BOOM!
A dark green hill split apart down the middle, and the sand and stone flung off it went up across the sky like a passing plague of locusts. Out of the smoke and dust that blotted out heaven and earth, a man walked slowly forward. A tall, striking build. Blue hair… and the eyes of a wolf.
One step, two… he stopped there, his gaze fixed on the figure ahead of him. Under the pressure the two of them put out, the flying dust was driven rapidly back down.
“Hee hee. Found me again, big brother. Your nose is better than a wolf’s.”
In front of the blue-haired man stood a girl wrapped from head to foot in a dreamlike purple light.
Her figure was small and delicately made, and her purple hair drifted loose to the small of her back — purple, but not purple alone: an uncanny purple that gave off a faint light of its own. What she wore on her body was not clothing at all, but a garment… of amethyst.
Her hands were slender, fine and soft as snow, with long white fingers like so many pieces of jade; around each wrist, clasped tight, were two rings of amethyst, like a pair of broad bangles. Her hands were raised, and a pair of slim, snow-white arms lay wholly bare, while over her body the purple crystal covered her upper half completely. The crystal was very thin, and it traced the small, exquisite line of her to perfection.
On her feet were a dainty pair of amethyst shoes, with two more rings of purple crystal about her ankles; above them ran two slender, straight legs, and from halfway up the thigh the same amethyst garment covered her again.
The upper half of the girl’s face was hidden behind a purple mask, so her eyes could not be seen — only half a face the color of cream, and soft, fresh lips, with a smile at the corner of them that was somewhere between mockery and amusement.
Here was a girl who might have been carved out of amethyst, gorgeous purple radiance wreathing her body; look at her too long and the eyes could not stand the glare of all that brilliant purple.
Chh!!
The blue-haired man’s face was so indifferent it held no ripple of feeling at all. His hand rose slowly… and with a tearing sound of the most terrible kind, black lightning came down out of the sky carrying an unspeakable weight of pressure and struck the center of his right palm. Out of the savagery of that lightning, a pitch-black short sword took shape in his hand.
The corners of the Amethyst Maiden’s mouth lifted into a mysterious smile, and she said quietly, “Big brother, are you going to kill me?”
“I will not kill you, and I could not kill you… Only, you have to go back to where you belong.” The black sword in the blue-haired man’s hand came up, its black-lightning-wreathed point leveled at the girl.
“Hee. But that place — I never want to go back there, ever. So what should we do about it, big brother?”
Shing!!
Purple light burst out of the girl’s hands, and in that instant she held, in her left hand and her right, a pair of shining purple — swords of light! They were only half a meter long, dazzlingly purple, and their appearance brought with it a truly frightening tearing force; the air around them was driven out on the instant, and hung there visibly warped and churning.
The blue-haired man said nothing. That cold, unmoving expression was his answer.
“Big brother, we shouldn’t have met before, so why is it that wherever I go, you come chasing after me?” Her weapons were out, and yet the Amethyst Maiden’s voice still carried its laughter, and a silky softness that turned the bones to water — as though she gave the powerful man in front of her no weight at all, as though no awareness of danger had reached her.
The blue-haired man lifted a foot, his eyes half-closed, a cold light like a blade’s edge shining out through the slits. “I have no quarrel with you. But for the sake of one person, I have to defeat you… It is one of the very few reasons I am still alive.”
A puzzled look crossed the Amethyst Maiden’s face, and then she said, laughing again, “Big brother, you really are a very strange person… Big brother, you’re very strong, the strongest person I’ve ever seen — but you can’t beat me. I keep dodging you, and it isn’t because I’m afraid of you; it’s because if we fight, my power will draw in certain people I’d rather not see… Still, if big brother is going to go on chasing me, I’m going to get angry.”
“You are right that I cannot be your match… and he could not be your match either. There is not a human alive who could defeat you… But with my companion beside me!?”
As the blue-haired man’s voice fell away, a ring of deep blue light burst and blazed beside him, and out of it rose the figure of an enormous wolf, magnificent and terrible. A pair of eyes shining with dark blue light locked onto the Amethyst Maiden’s body on the instant, and a will to fight boiled up wildly in them like a fire taking hold…
“Yaa! The Blue Soul!” the Amethyst Maiden cried in astonishment. She paused, then began to laugh softly again. “Blue Soul, it really has been a long time. If this big brother has managed to subdue you, then it seems he is even stronger than I thought. But then — Blue Soul, nobody knows better than you do how strong I am. Do you really think the two of you can beat me? Hee. That’s so funny…”
Rrrip!!
The sound of space breaking apart rang out again, and behind the Amethyst Maiden a purple figure of much the same build tore through space and appeared there — and the arrival sent the already suffocating atmosphere lurching. The same instant of shock showed on the faces of both the blue-haired man and the Amethyst Maiden.
Black hair, purple clothes, an exquisitely made body, a delicate face, closed eyes. Her hands and the points of her feet hung naturally downward; there was not a sound or a stir anywhere about her as she floated quietly in the air, motionless, for all the world as if she were asleep. Had it not been for that ear-splitting sound of space tearing, neither the blue-haired man nor the Amethyst Maiden would even have noticed her arrive.
