Chapter 75: Fish-Killing!
The night wind was a bloody scythe, gory and humid, an ambassador of death that swept through every corner of the city. In the darkness, that ambassador of death moved relentlessly forward, merging with the shadows, then dispersing, foreboding to the extreme as it sought to bring all to despair.
Until... its relentless progress into alleys of the city caused it to run into a person standing in the shadows.
This person wore a gray robe, and seemed like someone that blades or needles couldn’t harm. And he emitted a frigid energy that seemed to block off the light of the stars. It was suffocating.
When the wind hit him, it was like when cold rivers ran into the sea, or when a pack of jackals encountered the king of all wolves. The wind stopped, and everything went quiet. The person in gray looked over his shoulder, and his eyes were as cold as a deep pool of black water. The wind laughed. It had found something to believe in. A comrade. Hefting its scythe of death, it blew past the figure in gray, stirring his long hair and robe.
The wind’s stronger than usual tonight. Xu Qing turned to look through the darkness toward a building. To him, the building was like a coffin looming in the night. It was the home of the young merman. Because he wasn’t an ordinary disciple from the Seventh Peak, he didn’t qualify for a dharmaboat, and was forced to rent a place onshore.
Xu Qing watched the place quietly. In the darkness of night, his breathing sounded like a cold, winding stream.
He was waiting.
Because of the marker he had placed, he knew for certain that the young merman was here. Furthermore, based on what he had learned from shadowing the merman recently, he would likely be going out alone soon. Maybe even tonight... considering how bad his mood was.
Therefore, Xu Qing was inclined to simply wait through the night. Time passed. Two hours later, when the moon slipped behind some clouds, the breeze picked up, scraping over the house, which was now cloaked in darkness.
Because of the coffin-like building, the wind seemed even lonelier, like a hoarse whisper uttered just before death.
A figure appeared on the outer wall of the building.
His gray daoist robe couldn’t cover up the smell he exuded, which was like the sea, and his green eyes didn’t do anything to make him seem less sinister. His robes flapped in the breeze, making an impressive silhouette in the darkness, but at the same time, it almost seemed like a peeled-off layer of human skin.
This person was none other than the young merman, who was in an extremely foul mood today because of the humiliation he had suffered earlier.
Senior princess of Seventh Peak? Who cares about you? One of these days I’m going to brutalize you! I’ll use your body to raise ghostworm maggots! The young merman ground his teeth in fury. His bad mood had caused him to come out a few days earlier than usual. He really felt the need to vent.
And the way he did that was have his two older cousins make arrangements to bring him, not women, but children. It was a secret he had to keep tightly under wraps: he liked to torture and kill non-Merfolk children. That was what truly made him happy.
Jumping off the wall, he sped into the night, quickly vanishing. Anyone present who was either watching him or observing him in some other way would lose track of him. It was like he didn’t even exist. However, that didn’t mean that Xu Qing’s mark had gone away.
Xu Qing looked in the direction the merman had disappeared into, and quietly started moving through the darkness.
The wind picked up, slicing through the air like a blade, and echoing through the silence of the night.
An hour later, in a remote alley of the city, the air rippled and distorted as the young merman appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. As soon as he appeared, a sensation of danger filled him, and he shot backward.
He wasn’t fast enough. A thick screen of water appeared behind him, which rapidly spread out to cover the entire alley, blocking all avenues of escape. Then something like a growl echoed from within the water ahead of him.
There, a whale appeared, the result of a magical technique, bulging out from the water at high speed. It rushed toward the young merman with incomparable force and boundless killing intent, its gaping mouth full of sharp teeth.
The young merman’s eyes glinted sharply.
“Well, isn’t this funny. Here I am in a foul mood, and you show up to amuse me.”
His hands flashed in a double-handed incantation gesture, but before he could finish, Xu Qing’s shadow, which was melded with the darkness, seemed to stretch like ropes, wrapping around his arms and pulling his hands apart, making it impossible to finish the gesture. Then the shadow stretched toward his throat.
Wherever the shadow touched him, he felt an intense pain, like something corroding his flesh. The young merman’s expression flickered.
Along with the pain came an intense sensation of deadly crisis, and his breath came in ragged pants as the whale got closer and closer. Just when it seemed the whale would consume him, he howled loudly, and a blue light erupted from within him. The blinding light scattered the gruish shadow and spread out to fill the area. It stabbed into the whale, causing the projection to collapse.
However, the power behind the whale didn’t vanish, and continued to surge like a wave. The young merman trembled and staggered backward, coughing up blood, his expression ferocious. Yet he managed to take advantage of the time bought by the blue light to reach toward his bag of holding. Before he could open it, the shadow once again grabbed his arms, preventing him from moving. Then the shadow started spreading out over him.
This development caused the young merman’s heart to fill with astonishment. At the same time, a dark glow shot out from the darkness and toward his forehead. Behind that dark glow... was a figure in gray, emerging from the screen of water!
The dark glow moved with the speed of a black bolt of lightning. And the young man behind it had black hair swirling around him, his face expressionless, but his eyes as cold as ice.
The wind around him was like a scythe, as if the ambassador of death had come with him, grinning within its black cloak.
“It’s you!!” the young merman blurted as the sensation of deadly crisis within him grew stronger. Then he spat out something silver-colored.
It shot into the wind, transforming into a massive chakram that rolled toward the incoming iron skewer. When the two weapons clashed, a huge boom echoed out.
