"Huff…"

It had been quite the exhausting, if uneventful journey back. Good thing I had followed Lian Rou into the Toxic Marshes, or I would never have found my way out. My gla.s.ses had mapped out the route we took from Duchun Town to the Toxic Marshes, and I had merely followed the highlighted path. Having such hi-tech gadgets was really a lifesaver.

Honestly, if all I had was a paper map and my sense of direction, I would have gotten lost. Having a compa.s.s would be useless as I had to make several detours anyway. This sucked. Thankfully, my gla.s.ses provided a 3D holographic image that overlapped with the actual terrain in realtime, just like how Dead s.p.a.ce did it.

Man, that was an awesome game. It had been 6 years since the 3rd one. Apparently Electronic Arts screwed up with the third and it was no longer profitable to make a fourth game, never mind that they left an open-ended conclusion for the Dead s.p.a.ce 3 downloadable content, Awakened.

In any event, I managed to reach the town, and could begin tracking down my teammates. Thank Heavens for the wonders of technology.

However, I wasn"t compelely out of danger yet. Right after I stepped out of Sen Lin Forest and right into the outskirts of Duchun Town, I immediately felt the superheated yang qi threatening to burst out of control inside me.

"Gah!"

Clutching my chest, I dropped to my knees as the fiery qi flowed through my qi channels like molten lava. The pain was excruciating and l almost blacked out, but it was ironically the pain that kept me from falling into unconsciousness.

"d.a.m.n it…this was what Xiao Zhang meant when he said the hot spring was only a temporary solution?"

No wonder he gave me those pills. Fumbling for my Snow Aegis, I urgently grabbed the bottle of pills and popped one into my mouth. After swallowing it, I took deep breaths and waited for the agony to abate. Leaning against a tree, I closed my eyes and relaxed.

A few seconds pa.s.sed and the fiery qi died down, almost as if it was extinguished. I knew it would be back, though.

"d.a.m.n…"

Pushing up my gla.s.ses, I wiped the perspiration from my face and rose to my feet. That was quite the painful ordeal. If I wasn"t mistaken, it was about three days since I last took a dip in the h.e.l.lfire Yang Hot Spring. That quick? I thought I would last for a few more days before suffering from the pure yang qi I had absorbed from Mo Long.

Perhaps using my own qi and fighting battles with qi would speed up the process of causing the fiery yang qi to go out of control. I had to be careful. I also had to make sure I had these pills on hand.

Whatever the case, my priority right now was to meet up with my team. My condition could wait.

Using my smartphone, the moment I received a signal, I immediately dialed Tong Xue"s number.

"Wu? Is that you?" Tong Xue"s surprised voice floated over the phone. I nodded out of habit, and then remembered that he couldn"t see me.

"Yup, it"s me all right. Where are you guys?"

"Carlton Hotel. You know, the place next to the bus stop we got off before going on the mission?"

"Roger." I vaguely remembered that. It was a huge, eye-catching building with a luxurious interior, like all hotels of the Carlton brand. Even if I didn"t, I could just use Google Maps, which would conveniently lead me there. The reason why I couldn"t use Google Maps in Sen Lin Forest was because there was no signal or satellite tower in there, and I wouldn"t have access to the Internet or phone service. Now that I was back in town, I found myself restored to the wonders of modern technology.

It felt so relieving, being connected to modernity again.

After hanging up, I proceeded toward Carlton Hotel. My team hadn"t booked rooms, but were instead camped up at the lobby. The refugees looked all right, gorging on meals as if they hadn"t eaten forever. Otherwise they seemed unhurt. That was good.

What wasn"t good, however, was Yi Ding Si. It looked like he was going to die if we didn"t do anything.

"Why haven"t you brought him to a hospital?" I asked as I knelt by his side. Lian Rou had placed him on a mattress, and was trying all sorts of ways to treat him.

"We"re waiting for the ambulance," Lian Rou replied. "We just needed to bring the victims of the Black Venom Cult to a safe place first."

"The police will also be here soon," Tong Xue added. "They"ll take care of these people. But we figure we should give them a place to stay and some food to eat."

They had paid the hotel staff with money from the academy funds to find food and other necessities for the poor people. In any case, they would be the police"s problem, not ours. We would just have to return to the academy after this.

"I see. That"s good then." I glanced at our one casualty. "How is Yi Ding Si holding up?"

