257 Chapter 256: The Dark Sage (1/2)

WOOOOO!

I couldn't help but shudder at the sight of the approaching Dark Sage. Sha Chen had landed in the swamp with a tremendous splash, and there wasn't much left of the marsh except huge puddles of tainted water and damp soil.

The ground had split and exploded upon Sha Chen's landing, his violent qi throwing up a vicious hurricane that sent debris of soil, weeds, aquatic plants, and even swamp creatures flying into the air, as if suspended in a tornado. His red cape billowed above him, his white hair swaying gently despite the forceful pressure of his qi destroying his surroundings.

Just his mere presence was enough to destroy the surroundings. What a monster.

My eyes widened as I saw the scattered debris and suspended soil, cold shivers running down my spine as my mind attempted to digest the monstrous sight. His qi pressure was so overwhelming that I actually momentarily blacked out on my feet for a moment.

”Ah…ah…”

Perspiration was pouring down Tong Xue's face as he stared at Sha Chen, his complexion as pale as a ghost. He was shivering violently, almost on the verge of collapse. Tears began to well up in his eyes.

”Go,” I told him, my voice almost a whisper. That snapped Tong Xue out of his horrified stupor and he turned to look at me blankly.

”Go,” I repeated, my voice a little louder this time.

”But…” Tong Xue's voice was feebler than mine, if that was possible. ”How are we going to escape that monster?”

”I'll hold him off for as long as I can.” I tried to maintain a steady voice. ”You should leave. Now. Run from here as fast as you can.”

”You can't hold him off! You can't fight him on your own!”

”GO!” I yelled, unable to suppress the emotion, rage and fear in my voice this time. ”Or we'll both die!”

”I can't leave you to die on your own!”

”Just go!” I snapped. ”You have the samples with you! Take them to Lian Rou and have her concot the antidotes! Save Yi Ding Si and Song Ting Yu! Don't die for nothing! I'll hold this old man off for as long as I can!”

Tong Xue realized that I was right. Wiping his eyes, he unsteadily rose to his feet, turned around and bounded away, escaping at high speed.

”Tsk…there he goes.” The Dark Sage shook his head as he watched Tong Xue leave, but made no movement to chase me. He turned and grinned at me. ”So you think you can hold me off?”

I shrugged. ”I can try.”

”Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Sha Chen burst out laughing. ”I like your spirit, young man, if nothing else. Very well! Do your best to buy your friend some time!”

He cracked his knuckles, and then cocked his head from side to side, as if warming himself up and loosening his stiff muscles.

”I know I'm getting old. It's been a while since I've fought. Hmm…let's see…”

He grinned, and then swung his arm almost casually.

”!”

A powerful surge of qi blasted at me, and I was barely able to block it by crossing both of my swords. The ground on either side of me were split open like ripe fruit, the sharp qi pressure from Sha Chen's flippant strike tearing the soft earth apart and carving a pair of ravines.

”Ugh…!”

Despite blocking the blow with my swords, I found myself slipping backward. Soil and dirt flew past me in thick clods, as if being slung forward by a hurricane. Blinking, I saw the corpses of the Black Venom Cultists being flayed apart by the sharp qi.

This old man…he doesn't care about his comrades?!

Well, they were already dead, to be fair, but I didn't think he would go as far as to desecrate the bodies of his subordinates. Dead or not, they still served under him as part of his Black Venom Cult, didn't they?

Even so, I found myself shocked by the ruthlessness of the Dark Sage.

Flap!

At the corner of my eye, I saw movement, preceded by a great, flapping red cloak. In just a second, Sha Chen had closed the distance between us in a single bound.

”You should keep your eye on your opponent,” he advised me sarcastically, his qi bursting out of him in monstrous fashion and almost intimidating me to immobility.

Gritting my teeth, I raised both my swords to parry his palm strike. His attack collided with my crossed blades with tremendous impact, sending tremors reverberating throughout my throbbing arms. To my astonishment, the colossal force behind his palm strike smacked both my swords aside with barely any effort on his part.

”What the…?!”

Sha Chen grinned.

The next thing I knew, Sha Chen's palm slammed into my chest. My ribcage shrieked as if it was shattered, and a huge impression of his hand was left on my chest, a deep dent that almost crushed my heart with brute force.

”Gah!”

As blood spurted from my mouth, the entire ground behind erupted, a maelstrom of qi blowing a gargantuan tunnel through the marsh and scattering more clods of clay, mud and soil into the air.

I swayed on my feet for a second. Just a second…

…and then I was sent hurtling off my feet, both my swords flying from my hands. As I crashed through the dried-up swamp, my helplessly hurtling body actually created a sonic boom. The force from Sha Chen's simple palm strike was so great that it actually hurled me away at supersonic speeds!

