Evil Eminence Field expanded past the thick walls, catching the sparks before they could hit the fuse. That said, the fatal situation had yet to be defused. Unless the flame was put out or its trajectory altered, it was only a matter of time before everyone was blasted sky high.
It took Abels everything he had to sustain the status quo. The thick stone walls segregating the explosives and them was a poor medium for energy to travel through. Additionally, due to the long distance he had to cover, his energy was only a fraction of what it was up close to him. If someone was to come in now, they wouldn’t say he wasn’t in tip-top form.
“Ah!” A-Lan exclaimed.
While Abels and A-Lan were distracted, Mountain Monster took out her soft dagger at her belt to take A-Lan hostage.
“Gui Wa, are you crazy?!” A-Lan had blood trickling from her neck, albeit very little.
“You never seen me kill? When have I not been crazy?” Mountain Monster grinned at Abels’ long face. “Finding it hard to circulate your true qi?”
As Mountain Monster said, Abels’ flow of qi was sluggish.
“You knew I harboured ill will when I invited you, yet it never occurred to you that there’s a reason I chose the wine cellar in particular? You disregard poison because you rely on Evil Eminence Powerfield to excrete venoms, but I’ve read the manual. I know how your true qi flows.
“You forget what my background is? I formulated the paralysis poison based on your internal strength’s level. I’ve slipped poison into every jar of wine within this cellar, so you should expect your internal energy flow to be disrupted.”
A trail of sweat coursed down the side of Abels’ face. In all the dangerous situations he found himself in, not once was it against an opponent he was stronger than. The last pinch he’d imagine himself in was once again his weaker subordinate who he knew well.
“… What do you want?”
“I told you: I just want your life.”
“If you blow the explosives up while you’re here, you’ll die, too.”
“Do I look like a wuss to you?”
“… So you planned to take me down with you.”
“… Ox Demon is dead. Our brothers are dead. I lost my will to live long ago… What’s so tragic about death? What’s so good about living? Considering all the lives taken, I’ve lived for more than long enough. Dying today is the most epic death I could ask for.”
Despite standing at death’s door, Abels had no intention of imputing any consequences to Mountain Monster for he could read her gaze. She wasn’t out of her mind nor was she trying to sin. Her intent was purely to atone.
“Is life so scary without Ox Demon?”
“… What was that?” Mountain Monster’s voice indicated she was emotionally invested in the question.
“I asked, is it so scary to carry the burden of murder on your own? As the master of murder, you shouldn’t be the one at its mercy. Wasn’t Ox Demon the one who taught you that? While he taught you how to accept your insatiable bloodlust, he never taught you how to be independent.
“Have you really learnt to enjoy killing? You’ve forgotten the you who cried every each kill. You think you’ve become the master of murder? Don’t kid yourself. All you’ve done is made your impulse to kill someone else’s responsibility, so when you lost the one shouldering the burden for you, you lost the courage to shoulder the burden. You’re still the girl from back then. You haven’t grown at all.”
Mountain Monster’s fading shade of red proved Abels was hitting the nail on the head.
“What makes you think your death will erase the lives you took? Killing is killing. It doesn’t matter if the victim was nefarious or just; a severed head is a severed head. People who can hack it will hack it. If it bothers you so much, it’ll haunt you forever. You don’t want to kill or harm anyone, yet you’ve taken countless lives and got your brethren killed. You think your death makes that all right? The only thing your death makes is another body in the ground. Nobody will pity you. If it bothers you so much, make amendments while you still can. Isn’t that more practical than feeling guilty and feeling sick of the world?”
Voice soft, A-Lan conveyed, “You don’t need to feel that way… Our brothers’ deaths aren’t your fault. Luo Ming was the one who killed them”
“Shut up! Why do you two keep rambling nonsense when you’re about to die?!”
“Don’t celebrate too soon. You’re slower than a snail from my perspective. I can rescue A-Lan from you in one swoop.”
“Dogs than can bite don’t bark. Would you be flapping your gums if you could pull it off? As soon as you try, your field will break. You’re finished.”
Abels couldn’t rebuke.
“Bodhi Abels, I’ll give you two options. One, remove Evil Eminence Powerfield. Two, I’ll slit your wife’s throat. I’d like to see if you still have motivation to live after.”
Although she said she gave him a choice, Mountain Monster thereupon slid her blade along A-Lan’s neck on a diagonal path – at least it looked that way. Upon disengaging his barrier, Abels burst the energy in forty-five directions – the locations of the explosion points – knocked the blade out of Mountain Monster’s grip and wrested A-Lan over. Alas, there was nothing he could do as the flame expanded. Mountain Monster moved the corners of her lips up as a relieving sensation washed over her.
Abels cracked a smile. “You never intended to kill me, did you? You’re worried I’ll die in Nieyao, leaving A-Lan alone and our brothers unbridled, so you’re trying to keep me alive.”
Mountain Monster just smiled. “See you in the next life, Master, Mistress.”
“Don’t go writing the conclusion on your own.”
Right after Abels disappeared into thin air, a tremor emanated underground, knocking all the wine jugs onto the ground. The explosives were meant to take the cellar and their bodies with them, yet the rumble that wasn’t even audible beyond the cellar was all it ended with.
“I split Evil Eminence Powerfield into forty-five mini powerfields, each containing one bomb, so all they did was blow up my fields.”
“Y-y-your… your injuries.”
“Obviously, I’m not 100% yet. With that said, I can use a little of level seven, so the three of us will be fine.”
If it’s impossible to tackle everything at once, divide and conquer. Suffice to say, there was more to it than those three words. The ability to keep a level head, skill and the testicle fortitude to take the leap of faith were all vital components to having any chance of success with the strategy. As a product of desperation, Abels finally accessed level seven of Evil Eminence Scripture again.
“You’ve tried blowing me up once already. There’s no way you wouldn’t know that wasn’t enough to kill me. You bid on me using everything I had to protect A-Lan, resulting in me incapacitating myself, but I’ll survive. If I need three to five months to convalesce, I can’t participate in the campaign. The only one who would die in the explosion would’ve been you.
“Honestly, you don’t need to worry about me dying in Nieyao. I have a lot of reasons to live and no incentive to die. You shouldn’t treat life so lightly, either. Instead of dying here, challenge yourself to live a better life.”
It finally clicked for A-Lan.
The hot flushes on Mountain Monster’s cheeks were the result of concern or joy. She just had no clue how to react after Abels laid her mind bare. One thing she knew without a shadow of doubt was that her desire to dance with death had faded for the most part.
“It was quite risky since I’ve regressed a lot. If I couldn’t make it, I was going to have to rely on my friend, right, Brother Ming?”
“What happened to your so-called regression? Didn’t you notice me?”
Mountain Monster yanked her hand out to see Ming Feizhen behind the now empty rack. He was there from beginning to end in case, as Abels said, Abels couldn’t stop the bombing. To force two Divine Realm exponents to gang up on her alone, Mountain Monster had a story she could brag about for the rest of her life, yet she wasn’t pleased.
“Son of a… You cum stain! Why were you spying on me?!”
Ming Feizhen rubbed his ears. “What makes you think I had any interest in listening to you? You know how cold it is here? You should be paying me for my time.”
“You freaking, freaking son of a freaking, freaking… Piss off!”
