C.2089: Shadows of Ghost Cultivators

The three snakes of the woman were clearly not ordinary. Zhao Hai had seen her fight before. Her skills were very formidable. The python helped defend its master while the red snake took charge of the main attack. The green snake would take openings and mount a sneak attack. The green snake was very smart, oftentimes taking the enemy by surprise. Plenty of cultivators ended up in the mouths of the snakes.

Most importantly, the three snakes were venomous. The red snake and the green snake administer venom through their fangs. As for the python, it was unique as its venom was delivered by its scales.

Zhao Hai pulled his blade out and gave the woman a cold gaze. Zhao Hai knew that the woman was no worse than her snakes. It can be said that the woman and her snakes were a whole team. Once the four of them worked together, they became hard to deal with.

Naturally, if Zhao Hai went with all his strength, he wouldn’t need to worry about the woman. But the main issue was that Zhao Hai couldn’t fight with all his strength. Therefore, he would need to be careful.

At this time, the red snake moved and shot towards Zhao Hai. At the same time, the woman ran towards Zhao Hai, commencing the battle.

Zhao Hai didn’t attack immediately. This battle was different compared to his previous ones. In his first few battles, Zhao Hai was able to defeat his enemies with one attack. This time, he wouldn’t be able to do that. So, he took a defensive stance.

During his previous battles, Zhao Hai mainly used his metal-attribute blade techniques. The main technique used was the Eight-gates Goldenlock Technique. Naturally, he didn’t expose his full capability. Nobody knew that he had reached the highest level of the Eight-gates Goldenlock Technique.

Zhao Hai only utilized 50% of his blade technique. Even so, he was able to startle everyone present. Nobody could believe Zhao Hai’s skill with the blade. Only those in the know were aware that Zhao Hai’s true skills were far from what he has shown.

Despite using half the strength of his blade techniques, Zhao Hai’s defense was still very hard to penetrate. The woman and her three snakes have no means of getting to Zhao Hai. Before this, people thought that Zhao Hai was a strong attacker but weak in defense. But now, they found out that Zhao Hai’s defense may be stronger than his attack.

The battle continued on for half an hour. By this point in the competition, it wasn’t easy for a battle to last a long time without a clear winner. One shouldn’t expect the battle to be more difficult as the competition progresses. On the contrary, winners and losers were decided quickly during the last stages of the competition.

Each sect would send support staff along with their participants to observe each battle and collect information. Then these people would analyze each battle to find weaknesses. Then they would disseminate the information to their participants to prepare them. Therefore, during the late stages of the competition, each participant should have already known quite a lot of information regarding their future opponents. Each side would come up with a solution to end the battle as soon as possible.

The reason they wanted to end the battle quickly was because there wasn’t time left. In the later parts of the competition, due to the number of participants left, each stage finished quickly. There was very little time for each participant to rest. So in order to get some breathing time before their next battle, each participant wished to end their battle as fast as possible while using the least energy possible.

Because of all these reasons, battles like Zhao Hai’s which reached half an hour were very rare. Usually, battles would end in under ten minutes.

However, it was time for Zhao Hai to finish the battle. After attacking for half an hour, the woman and her three snakes couldn’t help but slow down. It was at this point that Zhao Hai’s blade technique unfolded. Zhao Hai surrounded his enemy with blade light. Although the woman defended with all her strength, she wasn’t as good at defense as Zhao Hai. Ten minutes later, her defenses crumbled and she was defeated.

Both sides gave a salute to each other before going down the stage. Although Zhao Hai had a grudge against the Sword Hegemon Sect and the Imperial Beast Sect, he had no plans of killing anyone in the competition.

But even if Zhao Hai has no plans of killing, this doesn’t mean that others don’t. After getting down from his stage, Zhao Hai found that Li Fei was gone. He was stunned. Li Fei hasn’t competed yet. Generally, whenever Zhao Hai competes, Li Fei would be right below. But now he was missing.

At this time, Zhou Hong walked over. Zhou Hong had been eliminated in the previous rounds, so he took it upon himself to collect information.

Zhou Hong’s complexion wasn’t good when he arrived in front of Zhao Hai. Then he said, “Team Leader, Old Li doesn’t look good. You need to take a look.” Hearing this, Zhao Hai’s complexion changed as he asked, “What happened?”

