Before Fang Mo had a chance to react, a voice rang out a few meters away, laced with mockery. "I'm impressed. We thought we were hidden quite well, yet you spotted us from so far. Not bad, Han Ping. You're not as useless as I thought. Your spiritual detection skills are better than expected."
Two figures rose from the bushes. Weapons flashed into their hands. One, a broad-shouldered man with short black hair and a square jaw, brandished a longsword. The other, lean and sharp-eyed, let his long blond hair fall over one shoulder as he raised a curved scimitar.
The clothes they wore were similar to the robes worn by Han Ping and the others, leading Fang Mo to believe they belonged to the same immortal sect.
Fang Mo sighed in relief. It seems I wasn't spotted. He said something about spiritual detection skills... Maybe I wasn't detected because I don't have spiritual energy? Whatever the reason, this is even better. With them fighting, I can fish in troubled waters.
Han Ping's face darkened. The men in front of him had cultivation levels similar to his own—2nd level of the Opening Meridian Stage. Ding De and Lei Qiu were only at the 1st level, which made the fight disadvantageous for them.
"Bai Feng, Su Wenyan," Han Ping said. "Our sect prohibits fights among disciples. Do you know the consequences of trying to kill and steal from your fellow disciples?"
The broad-shouldered man, Bai Feng, smiled. "Three servant disciples. Would the sect even care about investigating your deaths? And even if they do, no one here is going to escape alive to tell the tale!"
"Brother Feng," Su Wenyan said as he licked his lips. "Leave Lei Qiu alive. I've been wanting to play with her for a while now, but this pretentious girl doesn't know what's good for her and has refused me time and time again."
Behind Han Ping, Lei Qiu's face twisted with disgust. She would rather die than fall into Su Wenyan's hands. Her hands moved to her hips, and two daggers appeared in them. Han Ping and Ding De also knew that conflict was inevitable, and they readied their weapons as well. Han Ping wielded a pair of knuckles, while Ding De held a metal pole.
While they argued, Fang Mo opened the flask in his hand, releasing poison into the air, then swallowed an antidote. Given the wide area of effect, taking the antidote beforehand was essential. The poison he used was a fast-acting neurotoxin—if he waited for the first symptom to appear, it might already be too late.
Ren Tingfeng noticed that the immortal cultivators' attention wasn't on him and tried to escape while he could. He had only taken three steps when Han Ping's fist came flying toward him. Against an immortal cultivator, he had neither the strength nor the reflexes to fight back. Han Ping's punch connected with his head and shattered it.
His skull cracked and deformed to accommodate the blow. Blood fell like rain, drenching the vegetation and soil red. Ren Tingfeng died instantly. After killing him, Han Ping turned back to face Bai Feng and Su Wenyan.
It was like dealing with a minor inconvenience. To both Han Ping and Bai Feng's group, Ren Tingfeng's death was just a natural occurrence.
"If you want to fight, let's fight!" Han Ping shouted and charged at Bai Feng. "Lei Qiu, Ding De, hold Su Wenyan back!" He knew his partners didn't stand a chance against Su Wenyan. The gap between the first and second levels of the Meridian Opening Stage might seem small, but most cultivators at the second level could defeat those at the first in fewer than five moves.
Fang Mo stared at the battle with bloodshot eyes, especially at Han Ping. When he saw Ren Tingfeng die, he wanted to rush in and kill the man, but he knew it would be throwing his life away.
He would never allow anger to cloud his judgment. Ren Tingfeng was dead, and no matter how good a doctor he was, he couldn't bring the dead back to life. With his face twisted in anger, Fang Mo took one last look at Ren Tingfeng's body. Today, he understood just how little mortal lives were worth in a cultivator's eyes.
Letting Ren Tingfeng escape would have made no difference in Han Ping's life, but the man still went out of his way to kill Ren Tingfeng without even blinking. Han Ping's expression didn't resemble that of a human killing another human.
Han Ping's fist, powerful enough to crack stones, was parried smoothly by Bai Feng's sword. Han Ping knew that if he wanted to survive, he had to kill Bai Feng before Su Wenyan finished off his companions. In a two-against-one battle against cultivators of a similar level, death was inevitable.
