Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Collaboration Chapter

The Golden Sword and Sheath

PART 1

Just as how fast Zheng Jin vanished from the cave of secrets—in a blink of an eye—he reappeared at his destination.

Now on a completely different place with a much intense light source unlike the cave from before, Zheng Jin narrowed his eyes, straining as a breathtaking image unveiled before him little by little.

A grassy clearing streaked by countless flowers and trees, along with a bright sun shining down from up above—creating a sight worthy of a person's mid-summer dream.

And, as far as Zheng Jin knew, he could very well be in one if he was somehow passed out cold, though he really did know what the bizarre sword from earlier might have done to him. It might have even killed him, he thought, and maybe this place was actually the afterlife…

Not to mention, something about this place really seemed...off...to him.

Although, a second was all it took to disprove the absurd "afterlife" theory of his.

Noticing a familiar sensation in his hand, Zheng Jin looked down and saw the golden sword still in his grasp, now fully exposed and freed from its rocky prison from before.

"Teleportation?" Zheng Jin guessed immediately as he swung the sword around, his mind occupied in working out the strange situation he unwittingly got himself into. Again.

Lost in his thoughts, Zheng Jin looked around the clearing and found nothing of note. Just flowers and trees, just like his initial assessment. And grass. Lots of grass.

"This is impossible," Zheng Jin finally concluded with a whisper.

As a man who had read a lot of books, Zheng Jin knew a lot of things, and as far as he knew, there had been no mention of an item that could facilitate long-distance teleportation throughout the history of the Primordial Dragon Continent. Moreover, although some scholars claimed it was possible before the Great Disaster, there was just no evidence of such items existing at all. At least, not one that worked.

Zheng Jin stared at the sword in his hand, completely puzzled by its mystery. There were so many possibilities except teleportation that popped up in his thoughts, though he wasn't exactly mindful of those at the moment.

Now, all that he was concerned about was how to get himself the hell out of this place, as he had actually been exploring for quite a while, though he eventually felt that he might just as well be walking in circles.

"Damn." Zheng Jin cursed loudly, finally losing a bit of patience as he stopped walking after hours upon hours of doing so. "Tch, I must be cursed for my greed or something, being thrown in this stupid...place...."

Then, suddenly, a sense of realization hit Zheng Jin. He immediately closed his eyes and sat on the grass abruptly, trying to absorb worldly spirit energy from around him into his dantian.

Still with his eyes closed, minutes passed as Zheng Jin tried and tried, eventually stumbling upon a revelation as to why this place really did feel off to him as soon as he set foot on it earlier…

There was no spirit energy in this place. Nothing at all.

In the blink of an eye, Connie found herself standing in the middle of a verdant forest.

It was so sudden that she did not manage to defend herself. She looked at the sheath in her hand and growled. “You...is it you?”

There was no answer from the sheath, which made her feel rather foolish.

At first she thought that she had been sucked into a type of Soul Domain. However, she could not feel any presence within the atmosphere. No will, nothing. She then tried to use her Item Ring. It did not work.

“Not a Soul Domain. Teleportation? No...that’s not it.”

She lapped the air and tasted no aroma of sweet rot that usually accompanied such a forest. No animal waste either. The forest was odd. Everything was too pristine. Too...quiet. There were no beasts, no monsters, no birds.

It was as if the forest was a drawing created by an amateur artist, who only knew forests from looking at paintings and had never been to one. It felt...artificial.

Connie then decided to jump above the forest canopy to have a look around.

“Hup!!”

She managed to break through the dense canopy and squinted her eyes the moment the bright sunlight hit her face. She looked for the tallest tree in the forest and latched on to it, looking around for any sign of civilisation.

The girl did not find out, however, she did manage to spot a tall mountain to her left and decided to head there.

She then began to proceed there, jumping from tree to tree lightly so as not to lose direction. However, she quickly felt out of sorts and began losing concentration.

“What the - ?!”

She slipped up and tumbled down to the forest floor, breaking a few branches on the way down.

“Oof!”

Her body felt heavy. “This world….it is interfering with my Yin Energy. I need to start conserving my energy.”

She took out a pill and swallowed it. It barely replenished anything in her energy reserve.

“It affects my pill too? Damn this place!”

