Chapter 122

Severely wounded Zhu Zixi.

Zhu Zixi was still being drained of his essence and blood by the strange woman from afar.

Facing the invisible force field, Zhu Zixi couldn't react in time.

He was dragged back several dozen meters again, and several white lights flashed, leaving several more transparent holes in his body.

It seemed that the longer one stayed within the abyss's attack range, the higher the frequency of the white light's attacks and the greater their lethality.

Wu Tie saw a white light as thick as a sea bowl strike Zhu Zixi, piercing his abdomen.

Zhu Zixi let out agonized screams he could no longer bear, gasping loudly; his wounds were smooth as a mirror, with not a trace of blood flowing out, yet from his gasping one could feel his pain and despair.

Another white light swept by, vaporizing half of Zhu Zixi's skull and exposing the brain tissue inside.

A hysterical surge of magical power came from within Zhu Zixi; his body turned into a bloody mist, he lunged upward, finally breaking free of the invisible force field's restraint and escaping to a safe spot on the cliff.

As his body leapt over the cliff, several white lights crisscrossed, slicing off both his legs at the thighs; they fell toward the abyss's bottom. The small pterosaurs in the abyss, excited, shot up and scrambled for the two legs.

The white light did not attack those small pterosaurs; it seemed able to discern what target would pose a threat to the Fog Blade Ancestral Land.

Wu Tie, cautious, kept his back pressed against the cliff and inched his way back onto it.

Covered in wounds, with a basin-sized transparent hole in his abdomen, only his right hand remained, and several puncture wounds marred his chest; Zhu Zixi lay dying on the ground, eyes wide open, staring at Wu Tie in terror and despair.

Wu Tie gripped the White Tiger Split tightly and stepped toward Zhu Zixi.

A cluster of Blood Light flickered at Zhu Zixi's brow; he tried to counter Wu Tie, but blood plasma gushed from the area where his skull was missing, the little magical power he mustered dissipated, his body convulsed violently, and he finally collapsed helplessly to the ground.

"Please." Zhu Zixi's lips twitched, and he hoarsely begged Wu Tie: "Please, I'm about to die, please."

Wu Tie warily approached Zhu Zixi, raised the White Tiger Split, and fiercely pierced his chest, pinning him to the ground. Murderous aura surged from the White Tiger Split; Zhu Zixi's face turned deathly pale, and his vitality was almost shattered by that single blow.

After all, he was a Superb Valley Hand of the Life Pond Realm; Zhu Zixi had already been reduced to this state, clinging to life with a dying breath as he gave Wu Tie a grim smile.

"You won, I lost… Please do me one favor: give me all the treasures on my person… Without me, you could never obtain these treasures; hand them all over, and promise me you'll escort Yu Mo… my dear little girl… wherever you go."

Zhu Zixi drew a deep breath, looked at Wu Tie, and said in a low voice: "Even if you marry her, it would be fine. When I die, no one will protect her; in the Changsheng Sect she will surely wish she were dead. My sons and grandsons are a bunch of good-for-nothings; they can't protect her."

"Yu Mo is a good girl… the Changsheng Sect is no good place… Take her away, the farther the better. The treasures and wealth on my person can let you live well." Zhu Zixi's eyes welled with two lines of blood tears as he softly pleaded with Wu Tie.

"I'm not a good person, I admit… there are no good people in the entire Changsheng Sect… but Yu Mo is a good girl… and Qing Yuan is also a good girl… You can take them away, or even marry them."

His gaze unfocused, Zhu Zixi murmured: "You, a kid at the Sensory Mystery Realm, can unleash an attack comparable to that old coot Shi Guan's full-force strike… If you don't die young, your future will be promising. Your character…"

He gave a strange laugh and said in a low voice: "Your character… is far better than that bunch of bastards in the Changsheng Sect, isn't it?"

Wu Tie stared at Zhu Zixi in astonishment and said in a deep voice: "You know the Changsheng Sect is bad; why don't you try to change it?"

Zhu Zixi moved his neck, shook his head, and thick brain fluid kept oozing from the missing part of his skull. He cough-coughed and laughed, the laugh strained, but his expression held no ferocity, only a trace of kindness and gentleness.

"Why change anything? This damned world is survival of the fittest; those with power rule everything, all wealth and offspring, life and death, seizure and plunder—isn't that just the natural order? Kid… remember, this is an age without law or heaven."

"Power decides everything; besides power, believe in nothing… good? evil? kindness? wickedness? black? white? justice? evil? All bullshit!"

