Stranger Danger

Chapter 328: I’ll Let You Go

“And how do you intend to make peace, exactly?” Ye Qing asked.

Slave of Fire hurriedly said, “It’s simple. If you let us go, we swear in the name of the Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas that we will never trouble you again. It would be like this conflict had never happened. What do you say?”

“Is that so?” Ye Qing rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It sounds like a good plan, but can you actually keep your word?”

“But of course! We are the descendants of the divine, the Kimnaras. We will never go back on a promise.” Slave of Fire added in a hurry, “Watch. In the name of the Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas, I solemnly swear that I will never trouble you for as long as I draw breath.”

“Sounds good.” Ye Qing raised an eyebrow. “Okay! I trust you. You may leave.”

“You are a smart man, warrior! Hahaha!” Slave of Fire exclaimed in excitement. “I promise you won’t regret your decision today.”

“I think so too.” Ye Qing drew Chu Nianjiu and Lin Yuhuai’s attention and said, “You can bring the rest over now.”

After the duo hauled the prisoners over, Chu Nianjiu asked Ye Qing via sound transmission, “Are you seriously going to let them go? That they won’t come back and cause us trouble later?”

“Not at all. I don’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth.” Ye Qing shrugged nonchalantly. When Slave of Fire solemnly swore he wouldn’t trouble them just now, he could sense a sea of hatred bubbling inside the old man’s heart. He was willing to bet his pinky finger that the group would bring Huo Hao over the second they were out of sight and out of mind.

To be honest, Ye Qing would have let them go if Slave of Fire was actually sincere with his promise. He could tell from the name alone that the Eight Legions of Devas and Nagas was no ordinary organization. They might prove to be more troublesome than even the Way of Taiping. He didn’t mind staying out of their way if they would stay out of his.

But they wouldn’t. Slave of Fire’s feelings made it crystal clear. In that case, there was only one thing left to do.

“Then why are we letting them go?” Chu Nianjiu frowned.

“I didn’t though?” Ye Qing shook his head.

Chu Nianjiu put two and two together. “Do you mean...”

“The language of Chu is deep and complex. It’s not my fault they didn’t clarify exactly what I mean.”

Ye Qing’s lips curled into a devilish grin as he snapped his fingers, causing the five warriors who foolishly thought that they were going to escape to freeze all of a sudden. Their eyes grew unfocused as several wisps of fog slipped into their heads.

The Fog Demon’s voice rang inside Ye Qing’s heart, “Kekeke, are you plotting something again, boy?”

“I’m not plotting anything. I’m just protecting myself,” Ye Qing mentally replied. “Anyway, cut the bullcrap and take over them already, will you?”

“Easy peasy.” The Fog Demon let out an evil cackle.

A few breaths later, the five warriors regained their consciousness. They shook their heads a little and asked Ye Qing with eerie unison, “Kekeke... What is the plan, boy?”

“Is that... the Boundless Mara Buddha?” Chu Nianjiu and Lin Yuhuai quickly put two and two together despite their initial surprise. “Why are you controlling them with the Fog Demon, Joyless?”

Ye Qing smirked. “Nothing much. I just want to eliminate the threat by the roots, that’s all.”

......

Vicious Tiger River was a deep river located in the middle of a mountain. Surrounded by difficult terrain, it was easy to defend but difficult to assault.

Previously, Vicious Tiger River was occupied by a group of Grave Raiders. Led by a late-stage Astral Refiner, they frequently raided traveling merchants, dug graves, and committed all sorts of crimes. The Feng Yang government had tried multiple times to annihilate them to no avail.

Now, they were all dead. Not a speck of them was left behind in this world—literally, the Radical Fire Captain had burned them all into dust.

Huo Hao, Radical Fire Captain of the Kimnaras was a tall, muscular man with a rugged appearance. Bare-torsoed, he was currently sweating buckets in the main hall eating a lamb leg with one hand and drinking a jar of delicious wine with the other.

There was no one around him. A closer look would reveal that the temperature inside the main hall was unbelievably hot, and the furniture and pillars holding up the place were giving off a burned stench.

The source of the unnatural temperature was none other than Huo Hao. His bared torso was packed with fiery tattoos, and the tattoos were swaying back and forth almost like they were real flames. Not only that, actual flames flickered just above his skin and gave off the choking odor of sulfur. It was where the heat was coming from. Strangely, the wine jar and the lamb leg he was holding wasn’t affected by the flames or the heat whatsoever.

“Captain, Slave of Fire and the others are back.”

It was at this moment a man in red robes stepped in and gave his report.

“Finally. What took them so long?” Huo Hao knitted his brow before ordering, “Send them in.”

The man left. A short while later, Slave of Fire, Fifteen Saber, Gu Lady, Mad Fist and Bird Scholar entered the main hall.

“Huh. What the hell happened to you guys?” Huo Hao took a bite and asked. It was because all five warriors looked like shit.

“The targets were stronger than expected,” Slave of Fire replied respectfully.

“What? Don’t tell me you failed to take them out?” Huo Hao’s tone immediately turned unfriendly. The flames grew stronger, and the temperature inside the main hall shot up by several degrees.

The five warriors subconsciously stepped away from Huo Hao while Slave of Fire explained in a hurry, “No! The targets are strong, but of course they’re no match for the five of us. We just took some injuries during the fight is all.”

Huo Hao scoffed in disdain, “Hmph! You outnumbered the mortals, and you still got hurt? You’ve brought shame to the Kimnaras. I expect you to flagellate yourselves ten times when you return to your dwellings.”

