Chapter 237: The Real Marvelous Archery
After recovering from their brief daze, the Junior Chief of the Moon-shooting Tribe and the pasture Army Advisor showed a trace of delight on their features.
At the prior auction, the man with the silver smiley-ghost mask had made his entrance by confronting the Musical House. Plus, from what he had just said, it was he who killed the zombie-like freak… So, he must be a friend instead of an enemy.
The pasture Goddess of Martial Arts looked up as well. For no reason, she was gripped by a very strange feeling.
Perhaps it was a false impression, but she did have a dim feeling that there was some air that she was familiar with on that man wearing the silver smiley-ghost mask.
“Who… Who are you?” The zombie-like freak, whose hands were covered in the blood of pasture female Wolf Warriors, locked his eyes on Li Mu.
His instincts brought him a hint of fear, so he did not launch attacks at once.
So did the old man called Green Spider. The sudden appearance of the man wearing the silver smiley-ghost mask imposed great pressure upon him. Green Spider retreated slowly towards the darkness. Without a word or more kills, he just quietly backed off until his body thoroughly blended into the darkness as if he were made of liquid.
“Why did you kill my junior fellow?” demanded the zombie-like freak in a low and deep voice.
Li Mu answered, “Because… Em, he was too wordy. He made my ears ache.”
After his answer, several female Wolf Warriors nearly giggled if not for the tragic loss they had suffered in battle.
“I’ll kill you!”
As his rage finally grew too difficult to curb, the zombie-like freak turned into a flash of lightning and charged at Li Mu.
“Come here! You have my permission to try it!”
Li Mu beckoned to the thin air. A machete in the hand of a dead soldier from the Moon-shooting Tribe instantly zoomed up and flew into Li Mu’s hand. The whole movement was smooth and speedy. As Li Mu caught the machete, he hacked in backhanded fashion. A silky band of blade light detached from the machete and streaked through the void.
The zombie-like freak had concentrated his Natural qi on the dark blue thin sword. In midair, he raised the sword over his head to resist the hack, however, the terrifying power threw him backward. When he landed on the spot he was standing a moment ago, he had to stagger four or five steps to regain his balance. After that blow, he looked up with horror written on his face.
Indeed, the real strength of a practitioner could be perceived from a single strike he launched.
That hack Li Mu launched did put the zombie-like freak under a ton of pressure.
Nonetheless, Li Mu did not throw in more attacks to further ensure his victory.
Because threads that were almost invisible for bare eyes but sharp as blades were approaching him furtively in the dim light of night.
Upon seeing the irregular-shaped, fragmented bodies of scores of pasture warriors on the ground, Li Mu was well-aware about the power of that spider’s thread.
Li Mu decisively cast the machete out.
In midair, the machete made of fine steel was chopped into pieces without a noise.
‘Whoa, it’s pretty sharp!’
Li Mu exclaimed internally.
Then, instead of shunning away, he lifted a hand to grab the cobweb the moment it came close to him…
“Don’t…” The pasture Goddess of Martial Arts let loose a warning without thinking.
“Watch out!” The Junior Chief of the Moon-shooting Tribe and the pasture Army Advisor were also alarmed. But their warning came too late.
Yet, to their amazement, what they saw was not the bloody scene of an arm and hand of the silver masked man being shredded by the spider’s threads. Instead, Li Mu seized the threads in his hand as if he were holding soft cotton threads. He then gave them a sudden jerk, and from the darkness ten meters away, a dwarf in a dark green robe was pulled out, as though a fish hiding in undercurrents rose to the bait.
“You…” The old man called Green Spider bawled.
He could not be more shocked at the moment.
‘How can it be?’
‘My spider thread can even cut steel and iron. How come it failed to injure his bare hand?’
But the next second, a formidable force flushing from the other end of the spider’s threads deprived him of his control over his body.
