"Then There is No Need for Me to Keep You."
Su Yang and Gu Feidi stepped through the Baiwu Tower gates side by side with their internal energy, running cautiously and quietly for any change in their surroundings.
This tower was the territory of the Great Shaman and the shamans of the E’Luo Gui Faction. It was said that there were not only human vessels carrying Poisonous Gu on guard, but also countless curse traps set by the shamans. Even if the people inside weren’t skilled in martial arts, there were countless ways for them to deal with uninvited guests trespassing.
Not daring to let his guard down, Su Yang immediately circulated Half-Withered Crimson in an attempt to prevent any surprise attack from the Poisonous Gu in the area.
However, the situation inside the Tower completely exceeded their expectations.
The inside of the Tower was not layered like its external appearance, instead, it was eerily empty. One could see the top of the Tower when standing at the bottom. There were long, winding steps around the walls, spiraling upward to the highest point.
The wall was fully painted with murals, and there were cut out doors and windows on every other section. There seemed to be many hidden rooms built between the inner and the outer wall.
However, there was not a single sight of a shaman or human vessel.
Inside the tower was an extremely open and quiet space. If it wasn’t for the loud snowstorm outside, one would be able to hear a pin drop.
A path created by pure white wolf fur blankets was spread from the tower gate to the circular platform in the center of the tower’s bottom layer. On the platform was a man wearing a white fur cloak and sitting cross-legged.
The man’s back was against the gate and a bone stave rested across his legs. He tilted his head slightly, as if he heard the two’s footsteps.
“You two are finally here at last.” His deep voice was filled with chill, saying in a bantering tone. “Is my nephew who escaped by a fluke not here?”
Su Yang instinctively felt his blood run cold before he could react to the meaning of the man’s question.
Gu Feidi stopped his breath for a moment, as he reflexively clenched his sword handle and asked in a low voice, “...E’Luo Jue?”
The man snorted softly and answered, “Who gave you, a young ignorant child, the right to call this King’s tabooName for the respected people. Part of the naming taboo culture, where it’s taboo to speak or write the given names. name?”
He turned to face them, and very relaxedly hung one leg down over the edge of the platform. His posture was open, and he gazed at them as if he regarded them as insignificant beings.
When Su Yang took a half step forward to half-block Gu Feidi’s path with his body, Gu Feidi extended a hand and patted him on the shoulder, indicating that everything would be alright, and pulled him back to his side.
E’Luo Jue’s eyes moved to Su Yang’s face, and suddenly, an indescribable complicated light burst out from the pair of dead eyes.
Su Yang’s face was currently covered in a white scarf, revealing only a pair of eyes. Minus the red mole at the tip of his eye, the exposed eyes were identical to E’Luo Jin’s eyes.
E’Luo Jue’s attention was fully on Su Yang as he lifted up the corner of his mouth and chuckled.
“Jin-er, you would actually...still return back to me in another way…”
He muttered that in a whisper, but it was clearly transmitted to Su Yang and Gu Feidi’s ears. The younger man clenched their connected hands without thinking and pulled the other man behind him.
E’Luo Jue’s eyes suddenly shifted to their clasped hands, the corners of his eyes twitched twice and a cold scoff came from his nose.
“You insolent boy!”
With a low shout, he got up from the central platform without warning. Twisting the bone stave and suddenly aiming a fast attack towards Gu Feidi’s face.
Gu Feidi lifted his sword for a block, but he didn’t expect E’Luo Jue’s internal energy to be this boundless. Using all of his might behind his sword, he was still staggered from the powerful clash with a loud bang and retreated a few steps backward to stabilise his body.
Su Yang drew his sword without thinking and attacked E’Luo Jue. He started with an extremely powerful attack from Drunkard’s Plum Wine Slash, sealing off all of his enemy’s retreats.
E’Luo Jue didn’t retreat. He rotated his wrist and the end of the bone stave passed though his flank and landed on Su Yang’s shoulder with great accuracy.
With the shoulder being a key point in a human’s arm strength, this blow immediately made Su Yang unable to perform his subsequent moves. He had no choice but to step back to attack again.
At this time, Gu Feidi also advanced with his sword again, correlated with Su Yang’s sword techniques as they both launched attacks at E’Luo Yue.
The King narrowed his eyes slightly, saying through his gritted teeth, “A formidable synchronisation...Oh, my dearest Jin-er, how could you synchronise with others!”
Before he finished the last words, he wielded the weapon in his hand like a spirit snake. It pierced between Su Yang and Gu Feidi at an extremely tricky angle. It stirred their harmonisation and was able to completely disrupt the rhythm of their joint attack.
