Poison X Deviousness X Celebrating Too Soon

The smoke had yet to clear when Shu Mu burst out laughing.

The sound squeezed out from deep in his throat, carrying a madness that had been suppressed for too long and could finally be unleashed.

He lay half-reclined on the rubble at the edge of the blast, one side of his body slashed bloody by flying stones, but true delight finally showed in his narrow eyes.

"Did you see that?!"

He struggled to sit up straighter, blood dripping from his chin onto his collar, but he paid it no heed. He simply pointed at the smoke-filled center of the explosion.

"That idiot Tie Liao only knew how to talk with his fists, and look who ended up dead!"

"Only me! Only I, Shu Mu, am the truly smart one in District 13!"

"Only I can become the true ruler of District 13!"

Iron Wall had been thrown against a broken wall by the blast, and had only just pushed himself upright with his shield.

His gaze remained fixed on the smoke, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Shattered Eye also crawled out of the rubble, his pale pupils bleached white by the lingering light of the explosion.

He opened his mouth to say something, but not a word came out.

Jiang Ye had been standing at the very center, where the explosions were most concentrated.

The dozen or so charges had detonated almost simultaneously, covering the entire central area of the rubble-strewn ground.

With that much explosive force, packed so densely, even a statue cast in iron should have been blown to pieces, let alone a person.

"You can stop looking."

Shu Mu braced himself against the ground and stood. His short, stout body swayed twice before he steadied himself, but the grin on his face only grew wider.

"I didn't just scatter those charges around at random."

"The distance between each bomb, the order they went off, the area the fragments would cover-I spent three whole days calculating it all."

He held up a finger, as though explaining a work of art.

"Even if that brat was lucky enough to survive the blasts, there's no way he could have dodged all that shrapnel."

"And even if he did dodge the shrapnel..."

He drew his finger back and made a spreading gesture in the air.

"I also mixed poison into the explosives."

At those words, Iron Wall went rigid.

"The poison clings to the shrapnel. As soon as it breaks the skin, it starts to spread."

"It paralyzes the nerves within a minute and invades the organs within three. Within ten minutes... even if his heart is still beating, his brain will be completely dead."

"Even a god couldn't save him!"

Shu Mu tilted his head and looked at Iron Wall and Shattered Eye, as though waiting for despair to appear on their faces.

"So whether he's dead or alive, his fate is already sealed."

Iron Wall's fingers tightened around his shield, the veins standing out on his arm.

He and Shattered Eye exchanged a glance, and each saw the same thing in the other's eyes.

Fear!

Not fear of death, but fear of everything they would face after Jiang Ye died.

Once Jiang Ye was dead, the Rust Bone Gang was finished.

Shu Mu and the remnants of Tie Liao's men would settle accounts with them. Even though Shu Mu was injured himself, he was too devious; he definitely still had something up his sleeve.

"That kid really was strong."

As though he had seen through their thoughts, Shu Mu added unhurriedly:

"It's a shame strength isn't the only thing you need to survive."

"In Meteor City, it's the smart ones who live long."

He turned around and spread his arms as though embracing the whole expanse of ruins.

"From today on, District 13... is mine."

As his words fell, the smoke behind him finally began to disperse.

The wind swept the gray-white smoke and dust to either side, revealing the scorched ground at the center of the blast.

The rocks had been blasted to pieces, shards of metal were embedded in the soil, and the pungent smell of gunpowder filled the air.

But right in the middle of that charred patch, a huge silhouette slowly stirred.

First came a blurry shadow, then rough, grayish-brown skin, and finally a pair of bulging frog eyes gleaming dimly.

A toad the size of a small car crouched there, its back covered in shallow scratches from the shrapnel, but its overall form was intact.

A layer of moist mucus covered its skin. Most of the shrapnel had slid off when it struck, and only a few pieces had left faint white marks on the surface.

And from its mouth, a long tongue was slowly extending.

The tongue lay flat, like a fleshy staircase extending all the way to the ground.

The next moment, a slender figure appeared at the top of the staircase and walked down the tongue, one step at a time.