She flung the sheath in her hand to the ground in anger. “If I find the master of this place I’ll make it wish it had never been born!!”

Through her experience these types of places always had a master. Killing it would solve matters.

Indeed. Many things can be solved with violence. If not, death usually suffice.

She began walking forward, intending to leave the sheath behind. However she thought better of it and took it along. She made her way to the mountain, making sure to look at the barks of the trees to find the direction of the sun.

Hours passed and she finally reached a clearing. A meadow of grass that looked otherworldly. However, she did not have the luxury to revel in its splendor as she spotted a figure meditating at a very low hill.

She gripped the sheath tight and began walking towards it with furious indignation.

The moment she was but a kilometer away from it, she flung the sheath into the air, instilling her will into it and kicked the sheath towards the figure.

It flew straight and true with enough force to punch through solid rock.

Zheng Jin clicked his tongue, about to give up with his fruitless endeavor when suddenly, his concentration was then interrupted by a sharp, whistling sound.

His eyes widened in surprise as soon as he opened them. Gritting his teeth, he immediately tilted his body, then pulled away just inches away from the unknown projectile which then went past him with frightening speed, crashing to a tree behind him and penetrating through two more before it finally buried itself onto a boulder.

"Show yourself!" Zheng Jin cursed loudly, then pulled out Burning Bloodsword out of his ring. Along with the golden sword, he now wielded two.

Not even wasting a second, Zheng Jin enhanced his eyesight with spirit energy and looked far ahead of him. He did not have to look for long, however, since the culprit was now walking straight towards him.

Surprisingly, the aggressor was but a young girl wearing what it seemed to be an extremely bizarre-looking cultivator's robe. Zheng Jin narrowed his eyes and saw the girl's long, golden hair with a streak of red, and clear blue eyes. These distinct features reminded him of a common sight in several noble families back in his previous life in Estellia, though this did not lessen his wariness at all. Especially not when the girl's pert face was marred with anger, much like his right now.

Even from quite a distance away, Zheng Jin could see that the girl's blue eyes were now staring right back at his, watching his every move. This gave him an idea.

With a provocative smile, Zheng Jin stabbed the Burning Bloodsword to the ground, then slowly raised his hand…

What flipped after was a bird, letting the girl know what he felt about whatever just flew past his head earlier. And while he did not know if the girl knew the gesture, he couldn't care less. If the girl couldn't even introduce herself with a conversation, then he had no need for pleasantries either.

