The cool sensation from the lush green vines was like a small stream flowing into a parched, burning land. Thuong Sinh could feel Lam Thanh Moc's determination; she was using the very life force of her supernatural ability to shoulder part of the burden for him.
The black veins on his neck gradually calmed, the redness in his eyes retreated, returning his pupils to a deep black, though exhausted to the core. He looked at her, at the beads of sweat rolling down her beautiful face from exhaustion; his hand moved slightly, wanting to take hers, but then stopped.
"Enough..." he rasped. "The toxicity has subsided. You will be depleted."
Lam Thanh Moc did not let go. She grit her teeth, forcing another surge of deep blue energy into his palm: "Be quiet. Let me do something... even if just a little."
Just then, from above the concrete floor of the cellar, a strange sound echoed.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound of metal tapping on the stone floor, rhythmic. It didn't sound like the dragging footsteps of a Zombie, nor the hurried steps of a human.
Thuong Sinh was instantly alert. Using the bit of strength he had just recovered, he gently pushed Lam Thanh Moc behind his back, his right hand searching for the sword hilt.
"Something is coming," he said, his voice regaining its usual cold sharpness.
From the gaps of the rusted cellar door, a gray mist began to seep in, but this time it didn't disperse; it gathered into strands, like the tentacles of an invisible creature. Behind the mist, a tall dark shadow emerged.
It was a figure in tattered black robes, his face hidden behind an old-fashioned gas mask. In his hand, he held a long metal staff, the head of which was embedded with a dull gray crystal emitting the toxic smoke that formed the mist outside.
He stopped before the cellar door, peering inside. A crackling voice sounded through the mask's filter: "To swallow my poison and still remain conscious... You are the first."
Thuong Sinh stood up, his sword slowly drawing from its scabbard, the white bandages trailing on the filthy floor. He stood shielding Lam Thanh Moc; though his shoulders still trembled slightly, his aura was locked onto the stranger.
"Are you the one who created this Red Zone?" Thuong Sinh asked, eyes narrowing.
The man in black laughed, a dry, hoarse cackle: "I am only helping this world quickly filter out the weak. But you... your body contains a very interesting power. It hungers for toxins; it lives off decay."
He raised the staff, the gray crystal suddenly glowing bright: "I want to see how black your heart will turn before it shatters."
Immediately, the mist in the cellar erupted violently, transforming into razor-sharp mist blades slashing toward the two of them.
Thuong Sinh did not retreat. He channeled the toxic power he had just refined from the mist earlier, coating his blade. This time, his sword did not emit the green light of "Blade Wind" but a deep black hue carrying the aura of death.
"Thanh Moc, hold the exit behind us!"
He shouted and lunged forward. A horizontal slash tore through the mist, creating a pitch-black rift in mid-air.
The battle between the creator of poison and the one who lives off poison began.
Thuong Sinh moved like a pitch-black ghost amidst the gray mist. He didn't use pure "Blade Wind", as the wind from the sword energy would only scatter the poison further, endangering Lam Thanh Moc. He chose close-quarters combat; every strike carried the extreme corrosive nature of the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual".
Clang—!
The longsword collided with the metal staff. A plume of pitch-black smoke erupted at the point of contact, corroding even the rust scales on the black-robed man's staff.
"Oh?" The man in black uttered in surprise through his mask. "That strange power of yours isn't poison resistance. You are swallowing my power?"
Thuong Sinh did not answer; his deep red eyes flashed in the darkness. He sensed that the gray crystal atop the staff was the control core. He flicked his wrist, the sword sliding along the shaft of the staff, aiming straight for the opponent's wrist joint.
At the same time, Lam Thanh Moc behind him did not stand still. She understood that if she just watched, she would truly become a burden. She dropped to one knee, pouring all her remaining energy into the concrete floor.
From the cracks beneath the black-robed man's feet, a series of vines—blackened and gray from poison—burst forth. They didn't try to strangle him but coiled tightly around his legs and pinned the metal staff to the floor.
The man in black was frozen for a second. That single second was more than enough for Thuong Sinh.