Immediately afterwards, E’Luo Jue traversed the bone stave to hit Su Yang’s chest with a firm but not violent internal energy, forcing the man back. During this moment of weakness, he forcibly inserted himself between them, turned his attention towards Gu Feidi and displayed a disturbing smile.
Gu Feidi’s pupils suddenly enlarged, his body automatically gathered enough internal energy as he raised his sword to hold back the following powerful attack.
However, their opponent was ultimately much older. He had been immersed in martial arts far longer than Gu Feidi, and his internal energy was naturally stronger than the younger man. With his all-out strike, Gu Feidi was only able to resist for a moment before he was knocked airborne by the impact and slammed into the column of the spiral steps within the tower.
Su Yang used Cherished Flower Steps right away to rush forward with his attack. The sword edge went straight toward a fatal spot!
However, E’Luo Jue waved his stave in a large arc, as if he had eyes on the back of his head, and swept at Su Yang’s knee.
Su Yang turned his footing slightly and lightly dodged the attack, blocking the path between E’Luo Jue and Gu Feidi.
“You are protecting him…” The emotion in E’Luo Jue’s eyes changed immediately as the chill in his voice dropped to a biting cold. “No matter, I don’t need to kill him...if you’re willing to stay in the Faction, stay close by my side. I’ll let him leave...even under Heiyu Army’s escort and protection back to the Central Plains...would you accept?”
This offer made all of Su Yang’s hair stand up and his scalp numb.
He clenched Devoted Cause in his hand, shouted through his clenched teeth, “Keep dreaming!”
At the same time, he turned his wrist and hit E’Luo Jue with Drunkard’s Solitude.
Gu Feidi also leaped forward with his Cherished Heart to advance with Su Yang’s Devoted Cause. He assisted the other man with Dreamer's Fleeing Cloud.
With their parallel internal energy, their momentum was identical and their sword moves strengthened each other, displaying an invincible force.
However, against a move of theirs, E’Luo Jue still sneered with disdain, turned his stave horizontally and forcibly met their joint attack.
“This is not to be underestimated.” He said with a smile. “If you two were given another ten years, no, maybe five years would be enough...You two would be unstoppable together.”
As he praised, he waved his bone stave, knocked the combined hits from Su Yang and Gu Feidi back, took a half step back and sighed, “...Such a pity.”
E’Luo Jue applied his internal energy, which carried the intensity of a blazing fire, as he delivered his bone stave along with his flame-like internal energy, bypassing Su Yang and landing the fierce attack at Gu Feidi’s chest.
Gu Feidi obviously switched to a defensive move to handle a counter-attack, but he was still forced backward for more than a few meters. He bent forward and coughed up a mouthful of blood foam.
Su Yang came forward to protect Gu Feidi. He locked eyes on the enemy for a moment to counter any violent movements.
E’Luo Jue smiled towards Su Yang, but he slowly drew back and held his weapon, looking like he didn’t plan to attack again.
“You want the White Flame Gu to gain twice the result with half the effort when practicing Intense Sun internal skills?” He gazed toward Gu Feidi over Su Yang and sneered. “That’s a good idea, but it’s a pity, you overestimated your capabilities.”
“White Flame Gu…” Gu Feidi pondered for a moment and said in a disbelieving tone. “...It’s in you?”
Su Yang was stunned, but he didn’t dare to look back at the speaker. He still needed to be on guard against E’Luo Jue, so he asked, facing forward, “...But isn’t it supposed to be inside of the Great Shaman’s body?”
E’Luo Jue chuckled, looked at Su Yang with a tender expression and actually answered his question, “Who said that the King of E’Luo Gui Faction cannot be a Great Shaman as well?”
This answer made Su Yang gape, speechless. That logic was really irrefutable.
E’Luo Jue glanced at Su Yang and continued smiling. “Without our royal blood’s assistance, it’s delusional to contain the White Flame Gu inside a body, it’ll only result in death. If he wants this Flame Gu, he must tie you down together with him at the same time and must not allow you to leave at any given time...are you helping him into trapping you in a cage? From what I see, it’s better to kill him now instead of prolonging the adverse trouble…”
While talking, E’Luo Jue’s expression suddenly changed. For a moment, the gentleness was replaced by ruthlessness as his eyes were fixed on Gu Feidi.
Gripping the bone stave tightly in his hand, he suddenly soared up and waved heavily behind Su Yang’s unprepared defensive stance. This killing move was instantly a few meters away from Gu Feidi.
Gu Feidi used his light movement skill to make a speedy retreat, but he couldn’t shake off E’Luo Jue’s persistent attack as he watched powerlessly on the attack that would soon inflict a serious injury on him.
