"Eh?"

Even as she cried out in shock, Tang Qi Hong was already moving, adopting a defensive stance as she kept her eyes on her would-be a.s.sa.s.sin.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" the a.s.sa.s.sin growled as he slammed his palm against me, but I managed to block his strike with both my forearms. Even then, the shockwave of qi threw me several meters back, causing me to skid backward.

"Ouch!" I complained, shaking both my arms. "What the h.e.l.l was that for?!"

"He actually didn"t die?!"

The a.s.sa.s.sin stared at me with wide eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.

As one of the three Great Shadow Guards, Gray Shadow had been brought up in a brutal environment during his time in the Divine Shadow Sect (which was practically his whole life), and had trained in a.s.sa.s.sin techniques since young. As a child, he was thrown into the grinder, and was only able to survive by climbing atop the corpses of his comrades. And only then was he finally acknowledged as someone with the right to learn the various a.s.sa.s.sination techniques and high-level cultivation methods of the Divine Shadow Sect.

Even though the three Great Shadow Guards were not formidable martial artists in a frontal a.s.sault, in terms of a.s.sa.s.sinations and ambushes, they were supposed to be unrivaled.

To them, taking a life was as easy as turning over a hand.

It was just too bad they ran into me, someone who had mastered Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps and sharpened my Heaven and Earth senses to their limits. Thanks to that, I could practically detect the flow of qi in everybody, and notice even the minutest of changes in their qi. That was how I picked up on that murderous intent from Gray Shadow.

Gray Shadow had been keeping watch at the entrance of the main sect grounds of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect since this morning, looking for a chance to a.s.sa.s.sinate Tang Qi Hong. Since Tang Qi Hong was the top priority target, I was nothing more than an innocent bystander who deserved not even the tiniest attention. Of course, if I interfered, Gray Shadow was prepared to kill me to get me out of the way, but he was confident of taking out his primary target before I even noticed.

He was not stupid enough to waste effort killing a secondary target and thus potentially alerting his primary target to his presence, which would give her the chance to react, defend herself or escape. He was not that unprofessional.

That trick almost worked. In fact, it would have if I hadn"t mastered Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps. If I wasn"t a disciple of the Heaven and Earth Sect, I would never have noticed him creeping up on us, and wouldn"t have realized that he had a.s.sa.s.sinated Tang Qi Hong as she suddenly fell to the ground, lifeless.

Gray Shadow would then slipped back into the crowd, unnoticed, while I held Tang Qi Hong"s dead body and panicked. There was no sense in exposing himself by killing more than was necessary. His primary target was Tang Qi Hong, and the entire mission of the Divine Shadow Sect hinged on whether she died or not.

Unfortunately for him, I had thwarted his a.s.sa.s.sination attempts and even exposed his presence in front of everybody.

Of course I wasn"t speculating about all those nonsense at that moment. My priority was to protect Tang Qi Hong, and to do that, I would have to defeat this guy, and perhaps capture him to interrogate him on his master. For now, I froze an ice sword out of thin air and swung the frost blade at Gray Shadow.

"!!!"

Gray Shadow took a step back, but my frost blade shattered harmlessly over his chest. To be more precise, it broke against the protective qi aura covering his chest. Looked like I needed to use a proper weapon against a high-leveled foe like him.

"Heh."

For his part, Gray Shadow looked amused when he realized how brittle my improvised ice weapon was. His eyes glinted menacingly and he grinned.

"Hiss!"

"Whoa!"

I retreated, panicking as three small emerald-scaled snakes burst ouf of his sleeves slithered toward me. They were pretty small, about as thin as a finger and a meter long, but their emerald scales gleamed dangerously in the sun.

Obviously they were venomous. If they bit me…well, nothing would happen. Never mind the h.e.l.lfire Badger"s property I gained from eating it, I had attained full immunity to poisons from my Heaven and Earth Formula.

The tiny emerald snakes glided through the air, baring their fangs and sinking them into my neck. I cried out in pain and grabbed at them, seizing them by their necks.

"Fei Wu!"

"Emerald Serpents!"

Tang Qi Hong and an unfamiliar person both shouted almost simultaneously. Despite the conflict unfolding before their eyes, the martial artists patronizing the surrounding stalls merely stood still and didn"t move.

In this lawless zone where an underground market thrived, such conflicts were frequent. Many a martial artist had killed each other over crooked deals, and there were cases of martial artists hunting down a conman doing business in here and killing him for cheating him. It was not uncommon for fights to break out.

