Chapter 173: Strong Kill

A sky-full of arrow shadows attacked silently.

Wu Tie's eyes widened, two points of gold-red fire suddenly flaring in his pupils.

Those weren't arrows but countless three-inch-long, mung-bean-thick stingers torn from the tails of some mutant venomous wasp.

The pitch-black stingers were razor‑sharp, each tip bearing a visible mung‑bean‑sized crystal, and a faintly sweet venomous scent drifted on the wind from afar.

Wu Tie raised both hands to shield his face and dropped into a crouch.

A howling gale swept past, dragging dozens of stingers that viciously pierced his body.

A steady series of "puff‑puff" sounds rang out as the stingers punched through Wu Tie's flesh and slammed into his bones.

No one knew what mechanism launched the stingers, but even the light‑weight ones—whether or not they weighed three qian—held tremendous force; each impact on Wu Tie's bones made a dull thud, and the tremendous impact sent his whole body flying.

He flew like a leaf in the wind, swept up by the black‑stinger gale and rolling backward along the ground.

With a "bang," as Wu Tie rolled past Lu Yan, his engorged, swollen fingers seized the blood‑colored blade light slashing from behind. The blast rippled outward, shattering a several‑meter radius of rock beneath Lu Yan's feet.

A large swath of stingers were knocked off course by the blast, scattering wildly in all directions.

Of the 103 assassins, Lu Yan, Qin Yi, and Luo He were unharmed, but many others were caught off guard, the stingers sinking deep into their flesh.

First came a sharp sting, then a terrifying numbness spread rapidly from the wounds; countless black stingers howled as they swept through a passage several li wide, and at least seventy‑odd assassors shuddered, their bodies going numb as they collapsed.

A horde in ragged, multicolored garb, heads wrapped in scarves, surged out of the Great Serpent Cavern, snarling low as they charged like mad beasts at the Golden Dead Spirits' assassin squad.

Sun Zuo stood beside Lu Yan; when countless stingers swept in, he cleverly hid behind Lu Yan.

Beside Lu Yan, a vast expanse of blood‑colored mist roiled; he clenched his right hand around the incoming blade light, and within the rising blood‑mist the countless stingers shattered and quickly dissolved.

Sheltered by Lu Yan's protection, Sun Zuo luckily escaped this wave of attack unscathed.

As the first volley of stingers ended, Sun Zuo lifted the ebony‑serpent‑headed staff in his hand, let out a low roar, and the staff's snake head snapped open, spewing a great black fog over a hundred meters that condensed into a dark veil before the attackers.

"The three leaders…… who are they?" Sun Zuo shrieked, his voice raw; though their heads were covered, he still managed to identify them.

The Black Serpent Domain is a lawless land where countless great and small powers grind and slaughter each other for resources, leaving every faction mutually hostile.

And the Blood Curved Blade is the mortal enemy of the Golden Dead Spirits.

Whenever the two sides meet in the wild, they inevitably fight to the death, often ending with one side annihilated.

Even inside the Great Serpent Cavern, both sides frequently erupt in skirmishes of varying scale; travelers on the road are often ambushed with mountain‑splitting thunder, poison arrows, and other covert tactics, while poisoning enemy strongholds and tossing rotting corpses is commonplace.

Using the stingers of the Tiger‑striped Giant Hornet as arrows, launched by specially crafted hand‑crossbows, this is the standard equipment of the Blood Curved Blade.

So light‑weight are the stingers that each can unleash tens of thousands of catties of force; only a master smith unknown to the Blood Curved Blade could forge such a tiny hand‑crossbow into something so precise and powerful.

Sun Zuo wanted to shout that the attackers were from the Blood Curved Blade, when Wu Tie happened to be rolling past him.

The dense stingers peppered Wu Tie's body like a porcupine, with at least hundreds embedded front and back in his flesh.

For an ordinary person, a single Tiger‑striped Giant Hornet stinger can paralyze a novice Chonglou Realm cultivator; hundreds of such stingers' poison could instantly fell a high‑level Chonglou Realm expert.

But Wa Mu invoked the ancestral spirit power of the Wa Clan, granting Wu Tie a blessed empowerment; the most practical ability he received was—"Toxin Immunity."

Against any virulent poison—animal, mineral, plant, or complex mixtures—Wu Tie gained a resistance so strong it could be called immunity, and as his strength grew and his body hardened, this resistance would increase without limit.

Precisely because he possessed the talent of Toxin Immunity, Wa Mu felt safe letting Wu Tie venture out.

The venom of the Tiger‑striped Giant Hornet lay exactly within Wu Tie's tolerance. Though the stingers left his body riddled with holes, none could damage his tendons or bones; the horrifying‑looking wounds were merely superficial flesh injuries.

