Stranger Danger

Chapter 293: Opening The Sky Gate

“G5+1”

“S6=7”

......

Outside the xiangqi board, Xiangqi Demon and the devilishly handsome man inevitably slowed down despite the blazing start. No move was taken without consideration, and every turn lasted at least several minutes long.

There were far fewer pieces left on the board than before as well. This should be the moment where the battle was winding down, but instead, the heat and tension were higher than ever before. It was because a victor wasn’t decided yet. A single mistake could doom the player to the point of no return.

“S five plus one, checkmate!”

Xiangqi Demon moved the Soldier piece that was Ye Qing one step forward and checked his enemy’s General. He looked up and shot Xiangqi Demon a cheeky grin.

In response, the devilishly handsome man said unhurriedly, “You may have checkmated my General, but the game isn’t over yet, is it?”

Xiangqi Demon raised his eyebrows as crimson blood seeped out of his eye sockets. If this was an ordinary game of xiangqi, then he would’ve won already. But in this game, he could only claim victory if Ye Qing managed to defeat the enemy’s General. Otherwise, Ye Qing would die, and the devilishly handsome man would be free to checkmate him.

Inside the board, Ye Qing was pondering a way to escape the board when suddenly, he was uncontrollably pushed toward a formidable-looking man wearing a set of rainbow-colored Yanling armor[1] and carrying a banner behind his back. The word “General” was sewn on the banner.

Is that the General? If I kill him and win the game, does that mean I would be released from the board? I think so!

All kinds of thoughts passed through Ye Qing’s head as he ran toward his opponent. At the same time, a mysterious power increased his power to that of a late-stage Spirit Purifier[2].

Ye Qing was on full alert, however. It was because his opponent was also a late-stage Spirit Purifier, and unlike him, he was the genuine article.

Finally, he recognized his opponent. He was none other than Zhong Ji, the guy who used an AOE taunt on everyone when they were still outside the Guixu.

There was a stack of bodies in front of Zhong Ji. There were both humans and Strangers. They looked plenty strong as well. They were, at minimum, Soulstealer-class Strangers or Spirit Purifiers.

According to the rules of this unusual game of xiangqi, if the power level of the two combatants wasn’t equal, then the disadvantaged side would gain a small boost in power. Astral Refiners would be boosted into Spirit Purifiers, Hatred-class Strangers would be boosted to Soulstealer-class Strangers and so on.

Zhong Ji must have run into stronger opponents where he was the disadvantaged side, but he couldn’t be the weak side all the time. Some of his opponents had to have been boosted to Spirit Master or Phenomenon level.

This meant that Zhong Ji was incredibly strong. So strong that he could defeat a Spirit Master or Phenomenon-class Stranger as a Spirit Purifier. Sure, they were all faux Spirit Masters and Phenomenon-class Strangers, but that hardly meant that Zhong Ji was weak.

Ye Qing’s charge slowed a little. He seemed both hesitant and fearful.

“A Spirit... no, an Astral Refiner?” Zhong Ji scoffed when he saw Ye Qing. “This is getting boring.”

“Die.”

Zhong Ji gripped his ghost-faced saber and unleashed eighteen slashes in a row.

Yin qi boiled, and the world darkened. Every time he executed a slash, a level of hell manifested into existence. By slashing eighteen times in a row, Zhong Ji was bringing forth the eighteen levels of hell.

The Hell of the Mountain of Knives saw sadistic killers climbing literal mountains of knives with their bare bodies;

The Hell of the Cauldrons of Oil saw rapists, thieves, abusers, and false accusers being thrown into pots of the boiling oil and fried;

The Hell of Saw saw unethical businessmen and loophole exploiters being tied to wooden stakes and sawed in half;

The Hell of Mills saw abusers of powers being tossed into giant mills and crushed into itsy bitsy pieces...

......