Seeing this, Su Yang clenched his teeth, poured all of his internal energy into his Cherished Flower Steps and clutched at the last moment of the killing move, standing before Gu Feidi and opening his arms to take the attack.
The bone stave hit like a falling meteorite with its bottomless internal energy and smashed in on Su Yang’s chest.
At the moment of impact, all three heard a very clear sound of something shattering.
Closely followed by Su Yang clashing into Gu Feidi, with neither of them able to stand against the force, they were knocked against the tower wall hard.
“Shixiong!” Gu Feidi swallowed his mouthful of blood and called out anxiously, “Shixiong! Are you hurt?”
Su Yang leaned against Gu Feidi’s arms, quietly swallowed back the overflowing blood, raised his hand and pressed it against his chest, shaking his head.
He didn’t receive a serious injury.
However, the Phoenix Jade given to him by Shizun was smashed into pieces by E’Luo Jue.
The Apparition inside that had been suppressed for a long time was slowly waking up. The cold feeling that was long absent flowed into Su Yang’s meridians again. Within a few breaths, it had spread throughout his limbs and into his bones.
Gu Feidi immediately noticed Su Yang’s abnormal state, subconsciously tightened his arms and transferred his internal energy into Su Yang’s body. He trembled while calling out, “...Xiao Xiao!”
With a sneer, E’Luo Jue raised his bone stave again for another attack.
Gu Feidi clenched his teeth, held Su Yang in one hand and raised Cherished Heart in the other hand, trying his best to block the deadly blow.
Su Yang lowered his eyes. He tucked the corner of his lips, hastened his Half-Withered Crimson and combined it with the Apparition, pouring out the extremely cold internal power into his next attack, the most deadly and the most reckless; the ultimate move for Drunkard’s Plum Wine Slash—Drunkard’s Forgotten Sorrow.
E’Luo Jue raised his eyebrows and had no choice but to withdraw his attack. With the power of White Flame Gu inside, he blocked Su Yang’s Devoted Cause.
Su Yang’s sword tip fell on the bone stave, but he couldn’t make even the tiniest dent.
He raised his gaze to look at E’Luo Jue indifferently. Then he slowly closed them up as a layer of snow-white frost began to condense on them.
He finally couldn’t hold himself upward any longer as he fell forward towards the ground...
Gu Feidi almost went mad.
He sent all his internal energy into Su Yang’s body, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.
He disregarded E’Luo Jue because his thoughts were fully occupied by Su Yang, on how he needed to hold the other man and warm him up...
However, a huge force gushed out from E’Luo Jue’s weapon and drove Gu Feidi back against the wall again.
The King took the freezing Su Yang into his arms, gazed down at the tightly closed eyes and at the icebound face.
“Jin-er…” He called out in a whisper, as if he was under an evil influenceSimilar to qi deviation (走火入魔 vs 彿入魔障).. “...Don’t die.”
The heat from the White Flame Gu streamed out of his body, wrapping Su Yang’s whole body and gradually melting the frost on the younger man’s face.
E’Luo Jue held Su Yang and said tenderly, “...So that was it. You have a very cold and strange thing inside of you, and need me to keep you warm...Don’t you?”
In this almost gentle call, Su Yang slowly opened his eyes and looked at the face that was within arm’s reach.
Then his eyebrows and eyes trembled...Until, he showed the sweetest smile imaginable with his eyes on E’Luo Jue.
A childlike surprise burst out from E’Luo Yue’s eyes, and even the tone in his voice changed. “Jin-er, I’ll remove—”
However, something suddenly interrupted him as he stopped.
After a long pause, his eyes slowly moved away from Su Yang’s face to his chest.
To see a small hand pressing against the spot closest to his heart, as if the hand was gently stroking his ice-cold heart.
However, only two people know what kind of bone-shattering internal force was contained in this palm.
A thin blood trail spilled from the gap between E’Luo Jue’s lips. He moved his hand to clench Su Yang’s wrist, a bitter laugh came out of the mournful smile.
“Are you...trying to kill me…?”
After the end of this short question, the original warmth in the voice ceased to exist. The voice was now cold as the snowstorm outside, and full of limitless killing intent.
The eyes gazing into Su Yang’s eyes also turned extremely cold. With a lightning speed, he twisted Su Yang’s hands behind the younger man’s back and pressed the cold body hard on the ground.
“...Since this is a hopeless situation, then I...have no need to keep you.”
oohh that’s a good observation on su yang’s sword skill. i didn’t realize it but that’s a clever detail