The Black Venom Cultist fell to the ground as blood spurted from his neck. He writhed, clutching at the ruptured blood vessels in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding, but to no avail. In any case, it was redundant.

Tong Xue finished him off with a dagger to his heart, stabbing him from behind. The Black Venom Cultist"s eyes rolled up in his head before he toppled over.

"Huff…huff…"

Kneeling on the ground, Tong Xue panted. That was a dangerous battle. He had to put every ounce of energy into evading. Just a single hit and he would have died. That was just how close the battle was.

Several venom darts were embedded deeply in the trunks of nearby trees, collateral damage of their fierce battle. Already the trees were withering and decaying, victims to the toxins. It was strange – normally, poisons should only affect certain species. What was poisonsous to animals and humans were not necessarily poisonous to plants and trees.

Yet the toxins the Black Venom Cultists wielded were so potent that both plants and animals were affected by them.

"This isn"t the Black Venom Toxin…" Tong Xue murmured in dismay after he used a portable device to a.n.a.lyze the contents of the poisons in the darts. He shook his head in disappointment. "We need to go to the base camp, after all…"

"Are you all right, Tong Xue?" I asked, emerging into the clearing at that precise moment. My friend raised his head to glance at me, and nodded.

"You won." It wasn"t a question. He grinned and shook his head. "I was worried for a moment, but then I sensed that gigantic attack…there"s no way the b.a.s.t.a.r.d would have survive that."

Right. Heaven and Earth Strike was so powerful that Tong Xue could sense it from such a huge distance away.

"I"m guessing this guy doesn"t have the Black Venom Toxin either." I glance at Tong Xue"s portable device. He nodded.

"That"s right. Looks like we"ve to do this the hard way."

"Ugh."

It would make our lives so much easier if we could just grab the Black Venom Toxin from these fools and head straight back to Duchun Town, but…reality never went the way we wanted it to. Looked like we still had to go to the base after all.

I checked my gla.s.ses to ensure nothing was broken. Fortunately, the frame and hardware were still intact, and the software was working fine. I could see the blue holographic line mapped out in my lenses, leading back toward the Black Venom Cult"s base camp.

"Let"s go." Taking a deep breath, I nodded at Tong Xue, and the both of us continued our perilous journey.

*

"There"s not many of them left," Tong Xue remarked when we reached the outskirts of the Black Venom Cult"s base camp.

"Yeah, Song Ting Yu mentioned that she and her bodyguards had killed a lot. Earlier, the enemy also said there were less than ten of them left. About eight, excluding Sha Chen. We just killed three of them, so there should be the minimum five that they needed to guard the base…a.s.suming they weren"t lying."

"I doubt they were." Tong Xue grimaced. "They were so confident that they could defeat us that there was no point lying. Furthermore, the other two didn"t seem to display any shock, so if it wasn"t an impromptu lie. At the very least, it might be something they came up with before they set out on patrol, but I hardly think they would take the trouble to decide on something as random and trivial as that."

"I agree. Nonetheless, we should check, just to make sure." I focused on using my Heaven and Earth senses to detect the qi presences of the Black Venom Cultists. "Of course, the best case scenario is to avoid all of them."

"Yeah."

The both of us crept closer. As it turned out, the trio out on patrol had been telling the truth. There really was only five left in the base. Perhaps there were more out on patrol, other than the trio we had just dispatched, but I doubed it. Even so, as they say, a.s.sume the worst and hope for the best. We needed contingencies in place to deal with reinforcements.

For now, we should just focus on the mission. With the Heavenly Venom King present, our mission objective was no longer the eradiation of the Black Venom Cult. No doubt the Martial Arts Alliance will be dispatching experts of their own to infiltrate the Toxic Marshes and take him down – he was such a dangerous, high-value target that they couldn"t afford to let him run around. The orthodox sects had to destroy him as soon as possible.

But that wasn"t our problem, not until he showed up back in base. Thankfully, it seemed that he was absent. He must have been pursuing Song Ting Yu, but I doubted he would reveal himself and attack Duchun Town openly. There was still a small garrison of Imperial Guard stationed there. Even though they wouldn"t risk leaving the town to trek through the Toxic Marshes to flush the Black Venom Cult out, they could hold out indefinitely against the Dark Sage until reinforcements arrived.

