Note: Regular Chapter 5/7
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Chapter 190 - Deadly Curse
Stars were sparkling in the sky.
The starlight in the Southern Wasteland was soft and gentle as a stream of water, but here in the Midland, starlight seemed dense and heavy, just like liquid silver. Ji Hao stood in the snowfield, and felt streams of, especially heavy and pure, star-power ceaselessly gush into his body, which were soon fully absorbed by his Golden Dan.
Yu Mu was humming an unknown folk song. He had excitedly set up a bonfire, put his huge iron pot on top of the fire, and boiled a potful of soup. Clouds of steam were rising out of the pot, and the soup boiling in the pot was also colourful, with thousands of foot-long, snow-white centipede meat, quickly rolling within the soup.
Highly poisonous plants were thrown into the soup by Yu Mu one after another. Slowly, a dense, unspeakable aroma that was mixed with a faint trace of the smell of blood and a nice sweet scent, came out from the pot and spread out.
Feng Xing was squatting down on a small snow hill, tens of zhang away from the others. He was also humming a strange melody, while fiddling with the longbow he had taken from the dead Gold Crow Shooter. Now and then, he would carve a few tiny spell symbols on the surface of the bow, with a small engraver. Every time he did it, large amounts of light streams would flash around the longbow.
Ji Hao noticed that Feng Xing had never stepped near him, and intentionally kept himself at a distance of ten zhang away from him. This guy seemed extremely vigilant. He stood never close to anyone, aside of Yu Mu. Additionally, even though he was concentrating on upgrading the longbow with spell symbols, he would still often raise his head rapidly and survey the surroundings. He was as vigilant as a marmot that was standing sentry for its companions.
Unlike Feng Xing, Yu Mu was amazingly friendly towards Ji Hao from the first time they met. When he had stretched out his right hand towards Ji Hao, Ji Hao had immediately held his hand, without hesitation a bit. This caused Yu Mu to start seeing Ji Hao as a trustworthy friend.
Ordinary people would not dare to stand less than hundred zhang away from a Magus Mediciner who was especially good at using poison, not to mention shake hands with such a person. Ji Hao had held Yu Mu’s hand without any hesitation, which clearly showed that Ji Hao trusted Yu Mu.
Next to the pot, a creepy and spooky flame was blazing on the snowfield. Tens of pieces of beast bones that were specially processed with a certain kind of magic, had been thrown on the snowfield. These bone fragments were being burned by a green magic flame, causing them to emit strange bone-cracking sounds. A gust of wind mixed with snow swept across the magic fire but the glowing green flame remained perfectly still. The scary green light gave the entire surrounding snowfield a gloomy vibe.
Shaosi was standing at the edge of the area that was lit by the green light, with her hands hidden inside her sleeves and was slowly chewing a Snow Spirit Angelica, while looking at Taisi who was jumping and leaping weirdly inside the green lit area.
A quarter of an hour ago, Ji Hao had built an altar for Taisi with accumulated snow, and Taisi decorated the altar with some odd and scary skulls, which belonged to some strange and rare kinds of creatures, therefore making the altar look extremely mysterious, scary, and spooky.
During the daytime, Ji Hao had captured the puppet, which had led them here, and had frozen it with ice. At this moment, the power magic crystal of the puppet was taken away, which disabled the puppet from moving, and the puppet was now put onto the middle of the altar. A few slight streams of green magic flame, which were as thin as spider threads, were continuously sweeping over the surface of the puppet.
“They’re quite experienced, already wiping out all the traces.”
“Not even a fingerprint was left on the puppet, nor a hair or a drop of sweat.”
“Hmm, you were very thoughtful. Did you do this to prevent someone catching this puppet and use it to give you a magic curse through the traces left on this puppet? But sadly, it is me, Taisi, you have encountered. All the work done by you, is useless in front of me, these slowly preventing works! This magic puppet is the most useful clue that you provided us!!”