The tremendous force of the stingers sent Wu Tie tumbling backward; as he rolled past Sun Zuo, he grabbed Sun Zuo's ankle with his right hand, yanked him to the ground, then seized and wrapped him, rolling Sun Zuo up in his own body.

Sun Zuo screamed, his vision swimming, a sharp pain lancing from his ankle; before he could grasp what was happening, he was rolled up as a living pad against Wu Tie's back.

Wu Tie rolled away at high speed; the stingers studding his surface that hadn't pierced his bones instead tore through Sun Zuo's body.

Sun Zuo let out a wail as he tried to rise; the stingers' tips bore no venom, yet he felt countless sharp objects pierce him all over, a drilling pain that darkened his sight and drew tears unbidden.

Lu Yan seized the incoming blade‑light with his right hand; hearing Sun Zuo's shout, he reflexively struck back with a palm.

Lu Yan's left hand was equally engorged, fingers swollen like red carrots; he grabbed at thin air, turned, and saw Sun Zuo tangled in Wu Tie's miserable embrace, whereupon he snapped, "Blood Curved Blade… damn it……"

Everyone assumed Wu Tie was a subordinate of the Blood Curved Blade.

Following his shout, Lu Yan's bloody left hand suddenly split, spewing a vast surge of blood‑qi that formed a writhing, tail‑flicking blood‑colored poison snake lunging at Wu Tie; the snake hissed, dragging a streak of Blood Light straight at him.

Wu Tie planted his feet, neutralized the stingers' tremendous force, sprang upright, snatched Sun Zuo and hurled him toward the blood‑colored poison snake as a shield. The snake snarled, coiled around Sun Zuo, then opened its maw to bite Wu Tie's throat.

Villainous qi surged skyward, accompanied by a pungent reek of blood.

A thin five‑colored line at Wu Tie's glabella suddenly split; his glabella opened a vertical‑pupil‑shaped light curtain, and a thumb‑sized olive‑shaped five‑colored thunderbolt roared forth, slamming hard into the three‑foot‑plus blood‑colored poison snake.

Having received the Wa Clan ancestral spirits' blessing, Wu Tie not only greatly increased his magical power and mastered several practical divine abilities, gained the Toxin Immunity talent, but most importantly, he prematurely awakened his Glabella Divine Eye.

The glabella holds a uniquely vital position for cultivators.

Within a single cun of the glabella lies an infinite reservoir of magical power; all subsequent wondrous transformations reside therein.

The Glabella Divine Eye is a manifestation of "great, noble, sacred, extraordinary" power—only a true adept can open it, and anyone who possesses it is undoubtedly a remarkable being.

Just as Yang Jian in the Ancient Divine Army Camp did, Wu Tie's premature awakening of his innate divine ability came from Lao Tie refining the essence of his Glabella Divine Eye and imparting it to him.

With the Wa Clan ancestral spirits' blessing, Wu Tie opened his Glabella Divine Eye and gained an exceptionally domineering divine ability of the eye—"Divine Thunder of Slaying Evil."

Divine Thunder of Slaying Evil possesses immense power, bold and unyielding; it naturally counters all heretical secret arts and holds an innate, overwhelming advantage over various evil forces.

Just as Lu Yan's blood‑colored poison snake, a Life Pool Realm master who could effortlessly wipe out Chonglou Realm cultivators with a casual strike, when Wu Tie unleashed Divine Thunder of Slaying Evil the snake writhed like a living thing and fled, trembling like a fish that escaped the net.

Only Divine Thunder of Slaying Evil is extraordinarily powerful, its speed as swift as flowing light.

As the thunderbolt flashed, it struck the poison snake's head with a deafening boom; five‑colored lightning flickered wildly within a several‑zhang radius, countless tiny five‑colored arcs spiraled into dazzling waves of light, and the snake shrieked miserably before vanishing in ash and smoke.

Lu Yan's face turned deathly pale.

He stared up at Wu Tie in disbelief.

His left hand's fingers exploded with a "bang," shattering into bone and flesh that sprayed everywhere within several meters.

Wu Tie exerted his divine power; his aura instantly revealed itself as that of an ordinary first‑layer Chonglou Realm cultivator, though his magical undulations were dense and refined, his foundation a hundred times stronger than that of a typical first‑layer Chonglou Realm practitioner.

Yet he was merely a minor figure of the first layer of the Chonglou Realm.

He actually shattered Lu Yan's innate divine ability, and a terrifying force followed that ability's pull, directly crushing Lu Yan's left hand.

"You…… what kind of divine ability is this?" Lu Yan stared at Wu Tie, unable to believe his eyes.

