Chapter 427: Head-on Clash!
Qin Lie had never seen Song Tingyu in such a terrible state.
She had obviously been tainted by a deadly poison. Her face was pale, her eyes were dim, and there were black tendrils of smoke leaking from deep within her pupils.
Her life force was gradually fading. It was clear that she could not cure what was happening to her.
This was not the Song Tingyu that Qin Lie used to know.
“What happened?” Qin Lie asked as calmly as he could, struggling to suppress the anger and murderous intent in his heart. “What happened to you and Xie Jingxuan while I was gone? Why is the Black Voodoo Cult chasing you?”
“Let’s go! We’ll speak after we get out of here!” Song Tingyu said hurriedly.
“We can’t escape,” Qin Lie said with a grim expression. He pulled out the Black Voodoo Cult token from his waist and shook it before her eyes, “They can lock us down through this token.”
“Just throw it away then!” Song Tingyu said urgently.
“Some problems can’t be solved by just running away. Leave these three Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners to me,” Qin Lie said murderously.
“Don’t! You’re no match for them. These Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners are extremely powerful. Even the Terminator Profound Bombs might not work against them!” Song Tingyu begged, shaking her head repeatedly. “Trust me, you’re definitely not their match. Let’s leave already. I’ve thrown my sword token away and it won’t be easy for them to find me. If you throw this token away right now, we might be able to escape from them. I’ll tell you everything once we get out of here. Quickly!”
A shrill howl suddenly rang out from the Black Voodoo Cult token in Qin Lie’s hand. A shadow garbed in a long, dark robe on the face of the token howled like a terrifying demon.
When the howl started, the black tendrils in Song Tingyu’s eyes grew even darker and more frightening.
“Uaahh!” Song Tingyu’s body began to violently shake once more. She couldn’t resist howling in pain as she curled into herself, hugging her knees with her hands. She rolled on the ground, spasming in pain from time to time.
“Throw it away! Throw it away! Stop the screaming, I can’t take it anymore!” Song Tingyu cried at the top of her lungs.
Qin Lie hastily put the token into his spatial ring.
The second that the howl from the Black Voodoo Cult token stopped, Song Tingyu’s horrible cries subsided.
Her rose-red dress was smeared with soil. Beads of sweat dripped down her face as she repeatedly panted and regained her composure. Even her voice had become raspy. “Leave me, Qin Lie. Escape on your own. I’ve been poisoned by the Black Voodoo Cult’s voodoo toxin. I don’t have much time. If I stay with you, I’ll just be dragging you down.”
“I’ll find a cure, I swear! No matter what I have to do, no matter what the cost, I will definitely get you the cure!” Qin Lie roared like a trapped beast.
He suddenly took Terminator Profound Bombs out of his spatial ring. He took out nine of them in total, hiding them in the soil, the grass, the leaves, and between the tree trunks.
“Go and hide for now!” Qin Lie pointed in a direction.
“It’s useless. The explosive power of the Terminator Profound Bombs is too spread out. The Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners all possess sharp soul perception. The second they enter this area, they’ll immediately sense the thunder energy,” Song Tingyu said, trying to convince him, and attempted to pull him away. “Out of the three people chasing me, two are in the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm and one is in the late stage of the Netherpassage Realm. All three of them wield extremely high rank spirit artifacts, and the spirit arts they cultivate are also extremely bizarre. If they catch you off guard and poison you with their voodoo toxin, you’ll quickly lose your life energy just like I currently am.”
Song Tingyu was extremely terrified of the Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners and didn’t believe that Qin Lie could go up against them. She just wanted to stay as far away from them as possible and spend the rest of the time she had in peace.
“Don’t worry. I might not necessarily lose. I won’t be the one who dies in this fight!” Qin Lie said with a frosty expression.
“You won’t change your mind?” Song Tingyu glared at him angrily. “Qin Lie! These Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners are far scarier than I, Xie Jingxuan, Zhao Xuan, or Zhao Chendong! I’m serious, you aren’t a match for them! Trust me, if we escape right now, you can still live through this!”
“It’s too late. They’re about to reach us. I’d like to see what kind of people they are for myself!” Qin Lie yelled.
Song Tingyu went silent.
She no longer tried to persuade him. She seemed to have come to terms with the situation. With both her mind and body severely damaged at this point, she was resigned to her fate.
Surprisingly, all traces of urgency had vanished from her face. In fact, she even appeared somewhat serene.
“Qin Lie, there’s something I want to ask you,” she said softly.
“Tell me.” Qin Lie stood beneath a huge tree, facing the direction that the Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners were coming from. His expression was cold, and his eyes shone with a terrifying killing intent.
“Have you… have you ever… loved me?” Song Tingyu lowered her head. Her voice and her shoulders trembled in unison.
“Stay focused. You’ll be fine. I swear, I’ll definitely save you!” Qin Lie exclaimed in a reassuring tone.
