The Secret of the Bone-Eroding Hua Ling Powder

"Drip."

A drop of scalding sweat rolled down the pale, cold chin of the female envoy from the Jiangsha Sect, smashing onto the scorched rock beneath her feet and stirring up a wisp of white smoke.

She leaned languidly against the rock wall. Her blood-red gauze dress, thin as cicada wings, was soaked with sweat, the silky fabric clinging tightly to her breathtaking curves. Her fragile neckline flushed crimson in the firelight, and every rapid breath she took brought a rustling sound of fabric rubbing together.

And opposite her.

The wrinkled old face of Deacon Wang was filled with unresolvable greed and extreme tension. His gaunt hands tightly held a restriction jade box carved from thousand-year cold jade, from the seam of which a rich crimson spiritual light seeped out.

The foundation of the sect, the Earth Vein Flame Marrow.

"Lord Envoy, the Flame Marrow is here." He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. "I wonder about the... guiding blood token you promised?"

A trace of extremely hidden contempt and deadliness flashed across the female envoy's soul-stealing fox eyes.

"Rest assured, Deacon Wang. My Jiangsha Sect values promises above all."

Her lightly callused fingertips rubbed a jade token emitting a strong, bloody, exotic fragrance extremely slowly, before slowly handing it over.

Just at the moment when Deacon Wang, his eyes full of fanaticism, was about to touch the blood token with both hands—

The jade foot hidden under the blood-red gauze dress, tightly wrapped in red silk ribbons, suddenly straightened its instep.

At the tip of her toes, a blood fiend poison needle, even darker than the night, silently poked out, pointing straight at the dead spot of Deacon Wang's sea of consciousness.

Just half an inch more.

This old thing wouldn't even be able to let out a scream before turning into a puddle of foul-smelling bloody water.

"Trying to buy your own life with a piece of broken Flame Marrow."

"Deacon Wang, back when you took Han Feng's dirty money to spike my Profound Ice Spirit Marrow with 'Bone-Eroding Spirit-Melting Powder,' was the price this pathetic too?"

A cold, hard voice, like that from a polar glacier, exploded in the scorching night wind without warning.

The voice wasn't loud, but it pierced through the roar of the earth fire with extreme precision, like an ice pick fiercely stabbing into the eardrums of the two people.

"Who!"

The female envoy's straightened instep suddenly stiffened, and that deadly poison needle was forced to stop in mid-air. Deacon Wang felt his hairs stand on end and turned around in terror.

Ten paces away.

The blazing sulfurous poison mist seemed to have been cleaved open by an invisible blade.

Gu Yang, wearing a grey handyman's dharma robe, stood with his hands behind his back. There was not a ripple in his deep black eyes as he coldly watched the two startled birds.

In the shadows half a step behind him, Zhao Yuelian stood quietly. The delicate body under her grey robe was sweating slightly due to the extreme heat, yet she released no aura, like a breathtakingly beautiful ghost.

"Gu... Gu Yang?!"

Deacon Wang stared fixedly at this cripple who should have had his meridians shattered and been waiting for death in the outer sect.

"Why are you here?! Aren't you already crippled?!"

His old face instantly twisted into ferocious murderous intent. He absolutely could not let anyone know about him stealing the Flame Marrow!

"Since you, piece of trash, are courting death, this deacon will send you on your way today!"

Deacon Wang roared, his mid-Foundation Establishment magic power erupting without reservation. His withered hands rapidly formed seals, and a palm-sized, red-hot phantom of an alchemy furnace flew out from his dantian, expanding against the wind as its lid flew open.

"Flame Python Devouring Kill!"

A violent fire python, as thick as a water bucket and entirely condensed from earth-core poison fire, carrying a temperature that could incinerate everything, opened its bloody maw and ruthlessly devoured towards Gu Yang! The rocks along its path instantly melted into blinding magma under the high heat.

Meanwhile, the female envoy's reaction was even faster.

She didn't care about Deacon Wang's life or death at all. The moment Gu Yang appeared, an extreme sense of danger flashed in her fox eyes.

"This handsome little brother, hiding in the dark eavesdropping is not a good habit."

She giggled coquettishly, her voice so sweet it seemed to drip with syrup. But her straightened instep tapped fiercely against the scalding rock wall—

"Hiss, hiss, hiss—"

The blood-red gauze dress instantly exploded into thousands of blood-red silk bands as sharp as blades, exposing a large expanse of breathtakingly snow-white skin to the air. Like a venomous spider dancing in a blood web, she used the fire python's cover to slide across the ground bizarrely. That blood fiend poison needle hidden at her toe tip sliced through the air, bringing with it an ear-piercing shriek, aiming straight for Gu Yang's lower vital acupoints!

One in the light, one in the dark; a perfect kill setup.

Facing the all-out siege of two Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Gu Yang didn't even bat an eyelid.

He stood quietly in place, watching the roaring earth fire giant python.

"Playing with fire?"

A profoundly cold mockery curled on his thin lips. He slowly raised his right hand, spreading his five fingers, his palm facing the fire python that was enough to turn an early Foundation Establishment cultivator to ashes.

"Buzz—!"

A terrifying coercion, ten times more violent, blazing, and domineering than the surrounding earth fire, explosively blasted out from his furnace-like body.

Great Sun True Fire!

The dark golden flame bloomed suddenly in Gu Yang's palm like a miniature blazing sun.

"Boom!"

There was no suspense, no stalemate.

Deacon Wang's proud earth fire giant python, the moment it touched the Great Sun True Fire, let out an extremely shrill wail like a loach encountering a true dragon! The dark golden flame, like maggots on a corpse, swallowed the fire python's head in one bite.

The ultimate assimilation attribute of the Great Sun Heaven-Incinerating Sutra operated with a rumble.

Not only did that earth fire giant python fail to harm Gu Yang in the slightest, but it also turned into the purest fire-attribute nourishment, pouring madly into his body along the flame's connection.

"Pfft—!"

With his spell forcefully swallowed and assimilated, Deacon Wang looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He threw his head back and spurted out a large mouthful of fresh blood, the killing intent in his eyes instantly replaced by endless despair and terror.

"No! This is impossible! What kind of monster are you?!"

At the same instant the Great Sun True Fire swallowed the fire python, the female envoy's blood fiend poison needle viciously stabbed to within less than three feet of Gu Yang, a bloodthirsty fanaticism appearing on her bewitching face.

"Got him—"

However.

The next breath.

A large hand with rough, thin calluses, like iron pincers reaching out from the void, grabbed her slender, smooth ankle dead on without warning.

"Crack."

The female envoy's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinpricks.

Her proud, bizarre movement technique, that blood fiend poison needle capable of piercing high-grade dharma artifacts, was nothing but a laughable toy in front of Gu Yang.

Gu Yang's deep black eyes coldly looked down at the female envoy, whom he held upside down in mid-air. The tattered blood-red gauze dress hung down, revealing large expanses of breathtaking curves, her scalding skin covered in terrified cold sweat.

His five fingers tightened violently, extremely brutally.

"Crack—!!!"

A scalp-numbing sound of bones shattering exploded clearly in the dead-silent mine shaft.

"Ah—!"

An extremely shrill scream, like that of a female ghost. That cold, pale jade foot wrapped in red silk ribbons and hiding a poison needle was forcibly crushed into a bloody, mangled mess! The blood fiend poison needle, losing its magic power support, fell dejectedly onto the rocks, letting out a crisp "clatter."