Entering the Water

Wu Jin knelt on the ground.

His fists were clenched, his entire body covered in blood.

He raised his head, looked at the middle-aged man, and squeezed a faint smile onto his face with all his strength.

"This is my younger brother, my youngest brother. He's only eleven, eleven!"

"He can't cultivate. He was born weak."

"He poses no threat to you. He never will..."

With a heavy exhale, two streams of blood sprayed from Wu Jin's nostrils. He planted his fists against the ground, bent at the waist, and slammed his forehead against the hard floor.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

Wu Jin knocked his head against the ground, once, twice, three times...

As he pounded his head down, Wu Jin gave a miserable laugh. "He has no ability to take revenge on you. He truly has no ability to take revenge on you... He can read. He knows many characters... He can do arithmetic too. He understands bookkeeping..."

Wu Jin raised his head and smiled at the middle-aged man. His twisted smile looked exceedingly ugly.

The flesh on his forehead had split open, and blood streamed down his cheeks. He licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and gave a dry laugh. "I'm useless... I got Third Brother killed... and Second Brother too..."

"If you want to vent your anger, kill me!" Wu Jin's body trembled violently. His young face twisted to its utmost limit, no longer able to maintain that ugly smile.

He was afraid of death too!

He was still young. Wu Tie was only eleven, but Wu Jin himself was not even twenty yet!

He was in the prime of youth, and had yet to enjoy life's beauty... Especially since Wu Zhan, drunk on cheap liquor, had secretly and improperly described the wonders of women to his grown eldest and second sons... Wu Jin had always been full of longing!

He truly did not want to die!

He was terrified!

His fingers trembling, he tore open his ragged coarse linen clothes, exposing his muscular upper body. Wu Jin looked up at the middle-aged man, tears streaming down his face as he trembled and begged with a twisted smile.

"If you want to vent your anger, kill me... You can even tear me apart with five horses... But Fourth Brother is still young... still young..."

The middle-aged man cocked his head and examined the blood-covered Wu Jin from head to toe.

"You... how old are you?" the middle-aged man asked gently.

"Twenty... almost twenty!" Wu Jin's body quivered slightly.

More than thirty meters away, the enemies formed a semicircle around the two brothers. Death's black shadow shrouded Wu Jin's heart. Terror clutched tightly at his heart, darkening his vision and leaving him unable to breathe. Wu Jin was truly afraid.

He wrapped one arm around Wu Tie's thin, icy body. Wu Tie was shuddering violently, and Wu Jin forcibly suppressed the fear in his heart as he smiled at the middle-aged man, desperately forcing that smile.

"My family only has my father and us four brothers... Spare Fourth Brother. Kill me. He won't pose any threat to you..."

Wu Jin coughed up blood.

"Fourth Brother can read and keep accounts... You could sell him as a slave. A slave who can read and calculate accounts is worth a lot!"

Wu Jin looked at the enormous emblem on the middle-aged man's chest...

Black mist churned, and a white skeletal hand reached out from within it. Several bloodstained Gold Coins lay in its palm.

"Money... Gold Coins... Fourth Brother is worth a lot!"

The middle-aged man lightly tapped the ground with his viper-headed wooden staff. He cocked his head, studied Wu Jin seriously, then shook his head with a dark expression.

"What enviable brotherly affection... So many years ago..."

The middle-aged man lifted his head and smiled.

"Heh, how many years ago was that... Hmm, it seems someone once protected me like this too!"

"Such deep brotherly affection! You're almost moving me!"

Shaking his head, the middle-aged man shook it firmly. "But when cutting grass, you must pull out the roots!"

"A half-step Xuan Sensing at not quite twenty... And your father was actually a bona fide Chonglou Realm cultivator, one who had even comprehended a divine ability..." The middle-aged man's gaze flickered as he looked at the Wu Jin and Wu Tie.

"In this godforsaken place so poor even birds wouldn't shit, a half-step Xuan Sensing at not quite twenty... A Chonglou Realm cultivator by his early forties at most? Heh, do you take me for a fool?"

The twenty-odd enemies around them began muttering in low voices. The middle-aged man's words had stirred unease in their hearts.

No matter how they looked at it, the Wu Family father and sons should not have appeared in this ruined place.

The middle-aged man raised the Snake Staff. With a flick of the long, slender staff, its sharp tail pierced through Wu Jin's shoulder. The middle-aged man exerted both hands, and Wu Jin groaned in agony as he was forcibly lifted by the Snake Staff.

"But my Fourth Brother... he knows nothing... he understands nothing... he can't cultivate... he is... harmless to you..."

Wu Jin gripped the Snake Staff with both hands and smiled with difficulty.

Blood and sweat ran over his entire body like small streams, flowing down Wu Jin's legs.

