"How do you plan on fighting the Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen?" Tong Xue asked as we jogged across the outskirts of the swamp.

"What makes you think I plan on fighting him?" I responded. "If he"s as powerful as you and Song Ting Yu say he is, then wouldn"t the most prudent course of action to avoid him at all costs? Sneak in, grab a sample of the Black Venom Toxin, and then run away before he realizes that we were there at all. I would rather avoid fighting if possible."

Tong Xue nodded in approval. "I agree!"

The both of us then vaulted over an outlying root from a gnarled, twisted tree, and veered into an alternative direction when we saw that our current trajectory would take us right into the bog. Thanks to Lian Rou"s guidance earlier, we knew what to avoid.

…unlike Zi Sha, Jiu Bu Liao and Yi Ding Si…

Of the trio, two were dead. Fortunately, Yi Ding Si had opted to follow us, so he lived longer. Unfortunately, his death seemed inevitable unless we retrieved the Black Venom Toxin and brought it back. Even then, I didn"t know if we would make it time.

The last time I saw him, his life was hanging by a thread. There wasn"t much longer left for him. Lian Rou and the paramedics at Duchun Town were doing their best to stabilize his condition and prolong his life for as long as possible, but quite frankly, the situation didn"t look good.

However, I was going to smash this stupid thing called Fate. Fate had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g me over way too many times, and conveniently giving Zhu Jiao whatever power-ups, treasures, Spirit Pills, martial arts skills he needed. It seemed like the Heavens favored only the protagonist, and screwed everyone over. They already killed off Zi Sha and Jiu Bu Liao, but I was determined that they did not take Yi Ding Si as well.

As long as he was under my charge, I refused to let him die. I was going to save him, no matter what.

Even if I had to face the Dark Sage, Sha Chen himself.

"Does the Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen, have any weaknesses?" Despite myself, I couldn"t help asking.

Tong Xue glanced at me, furrowing his brow.

"I thought you wanted to avoid combat with him?"

"That"s the ideal situation," I admitted. "But you"re too experienced a martial artist like me to know that no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. I want to prepare for the worst case scenario, just in case we"re forced to fight him."

"If we"re forced to fight him, we"ll most likely not suvive." Tong Xue sounded grim. "He is that strong. He isn"t one of the three Sages of the old Martial Arts Alliance era for no reason. He"s legendary for his brutal strength."

"Not his poison techniques?" I asked, surprised. Tong Xue considered for a moment, and then shook his head.

"Strangely enough, no. As poison techniques are viewed with great taste by the vast majority of the orthodox sects, Sha Chen refrained from using them. It didn"t matter – he favored great strength and brute force. He enjoyed crushing his enemies with superior power. He would only use poisons against those opponents he deemed worthy."

Somehow I doubted that. Most likely Sha Chen used poison against enemies he couldn"t beat in a head-on confrontation because it was one of the few ways he could close the gap between their strengths.

"That was decades ago, though." Tong Xue shrugged before bounding over another outstretched root. "He"s disappeared for so long that I wouldn"t be surprised if he has changed his fighting styles, or undergone a personality transformation."

"In other words, it"s likely that he has no qualms using poison techniques now, especially since he is no longer part of the Martial Arts Alliance, and is considered unorthodox."

I nodded thoughtfully. Tong Xue grimaced.

"I"m afraid you"re right. I"m sorry, but we just don"t have enough information about the "current" Dark Sage, Sha Chen, to be able to tell."

However, there was one thing we knew for sure. Sha Chen had singlehandedly wiped out Song Ting Yu"s entourage of bodyguards – each one of them a professional expert at the service of the Song Family and the Martial Arts Alliance. In other words, his strength had not diminished. In fact, he might even have gotten stronger.

This was not good at all.

Worse, from what Tong Xue had said, any information he had regarding Sha Chen"s weakness in the past might not be applicable today. Any decent martial artist would surely overcome or sh.o.r.e up his weakness in the last few decades he spent hiding.

Our intelligence on him would be obsolete now, especially since it was decades old.

We took a detour around yet another swampy area, aware of the denizens dwelling within it. Judging from my gla.s.ses" holographic map, I could tell that we were about half an hour away from Black Venom Cult"s base camp. We had cut our travel time by an hour this time, probably because we were a little more familiar with the route by now.

"Tong Xue," I said as I deliberately went the long way upon sensing a gigantic creature dwelling within the swamp just a few dozen meters away from us. "If we do indeed end up fighting against Sha Chen, I want you to leave him to me."

"What?" Tong Xue stared at me, astonished. "Are you crazy?"