Zhong Ji cultivated the “Ghost King Sutra”, and the “Myriad Blades of Eighteen Hells” was its ultimate technique. It was a bonafide Spirit Purification stage saber art that could manifest the eighteen levels of hell, bring forth the Hundred Ghosts Parade, and transform the human world into an endless hell.

Speaking of hells, Ye Qing was quickly engulfed by the attack. When Zhong Ji saw this, he scoffed again and put his saber away. “Definitely a useless piece of trash. Be proud that you’re able to die under my ultimate attack.”

The second his energies relaxed, he was suddenly struck by a deep sense of unease. By the time he realized something was wrong and tried to resist, a series of disturbing cackles was already assaulting his mind. His headspace shook, and he started hallucinating all kinds of things.

“Fuck!” Realizing he was tricked and suffering some sort of mental attack, Zhong Ji growled and summoned a Ghost King inside his head space. The Ghost King let out a mighty roar that drove the disturbing cackle out of his head.

The damage was already done, however. During the one or two breaths he lost touch with the outside world, a man rushed out of the storm of blades that was the “Myriad Blades of Eighteen Hells” like a raging river. Wherever he went, ghosts burned into ash, and yin qi dissipated like he was the sun itself. He was like an unstoppable force punching through the very concept of hell.

Ye Qing appeared in front of Zhong Ji and reached the peak of his power in an instant. Then, he threw a full-powered punch that dreamed of opening the gates of the sky itself.

BOOM!

Zhong Ji barely managed to cross his saber in front of his chest before the punch struck him. It snapped his ghost-faced saber in half, crushed his armor, and caved his chest in by several inches. The earth beneath Zhong Ji’s feet rippled like water, and a series of thunderous rumblings came from the underground.

“You—pwack—impossible!”

Blood jetted through Zhong Ji’s lips uncontrollably as soon as he opened his mouth. His face started breaking like cracks on a porcelain vase, but strangely, he bled some sort of deathly, bluish black qi instead of blood. It was almost as if he wasn’t human.

How did he do it?

Even if his power was boosted to that of a Spirit Purifier, it should be impossible for him to hurt me, much less deal me a serious blow!

He was confident he could destroy Ye Qing unharmed, but the fact was Ye Qing had nearly killed him in one strike. If he hadn’t cultivated a Body of Ancient Dead, if he wasn’t so resilient that his physique was comparable to that of a ten-thousand-year-old Zombie, that one punch really would have shattered him like porcelain!

“I won’t lose! I’m going to kill you!” Zhong Ji roared on top of his lungs even as black qi continued to seep out of his wounds. But right as he took his first step, the light in his eyes abruptly dimmed, and his roar turned into a bloodcurdling scream. His pupils slowly contracted until finally, he came to a stop as if his life had departed his body completely.

For a few breaths, the Spirit Purifier stood there unmoving. Then, he suddenly looked up and grinned toothily at Ye Qing. However, his eyes had turned into unfathomable depths of pitch black darkness, eerie and ominous.

“Kekeke, I’m going to kill you, boy!”

Ye Qing wasn’t perturbed by this disturbing sight, however. In fact, he let out a sigh of relief and said tiredly, “Cut it out, Fog Demon. Now’s not the time for games.”

Yes, Zhong Ji was now the Fog Demon, or more accurately, his mind was corrupted and taken over by the Fog Demon. He had now become a puppet that the Fog Demon might control as it pleased.

As a Nine Nethers Demon, the Fog Demon possessed the ability to corrupt a human’s mind and spirit. If anything, out of everything the Fog Demon had displayed thus far, this was its true ability. It could control anyone who was weak-willed and low-spirited with little effort. Even Ye Qing himself had almost fallen under its control back at Sky Gate Abyss.

Although Zhong Ji was a powerful late-stage Spirit Purifier with a strong spirit, he possessed a dark mind and spirit because he cultivated the “Ghost King Sutra”. Combined with the fact that Ye Qing had dealt him a serious blow through a surprise attack, and the Fog Demon was able to corrupt him and take over his mind with ease.