Lian Rou looked grim. "Not good, to be honest. I"ve tried all the antidotes I have, but it seems like the Black Venom Cult has developed a new poison. I"ve managed to slow its effects, but unless I synthesize the right antidote soon, we won"t be able to save him. Yi Ding Si will definitely die at this rate."

Just like Zi Sha and Jiu Bu Liao. d.a.m.n it.

"You look like h.e.l.l yourself," Tong Xue remarked as he watched me. "Are you all right? You didn"t get poisoned, did you?"

"Nope," I a.s.sured him. "I"m fine. Just a bit tired." Plastering a grin on my face, I retrieved the heads of the three Black Venom Cultists I killed. "I even slew a few of them. Brought their heads back for the authorities to verify."

"Ugh…" Lian Rou grimaced at the gruesome sight. "Put those away."

"Sorry." I complied and placed them back in my storage device. "But yeah, I"m all right. As you can see, I even defeated those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who chased after us."

"Heh. As expected of you." Tong Xue grinned back and nodded in approval. "Those Black Venom Cultists are no match for you."

"Uh…to be honest, I wouldn"t say that." I briefly filled them in on the details of my match. "It was close," I admitted. "They are really strong. And I don"t think Da Du is even the most powerful of the bunch. He is probably an elite member at best."

"Meaning the real threat is back in the base camp." Lian Rou frowned. "Do you think Song Ting Yu and her bodyguards are fine?"

"Speaking of them, did you not run into them?" Tong Xue asked, looking a little worried. "They"re taking quite a while. Do you think they were really able to defeat the Black Venom Cult? Especially if they could afford to send an elite member after you."

"They"re more skilled and experienced than me," I pointed out. "And they"re in a group. They shouldn"t have any problems. If I can win, then they definitely can." I glanced at the pale Yi Ding Si, who was shivering feverishly and moaning softly. "The only thing now is to find a way to cure Yi Ding Si of his poison."

"The hospital should have the facilities needed to treat him." Lian Rou chewed on her lip. "But it"ll be difficult. If we have a sample of the poison they used, then it"ll be much easier to synthesize an antidote."

"Then let"s do it!" I stood up after taking a swig of water from a bottle that Tong Xue thoughtfully pa.s.sed to me. "I"m heading back to their camp. They should have all those poisons stored inside their lab. Hopefully they would have the antidotes as well."
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No sooner than the words left my mouth did the ambulance arrived, along with an escort of police.

"I"ll speak to the paramedics," Lian Rou said.

"We"ll leave that to you then," Tong Xue agreed and turned to me. "We should get going then. Otherwise Yi Ding Si will not last much longer."

The police decided to leave the prisoners in the hotel, letting them stay there while taking notes and searching their database for information. After an informal exchange, we then left the rescued people to the authorities, and then stepped out of the hotel lobby. At the same time, Lian Rou and the paramedics were carting Yi Ding Si into the ambulance on a wheeled stretecher.

"?"

There was a movement in the forest, which caused Tong Xue, Lian Roou and I to freeze. Did the Black Venom Cult follow us all the way here?

A beautiful figure shot out of the forest, staggering into Duchun Town. She looked battered and in terrible shape, her complexion extremely ghastly, but even so I recognized her.

"Song Ting Yu?"

The girl in a torn pink dress stumbled for a moment and raised her head weakly to stare at me. Then she collapsed, but I had used Jin to appear right in front of her, catching her before she hit the ground. She stared at me, her pupils dilated.

"…Fei Wu? Is that…you?"

"Yeah." I nodded. Quickly helping her toward the hotel lobby, I placed her on the steps so that she could rest and catch her breath. "Are you all right?"

Stupid question. She obviously wasn"t. She was convulsing, finding it difficult to breathe, and I could see black tendrils of smoke leaking from her pink pupils at periodic intervals. She was clearly stricken by something.

As I helped her, I could feel the intense heat radiating from her body. Like Yi Ding Si, she was suffering from a fever. Her lips had gone all white, and her expression trembled along with her shuddering body, revealing the agony she was experiencing.

"Oh no!" Lian Rou cried in alarm. "She"s suffering from the same poison that is afflicting Yi Ding Si!"

"That"s not good." With my Heaven and Earth senses, I could detect her qi gradually disappearing. At the rate it was dissipating, she would probably die in the next week or so. And Yi Ding Si was in an even worse condition, so he would probably succ.u.mb in the next two or three days.

