Nine Star Hegemon Body Art

“It’s a trap! Everyone get back!”

One of the Corrupt core disciples bellowed in shock, about to fall back.

But before he could, the ground beneath him sunk in, and countless arrows shot out of the ground. Whenever someone was struck by one of these arrows, their body would immediately explode apart.

Those arrows were Guo Ran’s original inventions. They used Yin and Yang sulfur stones to cause explosions. But these new arrows were not the same as the old explosive arrows.

Long Chen had added some extra ‘spicing’ to those arrows. That spicing was the poison from the Silver Centipede he had obtained in his exile.

The Silver Centipede’s poison was something that even a mid third rank Magical Beast would be unable to survive.

Back then, Long Chen had turned the poison to powder. He had then sealed it into little wax balls. Due to how large the poison sacs had been, he had created thousands of those little wax balls.

He had been thinking of using that powder to refine poison pills later. 

But now they had a better use. Long Chen had arranged for everyone to set up a bunch of traps.

Due to how narrow this mountain valley was, the path was only forty meters wide. So that was the optimal place to set a trap.

Long Chen had an indescribable attraction to making traps. It was just too fun to con people like this. Winning a physical battle was also enjoyable, but winning a battle of wits might be even more fun.

If you can play them to death, don’t bother beating them to death. That was the principle that Long Chen had told everyone. He had arranged for hundreds of explosive arrows to be set up underground.

In any case, Guo Ran had tens of thousands of arrows as well as countless Yin and Yang stones. In a quarter hour, he could make over a hundred more explosive arrows.

Long Chen had taken out dozens of his poisonous balls and placed them on the arrowheads of some of the explosive arrows. As soon as those explosive arrows were triggered, they would explode, breaking apart that poisonous ball.

Guo Ran’s explosive arrows didn’t actually possess that much power. But once those poison balls had been added, their power was absolutely terrifying.

When that poison ball exploded, the poison powder would immediately spread three hundred meters. If an idiot disciple were to directly breathe it in, they would immediately become light-headed, fall unconscious, and then die.

As for the smarter fellows, they actually had it worse off than the fools. The idiot disciples who directly breathed it in would at least die comfortably without feeling any pain.

But the smarter elites would immediately stop breathing as soon as they sensed the poison. Unfortunately for them, they underestimated the toxicity of the Silver Centipede’s poison.

That poison powder would act like acid when it touched their skin. Their skin would begin to corrode, and it would also be incomparably itchy, making it so people were unable to resist scratching.

Just itchiness on the skin wasn’t any problem. However, this itchiness didn’t just stop there. Their insides, their hearts, and even their souls became itchy. 

That kind of itchiness was completely irresistible. With just a couple scratches, they tore off their own skin, but that still didn’t resolve that itchiness. Some disciples even chopped off the parts of their bodies that were itchy.

Furthermore, Long Chen hadn’t just set up a single trap. On the two mountainsides, dozens of straw covers were lifted, revealing crossbows that mercilessly rained down arrows on those panicked Corrupt disciples.

“Bastards from the Corrupt path, have a taste of how amazing I, Guo Ran, am!” Guo Ran’s huge crossbow was pointed right at them, crazily shooting out and cutting off any path of retreat.

Flesh and blood splattered throughout and explosions echoed throughout the sky. A faint poisonous mist had completed covered the mountain valley.

Long Chen had long since given all the monastery’s disciples special pills that allowed them to completely ignore the Silver Centipede’s poison mist.

But as for those Corrupt disciples, even the core disciples were unable to block it. They also consumed antitoxin pills, but they were horrified to find that their antitoxin pills were unable to suppress the poison.

They all tried to run back, but more monastery disciples appeared behind them, raining down explosive arrows on them.

The most terrifying one of them would have to be Guo Ran. He quickly shot out hundreds of explosive arrows with his crossbow. When the crossbow’s ammo ran out, he directly took out a new fully-loaded crossbow.

Guo Ran was incredibly excited. In all his life, he had never been as excited as he was today.

He shot out explosive arrows without caring about the cost. His rain of arrows completely cut off any path of retreat.

“The rear’s cut off! Charge forward!”

No one knew who specifically shouted this. But seeing that there was no way for them to retreat, they once more began to charge forward ferociously.

But with the poisonous mist everywhere, they weren’t able to see their surroundings. After just moving forward thirty meters, the ground beneath them sank.

Miserable screams rang out, but those screams were extremely muffled because they came from over a hundred meters below.

That huge hole was over one hundred and fifty meters deep. That kind of depth was unable to kill these cultivators just by falling.

However, Long Chen wasn’t looking to make them die from falling. All he needed was to trap them for a couple minutes. With the Silver Centipede’s poison, they would lose all their combat ability.

Anguished cries and wails echoed throughout the battlefield. None of them could clearly see the situation. But the sound of the explosive arrows behind them overpowered the screaming from ahead, and the Corrupt disciples continued charging.

And the result was that as they went all-out charging forward, they all ended up falling into a deep hole.

The people who had fallen inside first hadn’t died from the drop. As a result, the people behind them smashed into them heavily.