"Maybe. But I have a plan. And a killer move that might work against him." As I told Zi Sha, Jiu Bu Liao and Yi Ding Si before, even if the opponent was much stronger, that didn"t mean we automatically lost to him in a fight.

Humans were intelligent beings. If we were weaker than our enemy, we often found ways to circ.u.mvent those weaknesses. In my original timeline, primitive humans developed spears to hunt tigers, sabertooth tigers and other predators. As technology progressed, we could kill creatures as immense as elephants, as armored as crocodiles with high-powered hunting rifles, or even magnum revolvers. We went from being one of the frailest species in the planet into the most destructive, developing nuclear bombs that could wipe out kilometers wide areas of life and rendering them into a radioactive wasteland where nothing could survive, no matter how strong.

That was why, no matter how powerful this Sha Chen was, there definitely was a way to defeat him. My chances of winning were pathetically low, probably less than even 1%, but it was not zero. It was far from zero.

I might be less experienced than Sha Chen, I might be less skilled, and less powerful, but I could still make up for that gap with my weapons and intelligence. All I needed was for Sha Chen to slip up, make one mistake, and I could deal a decisive blow. Even a 10-dan black-belt karateka in my timeline would die if someone shot him with a gun. Similarly, no matter how powerful Sha Chen was, he was only human. If my blade stabbed him in the heart, ruptured a carotid artery or jugular vein, or better still, take his entire head off, even he would die.

Of course, the hard part was getting into that situation in the first place.

"I have a Spirit Shield, and I have lots of guns," I a.s.sured Tong Xue, who looked unconvinced by my plan. "Among the both of us, I"m the one with the higher chance of survival. And all I need is one good shot, and I"ll take him down."

"No, you won"t." Tong Xue shook his head. "He"s on a completely different level. You can shoot him a hundred times and he won"t die. He"s too powerful."

"We"ll see about that." I sighed. "Of course, the best case scenario is sneaking past him without attracting his attention, but reality never goes the way we want it to."

"That"s true." Tong Xue looked a little resigned. "But I"m not going to leave you to fight such a monster by yourself…"

Before I could reply to that, I suddenly sensed three presences bolting toward us at high speed. Clearly the Black Venom Cultists had detected us approaching and were rushing forward to meet us. So much for the element of surprise.

"Incoming!" I shouted a warning. Being just as experienced as me, Tong Xue also picked up their presences and dove to the opposite side at the same time as I did. And not a moment too soon – several poison darts struck the gra.s.s where we were running on a few seconds ago.

"d.a.m.n it!"

Tong Xue rolled to his feet and took cover behind a tree. The poison darts truck the trunk of the tree, but didn"t penetrate further than its bark. He cursed and kept his head down, trying to keep a low profile. "They already found us?!"

"This is going to be difficult…" I muttered, also glancing from behind a tree I had sought cover behind. Even though I was immune to poison, those barbed darts looked wicked. I sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want any of those lodging themselves in my skin. It would definitely hurt like a b.i.t.c.h.

"See? The Great Leader was right! Those Martial Arts Alliance b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would definitely dispatch another group to finish us off!"

"I didn"t think we would run into them so soon in our patrol, though."

Listening, I frowned. Great Leader? That must be the Dark Sage, Sha Chen. I was also a little miffed that they thought we were from the Martial Arts Alliance.

"Should we call for reinforcements?"

"Really? It"s just a couple of kids." The middle guy sneered. "We can take care of them. There"s no need to trouble the rest."

"Besides," the third guy added. "There"s so few of us left after that d.a.m.ned a.s.sault. If the Great Leader didn"t return, we would be the only three left!"

"Yeah, we don"t have enough people left to guard the base. I don"t think they can even spare one. And Great Leader says we need to leave at least five back in the base. We"re the only ones the Cult can spare for patrol."
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The h.e.l.l? Were they actually discussing their numbers, disposition and plans right in the open? Either they were vastly underestimating us, or they were complete and utter idiots.

Then again, the middle guy was pretty strong. I could tell that he was stronger than even Da Du.

This is going to be difficult…

Sighing, I flattened myself against the tree as another series of poison darts thudded against the trunk.

"Fei Wu!" Tong Xue hissed. He did a few gestures with his hands, hand signals developed for combat, and I nodded in understanding. He wanted to flank our enemies, who for some incredibly idiotic reason had chosen to clump themselves up.

As I said, they were extremely over-confident in their ability to take us out. They didn"t even place us in their eyes. To them, we were nothing more than bugs to be squashed underneath the sole of their boots.

They were going to regret this.

