Stranger Danger

Chapter 512: A Sword On Paper May Flood The World

“Wh... wh... wh...”

Fugong was so shocked he couldn’t even get a word out. He could accept that Ye Qing had fully recovered from his injuries. His pride hurt at the thought that Ye Qing had become so strong that he could challenge him, but he could accept that as well. But how the hell did he brush off his Magia like it didn’t even exist?

You can’t be human. You just can’t!

His Magia had never failed him. Such was its power that even a Grandmaster would choose to avoid it. But now, it had failed to take effect on a Spirit Purifier. What the fuck was going on?!

This time, Ye Qing couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Look at his stupid face. He has no idea that my luck is protected by the Profound Yellow Qi!

As the owner of the Incense of Misfortune, he realized how the black “Fortune” words functioned as soon as they appeared. In fact, he could tell that they were even more potent than the Incense of Misfortune.

If this was before he entered the Earthly Sovereign’s Coffin, then he would have taken off faster than Fugong could say, “What?” But now? He could tank the debuff with his face, and nothing would happen to him!

The Profound Yellow Qi was a derivative of the Profound Yellow Mother Qi. A type of karmic qi, it possessed the ability to protect one’s luck.

Of course, the Profound Yellow Qi wasn’t the Profound Yellow Mother Qi, so if the warrior had only refined, say, five or six wisps of Profound Yellow Qi, then its protective effect would be much weaker. This was why the Incense of Misfortune was able to work its magic on Sun Xuanzhen, Yue Juejiang and Huo Linglong. Had he waited a few more days before enacting his plan, then it might have been a complete waste of time and effort.

He was different from them though. After cooperating with Huo Linglong and taking Sun Xuanzhen and Yue Juejiang out of the equation, every wisp of Profound Yellow Qi in the Earthly Sovereign’s Coffin went to him. Naturally, his luck protection was so much better than the others.

For the past nine days, he had refined over twenty wisps of Profound Yellow Qi. Of course, that wasn’t even close to the full number of Profound Yellow Qi he collected, but it took hours to refine just a single wisp, not to mention that he spent a good chunk of time mastering his new strength as well. The large majority of them were stored inside his Profound Yellow Qi Calabash, and he was planning to refine them in the future when his life was less hectic than it was now.

Even so, twenty plus wisps of Profound Yellow Qi was almost enough to push him to the adept level of the “Chaos Demon Ape Body Tempering Sutra” and attain the strength of nine dragon elephants. At this level, he was strong enough to butt heads against a late-stage Spirit Master and, in this particular situation, become impervious to most evils and misfortune.

This was why Fugong’s Magia had failed to work on him.

Bang!

The mountains shook, and Ye Qing shot toward Fugong like a phantom. He was hoping to catch the middle-aged man while he was distracted.

A cunning glint flashed in Fugong’s eyes as Ye Qing’s hand reached out for his face. No one is immune to everything. How about this?

A white paper flew out of Fugong’s sleeve, and a man holding a sword was drawn on it. The quality of the drawing was frankly, abysmal. The man’s figure was completely out of proportion, it was missing a lot of details, and the lines were coarse and unsteady. It looked just like the drawing of a three-year-old.

However, as if the misshapen man had a life of its own, it abruptly stood up from the paper and twirled its ink sword in a ceremonial fashion. Then, it looked up at Ye Qing, held its sword parallel to its body, and thrust upward like it would split the sky in half.

At that moment, a pitch black sword beam cut through the air and enveloped heaven and earth. Everything within a hundred meters abruptly transformed into a sea of sword qi.

A sword on paper might flood the world. That was the sentence used to describe the Strange Artifact known as the Man On Paper.

The Man on Paper was a Phenomenon-class Strange Artifact and a random drawing scrawled by one of the strongest existing swordsmen in the world, Mo Jianseng. The drawing contained a wisp of his sword intent, and it eventually gained sentience and transformed into a Phenomenon-class Strange Artifact.

Although Mo Jianseng had the word “seng” (Monk) in it, he was anything but merciful. A man with a decidedly gray moral compass, he could be good or evil depending on the circumstances. Since his sword arts overflowed with killing intent and bloodthirst, it was only natural that Man On Paper was a highly destructive Strange Artifact in possession of a great deal of offensive power, and one of the most powerful Phenomenon-class Strange Artifacts out there.

