Chapter 88: Damian Baines Must Die!

There was no grand bombardment to announce the beginning of the battle, no sky full of fireballs, nor any armies of Mages standing behind shields while artillery spells flattened everything several kilometers away.

This was a battlefield dominated by Body Tempering cultivators!

These people possessed bodies strong enough to crack stone, leap several meters and swing weapons with enough force to separate limbs from their owners, but they had not yet reached Qi Condensation.

There would be no spectacular Daoist Arts filling the heavens, so the killing would be considerably more... personal.

A horn sounded from the Nightmare Corpse Sect formation, and almost simultaneously, Jian Rui raised his sword.

"EVERGREEN!"

"ROAR!!!"

Hundreds of voices thundered across the muddy battlefield!

Then both sides charged, their boots hammering against wet earth as the distance collapsed frighteningly quickly.

Some cultivators sprinted normally while others kicked against the ground hard enough to leave small craters behind, their reinforced bodies carrying them forward like human missiles.

A handful slapped talismans onto their legs.

WHOOSH!

Wind gathered around their feet as movement talismans activated, sending them surging ahead of the main formations.

Others crushed pellets between their teeth, causing blood to surge and muscles to tighten.

Some weapons even began glowing faintly beneath temporary enhancement effects.

Indeed, once again, this was not a war of fireballs and lightning storms... but Shengyuan was still a supernatural world!

And supernatural worlds had invented many creative ways to make stabbing someone worse!

The two armies crashed together.

BOOOOM!

The sound was less like men colliding and more like 2 waves of metal smashing into one another.

A Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple swung a black saber horizontally while an Evergreen disciple raised his spear to block.

CLANG!

The impact sent both weapons scrambling sideways, only for the Nightmare Corpse Sect cultivator to twist his body and ram a shoulder into the Evergreen disciple’s chest.

CRACK!

Several ribs broke as the man staggered backward, coughing blood, but his companion immediately lunged past him and drove a sword straight through the Nightmare disciple’s stomach.

"ARGH!"

The blade entered beneath the ribs and exploded out through the back, blood splattering across both young men.

The Evergreen disciple ripped the weapon free, then his eyes widened in horror as the supposedly dying Nightmare cultivator grinned.

His bloody hand grabbed the Evergreen disciple’s wrist.

"You grass-munching bastard...!"

SCHLICK!

A dagger flashed and cut across the Evergreen disciple’s forearm.

It was barely a scratch, at most two centimeters deep.

The Evergreen disciple kicked the dying man away and barely spared the wound a glance.

Then black veins began spreading beneath his skin, causing his face to change.

"Corpse Qi!"

There it was, the Nightmare Corpse Sect’s greatest advantage at this level!

Body Tempering disciples of that sect could not release huge clouds of Corpse Qi, nor could they casually command corpse armies through Spirit Sense.

They lacked the Refined Qi required for the terrifying methods their stronger Seniors used.

But they didn’t need any of that.

Their weapons were enough.

Sabers, daggers, needles, spearheads and even arrowheads could be saturated with Corpse Qi before battle.

One cut, and that was all.

The wound did not have to be deep either, it merely had to open flesh.

Once Corpse Qi entered a Body Tempering cultivator’s bloodstream, the victim possessed no Refined Qi with which to actively force it back out.

The corruption would spread, the flesh would weaken, and the meridians would become contaminated.

The disciple’s vitality would begin losing a war it could not properly fight.

Which meant that even when an Evergreen disciple won an exchange...

They could still lose the battle afterward.

Elsewhere, a young Evergreen woman ducked beneath a chain and stabbed her short sword upward.

The point entered a Nightmare Corpse Sect cultivator’s chin and burst through the roof of his mouth.

He dropped instantly.

She barely had time to breathe before another man slashed across her back.

Her armor stopped most of it, but the edge still opened a thin line beneath her shoulder blade.

She spun around, killed the attacker with three furious strikes, then felt the familiar cold spreading from the wound.

"No..."

Her face turned white.

Around her, the battlefield had already become a slaughter!

Bodies crashed into mud.

A severed hand still gripped the sword inside it.

Someone screamed for his mother after losing half his leg.