Blood kept pouring from Zhu Zixi's mouth as he looked at Wu Tie and gave a grim smile: "I can't hold on… promise me you'll take good care of Yu Mo… I can't hold on… the Changsheng Sect's cultivation methods are evil arts, wicked techniques; they progress rapidly but have shallow foundations…"

"A true good cultivation method allows a Life Pond Realm cultivator to survive even if his fleshly body is shattered."

"I can't; the Changsheng Sect's arts are too evil, too wicked, too vile… I can't hold on, kid—have you thought it through?"

Wu Tie fell silent for a moment, recalling how, in the secret passage leading to the Yan family's inner lands, Zhu Zixi had pursued them when Yu Mo suddenly appeared—a pure, innocent little girl who brought joy at first sight.

And the Changsheng Sect…

It is an evil, licentious, depraved, corrupt force.

As Zhu Zixi said, without his protection, Yu Mo's fate would truly be worse than death.

Gazing at the dying Zhu Zixi, Wu Tie said in a low voice: "I promise you, if I can meet Yu Mo, I will look after her for a while until she is safe… but I am not doing this for your treasures… I…"

Zhu Zixi grinned, a large chunk of flesh and blood bursting from his right wrist; with difficulty he chanted a few incantations, condensing a delicate bracelet from the blood and flesh, inlaid with a square black crystal an inch on each side.

"I don't trust my sons and grandsons… nor the disciples and descendants of the Changsheng Sect—they're all black-hearted bastards, not a single good thing among them." Zhu Zixi's gaze wandered, he stammered: "All the treasures, all the wealth… the spoils of a lifetime of pillage… they're all in there, all in there…"

Zhu Zixi's body convulsed violently, blood mist continually spraying from his brow.

His Life Pond was collapsing, his magical power dissipating, his vitality turning into blood mist that kept welling up. His gaze darkened, his whole body twitching as he murmured: "Ah Bi, Ah Bi… I've come… I've come… I miss you… heh… I'm so afraid of death… yet I've come…"

From afar came a sharp, long howl; the stunning woman who had stepped out of the scroll swooped back in an instant, turning into a dark wind that whirled rapidly around Zhu Zixi several times; she suddenly clapped and laughed, then lightly danced a circle around him.

Freedom!

The woman gave Wu Tie a sideways glance, completely ignoring him, chuckled lightly, and transformed into a wavering blood-colored rainbow that shot straight up to the vault of heaven, swiftly disappearing into it.

"Freedom?" the Zhu Zixi lying on the ground gave a strange, vicious laugh: "Let's die together… you're mine… where else do you want to go?"

Zhu Zixi's flesh and blood ignited, turning into a black blaze that burned.

From deep within the vault came the woman's shrill wail; the piercing cries felt like iron needles stabbing hard into Wu Tie's ears, his vision went black, his brain throbbed with pain, and he nearly fainted.

The wail lasted only a breath before cutting off abruptly; Wu Tie fearfully lifted his gaze to the vault, and fresh blood kept flowing from his nostrils.

In a panic, the witch woman grabbed a large piece of Wu Tie's clothing, rolled it into two big cloth balls, and shoved them hard into his nostrils. Soon both nostrils were packed with strips of cloth, giving a rather strange appearance.

Zhu Zixi's body quickly burned to ashes.

Wu Tie picked up the sealed bracelet, rubbed the black crystal, smeared a bit of his nasal blood on it, and channeled the little spiritual power he had managed to recover into the crystal.

It is an item similar to a Cosmos Sack.

Its interior space was far larger than Jia Zhengfeng's Cosmos Sack—fully ten meters long, ten meters wide, and six meters high, much bigger than that sack. Moreover, over half of the space inside this bracelet was filled with all sorts of strange and wondrous items.

There were spirit herbs, spirit fruits, bottles of pills and powders, and of course many metal boxes filled with exquisitely cast gold coins; the back of each coin bore a lush, leafy tree, while the front displayed the ominous characters "Changsheng" in dark energy.

These are gold coins minted by the Changsheng Sect, an astonishing number of them.

Wu Tie fell silent for a moment, then slipped the bracelet onto his left hand. Following the information transmitted into his mind by the bracelet, he chanted a few incantations, and the bracelet merged with his flesh and blood, leaving no outward trace.

"As expected, without his consent I cannot obtain his treasures." Wu Tie felt the information coming from the bracelet, and his expression turned strangely odd.

This black crystal is not merely a spatial container; it is also a tremendously powerful spatial divine thunderbolt.

