Chapter 7: Dodging Death (1)

The white-robed man coldly hmpf-ed, and spoke with a similar deep hoarse voice, “Do you think I’m a three year old kid? So what if I go back with you. Do you think that inhuman bastard will have the antidote to the Matchless Holy Water? Don’t forget, the Matchless Holy Water is the world’s rarest poison, it has no antidote. Even if that guy does have the antidote, I would also never go back and submit to him. I can’t wait to dine on his blood and feast on his flesh! I really regret being so foolish and not seeing his true colors earlier… All of you can go, seeing that y’all have followed me for so long, I’ll let y’all live this time. M11 is already dead, do the rest of you really want to follow in his footsteps too?”

As the men had all stopped moving. Ah Dai was barely able to make out that they were all wearing veils to cover their faces. When Ah Dai heard the Matchless Holy Water being mentioned, he was shocked. That was the only poison written in Gliss’ journal that had no antidote. In addition, Gliss had once said that he had spent a lot of time researching the Matchless Holy Water. It was extremely precious and only the Imperial palace of the Heaven’s Gold Empire had a little amount of it, being used only when loyal ministers were granted death by the emperor. In the journal, Gliss had deep praise for the Matchless Holy Water. Its name already implied that it was one of a kind, especially since its production formula had become lost, the remaining Matchless Holy Water in the world was extremely rare — one drop could cost up to a thousand diamond coins in the black market. Even after diluting one drop of it in water, it toxicity could still kill more than half of the citizens in a city. People poisoned by the Matchless Holy Water can only rely on their strength to suppress the poison, but are unable to completely remove it. Once all their energy has been used up, they will succumb to the poison, and even their whole bodies will melt into a puddle of blue poison water.

The black-robed man replied, “Sir, to be honest, we admire you greatly. Although we have never seen each others’ faces when we were together, but we could never compare to your Hell’s sword. I, M1 dare say, in this whole world, there are just a few people who could oppose you. However, now that you are spending most of your energy to suppress the poison, you surely can’t hold on for very long. As long as you can’t use your Hell’s sword, how can you kill us all? You are right, the Matchless Holy Water has no antidote, but with your power, as long as we provide you support, suppressing it for a few years should be no problem. Why do you have to seek death? We do not know what happened between you and Master, and do not wish to know, but our mission is to bring you back. Sir, I’m sure you know Master’s temper. If we are to go back empty handed, I’m afraid we will also suffer a punishment worse than death.”

‘King of Hell’ suddenly sighed, “Since you guys are still unrepentant , then don’t blame me for being merciless.” As he spoke, he readily slammed his five feet long broadsword into the ground, half of the sword silently sank into the soil. His right hand at his chest, he motionlessly looked at the eleven black robed men in front of him.

Although it was merely a simple gesture, but it made the eleven men rather wary, and they instantly stepped backwards, raising the narrow swords in their hands. Their eyes held a trace of terror, as though they had seen some frightening monster.

The white robed man continued speaking, “Do you really think that, after being poisoned by the Matchless Holy Water, I can’t use the Hell’s sword anymore? Since you have pushed me this far, don’t blame me for not holding back.”

“Wait a minute. Sir ‘King of Hell’, can you really still use the might of the Hell’s sword?”

The white-robed man coldly ignored him, and a burst of indescribably cold and evil energy started spreading out from him, covering everywhere within a hundred meters. The trees of the illusory forest started swaying and the rustling leaves sounded as though they were moaning.

Different colored “Dou Qi” lights started clustering on the narrow swords of the eleven black robed men. It seemed as though they were waiting for something.

Ah Dai felt a sudden chill in his body, the cold and evil energy unceasingly permeated his body. Uncontrollably, he started shivering. He thought, ‘What a terrifying man!’  The harrowing evil energy filled the Heavens and earth, and Ah Dai endlessly shivered. Just as he could no longer resist from shouting out, a sudden warmth filled his body, expelling all the evil energy within him. The warm feeling made Ah Dai feel very comfortable.

The eleven black-robed men made their move, their narrow swords exploded out with powerful light, piercing towards the white robed man’s chest. “Hell’s sword Heaven Splitting —— Earth  —— Crasher.”*** The white robed man’s body suddenly seemed illusory. That seemingly real, seemingly imaginary silhouette flashed past. The evil energy continued emanating from his body and a faint blue light radiated alongside his shadow. Evil energy instantly burst out, enveloping all of the attacks from the black-robed men.

[t/l used the manga’s translation Q_Q]

The evil energy converged and the black-robed men returned to their original positions; the white robed man was still standing by the broadsword, it almost seemed as though none of them have moved.

“Thump, thump.” Without any prediction, the two black-robed men on the rightmost side suddenly collapsed. Their bodies appeared to have been sucked dry, becoming dry corpses. (like mummies).

M1 continued speaking in his low voice, although now it contained an extra tremor. “You, you… Hell’s sword… Is that Hell’s Flash?” He had already lost his resolution from the destructive power of the attack just now. The cold evil energy constantly assaulted his meridians and he no longer had confidence to deal with the man in front of him. He was not afraid of death, but he did not wish to die unnecessarily.

The white robed man’s right hand was still at his chest. Indifferently, he said, “The first, this is the first time that someone has seen me using Hell’s sword and lived. On account of the long time we spent together, the rest of you can go. I assume you can handle the matter yourselves when you return. I don’t wish to kill anymore today.”

M1 looked at the corpses of M6 and M10, gnashed his teeth and retorted, “Bring along their corpses, let’s go.” Tapping lightly on the ground, he flew towards the corpse of M11 that was lying under the broadsword of the white-robed man, and carried the body with him. The rest of the black-robed men did not speak a word; two of the men carried the corpses of M6 and M10 under their arms. The surviving nine people maintained an orderly formation, and slowly backed away, disappearing into the mist.