He utilized the "Blood-Condensing Mace", but this time, instead of concentrating force in his hand, he channeled the entire compressed blood essence into the tip of his sword. The blade vibrated violently, emitting a terrifying, pungent stench of blood.
Puk!
The sword pierced through the robe, pinning the black-robed man's shoulder directly into the wall behind him.
"Aaaaagh!"
A tragic scream rang out. Not because of the piercing wound, but because the blood poison from Thuong Sinh's sword was frantically ravaging his internal vessels.
Thuong Sinh closed in, his hand wearing the Black Star Glove gripping the opponent's gas mask tightly, his voice deep and muffled as if coming from hell: "Since you love poison so much... then taste this."
He forcibly pushed the toxic gas he had just absorbed earlier directly into the man's mask. A rattling sound came from the stranger's throat. His body began to convulse violently; the skin under the mask quickly turned purple-black and then rotted.
The gray crystal on the staff, losing its controller, shattered into pieces. The gray mist in the cellar and outside on the street faded and vanished into the void along with it.
The man in black collapsed, his breath completely gone, his body melting into a puddle of foul-smelling black liquid. He died by the very thing he was most proud of.
Thuong Sinh stood still amidst the black blood, his sword planted in the floor to keep his body from collapsing. The black veins on his body slowly receded, leaving behind pale skin and ragged breath.
Lam Thanh Moc rushed over, this time not caring whether he was toxic or not; she hugged his shoulders tightly: "It's over... Thuong Sinh, it's over."
"Let's go... before others arrive."
Thuong Sinh was supported by Lam Thanh Moc as he stood up. He leaned down, using the tip of his sword to push aside the ashes of the man in black, picking up a piece of metal that hadn't been corroded by the blood poison. It was a hexagonal medal, engraved with an eye pierced by three arrows.
Thuong Sinh looked at it for a long time, put the medal in his pocket, then wrapped his sword and placed it at his hip.
The two helped each other leave the cellar. The toxic mist had vanished; they didn't stop, heading straight toward the inner area of Luc Thuy.
In the rented room
The door had just closed. Thuong Sinh finally could no longer hold on. He collapsed beside the bed, his breath hitching in heavy rasps.
"Thuong Sinh!" Lam Thanh Moc panicked; she hurried to take off her backpack, spread a thin blanket on the floor, and tried her best to help him lie down. She wrung out a wet towel, wiping away the black blood streaks and sweat clinging to his forehead.
At that moment, Thuong Sinh's hand suddenly gripped her wrist. The grip was very strong, but his hand was ice cold.
"Don't... use your ability anymore." He whispered, eyes closed. "You are already exhausted. Let me... recover on my own."
"Shut up!" Lam Thanh Moc snapped softly, tears threatening to fall again. She didn't listen to him, continuing to press her lush green palms against his chest, where his heart was beating chaotically.
A while later, the black vessel lines on Thuong Sinh's body completely disappeared, leaving behind a terrifying silence. He fell into a deep coma from exhaustion.
Lam Thanh Moc sat slumped beside him, watching his face as he slept. No more coldness, no more killing intent, only the weariness of someone who had shouldered too much. She suddenly looked at her own wrist, soaked in sweat.
She retracted the vines crawling around the room, sat by the bed, and guarded his sleep.
The Next Day
When the first light pierced through the leaves, Thuong Sinh woke up. He looked to his side; Lam Thanh Moc was slumped by the edge of the bed, still fast asleep, her hand still tightly clutching his shirt as if afraid he would disappear.
Thuong Sinh moved slightly; the feeling of pain had decreased significantly, but internally, the blood essence seemed to have become sharper and colder after being "steeped" in the black-robed man's toxins.
He looked at her and reached out to gently stroke her hair, an extremely rare and clumsy gesture.
"I'm awake," he said softly.
Lam Thanh Moc startled awake. Seeing him sitting up, she let out a sigh of relief but immediately regained her stern look: "If you ever do that again, I swear I will break your sword."
Thuong Sinh paused for a moment, then the corners of his lips quirked up into a curve that was almost invisible: "There won't be a next time."
Thuong Sinh stood up, took the hexagonal medal, and placed it on the table. The medal was ice cold, the material neither iron nor stone; it only bore a single symbol of a pierced eye, looking more like a curse than an insignia.