If Zhu Zixi activates it with his will, it can annihilate all things within a radius of one kilometer, making it a dreadful mutual-destruction item. Besides activation by will, if the method of triggering it is incorrect, the bracelet will likewise explode on its own.

This bracelet is also heavily imbued with evil energy; clearly it is not of any legitimate origin.

Zhu Zixi could easily have dragged Wu Tie down to death with him… but… out of concern for Yu Mo, Zhu Zixi instead gave up mutual destruction, choosing to hand over all his savings to Wu Tie and even entrust Yu Mo to him.

"As the Grand Elder of the Changsheng Sect, how desperate must you be toward the sect to entrust your little girl to me, an enemy like this?"

Wu Tie could not understand Zhu Zixi's thoughts at all.

Perhaps he is just a drowning unlucky wretch, and Wu Tie is a straw drifting past before him?

Even if hope is slim, having hope is better than having none.

"Witch maiden, this cosmos bag is yours." Having obtained a larger wristband, Wu Tie slapped the cosmos bag he had snatched from Jia Zhengfeng onto her forehead.

The witch maiden laughed sweetly, and without needing Wu Tie's instruction, she skillfully tapped a finger on the cosmos bag; after a soft shout, Wu Tie lost all connection with the cosmos bag, which had now been completely possessed by the witch maiden.

Wu Tie's face twitched violently.

When he obtained the cosmos bag, he still had to drip blood, break the mental imprint, and so on, but the witch maiden merely issued a rebuke and completed all the formalities?

He looked at the witch maiden, shook his head, performed a deep bow toward the spot where Zhu Zixi had turned to ashes, drew the White Tiger Split, and turned to leave.

The ground trembled slightly; Shi Tan carried a stone scepter on his shoulder, walking while spitting blood, his whole body covered in blood as he walked toward Wu Tie.

Shi Tan's injuries were severe; his body was a mess, as if scratched by a thousand frenzied chickens; deep claw marks reached the bone everywhere, and in many places large chunks of muscle had sagged, torn violently from the bone.

Fresh blood covered the ground; the tenacious Shi Tan paid no heed to his wounds, strode up to Wu Tie, frowned, and looked toward the nearby abyss: "Settled? Is this place really that dangerous?"

Wu Tie, without turning his head, pointed at the abyss: "Very dangerous; Zhu Zixi was killed by the ambush inside. There's no need, don't come here… this place is the ancestral land of the Mist Blade."

"Is the Mist Blade's ancestral land here?" Shi Tan raised his eyebrows, speaking in a deep, resonant voice: "No wonder—earlier a large cavern nearby had been made a forbidden zone by them; anyone who dared approach would face extermination of their clan. Hmph… the giant clan wouldn't covet this bunch of murderous embryos."

Wu Tie held his spear horizontally across his shoulder, both hands resting on it, walking forward with a sway.

Speaking of killing Zhu Zixi, it doesn't involve much risk.

It was entirely thanks to the ambush in the Mist Blade's ancestral land that Zhu Zixi was easily lured into the trap.

But during this escape, Wu Tie had expended too much mental energy, constantly vigilant against being captured by Zhu Zixi, keeping his mind taut, fleeing for several days… Wu Tie now wants to take a hot bath and then get a good sleep.

Not only Wu Tie, but the witch maiden and Shi Tan were also yawning nonstop along the way.

They weren't in a hurry to rush; they just leisurely returned along the way they came.

After walking about seven or eight days, Wu Tie's energy and spirit had fully recovered to peak condition, and Shi Tan's wounds had all been properly treated, and his spirit had been restored.

Wu Tie and Shi Tan chatted and laughed along the way, and they had developed a certain camaraderie.

From the shadows, a dozen or so rat people scrambled out in disarray; upon suddenly seeing Wu Tie and Shi Tan, they all shouted with joy, hurried over to them, and with a thud fell to the ground.

"Praises to the ancestors… finally found the ancestor, you, and the Little Iron Steward…"

"Too horrible, too horrible… dead, they all died, everyone died…"

"Black Stone City, Great Stone City, Battle Blade City, Curved Blade City, Azure Flame City, Forge City… the main cities of the three great clans, and also the main cities of several nearby clans, have been slaughtered… they died spotless, they died spotless…"

Wu Tie's body jerked violently.

Shi Tan also sat down on the ground with a thud.

The main cities of the three great clans, and also the main cities of a dozen or so clans, have been slaughtered? Who did it? Why? This is insane…