Free Web NovelChapter 140: Chapter 139: Big Fish, "Yang Xiao
Of the two combatants, one wore a profound black palace robe, reminiscent of a eunuch or guard from the former dynasty. The robe wasn’t embroidered with the typical dragons or pythons; a closer look revealed... it was covered in crouching purple toads.
A long queue hung from the back of his head down to his waist. His face was unremarkable, but his brow held a bone-deep aloofness and indifference.
His opponent, a tall and slender man, was dressed from head to toe as a Western gentleman—a snow-white tuxedo with a matching bowler hat, white gloves on both hands, and a gleaming, jet-black metal cane.
However, what truly made Fu Juemin click his tongue was the fact that within one of the gentleman’s eye sockets, a small, dark-red light would occasionally, eerily, throb.
It was like the indicator light on some precision instrument, emitting a strange aura completely out of place in this era, on this cold winter riverbank!
The gunshots were coming from the man dressed as a Western gentleman.
It was impossible to tell where he had the firearm hidden, but with a mere lift of his hand, a single shot or a sudden burst would erupt. The bullets tore through the air, yet not a single one managed to hit the man in the palace robe opposite him.
When the man in the robe moved, he was so fast that in Fu Juemin’s eyes, he became an afterimage. At times, even the afterimage was impossible to follow.
Fu Juemin felt a chill and couldn’t help but activate [Yao Ling].
He wanted to listen for any internal stirrings from dozens of meters away. It felt like a stretch, but he couldn’t resist trying.
As [Yao Ling] activated, the sound of the wind across the riverbank, the clinking of ice, the rushing of the water... all the ambient noise was filtered away, layer by layer.
His Perception extended like invisible tendrils, straining forward. The movements of the two men dueling on the opposite bank seemed to magnify in his vision, growing ever clearer.
’Closer, just a little closer...’
The moment his intangible "feelers" gently landed upon the man in the palace robe, in that very instant—
BOOM!
It was as if a clap of thunder had exploded in Fu Juemin’s mind.
Almost simultaneously, the man in the palace robe whipped his head around. His gaze, like a tangible ice pick, stabbed toward Fu Juemin across the river and the void between them!
Fu Juemin’s eyes felt as if needles were pricking them, and he immediately withdrew from his [Yao Ling] state.
"Gratitude?!"
Fu Juemin narrowed his eyes, easing the discomfort, then turned to look at Big Cat beside him as if seeking confirmation.
Big Cat’s expression was solemn. He nodded slowly. "A Gratitude Sensing Realm master, without a doubt. Judging by the style of his robes, he must be from the Toad Palace."
"Toad Palace?"
"Emperor Qianming of the previous dynasty was obsessed with the Martial Dao Elixir Technique, and as a result, a culture of martial arts flourished among his retinue of Eunuch Guards.
After the previous dynasty fell, these individuals either pledged allegiance to the old relics or founded their own sects. The Toad Palace is one of those sects, rumored to have been founded by one of Emperor Qianming’s former concubines."
"The Toad Palace..."
Fu Juemin murmured the name. When he looked back at the distant battle, his perspective had completely changed.
The man from the Toad Palace in the profound robe wielded a long, slender Soft Whip. When he swung it, the whip’s shadow all but dissolved into the air, leaving only a sharp, piercing shriek that tore at the cold wind, sometimes even overpowering the murmur of the nearby river.
What was more terrifying was that the light within roughly a foot of his body was slightly distorted, lending his silhouette a constant, unreal blur.
No wonder he could so easily evade every surprise shot from the gentleman in white.
As for the gentleman in white fighting the man from Toad Palace, he seemed even more bizarre. His limbs moved with an extreme awkwardness and a lack of coordination. There was a clear, stuttering stiffness in his joints. Yet, it was as if his hands and feet were spring-loaded; while his postures seemed ordinary, the speed and power he unleashed were astonishing.
