Chapter 23: The Tool
Mu Xiao burst out of the underground tunnel, her war scythe inadvertently severing a few banana leaves as she charged forward. Mid-sprint, she suddenly leaped, and a slashing beam flew beneath her feet, cutting down a large swath of trees ahead.
Mu Xiao swung her scythe, shattering the falling giant trees, and slipped through the gaps in the splintered wood.
*Blade Path: Azure Demon.*
*Clang!*
A cyan-blue slashing beam whizzed past Mu Xiao's ear. She tilted her head sharply, a few strands of hair severed.
*Bang!*
Mu Xiao broke through a layer of airburst as Su Xiao's straight kick sent her flying. Midair, specks of blood spilled from her mouth, her lower abdomen completely numb.
*Blade Path: Extreme.*
*Original Sin: Desire Embrace.*
A surge of red energy erupted from within Mu Xiao, quickly forming a phantom of herself before lunging at Su Xiao.
*Thud.* The red phantom exploded, and a cold gleam of light slashed out from the crimson mist.
*Clang! Clang, clang, clang!*
After blocking four consecutive strikes, Mu Xiao leaped backward. Another slashing beam grazed her shoulder as it passed.
*Pfft.*
The long blade pierced through Mu Xiao's lower abdomen. She inhaled sharply, her body dissolving into red mist. Su Xiao's sideways slash cut through empty air.
Seeing this, Su Xiao crouched low, thrusting his long blade into the dirt.
*Blade Path: Time.*
*Thoom~*
A shockwave radiated outward. Su Xiao drew his blade and charged to the right, sprinting at full speed for over ten seconds before Mu Xiao's retreating figure appeared ahead.
"This monster."
Mu Xiao was determined to escape. She desperately needed a quiet place to sense what changes had occurred in her body and what the faint red mark on her back meant.
Mu Xiao fled ahead while Su Xiao pursued from behind. In terms of pure speed, Su Xiao was faster than Mu Xiao. The passive effect of Azure Shadow King greatly enhanced speed.
The wind howled past his ears. Five seconds later, Su Xiao delivered a few cross-slashing strikes. Blood splattered across Mu Xiao's back. Mid-dash, Mu Xiao was stunned—the enemy hadn't unleashed a blade beam, yet he had struck her from several meters away.
Su Xiao stopped in place, sheathed his blade, and held it upright before him. He closed his eyes.
*Blade Path: Flow.*
A wind scar slashed forward, instantly catching up to the fleeing Mu Xiao. Trees along the path snapped in half.
In the midst of high-speed flight, a gush of blood burst open across Mu Xiao's back. The wound was deep. With this single strike, Mu Xiao's health plummeted by 70%! She nearly collapsed from severe injury. If it had been the complete version of Heavenly Flow, she might have died instantly.
Mu Xiao didn't stop. Her wounds healed at a visible rate. This wasn't her own regenerative ability but a life-saving potion she carried. When she was bombarded by Apollo earlier, she had tried to use it to survive, but the bottle had evaporated before she could drink it.
Mu Xiao's escape route was deliberate. After another two hundred meters, three contractors appeared ahead, also sprinting. They had sensed the chase between Mu Xiao and Su Xiao and were drawn by the explosion, mistakenly thinking someone was besieging a Overlord creature nearby.
Mu Xiao turned into a blur, appearing among the three contractors.
"We're survivors!"
*Original Sin: Desire Blood Dance.*
Her war scythe spun in a circular arc several times. The three contractors froze in place. Mu Xiao, ranked fifty-seventh in the Tree Arena, was nearly driven to despair by Su Xiao, but against these three Apocalypse Paradise contractors, her ultimate move, Desire Blood Dance, killed them instantly.
Blood hung still around Mu Xiao. Her war scythe vanished as she waved both hands.
*Whoosh.* Nearly thirty Soul Crystals (Complete) scattered around the area. Metal threads stretched out, suspending the crystals in midair, tightly constricting them. If the threads were impacted or slashed, they would shatter the thirty-two Soul Crystals (Complete). Though valuable, Soul Crystals were not hard objects.
Mu Xiao had used a last-minute technique: the Soul Crystal life-saving trick.
Blood gathered, quickly forming threads. These blood threads twisted together like braided rope, binding Mu Xiao at the center.
Once the blood threads were braided into a single strand, they pulled upward and dissipated into the air, along with Mu Xiao herself.
