Tainted Blood

by Tinalynge

  “We need to keep in mind that Xue Wei and I can’t really take on our original shapes,” Hei Gou cut in. “Although we are in the lawless part of the city, the Diviners were here earlier. We do not want to attract those guys now, do we?”

  “Not only the Diviners, but everyone else will also go after us if they see our original shape.”

  Xue Wei pondered what Hei Gou had said for a moment. “That’s not wrong,” he conceded dejectedly. “We are three and they are two, but the fact remains that those two Tiger Triplets are stronger than us even if we have the advantage in numbers. Both of them are Ordinary Knights and only Tianyi is an Ordinary Knight on our side.”

  “It is fine,” Bai Tianyi said, laughing out loud. He grinned. “I might be a few layers beneath them in strength, but the truth is that I am not some average cultivator.”

  “I am an immortal spirit. I have lived at the apex of the world. No one could threaten me, no one could challenge me. Two simple Ordinary Knights might be able to cause me a bit of trouble, but since I am undying I can just keep going until they die!”

  Xue Wei shook his head when he heard this and laughed slightly. Bai Tianyi sounded arrogant and self-confident, but Xue Wei was aware that this attitude was not the whole truth.

  Although he was undying, he could still be injured. The more injured he became, the more his strength would be lowered. If he was injured too much, his soul would enter a hibernation period until he manages to absorb enough soul power from the surrounding air to recover.

  “So what do we do now?” Xue Wei ignored Bai Tianyi’s bragging and looked at them.

  “Should we enter a small alleyway where no one can see us and fight them hoping to win, or should we just return to the hotel and ignore them for now?”

  “I kinda hate the feeling of having someone behind me,” Hei Gou said while starting to swing his arm to warm up his body and prepare for battle.

  “I said I can deal with them. You two just look at my brilliant display of strength,” Bai Tianyi said with a snicker. While hesitant at first, eventually Xue Wei could only chuckle and shake his head.

  Was there even a choice? These two battle maniacs by his side were smiling wildly while stretching their arms as they moved into one of the nearby alleyways that were a part of the lawless area.

  The people living in the houses on the two sides of the alleyway could be the eyes of the underworld, like a den of flies on the wall.

  “I can’t sense the Diviners anywhere near us,” Xue Wei said, glancing around. “Nah, they left this area a while ago,” Bai Tianyi answered casually. “I followed their energy signatures when they left.”

  “Well, then we have nothing holding us back!” Hei Gou laughed madly. Xue Wei grinned too.

  “How long do the three of you plan on laughing like this?” a voice said from behind them. Xue Wei’s trio turned around to look at the two remaining brothers of the Tiger Triplets.

  “Oh, you are here already?” Bai Tianyi sent back casually, though he was far from relaxed in reality.

  There was a serious gleam in his eyes. He was clearly tense, and he was actively circulating his spiritual energy through his body while watching them carefully.

  Xue Wei and Hei Gou were equally alert. They too were circulating their energy. In Xue Wei, thousands of dragons were vigorously flowing through the channels in his body. All of them were roaring out loud, but Xue Wei was the only one who could hear it.

  The roaring dragons made Xue Wei’s killing intent spike. It started leaking out of him in the same way air leaks out of a broken balloon.

  The temperature started to drop drastically. Xue Wei’s eyes turned slightly red, and the smile on his face grew bigger and bigger.

  This fight was nothing like a cage battle. Although the cage fights were interesting and thrilling, they were impossible for Xue Wei to lose since he held so many advantages against another expert of the same rank.

  This was, however, different. This was a battle against two experts of strength much higher than his own, at a realm he had yet to reach.

  This was truly thrilling!

  Xue Wei instinctively knew that this was the most dangerous battle he had ever encountered. Although the opponents were fewer in numbers than when he fought in the siege outside Golden Crow City, the quality of these two experts was much higher.

  Hei Gou, Xue Wei, and Bai Tianyi were all aware that they would be in for a bitter struggle, but it was still impossible for them to hide the smiles on their faces.

  “Leave the cheeky one to me,” Bai Tianyi said as his body once more turned child-like. “You two, team up and fight the berserker. He should be the easiest of the two, and considering I’m the only Ordinary Knight, I am quite sure that’s the best option for us.”

  Xue Wei and Hei Gou did not object. They were both aware that, right now, Bai Tianyi was indeed the strongest among them. Leaving the strongest enemy to him would be wise.

  The berserker also heard what was said so his focus changed to Xue Wei and Hei Gou. He felt a slight pressure coming from the two, but he could not help but snort. They were both Heavenly Warriors, not even Ordinary Knights, so how could they possibly put up a fight against him?

  “Are you sure that the Diviners have left?” Hei Gou asked again, just to be completely sure. Bai Tianyi shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say for sure,” he said honestly, while his eyes never once left the cheeky and silent one of the two brothers.

