Chapter 158: A Truly Bizarre Way to Die

Facing the enormous bamboo viper lunging toward him, Yu Xian showed no intention of dodging. He continued looking up at Wanwan as she stepped barefoot across bamboo leaves and danced gracefully through the air. At last, he understood the meaning behind the description of Martial Will—Moon-Treading Flying Immortal.

A slender waist bound in a jade belt and heavenly silk danced in the air. Her backward glance and radiant smile put the brilliant stars to shame.

Once a movement technique reached this level, it was hardly any different from true flight.

The next second, the bamboo viper "swallowed" him whole, and countless bamboo leaves furiously attacked him from every possible angle. Although the Dragon Shield had fewer scales than there were bamboo leaves, the scales could teleport rapidly. They easily intercepted every single attack.

Through the countless swirling bamboo leaves, Yu Xian looked up at Wanwan. "You have one minute and thirty seconds left before you die. Is there anything you'd like to say?"

Wanwan clearly did not believe him. She spun through the air, lightly stepped onto a bamboo leaf, and looked down at him with a gentle smile. "If I'm really going to die in one minute and thirty seconds, I'd like to hear you call me Big Sister. Would that be all right?"

The Azure Bamboo True Essence cultivated through the Azure Bamboo Codex was highly poisonous. When Yu Xian had used the dragon scales to block the bamboo leaves and shattered them, toxic fumes had already begun spreading through the air around him. As far as Wanwan was concerned, Yu Xian had already been poisoned. Whether he himself could survive another minute and thirty seconds remained to be seen.

Yu Xian sighed. "Stubborn to the end."

He stopped speaking and simply continued watching her dance instead. Of course, he knew the surrounding air was poisonous. But that was not a problem for him. Having sealed his nostrils with spatial bubbles, he was not breathing the air around him.

Fighting within the city inevitably restricted Yu Xian to some extent. For example, he could not use explosives. On top of that, Nangong Wanwan possessed extensive combat experience and was extraordinarily agile, which made it impossible for him to trap her in a spatial bubble and teleport her elsewhere.

Nangong Wanwan had precisely calculated every move she made during the battle just now. For instance, she had used the bamboo leaves to test the spatial bubbles. When her Wolf Brush pierced through a bubble without popping it, she immediately retreated, completely refusing to take the bait. While talking to Yu Xian, she remained completely aware of everything happening around her.

Even now, while evading the spatial bubbles, she controlled countless bamboo leaves to counterattack. Her assaults followed a precise rhythm, coming from different angles and at different moments, with multiple leaves coordinating their attacks in an endless variety of patterns.

Without the Dragon Shield, Yu Xian truly would have had no choice but to flee with his spatial bubbles. That alone showed just how troublesome and powerful her attacks were.

Nangong Wanwan's theoretical lifespan continued to decrease. Yu Xian suddenly grew curious. If I do nothing, how will she die?

One minute remaining! Yu Xian looked at her and made up his mind not to kill her himself.

At first, Nangong Wanwan had not believed a word Yu Xian said. But as time slowly passed, she grew restless. In particular, whenever Yu Xian studied her with that curious gaze, a thought kept surfacing in her mind. Could he possess some ability that lets him see fate?Is he waiting for me to die? Hmph. I refuse to believe I'm going to die!

Nangong Wanwan steeled herself and hurled the Wolf Brush toward the ground. She spun through the air, unleashing a torrent of Azure Bamboo True Essence. The Wolf Brush on the ground immediately transformed into bamboo and grew rapidly. At the same time, dense clusters of bamboo shoots burst through the ground, growing into stalks more than ten meters tall within mere seconds. The sidewalk, originally paved with concrete, had instantly been transformed into a bamboo grove.

Standing amid the bamboo, Yu Xian looked around in surprise. He had not expected her to have such a powerful killing move in reserve.

Nangong Wanwan was out of patience. "Die!"

