Chapter 255: Chapter 253: Fierce Battle on Ghost Mist Island
In the depths of the Black Water River, the undercurrents surged.
Xia Lie was like a black-scaled water snake, frantically twisting his body as he fled through the bone-chilling river water. He clutched the sunken Fist Seal on his chest, each stroke leaving a faint trail of blood behind him.
The pitch-black underwater rock walls, sharp as if carved by knives and axes, and large patches of dark red seaweed, rapidly receded from his vision.
Hundreds of zhang behind him, a palm-sized Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow clung to his trail like a maggot on a rotting bone.
At times, it dove into the water like a sharp arrow. At others, it would burst from the surface and glide silently along the turbulent river, relentlessly tracking the faint scent of blood.
Even farther away, on the river’s surface, the figures of a man and a woman were walking on water, holding hands and using the rising white mist for cover.
The man was, of course, Su Yu. He walked as if taking a leisurely stroll, each footstep creating only the faintest ripple on the river’s surface.
Now that his Lingxi Beast Taming Technique had reached Perfection, as long as he stayed within a certain distance of the Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow, he could vaguely sense the direction and emotions the little creature sent back. There was no need to follow too closely and risk alerting the prey.
The woman was Qin Yu, who had insisted on coming along.
However, using Qinggong on the river’s surface for so long by circulating her Qi and Blood was incredibly draining. What’s more, her arm was still injured, and her Qi and Blood were struggling to keep up.
Right now, she was relying entirely on Su Yu holding her hand, pulling her forward across the water.
Feeling the steady warmth and power coming from his palm, Qin Yu turned her head slightly to look at Su Yu’s calm profile, feeling increasingly shocked.
’Just how deep are Senior Brother Su’s foundations?’
’He’s been running across the vast Black Water River using water-walking Qinggong for so long, all while pulling me along. Not only is he not even breathing heavily, but the hand holding mine shows not the slightest sign of instability or fluctuation in his Qi and Blood.’
She was a master who was just a step away from the mid-stage of the Flesh Refining Realm, yet in front of Senior Brother Su, Qin Yu felt a sense of powerlessness and awe, as if she were gazing up at a towering mountain.
...
Xia Lie fled frantically underwater for several more quarters of an hour.
During this time, he passed through several undercurrents and plunged headfirst into a large patch of perennial river fog before finally slowing down.
SPLASH!
He broke the surface in a sorry state, greedily gulping down the slightly cool air. When he saw the faint outline of a water fortress built against the mountainside, visible through the thick white fog, he finally relaxed.
"Damn it... I finally made it back! Fucking hell, how did I run into such an unreasonable monster!"
Xia Lie glanced down at his gruesome chest, sucking in a sharp breath from the pain. A vicious, hateful light flared in his eyes.
"You little bastard, just you wait! Once I’ve recovered, I’ll make sure every single ship from your White Ape Martial Arts Hall that enters the Ten Islands Waters gets sunk!"
He gritted his teeth and, not daring to linger on the surface, continued to swim submerged toward the depths of Ghost Mist Island.
...
Far away, at the edge of the dense fog.
Su Yu and Qin Yu stood quietly on a half-submerged black reef.
Gazing at the cluster of fortress buildings shrouded in the distant white fog, Su Yu made a gesture to the Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow on his shoulder.
"Go scout it out, little one!"
"CHIRP!"
The Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow let out a cheerful cry, beat its wings fiercely, and shot into the sky like a bolt of cyan lightning, instantly disappearing into the thick river fog.
Penetrating the dense fog, the Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow circled, looking down from high above.
The island was nestled against a mountain and bordered by water, its perimeter tightly sealed off by a treacherous cluster of hidden reefs.
On the island, over a hundred sturdy wooden stockades were arranged in a scattered yet orderly fashion. In the central training ground, hundreds of bare-chested Water Bandits with brutish faces were gathered around bonfires, gorging on meat and gulping down wine. The clash of weapons mingled with their crude jeers.
