Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Prologue

Heavenly Poison King

Hundred Island Congregation.

This was the name of a gathering of heroes who dedicated themselves to the betterment of mankind. Its members are all righteous men who valued the law above all else. They numbered by the thousands and all of them were courageous and powerful.

Their headquarter lied at the peak of Heartstorm island, an island where cherry blossoms bloom every day of the year, due to the mystical energy flowing from the depth of the earth.

But today, on that beautiful island which once housed the righteous faction, no splendour and righteousness could be found. Only the scent of blood and death.

More than a thousand bodies were scattered at the peak of Heartstorm Island. Lifeless and demarcated, piled upon each other into a small hill. The corpses were all mangled and rotted beyond recognition.

And upon that mountain of corpses stood an old man.

This man was the evilest creature that had ever set foot upon the earth.

Legends told that he grieved nothing, loved nothing, and treasured nothing.

“One more push! Just one more and he’ll die!”

Standing at the feet of the mountain were the last of the heroes who survived the battle. Their eyes were triumphant even though their bodies had already gone past their limits. Not 'we will win', but 'we will die'. Such was the shared understanding between the heroes, that they would not survive this battle.

“Wang Tian Gu! Your life ends today!”

The old monster named Wang Tian Gu harrumphed while stroking his long white beard that had been stained by blood. He was relaxed, seemingly unperturbed by the loss of his left arm. His right eye had been crushed and fourteen broken swords riddled his back. These were named swords, whose owners’ life he had personally trampled beneath his feet after they ambushed him during his infiltration into the heart of the congregation.

“Hahah, Hui Zong, Guan Yong, I should have killed you seven years ago, if only to spare me the effort of killing you today.”

He spread his one arm with glee, a smile blooming on his wrinkled face. “Come! Heroes of Hundred Islands! Let us dance with laughter and rejoicing! For life is beautiful! And death is even more so!”

“CHAARGE!!!”

The twenty cultivators rushed at him, attacking furiously. His answer was a swipe of his claw, sending streaks of purple light that sent five attackers to their death.

He then braced his legs and leapt high into the air, followed by three shadows of giant centipedes roaring out of thin air. They gouged through the mountain of corpses, sending blood and gore everywhere. It seemed as if his strength has no end.

However, the monstrous old man knew that he could not let this go on any longer. They had fought for ten days and his strength was waning fast.

One mysterious opponent was strong enough to pose a challenge and managed to parry all his moves, albeit with difficulty. The enemy wore a plain mask, obscuring everything but two sharp eyes from view.

Claws and sword met again and again. Sparks of purple and yellow light the darkness of dawn each time they clashed, illuminating the masked cultivator and the old man.

The sword's edge flowed like a river, unceasing and unyielding. Each stroke as masterful as the brush strokes of a master painter. But Wang Tian Gu had experience and his opponent - though an expert - would soon make a mistake.

“Die!” he released a punch to his face that sent the masked man flying into a barricade. He gave chase as he pooled his Yin Energy into his claw, forming the terrifying image of a snake’s fang.

“Wang Tian Gu!” a voice called out from behind, a fearsome wind surging at him.

“Cui Ning.”

The old man turned to the new attacker, saying his name with a cold gaze. It was a handsome warrior of the Divine Cloud Pagoda. He slashed at him, releasing an illusion of a thousand swords. This was the Torrential Rain, a deadly move of the sect.

The swords flew at him like a torrent, but the old monster had already released a palm move, swatting them away. He managed to disperse them but it took too much of his energy, causing him to stumble three steps back.

Grasping the moment, Cui Ning quickly grabbed the masked warrior by the waist and retreated a hundred steps. He took this chance to transfer energy to heal his wounds.

Wang Tian Gu steadied himself and stared at the two of them. He eyed the handsome young man and sneered.

“…I see, so that old geezer has decided to bare everything without a care for face.”

Cui Ning sneered while twisting the tip of his sword, pointing it at him. “You stole the Soul Reversing Sutra from our Divine Cloud Pagoda. I was sent to retrieve it from you.”

“Ha ha! The Sutra is not his to covet!! Nor is it his to own,” the old monster shouted. “But alas, the truth does not matter at this point. The Sutra is mine, and you can only pry it from my cold dead body.”

Wang Tian Gu then formed a claw, gathering baleful Yin Energy made of poison within. “However, can you, a mere Treading Earth Early Stage defeat my Thousand Poison Claw?”

“Indeed, you are a Treading Earth Peak Stage. Two stages above me. This is like an ant trying to defeat an elephant. But you are spent! Despite your bravado, right now you can’t even muster the power to summon those Contracted Beasts you were so proud of. Otherwise those centipedes would have appeared by now, and not those replicas you summoned.” the man signalled the rest of the surviving warriors to surround Wang Tian Gu. “Also, we already know why you came here.”

