Chapter 016
Chapter 16: An Unexpected Change
“Lead the way. As long as we safely leave this mountain, I promise not to kill you.”
Cang Yin Yue leapt gracefully onto the pack mule and signaled Yu Chang Lu, whose arms hung uselessly at his sides, to guide them along the mountain path ahead.
Yu Chang Lu offered no resistance and obediently shuffled forward. He clearly understood he had no other choice. Under these circumstances, patience and compliance were his only hope for survival, at least until reinforcements from his alliance arrived. Thus, as long as Cang Yin Yue spared him, he would willingly do anything asked of him.
Li Mu Sheng quietly observed everything without comment. With a gentle pat on his mule, he slowly followed behind. He did not feel the need to openly correct Cang Yin Yue’s misunderstanding by demonstrating his true power—he had no urge to shatter the earth or split the sky with a punch just to make her widen her beautiful eyes in awe at his martial prowess.
At his level of mastery, he had long passed the age of childish pride and competition. All he sought now was to wander freely through the world, searching for a chance to transcend martial dao, and the Great Li Shang Yang City was simply his first destination.
…
The journey afterward was calm and uneventful. They encountered no further ambushes from the Bloodbath Alliance, nor did they find any evidence of fighting along the way.
Yet Yu Chang Lu’s face gradually turned grim. Ever since the bald-headed man had sent out the signal flare, Yu Chang Lu had hurried to the nearby mountain path with his subordinates, preparing an ambush. However, Meng Shan and Yuan Mei were tougher than expected. He had lost several men, failed to stop the pair, and they escaped instead.
Since Yu Chang Lu was not skilled in lightness techniques, he had no choice but to remain here and continue guarding the road. After such a long time, the experts of the Bloodbath Alliance should have arrived, responding to the signal. But surprisingly, on this entire journey, he had not seen a single ally from the Bloodbath Alliance—not even a lowly minion.
[Could something have happened at the alliance? Have the people from Yin Shan Sect and Yan Jiu City attacked us?]
Yu Chang Lu walked onward, head lowered in troubled thought along the rugged mountain path, completely unaware of a bloodied hand suddenly reaching out from the waist-high grass beside the road. Abruptly, the hand grabbed his ankle.
Yu Chang Lu’s eyelids twitched. Although his tendons had been severed and his martial strength greatly weakened, he was still calm enough to respond. Immediately, he stamped down forcefully, knocking away the grasping hand. Then, shifting sideways in a swift movement, he drove all his remaining strength into a single fierce kick at the concealed figure in the grass.
Bang!
A dull cracking sound echoed as a figure flew out from the grass, tumbling through the air several times before landing heavily on the path.
Yu Chang Lu froze in surprise when he finally saw the figure’s face. It was the bald-headed man, the very same man who had earlier pursued Meng Shan. [But why was he now hiding in the grass by the road?]
“What happened?” Yu Chang Lu hurried forward, arms dangling uselessly, to inspect the bald-headed man. However, after Yu Chang Lu’s brutal kick, the bald man was barely breathing and clearly close to death.
Cang Yin Yue rode forward and looked down with a frown at the bald-headed man sprawled on the ground. His condition was tragic: his eyes had been gouged out, blood seeped from his mouth and nose, and his entire body had turned a strange, sinister shade of bluish-black—obviously poisoned.
“Tell me, who wounded you like this?” Yu Chang Lu desperately questioned him, but the bald man merely opened his mouth, unable to speak, and soon after breathed his last.
“If you hadn’t kicked him, he might have been able to speak a few words,” Cang Yin Yue shook her head gently, thoughtful. “Judging from his injuries, he was attacked by someone skilled in a malicious, poisonous claw technique. It doesn’t seem like Meng Shan or Yuan Mei’s style, but we can’t completely rule them out either. Perhaps they have hidden such abilities.”
She had carefully observed Meng Shan and Yuan Mei’s techniques earlier and was quite familiar with their fighting styles. Although the bald man’s condition didn’t match their methods exactly, nothing was impossible in this dangerous martial world.
Li Mu Sheng quietly looked at the corpse with thoughtful eyes but said nothing. He turned instead to Yu Chang Lu, smiling lightly, “Let’s keep moving. If we encounter another situation like this, remember to be gentler. Try leaving your own people alive next time.”
Yu Chang Lu’s expression darkened from embarrassment to anger, but he dared not protest. Leaving the bald-headed man’s corpse behind, he obediently continued along the mountain road.
However, the further they traveled, the more disturbed and fearful Yu Chang Lu became. Bodies appeared every so often along the roadside, each dying a miserable death—eyes gouged, hearts torn out, poisoned so severely their faces were twisted grotesquely.
Without exception, all were from the Bloodbath Alliance. Even several Innate Experts, Hall Master level fighters, lay dead.
“It must be those scum from the Yin Shan Sect! Their martial arts are ruthless and sinister,” Yu Chang Lu growled darkly, dread gnawing at his heart. He realized that waiting for reinforcements from his alliance was now hopeless. If even stronger Hall Masters had fallen, with his current weakened state, encountering anyone from Yin Shan Sect would surely end even more miserably.
“Young hero, young lady, you see our current situation,” Yu Chang Lu suddenly halted mid-step and turned to Li Mu Sheng and Cang Yin Yue, anxiously urging, “If we continue forward, we’ll likely run into those monsters. It’s better we turn around now. I swear upon my life, I’ll safely guide you out of Chong Province by another route.”
At this moment, Cang Yin Yue’s expression was also troubled, uncertainty flickering in her eyes for the first time. She had clearly observed and understood the real danger. She saw beyond what Yu Chang Lu realized—the victims had likely not been killed by enemy sects. From beginning to end, there had been only one murderer.
To Cang Yin Yue, this killer’s methods were brutal and their martial dao extremely high, even surpassing hers. More troubling was the poison—every victim, from powerful Innate Experts to common disciples, had been poisoned without exception. She had checked the toxicity herself, discovering that the murderer wasn’t merely killing but cultivating poison arts.
As they moved onward, each subsequent corpse bore evidence that the killer’s poison was growing ever stronger.