At the high points on the fortress’s perimeter stood seven watchtowers built from massive logs, tightly guarding the entire island.
...
「A quarter of an hour later.」
WHOOSH! The Cyan-Scaled Sea-Exploring Swallow landed back in Su Yu’s palm, affectionately rubbing its small head against the web of his thumb while chirping out a detailed report of its findings.
"Over a hundred fierce bandits, three leaders at the Flesh Refining Realm... minus Xia Lie, who fled back heavily injured. That means there are two other noteworthy enemies on this island."
Su Yu dotingly stroked the little creature’s feathers, which were growing as bright as lapis lazuli. With a thought, he directly pulled a chopped piece of a hundred-year-old wild ginseng root from his storage ring and fed it to the little one.
Thanks to this Sumeru Mustard Seed Ring, he now carried many good things with him.
The little creature’s diet had improved dramatically, now consisting of daily treasures like wild ginseng and Lingzhi. Not only had its body grown a full size larger, but its feathers even had a faint, hard, metallic luster.
After feeding the Sea-Exploring Swallow, Su Yu took out a whole wild ginseng root, as thick as a small forearm, and began munching on it like a carrot. CRUNCH, CRUNCH.
As the pure medicinal power dissolved in his stomach, the familiar ink-wash characters flickered in his vision once more:
[Breakthrough Point Progress +1%]
[Breakthrough Point Progress +1%]
...
When the entire wild ginseng root was finished, the data on his panel updated.
[Breakthrough Points]: 0 (Progress: 33%)
’That’s already a third of the way. At this rate, I’ll soon accumulate one full point. When I do, I’ll try Breaking the Limit of the Lingxi Beast Taming Technique. Hopefully, a powerful Trait will appear.’
Feeling the vast Qi and Blood replenished within him, Su Yu said softly, "Let’s go, Junior Sister."
The expression on Qin Yu’s pretty face froze. "Senior Brother, are we really going to charge in just like this? Now that we’ve found this water fortress on Ghost Mist Island, wouldn’t it be better to go back, gather reinforcements, and then come back to wipe them out?"
Su Yu turned to look at her again and explained, "Don’t worry, Junior Sister. I’m not a reckless person. The little one has already scouted it out. There are merely two or three people at the Flesh Refining Realm on the island."
With that, he lingered no longer and walked on the water, heading forward.
Behind him, the expression on Qin Yu’s face completely solidified.
’Merely two or three people at the Flesh Refining Realm?’
’One of them is Qin Bashan, known as the "Ghost-Hand Asura," who is at Flesh Refining Realm Perfection!’
’Senior Brother Su, are you sure you’re not mistaken?’
’You haven’t even broken through to the Late-stage of the Flesh Refining Realm yet!’
Qin Yu’s mind was buzzing. She simply couldn’t understand where Su Yu’s confidence came from. Although she trusted him deeply, the current situation was still far beyond her comprehension.
Seeing Su Yu’s figure fearlessly stepping onto Ghost Mist Island, Qin Yu bit her lip hard and followed.
’No matter what, I can’t just watch Senior Brother fight all by himself. Even if we have to escape in the end, we’ll do it together!’
...
At the edge of Ghost Mist Island, atop a massive wooden tower overlooking the river.
A Water Bandit lookout, wrapped in animal skins, leaned against the wooden railing, yawning out of sheer boredom. He rubbed his sore eyes and was about to turn to grab his wine flask.
SHOO—!
In the next instant, a faint whistle suddenly tore through the dense fog.
THWACK!
A Flying Locust Stone, hard as refined steel and imbued with terrifying spiral Penetration Power, pierced precisely through the Water Bandit’s brow!
A mixture of red and white matter exploded like a burst watermelon, splattering onto a nearby rough wooden pillar and slowly trickling down.
The lookout didn’t even have time to make a sound before collapsing limply into the shadows of the tower like a piece of rotten wood.
In the shadows several dozen zhang below.
