I'm Immune to All Poisons, Surprised

Shadow placed the jade cup on the table, stood up, and looked toward the mouth of the valley.

The sunset outlined a lean silhouette beneath the shadow of his hood. His eyes faintly glowed in the darkness—an abnormal phenomenon caused by cultivating a dark-element technique to its extreme. His pupils had completely turned black, merging with the whites of his eyes, making them look like two bottomless black holes.

“Interesting,” he said quietly. “He really dares to come. Then we proceed as planned. All men, hear my order—once the target enters the valley, wait for me to smash the cup as the signal. Three layers of arrays will activate simultaneously. The poison array first, the killing array immediately after, and the sealing array to cut off escape. One strike for certain death. No hesitation.”

“Yes!”

Fifty Shadow Guards responded in unison, then vanished back into the shadows as if they had never existed.

At the entrance of the valley, Wang Hao stopped and looked up at the canyon shrouded in twilight.

The rocks on Eagle’s Sorrow Cliff glowed with a blood-red sheen under the setting sun. The cliff was so tall that it blocked most of the sky, leaving only a narrow strip of orange-red light. The wind blowing out of the valley carried a faint, sweet, metallic smell—ordinary people could not detect it, but he could. It was the scent of Tears of the Abyss.

“System, can the New Sovereign Sword withstand the poison array in this valley?”

[The New Sovereign Sword’s core abilities are to devour malevolent entities and absorb the host’s negative emotions for evolution. Its defense against toxins is only at the level of an ordinary cursed weapon. It is recommended that the host not rely on the New Sovereign Sword against the Tears of the Abyss.]

“Then what do I do?”

[Three days ago, when the host checked in at the North Gate of Reception City, he obtained a ‘Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity Talisman.’ After use, this talisman can grant immunity to all toxins for two hours, including the Tears of the Abyss.]

Wang Hao fished the talisman out of his sleeve. It was a palm-sized green paper charm, painted with a toad opening its mouth, holding a pearl in its jaws. He pressed the talisman against his chest, and the paper transformed into a stream of green light that seeped into his body, forming a thin, translucent green film over his meridians.

“How long will it last?”

[Two hours.]

“Enough.” Wang Hao straightened his robe and stepped into the Black Wind Valley. “Time for the feast.”

Inside the valley, Shadow watched the figure approaching alone. His fingers slowly tightened around the jade cup.

The setting sun stretched Wang Hao’s shadow long across the dark red ground. The shadow crept toward the stone table with each step, his pace unhurried, as if he were strolling through his own back garden.

Shadow noticed a detail—Wang Hao’s right hand always hung at his side, fingers slightly spread, always keeping an angle for drawing his sword. His left hand was tucked into his sleeve, which bulged slightly, clearly hiding something.

“Your Majesty,” Shadow said, rising and giving a slight bow. His tone was polite, as if welcoming an honored guest. “I’ve long admired your reputation. Please take a seat.”

Wang Hao walked to the stone table, glanced over the lavish dishes, and smiled.

“Dragon’s liver and phoenix’s marrow, nine-colored immortal fruits, ten-thousand-year-old lingzhi—this feast alone is worth enough to buy a whole street in Reception City. The Grand Commander spared no expense.”

He sat down casually across from Shadow, picked up his chopsticks, took a piece of dragon’s liver, and under Shadow’s gaze, put it into his mouth. He chewed a couple of times and praised,

“Not bad. The heat is perfect, the sauce is flavorful. The chefs in your Dark City have real skill—they’re better than my imperial cooks.”

Shadow’s eyelid twitched imperceptibly. He wondered: does he truly not know there’s a poison array in the valley, or does he dare to eat the food on the table? The food was indeed not poisoned—Tears of the Abyss was a volatile toxin that needed to be inhaled to work. Putting it in food would actually reduce its potency. But even so, a normal person would show basic caution toward a meal of unknown origin.

Was this emperor truly unafraid of death, or did he have some trump card?

“I’m glad Your Majesty enjoys it,” Shadow said.

He raised the jade cup. The dark green wine swayed gently inside.