As the Blood Blades and authorities left this autonomous place to its own devices and looked the other way, it was unlikely that they would show up to help. The Nine-Tailed Fox Sect did not flaunt their authority in this place, and left it alone. Aware of the fact, many criminals or martial artists chose this as a venue to settle their grudge. And the regulars and vendors here knew better than to intervene in these sort of matches.

In fact, the crowd actually sat back to enjoy the show, as if it was everyday entertainment. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds…

The only movement came from the nearby vendors, who tried their best to protect their stalls, praying fervently that the conflict did not spill over to their territory.

Gray Shadow had known about this, having done his research on Tushan City, which was why he chose to a.s.sa.s.sinate Tang Qi Hong in this lawless place. If she died here, even the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would find it difficult to pursue the matter. Most of the vendors here were already prepared for death when they set up their stalls here, and the martial artists who patronized this place had known that they had to look out for themselves in this place.

Good thing I was looking out for myself and Tang Qi Hong.

"That hurts!" I whined, not caring about the f.u.c.king crowd and crushing the three snakes, killing them instantly. Yanking their jaws from my neck, I hurled them onto the ground and then stomped on them to make sure they stayed dead. I then raised my head to glare at Gray Shadow. "What"s that for?! Are you trying to bite off more than you can chew?"

"H…how?!"

"How what?" I responded, amused. Gray Shadow spluttered, shaking his head and trying to wrap his mind around what was going on.

"The venom of those Emerald Serpents should be enough to kill an Elegant Elephant instantly! Yet you"re still alive and moving around as if nothing happened?"

"It does hurt," I admitted as I clamped a hand on my wounded neck and winced as the venom coursed through my body. Even with full immunity to venom, it would still take some time for my system to develop the antibodies to neutralize it. Not to mention I had to spend some qi to suppress it. However, compared to the toxins I had suffered from, or been injected with in the past, the Emerald Serpents" venom was nothing. "But it"s nowhere as lethal as a Hydra"s or h.e.l.lfire Toxin. Sorry, but it"s not going to be enough to kill me."

Gray Shadow"s jaw dropped and he did a perfect imitation of a goldfish swimming around in a bowl.

"Who are you?!" Tang Qi Hong shouted angrily. "How dare you attack a Nine-Tailed Fox Sect inner sect disciple in Tushan City?!"

Gray Shadow broke out of his stupor and responded by swinging both his hands. I blinked, conjuring an ice shield in front of me in instinct, and his qi blast crushed it. However, even as my improvised ice shield shattered, most of the impact from the shadowy blast dissipated harmlessly. Around me, fragments of frost sprayed the surrounding vendors and martial artists, but they channeled their qi to summon protective auras of qi, which disintegrated the shattered ice that rained on them.

Thanks to that, no one was hurt by the sharp icy fragments.

"Flame Silk!"

Tang Qi Hong defended herself with a yell. I had to roll my eyes, wondering why she was shouting the name of her Spirit Artifact.

Six ribbons emerged from her spatial device, flapping silently in the air as they blazed fiercely. Manipulated by Tang Qi Hong"s qi, they formed a flexible barrier in front of her, the purple flames burning so hotly that many martial artists nearby were forced to retreat as they tried to avoid being seared by the incredible heat.

"Inner sect disciples! They"re actually inner sect disciples!"

"No, the boy is one of the Blood Blades!"

"What are they doing here?!"

Only now did the martial artists in Free Trade Street notice the nine-tailed foxes pinned to our uniform collars, and they realized who we were.

Despite their surprise, none of them made any move to help me and Tang Qi Hong. They merely kept their distance.

"Um…shouldn"t we be helping?"

"Help who?"

"The kids?"

"Why? Do you know the kids?"

"No, but they"re from the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, right?"

"So what? If you don"t know them, then how do you know they didn"t do anything to offend that man over there?"

As fights were very frequent in the Free Trade Street, there was an unspoken rule. Normally the people here wouldn"t intervene in the affairs of others. That is to say, they would not meddle in the fights between other martial artists, unless they knew for sure who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Furthermore, this area was not under the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect"s jurisdiction, so no one was obligated to help the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect.

"Won"t we get in trouble if an inner sect disciple from the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect gets killed here?" one of the more astute vendors asked, but n.o.body paid him any attention.

"Who cares? They don"t own this area. They"ve let us do whatever we want all this time, why would they suddenly come and make trouble?"

"Yeah, if they do, we"ll fight back!"

With that settled, the crowd automatically made s.p.a.ce for Gray Shadow to fight the two of us. They stood off in the distance, watching the show and gossiping amongst themselves. A few opportunistic vendors even went around collecting bets.

They really were used to fights breaking out here all the time…

Whoosh!