Refusing to wait for the poison to take Yu Xian's life, she resolved to finish him with her own hands. She plunged from the sky, grabbed hold of a bamboo stalk, and rapidly spun around it. Launching herself toward another stalk, she spun around that one as well, looking almost as though she were performing a pole dance.

Using the bamboo stalks, she continuously changed direction. At the same time, she snapped off their branches and hurled them at Yu Xian, only for the Dragon Shield to block every one of them.

Finally, wielding another Wolf Brush, she descended from above like a flying immortal and thrust it toward the center of Yu Xian's brow. Meanwhile, the branches scattered across the ground after being blocked by the Dragon Shield transformed into razor-sharp fangs and attacked him. Higher above, countless bamboo stalks bent downward, their sharpened tips all aimed at Yu Xian.

The sight made Yu Xian feel as though the entire world had turned against him. He silently counted down. Three, two, one...

When Nangong Wanwan was only about eighty centimeters away from him and her theoretical lifespan dropped to one second, she triggered the Dream Butterfly within Yu Xian. In that final second, she saw all her attacks strike Yu Xian at once. Bamboo pierced straight through him, leaving him riddled with wounds and dead in a horrifying state.

Reality, however, was the exact opposite. Because she had momentarily lost focus, one of the Dragon Shield's scales had stopped the Wolf Brush in her hand.

Under the tremendous recoil, the tip of the Wolf Brush snapped. The broken section rebounded at astonishing speed and struck her squarely between the eyebrows, killing her instantly.

Given her mental energy, the probability of her triggering Dream Butterfly had been extremely low. Her mental energy was considerably stronger than Yu Xian's. Although she had not reached the point of being immune to Dream Butterfly, under normal circumstances, it would have been very difficult for the ability to make her lose focus.

But perhaps this was simply fate. In the final second of her life, she did trigger Dream Butterfly. That momentary lapse in concentration caused her to be killed by her own weapon.

Nangong Wanwan's corpse crashed to the ground. Disbelief lingered in her eyes, as though she could not accept how she had died.

A chill ran down Yu Xian's back as he stared at the corpse. He hurriedly asked Eternal Purity, "Auntie, was that merely a coincidence, or was it inevitable?"

Although he had known Nangong Wanwan was going to die, the manner of her death had been far too absurd. Such a powerful supernatural being had lost focus for an instant and was killed by her own weapon.

Eternal Purity looked at Nangong Wanwan with pity. "Looking backward from the future, this was something that was always destined to happen. There is no need to dwell on it too deeply."

Inevitable.

Yu Xian suddenly thought of Super Smell. When he used it to trace events that had occurred in the past, everything in that past had already been set in stone. That, too, was a form of inevitability.

The theoretical lifespan displayed by Appraisal was probably determined from the perspective of the world as a whole, looking backward from the future. From that perspective, everything happening in the present was naturally inevitable as well. Perhaps even the manner of Nangong Wanwan's death had long since been predetermined.

Eternal Purity looked at the contemplative Yu Xian. "Do not count on luck, and do not try to test fate. That is my advice to you."

Yu Xian let out an awkward smile. He was indeed thinking along those lines. Since Appraisal can determine that a target will die after a specific number of minutes and seconds, why should I bother fighting? Wouldn't it be easier to hide somewhere and simply wait for them to die?

Evidently, Eternal Purity had seen through his thoughts and warned him.

Yu Xian pushed aside his jumbled thoughts, looked at Nangong Wanwan's lifeless body on the ground, and asked Eternal Purity, "Auntie, do you think I should revive her?"

Nangong Wanwan was remarkably powerful. Although she was only at Wolf rank, her actual combat strength had probably reached Tiger rank. Geniuses whose combat prowess far surpassed their nominal rank were exceedingly rare. Among all the people Yu Xian had encountered, he had only discovered two such individuals.

The problem was that Nangong Wanwan deserved to die. She had slaughtered countless people. Wouldn't reviving her amount to letting her off too easily? That was the source of Yu Xian's hesitation.