Chapter 310 — The Venerable One Is Sagacious

On the bridge two figures rose and fell by turns; Shen Mu and Ban Gongcuo were still dealing each other killing blows, each bent on the other's death.

Both had seized on the same thought at once: since no entrance to the real world could be found for the moment, they might as well first do away with the stumbling block before them, finish the other off, and only then, with whole hearts, take command of the treasure ship and search for a way out. Otherwise, with such a formidable enemy watching them, a knife might be planted in their back at any moment—a headache indeed, and one never knew when the boat might capsize in a ditch.

Ban Gongcuo was, after all, a reincarnated being, and his cultivation advanced with astonishing speed; Shen Mu had no wish to keep him alive—the longer this dragged on, the more likely Ban Gongcuo's cultivation would surpass his own, and so he must be uprooted early. And Ban Gongcuo, for his part, had come to realize how terrifying this new Human Emperor, Shen Mu, was: his potential for growth was appalling, and he was sinister and cunning besides, hard to scheme against and apt to scheme against you instead.

The longer it dragged on, the graver the peril; so Shen Mu too must be finished off as soon as possible. The two had already been sorely depleted in cultivation, yet each still had the strength to kill the other; now, staking their lives on finishing the other off, their vital essence was drained all the more violently, and before long both were covered in wounds and gasping for breath.

Bang! At their final clash the two fell flat on their backs together, all vital essence and strength gone. Shen Mu crawled with difficulty, wanting to seize a sword and stab him dead; the bridge was strewn everywhere with his flying swords, but with his vital essence exhausted he could summon not one of them, and could only inch his way forward, wriggling.

With great labor he crawled up to a flying sword and reached out to grip its hilt; a smile broke over his face—and then stiffened: "Si Yunxiang, I swear I'll smack your backside into three pieces and keep you from rising from your bed for half a month! " He had indeed gripped the hilt, but his flying swords were all refined from the essence of mystic gold; a single sword weighed three hundred catties, and in his present state he had no strength to lift one—he could not even drag it!

That they were so ponderously heavy was, of course, Si Yunxiang's doing.

On the other side, Ban Gongcuo was struggling to gather a shred of power, trying to drive a flying locust to finish Shen Mu. But his vital essence came only in broken spurts; the locust could not take flight, and crawled sluggishly toward Shen Mu at a pace scarcely faster than an ant. Shen Mu, meanwhile, turned about, straining to push himself forward, crawling toward Ban Gongcuo, and fished a handful of virulently poisonous elixir from his Taotie Pouch, a strange smile on his face.

Ban Gongcuo strove with all his might to guide the locust; at last it caught up with Shen Mu's calf and clamped on, biting. But his vital essence was truly feeble and the locust's strength small; it took it an age to gnaw through the cuff of Shen Mu's trouser leg, and then through a layer of skin.

Shen Mu bore the pain and crawled forward with all his might; alarm showed on Ban Gongcuo's face, and he struggled to turn over, using hands and feet alike, his chin plowing the ground again and again as he strove to get away from Shen Mu. One fleeing ahead, one chasing behind, their speed was infuriatingly slow.

After an age of squirming they had covered but one or two zhang, when suddenly Ban Gongcuo at last fished something from his Taotie Pouch: a gourd holding sorcerer's poison.

Ban Gongcuo was wild with joy—this was the sorcerer's poison he had refined in his former life, of a virulence that would make short work of Shen Mu. He at once stopped crawling and, with difficulty, turned himself about to crawl toward Shen Mu. Seeing this, Shen Mu hurriedly turned around; after a good while he finally managed to reverse himself and crawled with all his strength.

Ban Gongcuo's sorcerer's poison was fully refined, while the poison in his own hand was still half-finished; in virulence it could not match Ban Gongcuo's. "You little wretch, you're dead!

" Ban Gongcuo chased with all his might and at last caught up with Shen Mu's legs, and in a fever of excitement went to pull the stopper from the gourd's mouth; he swelled red in the face and still could not draw it out. Shen Mu thought himself certainly doomed; when he looked back, Ban Gongcuo cried out hastily, "You little wretch, you're dead! " hoping to frighten him off.

"Little Prince, you've no strength left, have you? " Shen Mu kicked out, cramming his bare foot into Ban Gongcuo's mouth, meaning to choke him to death.

Ban Gongcuo's eyes rolled white; then he hardened his heart: "I have been reincarnated so many times—would I care about this flesh being humiliated?

" He bit down hard, fastening his teeth in Shen Mu's sole. Shen Mu, stung by the pain, pulled the foot back, gave a cold laugh, smeared poison on his own foot, and made ready to stuff it into his mouth again.

While he was busy with the poison, Ban Gongcuo hastily crawled over; the two grappled together, each seizing the other by the throat—though their hands had no strength. And a divine-power practitioner of the Six Harmonies realm had a fearsome store of breath; the two strangled each other for nearly half an hour without managing to kill one another, and only spent the last shred of their own strength instead.

The two went utterly limp, only their fingers, toes and eyeballs still shifting slowly now and then. Both were straining to even out their breathing and recover a thread of vital essence, hoping to finish the other off before he recovered.

Time passed little by little; at last Shen Mu recovered a shred of strength and took out dragon saliva to smear on his wounds—to let them bleed freely, even a body forged of iron could not bear it. Ban Gongcuo, on the other side, took out a jade vial and swallowed medicine.

As a being who had lived ten thousand years, he had learned far too many things; in the art of medicine he was deeply accomplished, and in toxicology had even devised the famed sorcerer's poison that worked upon the soul.

Shen Mu glanced at him, wariness in his eyes.

Ban Gongcuo was a rare all-round talent, proficient in every discipline; though in none had he reached the very summit, still he was no small matter. Had the man been able to fuse all he had learned into one furnace, he would surely have made an appalling leap—though that, of course, was very difficult.

The present Ban Gongcuo had no hope at all of fusing his learning; brilliant as he was, his cutting edge had been worn away and his heart no longer strove forward. Nor did Ban Gongcuo press the attack further; over so many lifetimes, facing Shen Mu he still held no upper hand.

The first time he met Shen Mu he had been beaten down by him and nearly lost his life; and this time, unexpectedly, it had ended in mutual ruin once more, a real blow to his pride. Within his body lay the power of his former life; that power could not be used lightly, and he must ceaselessly raise the strength of this body and temper its foundation so that it could bear more of that power.

The power of his former life was too dreadful; the slightest carelessness would burst this present body apart. But so long as this body advanced, his cultivation would rise straight to the very summit of what the summit could reach—and so his speed of cultivation still surpassed Shen Mu's.

Yet five months had passed since their last parting; by rights his cultivation should have left Shen Mu far behind, and it had never occurred to him that they would still be neck and neck.

Neither spoke; both gazed out the porthole.