“How naughty you are! You’re not a kid anymore, why still fond of hide-and-seek… Well, I’ll play with you,” taunted Li Mu. He gripped the end of the spider threads and swung it in circles. The old man called Green Spider was instantly flung up like a weight throw. After completing about four circles up in the air, Li Mu loosened his grip and let the Green Spider fly off.
Bang!
About fifty meters away, a stone tower collapsed after that collision.
“Haw-haw, are you having fun?” Li Mu laughed.
In the rising clouds of dust at a distance, the exasperated voice of the old man called Green Spider sounded. “Tut-tut… You do intrigue me. Our Spider Shrine will hunt you down to the edge of the world and till the end of the universe…”
Li Mu shook his head and said, “Every villain has the same line. What a pointless dialogue!”
He no longer paid attention to him but swiveled his eyes on the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts.
Specifically, he set his eyes on the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts’s face, and… shoulders.
Li Mu simply wanted to take a careful look at her to see if he could find some features similar to Guo Yuqing, which might verify his conjecture.
But in the eyes of the others, that kind of gaze seemed full of blatant desire and aggressiveness.
‘Does this man with the silver smiley-ghost mask also covet the Virgin Goddess’ beauty?’
The pasture Army Advisor could not help surmising.
The Goddess of Martial Arts herself knitted her brows as a rush of loathing surged inside her.
Since childhood, she had been harassed by too many such gazes of the opposite sex and experienced too many forcible or mild pick-ups. Thus, she just could not stand being stared at so attentively.
Just as she felt unable to restrain her scowl and prepared to speak…
Li Mu suddenly opened his mouth and asked, “Are you the Virgin Goddess, Qing Yan? I’m wondering whether you know a man named Guo Yuqing?”
The expression of the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts changed in an instant. Now, her features showed distinct vigilance. She stuttered, “What… Why do you ask this?” A moment later, she added, “I don’t know where he is. And I’ve never contacted him… You’ve come to the wrong person.”
By her expression, Li Mu knew half of his conjecture had been verified.
“Then, perhaps you recognize this bow.”
As he said, he brought out the Magic Moon Shoot from the storing space he had refined. It was a huge silver bow, looking like a branch that naturally grew into the shape of a bow. Bathed in the light of the two moons in the sky, it seemed to have drawn the moonlight upon it, which danced on the bow like ripples.
“Magic Moon Shot?” blurted the Goddess of Martial Arts.
The Junior Chief of the Moon-shooting Tribe and the pasture Army Advisor widened their eyes as well.
“This bow… How did you get it?”
There was an exclamation from the darkness.
Clearly, the old man called Green Spider, an assassin lurking in the darkness, also jumped in fright as he saw Li Mu take out the Magic Moon Shot. That bow was so famous on the vast pasture that it was regarded as a legend; a myth, a taboo.
Although the legend had not been dashed for a long time, for numerous pasture warriors, it was still of high standing.
“This? If I say I picked it up by a roadside, you certainly won’t buy it.” Li Mu sniggered.
Frosty-faced, the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts questioned, “How on earth did you get it? Where is the owner of this bow?”
Behind that mask, a smile spread across Li Mu’s face as he said, “You answer me first. Do you know Guo Yuqing or not? What kind of relationship you have with him?”
But the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts said coldly, “Are you another greedy man eyeing that forbidding magical instrument? Humph, I have no answer for you. Never have I met him. So, drop the idea forever!”
‘Ah?’
‘Why is she still so rude at the sight of this bow?’
‘This isn’t right.’
Li Mu’s brows cocked up slightly, for he just discovered this was not as simple as he thought it would be.
‘It seems there is some misunderstanding about this bow.’
‘Good lord! What a misunderstanding!’
‘What is wrong with those women? Why do they easily misconstrue others?’
‘No wonder there are so many self-torturing women who suffered alone in the world.’
Li Mu soon lost interest in pursuing the answers.
