Chapter 326 — Using Poison to Slay the Demon Root

"Mine is different from the rest as well. My master never taught me pill formulas for poisons, only pharmacology; I learned the method of refining poison from my senior fellow disciple. This medicine has one virtue: it overturns yin and yang, throws the five elements into disorder. A great tonic is a great poison; a great tonic nourishes a great poison that ruins a man's flesh and ruins his primordial spirit. Once swallowed, first the body breaks, then the spirit breaks.

And into this medicine I have blended the witch-poison of the Loulan Golden Palace, which can scatter a soul to the winds.

Hence there are three breaks. " Mu Yingxue said, "Then why not call it the Three-Breaks Powder?

The name is not pretty, but it suits the thing. " Shen Mu laughed. "Sister's name is amusing enough. The Three-Breaks Powder it is. " Those lying on the ground did not know whether to laugh or cry.

These two were plainly mortal enemies, each bent on poisoning the other, each eager to outdo the other in the way of poison, and now they were flattering each other, one calling the other Sister, the other answering Little Brother, as intimate as could be.

And to hear them praise their own poisons, one would think these were not poisons at all but holy elixirs that made a man a god on the spot.

"Good Sister, will you poison it first, or shall I? " Shen Mu asked.

Mu Yingxue hesitated; there was much to weigh in striking first or striking after.

Whoever poisoned first, even if the poison did not kill the root monster, could still wound its primordial qi deeply, giving the later poisoner an easy advantage.

Yet the first to strike seized the initiative as well: if the poison killed the root monster, the victory was won, and the other could only concede defeat.

She was somewhat at a loss. Shen Mu took note of it, opened the porcelain jar in his hand, and laughed. "Let me go first, how about that?

" His porcelain jar opened, and a black smoke drifted forth.

Within the smoke floated a venomous insect whose body gave off gleams of light, like a spider yet not a spider: eight claws, a long body, a belly like a bee's, and eight eyes all tightly shut.

This was no true insect, but a manifest sign formed of venom; it seemed that if the insect but opened its eyes, a world-shaking burst of venom would erupt. Mu Yingxue took one look, shivered, and said hastily, "I will go first! " Shen Mu stepped back; Mu Yingxue came forward and opened her jar.

From it rose a green smoke, and within the smoke the Spirit-Vanishing Three Wonders Powder proved to be a single green seed.

Mu Yingxue urged her dharma power; with a swish the green seed flew off and vanished into the great tree ahead.

Dimly one could see the seed take root and sprout within the tree, growing with astonishing speed. Mu Yingxue worked her art and roused the full venom of the Spirit-Vanishing Three Wonders Powder.

All at once the earth quaked; the root monster seemed to feel pain beyond bearing, pain that convulsed the tree's whole body.

One after another the roots, thick as dragons, snapped with sharp cracks; one after another the tentacle-like tendrils rotted away at speed; from the flower buds at the tips of the tendrils came shrill, miserable screams, and the women within the buds swayed to and fro.

Then flower after flower withered, buds beyond counting dropped to the ground, and the women inside them became charred stubs and cinders. And high in the air the great tree's first tier of canopy came crashing down with a din that shook heaven and earth, smashing onto a distant mountain peak and splitting that peak apart. "What a poison! What a medicine! " Shen Mu marveled.

Yet Mu Yingxue knitted her brows slightly: though the tree's first canopy had collapsed and its bark showed the hue of death, one change had exceeded her expectations, and that was the Qingxuan Water Dragon Pearl. The root monster had swallowed the Qingxuan Water Dragon Pearl into its belly; the pearl had indeed suppressed its power to move, but it had also endowed the root monster with unmatched vitality.

Moreover, the power hidden in the blood of gods and demons surpassed her reckoning as well; her Spirit-Vanishing Three Wonders Powder likely could not poison this root monster to death.

Mu Yingxue waited an hour, and the root monster gradually ceased to struggle; instead new roots grew out, the canopy grew anew, and the withered bark peeled away of itself and put forth new skin. "I have lost," said Mu Yingxue, her expression bleak.

She shook her head. Shen Mu stepped forward and laughed.

"I may not be able to beat you either.

" His primordial qi burst forth and formed an altar. Shen Mu set the porcelain jar at its center and worked his arts around it; the insect upon the jar grew larger and larger, then with a sudden whoosh flew up, settled upon the tree, and gradually seeped into it.

Shen Mu trod the Dipper's steps, his hair hanging loose over his shoulders, working his arts upon the altar without pause.

His Three-Breaks Powder contained witch-poison, and so he had to work his arts to rouse the witch-poison of Ban Gongcuo.

The root monster was unmoved, and then suddenly the poison erupted: the great tree shook with a roar, cracked and split with a crackle, and countless splinters of wood fell from the sky like a rain of timber. Then the earth seemed to boil over like a pot; countless roots leaped from the ground like great serpents, tumbling and pitching with thuds and splashes.

A thunderous boom! Out of the depths of the earth flew a huge black ball made of numberless roots; the roots withered and snapped one after another, shattering across the ground, and the black wood piled into a great mountain.