Free Web NovelChapter 346: Chapter 299: Cheating
The scene was not unlike that of the two assassins rendered foolish by Huang Sanbing, and through this battle, Yang Xiao had roughly figured out how to use the Human Bone Staff. However, to master it, he would still need a great deal of experimental material, which he intended to collect by any means necessary.
Originally, Yang Xiao had planned to conserve some mental energy, intending to finish him off with a dagger upon getting close, but fearing an unexpected setback, he eventually pulled out his horsetail whisk and dealt him a blow.
Without any surprises, Yanhe Tian’s body fell apart, and upon approaching, Yang Xiao crushed his skull with a foot.
After rummaging through the messy flesh, at last, he found that piece of Dead Man’s Skin. After wiping the blood off, he discovered a tattoo on the skin, depicting an island shrouded in mist and clouds, looking like a fairyland against a vast sea backdrop.
Without a doubt, this treasure was Yanhe Tian’s Resentful Eye. The item was not bad, but Yang Xiao had no intention of using it himself; he planned to sell it at a tavern instead.
Storing the Dead Man’s Skin away and leaving Yanhe Tian’s corpse behind, Yang Xiao took out the Soul-Capturing Mirror and returned to the real world. As soon as he emerged, he saw Tong Han, covered in wounds, leaning against a wall, breathing heavily. Her injuries were rather strange, as if they were rotting away.
Seeing Yang Xiao appear, Tong Han, already at the end of her strength, could no longer hold on. Her body swayed, nearly falling, and Yang Xiao saw an even more horrifying scene—Tong Han’s right leg looked as if it had been sucked dry by something, reduced to nearly nothing but a bony frame wrapped in an ugly purplish-brown withered skin.
Yang Xiao felt his scalp tingle, "What happened to you?"
Tong Han dead-stared at the black mist ahead, where no figure could be seen now, but Yang Xiao knew the Staff Killing Elder was hiding within it. frёewebηovel.cѳm
"If you don’t come out now, all you’ll have left to do is collect my corpse," grunted Tong Han in pain, yet she still managed to warn swiftly, "Be careful of that old ghost’s ability, do not get hit by his staff, or the wound will be poisoned and rot."
"Is that what happened to your leg?" asked Yang Xiao.
Tong Han shook her head and uttered something that puzzled Yang Xiao, "This isn’t my leg; that old ghost stole mine."
"Stole it?" Yang Xiao was baffled.
"Don’t ask me how he did it, I have no idea either," Tong Han then told Yang Xiao that the reason the old ghost hadn’t made his move yet was that he had gone to find that object.
According to the intelligence, the Yu Yuan Sect members were supposed to arrive in Ye City later tonight, but who knew they would start out early. Fortunately, only the Staff Killing Elder came, and the rest were probably still on their way.
The black mist blocked their way out. Yang Xiao didn’t rush in blindly. Instead, he took out the Ghost Lantern, trying to see if the leg in front of him was real. The green light quickly covered Tong Han’s right leg, and to his shock, it was indeed genuine, clearly longer than Tong Han’s left leg, and certainly not hers.
Her right leg had indeed been stolen, and a useless one had been swapped in.
"Bear with it a bit longer, I have to go kill that Staff Killing Elder, or else it’ll be trouble later on," resolved Yang Xiao.
"Heh heh heh, kill me? You think you can?" Suddenly, the black mist in front thickened, and an old, hoarse voice emerged from within, belonging to the Staff Killing Elder.
He had returned so quickly, which Yang Xiao hadn’t expected. However, from the old man’s satisfied tone, it seemed he had found the treasure that Yanhe Tian had in his possession.
The black mist surged towards Yang Xiao, swiftly enveloping him and Tong Han, "Don’t worry about me, I can protect myself; focus on dealing with him!"
Tong Han’s words were as good as none because Yang Xiao had already stepped into the depths of the black mist with determination, the Ghost Lantern manifested in his left hand, and the Human Bone Staff gripped in the other.
Tong Han, left standing barely beginning to summon her energy, quickly raised her ponytail. As the spiritual force hit its mark, a chill spread, and a woman with a ponytail, her back to them, appeared out of nowhere, standing before Tong Han. Countless strands of hair floated up, forming a cage woven of long hair, protecting Tong Han in her place. If one were to look at the woman from behind Tong Han, one would see that the woman had no face from either the front or back, only a solitary ponytail.
With the Human Bone Staff in hand, Yang Xiao immediately sensed a pure malevolence, yet this evil intent drifted erratically in the mist, moving at an incredible speed. The lantern’s range was limited, and Yang Xiao couldn’t pinpoint his opponent in the black mist.
Dragging it out was disadvantageous to him, so Yang Xiao deliberately exposed a vulnerability, turning his back on the sense of malevolence, but the adversary seemed to see through his ploy and didn’t take the bait. Just as Yang Xiao sought a strategy to defeat the enemy, he suddenly heard a stifled grunt, seemingly coming from Tong Han’s direction.
Unfazed, Yang Xiao followed the Human Bone Staff’s induction, locking onto the malevolence coming from the opposite direction to the noise, charging swiftly towards Yang Xiao’s back.
In the second before impact, Yang Xiao spun around and out of the way while lashing out with his staff. The newly emerged Staff Killing Elder, unable to dodge in time, glinted ferociously in his single eye, choosing to trade blows with Yang Xiao. Yang Xiao’s staff landed on the elder’s chest, while the elder’s staff only grazed Yang Xiao’s right leg, missing its target.