Wu Tie sat collapsed on the ground. The puddles of varying sizes around them had already been dyed red by Wu Jin's blood. Hundreds of round, tentacled little creatures, delicate and glowing with white fluorescence, swallowed the bloody water, their white bodies dyed red as well.

"Brother..."

Wu Tie could do nothing.

He had no strength at all.

His eyes were filled with blood-red light, and dense black mist rolled out from within that red haze.

Wu Zhan's pale face, Wu Yin's face, Wu Tong's face—countless pale, swollen faces churned before Wu Tie's eyes.

From time to time, Xiong Hu's face appeared as well, along with other pale faces Wu Tie had seen before, constantly surfacing before him.

Wu Tie called Wu Jin's name again and again.

He knew Wu Jin was begging the enemy for his life.

He knew Wu Jin had given up fighting for his life for the sake of his.

Terror, boundless terror, filled every pore of Wu Tie's body.

He wanted to try being angry...

But anger was like a patch of luminous mushrooms beneath a Gray Rock Lizard's foot. The instant it poked its head out, the Gray Rock Lizard's heavy body crushed it to powder.

He could not get angry.

Without strength, he did not even have the right to be angry.

Tears poured down Wu Tie's face, and his features twisted and spasmed just like Wu Jin's.

"Brother..." Wu Tie wailed loudly.

"You see? He's a spineless coward." Wu Jin smiled at the middle-aged man, smiling with great difficulty.

The black Snake Staff actually carried potent poison. Where it pierced Wu Jin's shoulder, the venom corroded flesh with a sizzling sound.

Black pus and blood spurted from the wound bit by bit, and Wu Jin's smile grew ever more twisted and ugly.

"He... is a spineless coward... a coward who only knows how to cry... What can he possibly do to you?"

Wu Jin desperately belittled Wu Tie.

"Brotherly love and respect, that sort of thing, is the most detestable." The middle-aged man suddenly grinned happily. "I hate seeing brothers who love one another. Why can't you kill each other instead?"

"I hate loving blood brothers most of all."

"Brothers and all that..."

Holding the Snake Staff aloft with one hand, the middle-aged man drew a sharp short sword from his waist with the other and slowly stabbed it toward Wu Jin's heart.

As he moved, the middle-aged man smiled at Wu Tie. "Boy... watch. I'm going to kill your brother."

"Hehe, does it hurt?"

"Are you sad?"

"Are you despairing?"

"Then cry out loud?"

"Cry?"

"Hurry up and cry?"

"Shout?"

"Hurry up and shout?"

"Scream?"

"Hurry up and scream?"

"Beg me?"

"Hurry up and beg me?"

The short sword gradually reached Wu Jin's heart, its tip pressing against the skin over his chest.

Wu Jin's ten fingers suddenly loosened. He instinctively wanted to do something, but two heavily armored men, even more burly than he was, abruptly pounced forward and clamped down on his arms from either side.

"Your brother wants to fight for his life... but I won't give him that chance."

The middle-aged man suddenly opened his mouth and began singing a nursery rhyme with a smile.

It was a nursery rhyme about several brothers going out to dig for food, suddenly finding a great haul, then returning home laughing with full loads.

The brief song soon ended, and the middle-aged man's smile grew even brighter. "Brotherly love and respect... most detestable!"

Wu Tie's vision repeatedly went dark. He braced himself against the ground with difficulty and forcefully knocked his head toward the middle-aged man.

"Spare my big brother..."

"I beg you... spare him..."

"I'm begging you..."

"I'm begging you..."

"I'm begging you..."

Wu Jin gasped mouthful after mouthful of air, blood constantly spraying from his mouth.

With difficulty, he turned his head and looked from the corner of his eye at Wu Tie, who was continuously knocking his head against the ground behind him.

The hard stone floor quickly split open the flesh on Wu Tie's forehead, and drops of blood fell one after another.

"Fine!" The middle-aged man nodded forcefully, smiling. "In this world... I'll completely spare your big brother. Open your eyes wide and watch carefully!"

The short sword in his left hand suddenly exerted force.

Wu Tie happened to raise his head. He watched the tip of the short sword stab into Wu Jin's chest, piercing more than an inch deep.

Wu Jin roared, blood spurting from his eyes.

Wu Tie burst into tears. Swaying, he struggled to his feet and stretched out both hands toward Wu Jin.

"He's going to die!" the middle-aged man said with a smile. His gaze fell upon Wu Tie's chest, where the foot-long Chi You's Fang swayed back and forth.

"A wondrous artifact." The middle-aged man smiled.

At Wu Jin's brow, an extremely thin white snake shadow suddenly emerged. The snake shadow stretched across his forehead, wriggling gently as though it were alive.

A mass of white light enveloped Wu Jin's body. Then, with a tremendous boom, a powerful impact burst from within him.

With a strange whooo of a howl, the air blast swept through the surroundings.