Just before Mu Xiao vanished, Banishment pierced into her lower abdomen.
Not far away, Su Xiao stopped. His eyes flickered with blue light as he clenched his hand. A pained groan echoed. Mu Xiao disappeared, and the fragmented form of Banishment floated in midair, stained with blood.
Over ten kilometers away, Mu Xiao and the blood threads reappeared simultaneously. She collapsed to the ground, vomiting a large mouthful of blood, even containing fragments of internal organs.
"So ruthless, bastard. After all, I let you watch the whole way."
Mu Xiao pulled up her skirt-like top, covering her front, then tied the fabric at the back of her neck, shielding her upper body.
"Cough, cough~"
Mu Xiao crawled to a sky-reaching tree, leaning against its trunk. Blood dripped from her chin. She took a potion from her storage space and was about to pour it into her mouth when a cold gleam flashed.
A hint of despair flickered in Mu Xiao's eyes. Footsteps came from her right.
"Bastard, way too ridiculously strong."
Mu Xiao extended her perception, then her expression turned strange.
"Beautiful lady, even flattery won't help you."
A male contractor in a hood, wielding twin blades, approached.
"I thought it was that guy."
Covered in blood, Mu Xiao stood up, stretching her stinging neck. When she was hit with the blade hilt earlier, she thought her neck was broken.
"Give up. With only 15% health left, what can you do? How about a deal? Leave behind more than half your equipment, sign a contract, and I'll let you live."
The twin-blade man lunged forward, planning to slash Mu Xiao to near death before handling her slowly.
Half a minute later, Mu Xiao stood with one foot on the twin-blade man's back shoulder. Her blood-red war scythe hooked around his neck. She yanked the scythe, and a head flew off.
"Scared me half to death. Thought that guy had caught up."
Mu Xiao kicked the headless corpse aside and stepped into the dense forest. She had successfully exited combat.
A few minutes later, with a loud crash, Su Xiao landed nearby. Dead leaves scattered. He scanned the area, finding only a headless corpse and a string of words written in blood on a nearby tree.
*'The illusionist is Gray Gentleman's tool. Gray Gentleman's control has been severed. Tracking Gray Gentleman's trail failed.'*
This was left by Mu Xiao. Seeing this and recalling her identity as a survivor, Su Xiao pieced together many things.
Given Mu Xiao's strength, her becoming a survivor was somewhat inexplicable. Tank Man, Gourmet, and Gaskell were all Hunters. Among the three, Mu Xiao's strength was middling; she should have been forcibly turned into a Hunter as well.
When strength reached a certain level, one was forcibly made a Hunter. Only a few people in this world knew this information, and Su Xiao was one of them.
Based on Su Xiao's speculation, Mu Xiao was likely something akin to an Assassin in Holy Light Paradise. She entered this survival trial not to participate but to find traces of Gray Gentleman through the illusionist. Thus, Holy Light Paradise used some initial clause to make her a survivor.
The illusionist was controlled by Gray Gentleman, but for some reason, this control was interrupted. Gray Gentleman switched to ability empowerment, letting the illusionist move freely in this world. This made the illusionist's cheat abilities work intermittently, seemingly mysterious, but the weakness of a tool was exposed. Without Gray Gentleman's remote command, he was clueless about what to do next.
Regardless, any benefits the illusionist, as a tool, gained ultimately belonged to Gray Gentleman.
Mu Xiao took advantage of Gray Gentleman's inability to control the illusionist, approached him, and joined his team. Her method of proving her identity was simple and crude—after all, she was a genuine survivor.
During this time, Mu Xiao directly stated that she knew the illusionist was Gray Gentleman's subordinate and that if Gray Gentleman had any plans, she could participate, but she didn't want to become a sacrifice for that old schemer.
In reality, the illusionist was also panicking. He felt Gray Gentleman might have abandoned him. He merely pretended to be calm, trying to mimic Gray Gentleman's behavior patterns, but ended up failing. Mu Xiao's powerful combat strength and the temporary abilities Gray Gentleman had granted gave the illusionist hope. In the end, that hope was shattered by four Apollo bombs.
"More troublesome than Fei Shi."
Su Xiao walked toward Rain Throat Tribe. In his view, Gray Gentleman was difficult to deal with not because of his strength but because of his methods of acquiring resources. That guy likely never entered any world personally but manipulated tools to gather resources. How many puppets he had was still unknown.
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