After letting the finger settle in the air for seconds, Zheng Jin then retrieved the Burning Bloodsword from the ground and trudged on towards the girl, intending to see what her further intentions were. If the young lady wanted a fight, then he would gladly give it to her.

~~~

"That was rude, what you did back there." Zheng Jin smiled as he watched the mysterious girl sneer.

“Enough of this farce, boy." The girl finally spoke. "I saw you meditating there, you are using this world to trap and absorb the victim’s energy, aren’t you?”

"Boy?" Zheng Jin asked incredulously as he looked at the girl sideways and narrowed his eyes. "Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately, girl?" he retorted.

“I have. And it is a very welcome sight." The girl retorted back without missing a beat. "What does that have to do with this vile trap you did?”

He watched as the girl moved forward, feeling a strange, yet familiar feeling he had encountered all too many times before. Killing intent.

There was no mistaking that whoever the girl was, she was anything but harmless. Zheng Jin could feel a strange cold washing over him as he stared at the girl's pretty face, and for some reason...he felt unease.

The girl's eyes, he thought, wasn't that of a naive, young lady—contrary to her appearance. What he saw inside the blue eyes of hers was killing intent so strong that it even managed to make what was a seasoned Estellian adventurer like him flinch.

Sensing that conflict was inevitable, Zheng Jin made his move...or lack thereof.

"Vile trap?" Zheng Jin tilted his head as he finally spoke. "All I know is that someone threw something at me...and is a bit of a coward to fight face to face."

Zheng Jin sneered provocatively. If there was one thing he knew best about battles, it was that hot-headed opponents tend to lose eight times out of ten. For now, he only hoped that his battle with the mysterious girl wasn't one of the two…

As it turned out, Zheng Jin's plan had actually worked...although a little too well.

With a single, nonchalant step, the girl appeared in front of Zheng Jin—her face only inches away from his as she muttered, “Like this, boy?”

"Yes, just like that." Zheng Jin then used his skill [Flicker] to move instantaneously behind the girl, the Burning Bloodsword pointed at her neck from behind. "You better tell me—"

In response to this, the girl only raised a finger and tilted her neck to the side. Zheng Jin was confused by the strange action, only to see something flying straight at him with blinding speed.

Zheng Jin gritted his teeth and parried the unknown projectile, the force sending him back two paces away from the girl.

The girl then turned around, robe swaying as she did so. The projectile that Zheng Jin successfully repelled bounced back towards her. She caught the sheath handily. “I see. You are fast and has good reaction. But not enough...Is that why you used this place to weaken me? Too bad. I am not that weak to rely only in my Yin Energy.”

"Yin Energy? Using this place to weaken you? Again, you're not making any sense…" Zheng Jin's spirit energy roiled from within, then exploded out in a burst of black aura that covered his entire body. "You better start making sense, or else…"

To Zheng Jin's surprise, he could also feel the girl releasing some sort of baleful energy, the miasma pouring off her body like mist. She then spoke, “This is getting annoying. I’ll just make you speak.” The girl then lunged forward, releasing a simple punch.

"Hand to hand it is." Zheng Jin neglected both his swords and stabbed them to the ground, intending to go toe to toe with his aggressor. It was about time to see what the strange girl was made of. He then threw his body towards the girl, matching her strike with his own—both eventually missing each other by just mere millimeters as they dodged at the same exact time.

Immediately after the exchange, the girl reacted first and planted her left foot into the ground, then used the momentum from her attack, raising her right foot into an overhead kick.

The kick landed squarely on Zheng Jin's face. He did not suspect her to be able to maneuver her body in such sub-optimal position.

Zheng Jin shook off the damage with a grit of his teeth, then flickered right on the girl's side and threw a chopping right hand at her stomach, taking advantage of her awkward position after her kick. Strangely, however, his palm collided with something too solid to be skin. Some sort of thin armor inside the girl's robe, he guessed, which nullified force of his strike by quite a bit.

The moment Zheng Jin's the palm strike connected, the girl went limp and as a result, was thrown back further than she should. The strange maneuver she lessened the damage that she should have taken.

The girl patted her stomach theatrically. “Hmm, not bad. I felt that one. But that was a bit too soft. Are you possibly...someone who could not hit a girl?”

"Speak for yourself." Zheng Jin grinned, then spat out blood. "You don't talk like a girl, and you certainly don't fight like a girl. An illusion? No...maybe a shapeshifter?"

At this point, Zheng Jin really meant his words. After all, the girl sounded more like an old man than...well...a girl. Not only that, but he figured that the "girl's" fighting skill was too high for her age—at least, her outer appearance's age.

“Well, that is a hurtful thing to say to a girl. I do try to act like one, you know. Sometimes." The girl chuckled. "Alright, perhaps I need to do better. But girls seem to like me just fine."