The Staff Killing Elder, dazed from the strike, caused much of the surrounding black mist to disperse. Clearly, he too had never experienced the power of the Human Bone Staff. Yang Xiao, without even catching his breath for a second blow, found the Staff Killing Elder had already recovered his senses and disappeared into the black mist again.
But with this move alone, the Staff Killing Elder proved stronger than Yanhe Tian, who had previously lost his memory briefly to a blow from the staff, and his childhood to the second.
But as he swung the staff three times, Yang Xiao now felt spasms of pain in his head, "As expected, using the horsetail whisk and the Human Bone Staff with my spiritual power is still somewhat strenuous."
Even so, Yang Xiao didn’t call for Drama Robe’s original owner to help, although calling might not necessarily get a response, but the key issue was that the compensation the other party demanded was too steep.
Compared to the throbbing in his head, it was the injury on his right leg that was more bearable. His right leg had been grazed by the old man’s walking stick, with fresh blood flowing down the torn wound. Fortunately, he had dodged quickly; if he had been slower, his whole leg might have been broken.
From their brief exchange, Yang Xiao noticed that the old man’s original right leg disability had disappeared, and his speed was now incredibly fast. He suspected that leg was actually Tong Han’s.
After a brief calm, the evil presence, having taken a short respite, moved quickly again, and this time, it was heading towards Tong Han.
Yang Xiao also followed in pursuit. It seemed that the evil presence sensed Yang Xiao; it feinted an attack and swiftly fled, while Yang Xiao found Tong Han enveloped in a cage of long hair within the black fog.
"How are you?" Yang Xiao approached and asked.
"I’m fine." But Tong Han’s expression suddenly changed upon seeing the injury on Yang Xiao’s right leg, "What happened to your leg too?"
"It was just grazed by that old guy’s walking stick, it’s nothing serious." The wound showed signs of a slow-acting poison, but Yang Xiao was still able to hold on.
But Tong Han appeared to recall something and suddenly panicked, "Last time it was like this for me too, and then my right leg was stolen."
"What?!"
Yang Xiao, having reacted, suddenly realized something was amiss. In his perception, the evil presence had not moved far away but stood in the position he had been before.
With a sense of impending doom, Yang Xiao quickly charged towards the direction of the evil presence, but by the time he got there, the Staff Killing Elder had already escaped. Yang Xiao examined the site, where the blood from his injured right leg had been, but oddly enough, the bloodstains were now gone, leaving only a few minor marks.
Knowing it was serious trouble, there surely was a reason the old man took his blood. He immediately relied on the faint senses of the Human Bone Staff and moved closer to the malice. But the next second, Yang Xiao, while running, stumbled and fell to the ground.
He didn’t bother to get up, quickly pulling up the right side of his pants to see a sight that made him gasp. His right leg now looked just like Tong Han’s, a thin layer of purplish-brown dry skin tightly covering the withered bones. This was not his leg; his leg had been stolen!
What was even more terrifying was that now, with such a leg, it wasn’t just a matter of not being able to run; even standing up and walking were very difficult.
Yang Xiao now roughly understood; this leg must be the Staff Killing Elder’s discarded leg. He had used one useless leg to exchange for his and Tong Han’s good ones.
"Tong Han, has your leg returned?!" Yang Xiao yelled.
A moment later, a voice with indiscernible direction replied, "No!" Tong Han’s voice was somewhat unclear, "Have you been targeted too?"
Yang Xiao shook his head vigorously, trying to clear his mind. His head was groggy, and the previously inflicted poison seemed still to be in effect, and even worse, it was spreading more rapidly.
Being a Venerable Level Heretic Cultivator himself, the Staff Killing Elder’s aggressiveness was not as strong as Granny Hong’s, nor did he have terrifying attack methods, but his unexpected tactics were even more formidable.
"Be careful, he’s coming for you!" Yang Xiao shouted, as the evil presence moved at high speed in another direction.
But the next second, the evil presence took a detour, and at a very tricky angle, charged toward Yang Xiao’s side. Fallen and immobile, Yang Xiao had just managed to turn around and lift the Human Bone Staff when a dark shadow had already closed in to a distance of 3 meters.
Just when Yang Xiao decided to fight to the death, the Staff Killing Elder suddenly stumbled on his right leg, pitching forward uncontrollably. Not missing the opportunity, Yang Xiao propped himself up, using the Ghost Lantern to withstand the old man’s walking cane, and with his right hand struck perfectly on top of the Staff Killing Elder’s head, sending him flying. Yang Xiao’s left wrist was grazed by the walking cane and he was instantly poisoned and rotting.
This attack had drained all of Yang Xiao’s spiritual power, but the effect was immediate; the surrounding black fog dissipated instantly. The Staff Killing Elder lay on the ground, stunned, but he had no chance to understand what happened—Tong Han rushed in, her countless strands of hair coiling around the Staff Killing Elder’s neck, and with a fierce twist, she decapitated him. His head rolled on the ground, and from the headless torso, blood spurted more than three feet high.
With the death of the Staff Killing Elder, both Yang Xiao and Tong Han’s right legs were restored to normal. But before Yang Xiao could stand up, he saw Tong Han collapse to the ground; her right leg was broken from the calf down, and the reason she could run out earlier was entirely due to the hair wrapped around the wound, holding it together.
Yang Xiao looked toward the corpse of the Staff Killing Elder; his revealed withered, purple-brown skin-covered right leg was also broken off from the calf, identical to the point where Tong Han’s leg was broken.
Yang Xiao immediately understood; the reason the Staff Killing Elder had fallen was that Tong Han had smashed her exchanged useless leg on her body. The Staff Killing Elder’s exchange ability had flaws—there was some sort of connection between his useless leg and the exchanged one; if one was harmed, both suffered.