While speaking, Taisi’s eyes instantly turned white, and popped out from his eye sockets like the eyes of a frog. His lips had become pure black, add that to his all-white eyeballs, his entire face seemed especially horrible and vicious. Taisi was holding the white cane, and leaped madly around the altar with his body intensely shaking while yelling a strange spell. Along with his voice, those green magic flame threads slowly swept across the magic puppet, and a slight little bit of power began belching out from inside the puppet, condensing into a sphere above it.
Soon, sweat started to pour down from Taisi’s forehead in streams. Taisi had been very scrawny to begin with, but he looked now even more like a skeleton. Along with a gust of wind, Taisi rose slightly, and floated in the air like a paper-made man. He then floated around the altar, while leaving a trail of long streams of gray light behind him.
Feng Xing and Yu Mu simultaneously raised their head and glanced at Taisi. Yu Mu’s pupils were instantly shining with shock, but Feng Xing excitedly stood up, throwing the longbow onto the snowfield. He curiously walked near the altar from another direction along a big arc route, still maintaining a distance between Ji Hao and himself.
Feng Xing cautiously maintained a distance of nearly a hundred zhang between Ji Hao and himself, and over thirty zhang between Shaosi, Taisi and himself.
“You can never run, never run…your master, Taisi, is coming to get you!!” screamed Taisi with a sharp and weird voice that was filled with a ghost-like sense.
Suddenly, the colour of Taisi’s hair turned from black into dim-white, and his fingers became twisted while pointing at the sky. Under his skin, blood vessels bulged out, one after another. Those blood vessels began to weirdly swell and shrink, and the colour of the blood vessels strangely turned into green, glowing with a dim green light.
A faint sphere of mist appeared above the magic puppet, within which, silhouettes of a tall and sturdy elderly man, and a few muscular boys were hazily visible. The elderly man seemed especially powerful, because the sense of power released from his body was greatly stronger. Therefore, Taisi couldn’t clearly see his face, although his power was largely improved by the altar.
However, the faces of the few muscular boys were now emerging clearly from the sphere of mist.
“Ji Hao…I got them…hehe…drew us here with Shaosi’s life, attempted to kill us…what do you think…”
“Hm, don’t bother,” cautioned Taisi after a brief break and a laugh, “I’m afraid that you will be softhearted, just let me handle this.”
Before Ji Hao could respond, Taisi took a deep breath, then suddenly thrust his bone cane into the sphere of mist from the side. At the same moment, countless high-pitched, ghost-like screams came from inside Taisi’s body, and threads of black light instantly spurted out of the bone cane, drawing a few fierce, scary faces on the surface of the short bone cane.
Along with a sizzling sound, the few ghost-like faces slowly rose from the bone cane, and nimbly flew into the bodies of the few muscular boys inside the mist sphere. After which, the mist sphere exploded, and the altar silently melted down. Streams of strange power rose from the melted altar, directly flying into Taisi’s body; Taisi’s gray-white hair then turned back to black, and his eyes turned back to normal as well.
Taisi then kneeled on the ground, gasping quickly for air, and supported his body with both his legs and arms. Ji Hao was surprised to discover that Taisi, who had been scrawny before, had now become a bit fatter. His face had become ruddier than before, looking much healthier.
If Taisi could be blown away by a gust of wind before, now, at least, it would require a gale to blow him away.
Such a weird power system, such a strange curse magic.
Yu Mu, who had been concentrating on cooking the soup, now happily shouted out, “Are you done? Come here if you are done over there and try this! My potful of Hundred-Poison Thousand-Dragon soup! It was not an easy job to collect a whole hundred and eighty Snow Spirit Centipedes! Come and taste the soup!”
Hundreds of thousands of miles away, in the Magi Palace, two young Senior Magi, who had been whispering to each other, abruptly stopped, and suddenly turned into two dry dead bodies, which did not even have a single drop of water left in their bodies, and fell onto the ground.
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TL note: Taisi is such a weirdo!
SR’s note: Well, Yu Mu is not normal either. Who cooks only poisonous food?!
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Edited by SecondRate and Dylan
Translated by XianXiaWorld