Right after her words, the girl released waves of Yin Energy shaped like claws which then surged towards Zheng Jin as she jested.

Zheng Jin's eyes widened as he saw the strange force traveling through the air at great speeds. Fortunately, his [Flicker] had one final charge left before the cooldown, which he then used to escape. It was a close one, to say the least.

Right after he reappeared, Zheng Jin could see the somewhat curious expression on the girl's face. It was as if he was providing good entertainment for the girl, and for a second, she looked like a predator that enjoyed playing with its food.

The girl landed lightly on her feet and spread her arms. “Come on! Don’t just run around like a headless chicken! Come at me, boy!”

Hearing the girl's bold proclamation, Zheng Jin couldn't help but smirk. Considering how dangerous the girl was, however, he did not feel confident enough to engage without [Flicker] as a way out.

So in a way to spite his opponent for his own convenience, Zheng Jin—contrary to what he thought the girl expected—just stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face, intending to let his skill's cooldown expire with his arms crossed.

The girl raised an eyebrow at him. After a while, she shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “You know what? I’ll just come to you.”

"Wait." Zheng Jin raised his hand, prompting the girl to halt her advance. With slow steps, he then walked over to the two swords that were still stabbed haphazardly onto the ground.

Sensing the girl's inaction, Zheng Jin's eyes flashed as he immediately took out two circular glass beads from his interspatial ring, which he then threw at the girl who just stood there, curiosity written all over her face.

Zheng Jin then rolled towards where the swords were, and unfortunately, the girl's reaction time was too fast for her to be caught off-guard. The girl caught both of the beads, neither of two shattering on impact at all.

"Damn it, that just cost me 20,000 spirit crystals each." Zheng Jin cursed inwardly as he watched the girl play with the two beads in her hands. Inside them was actually the extremely potent paralytic poison of a Stone-masked Terrorbeast—a Spirit Enforcer-level demon beast.

The poison inside the beads was so potent, in fact, that even a Spirit Enforcer would find it hard to move a muscle if even the slightest amount of the poison touched their skin. Zheng Jin was lucky enough to buy the beads from an auction in hopes that it could perhaps save his life from an unfortunate situation someday, but it seemed that today was just another level of unfortunate.

Seconds later, however, Zheng Jin's composure was once again tested.

To Zheng Jin's surprise and bafflement, the girl immediately swallowed both of the beads and chewed as if she was snacking on a treat!

"What are you...do you even know what's in those?" Zheng Jin almost fell over as he watched the girl spat out the shattered bits of glass and drink the liquid that was inside. It was only for that moment that he thought that he might actually be fighting a naive girl after all.

Zheng Jin waited for the girl's body to stiffen up and fall to the ground immediately...but the scene he imagined did not happen.

Instead, the girl just smiled at him as if she had just eaten a very tasty snack. The smug look on the girl's face made him curse inwardly once again. After all, it turned out that his opponent actually had quite a palate for poisons of all things!

Such a discovery made Zheng Jin livid. After all, he just fed his opponent 40,000 spirit crystals worth of...well, food. It had to be known that he himself do not even dare spend that much spirit crystals on food, even if he indeed liked to countless of times.

Connie licked her lips with her long tongue. Seeing the abnormal length of her tongue, Zheng Jin understood that the girl before her was not entirely human.

“Ooh, that tingles a little. There is a distinct sulphuric taste and beastly scent in this. A high-grade poison that I have never tasted before! How rare! Can I have some more?”

"Fine then. If you don't want me to run, then you're leaving me no choice but to take the battle seriously." With a sigh, Zheng Jin then pulled the two swords out of the ground, then tested them out with a twirl. "Get your weapon out and we'll finish it. This elder brother here still has a lot of shit to deal with after this…"

“Weapon?” The girl rubbed her chin and gestured towards the projectile she used to fight prior. “This is not a weapon. This is a sword sheath. Made of gold. The thing about gold, boy. Is that it’s nice to look at, It does crap when used for a real fight. I could hit you with a random branch and it’ll hurt more than getting hit by this thing.”

Hearing this, Zheng Jin looked over the glistening sheath the girl gestured towards. It was true. The thing that almost took his life almost two times by now really was just a sheath.

With such a realization on his mind, Zheng Jin could not help but grimace inwardly. Although, despite all the irony, he could not help but notice that the sheath's design and aesthetic was a tad bit familiar...

“Then again,” The girl, after a short while, continued and cast a cursory glance at Zheng Jin’s stance. “Hmm. Good posture, excellent division of weight. With two swords too...but you...do not seem to have comprehended the sword yet. Are you at the brink of Sword Knowing?”

"Am I supposed to think that you're some kind of sword master now?" Zheng Jin asked rhetorically, a bit offended that he was being patronized by a "girl" that looked half his real age. "I trained in swords ever since you were but an infant, girl. Don't lecture me about swords."