  “Well, who cares?” Xue Wei finally said, laughing. “If the Diviners really are watching us, then it’s just our bad luck!”

  “I guess you are right!” Hei Gou chuckled too. Then suddenly his body expanded; black fur grew from his skin and his entire being was changed from a human’s shape to a massive black dog with a pair of crow wings on his back.

  His entire body was pitch black and his eyes were silver like the moon. The strength of his body was so overwhelming that the ground underneath his paws had already cracked and was starting to collapse.

  The eyes of the two remaining Tiger Triplets widened in surprise, but they soon calmed down again when they saw that neither Xue Wei nor Bai Tianyi turned into beasts.

  “You have a contracted Primordial Beast?” the berserker asked while licking his lips with greed. “I will not kill it, but I will take it from you. It will be the new member of the Tiger Triplets and make us a fortune with its strength as a Primordial Beast!”

  “You want to enslave my brother?” Xue Wei started laughing out loud, but there was a cold gleam in his eyes. A second after, he vanished from where he was standing.

  Forbidden Rush!

  Inner Might: Sword Style!

  Xue Wei slashed out as soon as the sword had appeared in his hand. A thin sword light could be seen as the berserker withdrew in shock. The speed Xue Wei displayed was many times faster than the speed he had revealed in the cage battles.

  His speed could rival an expert at the Ordinary Knight rank! The ability that he was using was unquestionably no less than a superior martial arts technique!

  On realizing that this youngster owned a superior martial art technique, the greed in the eyes of the berserker grew significantly.

  Unfortunately, he dared not go too close to Xue Wei. The sword that the youngster was swinging was very sharp, so sharp that he had never encountered anything like it before.

  The berserker was unaware of the fact that Xue Wei was using Inner Might to create a sword. He had not been able to really catch sight of the sword yet so all he thought was that it was a sharp, real weapon.

  “You are an annoying little fly!” the berserker yelled out as he lifted his arm and made an axe appear in the palm of his hand.

  “My turn!” Hei Gou, who had taken the shape of a Celestial Dog, had waited for this moment. It was still night. The only thing that illuminated the area was the moon, but suddenly Hei Gou’s wings flapped and lifted him up into the air.

  He did not fly far, just a few meters, but then he opened his mouth.
“Let’s devour the moon!”

  He did not actually devour the moon, but he did devour the moonlight that shone down upon them. A diameter of a hundred meters had suddenly turned into Hei Gou’s domain where everything had been steeped in a pitch black darkness that robbed you of your ability to see.

  But it was not impossible for Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi to continue fighting. Bai Tianyi had such high level spiritual energy that everything around him was as clear as day. So he continued his bout against his opponent, who was now forced to be on the defensive.

  Xue Wei could also use his spiritual energy to see, but more than that, he had the eyes of an Azure Dragon. The eyes of a dragon could see through even complete darkness, just like a Celestial Dog.

  “Let’s fight side by side!” Hei Gou’s voice sounded next to Xue Wei, after which the oversized dog lunged at the berserker with his sharp claws and razor-like teeth. Because of his moon-devouring domain’s overwhelming effectiveness in immobilizing their foes, Hei Gou managed to inflict some serious damage to the berserker after a couple swipes and bites that could rip apart and shatter even concrete.

  Chapter 20 - The Roar

  Although Hei Gou managed to cut, slash and wound the berserker, the truth was that every injury was rather shallow.

  Even though the berserker could see nothing, he still had his keen senses for fighting and his instincts and these two things managed to keep Xue Wei and Hei Gou at a distance.

  He used his weapon to continuously push back both Hei Gou and Xue Wei, his attacks gaining momentum and picking up speed the more he fought.

  Xue Wei was rather worried. He did not know how long it would take before Hei Gou’s ability would run out—and when it did, they would be at an even bigger disadvantage.

  Xue Wei transformed his arms and hands into dragon arms and claws. He dismissed the Inner Might sword and instead started fighting with his dragon-form hands.

  His draconic, bare hands were far more lethal than the sword of Inner Might. The claws were as sharp, but there was an immense physical strength behind them, alongside the fact that hands were easier to control than a sword.

  Groans of pain started to sound in the darkness as the claws scraped patches of flesh and skin off from the berserker’s body.

  Blood flowed constantly from the berserker’s body, and his eyes were red as well, almost glowing in the darkness. He began gritting his teeth hard as he tried to make the Qi in his body flow faster to push back Hei Gou and Xue Wei. Unfortunately, it did not work out the way he planned it.

  Xue Wei had gone all-in. He could feel the pressure emanating from the berserker. This berserker was a true Ordinary Knight. The strength that was hiding within his body was in no way as simple as what was seen on the outside, but because he had lost the advantage, he couldn’t break out of the assault, and thus releasing his true strength seemed impossible.

  The berserker was constantly being pushed back. He did not have the time to launch any of his martial art techniques, all he could do was using the most basic Qi to infuse his weapon and create a barrier around his body.