Another cultivator slipped on blood, fell backward and had a spearhead driven through his throat before he could rise.

Then, a wave of arrows descended from behind the Evergreen line.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

One entered a Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple’s shoulder, another pierced a thigh, while a third buried itself directly through an eye.

Shen Lian lowered her bow and shouted, "AGAIN!"

Behind her, Evergreen archers reached for another volley.

Yet even with the newly restored manpower, the pattern of battle remained horribly familiar.

The Evergreen Sect struck, but the Nightmare Corpse Sect struck back harder.

The Evergreen Sect wounded them, but the Nightmare Corpse Sect merely needed to scratch them to win.

And once enough infected Evergreen disciples were forced to retreat...

The line would weaken, then collapse.

That was how the Evergreen Sect’s Base Camp in the Willowbank Front had been bleeding to death for months.

A Body Tempering Level 4 Evergreen disciple named Gao Ren found this out personally when a hooked blade tore through his left shoulder.

The wound was ugly, but survivable.

He killed the attacker anyway, smashing the pommel of his sword into the man’s nose before burying the blade through his neck.

Then Gao Ren staggered as black veins appeared around the torn flesh.

His stomach sank to his ankles in fear.

Normally, this was where he would begin retreating.

If he survived long enough to reach camp, perhaps some sect medicine could slow the infection.

Perhaps not.

After all, last week, his friend had received a smaller wound.

The young man had died two days later screaming while black fluid leaked from his eyes.

Gao Ren’s expression hardened, about to cut the arm off, when he remembered the small bottle hanging from his belt.

"...Right."

He ripped it free, and a Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple rushing toward him almost laughed.

What was this fool doing?

Drinking in the middle of—

Gao Ren tore the stopper off with his teeth and swallowed, the Basic Holy Water rushing down his throat.

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then...

"AAAAAGH!"

Gao Ren screamed as a pale-golden light burst beneath his skin.

The black veins around his shoulder recoiled violently as if something alive had suddenly realized a predator was standing behind it.

Black smoke poured from the wound.

SIZZLE!

The Corpse Qi burned away while Gao Ren’s eyes widened.

The infection was gone, completely!

The approaching Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple slowed.

"...What?"

Gao Ren looked at the fellow, then at the remaining droplets of Holy Water inside the bottle.

A very interesting thought entered his mind as he smiled.

"Oh..."

The Nightmare cultivator suddenly felt something was wrong, and turned to run.

However, Gao Ren lunged like a beast, forcing the Nightmare sect fellow to swing his saber in desperate defense.

Gao Ren deliberately took the strike against his armored side, grabbed the fellow’s wrist and dumped the remaining Holy Water directly across his chest.

For approximately one second...

Nothing happened.

Then the Nightmare disciple’s expression changed beyond recognition!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Golden steam exploded from his body!

The Corpse Qi circulating through his flesh reacted like oil meeting open flame.

His skin blistered as black vapor poured from his pores.

The man collapsed into the mud, clawing desperately at his own chest while pale-golden power burned through the corrupted energy cultivated inside his body.

Gao Ren stared in stupefaction, then slowly looked at the empty bottle.

"...Holy shit."

Someone nearby saw it, then someone else.

And battlefield information traveled very quickly when the information in question was: ’THE WATER FUCKS THEM UP!’

An Evergreen disciple pulled out his bottle, and another did the same.

A young woman who had been retreating with an infected thigh drank hers, watched the black veins disappear, then turned around with murder in her eyes.

The Nightmare Corpse Sect had spent years teaching Evergreen disciples to fear even the smallest wound.

That fear disappeared within minutes.

A Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple slashed an Evergreen Disciple named Lin Tao across the forearm.

Lin Tao looked at the cut, then at his attacker.

The attacker grinned maliciously, but Lin Tao grinned back.

Naturally, the Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple’s smile vanished.

"Why are you smiling?"

Lin Tao drank Holy Water and golden light flashed through his wound.

Then, he pulled out a Vial of Healing.

Gulp!

The torn flesh visibly knitted itself together!

"...Because you’re fucked."

His sword came down.

PUCHI!

The Nightmare disciple’s head bounced twice before landing in the mud.