At Tong Xue"s signal, the both of us swung from our cover and dashed toward them. Tong Xue had evidently learned Shadow Steps as well – the basic technique available for everyone to learn – while I relied on a combination of footwork techniques that Teacher Jiao taught me and Shadow Steps. The both of us seemed to disappear after the trio launched their stupid barbed poison darts at them, and reappeared behind the stunned trio.

"?!"

"When did they…?"

As we were weaker than the three of them in terms of qi and strength, Tong Xue and I combined our attacks and slashed at the guy in the right. Tong Xue with his Shadow Dagger and me with my Azure Lotus Sword and Shadow Fox. He blocked my attacks, raising his spear to block both of my swords, but Tong Xue swept up from under his guard and slit his throat.

"Gah!"

The guy shrieked as blood fountained out of his throat, his carotid artery and jugular vein having been cut open by Tong Xue. Wow…scary. As expected of someone formerly from the Smart Shadow Sect, which was a subsidiary of the Divine Shadow Sect. Tong Xue had truly mastered the ways of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

No…he had combined the Shadow techniques of the Divine Shadow Sect with the combat techniques of the legendary Blood Blades of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. That made him an even more potent a.s.sa.s.sin than the members of the Divine Shadow Sect. Even Liang Shao Yang wouldn"t be able to match him now.

"f.u.c.king brats!"

"How dare you?!"

The surviving two whirled around to confront us, but Tong Xue and I split up and disappeared back into cover with our footwork, confounding and frustrating the duo.

Honestly, they were stronger than us. If they landed a direct hit on us, we wouldn"t get away with merely superficial injuries. Fortunately, it seemed that we were superior in terms of speed and agility. As long as we could use that to our advantage…

"I"ll take the sneaky brat with the dagger. You take the nerdy brat with gla.s.ses."

"Fine." the middle guy agreed with his surviving comrade"s suggestion. Cracking his knuckles, he drew a sword and came after me.

I glanced at Tong Xue, who shrugged.

"You confident of taking the guy on by yourself?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yeah. What about you?"

Tong Xue grinned. "Let"s do that then. We"ll meet back here after we"re done."

He then streaked through the forest, weaving between the trees like a ghost while his opponent pursued him relentlessly.

Skidding to a stop, I turned to confront the guy in the middle. As I suspected, he was the strongest of the trio, but also the slowest. That was why his partner decided to chase down the faster Tong Xue while leaving me to this guy. I was visibly weighed down by two huge swords while Tong Xue only wielded a dagger and therefore wouldn"t be affected by the weight of his weapons by much.

"You"re pretty unlucky, kid." My opponent licked his blade, which was clearly coated with a layer of poison. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was showing off how he was immune to his own poisons, and proud of the toxins he had concocted. "I"ll try to make your death not so painful."

I didn"t respond. It wasn"t worth wasting my breath on such people.

"You shouldn"t have returned. You might have thought that the Black Venom Cult is nearly on the brink of death, with less than ten of us surviving. But it"s useless. Unless you send out Song Si Yuan or the current Four Saints themselves, none of you will be able to defeat the Great Leader."

"I a.s.sume your Great Leader is the Dark Sage, Sha Chen?" I asked dryly. The guy grinned.

"So you know of him. Surprising…considering the name came from someone of your age. He probably disappeared years before you were born."

Yeah, well…to be honest, I had never heard of him (or I did, but I completely forgot about him because I didn"t have the memory capacity to memorize so many names) until Song Ting Yu and Tong Xue brought him up.

"Doesn"t matter. You"ll never get a chance to meet him, for you"ll die here today! Brat, you should feel honored to die under my hands – the great Darkon!"

"…Darkon? That"s your name?"

Nope, I had never heard of him before. Darkon glowered at me and threw several of his poison darts at me. I swatted them away with my Azure Lotus Sword, only for my opponent to descend upon me with a vicious swing of his sword.

Parrying it with Shadow Fox, I met his blow evenly…only for his qi to explode out violently and hurl me backward.

"Kuh!"

I was sent hurtling back several meters, and despite doing my best to flip myself up and slam my feet down, I skidded quite some distance back. Huffing, I tried to regain my balance, but Darkon was already upon me.

"Weak!"

"!!"

Crossing both my swords, I parried his strike again, but this time his attack was several magnitudes stronger than the last one. I was literally blown back, helplessly hurtling across the swamp several dozens meters away. Trees broke apart as I slammed into them, splinters raining down on me. I eventually crashed onto the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"Gah…kuh…"

Coughing and wheezing, I desperately tried to get to my feet. This guy was strong! So incredibly strong! He was much more powerful than Da Du, who I had faced earlier. Even though I had successfully parried his strike, my arms still felt completely numb from blocking the blow.

