268 Chapter 267: Waking up (1/2)

”…ugh…”

Opening my eyes, I found myself staring at a white ceiling. Wincing, I tried to sit up, but red-hot agony flared up inside the upper part of my body, almost causing me to topple back down. Drawing deep breaths and forcing myself to withstand the pain, I straightened my back, took my glasses from the side table and put them on, and glanced around.

I was in a hospital, evidently.

”Hey, Fei Wu! Are you all right?”

A familiar voice called out to me. Blinking in surprise, I turned and caught sight of Tong Xue waving at me. He was accompanied by a concerned-looking Lian Rou.

”Thank goodness, you've finally woken up,” she said.

”Oh, hey.” I stared at them, still trying orientate myself. ”What's up? How long have I been out for?”

”A couple of days.” Tong Xue rolled his eyes. ”I told Lian Rou this is normal. Actually, I expected you to be out for another two or three days before you finally wake up. The healing experts are pretty good, but your injuries aren't light.”

”On the bright side, your wounds should fully heal in two or three days,” Lian Rou assured me with a smile. ”So you can go right back to beating people up.”

”Beating people up?” I repeated incredulously. ”Who do you think I am?”

Tong Xue and Lian Rou exchanged a glance. For some reason, I felt annoyed when I saw the flicker of amusement.

”Hey, what's that supposed to mean?”

”Nothing.” Lian Rou shook her head and shrugged.

”Well, you were the one who defeated the Heavenly Venom King.” Tong Xue was ogling me. ”You kind of caused a huge furor in Duchun Town…no, the entire empire probably knows about this by now. A young martial artist still yet to graduate, actually defeated the most powerful martial artist from the old Martial Arts Alliance. That was insane!”

At first I didn't reply. It took a few minutes for Tong Xue's words to sink in, and I sat there, digesting the implications. Sha Chen was dead. I defeated him. And I managed to survive, and was rescued.

I won. Against the most formidable opponent I had ever fought. I actually survived and won against such a terrifying enemy.

This didn't feel real. I couldn't believe it.

”…I actually did it?”

Then I remembered seeing Sha Chen's corpse. I had obliterated a large chunk of his torso, destroying his heart and the majority of his lungs. As powerful as he was, there was no way he could survive such a grievous wound.

”Did you find his body?” I asked.

”Not us, but the Imperial Guard did,” Tong Xue replied. ”They were wondering what sort of technique you used to kill him. Several of them were wondering if you are some kind of monster in disguise.”

”Nope. I'm just a regular human.”

”Somehow that doesn't sound convincing when you say it,” Lian Rou muttered with a shake of her head. Glancing at her, I suddenly recalled something important.

”How's Yi Ding Si and Song Ting Yu? Are they alive? Did you manage to get the sample and concoct an antidote?”

”Yeah, thanks to you two, we synthesized a serum that neutralized the Black Venom Toxin. The both of them recovered days ago.” Lian Rou smiled, and then narrowed her eyes at me disapprovingly. ”You're the one we were more worried about, given how your injuries were so much worse than anything poison could have caused.”

Not to mention I was immune to poison, so I didn't have to worry about that. But I didn't tell her that, of course.

Instead, I breathed a sigh of relief. Especially with regards to Yi Ding Si. With a name like that, I thought he was dead for sure, but it seemed that he had defied fate and survived. Hah! Tong Xue and I had defied the heavens! We had denied them their claim on a life of one of our schoolmates! We prevailed against those cruel, sadistic gods and saved someone they had marked as cannon fodder, or a character destined to die!

It felt good.

”That's great.” I was smiling genuinely. ”I'm glad they are safe.”

”Yeah. You're the only one who had us all worried, but it's good to see you up and awake now.” Tong Xue sighed in relief, and then clapped a hand on my shoulder. I winced, still feeling pretty sore, and he withdrew his hand apologetically. ”Rest well and recover, Mr. Great Hero. We'll need you in the coming days.”

”Huh? Coming days? What are you talking about?” I gaped at him.

Tong Xue grimaced and traded an uneasy look with Lian Rou. He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper.

”It's just a rumor for now, but…the demonic sects are on the move. And it seems that their target is Wu Ling City.”

*

Well, that news definitely put a dampener on my spirits, you can be sure of that. I wasn't fond of lying in bed the whole day despite my body throbbing all over like a million Orks screaming WAAAGH! Into my ears and bashing me with their choppas, so like the valiant guardsman I was, I picked up my lasgun and crawled out of bed.

Okay, my lasgun was actually a hi-tech shield. Speaking of which, it was still pretty damaged from the fight against the Black Venom Cult. The mobile turrets served me well during the fight against Sha Chen, but ultimately didn't do enough damage to incapacitate him. I probably should recaliberate the output of qi and everything.

They did hurt him, though, so there was that. They provided an annoying distraction that allowed me to avoid some of his lethal strikes and get some cheap shots in. I still hadn't perfected my control over them – in the end, I just forgot about them because I was spending too much qi on Heaven and Earth Strike and Heaven and Earth Reversal, and my mobile turrets were either blown away or I didn't have enough qi to have them hover around, but they made quite a difference at the beginning of the battle, and that was good enough for me.

Unfortunately, thanks to me spending a couple of days without my medicine, the excessive yang qi flared up inside my body again, causing me red-hot agony.

”Ugh…”

Fortunately, I had the Nine Yin Pills at hand, and retrieving one capsule from the storage device of Snow Aegis, I downed it. After resting for a bit, I felt the fiery yang qi calm down, counteracted by the frosty yin qi in the pills and the pain abated.

”Phew!”

That felt much better. After the fiery pain was gone, I stood up and looked around.

”…hmm…”

I glanced around, surprised that there wasn't any hooded guy with a scarred face and a bunch of mercenaries working under him. You know, an old guy who took over Nan San Village or something, and was acting like a benevolent Buddhist priest despite being one of the former Four Heavenly Kings who betrayed my master…

…okay, that was a lie. This wasn't Gosu. My master wasn't betrayed by any Four Heavenly Kings. I wasn't on a mission to avenge my master's death by killing all four former Heavenly Kings. I got rescued by the Imperial Guard, not a former Heavenly King (who I should really be addressing as my senior). Besides, every member of the Heaven and Earth Sect had been killed when the Martial Arts Alliance attacked. Other than me and Tian Yu Di – an ancient guy who came from a distant past centuries ago – Heaven and Earth Sect had been utterly annihilated.

And again, I didn't want to get into trouble for ripping off Gosu. Not that I didn't already rip it off, but I didn't want to cross the line, if you know what I mean.

”There you are.”

I turned at the familiar voice and spotted Song Ting Yu approaching me. She was dressed in her usual pink dress, as opposed to the patient gown that I wore. I waved at her and halted briefly to allow her to catch up.

”Good to see that you're alive.”

”It's all thanks to you.” Song Ting Yu bowed her head. ”You saved my life. I owe you everything.”

”Nah, I was helping Yi Ding Si as well, so I might as well help you out too. Besides, it wasn't just me. Tong Xue helped tremendously too.”

”Yes,” Song Ting Yu acknowledged. ”I've already thanked your friend. But Tong Xue is right. He said that he owes you his life too. If you hadn't risked your life to stop the Heavenly Venom King and buy him time to escape, he would have been a corpse in the Toxic Marshes.”