Chapter 310 — The Venerable One Is Sagacious
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Ban Gongcuo was wild with joy—this was the sorcerer's poison he had refined in his former life, of a virulence that would make short work of Shen Mu. He at once stopped crawling and, with difficulty, turned himself about to crawl toward Shen Mu. Seeing this, Shen Mu hurriedly turned around; after a good while he finally managed to reverse himself and crawled with all his strength.
Ban Gongcuo's sorcerer's poison was fully refined, while the poison in his own hand was still half-finished; in virulence it could not match Ban Gongcuo's. "You little wretch, you're dead!
" Ban Gongcuo chased with all his might and at last caught up with Shen Mu's legs, and in a fever of excitement went to pull the stopper from the gourd's mouth; he swelled red in the face and still could not draw it out. Shen Mu thought himself certainly doomed; when he looked back, Ban Gongcuo cried out hastily, "You little wretch, you're dead! " hoping to frighten him off.
"Little Prince, you've no strength left, have you? " Shen Mu kicked out, cramming his bare foot into Ban Gongcuo's mouth, meaning to choke him to death.
Ban Gongcuo's eyes rolled white; then he hardened his heart: "I have been reincarnated so many times—would I care about this flesh being humiliated?
" He bit down hard, fastening his teeth in Shen Mu's sole. Shen Mu, stung by the pain, pulled the foot back, gave a cold laugh, smeared poison on his own foot, and made ready to stuff it into his mouth again.
While he was busy with the poison, Ban Gongcuo hastily crawled over; the two grappled together, each seizing the other by the throat—though their hands had no strength. And a divine-power practitioner of the Six Harmonies realm had a fearsome store of breath; the two strangled each other for nearly half an hour without managing to kill one another, and only spent the last shred of their own strength instead.
The two went utterly limp, only their fingers, toes and eyeballs still shifting slowly now and then. Both were straining to even out their breathing and recover a thread of vital essence, hoping to finish the other off before he recovered.
Time passed little by little; at last Shen Mu recovered a shred of strength and took out dragon saliva to smear on his wounds—to let them bleed freely, even a body forged of iron could not bear it. Ban Gongcuo, on the other side, took out a jade vial and swallowed medicine.
As a being who had lived ten thousand years, he had learned far too many things; in the art of medicine he was deeply accomplished, and in toxicology had even devised the famed sorcerer's poison that worked upon the soul.
Shen Mu glanced at him, wariness in his eyes.
Ban Gongcuo was a rare all-round talent, proficient in every discipline; though in none had he reached the very summit, still he was no small matter. Had the man been able to fuse all he had learned into one furnace, he would surely have made an appalling leap—though that, of course, was very difficult.
The present Ban Gongcuo had no hope at all of fusing his learning; brilliant as he was, his cutting edge had been worn away and his heart no longer strove forward. Nor did Ban Gongcuo press the attack further; over so many lifetimes, facing Shen Mu he still held no upper hand.
The first time he met Shen Mu he had been beaten down by him and nearly lost his life; and this time, unexpectedly, it had ended in mutual ruin once more, a real blow to his pride. Within his body lay the power of his former life; that power could not be used lightly, and he must ceaselessly raise the strength of this body and temper its foundation so that it could bear more of that power.
The power of his former life was too dreadful; the slightest carelessness would burst this present body apart. But so long as this body advanced, his cultivation would rise straight to the very summit of what the summit could reach—and so his speed of cultivation still surpassed Shen Mu's.