Stranger Danger

Chapter 89: Servant of Fear

Unfortunately, Ye Qing had just taken a few steps when Yan Yufei called out to him from behind. “What are you doing, Joyless? Get over here and help us already!”

“...”

Ye Qing paused and felt a wave of exasperation. Your talent is wasted being a magistrate, Lord Yan! With eyes like yours, you should’ve been a thief instead!

Ye Qing wasn’t going to give up without a fight though. While muttering, “Oh wow, the battlefield is so loud, I can’t hear anything…” he resumed his footsteps and strode toward the nearest exit as quickly as he could. This time though, he had barely taken a step when Yan Yufei came again like a mother urging her son to do his housework, or else:

“I know you can hear me, Joyless! Get over here already!”

“Dammit! Who said that only the wicked get no rest?” Ye Qing had no choice but to turn around and shoot Yan Yufei a sulky look. Just because we’re bros doesn’t mean I work for free!

There was no escaping his fate though. Even if Yan Yufei wasn’t staring at him like a hawk, Ling Jianqiu had turned around to look at him as well. He was literally being peer pressured to assist, and he was in no position to say no. No wonder people said that the reward for good work was more work!

“At your service, my lords!” Ye Qing replied reluctantly while turning around and walking back to the duo.

After Ye Qing had gotten close to them, Ling Jianqiu stared at him for a bit before saying in his usual cool voice, “We meet again, Ye Qing. You’re a good man. You are the main reason we are able to wipe out these animals and save Anyang from destruction. We will never forget your contribution!”

“You flatter me, Chief Ling. It’s my natural responsibility!” Ye Qing responded with a respectful salute.

Clearly, Yan Yufei had told Ling Jianqiu everything. It wasn’t surprising though. There was no way the magistrate could have set up this ambush without going through Ling Jianqiu first.

“Leave the conversation for later, you two. We still have a difficult fight ahead of us!” Yan Yufei interrupted before waving his hand and causing the world to shudder. As the Seal of the Land fell toward the Servant of Fear with great speed, he chanted,

“The earth howls, and the mountains shake with fury!”

An ink wash painting of a meandering mountain range appeared in the sky and crashed down on the Servant of Fear. Everything within ten meters of the Servant of Fear—the floor and the transformed Strangers protecting them—immediately flattened like pancakes as if they had been crushed by a true mountain range.

The Servant of Fear themselves were perfectly fine, however. Their face kept alternating between male, female and both, and the eyes on their tentacles and warts opened and closed seemingly at random. In response to Yan Yufei’s attack, they unleashed some sort of inexplicable influence that instantly filled the magistrate’s mind with all kinds of terrifying and unspeakable images. Not only that, the mental pollution also caused his face to grow reddish flesh buds once more. It was horrifying to put it mildly.

Shing!

Ling Jianqiu’s sword rang melodiously and severed the evil influence in one strike. Then, the Chief of Bureau pointed his sword at the Servant of Fear and channeled his true qi. The sky abruptly cleared up, and frigid autumn wind blew unrelentingly across the area. It was no winter, and yet it certainly felt like the beginning of one.

The sky looked empty, but that was only if you were looking for physical objects. In reality, the autumn wind was a sword, and the frigid air was a sword as well. This meant that there were really swords everywhere. This was the power of Ling Jianqiu’s sword, Cold Autumn. “When Cold Autumn sings, the sky weeps, and the land speaks of coldness and desolation.”

As if sensing true danger from Ling Jianqiu, Servant of Fear abruptly grew a lot more tentacles and flailed them everywhere like crazy. They were trying to prevent Ling Jianqiu from turning the air around it into swords and damaging them.

Shing shing shing!

Despite its best efforts, invisible swords continued to manifest into existence and cut into the slimy tentacles from every direction. Instead of blood, the Servant of Fear bled a kind filthy, smelly yellow liquid that resembled pus water.

The rain of swords was unending, and the tentacles took more and more damage as time passed. However, there were so many tentacles that most of the sword energies failed to hit the Servant of Fear’s body. Not only that, the spilling pus left strange ripples in the air that washed over Ling Jianqiu and caused his face to grow fleshy buds as well. As a result, his attack grew weaker and weaker.