”Kuh…!”

My breath had completely been knocked out of my lungs. Blood was spurting from my mouth, creating a red trail as I was sent crashing hundreds of meters away. Okay, that probably was an exaggeration, but not by much. It was probably almost two hundred meters before I slammed into the ground, leaving a crater.

Sha Chen slowly lowered his arms, his eyes seeming to blaze demonically.

BOOM! KABOOM!

I finally skidded to a stop in the middle of the crater I had created inadvertently, my breathing ragged and my mind almost blacked out. I probably passed out, but the red-hot agony and scorching sensation in my chest brought me back to full consciousness. I didn't even have the strength left to sit up, coughing out blood uncontrollably and gasping desperately for air.

Sha Chen straightened up and curled his fingers, flexing them as if testing them. Then he lowered both hands to his sides and watched my pathetic figure crawling in the dirt. Clods of soil and mud continued to rain around him, having been violently churned up and thrown into the air, and only now they were being brought back down by gravity.

”…”

The Dark Sage's hand twitched, his fingers flexing instinctively again. With a scowl, Sha Chen glanced at his hand.

Pssh…

Smoke was rising from a scalded patch in his palm. The old martial artist studied that slight injury curiously, a strange feeling scrabbling at the back of his mind.

”Qi Reversal?” he murmured under his breath, his voice filled with wonder and surprise. ”In that instant?”

Clenching his fingers into a fist, he raised his eyes from his hand to glare at my prone figure. Well, I was no longer prone. I was slowly struggling to my feet. for some reason, Sha Chen didn't finish me off while I was down, and was just watching.

Typical villain, thinking that it was over, or that he could easily kill me whenever he wanted. He was going to regret that.

Clenching my teeth, I stood up and corrected my stance. Forcing my Heaven and Earth qi to flow around my body, I attempted to mitigate the damage I had suffered from the Dark Sage's single blow. Funnily eough, he didn't seem to have used poison earlier.

Did he think a single strike was sufficient to kill me, even without poison? Whatever the case, it was a moot point, since I was immune to poison, but it still grated on my nerves that I was being underestimated.

Then again, I was so much weaker than him that it wasn't even funny.

He has every right to look down on me, I realized. Compared to him, I was but an ant. A mere mortal fighting against a god from the old Martial Arts Alliance.

I was completely and hopelessly outmatched.

Even so, I defiantly held my ground. Spitting out a clump of blood, I wiped my mouth and raised my head to glare at Sha Chen.

Damn it… I thought. I had expected this, but he's much stronger than I imagined. Much, much stronger…

The martial arts world was a vast place. No matter who you were, there would always be a mountain higher.

”Hmph…got a taste of reality, didn't you?” Sha Chen grinned in amusement as he watched me. ”But still ready to fight? I guess I'm impressed. I didn't think there were still people with backbone in the Martial Arts Alliance.”

”I'm not from the Martial Arts Alliance,” I replied.

”Oh? You aren't? Then why are you here?” Sha Chen raised a bushy, white eyebrow.

”To find an antidote. You poisoned a friend of mine.”

”A friend…ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Sha Chen suddenly burst out laughing, as if he realized something. ”Are you referring to that young lady from the Song family? She really is quite the witch, bewitching all the young men around her to do her dirty work. You are aware that she is from the Martial Arts Alliance, aren't you?”

”Yeah, but she isn't the only one your sect poisoned. I have another friend who's poisoned as well.” I doubted Sha Chen would know who Yi Ding Si was, so I didn't bother to mention his name. ”Not to mention countless victims.”

”Victims?” Sha Chen snorted. ”You call yourselves victims? You want to play the victim card?”

”Dude, are you unaware of what your sect has been doing? Abducting innocent villagers, capturing them to conduct inhuman experiments…killing people just to test out your poisons and toxins. What victim card are you accusing me of playing?”

”And who do you think forced us into this?”

”…huh?”

I wasn't sure I heard Sha Chen correctly. He was behaving as if the Black Venom Cult were the victims here, and that they were completely justified in commiting those atrocities.

”If we didn't ensure the lethality of our poisons, do you think we stand a chance against the Martial Arts Alliance?” Sha Chen growled. ”You claim that you're not from the Martial Arts Alliance, yet you're a friends with the daughter of one of the Alliance Chiefs. Are you seriously telling me you're unaware of the Martial Arts Alliance's constant attacks on us? They're always seeking to exterminate the Black Venom Cult, drive us deeper underground.” He paused, his eyes hard. ”It's not as if we want to make new poisons, but you forced our hands. Every year, you come up with new antidotes against our poisons, and when you assault us, you kill so many of our members. We have no choice but to come up with new strains in order to overcome your antidotes and stand a chance against the Martial Arts Alliance!”