The young man smiled evilly, unbecoming of his stature as a righteous man. “You want to use the Mystic Energy to cross the boundary. That’s why you cannot do anything excessive.”

The old man’s heart was so agitated he lost control of his poison and coughed up a gob of rotten blood.

“H-how?!”

“Enough! There is no need to hurt him any longer.”

The masked warrior took off his mask, revealing a beautiful face of a girl with blazing red lips and cat-like green eyes. Though blood and grime had encrusted her golden wheat hair, it could not hide her beauty.

At this revelation, the face of Wang Tian Gu suddenly looked as if he was a hundred years older. “I see…I see. So this is…karma,” He closed his eyes, tiredness suddenly filled his body. “All this time, I was killing…my little girl…my little Baoli.”

Watching his sect’s most hated enemy losing his determination, Cui Ning did not hesitate.

“No more tactics, Old Poison. We are just going to outnumber you.”

“Wait! You said you only needed to retrieve the Sutra!” the young woman exclaimed.

“The Sutra is bound to the soul. It cannot be taken without killing the owner!”

“No! You lied to me!”

“Only a fool would believe the words of a Jianghu warrior! Star Formation! Kill!!”

The warriors stabbed towards Wang Tian Gu, who was still in a stupor. But Baoli stepped forward, releasing three strokes that repelled the attacks.

The handsome Cui Ning growled in anger as he released Torrential Rain towards Baoli. Baoli, who was one stage below cannot fight back and could only let her life be taken.

But the pain did not come. For before her she saw the back that she once had ridden during her childhood. The kind and gentle man who protected her back then, just as he did now.

“STEPFATHER!!”

“HAHA! Finally!” the arrogant young man released his chi to drive the sword deeper, but the old monster had broken it in half with sheer power. Wary, Cui Ning leaped backwards to get away from him.

“Hngh,” Baoli caught her stepfather as he began to topple forward.

“How…? How did it come to this?!”

“Must you ask?” the old man laughed as he choked on his blood. The sword had pierced his lung, dispersing the poison that he had used to glue his destroyed innards together.

“Even to the end, I could not kill you. What use is my evil? What use is taking so many lives if I cannot sever love?! No. When I lost her, I lost you too.”

He hung on to the last of his breath as he smiled, this was not the smile of arrogance that he had been wearing, but a smile full of nostalgic warmth. “I do not regret my deeds, not the lives I have taken, or the lives I have saved. And I have never regretted saving you that day. The only regret I have is that I did not manage to cross the boundary.”

He reached his hand towards her cheek and caressed it, staining her face with a trail of his own blood. He breathed on her and she fainted. He fell to one knee, blood pooling under him as he laid her down upon a rock before placing a charm upon her body.

Seeing this vulnerable scene, a member of the Hundred Island Congregation wanted to take the credit and finish the job. However, when he stepped on the blood, his feet quickly grew bulbous tumours which took over his body in mere seconds. He screamed miserably before exploding like a balloon.

“Get back! The blood is poison!” Guan Yong shouted, covering his mouth and nose. The scent of the blood was also deadly as he felt the poisonous air encroaching into his body.

“You!” Cui Ning grimaced, angry from having his victory delayed by the death throes of an old man. “I will take the sutra from your corpse even if it is the last thing I do! Then I will let the dogs feed on your flesh and grind your bones and scatter them on the dung pit!”

Wang Tian Gu ignored his ranting and drew an arc with his back. “To sever love, to sever hate. My poison shall taint the earth and swallow the heavens. That is my path! My Dao of Heaven Devouring!!”

At this moment, the ground quaked and lines of cracks appeared. His blood seeped into the cracks, becoming purple miasma which erupted like a geyser. All plants and grasses around turned into gloopy purple liquid that reek of death and rot.

The weaker of the warriors had gone mad from the poison and exploded in a pile of blood and gore.

“W-what the hell is this?!”

“The whole island is trembling!!”

“What did you do?!”

“I detonated my Poison Core and tainted the Mystic Energy under this mountain!! You want the Sutra?! Let’s see if you can survive this!!”

Baleful Yin Energy poured out of his body, mixing with his blood and the miasma. Rotting and poisoning every living being in its path. The warriors trying to run away from the mountain could not get away fast enough and choked on the poisonous fog created from the mix, dying miserably.

Cui Ning had tried to use his charms to try and get away, but the paper burned away before he even managed to activate it. He could only look as his body began corroding under the onslaught of unworldly evil power of the old monster.

“Why?” that was all he could ask before he too, lost his life.

“You…made my daughter cry.”

The old man coughed, blood dribbling down his mouth and down to his beard. His body had broken down and the poison had begun eating him from the inside out. Everything around him had rotted and soon he too, would share their fate.

Wang Tian Gu fell to the ground. He could feel his body decomposing and everything past his torso had already turned into ash.

He smiled, knowing that his little girl was safe.

“No one makes my daughter cry.”