157 Chapter 156: Fighting with Spirit Armaments (1/2)
”Watch out, Qi Hong!” I yelled. ”This guy is after you!”
”Eh?”
Even as she cried out in shock, Tang Qi Hong was already moving, adopting a defensive stance as she kept her eyes on her would-be assassin.
”You bastard!” the assassin growled as he slammed his palm against me, but I managed to block his strike with both my forearms. Even then, the shockwave of qi threw me several meters back, causing me to skid backward.
”Ouch!” I complained, shaking both my arms. ”What the hell was that for?!”
”He actually didn't die?!”
The assassin stared at me with wide eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.
As one of the three Great Shadow Guards, Gray Shadow had been brought up in a brutal environment during his time in the Divine Shadow Sect (which was practically his whole life), and had trained in assassin techniques since young. As a child, he was thrown into the grinder, and was only able to survive by climbing atop the corpses of his comrades. And only then was he finally acknowledged as someone with the right to learn the various assassination techniques and high-level cultivation methods of the Divine Shadow Sect.
Even though the three Great Shadow Guards were not formidable martial artists in a frontal assault, in terms of assassinations and ambushes, they were supposed to be unrivaled.
To them, taking a life was as easy as turning over a hand.
It was just too bad they ran into me, someone who had mastered Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps and sharpened my Heaven and Earth senses to their limits. Thanks to that, I could practically detect the flow of qi in everybody, and notice even the minutest of changes in their qi. That was how I picked up on that murderous intent from Gray Shadow.
Gray Shadow had been keeping watch at the entrance of the main sect grounds of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect since this morning, looking for a chance to assassinate Tang Qi Hong. Since Tang Qi Hong was the top priority target, I was nothing more than an innocent bystander who deserved not even the tiniest attention. Of course, if I interfered, Gray Shadow was prepared to kill me to get me out of the way, but he was confident of taking out his primary target before I even noticed.
He was not stupid enough to waste effort killing a secondary target and thus potentially alerting his primary target to his presence, which would give her the chance to react, defend herself or escape. He was not that unprofessional.
That trick almost worked. In fact, it would have if I hadn't mastered Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps. If I wasn't a disciple of the Heaven and Earth Sect, I would never have noticed him creeping up on us, and wouldn't have realized that he had assassinated Tang Qi Hong as she suddenly fell to the ground, lifeless.
Gray Shadow would then slipped back into the crowd, unnoticed, while I held Tang Qi Hong's dead body and panicked. There was no sense in exposing himself by killing more than was necessary. His primary target was Tang Qi Hong, and the entire mission of the Divine Shadow Sect hinged on whether she died or not.
Unfortunately for him, I had thwarted his assassination attempts and even exposed his presence in front of everybody.
Of course I wasn't speculating about all those nonsense at that moment. My priority was to protect Tang Qi Hong, and to do that, I would have to defeat this guy, and perhaps capture him to interrogate him on his master. For now, I froze an ice sword out of thin air and swung the frost blade at Gray Shadow.
”!!!”
Gray Shadow took a step back, but my frost blade shattered harmlessly over his chest. To be more precise, it broke against the protective qi aura covering his chest. Looked like I needed to use a proper weapon against a high-leveled foe like him.
”Heh.”
For his part, Gray Shadow looked amused when he realized how brittle my improvised ice weapon was. His eyes glinted menacingly and he grinned.
”Hiss!”
”Whoa!”
I retreated, panicking as three small emerald-scaled snakes burst ouf of his sleeves slithered toward me. They were pretty small, about as thin as a finger and a meter long, but their emerald scales gleamed dangerously in the sun.
Obviously they were venomous. If they bit me…well, nothing would happen. Never mind the Hellfire Badger's property I gained from eating it, I had attained full immunity to poisons from my Heaven and Earth Formula.
The tiny emerald snakes glided through the air, baring their fangs and sinking them into my neck. I cried out in pain and grabbed at them, seizing them by their necks.
”Fei Wu!”
”Emerald Serpents!”
Tang Qi Hong and an unfamiliar person both shouted almost simultaneously. Despite the conflict unfolding before their eyes, the martial artists patronizing the surrounding stalls merely stood still and didn't move.
In this lawless zone where an underground market thrived, such conflicts were frequent. Many a martial artist had killed each other over crooked deals, and there were cases of martial artists hunting down a conman doing business in here and killing him for cheating him. It was not uncommon for fights to break out.
As the Blood Blades and authorities left this autonomous place to its own devices and looked the other way, it was unlikely that they would show up to help. The Nine-Tailed Fox Sect did not flaunt their authority in this place, and left it alone. Aware of the fact, many criminals or martial artists chose this as a venue to settle their grudge. And the regulars and vendors here knew better than to intervene in these sort of matches.
In fact, the crowd actually sat back to enjoy the show, as if it was everyday entertainment. The bastards…
The only movement came from the nearby vendors, who tried their best to protect their stalls, praying fervently that the conflict did not spill over to their territory.
Gray Shadow had known about this, having done his research on Tushan City, which was why he chose to assassinate Tang Qi Hong in this lawless place. If she died here, even the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would find it difficult to pursue the matter. Most of the vendors here were already prepared for death when they set up their stalls here, and the martial artists who patronized this place had known that they had to look out for themselves in this place.