“This is specialty of Dark City: ‘Spring of the Abyss Brew,’ made from ten-thousand-year-old cold spring water and mixed with Ink Jade Flowers grown in the Nine Netherlands. Outsiders can only dream of tasting it. Please, Your Majesty.”

Wang Hao picked up the cup in front of him and looked down at the dark green liquid inside.

A thin layer of fine bubbles floated on the surface, each popping bubble releasing an almost imperceptible puff of sweet, metallic gas. He recognized it as the Tears of the Abyss—no, more precisely, the trigger for it. The actual toxin had already been released into the air, entering his body through his breath. This cup of wine was only a catalyst to speed up the poison’s effect.

The green light of the Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity Talisman flickered faintly along his meridians, instantly neutralizing every trace of toxicity that seeped in. The entire process was silent, with no fluctuation of energy.

Wang Hao smiled, raised the cup, and drank it all in one gulp.

“Not bad,” he smacked his lips. “A little sweet, with a bitter aftertaste. More unique than any wine I’ve ever drunk. Got any more?”

Shadow’s hand, still holding his cup, stiffened. He stared intently at Wang Hao’s face, waiting for his color to drain, his pupils to dilate, his qi to become chaotic—these were the typical symptoms of the Tears of the Abyss taking effect.

Generally, a cultivator at the early Divine Martial Realm who inhaled the Tears of the Abyss would begin to feel its effects within ten breaths. The poison would first erode the qi shield around the dantian, then seep into the Divine Martial Foundation, dismantling the power base from within.

One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths.

Ten breaths passed.

Wang Hao’s complexion remained flush as ever. His eyes were clear and bright. His qi flow was steady. He even picked up another piece of phoenix’s marrow, chewed it, and mumbled with satisfaction,

“This phoenix marrow is really something—tender and smooth, far better than the ten-thousand-year-old lingzhi marrow from the Celestial Void Peak. Why aren’t you eating, Grand Commander?”

Shadow’s pupils contracted slightly.

This was impossible. He had personally prepared the Tears of the Abyss. The dosage was triple the lethal amount—enough to poison a cultivator at the early Divine Martial Realm to death within five breaths. Even that Divine Martial Realm mid-stage target he’d dealt with had taken nearly a hundred breaths under triple dosage before his combat power collapsed. How did this man show no reaction at all?

“Does the food suit Your Majesty’s taste?” Shadow slowly put down his cup. His voice remained polite, but his fingers had already begun forming hand seals in secret.

“It suits my taste perfectly,” Wang Hao put down his chopsticks, wiped the corner of his mouth with the napkin on the table, and looked up at Shadow, his smile still bright. “Food and drink are done. Now, let’s talk business.”

“Grand Commander, when will your Dark City repay the spirit stones you owe me?”

Shadow was silent for a moment.

According to the original plan, Wang Hao should have collapsed from poison by now, and the fifty Shadow Guards would swarm in and cut him to pieces. But he hadn’t been poisoned. The first step of the plan had failed. Did he have a special constitution immune to all poisons? The intelligence hadn’t mentioned that.

Still, no matter. Assassination plans always had backups. Since poison didn’t work, they would rely on arrays and numbers.

He let his fingers loosen, and the jade cup slipped silently from his hand. It shattered on the stone table.

The dark green wine splashed across the stone, hissing and corroding the surface.

“Now,” he said.

The very moment the words fell, the ground of the Black Wind Valley lit up.

Three layers of arrays activated simultaneously.

The first layer of the sealing array rose up as a dark green light curtain, enveloping the entire valley, while the entrance passage was blocked by an invisible spatial barrier.

The second poison array’s ink-green patterns spread across the ground like living creatures, corroding even the rocks into honeycomb-like pits wherever they passed, and dark green toxic mist spewed from the crevices, turning the valley’s air into a poison haze strong enough to melt steel.

The third killing array’s black patterns wove together in the air, forming eight distinct lethal strikes—blades, swords, spears, axes, hooks, forks, whips, and maces. Phantom images of these eight weapons condensed in mid-air, each radiating a pressure equivalent to a full-force strike from the early stage of the Martial God realm.

Fifty Shadow Guards emerged simultaneously from the shadows.

