes.
Xu Qing could sense that his opponent was strong, but not as strong as himself. Furthermore, Xu Qing knew that his powers of recovery were far superior. Eyes bursting with killing intent, he gathered his strength and unleashed another punch!
When body cultivators fought, it was pure brutality. Over and over again they clashed, parted, and then clashed again.
Booms filled the street, and roof tiles crumbled to the ground from the resulting shock waves.
Soon, the middle-aged cultivator was panting, and his face was pale. As he fought, blue veins bulged out on his skin, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with terror and despair.
In terms of strength and speed, he wasn’t a match for Xu Qing, and his powers of recovery weren’t worth mentioning in comparison. After little more than thirty breaths of time passed, his fists exploded into blood and bone. His arms couldn’t sustain the force, and were ripped to shreds. He let loose a bloodcurdling scream.
Then Xu Qing jumped up and smashed his knee into the man’s head. A crunch could be heard as the sound of crushed bone brought the agonized shrieking to a halt. Then the man was dead.
Xu Qing didn’t even look around. Eyes surging with killing intent, he stepped over the corpse of the middle-aged man and headed… directly toward the camp owner’s mansion!
The guards and caravan members outside the mansion had long since been intimidated so badly they lost all courage.
When they saw Xu Qing approaching, drenched in blood and looking like some sort of devil, they were overwhelmed with the instinct to flee for their lives. It was hard to say who started running first, but hardly a moment passed before they were all gone.
Under the eyes of the masses of scavengers who had gathered, Xu Qing started moving like the wind toward the mansion gate.
As he neared, the gate suddenly exploded, and a fist appeared, slamming right into Xu Qing. A rumbling sound echoed out as, for the first time, Xu Qing was forced backward. He took three steps, then looked up with cold eyes.
Walking out of the shattered remnants of the gate was the camp owner, wearing a golden robe, his expression very unsightly. Behind him was a grim old man in a brocade robe. In that old man’s hand was someone that Xu Qing recognized!
The moment he saw that person, a tremor passed through him, and indescribable emotions surged within his heart.
It was Sergeant Thunder, struggling to breathe!