Song Tingyu raised her head, her beautiful face twisting in a helpless smile. “I disagree. Even if these three Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners don’t come after me, I wouldn’t live for more than half a month. Tell me, Qin Lie. Have you ever loved me? Yes or no?”
“Yes!” Qin Lie practically yelled through clenched teeth.
A dim light appeared in Song Tingyu’s sickly eyes. Her pale face reddened a tiny bit as she smiled softly and nodded, saying, “That’s wonderful…”
“Sasasa!”
The rustling of leaves suddenly came from afar, indicating that someone was running through the trees. A cold, dark aura spread toward Qin Lie and Song Tingyu like a cold, invisible mist.
“They’re coming. I can feel them getting closer and closer…”
Song Tingyu felt cold. She subconsciously gripped her clothing tighter as her voice lost its usual charm and became kind of forlorn.
Qin Lie’s eyes grew more and more bloodshot.
“Thump thump! Thump thump!”
His heart beat out of his chest at a constant rhythm. The three drops of refined Qilin blood in the area of his heart and abdomen began to boil. The fire in them, which was shaped like a Qilin, began to gradually burn as if it were ignited.
Qin Lie had activated the power of the blood in advance!
“Zzzt! Rrrmb!”
Thunder and lightning rumbled from within his bones. The Astral Thunder Hammer in his hand crawled with thick strands lightning, just waiting to be unleashed.
A few minutes later.
Three men garbed in long, black robes, whose bodies, necks, and even faces were covered in black, suddenly appeared like ghosts.
Three pairs of cold, merciless eyes shone with a terrifyingly cold light from within the robes.
They all stared at the eager Qin Lie.
“Who are you?” asked the taller man in the center of the three. “You’re not from the Black Voodoo Cult. Where did you get your hands on that token?”
His voice sounded like weapons grating against one another. It was an unspeakably sharp, ugly sound.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that I will have three new Black Voodoo Cult tokens very soon,” Qin Lie said grimly.
“Yu Xi, Yu Jie, one of you kill him while the other captures that woman,” the man said impatiently. He did not wish to waste even a breath on such nonsense.
The two Black Voodoo Cult martial practitioners beside the man rushed at Qin Lie and Song Tingyu like two black ghosts.
The one that charged at Qin Lie suddenly began to strangely shake mid-flight.
Wisps of mist that were as pitch black as ink, twisting and writhing like black, venomous snakes, shot from his black robe and streaked toward Qin Lie. They resembled bolts of lightning size of a finger and were more than a dozen meters long.
A dark, evil and eerie aura spread from the black mist. Qin Lie felt an icy, bone-chilling cold even though the mist was still a hundred meters away from him.
“Hehe!” The man laughed softly as an illusory shadow appeared from his icy cold eyes hidden within the black robe.
Like invisible tentacles, an extremely invasive energy shot from the man’s eyes and headed straight for Qin Lie’s mind.
A poisonous centipede with a hundred feet suddenly appeared in Qin Lie’s mind out of nowhere. The centipede was completely black, and a sported a pair of small black wings. It nimbly slid through his mind and dove into his Soul Lake.
The hundred-foot centipede was dozens of meters long. It was an evil secret art formed from fragmented souls. It leaked a dark aura as it savagely bit and tore at Qin Lie’s True Soul.
It was there to tear Qin Lie’s soul apart!
“Absolutely pathetic.” The man shook his head, his icy cold eyes overflowing with disdain. “He does not even know how to form a defense with his soul consciousness during combat. His mind is weak like paper, and he has no experience with soul combat. Heh... he’s even lousier than that woman. At the least she managed to endure for a long time. If the voodoo toxin hadn’t seeped into her soul, she would’ve been a little difficult to handle.”
“Shut up with your nonsense! Deal with him quickly and stop causing trouble for me!” the leader yelled impatiently.
“With pleasure,” the person who was charging at Qin Lie answer casually.
“Thunder energy! Your feet! Beneath your feet!” the leader suddenly screamed.
As they approached Qin Lie and Song Tingyu, the two black-robed martial practitioners sensed the abnormality.
At this moment, they were still around a dozen meters away from Qin Lie and Song Tingyu. Their eyes showed panic as they hastily retreated.
“God dammit! This guy’s from Terminator Sect! It’s the Terminator Profound Bomb!” the leader roared angrily.
In the middle of his angry roar, the space between him and Qin Lie collapsed, and an abnormal pattern appeared out of nowhere. It looked as if space itself had been cut to pieces.
Countless bolts of lightning and thunder energy instantly exploded.
The ground was blown apart and dust flew everywhere. The ancient trees were immediately reduced to ash.
Two figures that were covered in blood flew out of the explosion. Their bodies were covered in a black light that continuously collapsed and reformed.
At the same time.
Thick bolts of lightning appeared within Qin Lie’s mind, instantly covering his Soul Lake.
The gigantic centipede struggled violently amidst the thunderous blasts, its hundred feet wiggling in vain until it gradually faded and disappeared like smoke.