It wasn"t that I didn"t want to dodge. It was that Darkon literally moved faster than I could react. Even though I was confident that I was faster, he had caught me by surprise with his speed, and sent me flying before I could activate my footwork.

"d.a.m.n it!"

I couldn"t allow him to force me onto the defensive. I needed to start evading right away.

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Darkon descended upon my position. Fortunately, I was able to avoid him, and quickly used Duo to disappear before launching a counterattack from behind. Darkon lazily swung his sword back and blocked my attack, then swung around to hit me with a swing of his arm.

Fortunately, I was already blurring into nothingness, his arm smashing violently into a tree after sailing through thin air.

"Oho…your speed is impressive, if nothing else."

I merely wiped the blood from my mouth, and used Jin to close the gap between us. Darkon swung his sword down to cleave me in half, but he only cut apart my afterimage. He frowned, and whirled around to catch my sword with his hand.

Shadow Dragon Meteor Strike!

Unleashing a powerful attack at pointblank range, this time I was the one who sent Darkon staggering back. He shook his bleeding hand, black fumes rising from it, and then retaliated with his sword.

I swiftly ducked under it and nicked his leg with Shadow Fox. As Darkon kicked at me in irritation, I twisted away from it and then unleashed a Heavenly Draconic Meteor Strike with Azure Lotus Sword, blasting his face.

"Gah!"

Darkon staggered back. Blood continued to stream down his face, but he seemed more enraged than injured.

"f.u.c.king brat! Venom Dragon Wave!"

Swinging his sword, he blasted me with a venomous wave of qi that corrode the surroundings. The moment the qi from his blast came into contact with the gra.s.s or trees, they immediately withered, turning dessicated as the toxins killed them outright.

b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.ker had no care for the environment. Then again, this was a demonic sect that conducted human experiments just to test out the potency of their venom. Why would they care about anything other than their own interests?

Even though I was immune to his poisons, I knew I couldn"t withstand a powerful attack like that. It was also barreling toward me faster than I could evade – such was the immense size of his Venom Dragon Wave that there was nowhere to run.

Fortunately, I didn"t have to.

Snow Aegis materialized in front of me and absorbed most of the blast, the venomous qi dissipating harmlessly against it.

"That"s…!"

Darkon gaped at me in disbelief, not able to comprehend what had just happened. While he was still trying to digest the current situation, I wasn"t merciful enough to wait for him. Behind him, six mobile turrets unleashed their qi beams, puncturing him in several locations.

"Gah!"

Darkon dropped to his knee, clutching at a couple of his cauterized wounds. He lifted his head and glared at the hovering mobile turrrets, still not comprehending.

"What the f.u.c.k are those!?"

I had no obligation to tell him. Rather, I might as well seize the opportunity to finish him off. Darkon was a formidable opponent, and I couldn"t afford to show him mercy or give him the chance to recover.

So I quickly slashed at him with both swords, but his quick reflexes allowed him to parry my strike. While he stopped my blades cold, my mobile turrets fired another volley of qi beams with unrivaled precision, missing me entirely while lashing out at Darkon"s vulnerable areas from near perfect angles.

However, the same trick wasn"t going to work twice. Instinctively, Darkon forced me away before jumping back to avoid the powerful qi beams.

"f.u.c.king brat!"

With a roar, he unleashed another Venom Dragon Wave at pointblank range. I quickly blocked it with Snow Aegis, but as my Spirit Shield endured against the immense attack, Darkon showed up behind my shield and slashed at me.

"!"

I managed to just barely parry his sword, caught completely by surprise. With a roar, Darkon smacked me away from my Snow Aegis and sent me crashing through the forest. This time, I was more prepared and I managed to dig my feet in, skidding across the soft soil and leaving two deep trails of ruined dirt.

"Huff…"

Pausing to catch my breath, I tried to reorganize my defenses, but just as I refused to give Darkon any chance to recover, he was similarly showing me no mercy. Before I could finish correcting my stance, he was already right in front of me.

"!!"

"Die."

He slashed at me, and I stumbled back after poorly parrying his blade. While I was staggering, Darkon swept in with his hand and slammed his palm against my chest.

"Venom Dragon Palm!"

"Gaaaah!"

Blood spurted from my mouth as I was sent cartwheeling away, smashing through trees and uprooting shrubs and bushes. Crashing heavily onto a ground with an impact tremendous enough to leave a crater, I lay still, stunned.

Strong. This Darkon was so strong.

He had completely overwhelmed me. And this was just one of the elite Black Venom Cultists. I hadn"t even gotten to the Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen, yet.

"Ha ha ha ha! You"re a fool if you ever thought you could beat me, Darkon, the Venom Dragon!"

Laughing triumphantly, my enemy closed in to finish me off.