“…It’s you!” The Amethyst Maiden, all smiles until now, turned grave at last. She angled her body to stand side-on, facing the blue-haired man and the Blue Soul on her left, and the mysterious girl on her right… Against enemies like these, even she felt an extremely heavy pressure.
“For… brother… de… feat… you…” The words came out of her in a low murmur. Her eyes did not open, and yet she sensed precisely and without error where the Amethyst Maiden was. One small, soft white hand lifted, and came down flat through empty air…
Boom…
The most terrible thing in the world is not an explosion of energy, and not an explosion of the elements. It is… an explosion of space!!
Scroll of Kindred Minds: An Immortal Spirit scroll. On use, raises the bearer’s command over pets, allowing one additional pet to be brought out in battle.
“One more pet! Bloody hell! Are my eyes playing tricks on me!!” Holding it carefully — a thing that looked like nothing much at all — Zuo Pojun read it through again and again, still hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. An Immortal Spirit-grade scroll would naturally carry very powerful properties, but he had never imagined they would be powerful to this degree.
What did one more pet in battle actually mean? When a player has a pet strong enough, fighting alongside it nearly doubles his combat power; two pets means combat power can be tripled… and with an extremely strong pet, the effect is more astonishing still. Summoning two pets at once was a privilege that had belonged to the Summoner class alone.
Ye Tianxie looked over his own Scroll of Kindred Minds for a while, put it away, and said with an odd expression, “Mm. Pojun, you had better use that scroll right now. Otherwise, once we get back, there is a hundred percent chance Qiushui will take it off you by force.”
Chh — Zuo Pojun crushed the scroll in his hand. He moved so fast it was as though he feared Murong Qiushui might appear in front of him in the next second.
Ye Tianxie: “……”
“Let’s go, we’re heading back… Mm, and we ought to console Fourth Brother.”
Su Feifei, the little Frost Snow Wolf in her arms, laughed out loud.
Somewhere else.
“Ai, heaven is a cruel thing. Having given me beauty without equal, why must it also give me solitude? Oh… solitude, what a terrible thing it is. Right now I would sooner see that dead fat man blocking my view. Hoo… why is there nowhere in this world where a man can buy champagne? I do believe I need some…”
Wounded and alone, the man raised the bow in his hand and sent out one arrow after another. He kept up his ceaseless muttering, and yet every arrow he loosed struck a monster; not one of them went wide… And on a closer look, one would have found that every arrow landed at exactly the center of a monster’s forehead, neither left of it nor right of it, precise as if it had all been measured out beforehand.
Who would believe that precision like that came from a man who was weaving unsteadily about as he moved and rattling on without ever once shutting his mouth… The most basic principle there is — that the mind cannot do two things at once — appeared simply not to apply to this man.
Boom!
An explosive arrow went out and burst, and by rare good fortune stunned both Demon-Touched Sheep at once (Basic Explosive Arrow has a 3% stun rate). Murong Qiushui pursed his lips and said quietly, “Kind soul that I am, I always pity poor creatures who have had bad luck. So, kind soul that I am, I shall mercifully grant you a final three seconds to appreciate this beautiful world… three… two… one… Bingo! Farewell, baby!”
Thwip, thwip…
A few arrows in quick succession, and both of the pitiable Demon-Touched Sheep were dead.
Demon-Touched Sheep were level 15 monsters, but they spawned so sparsely that not many players chose to level there. Looking out, there were only a scattered handful of players and a thin straggle of sheep off in the distance.
“…Hoo. Second Young Master, don’t the textbooks say dinosaurs went extinct a very, very long time ago? So why does Huaxia have so many of them? Boo hoo hoo… I’ve walked all this way and I haven’t seen a single beauty.”
“You believe textbooks now… Off with you. All day, every day, all you can think about is pretty girls. With ambition like that, do you honestly expect to find yourself a wife?” said a youth with a two-handed sword across his back and eyes like cold stars, no more than fifteen or sixteen by the look of him, in a tone of flat disdain. Beside him a youth younger still was carrying on with his mournful complaining.
The names above the two of them — Fierce Shadow Star Soul, and Yan Xiaoxie.
“Heh, with Second Young Master looking out for me, is Xiaoxie ever going to have trouble finding a wife? I— aaah!! Second Young Master, look, over there… a beauty, a beauty!!”
Yan Xiaoxie started shouting like a man who had just been injected with something, the dull eyes of a moment ago suddenly stretched wide, his gaze burning as he stared ahead. Fierce Shadow Star Soul’s eyes flicked in the direction of the pointing finger — and then he froze outright… It was, without question, a superlative beauty, elegant in bearing, with a face beyond compare.
Except…
“Second Young Master… Second Young Master, are you going in? Because if you don’t, I will.” Yan Xiaoxie wiped the drool off the corner of his mouth and rubbed his hands together.
“Mm…” Fierce Shadow Star Soul tipped his chin down and said, with a strange look on his face, “Xiaoxie, as your Young Master, my advice is… that this one, you had better leave alone…”
“It’s fine!” Yan Xiaoxie thumped his chest. “With charm like ours, what woman can’t be won? If Second Young Master isn’t going in, then I am!!”
That said, he was off at a run before anyone could stop him, straight toward… Murong Qiushui.
(End of Chapter 206)