"Do you know what it is?" Lam Thanh Moc stepped to his side, her voice still carrying a trace of worry.
"No," Thuong Sinh replied, frowning. "It seems we've been targeted."
He remembered the crackling words through the black-robed man's mask: "I want to see how black your heart will turn before it shatters."
He didn't know whose eyes he had fallen into, or since when. But the feeling of being manipulated and watched from behind the mist by someone made the blood essence in his body waver slightly.
"We can't just keep this without knowing anything." Lam Thanh Moc looked at the medal, her sense of unease rising. "How about taking it to the water filtration plant? Those who wear the black threads might know something."
Thuong Sinh nodded. "Let's go."
The two left the rented room. This time, Thuong Sinh walked very slowly; he didn't look directly at anyone, but every vibration around him was sensed.
On the streets, the brown and green armbands were still moving in crowds, but Thuong Sinh realized something was different. The number of people wearing black threads seemed to appear more in the dark corners. They did nothing, just standing there, silent as shadows.
As they neared the old water filtration plant, Thuong Sinh suddenly stopped.
He smelled blood.
Not the old blood of zombies, but the smell of fresh blood just shed, mixed with the smell of ashes from last night's toxic mist.
The gate of the filtration plant was unguarded, but inside the yard, the silence was terrifying.
Thuong Sinh signaled Lam Thanh Moc to stop. The smell of blood was very strong. The two slipped through the corrugated iron door of the main factory area. The scene inside made Lam Thanh Moc clench her fists.
Those wearing black threads were lying scattered on the concrete floor. There were no traces of a battle; most of them died in the middle of whatever they were doing.
The only common point was that their throats all had a cut as thin as a thread, and the flesh around the wounds had turned gray, withered as if the life had been drained out.
"Poison..." Lam Thanh Moc whispered, recognizing the similarity to last night's mist.
Thuong Sinh stepped into the center of the factory yard, his eyes stopping at the cracked central filter tank. The man who had given them the black thread the other day was sitting there.
But as Thuong Sinh approached, he saw a broken metal staff piercing through the man's chest, pinning him to the filter tank.
The man slowly raised his head. He wasn't dead yet, but his breath was light. His eyes were glazed, staring at Thuong Sinh, then moving down to the hexagonal medal in Thuong Sinh's hand.
"Why... did you bring that back here?" the man said, black blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Who did this?" Thuong Sinh asked, his voice ice cold.
"There is... no one." He gasped, black blood starting to ooze from his eye sockets. "There is only the 'Eye'. We see all, so they see us too."
The man's head slumped, his breath completely gone. At that moment, the hexagonal medal in Thuong Sinh's hand suddenly turned scalding hot. The eye symbol carved on it emitted a faint red light, rotating as if scanning the surroundings.
"Thuong Sinh! It's sending a signal!" Lam Thanh Moc warned.
Thuong Sinh did not throw the medal away. He gripped it tightly; toxic blood essence from his palm overflowed, pitch-black like ink clinging to the medal, forcibly extinguishing that red light.
He didn't want to investigate the medal deeply; he only knew he was being "watched" by some force.
"Go."
Thuong Sinh said only one word. He and Lam Thanh Moc quickly left the main factory area. Behind them, the smell of fresh blood was still pungent.
As they reached the gate of the filtration plant, Thuong Sinh abruptly halted.
On the road, three figures stood waiting. They wore ash-gray clothing, their wrists wrapped in thin black chains.
The one in the middle held a long metal staff, the head of the staff lightly tapping the ground with the familiar click, click sound.
"That medal isn't for playing," the person spoke, his voice dry. "The one who brings it into the city must leave their life behind."
Lam Thanh Moc took a step back, the vines beneath her feet starting to burrow deep into the concrete cracks. She realized a faint toxic mist was starting to spread around the feet of those men.
Thuong Sinh said nothing. He knew talking was pointless now. He slowly drew his sword, the white bandages falling away to reveal the cold blade.
He glanced at Lam Thanh Moc: "Find a gap, run first."
"You plan to block three of them alone?" she worried.
"This is not the time to argue," Thuong Sinh said gravely. "Their poison... I can swallow, but you cannot."
