Serial Poison Scheme

The piercing sound was faint and shrill, faster than the limits of reaction!

The cloying, sickly fragrance bored straight into his brain, causing True Qi to stagnate and his head to swim!

At the threshold of life and death, Lin Feng's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints! He had no time to turn around, not even time to think!

The battle instincts he had honed over months with the system, tempered through secret realms and assassinations, surpassed the speed of thought at this moment!

Thunder Gang, reverse surge!

A silent roar erupted in his heart! The surging Thunder True Qi within him did not flow toward his fists and feet as before, but instead charged madly toward his back—especially the area around the Jade Pillow acupoint—with unprecedented ferocity!

"Buzz!"

A layer of dark-purple lightning, far thinner than before yet even more condensed and carrying an aura of ultimate destruction, burst from his back like a stress response!

"Clang—!"

An ear-piercing screech, like glass violently grinding against steel, exploded!

The black gleam hurtling toward him—a Soul Severing Needle as fine as a cow's hair and steeped in dark-blue poison—was forcibly stalled for an instant the moment it struck the reverse-surging Thunder Gang! The dark-blue poisonous gleam at its tip seemed to have encountered its nemesis, hissing as it rapidly melted away!

That instant of delay gave Lin Feng a sliver of hope!

Borrowing the recoil of the reverse-surging Thunder Gang and combining it with Thunder Flash, his body slid fiercely half a foot diagonally forward in an almost twisted posture!

"Pfft!"

The Soul Severing Needle grazed past his ear, drawing a trail of blood droplets before sinking deeply into a stone pillar ahead. It left only a tiny hole, while the stone around it instantly turned black and gave off a corrosive hiss.

Lin Feng steadied himself. A burning pain came from his left ear, while a trace of numbness rapidly spread. The poison on the needle was clearly exceptionally potent; even a mere graze carried astonishing power. He immediately circulated the Thunder Foundation Establishment Chapter, sending pure Thunder True Qi flooding toward his ear to forcibly envelop, burn, and purify the poison attempting to spread.

He spun around sharply, his gaze like two cold bolts of lightning shooting toward the source of the attack.

There was no one there. Only distorted light and shadow, along with energy ripples that had yet to completely subside.

"Shadow Fox Mo San... your reputation is well deserved." Lin Feng's voice was icy as Spiritual Power spread over the area like a dense fishing net, while the system's analysis function was activated to its fullest.

[Analyzing residual energy from the attack... Tracking concealed trajectory... Simulating target movement path...]

"Hehe... your reaction was rather fast." A cold, drifting laugh rang out as if from every direction. "But you were hit by my Soul Erosion Powder. Doesn't it feel awful? Lie down obediently, and you may suffer a little less."

The voice carried a strange spiritual interference, attempting to unsettle Lin Feng's mind.

Lin Feng remained expressionless. Under the continued wash of Thunder True Qi, the numbness in his ear was rapidly fading.

He paid no heed whatsoever to the other man's verbal harassment, devoting all his attention to the system's analysis and the perceptions of his own Spiritual Power.

"The shadow behind the stone pillar to the left... has the highest concentration of residual energy..."

"There is a minute, unnatural disturbance in the airflow at the right front..."

"The distribution of dust on the ground is abnormal..."

Countless subtle clues rapidly combined and unfolded in his mind!

Suddenly, a sharp gleam flashed in his eyes. His left foot stomped forward, and he made as if to pounce to the left, his entire aura erupting at once!

At the instant his aura erupted, a barely perceptible ripple of energy flashed through a patch of seemingly unremarkable shadow to his right—it was the minute adjustment instinctively made by the concealed assassin, intimidated by his aura!

"Found you!"

Lin Feng's body, which had been coiled tight like a drawn bowstring, suddenly sprang free. Yet the direction he lunged was not to the left, but abruptly turned toward the right without warning!

At the same time, he pressed together the index and middle fingers of his right hand. Rather than striking toward that patch of shadow, he used the technique of Electric Light Finger to shoot a strand of highly compressed, condensed Thunder True Qi like a bullet toward the empty air three feet above it!

"Lightning Bead, explode!"

After leaving his fingertips, that strand of Thunder True Qi did not fly in a straight line. Instead, under Lin Feng's precise Spiritual Power control, it detonated fiercely above the shadow!

"Boom!"

A dazzling mass of lightning burst forth like a miniature sun! Countless fine purple lightning serpents writhed wildly, covering an area several meters wide! This was not meant to inflict direct damage, but to—force him into the open!

"What?!"

A cry of shock and fury came from within the lightning-covered area! A blurry gray figure, battered by the rampaging lightning serpents, could no longer maintain perfect concealment. Like a fish driven out of water, he revealed himself in a sorry state!