Wu Tie's vision went black, and his small, thin body was caught by the air blast and sent tumbling backward.

The middle-aged man cried out in shock and fury.

The short sword in his left hand was jolted back by an enormous force, violently flying out from Wu Jin's chest. It turned red-hot in midair, as if scorched in a furnace. Its blade reddened and melted, turning into droplets of molten iron that fell from the air before it even hit the ground.

The Snake Staff piercing Wu Jin's shoulder snapped. A great spray of black poisoned blood erupted from the wound, and half the Snake Staff shot out from Wu Jin's shoulder, plunging into the middle-aged man's right chest like an arrow.

The middle-aged man's right chest was pierced by the broken half of the Snake Staff. He coughed up blood in great mouthfuls, his body flying backward uncontrollably like a fallen leaf in the wind.

All twenty-odd enemies around them were blasted away by the air burst. Shouting in alarm and cursing in fury, they were hurled more than a hundred meters before landing in wretched disarray. Even then, they rolled across the ground, unable to steady themselves for a long while.

The two brawny men holding Wu Jin's arms suffered the worst. Their four thick arms were blasted to pulp, leaving only half-lengths of white bone hanging from their shoulders.

The two brawny men were flung high into the air as well.

They had been closest to Wu Jin, and the air blast struck them head-on in the face and chest. Their armor shattered, fragments of iron burying deep into their flesh and sending blood and meat flying. Their bodies were riddled like sieves.

Wu Jin suddenly turned his head and cried out in alarm.

Then his body turned into a streak of white light, a long snake-shaped streak of white light that vanished without a trace in a single flash.

The white light disappeared, and the enormous cavern filled with the roar of water.

Waves surged in succession, and whirlpools gave off deep, muffled rumbles.

Wu Tie was small, so the impact on him had been negligible. Trembling, he rose to his feet and stared at the place where Wu Jin had disappeared.

"Brother..."

Tears streamed down his face. Wu Tie had no idea what had happened. He thought Wu Jin, like Wu Zhan, had been blasted into nothingness.

"Brother!" Wu Tie shrieked at the top of his lungs and wailed loudly.

"Damn... damn it!" The middle-aged man trembled as he climbed to his feet. With difficulty, he pulled the broken half of the Snake Staff from his right chest. Blood gushed from the wound like a spring, while his mouth spewed blood in great mouthfuls.

Spitting blood as he frantically took out ointment and smeared it over his wound, the middle-aged man stared at Wu Tie hundreds of meters away with bloodshot eyes.

"Kill that boy, take the wondrous artifact, and leave quickly."

The middle-aged man screamed hoarsely, nearly hysterical.

"In this godforsaken place, there was actually... Bloodline Protection..."

"Bloodline Protection possessed only by the direct eldest son and direct bloodline of a Lineage!"

"Was it from his father's Lineage? Or his mother's?"

"If it's from his father's Lineage, we've made a mortal enemy anyway..."

"If it's from his mother's Lineage... then we've... provoked another enemy we should never have provoked..."

A bald, fierce woman nearly two meters tall, built like a bear with muscles bulging all over her body, charged crookedly toward Wu Tie with a huge axe in hand.

Everyone had just been blasted away, and the fierce woman had been three or four hundred meters from Wu Tie.

Staggering on unsteady steps, the fierce woman rushed before Wu Tie. Roaring, she swung her massive axe and viciously chopped down at him.

Wu Tie let out a terrified roar. Strength from nowhere surged into him, and he abruptly leaped backward. Yet he failed to notice that the air blast had thrown him to within only seven or eight meters of the boiling water behind him.

But Wu Tie's body was far too weak.

Though he leaped backward with all his strength, he only jumped a little over a meter.

The Chi You's Fang hanging from his chest swung up. The foot-long Chi You's Fang arced through the air, blocking the front of Wu Tie's body.

The fierce woman let out a loud, strange laugh and brought the huge axe down viciously.

She had intended to split Wu Tie's head open with one stroke, but Wu Tie jumped, and the fine steel axe struck Chi You's Fang instead.

With a hum, Chi You's Fang shook violently, and Wu Tie felt his entire body go numb.

The fine steel axe, half the size of Wu Tie's body, exploded into pieces.

Countless iron fragments rebounded backward.

The fierce woman's hands suddenly became light, and her body pitched sharply forward. Staring wide-eyed, she watched the countless iron fragments whistling toward her.

The iron fragments shredded the fierce woman's face and chest. She could not help but let out a miserable scream, clutching her ruined eyes with both hands as she rolled and convulsed across the ground.

Wu Tie's thin body was shaken by the enormous force of the axe. He traced a parabola through the air, blasted more than twenty meters away, and plunged headfirst into the churning waters filled with crashing waves and countless whirlpools.

The middle-aged man abruptly dropped the ointment in his hand and let out a heart-rending roar.