Chapter 195: Chapter 195: Sharpening the Blade
A light rain began to drizzle on the streets of Huanglong Prefecture.
They say spring rain is as precious as oil.
But that was a saying for farmers. In the city, the rain only slowed business down—for the brothels hanging their orange lanterns, and for the taverns with only a single waiter.
In one such tavern, a young waiter was wiping tables, bored out of his mind. The main hall was completely empty, feeling particularly desolate.
Just then, the sound of footsteps came from outside.
The waiter looked up.
Two men appeared at the entrance.
One of them, a scholar-like man, offered a gentle smile. "Two jugs of good wine."
"Right away!"
Happy to finally have customers, the waiter called out with more energy than he usually mustered.
A few moments later, two jugs of warmed wine were placed on the table.
The art of distilling spirits didn’t exist in this world, so most of what people drank was yellow wine. Warming it reduced the impurities, making it smoother and more mellow to the taste.
The scholar lifted the cup with two fingers and took a sip.
"Truly mediocre."
His evaluation was ruthless.
The waiter just kept his head down, wiping the table, pretending not to have heard.
The scholar spoke again. "Waiter, fetch your Shopkeeper."
"The Shopkeeper’s not in."
The waiter felt a pang of regret. ’If only I’d known, I would’ve closed up early.’
"And yet, I have a distinct feeling the Shopkeeper is right upstairs."
Before he even finished speaking, the waiter witnessed something that left him dumbfounded. The silent, dark-skinned Taoist suddenly leaped. Like a goshawk, he shot straight up to the second floor, moving like an immortal.
A moment later, he heard the sound of a door splintering open.
The young scholar heard the commotion from upstairs and offered a gentle smile. "Don’t worry. Everyone here is going to die."
"You..."
The waiter’s eyes went wide.
The young scholar extended his right hand, as pale as jade, and thrust it through the waiter’s chest.
"Ugh..."
The waiter collapsed in agony, his breathing ceased.
The next instant, the tavern suddenly became crowded.
A group of burly men in green tunics stormed into the tavern.
A furious shout came from upstairs: "Don’t push us too far!"
It was the voice of Nie Dao of the Changhe Gang.
Nie Dao stared warily at the dark-skinned Taoist before him. The Kaiyang Taoist’s reputation in Ling Province was simply too great; even he felt immense pressure.
To avoid assassination by these two intruders, Nie Dao had secretly moved from the Martial Arts Hall to this tavern.
But they had found him anyway.
The intelligence network of the Lingzhou Prefecture Magistrate’s Office was truly terrifying.
Nie Dao said, "Do you really insist on mutual destruction?"
Before the Kaiyang Taoist could reply, Yan Mo spoke. "You alone don’t have what it takes."
Nie Dao’s expression turned ugly.
But the Prefect’s protégé was right. Although they outnumbered their opponents, they were completely outmatched.
A savage glint appeared in Nie Dao’s eyes.
He couldn’t believe these two actually dared to move against the Changhe Gang.
After all, the sects they had destroyed before were all minor ones. The strongest had been the Nine Revolutions Sect, which was nothing compared to a major Ling Province power like the Changhe Gang.
Yan Mo said, "I can let you die with the courtesy of knowing why. Just name the Alchemist you’ve been dealing with, and I’ll grant you a swift death."
Nie Dao’s pupils contracted.
He thought his dealings with the Spirit Medicine had been perfectly discreet, but somehow, they knew.
But he was stubborn. He wouldn’t say a word, even if it meant dying here today.
This wasn’t out of some misplaced Jianghu loyalty. He would die whether he talked or not, so what was the point?
To Nie Dao, there was no difference between being hacked to pieces and being killed with a single slash. He was going to die either way, so why fuss over the details of his death?
"It won’t be that easy to destroy my Changhe Gang!"
Veins bulged on Nie Dao’s temples, and his grip on his saber tightened.
Yan Mo asked, "So, you’re refusing my kindness?"
"Fuck it! Die!"
The brutish courage of a Jianghu man finally exploded out of Nie Dao. He let out a roar and swung his long saber at the dark-skinned Taoist.
But what happened next shocked him: the long saber struck the Kaiyang Taoist’s shoulder squarely, yet failed to cause even a scratch.
Innate Vajra. How terrifying!
Of course, Nie Dao had heard the rumors about the Kaiyang Taoist’s Innate Vajra.
But he’d never imagined someone could truly achieve a state of being impervious to all weapons.
The Kaiyang Taoist thrust a palm forward, his face devoid of expression. If that strike landed, Nie Dao knew his life would be forfeit.
Sweat beaded on Nie Dao’s forehead. He grit his teeth and raised his saber to block.
But just in the nick of time, a long saber materialized between them.
CLANG!
An ear-splitting crash.
The long saber had intercepted the Kaiyang Taoist’s palm strike, leaving Nie Dao unharmed.
Nie Dao stared in disbelief at the figure that had suddenly appeared—a complete stranger.
Meanwhile, a commotion erupted downstairs.
Peering through the wooden railing, he saw another stranger—a man he’d never seen before—had appeared in front of Yan Mo.
These two were, of course, Bai Yuan and Lu Yu in disguise.
The Kaiyang Taoist’s eyes narrowed. Although he didn’t recognize the person before him, he recognized the saber in his hand.
He felt his blood begin to boil with sheer, unadulterated excitement.
"So it is you!"
Yan Mo had long suspected that the force dealing secretly with the Changhe Gang was the Divine Mansion Sect, who had retreated into the mountains.
And he had been right.
The Kaiyang Taoist licked his lips. Only when facing a true opponent would he reveal his true nature.
"This time, I’m going to crush you to death."
