Halfway There

Tang Hao threw Dugu Yan into the distance, stepped forward, and grabbed Dugu Bo by the shoulder.

His shoulder was already cold and stiff. If Tang Hao did not act fast, Dugu Bo really would be a goner.

Black poison markings had crossed his neck and were spreading toward his face.

Dugu Bo's eyes were shut tight, but his Soul Power still churned wildly, driving the poison through his body.

Tang Hao struck his chest with a palm.

A surge of Soul Power forced its way into his meridians, shielding his heart for the moment.

Dugu Bo spat out a mouthful of black blood.

The blood hit the ground, and white smoke hissed from the poisoned stone.

"Grandpa!"

Dugu Yan, whom Tang Hao had just thrown away, tried to rush back.

"Stay back."

Tang Hao swept a hand out, sending a gust that pushed her more than ten meters away.

"The poison in your body has only just stabilized. Come any closer, and you'll make his rescue of you count for nothing."

Dugu Yan stopped in her tracks.

She looked at the unconscious Dugu Bo, clenched her fists, and finally stayed put.

Tang Hao dragged Dugu Bo to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

The closer they came to the spring, the more violent the energy around them grew.

Cold and heat invaded their bodies at once, slowing even the spread of the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Poison for an instant.

It worked.

But it was not enough.

Tang Hao searched the area for the place where the two forces were most balanced.

The valley's cold and heat appeared as sharply divided as two rivers, but they were constantly meeting.

If their meeting point shifted even slightly, Dugu Bo could be frozen by the cold or burned by the heat.

"To the right."

The hoarse voice came from Dugu Bo.

He forced his eyes open.

"I tried it before. Three yards to the right... the poison is suppressed there."

"Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"You didn't ask."

"You still have the strength to talk back. Looks like you won't die just yet."

Tang Hao dragged him three yards to the right.

The moment they entered that area, cold and heat surged over them together.

White frost formed on Tang Hao's left sleeve, while the skin on his right side swiftly reddened.

The poisonous mist around Dugu Bo was suppressed and stopped spreading outward.

But the poison inside him was still surging toward his head.

Stimulated, his Head Soul Bone released a layer of dark green light on its own and began absorbing the surrounding poison.

Tang Hao's expression changed sharply.

"Stop it!"

"I'm not controlling it."

Dugu Bo's voice was weak. "The Soul Bone is protecting its master on its own."

Storing the poison in the Soul Bone was the very method they had planned to try.

But not now.

The poison was completely out of control. If too much rushed into the Head Soul Bone, Dugu Bo's brain would take the first blow.

Tang Hao gripped the Clear Sky Hammer, and nine Soul Rings appeared one after another.

In the distance, Dugu Yan's eyes widened.

At last, she understood what Tang Hao had meant when he said he could rely on "it."

The pale-faced man before her was not only a Titled Douluo. His ninth Soul Ring was the exceedingly rare Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.

Dark-gold patterns lit up across the Clear Sky Hammer.

Tang Hao did not strike Dugu Bo. Instead, he drove the hammerhead deep into the ground.

Boom!

The valley shuddered.

Dense Soul Power spread through the rock, briefly pressing the roiling forces of ice and fire flat.

Tang Hao seized the chance to release his mental power, locking onto the poison still lingering in Dugu Bo's right arm.

"Force the poison into your right hand!"

"The meridians are blocked."

"Then break through!"

"If I force my way through, my arm will be ruined!"

A vein throbbed on Tang Hao's forehead.

Now the old poisoner decides he cares about his arm.

"I'll protect your meridians. Just force the poison out."

"Can you hold up?"

"Cut the crap!"

Tang Hao pressed a palm to Dugu Bo's shoulder and shaped his Soul Power into a barrier around the man's entire right arm.

Dugu Bo hesitated no longer.

His Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Martial Soul appeared again.

The poison scattered throughout his body was forcibly drawn toward his right arm.

The blocked meridians in his shoulder swelled violently, as though they might burst at any moment.

Tang Hao poured in more Soul Power.

His injuries had never healed, yet he had to resist both the cold and heat and the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Poison.

After only a few breaths, a tearing pain ripped through his chest.

A wisp of golden light suddenly emerged near his heart.

The light was sacred and razor-sharp, utterly at odds with Tang Hao's Soul Power.

It was the Angel Soul Power Qian Xunji had left behind years ago.

For six years, it had clung to the depths of his damaged meridians.

It seemed dormant most of the time, but whenever Tang Hao circulated his Soul Power at full strength, it seized the chance to eat away at the surrounding meridians.

Tang Hao grunted, and blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

"You can't hold up either," Dugu Bo said.

"Worry about yourself."

Tang Hao gritted his teeth and kept driving his Soul Power forward.

Cold and heat from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well entered through his arm and collided with that wisp of Angel Soul Power.

The three forces clashed violently near his heart.

Tang Hao's vision went black, and he nearly lost consciousness.

Just then, a faint but familiar breath of life came from behind him.

Ah Yin's leaves were tilting toward them.

Blue-gold motes spread across the ground, forming a barely visible line between Tang Hao and the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Tang Hao's heart stirred.

Along that line, cold and heat held a brief balance.

Ah Yin was not trying to heal him.

She was showing him where the true point of balance lay.

"Dugu Yan!"

Tang Hao shouted, "Move the stone beside that Blue Silver Grass!"

Dugu Yan rushed to Ah Yin's side without asking questions.

The moment she moved the stone, a blue-gold root came into view.

It pointed toward an inconspicuous gray-white rock beside the spring.

"There!"

Tang Hao seized Dugu Bo and leaped down beside the gray-white rock.

Cold and heat swept over their bodies together, but instead of crashing against each other as before, they formed a brief balance.

The poison in Dugu Bo's right arm finally stabilized.

The dark-green markings stopped at his wrist and no longer flowed back toward his shoulder.

"Fifteen minutes."

Tang Hao's voice was grave. "You have to hold on."

Dugu Bo closed his eyes and focused all his strength on controlling the poison.

Tang Hao sat cross-legged and used the balanced cold and heat around him to strike back at the golden Soul Power near his heart.

It was an attempt he had meant to make only after studying it thoroughly.

But he could no longer wait.

The forces of ice and fire ground through his damaged meridians like two blunt knives.

Under the assault, that wisp of Angel Soul Power finally loosened slightly from the place it had occupied for six years.

The next instant, the golden light struck back.

Tang Hao spat out a clot of dark-gold blood.

When it hit the ground, it still carried a thread of sacred light.

The agony in his chest had not faded. If anything, he felt it more clearly.

But the blockage that had plagued him for years had eased, for the first time, by a small measure.

At the same moment, Dugu Bo opened his eyes.

His right arm was still pitch-black, but the poison had not flowed back.

A full fifteen minutes had passed.

The two men looked at each other. Neither could miss the other's sorry state.

"Did it work?" Dugu Bo asked.

"Halfway."

"What does halfway mean?"

"I won't cough up blood when I beat people up anymore."

The words had barely left Tang Hao's mouth when the gray-white rock gave a sharp crack.

A fissure spread rapidly beneath the two men.

The forces of ice and fire, their balance lost, rushed at them again.

Tang Hao's face darkened.

"Get up. Now."

"I can't move."

"Damn you."

Tang Hao grabbed Dugu Bo by the collar and leaped away before the rock shattered completely.