His fists rained down on Bai Feng with speed and ferocity, but Bai Feng calmly deflected or dodged each blow. He wasn't in a hurry to counterattack; he understood Han Ping's desperation. The longer the fight dragged on, the more likely Han Ping was to slip. Bai Feng was simply waiting for Han Ping to make a fatal mistake, or for Su Wenyan to finish off the other two.
Su Wenyan laughed as he drove his scimitar into Ding De's shoulder. "What a useless bunch. Ding De, kowtow to your Father, and I might kill you painlessly!"
Ding De coughed up blood, his right knee buckled, but a mocking smile formed on his face. "Su Wenyan, you bastard. Die!"
Two daggers flashed toward Su Wenyan's back. Ding De had used himself as bait to give Lei Qiu a chance to strike. However, Su Wenyan was no stranger to murder, he was more than prepared for their trick.
Without removing his scimitar from Ding De's shoulder, Su Wenyan kicked backward. His foot struck Lei Qiu in the abdomen before her daggers reached him, sending her flying and knocking the air from her lungs.
As Lei Qiu was kicked away, Ding De seized the moment. With his one good arm, he swung his metal pole at Su Wenyan's head. He thought the time Lei Qiu had bought him would be enough, but his right arm flinched, and the strike slowed.
Fang Mo noticed it, and his eyes lit up. The poison is working! Ding De and Lei Qiu, being the weakest of the group, were naturally the first to feel the effects of the fast-acting neurotoxin.
In a life-and-death battle, especially against a stronger opponent, such a delay was fatal. Su Wenyan sidestepped the attack, drew his scimitar from Ding De's shoulder, and, before the man's body hit the ground, beheaded him with a clean slash.
"Brother De!" Lei Qiu's expression darkened. She hadn't liked Ding De enough to mourn him, but his death meant hers would soon follow.
She tried to stand and flee, but her body wouldn't respond. "I… I'm poisoned?" Despair washed over her as she finally understood what had happened.
Su Wenyan saw her still lying on the ground and smiled. He thought his kick had simply done the job well, unaware that the same poison had already entered his body without him noticing.
Lei Qiu breathed raggedly as Su Wenyan tore her clothes with his bare hands, leaving her breasts exposed. The poison was shutting down her lungs and heart. She would die soon, even if Su Wenyan didn't kill her. Lei Qiu wanted to scream, but her body no longer responded.
"Su Wenyan, you bastard! Control your lust and help me finish Han Ping first," Bai Feng shouted. He regretted partnering with Su Wenyan for this ambush; the man was an idiot who only thought with his lower half.
Han Ping's expression darkened. He was no longer attacking Bai Feng; he was trying to escape. But Bai Feng anticipated every movement, keeping him trapped.
"Stay there, beauty. I'll be back to deal with you soon," Su Wenyan chuckled. He turned to join the fight, but as his foot hit the ground, something felt wrong. His leg was unbearably heavy.
He looked at his trembling hands. "Y-You bitch... You poisoned me." He turned to Lei Qiu, but she had already stopped breathing. Realization hit him like a slap in the face. "Someone—"
His words were cut short as Fang Mo's blade pierced through his mouth and exited the other side of his skull. "Why do you talk so much? Just die in silence."
Han Ping and Bai Feng stared at Su Wenyan's corpse in disbelief. A mortal had just killed a cultivator right in front of them. Fang Mo turned to face them, a grin spreading across his face.
During their fight, Han Ping and Bai Feng had moved farther away from the source of the poison, so they had likely inhaled less than the others. Fang Mo wasn't sure if the neurotoxin would be enough to kill them, but it should at least slow them down enough for him to strike again with more poison.
If Su Wenyan had warned them that someone else was using poison, things could have become much trickier. That was why Fang Mo acted before he had the chance. But by doing so, he had also revealed himself. Now, he was gambling on two things: that the last two cultivators didn't realize they had been poisoned and wouldn't kill him immediately.