Chapter 270 — A Duel of Healing Hands
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
" The Imperial Preceptor shook his head. "Within the borders of Jingping there are indeed several dozen Sect Master-level experts, but it would be hard to make every one of them serve my purpose. Two divine physicians, one of you uses poison and one uses medicine; perhaps you may complement each other. " Shen Mu glanced at Little Poison King, and Little Poison King glanced back.
"My master, the Jade-Faced Poison King, was supreme in both medicine and poison. He could use medicine to strengthen poison, and poison to strengthen medicine. " Little Poison King said: "By how many times can you strengthen my poison?
" Shen Mu said coldly: "That depends on how fierce Senior Brother's poison is.
I can use medicine to greatly replenish His Majesty's vital essence and raise His Majesty's life force, so that His Majesty's life force and vital essence heal the repository's wounds on their own. Just how fierce is your poison, then, that it can raise the vital essence and life force in my medicine thirty or fifty times over?
" "As fierce as you like!
" Little Poison King said coldly: "I fear your tonic cannot withstand my virulent poison! To refine away the remnants of god arts for the Imperial Preceptor, I must raise the toxicity of the power-dissolving spirit silk thirty or fifty times before it can dissolve the god's remnants. With poison that strong, even a god could be poisoned to death, could be dissolved into a skeleton. Do you have that skill?
" Shen Mu gritted his teeth.
"We can try. " One by one the poisonous insects crawled out of Emperor Yanfeng's body and back into the lumps on Little Poison King's face and hands. "You cannot refine such a medicine, and I will poison you to death. " He laughed with a chuckle.
Shen Mu's expression was calm.
"If you use the wrong poison, I will beg the Emperor to spare your life and take you back to the Wilderness Ruins.
" Little Poison King's face changed sharply.
He gave a cold snort, picked up a brush, and wrote down a string of poison names.
Shen Mu wrote out a pill formula as well.
"Your Majesty, have someone fetch the medicines!
" The two threw down their brushes and sat in silence.
Emperor Yanfeng and the Imperial Preceptor looked at each other. These two had frightful tempers; by no sign did they look like men intending to heal anyone, but rather like men after their lives.
Emperor Yanfeng coughed and summoned several imperial physicians waiting outside the hall.
"Fetch the medicines at once.
" The imperial physicians hurried off with the formulas.
"Your medicine is fierce indeed," Little Poison King said with a savage grin. Shen Mu ignored him. After a long while the imperial physicians finally brought all the poisons and tonics they required. Shen Mu set to work at once, refining the medicinal powers and driving the Mystic Body Three Elixir Art; at one moment he took the form of the Flaming Delusion Star Lord with an ox's head and human body, at another the Great White Star Lord with a tiger's head and human body, then the Chrono Star Lord, the Year Star Lord, the Suppressing Star Lord, his form shifting, his vital essence shifting, cultivating out all the various medicinal powers. Little Poison King, for his part, used poisons to raise his insects: he fed the insects virulent things, then used the insects to refine poison pills, then fed the poison pills back to the insects, repeating again and again, until at last he raised a great spider, dark and heavy with red eyes, whose poisonous aura condensed around it and did not disperse.