The six flaming ribbons danced about, flying majestically in the air and casting a vicious purple glow on the streets.

"Nine Shuriken Stars!"

Why the f.u.c.k was she shouting the name of her Spirit Armaments? Was she trying to show off? That must be it, right? She was trying to show off what kind of Spirit Armaments she had!

While I resisted the urge to bury my face in my palm, nine shuriken stars launched from Tang Qi Hong"s pockets and streaked through the air like comets, leaving a trail of glittering light behind. Then they seemed to vanish.

"Uh…why did you even use those Nine Shuriken Stars for?"

I threw my hands up, wondering what the whole point of that was, if she wasn"t using them to attack Gray Shadow. Tang Qi Hong ignored me, already reaching for her next Spirit Artifact. At the same time, Gray Shadow, upon realizing that the Nine Shuriken Stars weren"t going to hit him, launched an attack of his own.

"Shooting Divine Beam!"

"What kind of f.u.c.king name is that!?" I screamed in exasperation, even as the shadowy beam of deadly qi arced toward Tang Qi Hong. Shaking my head, I stepped in and got ready to defend my crush, but she was one step ahead of me.

"Cloud Shield!"

A dense cloud of qi solidified in front of Tang Qi Hong, taking the shape of a large shield of light.

"Are you seriously going to keep shouting the names of your Spirit Artifacts?" I demanded as I watched Gray Shadow"s Shooting Divine Beam bounced off it harmlessly. Again, neither of them responded.

"Frost Bone Spear!"

Without pausing, Tang Qi Hong drew another Spirit Armament from her spatial ring and hurled it at her enemy. Made from five white bones, the deadly spear howled in a fearsome manner as it charged at Gray Shadow, leaving a chilling trail of ice in its wake.

"Kuh!"

Gray Shadow jumped up and flipped himself over the Frost Bone Spear, just narrowly dodging it, but as it clipped the front of his clothing, it froze his shirt. Cursing, he tried to channel his qi into stopping and destroying the rapidly expanding ice.

However, Tang Qi Hong wasn"t going to give him the time to recover.

"Nether Ghost Claw!"

"Can you stop shouting the names of your Spirit Armaments?!" I bellowed, clutching my head in exasperation.

Tang Qi Hong ignored me as she raised her hand. A huge claw appeared as she tossed it into the air. The gigantic claw immediately surged forward to grab hold of Gray Shadow while he was still dodging the Frost Bone Spear in midair.

I glared at Tang Qi Hong. "I swear, if you"re going to yell out the name of your next Spirit Armament…"

Fortunately, she didn"t, so I took a deep breath and calmed down. As I did so, I could hear the crowd muttering amongst themselves.

"Profound Level Spirit Artifact! It"s at least third rank!"

"That light shield is most likely fourth rank!"

"That bone spear is definitely at least third rank!"

"Nether Ghost Claw. T…this is the claw of the Bloodthirsty Blade Ghost from the Nether Fields! Bloodthirsty Blade Ghosts are Rank Four demonic creatures, so this claw should be a Profound Level fifth rank Spirit Weapon!"

The crowd were unable to restrain themselves, exclaiming in awe as they stared at Tang Qi Hong"s Spirit Armaments greedily, impressed by their quality. Not only that, she was unleashing them one after another as if she had an abundance of them. Knowing Tang Qi Hong, of course she had an abundance of them.

Bolts of fiery light, comet-like Shurikens (they finally showed up!), a spear and a ghost claw all fell upon Gray Shadow"s position in unison. As much as he tried to dodge, Gray Shadow found himself overwhelmed by their speed and sheer numbers, and was instantly engulfed in a blinding explosion of ferocious qi.

Boom!

The lenses of my gla.s.ses automatically darkened to protect my eyes from the glaring light as the Spirit Armaments detonated against the desperately retreating Gray Shadow. Tremors rippled from the epicenter, causing the ground to tremble from the tremendous impact.

Sh…

As the smoke cleared, Gray Shadow"s battered condition was revealed. His gray clothes had been mostly blown to shreds, and the dark brown Spirit Armor that he wore was cracked from the ma.s.sive attack. He groaned as he lay helplessly on the ground, bleeding from numerous wounds all over his body.

"Kuh…"

Gritting his teeth, he rose to his feet shakily, his hands glowing as he gathered lethal qi into them. Glaring at Tang Qi Hong, he snarled.

"You think that"s enough to take me down?"

Tang Qi Hong merely responded with a grim expression, and raised her hands to gather her Spirit Armaments back to launch them for a second attack.

She needn"t had bothered.

"Maybe not, but this will."

"?!"