He directly opened his Third Eye behind the mask. A jet of divine light shot through the mask and scanned the pasture Goddess of Martial Arts. After a doublecheck, Li Mu was sure that on the front part of her shoulder lay a tattoo shaped like a large bow that resembled a flapping wing. It was exactly the same as Guo Yuqing’s.
What was more crucial was, at the moment, he sensed the concealed aura of the Heart Heavenly Shot method on the Goddess of Martial Arts.
‘This can’t be wrong.’
‘The Goddess of Martial Arts is either a member of the clan that Brother Guo Yuqing belongs to or a special person for him.’
As Li Mu glanced at the zombie-like freak who was excited on the spot and that Green Spider was hiding in the dark, inspiration hit him.
“Brother Guo’s Heart Heavenly Shot is a marvelous archery art. Its power is unparalleled. Little girl, your amateur Heart Heavenly Shot really brings shame on my Brother Guo. No wonder you were captured and sent to the Musical House… Watch me closely. I’ll show you what the real Heart Heavenly Shot can do.”
Before those words died away—
Li Mu grasped the bow with the right hand and pinched the string with the left. With the qi in the two arms linked together, his internal qi raged and he drew the Magic Moon Shot to a fully-bent bow, which then looked like the full moon. In an instant, the moonlight streamed down from the sky and trickled along the string, quickly rendering it as a moonlight-fueled bow.
Bright moonlight shone on Li Mu.
Wearing the silver mask against the silvery moonlight, it looked like he was wearing a cape made of wind and snow and stepping out of the Moon Palace.
The way of the Heart Heavenly Shot started working. Due to the surging internal qi, he resonated with the Magic Moon Shot. Then, without aiming at all, Li Mu fired an arrow, which cut the void and flitted out of sight like a shooting star. Only after that was the jubilant vibration of the string heard by the others.
The zombie-like freak, whose eyes were quite blank, looked down at his chest.
A white hole the size of a finger had penetrated through his body. It pierced his heart and melted his other organs straight away.
That was left by the arrow of the Magic Moon Shot.
But he had not realized what had happened.
A while ago, the Virgin Goddess, Qing Yan, had also demonstrated the Heart Heavenly Shot. It was, indeed, quite impressive, and even injured him. But that kind of blow was way incomparable with the shot fired by the man wearing the silver smiley-ghost mask.
“You…” The zombie-like freak felt his soul fly out of his body.
But thanks to the Iron Wood Demonic Method he practiced, even though his body, flesh, and bones had been severely torn into fibers, his sense of pain had also degenerated; even if his heart had been damaged, he was not completely killed. Now that his brain was intact, he still preserved half of his life. Even though his Demonic Method was spoiled, the vigor he possessed was way stronger than other experts at the same level after all.
“Ahhh, Heart Heavenly Shot… It’s the truly complete mental cultivation method of the Heart Heavenly Shot! Gosh, the Magic Moon Shot has come out again…” Overwhelmed by the huge shock, the zombie-like freak threw all the matters like the revenge for his junior fellow and the order of the second prince to the wind. Shrieking, he wheeled around and fled without paying attention to anyone.
The pasture Goddess of Martial Arts, the pasture Army Advisor, and the Junior Chief of the Moon-shooting Tribe all gawked at Li Mu stupidly, as if they had lost the ability to speak.
‘It’s truly the art of the Heart Heavenly Shot.’
‘It’s the marvelous archery that had disappeared from the pasture for ages.’
‘Only the full mental cultivation method of the Heart Heavenly Shot can produce such power.’
The pasture Goddess of Martial Arts had once by chance obtained a few incomplete pages of the mental cultivation method of the Heart Heavenly Shot from her father. Because of those pages, she progressed by leaps and bounds and soon became widely known on the pasture… So, among all the people on the scene, she was the one who knew the wonders of the Heart Heavenly Shot best.
‘How come this man has the complete version of the way of the Heart Heavenly Shot?’
‘Plus, it seems that he has mastered it and can already use the Magic Moon Shot with ease, doesn’t it?’