What Are You Waiting For?

Poison clouds spread, and mountains shattered.

After Ye Xiu quietly slipped out of the poisonous mist, the sight before him was Fang Ye and the other two, finding every step more difficult under the Soul-Severing Scorpion's relentless pursuit.

Soul-Severing Scorpions were vengeful by nature. Under normal circumstances, merely passing by one could draw its pursuit.

Not to mention that this Soul-Severing Scorpion had happened to witness Fang Ye and the others removing its mate's tail stinger.

It had finally found a mate after so much effort, yet she had died before even producing any offspring!

With both grudges piled together, it had become a fight to the death between one scorpion and three men.

"Damn it! Where the hell did this beast jump out from?"

Fang Ye's face was filled with shock and fury. The poison cloud secreted by the previous Soul-Severing Scorpion upon its death had sealed his meridians. Unable to wield spiritual power, he could not even flee.

Fortunately, relying on talismans, the three of them could still barely withstand the Soul-Severing Scorpion's attacks for now.

But this was no long-term solution.

The talismans would eventually run out, and if they could not wound the Soul-Severing Scorpion, their ending would still be death.

They had to find a way to deal with this beast.

Looking at the two junior brothers trembling beside him, a trace of gloom flashed through Fang Ye's eyes.

"Senior Brother, what should we do now?"

The voices of the two Punishment Hall disciples trembled.

The flames ignited by the talismans around them were gradually swallowed by the poison cloud. They could even smell the rotting stench coming off the Soul-Severing Scorpion.

"What should we do? If we don't kill this beast, what else can we do?"

Taking a deep breath, Fang Ye reluctantly pulled out a dark green talisman.

"You two, hold it back for me. Once I activate this talisman bestowed by the inner sect, this beast won't be able to turn the heavens upside down!"

Though unwilling, the two could only grit their teeth and rush forward to tangle with the Soul-Severing Scorpion.

Watching from afar, Ye Xiu could clearly sense that the instant Fang Ye took out that talisman, the surrounding spiritual energy paused before involuntarily surging into it.

Fang Ye's trump card really was no simple matter.

Ye Xiu was certain that if the Soul-Extinguishing Scorpion took this attack head-on, it definitely would not be able to endure it.

But that was no matter.

Ye Xiu reached out, took out a small bottle, and tipped it downward. Fine powder mixed into the air and drifted below.

Within the pit, the Soul-Extinguishing Scorpion had clearly sensed the threat as well.

Ignoring the two disciples blocking it, it drove its enormous body forward and crushed toward Fang Ye.

The moment he saw the Soul-Extinguishing Scorpion attacking him, Fang Ye's expression changed drastically.

He could no longer care about appearances. He rolled across the ground several times in succession, only barely evading the attack by a hair's breadth.

"What are you two useless fools doing? Hurry up and stop it!"

Knowing that this was the most critical moment, the two disciples did not dare slacken either.

Fearless of death, they charged at the Soul-Severing Scorpion. Relying on the ruthless tactic of trading their lives for wounds, they actually managed to forcibly hold it back.

As the two sides remained locked in a stalemate, the green light in Fang Ye's hand grew brighter and brighter.

Yet as he felt his breathing grow more rapid and his vision increasingly blurred, even though Fang Ye was not fully prepared, he could only grit his teeth and throw out the talisman.

The Soul-Severing Scorpion was already in a frenzy, and Fang Ye had acted early without informing the other two. Amid the melee of two men and one scorpion, none of them managed to evade the strike.

Sizzle.

The talisman exploded. Amid shrill screams, half the scorpion's body was forcibly corroded away. Poison gas nurtured within its body rose together with smoke and dust, shrouding the surroundings in a hazy mist.

Fang Ye slumped to the ground in a miserable state. Before he could even inspect what was happening inside, he tremblingly took out an antidote pill and tried to put it into his mouth.

The Soul-Severing Scorpion had taken the Heart-Rending Curse; it was surely doomed. The residual poison sealing his meridians was also about to dissipate. As long as he recovered his spiritual power, he could leave this damn place...

As his consciousness grew increasingly blurred, Fang Ye repeated those words over and over in his mind, trying to keep himself awake.

Tap.

A crisp sound rang out. Fang Ye felt a sharp pain in his hand and instinctively released his grip. The antidote pill, already at his lips, fell to the ground as well.

His gaze unconsciously followed it, but in the next instant, he saw the pill crushed beneath a foot.

"Junior Brother Fang, you look like you need help?"

Ye Xiu wore a smile, but Fang Ye's heart instantly turned ice-cold.

"You... how could you still be..."

"The living must be seen in person, the dead must be seen as corpses. Junior Brother, you never saw my body, so how could you be certain I was dead?"

Seeing Ye Xiu's smile, Fang Ye's expression turned ugly to the extreme.

At this point, he naturally understood that everything before had been under Ye Xiu's control. Despite all his schemes and calculations, in the end he had been nothing more than a clown hopping about on a stage in the other man's eyes.

"Ye Xiu, so what if you've won?"

Taking a deep breath, Fang Ye glared viciously at Ye Xiu. "If you kill me here today, my cousin and the sect will certainly investigate. When that time comes, you still won't escape!"

"I'm not afraid to tell you—we have Senior Brother Xu Tongming behind us. He is currently the inner sect disciple with the greatest hope of competing for chief disciple. If you kill me, you'll be slapping his face. Can you bear his retaliation?"

Xu Tongming?

Ye Xiu memorized the name.

After returning this time, he needed to find a way to investigate him.

Seeing Ye Xiu standing where he was as though he had reservations, a trace of hope flashed in Fang Ye's eyes.

Without changing his expression, he clenched his palm. Hidden within it was another inner sect talisman.

Ye Xiu would never expect that he still had another move under these circumstances.

At such close range, Ye Xiu had also been frightened by the inner sect senior brother he had invoked. As long as he could trigger the talisman...

"Senior Brother Ye, let's reconcile. Killing me brings you no benefit. As long as you're willing to let me go, cultivation techniques, spirit stones, even an introduction to an inner sect elder—anything is possible..."

Seeing Ye Xiu sink into silence, Fang Ye began tempting him with benefits again.

To buy himself time, Fang Ye practically laid out everything he knew.

As he watched Ye Xiu grow more and more tempted, while the spellwork on the talisman hidden beneath him was nearly complete, Fang Ye's heart began pounding uncontrollably.

I'm waiting for my chance to turn the tables. What are you waiting for?

"Of course, I'm waiting for you to die."

Ye Xiu's words turned the calculation in Fang Ye's eyes into panic.

"What?"

He froze instinctively, then struggled to throw the talisman forward.

But a scorpion pincer lashed through the air, beating him to it and viciously piercing his chest.

Ye Xiu smiled as he looked at the Soul-Severing Scorpion charging out from the poison mist.

Though most of its body had already been corroded beyond recognition, those scarlet scorpion eyes still stared fixedly at Fang Ye.

With a savage pull, amid flying blood, Fang Ye's body was torn directly in two.