Crimson Snow Chaos?
Li Xun froze for a moment. That infamous poison, he definitely remembered it. But to use it here of all places? Had Bone Rot lost his mind, letting his rage burn away his senses?
Even with the dim light at the lakebed, Li Xun could still make out the effect: as the poison seeped through, the soil and rocks beneath the water were rapidly spreading into a bloody red.
The sight was so eerie it made his chest tighten.
He frowned, still undecided on how to respond, when suddenly someone yanked hard at his elbow.
Startled, he lashed back instinctively.
“Idiot!”
At that instant, Shui Die Lan’s light scolding was more effective than any strike. He halted mid-motion as she pulled him sharply to the side.
The moment they moved, a thunderous boom erupted right where he had just been standing. The blast shook his eardrums, its force terrifying.
What the...
Before Li Xun could figure out how his opponent had pinpointed his exact position, another narrow, twisting shockwave sliced through the water. It locked onto them with uncanny precision, hissing as it coiled like a venomous snake. The energy it unleashed was sharp enough to shatter metal and stone.
The water around them was shredded into hundreds of fragments. The crushing force squeezed the currents tight, and in the blink of an eye a pocket of vacuum opened up.
Shui Die Lan let out a low hum, her fingers trembling as she released a stream of rippling shockwaves. They managed to push back the pressure for a moment, and then she wove her strongest illusion, forcing the attack to veer off elsewhere.
At the same time, she took the trouble to explain: “Don’t use your true breath to resist. Crimson Blood Venom seeps right into it and goes straight to corrode the flesh. If you try to block it with true breath, you’ll only trigger a reaction!”
Li Xun finally understood, though a wry smile crept onto his face. “If I can’t block it with true breath, then what? Take it with my body?”
“Are you a man or not? A little poison, what’s there to be afraid of?”
“That’s your brilliant idea? Perfect.” Li Xun’s smile turned even more bitter. Easy enough for her to say, but who was she? A peerless demoness who had roamed the world for tens of thousands of years, and a grandmaster of Gu poison arts besides. To claim she was immune to all poisons wasn’t much of an exaggeration.
As for Li Xun, true, his cultivation had advanced phenomenally in recent years, and his body, strengthened by the constant tempering of true breath, was far tougher than before. But compared to Shui Die Lan, he simply wasn’t in the same league.
Even so, he had to admit: if they wanted to stick to their original plan of stealing time and openings, this was the only realistic way forward.
Besides, he still had Nether One. The Blood Nightmare fed on filth and refined it into essence and qi. An ideal antidote to poison. And once they entered Mist-Hidden Pavilion, what toxin could possibly remain unsolved?
Li Xun was never one to waver. Once he weighed the situation, he acted without hesitation. He immediately withdrew his protective true breath. The moment the outer poison touched him, a fiery pain erupted across his body, but the trace of the so-called "reaction" was instantly gone.
Fortunately, his cultivation was pure and steady. The yin flame within him began circulating on its own, shielding his organs. At the same time, he shrank his body slightly and slipped behind Shui Die Lan, using the Shadow-Within-Shadow movement technique to cling close, almost impossible to shake off.
Shui Die Lan was infuriated by his move. "What are you doing?!" she snapped.
“Thank you. Hold still,” Li Xun murmured through sound transmission, pressing his palm against her back.
Shui Die Lan hated the feeling of having someone’s hand on her vital point, but reason told her that Li Xun would never strike against her in a moment like this.
Their body heat merged, their energies intertwined. Her back shuddered, and the Blood Nightmare writhing restlessly in her veins and meridians was suddenly locked down by an alien force. Though not completely purged, a long-lost sense of relief spread through every joint in her body.
This Hundred Ghosts is so miserly!
The thought had barely flickered through her mind when Li Xun spoke up: “You’ve already recovered at least half your strength. Stick to the plan!”
“Are you sure you can still handle it?” Shui Die Lan gave a low snort. But even as she said it, she knew full well that right now they had no choice but to trust each other. Li Xun trusted her to carry out her part, and she trusted him to hold the line long enough to see the plan through.
Another wave of attacks rained down. This time, though, they weren’t as precise or targeted as before. Instead, the force scattered everywhere. Still powerful, but much more diffuse.
Shui Die Lan unleashed her “Butterfly Dream Reversion” technique, paired with an intricate technique of deflecting force. The surrounding rocks and silt dissolved into a slurry of mud, but not a hair on either of them was harmed.
Seizing the opening, the two split apart. Shui Die Lan vanished in a flash, while Li Xun plunged headlong into the lakebed, ignoring the blood-red bubbles rising all around him.
