Chapter 149 — Lethal Poison
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 5 of 8
Letting out a long foul breath, Fan Xiong, the eldest disciple taken in by the Poison God in life, flung his hand savagely and cast aside the corpse of a Ten Thousand Poisons Sect disciple whose skull he had crushed. The body flew through the air and struck with a thud upon the offering table before the mourning hall, then fell.
As though some demon laughed in the darkness, or as though to make offering to the Poison God, that demon sect master who in life had killed men like hemp—inside and outside the mourning hall where the Poison God's coffin lay, blood now ran in rivers, and the corpses of Ten Thousand Poisons Sect disciples lay everywhere.
The heavy stench of human blood hung in the air.
By now the three factions of the Poison God's three great disciples—Fan Xiong, Cheng Wuya, and Duan Rushan—had fought for several days. Apart from a few leaders of high cultivation, most of the ordinary Ten Thousand Poisons Sect disciples lay dead or wounded, and the days of strife had long since reddened the eyes of these three who fought for power; they had well-nigh fallen into madness.
In the mourning hall, upon the offering table, the box holding the Sect Master's seal still lay quietly, watching it all in cold silence.
As though weary of killing, the fighting inside and outside the hall gradually subsided, yet the tension of swords drawn and bows bent was greater than before.
The third, Duan Rushan, surrounded by four old men of grotesque appearance, light flashing fiercely in his eyes, looked at Fan Xiong and Cheng Wuya standing apart before him and sneered, "Tell me, my two shixiong, will you still not give over? Now, besides the few old fellows at your sides, whom have you left to bring out?"
Fan Xiong and Cheng Wuya exchanged a glance, each seeing in the other's bloodshot eyes a trace of despair. Since the night of the Poison God's seventh-day rites, when strange sounds had suddenly issued from the mourning hall, the three factions—already wary of one another—had at once stormed into the hall in force, each fearful of being a step too slow to stop the Sect Master's seal from being stolen.
In that chaos, as countless men rushed into the hall, naturally each took the other for having long schemed to break the pact and seize the seal, and within a few words they had fallen upon one another in battle.
And by now the outcome of the three-faction melee had gradually grown clear: the third, Duan Rushan, ever the weakest in cultivation, had by his abundant strength gradually overcome Fan Xiong and Cheng Wuya.
At this moment, apart from the fewer than ten still standing behind the two—Baodu Zi, the Old Blood-Sucking Demon, the Old Ancestor Duanmu, and the rest—they had no more pieces to play.
Duan Rushan, by contrast, had not only the Four Elders of the Poison Sect as his guard, but at least a hundred men in the open and in secret, among them many masters. Fully sixty percent of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect's long-standing strength was in Duan Rushan's hands—more than before the fighting began, truly beyond all expectation.
Seeing defeat fixed before them, Fan Xiong and Cheng Wuya's eyes were full of unwillingness, yet in the end they could say no more. At the sight of his two shixiong, Duan Rushan could not help but laugh aloud. All these years he had had two overbearing shixiong above him, and below, his master the Poison God had doted all the more on that Qin Wujiu. Only he had always been overlooked. He had endured for so many years, and now at last he could hold his head high—how could he not be wild with joy?
Duan Rushan strode forward with his nose in the air, the Four Elders of the Poison Sect guarding him on every side, while Fan Xiong and Cheng Wuya watched helplessly as he walked to the offering table and stood before the box—one clenching his fist, the other grinding his teeth with a crack, plainly hating him to the marrow.