Stranger Danger

Ye Qing rubbed his nose as Umbra let out a villainous laugh. “That said, I’m glad you’re one of the more predictable villains. Most villains do not have a good ending, and this is usually the part where deux ex machina happens to save the protagonist. For example, an arrow might fall from the sky and blow your ugly head to bits.”

Ye Qing sighed after his otherworldly rant and gathered his power. This was real life, and deus ex machina just doesn’t happen. The only one who could save himself was hims—

It was at this moment a draconic roar shook the world. The black sky suddenly turned golden yellow, and a warm light melted away the all-encompassing darkness melted like snow. Before he knew it, Ye Qing realized that he could see the sky once more.

“What the—”

Umbra’s orbs suddenly flickered wildly, and his entire body started smoking like he was on fire. It would seem that the darkness was a part of him, and losing it had dealt him a severe blow. The Stranger had no idea what was happening, but he didn’t dare to take it lightly. He thrust his palm above his head and revealed a withered, pitch black arm that was covered in countless twisted and evil-looking tattoos.

Every time his palm moved upward, it would grow much bigger just like the Nether Lord’s when it was blocking Heavens’ Eye’s attack. It would seem that the evils of this world shared similar tricks. By the time the palm had moved three inches, it had become as vast as the sky itself. The golden light looked positively puny compared to it.

Rumble!

However, a needle could take a person’s life if it hit the right spot, not to mention that the golden light was no puny needle. No, it was a three hundred meters long gold dragon. When the two clashed, the entire palm shattered like it was made of glass. The surrounding clouds were shredded into nothingness as well. Roaring with triumph, the gold dragon glared down on Umbra and swooped toward him as if it had a mind of its own.

“A gold dragon? Xuanhuang?! The Pacification Bureau!”

Umbra clearly recognized the gold dragon swooping toward him. His voice was filled with undisguised anger, but there was even more fear and panic.

Umbra let out an angry roar and inhaled deeply. Every door and window in Pawn Shop No. 8 flung open, and countless souls flew out of the store and into Umbra’s mouth and nose. His aura began climbing rapidly until he resembled a demon or a god. Then, he threw a mighty punch at the golden dragon.

The punch shattered the gold dragon from head to toe, and for a moment, it looked like Umbra had emerged victorious. Then, a shining arrow emerged from the shattered remains of the dragon and slammed into Umbra’s fist! Like a hot knife through butter, it sliced the gigantic Stranger in half and even punched through Pawn Shop No. 8’s rooftop! It was only then it deleted all of its energy and disappeared!

“Am… Am I a jinx?” Ye Qing blinked stupidly as he stared at the vanished arrow right next to his feet. When he stood on his tiptoes and looked through the hole created by the arrow, he could vaguely see the sky still covered in a sheen of golden light.

While cocking his head at a strange angle, Ye Qing muttered, “This isn’t enough. If this ‘Umbra’ survived, he’s still going to squish me like a bug.”

Rumble!

As if on cue, Umbra’s split body abruptly exploded into a million pieces. Pawn Shop No. 8 too exploded as if its life was connected to Umbra. Lucky for Ye Qing, he noticed the signs a fraction of a second before it happened and raced through the exit like the wind. Only then he managed to avoid being buried under the rubble.

“I am a jinx! Look at me, killing giants and destroying buildings with my mouth,” Ye Qing let out a long, long sigh of relief when he stared at the remains of Umbra and the Pawn Shop No. 8.

It was at this moment countless souls suddenly floated out of the remains, but unlike before they weren’t overflowing with malice and hatred anymore. In fact, they looked perfectly docile and at peace.

The number of souls just kept growing and growing. In just a few breaths, the sky was filled with at latest thousands of souls.

There were male, female, old and young among the souls, but every single one of them wore a look of pure relief on their faces. When the last soul had floated into the air, they smiled down on Ye Qing and gave him a deep bow. They were clearly grateful toward him.

Clearly, they were the human souls Umbra and Pawn Shop No. 8 had ensnared. For years they had toiled under the monster’s tyranny, but they were finally released after the two entities were destroyed. They were thanking Ye Qing because they believed that he was their savior.

It wasn’t just empty thanks either. Ye Qing could vaguely sense some sort of invisible power pouring into his head. If he had to describe it somehow, it was like the morning dawn or the silver moonlight. Pure, immaculate, gentle and warm, they soothed him like a warm bath after the apocalypse. His spirit had hit a wall some time ago, but now it was growing at a visible rate. His mind was also stronger and purer than ever before.

“The soul…”

Ye Qing immediately understood what he was receiving. He was receiving their soul power.

The soul was the purest energy in the world bar none. Not only could it increase one’s spiritual power, it was incredibly effective at enhancing the mind as well. To be more specific, the soul was the most effective method to increase one’s spiritual power since the mind, soul and spirit all originated from the same roots.

This was why heretics and Strangers such as Umbra went after human souls. It was one of the fastest ways to increase one’s power.

Of course, the souls weren’t giving up all of their power to Ye Qing. It was just a sliver that even an ordinary warrior would’ve considered insignificant, much less one as strong as Ye Qing. However, there were tens of thousands of souls in the sky. A fraction of a soul’s power might not amount to much, but tens of thousands? That was a completely different story.

“I’m not the one who saved you. Seriously, I didn’t do anything from the start until the end. But it would be remiss of me to turn down such a great gift, so… hopefully, the champion who destroyed Shadow and Pawn Shop No. 8 wouldn’t mind that I took their reward.”

Overall, Ye Qing was very satisfied with this outcome. How could he complain? He literally did nothing, and he got one of the best rewards he could ask for.