“I never thought, that a day would come where the ‘King of Hell’ had to rely on trickery to survive,” the white robed man muttered, a self-deprecating smile on his lips. His body swayed and he had to grab on to his broadsword to steady himself. “Such a powerful poison… Am I going to die here?” His body weakened, and he collapsed onto the ground.

Initially, the white robed man was able to forcefully suppress the poison with his vital pure Qi However, in order to chase away the group of black robed men, he had no choice but to use his vital Qi and execute his ultimate skill. As a result, he could no longer suppress the poison and he could not endure it anymore.

Ah Dai blankly stared at the sight before him and rubbed his eyes. The events that happened just now seemed so unreal. The domineering pressure from the evil energy had left a deep scar in his heart. He could have never thought that there would be someone who was able to display such a powerful attack. Even the evil energy released from Gliss’ dark flames was simply incomparable to the power of the white-robed man. If not for the fact that the white robed man had fainted right in front of his eyes, Ah Dai would have thought that he was just dreaming. What Ah Dai did not know was that, he was fortunate to still be alive. With his weak constitution, facing the evil energy released by the white-robed man that was strong enough to kill even experts, it would have meant a certain death. If not for the Fruit of Rebirth continuously providing vitality to dispel the evil energy, he would have died a long time ago.

Although it was merely a hundred metres, it took Ah Dai around five minutes to cover the distance. He could clearly hear the sound of his heart pounding. Afterall, to a barely twelve-year old child like him, the scene that happened earlier was simply terrifying. Three human lives had just been lost just like that.

Finally, Ah Dai reached the white-robed man’s side. He crouched down and closely observed the man. The man’s whole face was covered with a white veil, except for his eyes. His body was still twitching.

“Not dead.” Ah Dai fell to the ground in fright. The man was not dead yet?

The white-robed man did not make any movements, but his body continued to tremble lightly. Ah Dai suddenly recalled what Gliss had once said. His power must be profound to be able to suppress the poison for so long. Although Gliss did not find any antidote for the Matchless Holy Water, but he did think of a method to momentarily restrain the poison from breaking out. However, since he did not manage to obtain the actual Matchless Holy Water, he could not test out his theory. Also, Gliss once remarked that dying due to Matchless Holy Water would be considered a good fortune and he expressed regret for not being able to experiment with it.

‘Should I save him?’ thought the kind-hearted Ah Dai. He carefully removed the veil from the white robed man. A clean-shaven and handsome middle-aged face appeared before his eyes. The man had fair skin, his slim eyebrows extended all the way to his temples and his nose was straight and proud. His face was covered by a faint layer of blue Qi and the blue Qi seemed to be steadily increasing. The white-robed man clenched his teeth, seeming to be under immense pain.

[Editor: something like this without the beard…]

Ah Dai looked closely, but he just could not imagine that the middle-aged man in front of him would be a bad person. He naively thought that the bad guys were definitely the black-robed men, and that the white-robed man had killed only for self-preservation. ‘I’ll save him then. At the same time I can help Teacher test whether his theory of restraining the poison is effective.’ However, Ah Dai failed to consider the possibility that the white robed man would cause harm to him if he woke up.

As he thought, Ah Dai stopped hesitating. He knew for a fact that if he were to delay any longer, there would be no more hope for the man. Lifting up the man’s arm with great effort, Ah Dai placed the man’s arm across his shoulders.

So heavy! Ah Dai used all his effort to try pulling, but only succeeded in getting the white-robed man to move slightly. Even after trying several times, the man did not seem to have moved much. What to do now? Ah Dai crouched next to the man and wiped his sweat, at a loss of what to do.

‘Ah! Since I can’t drag him back, then I’ll just save him here. I’m so stupid,’ Ah Dai finally thought of a solution. Knocking his head he immediately dashed towards the wooden hut.

Returning to the hut, Ah Dai ran straight for Gliss’ research room. Having memorised everything in the journal, he was able to recall the exact materials needed to restrain the Matchless Holy Water.

“Mm, mica three parts, crystal powder one part, heartbreak grass half parts… Eh? But teacher said the heartbreak grass was extremely poisonous, why use so much of it? Forget it, there’s no time. Since the instructions said so, then it should be correct. Clear frost one fourth parts, fragrant grass one third parts, … …” Ah Dai carefully found all of the materials required and placed them into the small cauldron, then he added some clear water and roughly mixed all the ingredients together. He inspected the cauldron and nodded his head in satisfaction.

“Teacher, please don’t blame Ah Dai after you return! In order to save someone I had no choice but to use your items.” The simple and honest Ah Dai did not forget any of Gliss’ instructions.

Rubbing his hand together, Ah Dai excitedly mumbled to himself, “Okay, let’s begin. Fire elements filling the heavens and earth! Please bestow upon me your blazing strength, in my name, by thy power, searing flame appear.” With a pop sound, a wisp of green-blue flame appeared in Ah Dai’s palm. He carefully brought his hand under the cauldron, letting the flame constantly heat the small cauldron.

Due to his constant practice, Ah Dai had already become proficient in using the flame spell. Especially after meditating for over ten months, he was able to effortlessly control the temperature of the flame. In just a short while, the water had started to boil. Ah Dai knew that within the materials, only the mica was hard to melt. Thus, he sprinkled some powder that Gliss had specially made, allowing him to speed up the process of melting the mica. Even so, it still took Ah Dai a full hour before he finally managed to completely combine all of the materials.

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Hello cliffy we meet again