If he didn’t have the Fog Demon, and if Zhong Ji hadn’t severely underestimated his strength, this would’ve been a hard-fought battle.

As for why he only took control of Zhong Ji instead of killing him, it was because he had designs for him, of course.

Now that he realized that he was in a xiangqi board, he was constantly thinking of a way to escape this place. Technically speaking, he should be freed now that he had killed the enemy’s General and won the game, but this wasn’t an ordinary game of xiangqi now, was it? What if killing the General wasn’t the end of the match? What if the old man who most likely tossed him here had other plans for him?

Zhong Ji was a powerful warrior. Keeping him around was far more useful than allowing the mysterious power to explode him into bits.

In fact, he had puppeteered his enemies’ bodies a couple of times during his previous battles. The first time he tried this, he discovered that the rules would treat his enemy as dead, and their dead body as his possession. In other words, he could bring them to his next battle.

Unfortunately, everyone he controlled up until now was, frankly, not very powerful. He was forced to sacrifice them all to gain an advantage over some Strangers.

Speaking of Strangers, he was hoping to puppeteer some powerful Strangers to aid his battles, but unfortunately the Fog Demon’s ability only worked on humans. Moreover, most of the Strangers he fought were non-sentient and acted purely based on their instincts. They were impossible to control even if it the Fog Demon could corrupt their minds.

Rumble rumble rumble!

It was at this moment the world started shaking violently. Mountains collapsed, rivers flowed in reverse, the earth was torn asunder, and ominous cracks appeared all over the sky. It looked like the final stage of an apocalypse—the end of all that ever existed.

“Fuck! Fuck! The world is about to crumble!” The Fog Demon cried in shock and horror when he saw this. “We’re going to die!”

“I see it,” Ye Qing replied while glaring at the sky. To his own surprise, he calmed down despite facing what looked like an utterly hopeless crisis.

“It’s all your fault, boy! I told you to leave the Guixu as soon as possible, but you just had to linger, didn\'t you? Now, we’re both going to die!”

The Fog Demon complained loudly, “I haven’t enjoyed a day of freedom or done something worthwhile since I came to this world, and now I’m going to die? How tragic! How lamentable!”

“Since we’re going to die anyway, why don’t you release me and allow me to enjoy a moment of freedom, boy? To catch at least a breath of free air?”

Does he think I’m stupid? Ye Qing scoffed inside his head. The Fog Demon’s plan was as clear as day. It just wanted Ye Qing to release it so it could escape.

The Fog Demon was a Nine Nethers Demon, and a Nine Nethers Demon was notoriously resilient. Ye Qing strongly suspected that the Stranger would survive even if this entire world were damned to oblivion.

“You and I are bound by a contract, and as your master, I will never abandon you even in death, so rest easy. Master and servant forever, am I right?”

Fog Demon: “...” Fuck you and your master and servant forever bullshit! Please abandon me, for fuck’s sake!

“Attention, Fog Demon. I want you to toss me into the sky with all you got.”

Ye Qing growled suddenly, “Quickly, unless you actually want to go to the afterlife with me!”

The Fog Demon didn’t know what Ye Qing was planning, but it didn’t hesitate to pilot Zhong Ji over and unseal the Boundless Mara Buddha. Together, they pushed Ye Qing into the sky.

Whoosh!

Ye Qing shot into the sky like an arrow, and as he soared, his aura kept growing stronger and stronger. His elbow wasn’t moving, but his forearm—or more accurately, his fist—was raising inch by inch.

His energies peaked at the same time his fist was pointed toward the sky. His spine straightened, and he thrust his arm upward.

If the world was going to destroy him, then he would break through the world with his fist!

1. Which translates to goose feather armor. Food for thought. ?

2. Remember, their faux powers disappear after a clash has ended. ?