This time, he held nothing back. The "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual" operated at its highest level from the start. Black veins rose on his pale face, extending to the corners of his eyes, his sclera turning bright red. He took a step forward, the ground beneath his feet cracking slightly.
The man holding the metal staff cold-laughed. The two figures beside him lunged out, their speed so fast they left only ash-gray afterimages.
Thuong Sinh did not retreat but advanced. He lunged straight into the middle of the two closing in. The sword in his hand no longer emitted green energy, but a dense, concentrated black color.
Clang—!
The sword collided with the iron chain of one opponent. Right at the point of contact, the extreme poison from Thuong Sinh's sword traveled along the chain as fast as a wildfire. The opponent's expression changed; he immediately let go of the chain, but it was too late. The blood poison had touched his flesh, beginning the process of corrosive rot in the blink of an eye.
"Aaa—!"
Thuong Sinh spun around, a kick carrying the force of blood essence knocked back the second man, simultaneously creating the only opening.
"Run!"
Lam Thanh Moc looked at his back, covered in black veins; she understood that staying would only distract him. She bit her lip, manipulating the vines to strike hard at the staff-bearer to hinder him, then used the force to jump out of the encirclement, running in the opposite direction of the city gate.
The man with the metal staff looked after Lam Thanh Moc, intending to give chase, but Thuong Sinh had appeared before him, the sword tip pointing straight at his heart.
Thuong Sinh's breath now carried black mist.
The man with the metal staff, seeing Lam Thanh Moc escape, snorted coldly, intending to swing his staff to control the gray mist to chase her. However, Thuong Sinh's sword tip struck like lightning, carrying a deathly aura that forced him to retract his move and retreat.
"You worry for her, why don't you worry for your own pathetic life first?" The staff-bearer mocked, the metal staff in his hand vibrating, creating a thick toxic mist enveloping Thuong Sinh.
Thuong Sinh didn't dodge at all; he took a very deep breath. The toxic mist that the other boasted of, upon touching Thuong Sinh's body, was suddenly swallowed greedily by the black veins on his skin.
If it were before, forcibly swallowing a large amount of external miscellaneous poison would have made his internal vessels feel like they were burning, his blood essence clashing violently and leading to an immediate backlash.
After the battle with the previous one in the cellar, and after a period of circulating the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual" to temper the extreme poison in his blood, his body had begun to form a kind of "swallowing instinct."
Toxins to others are lethal poison, but to a practitioner of the Corrupting Heart Manual, they gradually became "raw nutrients" to compensate for the consumption of blood essence.
He no longer felt heart-wrenching pain, only a cold sensation running down his spine, which was then quickly crushed and assimilated by the pitch-black blood flow.
"You... what kind of monster are you?" the staff-bearer stammered, taking a step back.
Thuong Sinh did not answer; his eyes were now only a murky deep red. He stepped forward, the sword in his hand letting out a low, groaning hum.
"Your poison," Thuong Sinh said deeply, his breath emitting a pale gray smoke, "isn't even one-tenth of what I've swallowed."
Immediately, Thuong Sinh burst into speed. He didn't use "Phantom Steps" to create illusions, but simply used the explosive power from his legs, which had been strengthened by blood essence.
Whoosh—!
The staff-bearer only had time to raise his metal staff to block by instinct.
Crack—!
The slashing force wasn't simple physical strength. Thuong Sinh's sword carried the extreme corrosive nature of the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual". At the moment of contact, the metal staff was gnawed away at a staggering speed, snapping like a dry twig.
The blade did not stop; it drew a pitch-black diagonal line across the opponent's chest. The staff-bearer couldn't even scream. He clutched his wound, watching his own blood evaporate into black smoke as soon as it touched the air.
Thuong Sinh re-wrapped his sword, not looking at the corpse of the opponent that was slowly disintegrating. He felt the toxic power he had just absorbed gradually stabilizing, though still a bit heavy, it was no longer a threat.
He turned his head to look toward the city gate, where Lam Thanh Moc had run.
He had to hurry. Luc Thuy was no longer a place they could stay, and the force behind those eye-engraved medals was beginning to send their true chess pieces.