Book 11: Chapter 82

True to Feng Xue’s words, there was no such thing as a safe zone against a jiao. Wazi reduced the already-fragmented city to dust. One second, purple lightning flitted past here. The next second, a purple streak was seen elsewhere. Trying to discern its location based on sounds would be akin to trying to distinguish between overlapping sounds.As a jiao, Wazi was more violent and stronger than any of his siblings. Even mutated beasts avoided going anywhere within his vicinity, lest they became his snack. Wazi possessed claws sharper than Baidizi, a body tougher than Chichen’s scales, on top of an uncanny ability to spawn lightning. Yet, Feng Xue could be heard commenting, “Oho, not bad. Not bad,” as he dodged, or “Miss me with that tail,” right before Wazi’s tail ploughed through a wall, and then, “Sheesh, you really took down a whole wall, son.”Divine Realm’s Eclipse wouldn’t do squat against Six Evils. Howbeit, the size discrepancy between them and humans did afford Feng Xue more evasion options – provided he had developed the attributes to stay out of harm’s way in the first place. When openings, timing and distance lined up, Feng Xue would hammer Wazi with heavy strikes to penetrate Wazi’s lightning armour.Feng Xue caught a tiger, skinned and drained it, then roasted it on Wazi’s lightning armour. “Never expected your lightning ability to be pretty wicked.” The outside of the tiger was overcooked, but the flesh inside was aromatic.Nobody interfered in the match, so the fight was comparable to an endless game of hide and seek. They had been going at it for an hour, yet Wazi had yet to catch Feng Xue once. Irate, Wazi pushed the pace more and more, yet Feng Xue showed no signs of anxiety.As Feng Xue’s mission was to stall Wazi, there was no need for him to fight with the sense of urgency Abels and Moyan Luohou did. Feng Xue had only just consolidated his advancement into Divine Realm. Hence, he’d only be hastening his death if he attempted to slay Wazi on his own.Feng Xue was a practitioner of the Central Plain’s “Sage Sovereign Origin”, an internal discipline that endorsed the concept of “a sage within and a sovereign outside”. Because it taught its practitioner to employ the infinite qi of nature, while it didn’t shine in the strength department, its style of ceaselessly mounting pressure would whittle away at the opponent’s defences.Notwithstanding the decrease in Feng Xue’s strength ten years ago, the anatomy of Sage Sovereign Origin didn’t change. Thanks to his developed aggression sensor, he could read Wazi’s every movement even with his eyes closed.Feng Xue hit Wazi with a palm strike and used the recoil to back tuck onto the ground. “I’m different to Heavenly Swordsman. Unlike him, I’m shameless.” He turned around to perform visual recon of Wazi and added, “I’ve aged – a lot. You, in contrast, haven’t changed at all.”When a series of natural disasters struck Nanjiang a decade in the past, people suspected Nieyao was cursed. The Central Plain’s Prince even came south with the promise of purging the threat. Alas, Heavenly Swordsman failed to enact the promise. The kid Feng Xue took down in the same year wasn’t any less dangerous than Wazi for the boy had a knack for fighting. Though he had to sacrifice an arm to save the boy, which he committed because he saw potential in the boy, he was able to reattach it. Within three months, he would’ve been the same old Feng Xue again. That wasn’t the only challenge in store for Feng Xue that year, sadly.“I’ve lost my wife, my seal as general, my reins over the military, my wealth and barely have a fraction of my skills remaining. Dang, even lost an arm.”What killed his wife, took his arms and nigh erased the skills he was proud of never stopped weighing on his mind for the last ten years.  Surely it couldn’t have been such an asinine beast with nothing but violence on its mind – no way.Strength and the freaky sight of them eating raw flesh was but an exterior appearance. A creature that was a servant to its innate desires wasn’t scary even if it is strong; how was it any different to a weapon without a wielder? Is a weapon to blame for someone’s death? By the same account, the killer couldn’t have been a violent beast. Thus, it must have been the sinister will of someone who had taken root in Nanjiang and had yet to be uprooted.“My mistake…” Feng Xue dodged Wazi’s next combo. “You have changed. You were much weaker the last time. You’ve eaten a human, haven’t you?”As Wazi swung down, Feng Xue twisted out of the way and then avoided the next two follow-up swings.“It’s precisely because I’m shameless that I’m stalling. Luo Ming is the one replete with hatred.” Feng Xue cast his gaze in Luo Ming’s direction. “Don’t die.”