Jiang Ye brushed the dust off his shoulders and surveyed his surroundings, his face expressionless.

There was a wound on his left shoulder where a piece of shrapnel had grazed him. The blood flowed slowly, but he could sense a subtle abnormality lingering around the edge of the wound.

It was a sign that poison was trying to invade.

But a thin layer of toad mucus covered the skin of his shoulder, blocking the poison before it could seep in.

"Good thing... I had a backup plan."

"Otherwise, I'm afraid I really would have died here."

Jiang Ye murmured to himself.

His earlier fight with Dodge had taught him one thing.

Everyone in Meteor City had something up their sleeve.

Some hid a Restriction, some hid bombs, and some... like the short, fat, greasy fellow in front of him.

Hid poison!

So when he summoned Toad, he had done one thing.

He hadn't simply had Toad stand in front of him. Instead, the instant before the explosion, he had Toad open his mouth and swallow him whole.

The inside of Toad's mouth was part of the Shikigami's own structure, and could shield him from external impacts, heat, and fragments.

Although it was wet and sticky in there, and smelled bad too, at least it had let him walk out alive.

At the sight of the nearly unscathed Jiang Ye, Shu Mu's smile froze on his face.

His arms were still spread, and the smugness on his face had yet to fade completely, but the pupils in his narrow eyes were visibly dilating.

At that moment, his brain completely shut down!

"...Impossible."

His voice suddenly filled with disbelief.

"Impossible... I calculated everything... the position of every bomb... the timing of the detonations..."

He took half a step back, his heel struck a piece of rubble, and he stumbled.

"He couldn't have survived... that density... that coverage..."

Jiang Ye took the final step down Toad's tongue, both feet landing on the scorched, rubble-strewn ground.

He raised his head and looked at Shu Mu, his tone flat.

"You're right."

"A normal person really couldn't have survived explosions that dense."

He tilted his head, a faint smile playing on his lips.

"But I'm not a normal person."

Shu Mu's lips began to tremble.

He could see the wound on Jiang Ye's shoulder, but he could also see the transparent layer of mucus covering its surface.

The poison hadn't seeped in. Not at all.

He had spent three days preparing, calculated the angles, covered every possible escape route, and even made a contingency for his opponent surviving by sheer luck. The only thing he hadn't accounted for...

Was that at the critical moment, his opponent could be swallowed by a summoned toad!

So, apart from the two Nen Beasts, Jiang Ye actually had a third!

"I sent Gray Beak to find open, hard ground, not so I could practice running there."

Jiang Ye took a step forward.

"And I didn't subjugate Toad so he could help me fight."

He took another step and slowly said:

"I did it to guard against people like you."

Shu Mu opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

He didn't understand how his perfect plan had been seen through.

Breathing heavily, Shu Mu looked past Jiang Ye and saw Toad crouching in the middle of the scorched earth. Then he saw two figures who had appeared behind him at some point.

Iron Wall and Shattered Eye!

They had made their way over amid the chaos after the explosion, one on either side, like two iron walls closing in.

Before Shu Mu could react, two thick hands had already clamped down on his shoulders.

Iron Wall's left hand and Shattered Eye's right hand pushed down at the same time.

Thud!

His knees slammed into the rubble, drawing a pained grunt from him, but Iron Wall immediately pressed a hand against the back of his neck, forcing his whole body down.

Shu Mu knelt there, his forehead almost touching the ground.

His breathing was rapid and ragged, and the face that usually wore a greasy smile was now as pale as a sheet of waterlogged paper.

Jiang Ye walked over and stopped three paces in front of him.

He looked down at the short, stout man prostrate on the rubble, then spoke again after a moment's silence.

"You're smarter than Tie Liao."

"You know how to set traps, keep a backup plan, and read people."

Shu Mu's shoulders trembled slightly, but he didn't raise his head.

"It's a shame..."

There was no emotion in Jiang Ye's voice.

"You put your smarts to the wrong use."

He bent forward slightly, his gaze falling on the back of Shu Mu's lowered head.

"And... you laughed too soon."

"Don't you know that the biggest mistake you can make in a fight is popping the champagne at halftime?"