And that was only the beginning.

Damian had not merely given these people Holy Water... he had brought the 3 staple Vials of Valoria with him!

Healing!

Restoration!!

Vigor!!!

Body Tempering combat consumed an enormous amount of physical energy.

Every explosive dash, every enhanced leap, every weapon clash, and every moment spent forcing muscle and bone beyond mortal limits.

Normally, cultivators slowed as the battle continued.

Their breaths became heavier, their arms became sluggish, and mistakes accumulated.

Then an Evergreen disciple whose legs had begun trembling pulled out a Vial of Vigor.

Gulp!

His exhaustion vanished like someone had flipped a switch.

The man gasped as his eyes went wide.

Then he launched himself back into combat at practically fresh strength.

Another disciple took a saber through the abdomen.

Ordinarily, he would be finished!

Today though, he killed the man who stabbed him, crawled behind the formation and drank a Vial of Healing.

The horrible wound contracted before everyone’s eyes as blood vessels sealed and torn muscle repaired itself.

Minutes later, the bastard was standing again.

"Weren’t you killed!" An opposing Nightmare Corpse Sect disciple shouted with disbelief.

"Sadly, yes... But I lived!"

Then he grabbed his spear and went back in.

Vials of Restoration proved more situational among the Body Tempering forces, but cultivators suffering severe mental exhaustion from prolonged combat, talisman control and the sheer strain of battlefield awareness discovered that the medicine restored their Mental Energy with almost insulting efficiency.

The result accumulated slowly at first, then it rapidly became catastrophic.

Nightmare Corpse Sect disciples were used to exchanging injuries favorably, but now their enemies healed fully.

They were used to poisoning survivors through Corpse Qi, but now the poison vanished.

They were used to exhausting Evergreen formations until their lines buckled.

Now exhausted disciples drank something and came back breathing like they had just finished breakfast.

Worse...

The same holy substance that nullified their greatest advantage was apparently toxic to them!

"What the fuck is happening?!"

The confidence on the Nightmare Corpse Sect side began cracking, and the Evergreen side noticed.

And that mattered almost as much as the medicine itself.

"THEY’RE RETREATING!"

"PRESS THEM!"

"DON’T BREAK FORMATION!" Jian Rui roared immediately.

Right then, a group of Evergreen disciples nearly charged after fleeing enemies before remembering that the Nightmare Corpse Sect loved shameless traps.

They pulled back into formation, but now their expressions were completely different.

These were the same people who had arrived on the battlefield wondering which of them would die today.

Now though, they smelled blood.

And for once...

It wasn’t primarily theirs!

The battle shifted, then it rolled.

Then... it became a rout!

............

Mu Qingyao stood several dozen meters behind the main clash with an expression Damian had rarely seen on her.

Shock, the kind of shock that forced a person to reconsider something they had believed they understood perfectly.

Shen Xueyi looked much the same.

Both women had seen battles before, some larger and even bloodier than this.

Wars between cultivators were hardly some distant story to either of them, so they knew exactly what this weekly skirmish was supposed to look like.

The restored Willowbank manpower should have helped enormously.

With 255 healthy disciples, the Evergreen Sect should have lasted longer and suffered fewer deaths.

Perhaps the Nightmare Corpse Sect would have been forced to retreat earlier than usual after inflicting acceptable losses.

That would already have been considered an excellent result.

But changing the fundamental outcome?

That was different.

The Evergreen disciples were not suddenly more skilled nor had their cultivation risen.

Jian Rui had not discovered some legendary military formation overnight nor had heavenly luck descended upon them.

The reason was standing several meters in front of them upon a Gale Beakrunner, watching the battle with unnerving calm.

Damian Baines.

More precisely...

His goods, his Holy Water, and his strange Vials!

This was effectively the first true battlefield trial of Damian’s products against the Nightmare Corpse Sect.

And their performance had exceeded every projection!

A force that had spent months being suppressed was actively routing its superior opponent!

And judging by the wounded being pulled backward, treated and returned to fighting condition...

They might accomplish it with next to no casualties!

Mu Qingyao stared at Damian’s back, her heart surging with waves.

If his products could create this kind of change among Body Tempering cultivators...