“As you command.” No one dared to reject the punishment.

Huo Hao gulped another mouthful of wine before asking, “Have you taken out everyone who’s related to Lei Laohu?”

Slave of Fire answered, “More or less, captain.”

“Good.” A vicious, bloodthirsty smile crossed his lips. “How dare these lowly mortals murder our venerable young master. Lei Laohu should count himself lucky that we didn’t have someone who could capture his soul and burn him for eternity.”

“Continue the good work until every man and woman who’s related to Lei Laohu is dead. Let this be an example to all who would dare to challenge the Eight Legions.”

“As you command.” Slave of Fire saluted before producing a few jars of wine from his Nature’s Shell and handing it to Huo Hao. “Captain, we found these in the targets’ Nature’s Shell. They’re all well-aged, high-quality brews. Please accept it.”

“Oh? I appreciate the gesture, Slave of Fire!” Huo Hao’s eyes lit up. The moment he accepted the gift, he immediately removed the seal and poured its contents down his throat.

“Gulp... Gulp...”

In just a few breaths, the whole jar of wine had entered his stomach.

“Rich, strong, flavorful! Now this is what I call fine wine!” Huo Hao complimented before grabbing the next jar and gulping down its contents as well. It took him only a moment to finish all three jars of wine.

Huo Hao’s complexion didn’t change, however. When a warrior had reached a certain level, what would’ve killed an ordinary human wouldn’t faze them in the slightest. It was at this moment Huo Hao noticed that the five warriors hadn’t left yet. He asked with a frown, “Why are you guys still here?” Slave of Fire slowly approached Huo Hao with an odd smile on his face. “There is one more matter I must report to you, captain. A very important one.”

“What is it? Spill it already!” Huo Hao said impatiently.

“It’s...” Slave of Fire got closer and closer. “About... sending you to the next life!”

Pssh!

“What are you doing, Slave of Fire?”

Huo Hao roared and punched Slave of Fire in the chest, blowing a hole in it and throwing him all the way to the wall.

And why did he attack his subordinate? It was because his subordinate had stabbed his stomach with a dagger!

Before Huo Hao’s voice even finished speaking, Gu Lady, Fifteen Saber, Mad Fist and Bird Scholar pounced toward Huo Hao as well.

“Have you all gone mad?” Huo Hao’s eyes bulged with shock and anger as the fiery tattoos on his torso suddenly turned bright red. A terrific wave of heat washed out of him and knocked the four warriors away, burning them from head to toe.

The four warriors couldn’t seem to feel their wounds, however. Even Slave of Fire had climbed back to his feet to attack Huo Hao again.

“You are courting death!” Huo Hao roared with fury as the flames joined together to form a massive vortex. It caught the five warriors before they could even approach him and burned them into dust.

“Pwack!”

However, Huo Hao abruptly threw up a mouthful of blood and lost control of his technique. The flame vortex scattered in every direction and burned down everything except the building itself. His stomach was hurting like someone was twisting a knife in his gut, and his vitality was in a disarray.

He looked at the blood on the floor. It was black-colored instead of red.

“Poison? Was it the wine? Not good!” Huo Hao blanched immediately. “Fire Guards!”

No one responded to his call, however.

“Shit!”

By now, Huo Hao realized that he was in deep trouble. He sucked in a deep breath, forcefully suppressed the deadly poison ravaging his insides, and rushed out of the main hall.

It was deathly silent outside the main hall, and all thirty six Fire Guards were lying dead on the floor.

“Who did this?” Huo Hao roared furiously. “How dare you attack the noble Kimnaras! Come out so I can rip you to pieces with my own hands!”

His flames burned so hot that the ground within ten meters of him had melted into lava.

“How does my wine taste, Lord Huo Hao?”

Ye Qing slowly stepped out of the darkness. He was holding an extraordinarily beautiful saber in his left hand, blade still dripping with fresh blood.

At the same time, Chu Nianjiu and Lin Yuhuai also emerged from their hiding spots from two different directions. They essentially had Huo Hao surrounded.

The three jars of wine Slave of Fire had given Huo Hao contained the deadly poison of the Blue Demon Hand. The idea occurred to him as soon as Slave of Fire told him that Huo Hao was a wine lover.

You like wine, don’t you?

It’ll be your last supper!

Huo Hao was a Spirit Master, and the three of them were just early-stage Spirit Purifiers. They might be far stronger than your conventional Spirit Purifier, but they still weren’t confident that they could take Huo Hao on in a straight fight. One simple mistake was all it took to lose their lives.

That was why he came up with the idea of poisoning Huo Hao through Slave of Fire. It was the perfect plan as Huo Hao had no reason to suspect Slave of Fire of pulling such a stunt whatsoever.

Ideally, Huo Hao should be writhing on the floor in agony and more or less incapacitated right now. In reality, he still underestimated the vitality of a Spirit Master. The Blue Demon Hand was dozens of times stronger than what it used to be after going through a rebirth, and its poison especially was beyond deadly after it was refined with the Cold Spring of Myriad Poison. Not only could it damage a warrior’s body, it now attacked the mind as well. It could easily snuff out a Spirit Purifier with an average constitution and a weak spirit.

That was why he thought that the poison should be enough to kill an unguarded Spirit Master, especially since Huo Hao downed all three jars in rapid succession. In reality, the guy easily killed his ambushers and even walked out of the grave they had prepared for him, ready to fight his killers to the death.

The poison wasn’t useless though. He could clearly sense Huo Hao’s energies weakening rapidly by the second.