Too much risk for so little gain. It wasn"t as if Song Ting Yu was his most hated enemy or something. This wasn"t a xianxia story where random enemies chased the protagonist or main characters to the ends of the earth for no reason other than to settle some obscure grudge, because he "offended" them. Seriously, that had to be the most contrived reason ever.

Who the h.e.l.l would waste so much time and resources trying to track down and kill a person just because he "offended" him, or "acted arrogant"? Just to ensure that the protagonist "knows his place"? What the f.u.c.k, dude? Don"t you have better things to do with your time or better ways of spending your money?

Still. Tong Xue and I had best find the Black Venom Toxin, then get the h.e.l.l out of there before the Dark Sage returned. We both continued to creep nearer to the base camp, taking cover behind trees or crawling through uundergrowths to hide from the sight of the sentries. Thankfully there were so few of them left that the sentries weren"t able to cover all angles and directions, and we used that to our advantage.

This feels like the military, I reflected to myself quietly. It had been ages since my service in the military, but I recalled doing the leopard crawl through gra.s.s and soil. Yuck, the natural outdoors were disgusting, with bugs, blades of gra.s.s and particles of soil clinging to my uniform and skin. Don"t listen to those hikers or whoever who professed to love the great outdoors. I don"t doubt they genuinely love nature, but they tended to paint an overly romanticized picture of it. They left out the bugs, dirt, grime and other disgusting stuff that made my skin crawl.

Furthermore, most hikers took the easy, manmade trails that conveniently allowed them to avoid the more unpleasant aspects of nature. That wasn"t coming close to nature. That was you deceiving yourself that you were close to nature when you actually weren"t. I was sure some people avoided the trails altogether, but to do that, you had better receive outdoor survival training, or you"re not going to last a few hours in there. Getting lost was one of the greatest dangers, worse than even encountering a wild predator like grizzly bears and crocodiles. You could starve to death because you had no idea which plants were safe for consumption, or contract diseases from randomly drinking water, especially from springs that were full of bacteria.

Even the military didn"t just throw us into the forest unless they had to, and we were provided with our own rations and jerry cans of water, because it was more hygienic and practical than trying to secure food from nature. Not to mention, we were provided purifying pills that decontaminated water and killed all bacteria inside water collected from nature.

Humans had been living too far from nature to actually be able to live in the wild now. One couldn"t simply break away from civilization and live off the land. The last time I did that, I almost died. If I hadn"t somehow survive the excruciating process of eating monster meat, I would have perished back then, and there would be no story. And that was certainly not an experience I wanted to repeat again. Those months of living in Sen Lin Forest were the darkest periods in my life, and I still shuddered to remember them.

At least I learned some valuable lessons from them.

We both paused when one of the sentries showed up, doing his usual rounds.

"Should we kill him?" Tong Xue whispered as he slowly took out his dagger. He wasn"t stupid enough to unsheathe it, though, for the gleaming blade would definitely draw the sentry"s attention to our position. "Fast, quick cut. I can do it before he realizes we"re here."

"No." I shook my head, keeping my voice as inaudible as possible. "We don"t want the other sentries to realize something is up. They"ll realize something when he stops communicating with them."

As if on cue, the sentry lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth. "All clear here too," he declared. "The northern sector, I mean."

Tong Xue grimaced, and nodded. "You"re right," he mouthed.

We waited for the sentry to turn around the corner before we continued crawling through the undergrowth. The sentry didn"t turn back, thankfully, probably because we had suppressed our qi until it seemed like we were dead.

After what seemed like hours, the both of us finally managed to reach the wall of the base camp. We waited for a few seconds as I closed my eyes and extended my Heaven and Earth senses to locate where the five presences were. Once I was sure they were far enough, I nodded and got to my feet. Tong Xue followed suit.

"It"s now or never," I told him. Then I vaulted over the wall and landed softly in the interior of the base camp. Tong Xue landed beside me, hardly making a single sound. I glanced around and fiddled with my gla.s.ses. "Where"s the respository again?"

Tong Xue smiled and gestured for me to follow him before I could swap the maps in my lenses. "I still remember the way. Over here."