The massive power behind both attacks caused both the chakram and the skewer to fly off to the side. However, that didn’t stop Xu Qing and the young merman from locking eyes.
As Xu Qing closed in, the spiked gills on the side of the young merman’s face flared, making him look even more vicious than before. At the same time, he spat out a blue pearl.
“Time to die!” he howled. The blue pearl erupted with shocking rays of light which shot toward Xu Qing from all directions.
This was a life essence divine ability, and the young merman was fully confident that not even someone in the great circle of Qi Condensation could stand up to it. Only a Foundation Establishment cultivator would have a chance. Grinning viciously, he prepared to deal with the gruish shadow that still covered him.
However, that was when the blue light unleashed a huge boom, and the young merman’s expression flickered with surprise.
Within the bounds created by that blue light, a massive figure could now be seen, seemingly propping up heaven and earth as it stood there. It was pitch black, with two horns on its head and spikes covering its body like an evil ghost. In fact, it seemed almost like the king of all evil ghosts. Roaring noiselessly, it extended both of its hands and grabbed the blue light.
It was... the spectral hobgoblin!
Beneath that immense spectral hobgoblin was Xu Qing, his face completely expressionless as he closed in on the young merman.
Xu Qing was covered in wounds from that binding light, but his flesh was already healing. What was more, the killing intent in his eyes had reached an explosive level.
Neither in his previous clash with the young merman, nor on the occasion when he fought the non-human innkeeper, had Xu Qing gone all out like this. He hadn’t used his shadow, he hadn’t summoned the spectral hobgoblin, and he hadn’t revealed his powers of regeneration.
He would only reveal his true abilities when dealing with someone he was about to kill.
“Projection of energy and blood? And your cultivation base! This is impossible! Your powers of regeneration, they....” The young merman’s face was a mask of utter astonishment. And as the sensation of deadly crisis turned into one of complete terror, he lost his ability to speak straight.
He wanted to open his bag of holding and take out a communication jade slip to send a message asking for help. But the shadow wrapping him up almost seemed alive. No matter how he wrenched his hands about, he couldn’t free himself, and couldn’t take out anything from his bag of holding. As for Xu Qing, he didn’t waste any time at all. As he closed in, a dagger glinted in his right hand.
When the young merman saw the dagger, he let loose a mad howl. Ignoring the shadow wrapping around his neck, as well as how various parts of him were melting, he suddenly twitched.
In that instant, his legs flipped up and blurred, transforming into a black fish tail, which he thrust toward Xu Qing with all the force he could muster. At the same time, his natural bloodline ability erupted, causing the illusory merman projection around him to join with him in the powerful tail strike.
Xu Qing’s facial expression remained unchanged. Nor did he slow down. Instead, he clenched his left hand into a fist and punched. As he did, the spectral hobgoblin did the same. Flesh was shredded and blood sprayed everywhere as the young merman’s fish tail collapsed into several pieces. And as the spectral hobgoblin’s blow landed on the huge merman projection, it shattered.
The ground shook, and a miserable shriek rang out from the young merman’s mouth. However, the surrounding water screen was so thick that the sound remained captured in the alley.
“I curse you!!” the young merman screamed, his eyes crimson. As he did, the shattered and bloody remnants of his fish tail twitched as if alive, then burst into flames, which shot toward Xu Qing at incredible speed.
It happened fast, but not faster than Xu Qing could react. As the flaming flesh and blood surrounded him, he moved with even greater speed, leaving behind nothing but a series of afterimages to be surrounded by the curse attack.
Then he appeared behind the young merman, and before the shattered fish tail could do anything further, he put his dagger to the young merman’s throat.
Trembling, and his voice shrill, the young merman shrieked, “Xu Qing, I—“
He never finished speaking. Only those three words left his mouth before...
Xu Qing slashed the cold dagger through his throat. As usual, he wasn’t interested in hearing anyone’s dying words.
A familiar slashing sound echoed about. As blood sprayed, the young merman twitched violently, like a fish on the chopping block whose neck had just been slit. His eyes went wide, and he tried to look over his shoulder, but he failed. He took a last gurgling gasp, then collapsed to the ground in front of Xu Qing.
“You got my clothes dirty,” Xu Qing said softly. That was the only thing he said during the entire fight.
“You....” Blood poured out of the young merman’s neck, and he twitched again. Then he lost his ability to breathe. His eyes still contained a desire to live. And they also seemed incredulous at what was happening. He still couldn’t believe that someone like himself, chosen by heaven, would die like this.
Then, he was thoroughly dead.
Xu Qing’s expression remained calm as he took the speed-enhancing talisman treasure off his leg. Then he scooped up the young merman’s bag of holding, which had not been opened the entire fight. Finally, as he turned to leave the alley, his shadow left the young merman’s corpse and returned to his feet.
At the mouth of the alley, he didn’t stop walking, and didn’t bother to look back at the carnage. He just snapped his fingers.
The screen of water which had sealed off the alley trembled and then started to move. It grew smaller, converging on the corpse of the young merman. Finally, it made a thump as all of the power of the water screen was focused on the corpse. A boom rang out as the corpse shattered into a mass of gore. The young merman had been killed in body and soul.
Xu Qing walked off into the distance.
The screen of water became droplets that cleansed the quiet alley. The blood was washed away, creating puddles that the rising sun shone off of brightly.
When night ended, and day came, it happened in the blink of an eye. It was similar with humans. It was similar to life and death.