"If your school were safe, of course I'd enroll! But what if I enrolled here and got infected?"
"How terrifying would that be?"
The youth named Ximen Yun glanced unobtrusively at the girl in the pale blue dress beside him, raising his voice slightly.
"That guy's wearing a mask. Maybe it's because the plague infection left his face disfig-"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!
Several whistles suddenly cut through the air. Ximen Yun's pupils contracted, and he summoned his Sword Martial Soul in an instant.
Clang, clang, clang!
Holding a long sword with a pitch-black scabbard, Ximen Yun blocked every Hidden Weapon with a few casual sword moves.
"Seriously, isn't your academy a little too arrogant? You try to kill someone over a disagreement?"
Ximen Yun wore black hemp clothes, his handsome face strikingly sharp. Like his Martial Soul, he resembled a straight, keen sword drawn from its sheath.
"Can't win an argument, so you're planning to kill me on the spot? Looks like you really are determined to harbor the infected and deliberately harm others!"
He looked indignantly toward the direction the Hidden Weapons had come from. That "six-year-old child" wore the Copper-Iron Mask, concealing his expression.
But the exposed, somewhat swollen eye sockets brimmed with terrifying killing intent.
"Hey! Xiao San, you... ah."
Dai Mubai was dumbfounded too. He had not expected Tang San to attack over a disagreement.
Come on, even if you're going to attack, you have to pick the right moment!
Isn't being this blatant a little inappropriate?
But what was done was done. Dai Mubai could only follow one wrong with another, turning a vicious gaze on Ximen Yun.
"Ximen Yun, if you apologize today, we still have a chance to be senior and junior schoolmates. If you don't, you'll have to leave something behind here today."
"Wait... you're just outright thugs? You're not even pretending anymore?"
Ximen Yun looked stunned. Although he had indeed come to stir up trouble, wasn't Shrek Academy's way of doing things a little too outrageous?
Looking at the menacing Dai Mubai and the dwarf Tang San beside him, Ximen Yun's mouth twitched. He glanced back at the two girls behind him.
Brother, I've gone above and beyond on this assignment of yours.
Seeing their raised brows and unpleasant expressions, Ximen Yun inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
The surroundings are awful, the classmates are biological infection hosts, and they try to kill people over a disagreement.
If Ning Rongrong still enrolls in Shrek after this, I, Ximen Yun, will eat something right here.
Who knows what my brother's thinking? He clearly has a grudge against the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, yet he still wants to help their young lady.
What a sin.
"Forget it. The surroundings are awful, and getting along with the other students would be difficult. I might as well give this school a miss."
After deliberately making another remark, Ximen Yun withdrew the Pitch-Black Long Sword Martial Soul in his hand and turned to leave.
"You provoked our Shrek Academy, and you think you can just walk away? Aren't you a little too arrogant?"
Dai Mubai's Martial Soul possessed him in an instant, his tiger eyes fixed cruelly on Ximen Yun's back.
Day after day, do they really think I, Dai Mubai, the Evil-Eyed White Tiger, am a soft persimmon anyone can squeeze?
"Today, either you kneel at the entrance to our Shrek Academy holding a sign, or you leave something behind here!"
As Dai Mubai finished speaking, the dwarf beside him also stepped forward, glaring fiercely at Ximen Yun with his purple eyes.
"That's right. You insulted those of us who were lucky enough to survive."
"Either apologize or die!"
As Tang San's hoarse voice fell, Dai Mubai's eyes immediately widened.
"Wait, buddy, are we really taking it that far?"
Does he really think imperial law and Spirit Hall don't exist?
However arrogant Dai Mubai was, he only dared consider beating Ximen Yun up. He would not dare kill him.
Especially in recent years.
Tsk, Tang San's getting more and more extreme.
"Xiao San, don't take it too far. Just cripple him."
"I heard that Bi Shuo, the Pope's younger brother and Spirit Hall's youngest Red-Robed Cardinal, has been leading a team in the Be'lakor Kingdom investigating Sea Soul Masters lately."
"If you kill someone at a time like this, you could easily get investigated!"
"He put a Heaven Dou noble on trial for the sake of an ordinary person, let alone someone in your current state..."
Since Tang San was too short, Dai Mubai crouched down, pinched his nose, and quietly reminded him beside his ear.
Bi Shuo, the younger brother of Spirit Hall's current Pope and the youngest Red-Robed Cardinal in history.
He was upright and pursued perfection.
He was also one of the few people in Spirit Hall who frequently traveled the continent specifically to judge Fallen Soul Masters and criminal Soul Masters.
Many wealthy, heartless nobles had been personally sent to the Heaven Dou Empire's prisons by Bi Shuo on various charges, or hanged before the populace.
Even Tang San had heard of this Perfect Bishop's deeds.
"If that guy finds out that infected people like you, Grandmaster, and Uncle Tang survived, he might hypocritically apologize while hacking you down with his sword."
"Oh! Right, he might cut Teacher Zhao down while he's at it. He's wanted by Spirit Hall too!"
"..."
Hearing this, Tang San instinctively touched the mask on his face.
The swollen pustules beneath it pushed even the mask outward slightly, and that simple touch let Tang San clearly feel a warm liquid.
The pustules had burst under the pressure of his touch.
"The Perfect Bishop..."
A series of rasping growls came from his hoarse throat. A trace of jealousy flashed through Tang San's eyes, but in the end, he nodded.
During the plague back then, they had made a sinister exchange and survived by sheer luck, but they had also become these things, neither human nor ghost, clinging to their last breaths.
He had not grown in height at all, yet his body continued to age.
"I say... do you really take me for a soft persimmon you can squeeze?"
Ximen Yun narrowed his eyes at the two people opposite him, one tall and one short. He held the Pitch-Black Long Sword, four Soul Rings circling him.
"Ximen Yun. Martial Soul: sword. Rank 42 Power Attack System Battle Soul Ancestor."
"If you're going to fight, fight. Why waste words?"
Just as a clash was about to break out on the field, in a nearby room sealed with window screens and curtains.
"There are monsters every year, but there are especially many this year."
"Xiaogang, perhaps once you recover, you'll be able to take another disciple."
The bespectacled, hook-nosed middle-aged man withdrew his gaze, closed the curtains again, and turned toward the bed behind him.
On the bed, a person wrapped in green bandages from head to toe, even across his face, panted wretchedly.
On closer inspection, the green on those bandages had not been green to begin with, nor was it some special medicine.
It was flesh.
Yes, rotten flesh that had already turned green. A careful sniff would even reveal an indescribable stench of decay.
Looking closely, one could even see a few yellow pustules and abnormally protruding sores on that bandage-wrapped body.
"..."
The person on the sickbed did not respond. Instead, a certain part of his lower body suddenly swelled into a bulge, then burst with a "pop."
A stream of yellow pus sprayed out, accompanied by a fresh wave of foul stench.
"Ah..."
The hook-nosed middle-aged man sighed softly and deftly used his Soul Power to pick up a handkerchief beside him that had already turned somewhat yellow and green.
"Xiaogang, my good brother... how did things end up like this?"
Before you continue