Stranger Danger

Chapter 68: Fight

He turned to look at Tao Xian. “Do you think Ye Qing can kill the boss?”

“I don’t know.” Tao Xian shook his head with the same tinge of trepidation on his face. “It’s too late for regrets anyway. We are grasshoppers tied to the same rope as Ye Qing. He must win, and we must do everything we can to ensure he succeeds.”

“Yeah.”

He was right. They were set on this path from the moment they agreed to Ye Qing’s plan. It was either Iron Shirt Yan or them!

“Quick! There’s no time to waste!”

Suddenly, the two warriors heard a commotion. It wasn’t long before a group of Iron Shirt Gang warriors rounded a corner and made a beeline straight toward them. They had clearly heard the loud clash happening in the backyard.

“Hold it right there! Who gave you permission to enter this place?” Tao Xian immediately took a step forward and blocked their way.

“Hallmaster Tao! D-Do you know what’s going on back there?” One of the gang members asked in a meek voice.

He replied, “A friend has come to visit the boss, and they’re having a friendly spar at the back. No one is allowed to disturb them until the spar is finished?”

“A friend?” The guy looked puzzled, but he saw no reason to question Tao Xian or Jie Chen. He asked curiously, “Who is this friend? We could hear the explosions all the way from the front.”

“It’s none of your business. Now get back to your posts already! What if someone infiltrates the place while you were absent?” Tao Xian barked harshly.

Jie Chen also joined in with an impatient shout, “Get lost!”

“At once, Hallmasters!” The group replied and backed down immediately. Tao Xian was one thing, but Jie Chen was infamous for his impatience and bloodthirst. He really would kill them if they pissed him off.

After the group was gone, Jie Chen wiped some non-existent sweat from his forehead and asked, “If you have a plan, now’s the time to say it. We can only stall this out for so long!”

The small fries were one thing, but it was only a matter of time before some Hallmasters decided to check out the commotion. And their fellow colleagues weren’t so easy to fool!

“I don’t. We’ll just have to improvise on the fly and pray that Ye Qing finishes off the boss as soon as possible!” Tao Xian sighed.

……

“What a pain!” Ye Qing complained under his breath while bringing his curved saber down toward Yan Tieyi’s right shoulder. Then, his arm abruptly took a ninety-degree turn and shot toward the gang boss’ neck swiftly and without warning. However, Yan Tieyi was able to slap the blade away at the last moment and even respond with a counterattack, wrapping his sleeves around Ye Qing like he would catch the young man in a tight embrace. Thankfully, Ye Qing was just fast enough to jump away before the entrapment was complete.

The problem with Yan Tieyi’s martial arts was that his force was perfectly fluid and unpredictable. Like a cloud, it could pause in one place or move like the wind, deceive or strike true as Yan Tieyi wished, and unleash both hard and soft techniques seamlessly. It was why Ye Qing was unable to break through his defense.

“Hahaha! Did you actually believe you could kill me with just this level of skill?” Yan Tieyi laughed. When he sensed a lull in the young man’s aura, he immediately spread his arms wide and cleared out all the air in his vicinity in an instant. For a moment, all was still except his billowing sleeves. Then, he thrust his arms forward and launched a terrific blast of force that seemed to split both the sky and the earth in half.

Rumble!

A gigantic splash at least ten meters tall rose from the lake. A floating gazebo in the middle of the lake abruptly exploded and collapsed into the waters.

“Croak—croak—croak—”

The giant splash was still suspended in the air when five croaks resounded in rapid succession. Ye Qing’s aura skyrocketed, and three inches of pure, visible energy covered his saber. He then brought down his saber in a mighty overhead swing.

“Toad Force x5”

The suspended water was cut in half as a beam of pure energy punched through its center and flew toward Yan Tieyi in a straight line. It was so powerful that it cut through the earth like a hot knife through butter and left behind a deep scar that was at least one meter deep in its wake.