  Because both Xue Wei and Hei Gou were charging him relentlessly and pressuring him with everything they had, the berserker could not find the opportunity to reveal his true strength.

  While the berserker was being pushed back, Bai Tianyi was fighting against the cheeky guy. Neither of them held the upper hand, but either had yet to reveal all their cards.

  “So you can only use spiritual energy?” The cheeky man suddenly smiled after they had sounded each other out with a few attacks.

  “No matter what I have thrown at you, you have replied to it with Spiritual Energy. You don’t have even the slightest trace of Qi within you!” The cheeky man laughed out loud, so loud that Bai Tianyi placed a finger in his ear and twisted it as if to show that he was bored.

  “Done Laughing?” Bai Tianyi asked with a smile on his face that was impossible to decipher.

  “You are taking me too lightly just because I only use Spiritual Energy,” Bai Tianyi continued, his smile widening slightly.

  “I can only use Spiritual Energy. That is correct. But my Spiritual Energy is enough to deal with the likes of you!”

  “Keep dreaming!” The cheeky guy was getting rather upset from listening to Bai Tianyi. It was as if this Bai Tianyi was telling him that no matter how he struggled, it would be useless in the end.

  “Let us see who is dreaming, then!” Bai Tianyi laughed uproariously and took a step forward. His long white hair fluttered behind him as the band that had held it together became undone. His eyes glistened with light, and excitement was evident within every fiber of his body.

  “Let us see you handle this!” Bai Tianyi smiled and slowly lifted his arm, pointing out one finger.

  A strong fluctuation of energy appeared. It was clearly not Qi, but it still materialized in front of the cheeky guy and took the shape of a massive sword.

  This sword consisted not only of spiritual energy, but there was also another energy present—the energy of the sword itself.

  Bai Tianyi was a sword spirit. His energy, although primarily being spiritual energy, also contained sword energy.

  Sword energy was an incredibly pure energy, it was one that was created when one started to embark upon the dao of the sword. There were many different kinds of daos in this world, however to understand a dao was as rare as finding a qilin’s horn or a phoenix’ feather.

  The sword energy was so sharp that just breathing next to the massive materialized sword made you feel like you were breathing in daggers. This caused the cheeky man to feel like his throat was being sliced up from within.

  “Just breathing makes this much damage?” He was stunned by the fact that he was at such a disadvantage from this fact alone. Once the materialized sword in front of him commences its attack, would he not be in an even more difficult situation?

  While Bai Tianyi snickered, the cheeky opponent started feeling more and more uncomfortable. He retreated a few steps before he turned around and ran.

  “You are trying to escape now?” Bai Tianyi raised an eyebrow in surprise. This cheeky man seemed to only be interested in fighting a winning battle; the moment he felt danger he turned around and tried to flee.

  “As if I will let you,” Bai Tianyi whispered, flicking his fingers. The sword that had been pointing at the cheeky opponent shot forward at a speed much faster than the cheeky man could run away, and before he noticed it, his leg had been cut off.

  A scream cut through the darkness, a scream so shrill that it would make a shiver run down the back of any who heard it.

  It was a clean cut. The leg had been cut right at the knee. The cheeky man could no longer run away, toppled over, and fell to the ground.

  “Don’t kill me, I beg you, don’t kill me!” the cheeky man cried out loud. He covered his head with his arms and started sobbing uncontrollably.

  He trembled with fear that had also spread to his voice, and he could not control himself as he felt death gripping his throat.

  “Well, you came at me ready to kill,” Bai Tianyi said casually as he looked at the cheeky man with a look of loathing. “When you are ready to kill, that means you have to accept being killed as well. Even monsters like my companions have accepted that every day might be their last,” he continued with laughter.

  “Anyway, you are a cripple now and your leg is gone. Even if you had some value, you have lost it all now. I have no reason to keep you alive so I might as well kill you off.”

  Having said his part, Bai Tianyi flicked his fingers again, causing the massive materialized sword to descend upon its victim. Blood splattered and a head rolled. The cut was clean, concluding the fight with ease, but Bai Tianyi suddenly felt a spell of dizziness hit him when he retracted the sword energy into his body. He felt as if all blood had drained from his face, and he was very close to losing consciousness.

  “Seems like it is still too big a strain to use Sword Energy,” he muttered to hims
elf and found a place in the darkness to sit down and rest. Although he wanted to help Xue Wei and Hei Gou, right now he was not in a position to assist them at all. He would just drag them down if he got too close.

  While Bai Tianyi had finished off the strongest of the Tiger Triplets, the fight between the berserker, Xue Wei, and Hei Gou was getting so much more intense.

  Where Bai Tianyi had defeated the cheeky guy quite easily, the fight between the remaining three was incredibly bloody and bitter.

  Xue Wei felt his scales crack open as he blocked one of the berserker’s attacks. Blood flowed out from the cracked scales, and pain made his arms throb.