Gray Shadow looked up, but his sight was immediately clouded by shadow before I landed on top of his head. Planting my foot on his scalp, I unleashed a ma.s.sive amount of qi with Seismic Step.

Boom!

This time, the brown armor completely shattered. A fountain of blood spurted into the air as Gray Shadow collapsed into a gigantic crater that swallowed him whole. His eyes rolled up in his head and blood gushed out from his mouth as he twitched.

"That should do it," I remarked as I casually landed a few meters away. Tang Qi Hong frowned in disapproval and waved to me.

"Over here!"

Apparently she was taking no chances, remaining behind the Cloud Shield for defense. I glanced at the fallen Gray Shadow, and then shook my head.

"I"ll take care of this fella."

"…"

Tang Qi Hong didn"t look pleased, but she couldn"t deny that Gray Shadow was down. I could only sense faint trickles of dormant qi from him, which meant that he was unconscious. This was good. It meant I could capture him and have Elder Zhao interrogate him.

I was determined to find out who the h.e.l.l was behind Tang Qi Hong"s a.s.sa.s.sination. I had an idea, but surely Liang Shao Yang couldn"t be so stupid as to take such a huge risk in trying to eliminate his only rival, not when he was this close to succeeding as the next candidate for the position of future sect leader.

"Hmph!"

Tang Qi Hong clenched her fists and waved them in a strange mixture of triumph and anger. She began raving excitedly.

"What a reckless idiot! Who the h.e.l.l does he think he is? To think that he had the audacity to dare attack us inside Tushan City, which is Nine-Tailed Fox Sect territory? It looks like he has no idea how powerful this grandaunt here is!"

"Grandaunt…come on now, you"re not that old…"

Even though I knew it was just an expression for Chinese speakers to mock their opponents (basically if I wanted to sneer at Gray Shadow, I would be going, "how stupid of you to try and challenge this grandfather!"), I couldn"t say I was very fond of it. I was not from mainland China, and even back in my home country where I was born in before I ran off to the States to study in graduate school, I rarely used that term. Actually, the main lingua franca of my original home country (which was a tiny island in the middle of Southeast Asia) was English.

I glanced at Gray Shadow again. The shuriken stars and bone spear were hovering cautiously in midair, ready to attack again if he so much as stirred. Qi swirled up within them, charging the Spirit Weapons for another round of attacks.

As if they weren"t enough, the Nether Ghost Claw remained on standby, howling chillingly as it floated above Gray Shadow"s head.

"Now I know why the Blood Blades are so terrifying."

"If those Blood Blades are also equipped with a handful of Spirit Armaments like those, then they must be quite the force to be reckoned with."

"Never mind their Spirit Armaments…did you see that Blood Blades youngster? I have never seen such a devastating technique before…and he"s able to execute it despite his age! He hasn"t even drawn any Spirit Weapon yet!"

"Yeah, not a good idea to offend them…"

The crowd were gushing to themselves and doing the usual praise-the-main-characters thing. Not paying any attention to them, I cautiously approached Gray Shadow.

Even though I had no idea what stage or realm or level he was, I knew that this man was a high-level a.s.sa.s.sin. Not that sort of level. I meant he was pretty powerful and skilled. Like I said, if I hadn"t learned Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps, I would never have realized that he was nearby, and wouldn"t even noticed him if he killed Tang Qi Hong right in front of me.

Such an a.s.sa.s.sination technique was terrifying.

Furthermore, I was glad that Tang Qi Hong was here to help me. Judging from Gray Shadow"s strength, it would be very difficult for me to fight him on my own. Especially after I got bitten by the Emerald Serpents – their lethal venom had been coursing through my veins and I had to spend some time suppressing it while waiting for my toxin immunity to kick in and neutralize it. It was only after Tang Qi Hong had weakened him with her bombardment of Spirit Armaments that I was able to exploit an opening and unleash my most powerful non-weapon attack on him.

And even then, I failed to kill him. This guy was one tough motherf.u.c.ker. I could only thank the Heavens for plot armor. Then again, I wasn"t even his target to begin with…

Ahead of me, Gray Shadow groaned softly. Keeping his eyes shut, he cursed inwardly.

Originally he had planned to silently a.s.sa.s.sinate Tang Qi Hong before slipping away quietly before anyone noticed his presence. He had never expected me to detect his presence and halt his attack. It was just so coincidental that I was the one accompanying Tang Qi Hong today. If it was Lian Rou, most likely the nefarious a.s.sa.s.sin would have succeeded and got away scot-free.

In other words, my existence had ruined his perfect plan. Didn"t that make me as much of a protagonist as Zhu Jiao, being at the right place at the right time and saving the day?