When the Servant of Fear noticed that Ling Jianqiu’s attacks had weakened, they started withdrawing their tentacles as if to catch a breath. It was at this moment several Blood Shadows appeared seemingly out of nowhere and easily cut through their body like hot knives through butter.

“Is it dead?” Ye Qing wondered out loud. The Blood Shadows were his doing, of course. There was a lull between the Servant of Fear’s movements after repelling Ling Jianqiu’s powerful attack, and he did not hesitate to exploit the opening to deal them a fatal blow. But despite his comment, he did not think he succeeded. Most Strangers were incredibly hard to kill, and he did not think that a powerful one like the Servant of Fear would go down so easily. He was right.

“It’s still alive! Watch out!” Ling Jianqiu warned. As expected, the severed pieces of flesh on the ground abruptly grew scarlet buds and reconnected with one another before they could react. A second later, it was like the Servant of Fear had never taken a mortal blow.

As soon as the Servant of Fear had revived, they immediately wheeled around and stared at Ye Qing with every eye on their body. In that instant, the surrounding air turned as cold as ice, and Ye Qing felt a chill up his spine. At the same time, countless terrifying and bizarre images started playing in his head.

He saw mountains and mountains of corpses floating above a sea of blood…

He saw countless ghosts and other spectral entities screaming endlessly into the void…

He saw people fighting and killing each other in a war that never ends…

As the terrifying illusions polluted his mind and spirit, Ye Qing started growing fleshy buds from his body parts just like Yan Yufei and Ling Jianqiu.

“mental pollution? No wonder it’s so difficult to defend against!” he exclaimed in realization. Clearly, the Servant of Fear’s main method of attack was to corrupt its victims’ mind and spirit with unspeakable illusions.

Ye Qing immediately put his hand on his forehead and visualized the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method”. The great emperor immediately manifested inside his head and unleashed his light, causing the illusions to melt away like snow. The fleshy buds on his face also disappeared in response.

“Lord Yan, Chief Ling, I think I can kill this Stranger, but I need you to draw its attention and buy me as much time as possible!”

“Got it!” Yan Yufei and Ling Jianqiu responded immediately. On the surface, it looked like the Servant of Fear’s methods were incredibly basic. They relied solely on mental pollution to kill its enemies, and their physical body—as the Blood Shadows had proven—was very frail. Theoretically, they only needed to get close to the Servant of Fear to kill them.

The problem was that they couldn’t get close. At a certain range, the mental pollution became so strong that it was simply impossible to bear. They would transform into monsters long before they killed the Stranger.

Neither Yan Yufei nor Ling Jianqiu knew how Ye Qing was going to defeat the Servant of Fear, but they saw no reason to disbelieve his words. Few people would gamble their life away on a whim after all. Without hesitation, both men renewed their attack on the Servant of Fear once more. Yan Yufei channeled the power of nature through the Seal of the Land, while Ling Jianqiu fired sword qi after sword qi at the Servant of Fear.

Ling Jianqiu’s attacks weren’t nearly as flashy as Yan Yufei’s. In fact, his techniques looked incredibly simplistic. A basic thrust here, a basic slash there. However, when someone had reached a certain level in their martial arts, one did not need complex moves to unleash tremendous power. In Ling Jianqiu’s case, he only needed a basic slash to fire thousands and thousands of sword qi at the Servant of Fear.

The two men worked well together even though they hadn’t fought alongside each other for long. They were able to force the Servant of Fear to waste energy and occupy most of their attention.

Meanwhile, Ye Qing was running circles around the Servant of Fear at an insane speed. At first glance it looked like the young man was fooling around, but in reality every revolution brought just a little closer to the Servant of Fear. There were two reasons why he was approaching the Stranger in such a roundabout manner: One, the power of the mental pollution wasn’t always consistent. Ye Qing had noticed that there were “gaps” in the all-encompassing influence that he could slip through. A couple of tests later, he determined that it was easier for him to approach the Servant of Fear by slipping through these gaps than it was to charge in a straight line and bear the full brunt of their mental pollution. And two, he didn’t want to draw the Servant of Fear’s attention unnecessarily.