They shouted loudly in warning, but it was useless. Due to the mist and dust filling the air, the disciples behind them couldn’t see their surroundings.

And the more they wailed and shouted, the easier they would be infected by the poison, causing them to die even faster.

Long Chen only lightly watched from outside the poison mist. There was not even the slightest expression on his face, as if he were just watching a show.

As for the monastery disciples beside him, they were all stupefied. They had never dreamed that the battle tactics of the secular world could be applied to a battle of experts.

Looking at Long Chen’s back, they were filled with reverence. This was a god-like man, capable of bringing them miracle after miracle.

The miserable screams finally faded after a quarter hour. But within the mountain valley, explosions continued to echo out.

“Guo Ran, you wasteful brat, what are you doing? The enemies are all dead, so what are you still shooting? Are you getting addicted to shooting blanks?”

Only now did Guo Ran recover from his excitement. In that refreshing pleasure, he hadn’t realized that the screams had already ended.

“For now, don’t go out there. Wait an hour for the poison mist to scatter. Keep your guard up for now and take care for little fish that managed to escape.”

But even after an hour passed and the poison mist scattered, those so-called escaped fish never appeared.

The only fish were all dead on the ground. There was not even one that was still alive. Not even those powerful core disciples had been able to run.

It seemed Long Chen had overestimated the Corrupt path’s alchemy arts. It was not all alchemists that were capable of refining high grade third tier antitoxin pills.

If it hadn’t reached the high grade third tier level, then an antitoxin pill would be completely unable to stop the Silver Centipede’s poison.

Looking at the ground of corpses, everyone had an odd feeling. They had killed an army of Corrupt disciples this easily?

Compared to when they had gone all-out to face them in battle, risking life and limb to bring them down, this was far too effortless. It was so easy that it was hard for them to believe.

Long Chen swept his Spiritual Strength over the battlefield and didn’t find a single spiritual fluctuation. That meant they were all truly dead.

“Clean up the battlefield. Be careful of people pretending to be dead.” Although he knew none of them were alive, keeping them on guard was better. After all, being careful wasn’t a bad thing, and it’d be better for them to keep the habit of staying on guard.

“Senior brother Long Chen, their heads…” One of the disciples was carrying a person’s head. That head was now pitch-black.

Long Chen smiled, “As long as the heads are intact, cut them all off. Don’t bother about the color. The monastery doesn’t care about that.”

Due to the intense poison, those people’s heads had already become badly contorted. It wasn’t even possible to tell their features anymore.

As for how the monastery would differentiate those people’s cultivation bases, that would be a matter for the monastery. In any case, the monastery definitely had their own secret techniques.

It went without saying that after experiencing that huge battle before, the monastery’s disciples had already conquered their fear of death. They had become much more hardened and ruthless.

Without any dread towards the dead, they began to cut off the heads as if they were just cutting open watermelons.

In less than an hour, they completely cleaned up the battlefield. The majority of the Corrupt disciples had spatial rings which were all taken away. As for their corpses, they were placed into spatial rings and buried somewhere else.

The spatial rings were sent directly to the monastery. That was one of the rules of the monastery. The Righteous path’s disciples were not allowed to practice or even study any of the techniques of the Corrupt path. Any violators would be directly killed without any exception.

When Long Chen had heard that, he had become a bit worried. He had thought he wouldn’t be able to train in the Netherworld Ghost Steps.

But after thinking about it, he realized this command was because they were afraid of the Righteous disciples being enticed by how powerful the Corrupt path’s Battle Skills and cultivation techniques were. They didn’t want any disciples to secretly learn them.

That was because the absolute majority of the Corrupt path’s techniques were extremely cruel and sinister. That was what allowed them to be so terrifying. Long Chen had learned quite a bit about that from Gui Sha.

Those techniques could only be trained in by killing others. No matter how strong they were, there was no way Long Chen would train in such a technique.

But the Netherworld Ghost Steps was just a very profound footwork. There was nothing about it that was ‘Corrupt’. Long Chen felt that learning it wasn’t a problem. As long as he didn’t show it off, then who would even know?

Unfortunately, the Netherworld Ghost Steps was too powerful, and he was still currently not strong enough to use it. He would have to wait till after he broke through to Tendon Transformation.

After cleaning up the battlefield, they restored the old traps. Guo Ran also started to busy himself with making more explosive arrows.

That little fellow had tasted the sweetness of power. He hid himself in one of the traps on the mountainside and worked like crazy.

Long Chen checked over everything. He saw that there were already seventeen people who had made cultivation base breakthroughs. He rotated those people with the ones who had been guarding before.

That way everyone would have a chance to make a breakthrough. In this kind of tense atmosphere, even if they couldn’t make a breakthrough, their foundation would definitely become much more solid. There were many advantages, but no disadvantages.

After they finished setting everything up again, they only had to wait for four hours before another group of Corrupt disciples arrived.

“Hehe, more money has come.”

Long Chen smiled. The points were flowing in. This way, he would be able to gather all the medicinal ingredients for the Alioth Star.