A harsh hiss sounded as his outer robe was half corroded in an instant. Even his body, tempered through countless trials, began to darken to a faint ashen black under the poison’s seep.
Li Xun grunted softly. He had still underestimated the venom of Crimson Snow Chaos.
Worse yet, Bone Rot had deliberately compressed the poison’s spread, multiplying its lethality. A tactic that was proving more than a little troublesome.
Pressed hard by the poison, the Bottomless Nether Ring at his chest spun almost wildly. A torrent of yin fire surged out from it, spreading through his limbs and bones, barely holding back the venom’s savage advance.
In that single instant, Li Xun nearly collapsed. Right then and there, he gained a deeper understanding of just how terrifying the Venom Veil Sect truly was.
Even so, the price he paid was worth it.
Forcing himself to push past the dizziness of near-exhaustion, he reached into his robes and drew out the Cloudmist Stone. Feeling the tangible gathering of energy pulsing within it, he clenched his teeth and activated a secret technique. Through the mysterious channels of the Bottomless Nether Ring, he pulled at the void itself, dragging a single drop of the Nine Netherworld Earth Qi into his body. It swelled and ignited at once.
A flush of unnatural color spread across his pale face. The overwhelming surge of power brought on by the secret technique actually smothered his weakness for the moment.
He cupped the Cloudmist Stone in his hands. Instantly, the intricate patterns governing the flow of ten thousand qi streams poured into his mind. His true breath stirred in response, flaring outward and splitting into hundreds of invisible, yet solid-feeling tendrils. They gently swept through the lake, beneath the rocks and soil, and even through the empty air.
In an instant, the qi mechanisms shifted. A resonant hum filled the air as the primordial qi gathered and surged into a single, converging stream.
His eyes flew open as he let out a low shout. The echo of his cry was still vibrating in his throat when a thunderous rumble erupted above. Tens of thousands of tons of water, dragging vast torrents of silt and sand, came crashing down.
The immense kinetic force seized control of tens of thousands of intricate qi mechanisms, wrenching the primordial qi into a massive, swirling vortex. In the blink of an eye, Li Xun was swallowed into it.
Right after, Shui Die Lan broke through the muddy whirlpool and slipped inside.
Li Xun flashed her a smile, but before he could say anuthing, a slender figure dropped down. Swept by the current, she spun helplessly toward the vortex’s heart.
A heartbeat later, Nether One’s towering frame appeared as well. Behind him, the portal formed by the vortex shuddered shut with a deafening blast of primordial qi.
...
The lakebed quickly fell silent again. The roaring of primordial qi vanished, the wild surges of energy were gone. The thick, muddy water began to settle, slowly burying the unnatural crimson stain at the bottom.
Bone Rot’s childlike face had gone dark as iron. He pressed his lips together without a word, flicked his sleeve, and a streak of red light swept out, erasing all traces of the strange colors from the lakebed. Beside him, the Skyfaring Ape Demon and Qi Wusheng still hadn’t shaken off the chaos from moments before.
And then there was the Heart-Consuming Concubine, the overseer of the Five-Sect Alliance in the southeastern forest sea. She was forcing herself to appear calm, but the pallid blue-white of her face betrayed her thoughts.
This was a farcical defeat. Their party numbered in the dozens, including True Person masters; yet they had been toyed with and run in circles by a single “Xiao Zhongzi.” It was as good as a resounding slap across her face in front of everyone.
Forcing down her rising panic, she still held onto a thread of hope. After all, there was an expert here.
“Wuji!”
No one answered; or rather, the reply that came was strangely off.
The Heart-Consuming Concubine felt her heart turn cold. Her figure flickered as she darted toward the spot where Wuji had been standing.
From a distance, she caught sight of Flayer if Yin collapsed beneath a jagged reef, struggling to get back up. Wuji the monk stood nearby, his expression twisted and strange.
The water surged. Wuji’s body gave a sudden shudder, staggering as he spun halfway around in the current. His eyes bulged, fixed on the swiftly approaching Heart-Consuming Concubine. A hoarse “heh-heh” rasped from his throat. Regret clouded his face before he finally spewed up a mass of dark blood. His body rolled sideways, drifting with the current, limbs twitching as it floated away.
A scream tore the air. Like waking from a nightmare, the Heart-Consuming Concubine turned her head with effort, only to see Flayer of Yin’s face drained of all color, staring at the reef beside her.
There was no sign of Gu Pin'er. She had vanished without a trace from the place she'd been left.
...
With a splash, Li Xun broke through the clear waters ahead. Shui Dielan surfaced a step behind him, appearing at his side.
A rush of pure air filled with the fragrance of grass and trees struck their faces. Both of them froze, then turned to look together.
What they saw was a world of wonders.