Fortunately, the paramedics were here. They quickly scurried over to inject her with an antidote, to stabilize her condition. That would prolong her life indeterminately, but wouldn"t save her. She would eventually die without the proper antidote.

The same went for Yi Ding Si.

I glanced around, noticing that something was amiss.

"Where are your bodyguards? Where is everyone else? Are you the only one here?"

"My bodyguards?" Song Ting Yu forced a smile, but somehow her usually confident, beautiful expression had twisted into that of despair. "They have been completely wiped out. Every single one of them…thanks to that old monster. All of us have been infected by the Black Venom Toxin."

I felt a chill run down my spine. "What old monster?"

"The leader of the Black Venom Cult." Song Ting Yu grimaced. "d.a.m.n it…I never expected him to show up. I thought he had disappeared all those years ago, but to think that old demon actually…!"

Right now, Song Ting Yu was rambling on and on. I had never seen her in such a terrible state before, but then again I didn"t know her that well. But it didn"t take a genius to tell that she had been infected by a deadly poison. Her face was pale, her eyes were dim, and I could see the acrid black fumes rising from both her eyes and her body.

Without the antidote, she would die soon. As I said, the medics could prolong her life, but that was only a temporary stopgap measure.

"Let"s go," I said to Tong Xue, and he nodded grimly. We left Song Ting Yu to the medics, and proceeded toward Sen Lin Forest.

"Wait!" Song Ting Yu wailed. "Don"t go! It"s suicide! You"re no match for him!"

"No match for who?" now that Song Ting Yu was less delirious, I decided to extract whatever information I could from her. Knowledge is power, and he more I knew about my enemy, the better the chances I stood against him.

"One of the Three Sages, who divided the old Martial Arts Alliance into three factions decades ago …" Song Ting Yu swallowed fearfully. "The Dark Sage…the Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen."

…who?

"The Dark Sage?! The Heavenly Venom King, Sha Chen?!" Tong Xue blurted out, trembling in fear. "How…how is that possible?! Didn"t he die long ago!?"

Again, that name didn"t ring the bell…but the mention of the old Martial Arts Alliance stirred a memory in me. I was a big fan of history, and so I had read up on the history of this world. But given the limited number of years and my bad memory, I couldn"t recall where I had heard of that name before. Even so, I was suddenly reminded of the Twelve Divine Generals. That was definitely a t.i.tle I had read in the history books of this timeline.

"He"s one of the Twelve Divine Generals…the top 12, strongest martial artists from the old era?" I asked in disbelief. "The Four Heavenly Kings from the demonic sects, the Five Emperors from the orthodox sects, and the three sages?"

"That"s right." Tong Xue nodded.

No wonder. I had heard about the Twelve Divine Generals, but obviously I didn"t bother to memorize the name of each and every single one of them.

"Isn"t he from decades ago? How is he still alive?" I was puzzled.

"Sha Chen, the Hevenly Venom King…" Tong Xue shook his head. "When the old Martial Arts Alliance was rea.s.serting their power, they considered him one of them, but they continued to be suspicious of his character."

"He was an arrogant martial artist who only pursued strength, often in the most brutal ways possible," Song Ting Yu continued softly. "Which went against what the Martial Arts Alliance stood for. My grandfather often denounced his ways."

"The war against the demonic sects was what ignited the spark of madness within him, and allowed him to rampage beyond anyone"s control." Tong Xue gulped. "While he boosted the Alliance"s morale initially by killing one of the seven lords from the demonic sects and annihilating his sect, he came into blows with the other pillars of the Alliance and eventually killed two of the Twelve Divine Generals during the war."

Even though they were on the same side? You"ve got to be kidding me…

"Obviously that ended up incurring the wrath of the other martial artists." Song Ting Yu shook her head weakly. "No one knows what the outcome was, because the Dark Sage disappeared once the first war was over. And he didn"t even appear during the second war, the one waged against the Heaven and Earth Sect and its allies."

She then looked at me closely, despite her dilated pupils and feverish stare. Apparently the dark fumes were not hindering her sight.

"If you truly are from the Heaven and Earth Sect, then you have a connection with him," she whispered. "He views your master, the Absolute One, Tian Mo, as his rival. They often clashed when they were younger. When he didn"t show up during the war against the Heaven and Earth Sect and the demonic coalition it led, everyone a.s.sumed that he had died."