The Man On Paper could unleash a sword strike that was as strong as a Half-Step Grandmaster’s full-powered attack. Its biggest flaw was that it could only be used once per month.

Fugong rarely used the Man On Paper, but when he did use it, no enemy had ever survived its attack. Therefore, he had no reason to believe that Ye Qing would become the exception.

Of course, he was mistaken. A pair of black, hairy fists abruptly manifested in the sky, and Ye Qing began punching the air rapidly like he was playing the drum. His first punch shattered the black sword light that split the sky, and his second punch shattered the sea of sword qi.

There was no third punch because it was unnecessary. For the first time ever, Man On Paper had failed to kill its opponent.

Shellshocked, Fugong could only watch as a demonic ape descended from the sky and slapped its gigantic hand over his head. There was a soft thud, and half of the middle-aged man’s body sank into the ground just like that.

Fugong wasn’t going to give in, of course. The instant his feet began to sink into the earth, he snapped back to reality and got ready to unleash his final resistance. Unfortunately, he had just moved a muscle when a terrible pain suddenly gripped his whole body, and blood spewed out of his mouth before he knew what was happening.

“You crippled me?!” Fugong exclaimed in a daze as he looked inward and found his headspace in tatters, his Yin God injured, his muscles and bones broken, and his astral qi in chaos. He was now just an ordinary person with no power.

“You don’t say?” Ye Qing smiled at Fugong, but it looked anything but comforting as he was in his ape form right now. Even scarier was the fact that the bone-deep sword wounds covering his entire body—injuries that, in Fugong’s opinion, should absolutely be fatal—began wriggling and healing at a visible rate. By the time Ye Qing shrank back down to a human, his injuries were completely gone.

“Now then. Do you still think I can’t kill you?”

Fugong didn’t know what to say. What should’ve been an insultingly simple matter had somehow spiraled beyond his wildest imaginations.

Did he underestimate his enemy? No, he didn’t. He had used every trick in his book to defeat him.

Did he lose himself to carelessness? That wasn’t it either. He was a cautious man, and he had acted with the appropriate level of cautiousness from the start.

In conclusion, it wasn’t his fault. His opponent was just too monstrous.

“Now then, can you tell me who’s the one who ordered you to kill me?” Ye Qing crouched on the ground and stared into Fugong’s eyes.

A moment of silence later, Fugong suddenly broke into a smile and said, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Ye Qing. I may die here, but it won’t be long before you follow me to the underworld. He will take revenge for me!”

A terrifying aura suddenly washed out of Fugong’s body, and Ye Qing snorted. “Planning to detonate your Yin God? What a loyal dog you are.”

“Heavenly Demon Captures The Soul”

One by one, Ye Qing bent his fingers and slowly robbed Fugong of his consciousness and will. The terrifying power washing out of his body slowly subsided until it was completely gone.

Fugong was a late-stage Spirit Master who had created his Yin God. At his current level, it should have been quite difficult for him to capture the man’s Yin God. However, his earlier strike had dealt a severe blow to Fugong’s Yin God, so the task was made so much easier.

Of course, this was the plan from the very beginning.

“Fog Demon, control him and make him submit to me,” said Ye Qing while summoning the Fog Demon. Previously, the Stranger had blocked Zhou Hengshan’s attack for him and suffered a tremendous amount of damage as a result, but luckily for it, the Profound Yellow Qi could accelerate its recovery to a certain extent. Since Ye Qing had plenty of Profound Yellow Qi right now, he decided to share some of it with the Fog Demon. Today, not only was the Fog Demon fully recovered, it was even stronger than it was before.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” The Fog Demon asked.

“He can’t die.” Ye Qing shook his head. “For starters, he knows the identity of the bastard who set me up.”

“Second, the mastermind will find out that I’m still alive if I kill him. When that happens, they would come after me with everything they got, and I don’t think I’m strong enough to defend against that.”

“Rather than killing him, I would rather keep him alive and make him my pawn. I want him to return home and tell the mastermind that I’m already dead. This way, I would have one less thing to worry about. Second, I want to use him as my plant and spy on my opponent. Only by knowing my enemy could I secure victory!”

Ye Qing never wanted to kill Fugong in the first place. It would certainly give him a moment of satisfaction, but a moment of satisfaction wasn’t what he sought after.

No, he sought to repay blood with blood.

He promised his enemy that he would have vengeance.

He was Ye Qing, and he always kept his promises.