His attacks seemed to follow no discernible method, making his fighting look more like a dance. Yet, in a clumsy and unpredictable fashion, he always managed to just barely block or evade the deadly phantoms of the whip.
The difference in their Skills was immense, yet they were somehow locked in a back-and-forth struggle, a baffling sight to behold.
’This guy... it’s like he can predict every one of his opponent’s attacks.’
Fu Juemin watched them for a moment, his brow furrowed. His gaze subconsciously focused on the gentleman’s eye with its incessantly flashing, eerie red light. ’That has to be the reason,’ he guessed.
As he pondered this, the battle on the riverbank suddenly shifted!
From beneath the gentleman’s sleeves, two rows of ghastly white, sharp Bone Blades suddenly sprang out. He spun like a top, the Bone Blades carving a vicious arc through the air. With a SHREDDING sound, they actually tore the elusive whip into several pieces!
The Toad Palace man was forced to retreat. He glanced down at the now-bare handle of the whip in his hand, his brow tightening. He, too, clearly found his opponent difficult to handle and utterly bizarre.
Just as Fu Juemin was wondering how this fight would end, he suddenly heard a tremendous SPLASH from the river not far away.
Immediately after, the three Demon Soul Seeds inside his body began to tremble in unison.
’A Demon Species?!’
Fu Juemin whipped his head around. On the murky, ice-strewn surface of the river, a huge plume of water had erupted, followed by the sudden emergence of scales the color of old, bluish-black bronze.
It was like an impossibly enormous, plump green fish breaking the surface for a breath. In an instant, it sank back down, becoming a heart-stoppingly vast shadow that sped away against the current.
"A Fish Demon?!"
The commotion had been huge. It wasn’t just Fu Juemin; nearly everyone on the riverbank had seen it, and they all stared at one another in bewilderment.
Meanwhile, the gentleman in white and the man from Toad Palace, who had still been fighting on the opposite bank, settled their duel in that same instant.
It was unclear where the Toad Palace man produced another slender whip from, but with a flick of his wrist, his entire body seemed to suddenly melt into the whip’s disappearing shadow.
Immediately, the gentleman in white, who had seemed to hold a slight advantage just moments before, froze in place. When the Toad Palace man’s figure reappeared, the gentleman’s head, arms, and torso... like scattered building blocks... slid apart along clean, smooth cuts and collapsed to the ground.
The Toad Palace man had ended the fight in a single move. Without so much as a glance at his opponent, he turned and sped off in the direction the Fish Demon had vanished, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye.
Fu Juemin and his companions were still reeling from the Toad Palace man’s explosive finishing move when, in the next instant, an even more shocking and unbelievable scene unfolded.
—
The gentleman in white, who had just been dismembered by the Toad Palace man, lay in pieces on the ground. But after his opponent left, the scattered parts of his "corpse" began to twitch and leap back together on their own... In the space of a few breaths, the entire "corpse" had reassembled itself and was standing once more.
The gentleman in white twisted his neck, which emitted a few soft CRACKLING sounds. Then, as if nothing at all had happened, he strode off in pursuit, heading in the exact same direction.
It was only then that Fu Juemin suddenly understood why the dismemberment scene had felt so indescribably strange.
Because there had been no blood!
’Such a brutal dismemberment, and not a single drop of blood had been spilled. Was he truly some kind of lifeless mechanical construct?!’
"Is it some kind of stage magic?..."
Fu Juemin murmured, subconsciously glancing to his side. Big Cat and Kitty both had their brows knitted tightly, their eyes filled with horror.
And just at that moment, a voice suddenly rang out.
"It’s a human ghoul!"
Xu Hengjiang, who was mounted on his horse, spoke in a low voice, his eyes fixed on the direction the "resurrected" gentleman had taken. "They’re also called ’Yang Xiao’!
For the past few years in the Concession, the Westerners have been tinkering with these demonic things.
Back then, to curry favor with the Westerners, Luo Zhengxiong even rounded up over a thousand able-bodied men and personally delivered them to be used in their experiments..."