Both Tong Xue and I stared at her silently. Even Lian Rou had paused to listen, and she seemed to be trembling at the implications.

"Now that he"s alive…" Song Ting Yu looked at me grimly. "You"ll probably be his priority target if he learns that you are Tian Mo"s disciple."

"…so what?"

Everyone turned to me. I shrugged.

"That doesn"t change the fact that we need to go back to the Black Venom Cult"s base camp. We need to find a sample of the Black Venom Toxin and bring it back so that Lian Rou can synthesize an antidote. Otherwise both you and Yi Ding Si will die."

"It"s useless." Song Ting Yu was bitter. "If you go there now, you"ll definitely die. You"re no match for him. You"ve done your best and fulfilled your mission…we"ve managed to kill almost ninety percent of the Black Venom Cult. But the news of Sha Chen being alive changes everything. This is no longer a mission that you students can undertake. We have to send the top experts of the Martial Arts Alliance after him."

She seemed to straighten up, despite her pale complexion.

"Since the Dark Sage was an ex-member of the old Martial Arts Alliance, it is our responsibility to take care of him."

"You won"t be able to survive until then," Lian Rou warned quietly. She then turned to me and Tong Xue. "But that doesn"t mean the two of you should be reckless either!"

I looked at Song Ting Yu, and then I turned my gaze toward Yi Ding Si. Both of them were in terrible condition, and the latter in particular didn"t seem like he was going to survive for anything longer than a day.

I made my decision.

"I"ll find the Black Venom Toxin. I swear. No matter what I have to do, no matter the cost, I"ll definitely get a sample of the Black Venom Toxin." I turned to Lian Rou. "You can synthesize the antidote if I do, right?"

"Yes, but that"s too reckless! You heard what Song Ting Yu said. You"re no match for a monster of that level!"

"Does it matter?" I didn"t seem to care. "Whoever the enemy is, I"ll just deal with him when I get there. Besides, the mission isn"t to kill him. It"s just to get the sample. I"m confident that I can run away, if anything."

"You"re vastly underestimating the power of the Dark Sage Sha Chen," Song Ting Yu coughed, looking frailer than before. "You can"t outrun him. He"s on a completely different level. He wiped out my entire entourage in just a minute."

"Even so, I"ll find a way. I"m not going to just sit around and watch you guys die. If there"s a chance, no matter how miniscule, I"ll take it." I was already heading toward Sen Lin Forest. It was useless trying to persuade me. I had already made my resolve.

"Ah…I"m coming with you."

"Tong Xue!" Lian Rou"s voice was sharp.

"What?" Tong Xue shrugged. "Fei Wu needs me to watch his back. I"m not going to let him walk into danger on his own."

"Thanks." I always knew I could count on him. He was a better friend than Zhu Jiao ever was. To be fair, if Zhu Jiao was here, he would follow me too. That guy would be willing to walk through the gates of h.e.l.l, though whether it was because he was friends with me or because he had to play the hero and rescue a beautiful heroine like Song Ting Yu was another question altogether.

"Don"t thank me yet." Tong Xue snorted and wore a bitter expression. "I swear, if I die, I"m going to haunt you."

"If I don"t die with you," I responded with an equally grim smile. "But I"ll try to make sure you stay alive at all costs."

"Hey, don"t go raising death flags now. And don"t think I"ll let you off the hook if you try to play the hero and sacrifice yourself to save me."

Both of us were already bantering as we proceeded into Sen Lin Forest.

"Wait!" Song Ting Yu cried out, trying one last time to stop us. "Don"t do it! You"ll only be walking to your deaths!"

"It"s useless to stop them," Lian Rou told her with a shake of her head. "Once they"ve made up their minds, nothing we say will sway them."

"Are you really just going to let them go like this?" Song Ting Yu asked incredulously. Lian Rou smiled a little sadly.

"…yes. Right now, the only thing I can do is believe in them." she raised her head proudly. "Tong Xue and Fei Wu have survived odds worse than this before."

Obviously she didn"t mention the invasion of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect and how we miraculously escaped destruction, especially to someone who was a member of that Alliance who tried to exterminate us. But her meaning was clear.

"And this is for your sake. They are risking their lives just so they can save your life…so don"t you forget that."

Song Ting Yu fell silent, and she shrank back, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears.