Stranger Danger

After all of the statues were destroyed, a gloomy-looking man wrapped in thick black robe stepped forward and reported the casualties to Wang Yang. He was Wang Yang’s junior brother and one of the three Astral Refiners in the group, Yang Xuan.

Wang Yang had no sympathy for the dead, however. “So what if they died? They’re just a bunch of useless trash anyway. If they can’t even handle a few Malice-class Strangers, then they might as well die now and save Sunset Hill the embarrassment in the future.”

“What about those three?” Yang Xuan pointed at the injured trio on the ground.

Wang Yang shot them a glance. “They can head back to the surface on their own.”

“But senior brother, their injuries are quite severe.They can barely walk, much less handle the Strangers they might encounter on the way,” A Sunset Hill disciple spoke up despite his fear of Wang Yang. “We might… we might need to send someone to escort them back to the surface.”

“Hmm?” Wang Yang turned and eyed the disciple coldly, causing him to shiver and bow his head deeply. Wang Yang then walked up to the three near comatose disciples, smirked cruelly, and kicked his foot. A jet of white flames emerged and surrounded the trio in the blink of an eye. A moment later, all three warriors melted into nothing just like that.

Everyone gasped and stared at Wang Yang in shock and horror.

“This way, we won’t need to escort them back or even waste the energy to bury them. It’s the perfect solution, isn’t it?” Wang Yang smiled cruelly as if he was very satisfied with the crowd’s reaction.

“Now, let us continue.”

And so they continued deeper into the Thousand Buddhas Grotto.

Whew, what a ruthless bastard, Ye Qing raised a thoughtful eyebrow as he watched Wang Yang’s back. They all said that Wang Yang was a hot-tempered and cruel bastard who inherited the worst qualities of his dad. He could see now that the rumors were perfectly true. For him to murder his own people without batting an eyelid…

I love him! He’s the kind of guy I can hate without any reservation whatsoever!

Of course, the real murderer here was really Ye Qing since he was the one who triggered the Buddhist statues into attacking in the first place, but it didn’t count as long as no one knows about it, right?

Speaking of the Buddhist statues, they were statue Strangers known as the Two-Faced Buddha, a Malice-class Stranger. As its name obviously implied, the Stranger had exactly two sides. When it was wearing a kind face, it was a merciful Buddha who wouldn’t hurt a soul. But when it was wearing an angry face, then it would transform into a bloodthirsty Buddha who could spit water, fire, and weapons to eliminate a sinner and send them to hell.

It wasn’t safe to linger around the Two-Faced Buddha even when they were wearing a kind face because the slightest hint of bloodlust could change them into their evil side. All the Two-Faced Buddhas they encountered earlier were on their good side. It was entirely possible for the group to have passed through the field without any fanfare. But Ye Qing had purposely purposely leaked a bit of bloodlust, so that was that.

The reason only one Two-Faced Buddha had attacked at first was because the bloodlust was too subtle and weak. Obviously, the same couldn’t be said for the bloodlust Wang Yang exuded when he destroyed the Two-Faced Buddha who killed his followers. As a result, every Two-Faced Buddha on the field had attacked them.

He had laid things out so that things would turn out this way, but strictly speaking, it was just a possibility. Had Wang Yang kept his cool and continued along his way, then their casualties could have been kept to a minimum. In other words, it was totally Wang Yang’s fault that they had lost so many people.

So, why did he purposely kickstart this chain of events? It was of course to weaken Wang Yang’s group and to sound out Wang Yang and his followers’ strength, and the information he got was pretty satisfactory. Wang Yang was so strong that the battle was over before Yang Xuan and the other Astral Refiner, Liu Fan could take action.

Hehe. Since you’re so strong, you won’t mind me testing you a couple more times, will you?

A tiny smirk spread across Ye Qing’s mouth as he stared at Wang Yang’s back.

The next few battles were pretty insignificant. Wang Yang acted as the vanguard, and Ye Qing killed a couple of weak Strangers to keep up appearances. It wasn’t that he had suddenly discovered his conscience and decided to requite evil with good, of course. If he did nothing at all and never participated in any battle, Wang Yang’s group was going to resent him at best or suspect him at worst. He was acting after all. What kind of shitty actor would drop his act in the middle of a scene? Also, the Strangers, weak as they were, gave him some dragon-serpent runes, so he was motivated to kill them regardless.

It wasn’t long before the group stopped in front of a large grotto that looked like a main hall. It was in such a state of disrepair that it only retained the outlook of a main hall and nothing else.

What really stopped the group in their tracks was a massive Buddhist statue at the center of the grotto. It was about ten meter tall and shaped like a Bodhisattva. It was sitting in a lotus position and had a thousand hands that fanned up from top to bottom, all holding the vitarka mudra [1]as well. The Buddhists called it the Thousand Hands Bodhisattva.

What was really strange was the fact that each palm held a lit oil lamp, the orange flames swaying gently in the darkness.

One oil lamp could only light up one meter of space at best, and poorly at that. But a thousand of them? It was like they were beholding the moon itself. It illuminated this section of the dark, gloomy grotto as bright as day.

The lampfire was warm and bright like the eternal flames people kept and worshiped in an actual Buddhist temple, calm and peaceful.

Not a single person in the group felt those emotions, however. In fact, a chill crept up their spines, and their hair stood on end. The reason was very simple. Rows and rows of people were kneeling in front of the statue, and almost all of them were dead.

Some of them were withered skeletons that had existed since heavens-know-when, and some of them were in the middle of rotting. The handful who were alive were barely breathing as if they were on their deathbeds.

Most importantly, both the living and the dead were kneeling before the Thousand Hands Bodhisattva with their hands pressed together in a prayer and wearing a peaceful smile on their face. It was like they were faithful worshipers who were praying to the Buddha in their hearts: respectful, pious, and zealous. There wasn’t the slightest room for blasphemy in their hearts, and they had no regrets dying for the sake of the Buddha.

“Those people belong to White Horse Academy,” Yang Xuan pointed at the handful of still living people kneeling in front of the Thousand Hands Bodhisattva.

They must be the disciples who came to Thousand Buddhas Grotto to hone themselves, Ye Qing thought.

The White Horse Academy disciples were still alive, but they seemed to be completely unaware of what was going on around them at all. Their expressions were overflowing with piety and zealousness. They looked like they were going to kneel like this until the end of time itself.

Swoosh!

Wang Yang flicked his fingers and sent a speck of force through one of the disciples’ shoulder. The wound immediately started bleeding profusely, but the man didn’t react almost as if he wasn’t in control of his own body. He maintained his position and continued to stare at the Thousand Hands Bodhisattva piously.

Wang Yang frowned and ordered, “Ma Yuanshan, go ahead and find out what’s going on.”

“M-Me?” The unlucky bastard named Ma Yuanshan blurted with wide-eyed shock and fear. Coincidentally or not, he was also the guy who suggested that they spare some men to escort the wounded back to the surface.

The rest of the disciples immediately stepped away from Ma Yuanshan. Some wore an expression of schadenfreude on their faces, and some looked sympathetic because they knew that they could easily have been chosen as well. There wasn’t a single person here who wasn’t aware that this “short, innocuous trip” was almost certainly going to end with his death.

“Senior brother, I…” Ma Yuanshan was reluctant to obey the order of course, but Liu Fan interrupted him as soon as he opened his mouth.

“What? Are you disobeying orders?” Liu Fan asked in a threatening voice. Young Fan was a gentleman’s name, but the man himself was thick and burly. He gave off a tremendous amount of pressure just standing there.

“You could obey your order, or I could snap your neck right here and now!”

“I… I’ll go!” A deathly pale Ma Yuanshan replied. Knowing Liu Fan, he did not doubt for a second that the burly man would snap his neck if he said no. If he was going to die either way, then he might as well go with the more hopeful option.

And so Ma Yuanshan stepped toward the Thousand Hands Bodhisattva with fatalistic determination and resolve.

At first, nothing happened at all. But as soon as Ma Yuanshan entered the range of the lamps, he suddenly froze and swayed like he was drunk or something. Then, his clear eyes slowly turned fanatical, and his fearful expression subsided into peace and tranquility.

The disciple pressed his hands together in a prayer and kowtowed to the statue. Then, he rose back to his feet, took a step, and kowtowed to the statue again. He would repeat this motion over and over.

With every step and kowtow, he was worshiping the Buddha in his heart!

“Yang Xuan!” Wang Yang growled when he saw this. Yang Xuan immediately threw out a vine from his sleeve and attempted to pull the disciple back to the group. However, the vine caught on fire as soon as it entered the lamps’ range. It dissolved into ash before Yang Xuan could pull it back.

Gravevine? Ye Qing recognized the strange vine Yang Xuan had tried to use to rescue Ma Yuanshan. It was a Red-class Stranger called the Gravevine.

As the name implied, a Gravevine was a kind of vine that grew near graves and burial mounds. Over time, it transformed into a Stranger because it was constantly exposed to yin qi. It usually wrapped itself around graves and burial mounds and captured any flesh-and-blood being who got too close to the grave such as a human who had come to pay their respects to their loved ones.

The Gravevine was weak and immobile, but it could grow indefinitely so long as there was a steady supply of yin qi. However, Yang Xuan’s Gravevine—all of it—had burned into ash as soon as it made contact with the lamps’ light.

“What happened?” Wang Yang asked seriously.

Yang Xuan answered with a frown, “It’s the light of those oil lamps. It burned my Gravevine into ash instantly.”

“Then why is Ma Yuanshan fine?” Wang Yang asked puzzledly.

For a given definition of fine, that was. The guy was acting like an insane zealot right now.

“I don’t know. Let me try something else!” Yang Xuan waved his sleeve and revealed a centipede covered in bluish green phosphorus flame [2]this time. It was about as thick as a baby’s arm.

A Phosphorus Flame Centipede! Ye Qing rubbed his nose thoughtfully as the centipede skittered across the ground.

The Phosphorus Flame Centipede was a Malice-class Stranger that was normally found in extremely cold and yin places. It possessed a deadly venom that could kill upon contact, and a phosphorus flame that could erode flesh and blood.

Incredibly agile and difficult to kill, the Phosphorus Flame Centipede could stay alive even after it had been severed into several pieces. Generally speaking, it was a very annoying Malice-class Stranger to handle.

1. A Buddhist hand gesture that looks like the Buddha is holding a lotus flower. ☜

2. If you ask why his sleeves haven’t caught on fire, the answer is magic. ☜