A cruel smile twisted his lips, a stark contrast to his usual indifferent demeanor. He looked like a different man.
Before Nie Dao’s horrified eyes, the Kaiyang Taoist’s body rapidly expanded. His head smashed through the tavern’s ceiling, and he transformed into a nine-foot-tall monster.
"Die! Just die!"
The Kaiyang Taoist’s eyes turned crimson. All he wanted now was to tear Bai Yuan to shreds and reclaim his fifteenth-place rank on the Heavenly Ranking.
Bai Yuan swung his saber without hesitation, clashing with the monstrous Kaiyang Taoist.
In a blur of flashing steel and flying fists, the two of them tore through the second floor of the tavern.
Bai Yuan took the fight outside, leading the Kaiyang Taoist onto the street in front of the tavern.
The space in front of the tavern was wide, giving them plenty of room to maneuver.
The Kaiyang Taoist’s mouth stretched into a wide sneer. "Let’s see you try using poison this time!"
He threw his right fist at Bai Yuan.
Bai Yuan dodged in a flash. The Kaiyang Taoist’s fist missed, smashing a large crater into the hard bluestone pavers. The power was terrifying—his every move held enough force to kill.
Bai Yuan’s brow furrowed slightly.
’The Fire Spirit isn’t working on the Kaiyang Taoist this time.’
He quickly figured out why.
The Kaiyang Taoist was using his internal energy to seal his mouth, throat, and nose, giving the Fire Spirit no way to enter his body.
Of course, that also meant the Kaiyang Taoist was fighting him while holding his breath.
Methods like poison were always far less effective a second time.
The Kaiyang Taoist grew fiercer with every moment, raining punch after punch down on Bai Yuan.
"You coward, hiding and using poison! Face me and fight for real if you have any guts!"
He believed that by neutralizing Bai Yuan’s poison, his opponent was now powerless to harm him.
With his Innate Vajra physique, he was confident that once he caught his opponent in his barrage of fists, he could simply wear them down to death.
He was now a monster with maxed-out attack and defense. Even a Sensing Grandmaster would have to give him a wide berth.
Bai Yuan’s expression didn’t change.
Flying Locust Stones, Poison Needles, a hand cannon... he had an endless stream of tricks.
His modified hand cannon could even fire in the rain.
While these tricks couldn’t kill the Kaiyang Taoist, they were endlessly irritating.
"You little maggot! Fight me properly!"
"Mindless brute. Kill me if you can."
Bai Yuan kept up his verbal assault, never pausing his attacks.
"AHH!"
The Kaiyang Taoist had never fought such an infuriating battle. He couldn’t stop himself from letting out a heavenward roar of frustration.
Bai Yuan was as slippery as an eel. For all his peerless Divine Power, he just couldn’t land a solid hit.
But just then—
Bai Yuan suddenly stopped moving.
The Kaiyang Taoist’s eyes narrowed. He could feel Bai Yuan’s aura suddenly intensifying.
’Burning his Qi and Blood?!’
He recognized Bai Yuan’s technique at a glance.
’Has this little pest gone mad?!’
Burning one’s Qi and Blood would shatter their meridians and leave them a cripple. This was common knowledge in the Jianghu.
So he couldn’t understand why Bai Yuan would do it.
"Remember this well. The one who kills you is Bai Yuan!"
The instant the last syllable of his name left his lips, a flash of saber light, as brilliant as a divine beam, cut through the raindrops in front of the Kaiyang Taoist.
The slash was so fast that the raindrops it passed through didn’t even have time to deform.
The Kaiyang Taoist’s pupils constricted. He swore he had never in his life witnessed such a sublimely brilliant strike!
Broken River!
Before this slash, the formidable body of the Innate Vajra was as nothing. The blade passed through it as effortlessly as a knife through water.
"No..."
The Kaiyang Taoist felt his life force rapidly draining away.
He couldn’t believe he was actually dying at the hands of a man from Huanglong Prefecture.
Bai Yuan looked coldly at the Kaiyang Taoist, whose body had been split in two.
’The golden ratio... I’ve gotten quite good at it since I started practicing with my saber.’
He didn’t linger, turning to charge back into the tavern.
The Rolling Blood Saber technique would only last for the duration of a single stick of incense. He had to make the most of it.
That last slash had looked effortless, but it had expended nearly all of his saber intent.
The Broken River Saber was a technique designed to overwhelm weaker opponents. Combined with the power of the Rolling Blood Saber, the effect was astonishingly potent.
Otherwise, killing the Kaiyang Taoist would have been a far more difficult task.
In moments, he was back inside the tavern.
Lu Yu was locked in a struggle with Yan Mo.
Neither was the type for direct, head-on confrontations. That’s why Bai Yuan had already finished his fight, while these two had yet to even break a sweat.
Although Yan Mo was an Academy Disciple, his methods were incredibly vicious.
He was actually using silver threads, the same kind as Old Dong, to kill silently and without a trace.
Fortunately, Lu Yu was just as treacherous. He was a master of poisons and venoms, and his Soft Sword moved like a striking viper, making him impossible to guard against.
Yan Mo stared in disbelief as Bai Yuan charged back through the entrance.
’Since Bai Yuan is back, and the Kaiyang Taoist is nowhere to be seen... there’s only one possibility. Bai Yuan killed him.’
At that thought, Yan Mo felt fear for the first time.
He knew all too well how powerful the Kaiyang Taoist was. It wasn’t just his offensive strength; his ability to stay alive was nearly insurmountable—he was impervious to weapons and immune to all poisons.
’A terrifying existence like that was actually killed?!’
He hissed through his teeth.
"You killed Kaiyang?!"