Even so, the strength of the mental pollution was increasing steadily. At the beginning, the illusions entered his head at just the speed of a trickle. Now, it had grown to a raging river that even the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” could not stem completely. It continuously ate away at his consciousness and caused his body to grow fleshy buds once more. The closer he got, the longer the buds became until it looked like he was covered in red sea weeds.

“Why am I doing this to myself?” Ye Qing complained even as he pressed his hand to his forehead and visualized the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” with all he got. As the silhouette of Emperor Fuxi solidified until he looked almost tangible, most of the illusions in his head washed away like they never happened. The fleshy buds growing throughout his body had largely subsided as well. But as soon as he took a step closer, the fleshy buds grew again and forced him to focus on the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” once more.

This seesaw would repeat itself for an agonizingly long time as Ye Qing got closer and closer to the Servant of Fear. It was trying to kill grass without uprooting it from the soil. No matter how many times he repelled the illusions with the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method”, it would reappear and eat away at his mind and spirit once more.

It was working though. Thanks to the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method”, he could never fall unconscious or become overwhelmed by the mind-bending illusions. His footsteps might be agonizingly slow, but he was definitely getting closer and closer to the Stranger of Fear.

Fifteen meters…

Ten meters…

Six meters…

Greatly motivated by Ye Qing’s progress, Yan Yufei and Ling Jianqiu exerted themselves even more to keep the Servant of Fear busy and create opportunities for him. Alas, their enemy wasn’t stupid. When Ye Qing had got within three meters of the Stranger, they abruptly spun their neck around and trained their gaze on Ye Qing. The eyes on the tentacles and the warts were fully affixed on him as well. In that instant, all the alarm bells in Ye Qing’s head went off at the same time.

Rumble!

The tide of terrifying and evil illusions abruptly swelled into a tsunami. Caught off guard, Ye Qing nearly blacked out there and then even as his mind wobbled like a rowboat attempting to wade through a thunderstorm, or a candle flame trying to survive a hurricane. He knew he had seconds at most before he completely succumbed to the Servant of Fear’s influence.

“Scatter!”

Ye Qing bit down his tongue to regain just an instant of clarity before visualizing the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method” with all his might. The silhouette of Emperor Fuxi abruptly solidified, and the light of the Nine Heavens illuminated every corner of his head.

Boom!

While the light was shining at full force, the strange vehicle Emperor Fuxi stood on abruptly vanished and cut a streak across the sky. His sea of consciousness—it was almost fully black at this point due to the mental pollution—shuddered violently before threads of light abruptly appeared on its surface and stretched all the way to the bottom. Like the moon pushing away the clouds that dared to block its light, the threads boiled away at the black sea just long enough for Ye Qing to pull off his ultimate move.

“Lightning Bolt”

A bolt of lightning shot right out of his mouth.

Rumble!

Infused with the power of the Nine Heavens, the terrific sword easily tore through the Servant of Fear’s tentacles, warts and most of its body in one blow. The Stranger staggered away from him and looked up as if to let out a soundless scream.

Lightning was the bane of all spectral and evil entities, and the Servant of Fear most definitely fell under the category of evil. It was why Lightning Bolt dealt more damage to the Servant of Fear than any one of their attacks so far.

Ye Qing was a faithful believer of kicking an enemy when they were down. When the mental pollution pouring into his head abruptly slowed down due to the damage they took, he immediately stepped in front of the Servant of Fear and caught their skull with his left hand. He then said,

“Adios, friend!”

Netherflame surged out of the Blue Demon Hand and engulfed the Stranger in just the blink of an eye. The next second, the Servant of Fear was reduced to just a pile of ashes.

Bang!

Just in case, Ye Qing swung his sleeve and scattered the ash. As the saying went, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

“Lightning Bolt…”

“The Blue Demon Hand…”

Yan Yufei and Ling Jianqiu were distracted by the death of the Servant of Fear at first. The Stranger had given them a lot of trouble after all. However, they soon noticed Ye Qing’s weapons and exchanged a quick look with each other. The dots were finally starting to connect in their head.