The brewing chaos in the city square halted suddenly as if someone had hit pause on a recorded video.
The noises of screaming martial artists, screeching tree devils, the rustling of demon vines, weapons clashing, and elemental spells being unleashed—all of it stopped when Aksai chopped off the corrupted druid’s head cleanly.
The demon tree also ceased all movement.
It seemed that the tree and the corrupted druid were connected by some unknown bond. The druid’s death obviously affected the tree, causing its leaves to dry, its branches to shrink, and its vines to contract.
The isolation barrier, which had already contracted to only cover the city square, completely dispersed after the druid’s death. From vantage points, people could now see the entire city and even areas outside the city walls.
“What… what happened just now?” mumbled one martial artist, unsure of himself.
“Why aren’t these damned twigs attacking us?” sounded the voice of an unhappy warrior who was just beginning to enjoy his death duel with his opponents.
“Is… it is over?” asked a woman archer to herself as she looked around herself for answers.
All the martial artists were shocked and confused. They looked at each other with complicated expressions as their tree devil opponents either stood motionless or crashed lifelessly to the ground.
The martial arts masters who led the groups of Serenity Peak’s fighting force all looked in Aksai’s direction. They knew that only Aksai could pull off something like this.
By this point, the surviving martial artists were all looking at Aksai with a mix of complex emotions. Some felt gratitude for ending their nightmare so early, while others felt he was responsible for the deaths that occurred because of the all-out war against the tree devils.
One had to acknowledge that by pushing for an all-out war and creating an ideal environment for it, Aksai had saved thousands of lives in the long run. The number of casualties in Serenity Peak would have been much higher if the citizens had simply waited for the Devil’s Den to disperse on its own.
Not to mention the fact that Aksai had let the non-fighting human resource of Serenity Peak escape early. This was the first time in Sharang’s known history that so many mortals had survived the Devil’s Den incident.
***
At the same time…
‘Finally, it’s over,’ Aksai thought to himself, taking a breath of relief. He then looked at the spectral notification in front of him with a stressed expression.
[Abnormal status detected.]
[Estimated remaining lifespan: 7 years]
‘Fu*k! It’s not turning back to normal even after I killed him. Did this bastard really shave almost 100 years off my life?’
Aksai looked at the severed head of the druid with anger and frustration. He lifted his leg and stomped on the severed head using his silvery qi-coated leg, making it explode like a watermelon.
If Aksai didn’t need to take bloodline samples from the druid’s body, he would have destroyed that too in anger.
Aksai realized that the druid’s curse was very strange. He physically felt fine and there were no signs of aging. However, thanks to his body cultivation, he could tell that something was wrong with his qi essence.
Most of it was dispersing into thin air as soon as he tried to use it. It was clear that the druid’s curse had affected the very essence of Aksai’s being. It had rewritten the rules of the mortal vessel, making Aksai’s eventual death after seven years seem more like a natural phenomenon than a sudden demise caused by external factors.
Curses like these were dangerous because there was hardly any way to cure them. How could one cure something when the target’s body treated the symptoms as a natural state?
‘This battle cost me a lot,’ Aksai thought to himself and sighed as he looked at the limited lifespan displayed on the spectral screen and the mangled bodies of all the Scarecrow Fiends scattered around him. He also felt a bit of fear for his life. However, this was not the time to process those feelings.
All of the puppets Aksai had created with meticulous care were destroyed in this battle. Not even Nesha and Lian, the sword-wielding duo who had been with Aksai for a long time, survived.
There was no way for Aksai to fix any of the Scarecrow puppets. Or rather, making new Scarecrow puppets was a better choice for Aksai considering the kind of damages the old ones had suffered.
‘I shouldn’t dilly-dally here. It’s time to leave Martial World Sharang for a while.’
Aksai thought to himself, clenching his fists. He was seriously injured and out of breath. His mana reserves were almost exhausted.
As an Argent realm martial artist, Aksai now had access to silver qi, which was more powerful than bronze qi. However, he felt that he couldn’t make proper use of the silver qi because of the druid’s curse acting on him.
Aksai could feel that the curse would have manifested itself on his body if it wasn’t for the fact that he was an Argent Body martial artist. Though the breakthrough into the 2nd body cultivation realm and then immediately getting cursed was a bittersweet moment for Aksai, he didn’t have a shred of doubt that he had done his best.
Aksai’s trump cards had been used up in the battle. Even the Flying Lian Sword was damaged, and almost all his offensive and defensive talismans were exhausted.
The healing pills had also been expended. Aksai also did not have any offensive Spirit Spell scrolls anymore.
Aksai knew that the one-eyed man and the gray-eyed woman from Grand Martial Hall would probably contact Grand Martial Hall’s headquarters soon, intending to convince the main branch to apprehend Aksai for using the sect’s Martial Compendium to achieve a breakthrough.
After all, he had forced them to give him that manual. Aksai wasn’t foolish enough to believe that those elders from a big sect would let Aksai go just like that just because they were forced to fight with him.
In short, Aksai was in a precarious situation. If any of the martial arts masters decided to attack him in his current state, they might be able to neutralize him.
Aksai didn’t want to give anyone a chance to attack him for their own selfish reasons. Thus, he decided to leave immediately.