Their movements were eerily unusual—they didn’t leap out from hiding spots; they “seeped” out of the shadows, as if the shadows themselves were doors and they only needed to step through to appear anywhere engulfed in darkness. This was the Shadow City’s unique secret technique, “Shadow Stride,” allowing instant movement between shadows, catching enemies off guard.

Fifty peak-stage Imperial Sky realm experts, three layers of cyclic killing arrays, and the toxic mist of Abyssal Tears—this was the highest-spec assassination formation ever deployed by the Shadow Guards.

The last time such a formation had been used was three hundred years ago, to assassinate that rogue Martial God realm expert at the mid-stage.

Shadow himself also made his move.

His black robes, illuminated by the array’s light, transformed into a black streak of lightning, and a pitch-black short blade appeared in his hand. The blade’s surface reflected no light, for it absorbed all illumination—sunlight, moonlight, and the radiance of Martial God aura. This was his lifebound oddity weapon, “Dark Annihilation,” ranked ninety-ninth on the Oddity Weapon List. Its feature was ignoring the protective aura barrier of early-stage Martial God experts.

His angle of attack was exceedingly cunning—not from the front, but emerging from the shadow of the wall behind Wang Hao.

This was the true terror of Shadow Stride: in places with shadows, Shadow Guards could disregard spatial distance and directly appear within a target’s shadow.

Wang Hao’s shadow, stretched long by the array’s glow, reached into the darkness of a rock wall.

Dark Annihilation cut through the air without a sound, stabbing straight at Wang Hao’s back, precisely at the spot corresponding to the rear of his dantian. If it struck, the blade would pierce through his flesh and into his heart.

At the same time, the eight phantom killing strikes descended from the sky, sealing every possible evasive route Wang Hao could take.

The toxic mist surged in from all directions, compressing the space around him to less than three feet.

The fifty Shadow Guards formed a circular formation at the periphery, each holding a black thunder pearl—the signature Dark Thunder Pearls of the Shadow City, with the explosive force of a full-power strike from an Imperial Sky realm peak expert. If all fifty detonated together, they would level half a mountain.

It was a killing move of absolute finality.

Heaven and earth, all directions—no dead corners remained.

Then, Dark Annihilation struck Wang Hao’s back.

Shadow’s fingers felt the sensation of penetrating something solid. His heart leaped: had he succeeded?

But then the joy froze on his face.

Because the “Wang Hao” that Dark Annihilation had struck suddenly turned transparent—not vanishing, but becoming see-through: robes, flesh, bones, layer by layer fading into transparency, revealing a hollow interior.

That was not a real person at all. It was a substitute folded from a human-shaped talisman paper, covered with dense runes, which all lit up the moment Dark Annihilation pierced it, releasing an aura identical to Wang Hao’s own.

A Yin-Yang Twin Life Talisman.

“A decoy?” Shadow’s pupils shrank. He abandoned his blade without hesitation and retreated. “Everyone—”

He didn’t finish.

Lightning lit up the sky.

Four disposable thunder pearls flew from different directions simultaneously and detonated mid-air, unleashing the transparent celestial thunder sealed within—the purest heavenly tribulation lightning, the force of the Dao judging all things.

The four bolts of celestial thunder wove into a lightning net above the Black Wind Valley, trapping all eight phantom killing strikes.

Those eight strikes, each with the force of an early Martial God’s full blow, were nothing before the heavenly tribulation lightning; they shattered into specks of light at the net’s touch.

The lightning net did not stop. It descended further, covering the entire floor of Black Wind Valley.

The toxic mist was purified in the glare of the lightning—celestial thunder, pure yang and supremely strong, overcomes all sinister and evil things.

Poisonous as Abyssal Tears were, they were no more than a wisp of smoke before the celestial thunder.

The ground’s poison array patterns shattered inch by inch under the lightning’s strike. The ink-green lines writhed madly like snakes touched by fire, then turned to ash.

The fifty Shadow Guards never had a chance to throw their Dark Thunder Pearls before being engulfed by the lightning net.

The Dark Thunder Pearls, explosive devices of shadow nature, reacted to pure celestial thunder like gunpowder meeting a spark, detonating on the spot.

Fifty Dark Thunder Pearls exploded in their holders’ hands. Black flames burst skyward, and screams echoed without end.