Yan Tieyi did not dare to treat it lightly. He struck the ground with enough energy to lift an entire chunk of earth into the air to block the attack. The beam of energy was strong, but not strong enough to punch through several meters of earth before it crumbled away into nothing.

“Haha! You can’t hurt me with your petty tricks, boy!”

Despite what he said, Yan Tieyi had to take a few seconds to catch his breath. He was feeling rather weak after expending a prodigious amount of true qi. It was fine though. His enemy was a middle-stage Vessel Augmentor just like him, so theoretically they should share more or less the same amount of energy reserves. No matter how uncanny his martial arts were, there was no way Ye Qing could defeat him in a short time, meaning that he only needed to hold out until reinforcements showed up. When that happened, both Ye Qing and those two traitors would die like the dogs they were!

“Is that so?” Ye Qing said with a light chuckle. “Let’s see you can keep laughing after you catch this.”

The alarm bells in Yan Tieyi’s head rang like crazy immediately after Ye Qing was done speaking. Without thinking, Yan Tieyi channeled his true qi through his sleeves and surrounded his whole body in a protective circle.

“What the—?”

It was at this moment Yan Tieyi suddenly noticed countless shapeless, floating things floating just an inch away from him. They were nigh invisible save for a dark red tinge at the core. The gang boss’ scalp immediately turned numb. How did these things manage to get so close without him noticing? They were anything but harmless too. His instincts were screaming that something terrible would happen if he allowed them to touch him.

“Blue Demon”

Yan Tieyi extended his hand out of his left sleeve to reveal a bluish black glove. The painfully thin fabric was covered in bizarre patterns and emitting a bluish black glow in intervals. What looked like a demon’s head was sewn to the center of the glove.

To Ye Qing’s surprise, the demon’s head slowly opened its eyes—or was it just a trick of the light?—at the same time an irritating voice suddenly mumbled incessantly in his head. Then, a bluish black flame erupted from the glove and released a disgustingly sweet scent into the air.

As soon as the scent entered Ye Qing’s nostrils, a powerful wave of dizziness and weakness immediately gripped him. His complexion immediately turned bluish black as well.

That’s his Strange Artifact! It’s as deadly as Tao Xian says! Ye Qing thought in shock. Before he could mount a response though, a refreshing sensation suddenly rose from his dantian and spread across his whole body. The next thing he knew, he was back to normal.

The Fruit of Life protected me from the poison!

The answer came to Ye Qing immediately. He had consumed the Fruit of Life back at the Jade Dragon Lake, and it was said to be capable of bringing someone back from the brink of death, extending one’s lifespan, and protecting someone from all kinds of poisons. That said, he wasn’t willing to bet his life on the author’s integrity, so Ye Qing hurriedly popped an antidote and held his breath just in case.

Earlier, he had prepared some antidotes after Tao Xian told him that Yan Tieyi owned an extremely poisonous Strange Artifact that killed anyone who touched it or smelled its gas. Although it turned out to be unnecessary, he had to admit that the Strange Artifact was even deadlier than he imagined. If he hadn’t consumed the Fruit of Life before, there was a good chance this fight would’ve ended poorly for him.

Crackle crackle!

Meanwhile, Yan Tieyi was able to clear all the Blood Shadows surrounding him with just a wave of his burning glove. Even scarier was the fact that the bluish black flames were deadly enough to burn holes in the ground.

Ye Qing clenched his fist and resummoned his Blood Shadows. Then, he sent them toward Yan Tieyi once more.

The Blood Shadows was the coalescence of his true qi and vigor. So long as he didn’t run out of either element, he could theoretically summon an endless number of Blood Shadows. And that was exactly what he was going to do. The “Blood Shadow Divine Art” was a top-tier Vessel Augmentation cultivation art, and his reservoir of true qi and vigor far exceeded a warrior in the Vessel Augmentation stage. To put it simply, he could afford to piss away the power.

Sizzle sizzle!