We snuck through the courtyard, staying close to the walls and freezing whenever we detected significant movement from the people inside. There were two sentries prowling along the outer walls, and another two seemed to be inside the main building, which served as their residence. Most likely sleeping, since they didn"t move. The last one was in what seemed like the security office, monitoring the sentries" movements and serving as a communications hub relay. The guard commander, in other words.

Most probably they were doing sentry duties in shifts, so three on guard (one in the office) and checking the perimeter while the other two slept. Made sense. That was similar to how we arranged guard duty back in the military too.

I hung back, stopping Tong Xue only when I sensed movement. Fortunately, the only movement was from the two sentries prowling outside, and the guard commander remained put in his office. At most he just paced about his desk or something (I obviously couldn"t see him) while the last two continued to sleep blissfully.

No sign of the Dark Sage, and I hoped it stayed that way. It would suck if he suddenly showed up.

"Here!"

Tong Xue knelt down to pick the lock of the repository. Unlike the last time, it was shut tight, and it took his Smart Shadow Sect skills to break it open. I waited, keeping a look out for any approaching Black Venom Cultists.

I was so glad that Song Ting Yu"s a.s.sault had left so few remaining, or we would be in trouble. Thanks to the heavy casualties they had suffered, they barely had anyone left in the base camp. That meant we were unlikely to be disturbed.
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"Got it opened!"

Tong Xue exclaimed quietly in triumph and pushed the door open. I continued to keep a lookout before I nodded and followed him in. I shut the door just in case any of the Black Venom Cultists came through and spotted it ajar. That would certainly attract their attention and they would check to see if anyone broke into their main lab.

"Where…?"

We continued inward, searching for the repository where they stored all their toxins. I paused when we strode past the prisons where the abductees were kept earlier, feeling rage wash over me again.

These b.a.s.t.a.r.ds…they didn"t treasure human life, and only saw others as people to experiment on. I recalled Darkon"s twisted logic. "Power speaks for itself." So as long as they were stronger than others, they used that to justify picking on the weak and conducting inhumane experiments on them. After all, the weak had no right to live because "they will never amount to anything" and would thus serve a better purpose in being guinea pigs for their evil experiments.

f.u.c.k that bulls.h.i.t.

"Where are the toxins?" I murmured as I looked around.

"Here." Tong Xue trotted past the cells and stopped at a room that resembled a laboratory. He tried the door and sighed when he found that it was locked again. He observed it for a moment. "Hmm, seems like they"ve restored the security alarm, so we can"t just carelessly open it."

"Then what should we do?" I asked anxiously.

"Leave it to me. I"ll just pick the lock without triggering the alarm. It"s pretty easy." Tong Xue beamed as he took out his set of lock-picking tools.

Whoa…what a scary guy. I shuddered to think what would happen if he wasn"t on my side. He could easily slip into my house, break into any safe and steal all my stuff. Well, I had nothing for him to steal, but imagine if he wasn"t a member of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect and instead chose to stay with the Divine Shadow Sect.

All our Spirit Armaments, treasures and other stuff would be laid open for him to take at his leisure.

In any case, I just stood guard again, staring in the direction of the door and praying anxiously that n.o.body would open it and walk inside, while Tong Xue fiddled with the computerized lock. He had taken out a hi-tech hacking device and connected the wires together, and began running an unlocking program. I was reminded of the hacking device that the United States Colonial Marines used in the movie Aliens.

Ah, that was such an awesome movie, and a legendary cla.s.sic. I should watch it again sometime. Right now, YouTube had the special edition with all the restored footage, which was originally deleted. I just needed to buy it.

After a few tense seconds, there was a click, and the door slid open.

"Got it!" Tong Xue grinned and stood up, unhooking the wires from the computerized lock. We both then hurried inside and began rummaging through the store. There were rows of shelves stacked across three of the walls that did not have the door, each of them containing countless jars, vials and other stuff.

They were all labeled, so we could easily locate the Black Venom Toxin. Tong Xue immediately grabbed a few vials and stored them in his storage device.

"This should be them, right?" I asked. He nodded.