As more soul power poured into his head, his mind grew purer, and his spirit actually started condensing into solid mist. However, he quickly noticed that much of the soul power was wasted because he couldn’t refine them fast enough. Unwilling to waste such a golden opportunity, he hurriedly visualized the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” to increase his refinement speed.

Buzz…

An indefinite amount of time later, a dharma [1]of Emperor Fuxi appeared in the sky. Literally, in the real world. Created from Ye Qing’s spiritual power, it looked as if the real Emperor Fuxi had appeared in the real world.

The dharma shone like the sun just like the image normally did inside Ye Qing’s head. Images of yin and yang, the Four Symbols, the Bagua and more appeared one by one and as his power reached every corner of the world. Not even the shadows hiding underneath the rubble were exempt from its cleansing light, and one could almost hear their pathetic screams as they evaporated into nothing.

Ye Qing had been sitting on the ground with his eyes closed, meditating. An evil smirk crossed his lips when he heard the shadows’ screams. The shadows were none other than the remnants of Umbra, and they had tried to corrupt him while he was receiving the souls’ power.

Umbra was ultimately a powerful entity. Not even the arrow was able to completely destroy it. Weak as these remnants were, past Ye Qing might have failed to notice their existence. But now, he could detect everything tangible or intangible within fifty meters of him. Should he desire it, he could inspect even the smallest speck of dust within his range. At this level, nothing and no one could elude him anymore.

Thanks to his enhanced spirit, he was able to deal the shadows a fatal blow as soon as they entered his range.

“Come. I’ll make sure you’re completely and utterly dead this time.”

Ye Qing rose to his feet, and every rune on Emperor Fuxi’s chariot lit up at the same time. It shot into the sky and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Rumble…

When Emperor Fuxi rides his chariot, all demons must get out of his path or be destroyed. There was a dull rumble that sounded like the heavens were groaning, and the sky split into two to pour golden bright light. Countless shadows started screaming and disintegrating into dust.

“Still not dead yet? Just die already.”

What do you do when you make an enemy out of someone? Nine out of ten times, you kill the shit out of them so they wouldn’t trouble you down the line.

Plus, Umbra was a powerful Stranger who could have squished him like a bug at his full strength. Now, he was so weak that even Ye Qing could kill him without too much trouble. Why on earth would he allow an opportunity like this slip through his grasp?

More importantly, he wanted to know how many silver dragon-serpent runes the Annon Sutra would give him if he managed to kill Umbra. Would it be one thousand or ten thousand? The thought alone was enough to spark an ember in his loins.

Ye Qing assumed a stance and executed a full-powered “Cloud Vaporization Style”. He saw no reason to save his strength whatsoever. As the Burning Wind surged in every direction like a tidal wave, the shadows suddenly crawled out of all kinds of hiding spots—the space underneath the rubble, the gaps between the rocks, the cracks on the ground and more—and converged into a human-sized Umbra.

When the Stranger glared daggers at Ye Qing, he thought for sure that this was going to end with a climactic final battle. Instead, Umbra turned his back on Ye Qing and shot into the sky. He was unbelievably fast for someone so injured he couldn’t even deal with a small insect. He was gone in just the blink of an eye.

“He… ran?!”

Umbra escaped so quickly that Ye Qing reacted only after the Stranger was gone. He could not believe that the master of the legendary Pawn Shop No. 8 would be such a coward. Where the hell was his pride as a Stranger, and more importantly…

“MY DRAGON SERPENT RUNES!” Ye Qing wailed on top of his lungs. He had thousands and thousands of them within his grasp, and now… there was none!

Damn it all!

A formidable foe had escaped from under his nose, and there was a one thousand percent chance he would seek Ye Qing out for revenge in the future. But frankly, Ye Qing wasn’t very worried. Umbra was wounded pretty badly, and Ye Qing reckoned that it would take the Stranger at least three years to recover. By then, he would’ve become so strong that it was his turn to squish Umbra like a bug!

After Umbra was gone, Ye Qing suddenly felt a tremendous rejection from the very space he was occupying. His eyes blurred, and an intense wave of dizziness assaulted his mind. By the time he recovered, Ye Qing realized that he had returned to the Strange Market exactly where he had disappeared into thin air. No one seemed to notice his sudden appearance just like they hadn’t noticed his sudden disappearance.

“I’m back?!” Ye Qing exclaimed in pleasant surprise. One of his worst fears was being permanently trapped in the space where Pawn Shop No. 8 was, never to return. He was thankful that that wasn’t the case.

“Phew! I was worried for a moment there. Now that I’m back, what should I do?” Ye Qing looked at the bustling market for a bit when an idea occurred to him. Just now, he had used up nearly everything he had to purchase the agate of the Moon Seeing Stone. Now was the time to replenish his wealth!

Unfortunately, the thought had just crossed his mind when a white paper lantern suddenly appeared in front of him. Then, thick fog rolled in from every direction until all he could see was the lantern’s weak candle flame. It illuminated a seemingly endless path ahead of him.

Ye Qing subconsciously followed the road, and the more he walked the thinner the fog became. He started seeing the silhouettes of restaurants and buildings on both sides of the road.

Nine steps later, the mist faded completely, and Ye Qing found himself back in the real world; the crossroads that was the starting point of a bizarre adventure. Lin Yuhuai and Chu Nianjiu were beside him as well.

1. It’s actually quite difficult to explain this. The dharma is an aspect of a truth or reality. Outwardly, it’s similar to an Expression in that the warrior manifests an image of something that signifies someone’s truth. For example, if you’re a fire mage, then maybe your “dharma” could be a volcano. ☜