He was a small, thin middle-aged man with an ordinary face, but eyes as cunning and vicious as a fox's. He was none other than Shadow Fox Mo San!

He had clearly never expected Lin Feng not only to react so swiftly, but also to pinpoint his true body so accurately and force him out with this kind of area-wide lightning blast!

The instant his body was revealed, when his old momentum had faded and his new strength had yet to rise, Lin Feng's attacks followed one after another like a raging storm!

"Thunderclap Break!"

Lin Feng gave him no chance to catch his breath. Galloping Thunder Steps erupted, instantly closing the distance as thunder-charged fists containing terrifying force hammered toward Mo San's vital points like a barrage of cannon fire!

Mo San was shocked and enraged. He excelled at concealment, assassination, and poison; head-on combat had never been his strength. Now forced into the open and faced with Lin Feng's fierce, explosive, lightning-fast chain of attacks, he could only barely parry with his strange footwork and a pair of poisoned short blades.

"Clang! Clang! Bang!"

Fists and blades collided, scattering sparks! With every block, Mo San felt a violent force of lightning travel through his short blades, numbing his arms and churning his blood and Qi. That lightning power also made it difficult for his cold-natured True Qi to circulate!

Damn it! His Thunder True Qi restrains me! Mo San was horrified, and the urge to retreat arose within him. He knew that today's assassination had already failed. If he kept tangling with Lin Feng, he might well end up dead here himself.

He feinted, flinging three poisoned darts at Lin Feng's face. At the same time, he retreated rapidly, intending to melt into the shadows once more.

"Trying to run? Stay right there!"

Lin Feng's gaze was icy. He neither dodged nor evaded, instead driving out his left fist. Thunderlight exploded, blasting all three throwing darts away! At the same time, his right fist, which had been gathering force all along, finally unleashed its true killing move!

That layer of dark-purple Thunder Gang emerged once more, but this time it no longer covered his entire fist. It was compressed to the utmost, condensed onto the protruding knuckle of his middle finger, forming a single dark-purple thunder star of unfathomable depth!

"Nine Heavens Thunder Blade—Star Annihilation!"

That pinpoint of thunder was faster than every attack before it, as though it had pierced through space. Before Mo San's terrified, despairing eyes, it struck with flawless precision upon the Shanzhong acupoint at his chest, slightly exposed as he desperately retreated and exerted force!

"Pfft!"

There was no violent explosion—only a faint sound, like a bubble popping.

Mo San's retreating body abruptly froze. He lowered his head, staring in disbelief at the pitch-black wound on his chest, no larger than the tip of a needle. A destructive thunderous energy had already invaded his meridians, Internal Organs, and even his brain like maggots clinging to bone!

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but all that came out was a leaking "Hah... hah..." His eyes rapidly dimmed, and his body crumpled to the ground, devoid of breath.

Shadow Fox Mo San had been executed!

Lin Feng slowly withdrew his fist, his face faintly pale. Repeatedly driving Thunder Gang at such intensity had drained him enormously. He walked over to Mo San's corpse and quickly searched it.

Aside from those vicious concealed weapons and poisons, Lin Feng found a specially made communicator capable of blocking most forms of detection, as well as a folded piece of beast-hide paper made from unusual material.

He unfolded the beast-hide paper. A line of text was written upon it in a special cipher. The system immediately began decoding it.

[Decoding... cipher decrypted... contents as follows:]

"Target has entered the trap. Follow the plan and lure him to 'Black Wind Valley.' Lady 'Snake Consort' will personally finish him there. The lightning cultivation art on this boy is strange; it may hold clues to the 'key.' Capture him alive at all costs, or preserve his head. —Shadow Kill Pavilion, Jiangnan Branch."

Black Wind Valley? Lady Snake Consort? What clues?

Lin Feng's gaze turned glacial in an instant!

So Mo San and Tu Gang had both merely been bait and tests! Shadow Kill Pavilion's true killing move was a major figure codenamed "Snake Consort," who had long since laid down an inescapable death trap in a place called Black Wind Valley! And it seemed their goal was not merely to kill him—they also coveted his lightning cultivation art, as well as clues to this so-called "key"!

These waters ran deeper than he had imagined!

He put away the beast-hide paper and communicator, then turned his gaze toward the deeper reaches of the Crimson Mountain Range. There, he could vaguely make out the outline of a deep gorge shrouded in a Black Whirlwind.

Knowing the mountain held a tiger, would he still march straight toward it?

No.

A cold, razor-sharp glint flashed through Lin Feng's eyes.

This was not walking into the tiger's den.

He was going to... hunt that self-righteous "tigress"!