"That"s what they are labeled as," he agreed. To ensure we had the right ones, he whipped out the portable device from earlier and a.n.a.lyzed it. "Yup, the contents match the traces of the toxins found in Song Ting Yu and Yi Ding Si"s bodies. These should be the ones!"

Yeah, even though Lian Rou drew blood from the two, she could only pick up trace elements of the toxins, but was unable to come up with a proper sample to concoct an antidote. Though similar, the trace elements in each toxins were very different, which was why we could check to ensure which toxin was the right one.

"Mission objective completed then. Now to bring those to Lian Rou and Duchun Hospital!" I breathed a sigh of relief, but knew it was far from over. "We have to get back before Yi Ding Si and Song Ting Yu die. I don"t know how much longer the hospital can stabilize their conditions and prolong their lives."

"Yeah, we should hurry," Tong Xue agreed.

We left the repository, trying to make sure nothing was misplaced. Though, with so many of them dead, counting the stock of their toxins and experiments was probably the least of their priorities. They were going to need to survive, probably move their base camp once their leader returned, and rebuild their sect.

Recruitment and finding new members would be their utmost priority. I wouldn"t be surprised if they destroyed the majority of the toxins here. In fact, we were probably lucky that we managed to steal some before they purged their records and stocks.

Otherwise Song Ting Yu and Yi Ding Si wouldn"t be saved…

After stopping by the door and ensuring that no one was in the vicinity, I then pushed it open and both of us exited. As the sentries had shifted their positions and were patrolling other parts of the compound, I led Tong Xue through an alternative route.

"Here!"

This time, we went through a path that took us within view of the front yard. Since there were so few Black Venom Cultists left, they couldn"t spare any manpower to get rid of the corpses strewn about in the courtyard. I could see dozens of Black Venom Cultists" corpses sprawled on the ground, mingling with the occasional Martial Arts Alliance bodyguard, their black suits soaked with blood but not really changing color because of the dark fabric.

I felt a little pity for the dead, all being left to rot here like this. Already there were insects, but it hadn"t even been a day, just many hours, so the bodies hadn"t begun to rot yet.

Even so, the grisly sight was still not something Tong Xue and I enjoyed seeing. We were used to it, having experience the horrendous atrocities of the Martial Arts Alliance when they invaded Nine-Tailed Fox Sect and slaughtered so many of our comrades. Back then, we could still spare the manpower to gather the corpses and burn them, to prevent the spread of diseases and such.

The Black Venom Cultists evidently couldn"t. Or perhaps, beause of their specialized skillset, they didn"t want to. After all, they loved to dabble in diseases, toxins and decay. Death was second nature to them.

Trying our best to ignore the gruesome sight, Tong Xue and I hastily but quietly exited the Black Venom Cult"s base camp. We vaulted over the walls and landed carefully, not making a sound. The two sentries were still way back, but not taking any chances, we dove into the undergrowth and began cautiously crawling our way back toward the trees.

Once we were far enough and out of sight, occasionally pausing so that the sentres wouldn"t notice the faint rustling of gra.s.s and shrubs as we moved, we got up and sprinted toward Duchun Town.

"Phew! We did it!" Tong Xue exclaimed. "That was nerve-wrecking!"

The guy really enjoyed tempting fate, didn"t he?

Right after those words left his mouth, a loud voice thundered across all of the Toxic Marshes.

"What are you fools doing? To think you let two brats escape right under your noses? Did you not notice them at all?!"

I froze, as did Tong Xue. We exchanged glances, and then sprinted as quickly as we could, only for a gray sludge of swampwater to rise over us like a tsunami.

"!!"

The both of dove away in different directions as it splashed down, washing trees away and uprooting them. The entire clearing temporarily turned into a damp marsh, the plants submerged by the dark water.

"Holy f.u.c.k!" I shouted.

"What in the world?!" Tong Xue added in panic.

"Hurry up and get your a.s.ses here! Or do I have to do everything myself?!"

The voice boomed out like thunder, and I immediately detected the five Black Venom Cultists that we had so painstakingly rushing over at high speed. With the G.o.dlike owner of the voice in front of us, and the five Black Venom Cultists behind, it seemed that we were trapped.

Looked like we had no choice but to fight our way out of this mess…