"Your grandaunt here might not be good at fighting, but I have a ton of Spirit Armaments! I don"t even need to fight you, I can just crush you to death with Spirit Armaments alone!" Tang Qi Hong was gloating. Never mind that she did in actual fact use the core princples of the Nine Heavenly Armaments Technique, which was precisely the high-speed control and attacks with multiple Spirit Weapons at the same time.

A true master who had mastered the Nine Heavenly Armaments Technique would be able to wield nine Spirit Weapons simultaneously. Despite her impressive display, Tang Qi Hong had only wielded five Spirit Weapons, a little over half of what would otherwise be the full potential of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect"s premier technique.

Essentially the Nine Heavenly Armaments Technique was a match made in heaven for the blacksmiths and Spirit Engravers of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. As every blacksmith was excellent in the control of their Spirit Artifacts with their spirit and mind, they would be able to easily manipulate their Spirit Artifacts to attack and defend simultaneously, wielding multiple of them at once. That was also the reason why Elder Hai Mo was so invested in getting the Blood Blades battle puppets and battle-automata. As the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, we were expected to excel in manipulating so many artifacts and weapons at the same time, and the battle-automata counted as a type of Spirit Artifact.

This applied even more to the blacksmiths and Spirit Engravers, who must be able to control their mind, consciousness and spirit with absolute precision, so that they could control the spiritual energy and qi inside each Spirit Diagram. Make one small mistake, and their efforts would go to waste, the Spirit Engraving falling apart completely.

That was why I sucked at Spirit Engraving. I always made mistakes, and I could never reach the level of precision required for top Spirit Engravers.

Unlike me, Tang Qi Hong exceled in this sort of thing, and she was able to flawlessly control the Nine Shuriken Stars, Frost Bone Spear and Flame Silk, getting them to surround Gray Shadow and bombard him from multiple directions at once. It was almost as if they were bestowed minds of their own. No matter how desperately Gray Shadow evaded or defended, the three independent Spirit Armaments would seek out his blind spots or vulnerabilities, break through his defenses and punish him brutally.

"I still have plenty of Spirit Armaments that I haven"t brought out, you know," Tang Qi Hong giggled as she ma.s.saged her spatial device. "To be honest, I"m kind of disappointed that you were defeated so easily before I could bring any more out."

"Are you seriously telling him that?" sighing, I strode over and smacked Tang Qi Hong across her head. "Stop showing off and gloating arrogantly. It"s unsightly. Be gracious in victory. Besides, it"s utter stupidity to reveal your trump cards to your enemy."

"Oh, come on! Let me enjoy my moment!" Tang Qi Hong complained like a spoilt brat. I couldn"t help but bury my face in my palm.

To be fair, it was clear that Gray Shadow was actually stronger than Tang Qi Hong, whether it was combat techniques or cultivation. Unfortunately, he specialized in a.s.sa.s.sination techniques – in other words, stabbing people in the back, launching sneak attacks and carrying out ambushes. Consequently, he was inexperienced in direct fights.

To make matters worse, Tang Qi Hong was just drawing Spirit Weapon after Spirit Weapon and bombarding him relentlessly, which threw him off and completely overwhelmed him. If he struck from the shadows, he could kill her easily, but even he wouldn"t be able to escape the relentless pursuit of such power Spirit Armaments.

Now he truly understood why the sect leader of the Divine Shadow Sect had schemed for so long and invested so much resources, effort and time into trying to gain control of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. if the other inner sect disciples and elders were anything like Tang Qi Hong, then the sect was truly a force to be reckoned with.

No wonder they were among the eight major sects of the Martial Arts Alliance. They truly deserved their position there…

"Fei Wu, are you all right?" Tang Qi Hong suddenly recalled what sparked off the entire fight in the first place and turned to me worriedly. "You were bitten by those Emerald Serpents…we need an antidote!"

"Do I look like I need an antidote?" I retorted. If the venom really worked on me, I would be dead long ago.

"How?" Tang Qi Hong"s eyes widened and she stared at me in wonder. I waved my hands dismissively.

"That"s not important. More importantly, I want to know who this f.u.c.ker is and why he"s trying to a.s.sa.s.sinate you."

One of the onlookers from the crowd whistled.

"Wow…the Blood Blades really live up to their reputation."

I cast him a glare, which caused him to retreat involuntarily. These f.u.c.kers, all they did was stand and watch instead of helped. I couldn"t be bothered to curse them. I then turned my attention back to the motionless Gray Shadow.

"We should bring him back to Elder Zhao," I suggested. "Maybe he"ll be able to find out what this is all about."