What about Qi Condensation?

Foundation Establishment?

Her breathing changed slightly.

What about...

Golden Core?

Beside her, Shen Xueyi’s beautiful face became equally complicated.

The same question had clearly occurred to her.

Damian had entered their world with ’medicine’, and that was what everyone originally called it.

Useful foreign medicine.

Then, the medicine became strategic goods, then strategic goods became methods capable of healing damaged foundations, purging Corpse Qi, and restoring entire battlefronts.

Now those same products were changing wars.

And Damian himself kept producing more, learning more, and growing even faster.

Both women looked at him silently.

This man...

Just what couldn’t Damian Baines do?

............

On the opposite side, the atmosphere was considerably less inspirational.

Tang Yuyen looked like she wanted to murder the concept of water itself.

"What the hell is that nefarious liquid?!" she snarled.

"And those medicines! Why are wounded Grass Munchers standing back up?!" She demanded, her eyes wide from her livid fury.

Nobody answered, mostly because nobody knew.

Fang Lu was no longer fantasizing.

His expression had become deeply gloomy as his earlier lust vanished beneath actual thought.

The man was disgusting, but he was not stupid.

More importantly, Fang Lu possessed the perfectly healthy survival instincts of someone who enjoyed bullying people weaker than himself.

When Damian Baines had merely been some uncertified entry-level Qi Condensation cultivator?

Annoying... so kill him!

When stories began circulating about strange Daoist methods that countered the Nightmare Corpse Sect?

Meh, probably exaggerated.

So kill him carefully!

Now Fang Lu was personally watching hundreds of Evergreen disciples use Damian’s mysterious goods to overturn a battlefield advantage the Nightmare Corpse Sect had enjoyed for years.

That changed things.

His eyes flicked toward Damian, then away.

This man was dangerous, formidable, and potentially troublesome enough that perhaps someone else should test the waters first.

Yes...

That sounded much better!

Ning Ruomei’s mood was worse than either of theirs.

Because unlike them...

She already knew about the Vials.

Long before today, she had managed to secretly obtain samples and send them back to her father.

Damian had destroyed her Refined Corpse Puppet during their first encounter, but that did not erase everything she had accomplished while infiltrating Evergreen territory.

Without physical proof, why would Xie Man place so much weight behind his daughter’s outrageous claims?

She still remembered the day he examined those strange bottles.

Her father’s expression had darkened with every passing moment.

Then came his warning.

If Damian Baines was not dealt with quickly...

In at least a week, and in a month at the absolute latest, the man could become the destruction of the Nightmare Corpse Sect!

Ning Ruomei had understood his caution and had even agreed.

But somewhere deep inside, she had still wondered whether her father was exaggerating.

Damian was dangerous certainly.

Yet sects did not collapse overnight because one strange man possessed unusual medicine and magic.

Right?

Ning Ruomei stared at the battlefield.

Four days.

It had been roughly four days since Damian’s presence truly began influencing the Azure Water Sector.

And already...

The entire balance of power among their Body Tempering disciples had flipped!

The Nightmare Corpse Sect’s signature advantage at this level had transformed into a weakness!

Now, Evergreen Sect disciples’ wounds could be healed and Nightmare Sect Corpse Qi infection could be purged.

Heck, even that blasted water could then be turned around and used offensively against the very disciples whose cultivation relied upon Corpse Qi!

If this spread to every battlefront...

If Damian increased production...

If he adapted stronger versions for Qi Condensation...

Foundation Establishment...

Ning Ruomei’s fingers tightened.

Her playful smile had disappeared completely.

No...

This could not continue!

Before today, a part of her had remained hesitant, disheartened, and even reluctant to resort to ’that’ method merely to deal with one man.

Now?

That hesitation burned away.

Her father’s warning had been entirely correct, and perhaps even a bit conservative!

Damian Baines had been here for mere days and was already changing a war that had lasted years.

If he was given months...

What would remain of the Nightmare Corpse Sect?

Ning Ruomei slowly rose from her cushions.

Her violet eyes remained fixed upon Damian across the battlefield, and a cold resolve settled inside them like frozen iron.

Damian Baines must die!!