Zhou Hong’s face was filled with hatred, “It’s Hu Jilong from the Butterfly Sect. Old Li was faced against him. You should know that Hu Jilong intends to deal with us. They were originally even during the battle up until Hu Jilong released a throwing knife. Old Li couldn’t dodge it and was hit. The most hateful thing is that Hu Jilong poisoned his knife. Old Li is now poisoned. The antidote we have has no effect against the poison.”

Hearing this, Zhao Hai relaxed, “Poison? Then it’s easy. Let’s go.” After saying that, he walked with Zhou Hong towards the Tyrant Blade Sect’s base. Before long, the two arrived.

Zhou Hong quickly brought Zhao Hai to Li Fei’s residence. Right now, there were a lot of people outside Li Fei’s room. All Clone Stage disciples were present as well as Elder Yue Feng.

Seeing Zhao Hai arrive, everyone immediately made way. Zhao Hai looked at Li Fei who was lying on a beastskin mat. Li Fei’s face was currently layered with black gas, his appearance looked ghastly.

Zhao Hai didn’t look at the others as he quickly walked to Li Fei’s side and glanced at the place he was hit. The throwing knife hit Li Fei on his shoulder. The wound wasn’t large, but the skin around it had turned black and it smelled putrid.

Zhao Hai couldn’t help but winkle his brows. It hasn’t been long since Li Fei has been poisoned, but the wound has already turned serious. This only explains one thing, the poison used was very powerful. Most importantly, the smell of the wound was suspicious. Poison that can emit this kind of smell generally relates to corpse poison. But in the True Spirit Realm, those who used corpse poison were the Ghost Cultivators.

Yue Feng looked at Zhao Hai’s appearance and couldn’t help but sigh, “This poison is too overbearing. Most importantly, I haven’t seen this type of poison before. I don’t know what it is. The antidotes we brought has no effect. It seems like Li Fei is only going to get worse.”

Zhao Hai looked at Li Fei’s complexion before turning his hand and retrieving a jade bottle. Then opened the bottle and began to pour the liquid to Li Fei’s mouth. Those around began to notice that Zhao Hai’s medicine was gold in color.

After pouring the entire bottle of golden liquid into Li Fei’s mouth, Zhao Hai relaxed and said, “What poisoned Li Fei is possibly corpse poison, or a variation derived from it.”

Upon hearing Zhao Hai, everyone’s complexion changed, especially Elder Yue Feng. He looked at Zhao Hai and said, “Are you sure?”

Zhao Hai nodded and said, “I’m quite sure. From the state of the wound, it’s corpse poison. If this poison is really from Hu Jilong, then he must have a relationship with Ghost Cultivators. However, the possibility of this is very low. Although there are heavy restrictions during the competition, we aren’t disallowed from using hidden weapons. But nobody would dare use poison in their hidden weapons, they would just be looked down on if they did that. Hu Jilong might be arrogant and look down on us, but I’m certain that he wouldn’t use corpse poison just to deal with Li Fei. This will be suicide for his reputation. He’s not that stupid. It’s possible that someone else poisoned Hu Jilong’s knife. This needs to be checked immediately.”

Yue Feng’s expression was somewhat blank, then he nodded and said, “The Butterfly Sect has techniques involving throwing knives, but they generally won’t use poison. Moreover, they won’t store their throwing knives inside spatial equipment. It’s possible that someone else smeared poison on the knives. That person must be close to him. Ordinary people wouldn’t know where disciples of the Butterfly Sect kept their knives.”

Zhao Hai nodded, “I think Elder should secretly investigate this matter with the Butterfly Sect. We need to find that Ghost Cultivator. Otherwise, not just the Butterfly Sect, but other sects would be affected. If the Butterfly Sect has been infiltrated by Ghost Cultivators, then that means the lesser sects have also been infiltrated. We need to be careful of this matter.”

Elder Yue Feng’s expression became more serious. He replied, “Don’t spread this matter. In fact, forget about this. I’ll deal with it.” As he said that, he turned his head towards Li Fei. To his surprise, the black gas on Li Fei’s face has significantly decreased.

Yue Feng couldn’t help but stare, then his eyes shone. He looked at Zhao Hai and asked, “Little Hai, what did you feed Li Fei? How is it so effective against corpse poison?” One couldn’t blame Yue Feng for being excited. It must be known that corpse poison was one of the most important weapons of Ghost Cultivators. Until now, the True Spirit Realm has yet to find a solution for it.

But now, one bottle of Zhao Hai’s liquid was able to reduce the poison’s effects on Li Fei. This was an extraordinary matter.