Zheng Jin looked at his swords, then an idea formed in his head. With a grin, he got a spare sword from his ring and threw it towards the girl. "Maybe you could teach me how to use a sword, master."

With the expression of calm of a senior scolding a junior that made Zheng Jin raise an eyebrow, the girl accepted the sword and crushed it between her thumb and forefinger, showing the might of her physical prowess.

After seeing such a display, Zheng Jin's pretense of nonchalance and jesting faded, along with what's left of the assumption that the person in front of him was just an ordinary girl. His eyes turned as sharp as daggers, now acknowledging that a serious fight between him and the girl was imminent.

“This sheath is enough. Come, boy. I shall teach you the might of one who chases the Dao. What it means to be ‘One with the Sword’.”

To the girl's strange, yet bold words, Zheng Jin just smiled. Somehow, his instincts told him that this will be an extremely dangerous fight...

Not even wasting a single second, Zheng Jin intended to strike first and sprinted towards the girl. Now only a meter away, he then leaped into the air and slashed both swords downwards, both carrying a tremendous amount of force.

To his surprise, the girl did not evade the attack, instead accepting it with the sheath. But at the moment of contact, the girl tilted it slightly, letting the attack glide away. Destroying the ground but leaving her unhurt.

“From simple becoming complex, from complex becoming simple. That is the first step towards the perfection of the sword," the girl said in a clear tone of voice.

After that move the girl's attack then flowed into a single strong tap with the edge of the sheath that hit Zheng Jin in the ribs, the momentum of Zheng Jin's own attack caused the simple tap to do more damage than it should.

Completely taken aback by the girl's counterattack, Zheng Jin's body that was enhanced by spirit energy did little to help him as he had felt that the damage done to his rib won't leave something as simple bruise.

Zheng Jin persevered through with his high endurance stat, however, and he immediately raised the much lighter golden sword, lunging it straight at the girl with full strength in hopes to throw catch the girl off-guard, allowing him a bit of time to regain his stance and composure.

What baffled Zheng Jin was that the blonde-haired girl only threw a glance at him, and with unbelievable control, accepted the attack with the sheath, guiding his sword into the hollow space. The sword smoothly went into the sheath and as a result of the powerful attack, the girl was pushed back a hundred paces with the both of them still holding fast to their part of the pair.

"What is this girl up to?" Zheng Jin thought as gritted his teeth in exertion. For her size, the girl sure was strong. After seeing that the girl had cleverly trapped his golden sword inside the strangely familiar sheath for some reason, he utilized his spirit energy to the fullest, then slashed the Burning Bloodsword upward from an awkward angle.

The girl, once again, proved to have too much skill as she pushed the sheath, following Zheng Jin's movements. At the same time, she evaded his upward slash by slanting her body.

Seeing that his attacks would get nowhere in close range, Zheng Jin pushed the sword and suddenly pulled back, though the girl just followed his movements while evading occasional attacks from the Burning Bloodsword. This odd show of reverse tug of war made it look like they were dancing to a rhythm, much to Zheng Jin's annoyance.

Whatever attack he had thrown—backhands, kicks, slashes, lunges, chops, nothing worked. What's worse was that he was gradually running out of spirit energy, with half of it already gone from as of now.

Once, he even swallowed his pride and tried to use the skill [Puke Blood] just to blind the girl for a moment, yet the girl dodged the bloody projectile with a weave and kicked him right in the stomach in retaliation with a furious expression on her face.

It seemed that the girl was a bit over-protective of the spotless clothes she was currently wearing, Zheng Jin mused groggily.

Recovering fairly quickly, Zheng Jin moved forward, grunting as he brought Burning Bloodsword down with a powerful slash, but the girl simply parried it with her free hand.

The girl might have seen Zheng Jin's shocked expression, as she grinned and spoke. “Do you think ‘One with the Sword’ is nothing more than a philosophical state?”

"Tch, let my other sword go and we'll find out." Zheng Jin snapped, a bit offended that whatever he did with his swordplay, the girl had an answer. Many times his sword flew, and many times it also cut nothing but air. It was as if the girl had a clear read on where his sword would go even before he could even strike with them.

Before either of them could make a move, however, Zheng Jin felt the golden sword's handle was now shuddering—as if it wanted out of his hands.

Not even a second later, the shuddering got even wilder and before he knew it, both the golden sword and the sheath attached to it had shone so brightly that he had no choice but to close his eyes.

The hand that he held the sword with was also stung by a searing heat—something that wasn't supposed to happen at all with his protection against heat and fire—which then made him let go as a slight hiss sounded out.

The series of strange events continued as the entire clearing shook, and the bright blue sky up above appeared to be a tad bit darker than it used to be.