Wu Tie gave a cold smile, he grabbed Sun Zuo's head with both hands, leaned close to Sun Zuo's ear and said in a low voice: "Do you still remember the Wu family's Shibao in the Cangyan Realm? You killed my father, second brother, and third brother, letting my eldest brother be bullied and exploited by a bunch of women... I have come, to take revenge."

Sun Zuo suddenly opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word, Wu Tie gripped hard and violently twisted his neck.

One Divine Thunder of Exorcism consumed more than forty percent of Wu Tie's mana; he hurled Sun Zuo's warm corpse at Lu Yan, his entire body's mana ignited, in an instant almost all his mana burned out, accompanied by a deafening roar, another tiny Divine Thunder of Exorcism exploded forth.

How swift the lightning's speed.

A thumb-sized olive-shaped lightning bolt instantly pierced Sun Zuo's corpse; a flash of five-colored lightning, and his body turned into a wisp of green smoke, his soul likewise blown away to nothing.

The lightning's momentum not spent, it continued shooting toward Lu Yan.

Lu Yan shouted angrily, he shoved hard with his right hand; the blade light he had tightly restrained let out a resonant clang and shot far backward, he grabbed with his right hand, five blood-colored poisonous pythons howled out from his palm, opening their mouths to bite the Divine Thunder of Exorcism.

With a tremendous boom, the divine thunder exploded; the five blood-colored poisonous pythons shattered instantly, under the impact of the fierce, domineering Exorcism force turning into wisps of blood vapor that vanished.

As Lu Yan unleashed his innate divine ability, he immediately severed the link between his soul and that ability.

The five blood-colored poisonous pythons exploded, Lu Yan's face only turned slightly pale, but this time his right hand remained unharmed.

All of this happened in the flash of flint; Wu Tie seized Sun Zuo and killed him outright, then exchanged two moves with Lu Yan, all of it taking less than a breath.

The forces of the Blood Crescent Blade that had rushed out of the Giant Serpent's Lair had already arrived.

They numbered five or six hundred strong; upon contact they ruthlessly slaughtered the poisoned, fallen assassins.

Shrieks of agony rang out nonstop; seventy or eighty assassins were cut down on the spot, Qin Yi and Luo He roared in fury as blue and yellow light burst from their sides, simultaneously striking at the Blood Crescent Blade's forces.

Yet among the Blood Crescent Blade's attackers were equally skilled Life Pond Realm experts; blood-colored blade auras flew up one after another, continually clashing with the blue and yellow sword light emitted by Qin Yi and Luo He. Blade and sword light collided violently, both sides' bodies trembling, the fierce impact causing blood to surge from their seven orifices.

Wu Tie pulled out several stalks of lava grass, stuffed them into his mouth, and swallowed them without even chewing.

The medicinal power swiftly transformed into strands of golden mana within his body, slowly replenishing the dim golden orb at his brow. The spiritual eye at his brow quickly closed, leaving only an extremely fine, dim five-colored thread flickering faintly.

Wu Tie's body shuddered, and countless stingers burst out with a "pfft", trailing fine lines of blood far away.

He tossed aside the ornamental big knife on his back, flicked his right hand, and the White Tiger Split sprang out with a clang; a low tiger roar sounded, and suddenly eighteen pallid, bushel-sized spear blossoms appeared before Wu Tie.

Wa Mu exercised a privilege left by her mother, expending vast resources to confer an initiation upon Wu Tie; could the benefits he gained possibly be limited to just those before?

Wu Tie inexplicably gained some insights about the spear in his bloodline.

If Old Iron had laid a solid spear foundation for Wu Tie, letting him glimpse the threshold… then after the Wa clan's ancestral spirits conferred their blessing through initiation, Wu Tie's resolute spear insight from his bloodline allowed him to step into the realm of 'reaching the sublime.'

The spear technique Old Iron taught suits million-strong formations, hard clashes amidst forests of spears.

Whereas the spear technique Wu Tie now uses is better suited for close-range surprise assaults and covert killings.

"The Drifting Spear Technique" is like a fierce north wind blowing, causing myriad flowers to wither; within boundless splendor lies hidden the despairing aura of death and murderous intent.

Countless splendid flower images flashed before Lu Yan's eyes; he cursed, then stomped his foot hard, and the passage within a several-li radius instantly turned crimson, as countless great and small blood-colored poisonous snakes howled out from the sky-filling blood mist.

Wu Tie let out a low howl, charging to Lu Yan's front, allowing countless blood-colored poisonous snakes to bite his body as he thrust his spear straight at Lu Yan's chest.

Behind Lu Yan, three blade lights tore through the air, forming with Wu Tie a front-and-rear pincer encirclement.

The two joined forces to ruthlessly slay Lu Yan.

Lu Yan stared wide-eyed, his left arm's severed wound gushing a great spray of fresh blood.