Good thing I was looking out for myself and Tang Qi Hong.
”That hurts!” I whined, not caring about the fucking crowd and crushing the three snakes, killing them instantly. Yanking their jaws from my neck, I hurled them onto the ground and then stomped on them to make sure they stayed dead. I then raised my head to glare at Gray Shadow. ”What's that for?! Are you trying to bite off more than you can chew?”
”H…how?!”
”How what?” I responded, amused. Gray Shadow spluttered, shaking his head and trying to wrap his mind around what was going on.
”The venom of those Emerald Serpents should be enough to kill an Elegant Elephant instantly! Yet you're still alive and moving around as if nothing happened?”
”It does hurt,” I admitted as I clamped a hand on my wounded neck and winced as the venom coursed through my body. Even with full immunity to venom, it would still take some time for my system to develop the antibodies to neutralize it. Not to mention I had to spend some qi to suppress it. However, compared to the toxins I had suffered from, or been injected with in the past, the Emerald Serpents' venom was nothing. ”But it's nowhere as lethal as a Hydra's or Hellfire Toxin. Sorry, but it's not going to be enough to kill me.”
Gray Shadow's jaw dropped and he did a perfect imitation of a goldfish swimming around in a bowl.
”Who are you?!” Tang Qi Hong shouted angrily. ”How dare you attack a Nine-Tailed Fox Sect inner sect disciple in Tushan City?!”
Gray Shadow broke out of his stupor and responded by swinging both his hands. I blinked, conjuring an ice shield in front of me in instinct, and his qi blast crushed it. However, even as my improvised ice shield shattered, most of the impact from the shadowy blast dissipated harmlessly. Around me, fragments of frost sprayed the surrounding vendors and martial artists, but they channeled their qi to summon protective auras of qi, which disintegrated the shattered ice that rained on them.
Thanks to that, no one was hurt by the sharp icy fragments.
”Flame Silk!”
Tang Qi Hong defended herself with a yell. I had to roll my eyes, wondering why she was shouting the name of her Spirit Artifact.
Six ribbons emerged from her spatial device, flapping silently in the air as they blazed fiercely. Manipulated by Tang Qi Hong's qi, they formed a flexible barrier in front of her, the purple flames burning so hotly that many martial artists nearby were forced to retreat as they tried to avoid being seared by the incredible heat.
”Inner sect disciples! They're actually inner sect disciples!”
”No, the boy is one of the Blood Blades!”
”What are they doing here?!”
Only now did the martial artists in Free Trade Street notice the nine-tailed foxes pinned to our uniform collars, and they realized who we were.
Despite their surprise, none of them made any move to help me and Tang Qi Hong. They merely kept their distance.
”Um…shouldn't we be helping?”
”Help who?”
”The kids?”
”Why? Do you know the kids?”
”No, but they're from the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, right?”
”So what? If you don't know them, then how do you know they didn't do anything to offend that man over there?”
As fights were very frequent in the Free Trade Street, there was an unspoken rule. Normally the people here wouldn't intervene in the affairs of others. That is to say, they would not meddle in the fights between other martial artists, unless they knew for sure who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Furthermore, this area was not under the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect's jurisdiction, so no one was obligated to help the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect.
”Won't we get in trouble if an inner sect disciple from the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect gets killed here?” one of the more astute vendors asked, but nobody paid him any attention.
”Who cares? They don't own this area. They've let us do whatever we want all this time, why would they suddenly come and make trouble?”
”Yeah, if they do, we'll fight back!”
With that settled, the crowd automatically made space for Gray Shadow to fight the two of us. They stood off in the distance, watching the show and gossiping amongst themselves. A few opportunistic vendors even went around collecting bets.
They really were used to fights breaking out here all the time…
Whoosh!
The six flaming ribbons danced about, flying majestically in the air and casting a vicious purple glow on the streets.
”Nine Shuriken Stars!”
Why the fuck was she shouting the name of her Spirit Armaments? Was she trying to show off? That must be it, right? She was trying to show off what kind of Spirit Armaments she had!
While I resisted the urge to bury my face in my palm, nine shuriken stars launched from Tang Qi Hong's pockets and streaked through the air like comets, leaving a trail of glittering light behind. Then they seemed to vanish.
”Uh…why did you even use those Nine Shuriken Stars for?”
I threw my hands up, wondering what the whole point of that was, if she wasn't using them to attack Gray Shadow. Tang Qi Hong ignored me, already reaching for her next Spirit Artifact. At the same time, Gray Shadow, upon realizing that the Nine Shuriken Stars weren't going to hit him, launched an attack of his own.
”Shooting Divine Beam!”
”What kind of fucking name is that!?” I screamed in exasperation, even as the shadowy beam of deadly qi arced toward Tang Qi Hong. Shaking my head, I stepped in and got ready to defend my crush, but she was one step ahead of me.
”Cloud Shield!”
A dense cloud of qi solidified in front of Tang Qi Hong, taking the shape of a large shield of light.
”Are you seriously going to keep shouting the names of your Spirit Artifacts?” I demanded as I watched Gray Shadow's Shooting Divine Beam bounced off it harmlessly. Again, neither of them responded.
”Frost Bone Spear!”