The Blood Shadows tried to catch Yan Tieyi a second time, but once again the bluish black flames burned them into nothing. The gang boss let out an arrogant laugh and said, “What else do you have, boy? It will not be enough!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Yan Tieyi didn’t even manage to wipe the smile off his face when Ye Qing waved his hand and summoned an unbelievable amount of Blood Shadows once more. This time though, he merged them together into a gigantic hand before bringing it down like he would squash the gang boss like a fly.

Yan Tieyi swore and spat out a tremendous amount of internal energy. His left hand curled into an arc, he swiped at the giant hand falling toward him and successfully shredded it into pieces.

But it wasn’t enough. The shredded hand abruptly scattered into individual wisps of Blood Shadows and slipped through his guard before he could react. As soon as they made contact with his legs, his chest, and more body parts, blood immediately started seeping out of his skin. For a moment, Yan Tieyi could only watch in horror as the Blood Shadows greedily devoured his blood and weakened him even more than he already was.

What the hell is this martial art? And how does he have so much internal energy? [1] Yan Tieyi thought in panic while burning the Blood Shadows in his body into nothing once more.

At this point, Yan Tieyi finally realized that Ye Qing was, for whatever reason, far more energetic than he was even though they were both middle-stage Vessel Augmentors. Not only that, he could use his uncanny techniques in rapid succession as if they didn’t cost anything. He, on the other hand, was on the verge of triggering a rebound because he was almost out of internal energy. At this rate, he was going to die for sure.

“It’s do or die!”

A flinty glint entered Yan Tieyi’s eyes, and he abruptly stopped defending himself. Instead, he leaped into the sky and swooped toward Ye Qing like a goshawk. Arms spread, Yan Tieyi flew erratically and unpredictably while rapidly closing the distance between himself and Ye Qing. Every time he changed positions, a goshawk\'s cry would pierce through the air, and his aura would grow a little stronger.

Nine cries later, Yan Tieyi abruptly vanished from view and reappeared behind Ye Qing. Then, what looked like a thousand arced, flame-wreathed hands swiped toward his major points at the same time.

“Nine Changes of the Goshawk”

“Shadowless Hand”

Everyone and their mothers knew that Iron Shirt Yan was a practitioner of the Iron Sleeve Art and the Flowing Cloud Force, but no one knew that he also practiced a powerful movement art and a claw art to complement his Blue Demon Hand. Why? It was because everyone who forced him to reveal his trump cards were dead!

“Die!”

Ye Qing broke out in a cold sweat as he spun around and faced down the gang boss’ ultimate technique. He never realized that Yan Tieyi was hiding a powerful movement art and a claw art up his sleeves until it was too late. While neither art was particularly threatening per se, they were complemented by a powerful Strange Artifact that could burn a hole in the ground like nothing, and he did not think that his body was tougher than the earth.

There was no time to think. Right before the claw technique would rip him to shreds, Ye Qing executed a Soulchasing Saber technique and wreathed his saber in a sheen of energy. When he lightly cut the air in front of him, it created ripples of light—they were really ripples of blade energy—that spread out into a protective globe around him. It looked like a moon hanging in the sky.

The saber technique temporarily was good enough to Yan Tieyi’s claw technique at bay, but the same could not be said for the all-consuming flames. Not only that, Ye Qing noticed that the bluish black flames were steadily eating away at the blade of his saber and spreading toward his hand!

Ye Qing pushed Blood Sea Fragrance to the max and appeared above the lotus lake in an instant. He managed to get away from the bluish black flames for a moment, but—

“You won’t escape!”

Yan Tieyi appeared right behind him and executed Shadowless Hand once more. From Ye Qing’s point of view, it looked like the gang boss was swiping, tearing, slapping, hooking and pointing at him from every direction all at the same time. Even worse, the fire was everywhere. Everything within ten meters of the eye of the storm were covered in bluish black flames. There was no escape.

1. true qi is a part of internal energy by the way