Su Yu flicked his wrist, and several more smoothly polished Flying Locust Stones appeared out of thin air between his fingers.
With a divine tool like the storage ring, he no longer had to meticulously sew his hidden weapons into his clothes as before. The mountain of Flying Locust Stones piled up inside the space had brought about a qualitative leap in the lethality of his projectiles!
"Who’s there? How dare you trespass on my Ghost Mist Island!"
Just then, a patrol of seven or eight Water Bandits up ahead finally spotted Su Yu strolling brazenly through the stockade. The leader, a Martial Artist at the Skin Tempering Realm, immediately drew his greatsword and roared with a ferocious expression.
However, Su Yu paid him no mind. He had come to Ghost Mist Island with only one purpose: to kill.
SWOOSH!
Su Yu swung his right hand violently, directly using Scattering Gold Everywhere, a wide-area projectile technique!
Seven or eight Flying Locust Stones instantly fanned out in mid-air like a goddess scattering blossoms, covering the entire patrol with air-rending shrieks.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK...
A rapid series of scalp-numbing sounds of flesh being pierced rang out.
The seven or eight ferocious Water Bandits didn’t even have time to raise their blades to block before the Flying Locust Stones, imbued with the Spiral Armor-Breaking Trait, instantly pierced their vital spots like their brows and throats.
Seven or eight bodies fell rigidly to the muddy ground at almost the same time, falling completely silent.
Behind him, Qin Yu, who had hurried to catch up, happened to witness this instantaneous slaughter. She couldn’t help but suck in a breath of the cold, misty air, her beautiful eyes filled with horror.
’What a terrifying projectile technique!’
’What kind of monster is Senior Brother Su?’
’His saber arts are unparalleled, his Fist Technique is domineering, and his Body Technique is as fast as lightning—that’s one thing. But to think he could even master such an obscure and difficult hidden weapon art to this degree of perfection?!’
’An ordinary Martial Artist would consider it a blessing from the heavens to polish one or two Cultivation Techniques to Major Accomplishment in their entire lifetime. Only when their realm is completely stuck and they can’t advance another inch would they resort to studying other, miscellaneous skills.’
’But this common sense of Martial Arts simply doesn’t apply to a prodigy like Senior Brother Su!’
"ENEMY ATTACK!!!"
Just as Qin Yu was reeling in shock, other patrolling Water Bandits in the distance discovered the bodies littering the ground.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The urgent, piercing sound of a copper gong alarm instantly shattered the tranquility of Ghost Mist Island, echoing throughout the entire water fortress.
In just a dozen breaths, the large wooden gates of the stockades on all sides were smashed open.
A full seventy to eighty bare-chested Water Bandits with brutish faces, like a pack of vicious dogs from a disturbed hornet’s nest, brandished all sorts of weapons, cornering Su Yu and Qin Yu in the wide square before the main stockade.
The crowd parted, and three leaders with powerful Qi and Blood strode forward.
The man in the center was fat, with a large, shiny bald head. In each hand, he held an octagonal, bright silver hammer weighing several dozen jin, and was clearly a top expert at Skin Tempering Realm Perfection. His fierce, bell-like eyes were glaring viciously at Su Yu.
On the left was a tall, slender woman. She wore her hair in a thick, waist-length braid and toyed with a rope dart tipped with a sharp, three-edged point grooved for bloodletting. Her narrow eyes held a hint of confusion as she scanned Su Yu and Qin Yu with extreme vigilance.
’How can there only be two of them?’
And on the right was a bare-chested man with lean, powerful arms. At this moment, the iron-bodied strongbow in his hands, requiring a hundred-dan draw weight, was pulled back like a full moon. An armor-piercing heavy arrow, glinting with a cold light, was already locked onto Su Yu’s brow.
The bald brute in the center took a step forward, smashed his two silver hammers together in front of his chest with a deafening BANG, and roared with a savage grin:
"Brat, who the hell are you? To dare kill people on my Ghost Mist Island... and where are your accomplices?"