…so this led to a vicious cycle. The Martial Arts Alliance frequently sent forces to eradicate the Black Venom Cult, who in turn had to develop new poisons to counter them and their antidotes, and to do so, they had to abduct human victims to experiment and test their new toxins on, which eventually led to the Martial Arts Alliance posting yet another request to exterminate them when villagers reported abductions and raids from the Black Venom Cult.

”Are you saying we should just stand still and let the Martial Arts Alliance kill us?” Sha Chen snarled. ”Fucking Martial Arts Alliance. They're a bunch of hypocrites. They label us demonic sects, but in truth they are no better than us. No, they are worse! Devilish snakes, putting on a façade of righteousness and justice, yet stabbing us in the dark and committing genocide in the name of so-called 'justice.'” He scoffed. ”You probably are too young to know about this, but I used to be part of the old Martial Arts Alliance. They used me, praised me when I killed their enemies, but after we won the first war against the demonic sects, what did they do?”

His sneer deepened further, and his furious qi ravaged his surroundings, destroying the muddy soil around him.

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”They tossed me aside. They were afraid of me, you see. After I had done my job and fulfilled my role as the butcher of demons, they suddenly declared the use of poison dishonorable and despicable. They labeled me as demonic, expelled me from the Martial Arts Alliance, and even hunted me down! To kill me! After all I had done for them! Because they were afraid of my strength, because they hated my poison techniques! Those selfish, hypocritical bastards!”

I found myself nodding in total agreement.

”You're right. The Martial Arts Alliance are the true evil here. Hypocritical bastards who play around in lies and deception. They tried to invade and massacre my sect, but when they failed, they cut off the subordinate sects they ordered to attack us and claimed those sects had gone rogue, leaving them out to hang dry while they escaped punishment.”

”So you're also a victim of the Martial Arts Alliance. Just like my subordinates.” Sha Chen glanced at the corpses behind me, his eyes unreadable. ”I created the Black Venom Cult as a refuge…for all those martial artists pursued unfairly by the Martial Arts Alliance. People viewed as despicable and dishonorable just because they used poison techniques…they condemned and persecuted us all because we use poison, you see. During the war, they allowed us in because we were useful, and it was the most efficient way to kill their enemies…but once the war is over, they quickly cut us off like a canker sore, because they were afraid of us. I pulled all the persecuted together, because there is strength in numbers, to resist the Alliance's hypocritical and ridiculous persecution. We allowed the weak in, those weak who had been exiled and expelled from their clans or sects because of their so-called lack of talent. To make up for their lack of talent, they learned poison techniques to compensate for the difference in skill. After all, what use is talent or being a genius if you still get killed by a single hit from a poison technique?”

Then Sha Chen burst out laughing.

”Of course…that must be why they were so desperate to wipe us out. They're so afraid of us! Our poison techniques allowed us to disrupt the order! It rendered the hierarchy based on talent and strength useless! What use is being the strongest if you die from a single poison hit? What use is talent? They were so worried that we would turn that structure upside down with oour poison techniques that they were determined to wipe us out!”

”…that certainly sounds right.”

From what I knew of the Martial Arts Alliance, that sounded exactly like their modus operandi. Eliminate everything that could be a threat to them. Even though Nine-Tailed Fox Sect was peacefully minding our own business and focusing on forging and selling Spirit Armaments, they were so terrified of our burgeoning wealth and the growing strength of Blood Blades that they sent ten to thirteen sects to invade us.

Righteousness? Justice? Don't make me laugh!

It seemed that I had found an unexpected kindred spirit in Sha Chen. The Dark Sage and his Black Venom Cult, like me and my Nine-Tailed Fox Sect were similarly victims of the Martial Arts Alliance. Perhaps he would be a strong ally in my eventual vengeance against the Martial Arts Alliance.

Yeah, I hadn't given up on destroying the Martial Arts Alliance and taking revenge on those bastards for attacking the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. I was going to find out who gave the order, and wiped them out. For all those who had died in the invasion…Tang Qi Hong. Shen Cha. Elder Cheng Ping. And many more of my Blood Blades comrades.

”We should work together,” I suggested, raising both hands in surrender. ”We have an enemy in common. I don't know about you, but I intend to destroy the Martial Arts Alliance. If you're willing to help me…”

”Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

I stopped when Sha Chen burst out laughing, not understanding what was so funny. The Dark Sage glowered at me.

”You want me to help you?”

”Uh…yeah?”