Chapter 87: Ambush? Counter-ambush!
Lately, I’ve thought about whether to help He Xue. And I decided to help her, but if I was risking my life then I’d back out. I didn’t want to say all of this where I was. However, since I was on a bus, I said, “I’m on the bus right now. I’ll be at the hotel in two hours, let’s talk in person.”
The opponent is a wizardry practitioner whom I’ve never seen, but I know his poisoning skills and skeleton puppet were almost strong enough to kill me.
It wouldn’t be bad to have He Xue owe me a favor though; I can use this to get her help later. The last time I went to jail, I could have been released with one call from He Xue.
It was around noon when I got to the hotel. He Xue was waiting for me in the lobby. So I walked over toward her.
No one sat nearby, so I whispered to her. “I’ve decided to help you, but if thing get too crazy I’ll back out. I don’t want to die for this.”
“Fine.” He Xue nodded. “It’s not as complicated as you think, as long as we don’t give him time to do the poisoning or wizardry, we can get him. He’s still flesh and blood, bullets will make a hole in his body. I noticed he’s always in the woods on the north side of town every night. I didn’t want to alert him, so I’ve just watched and not followed him.”
“What are you planning?”
“We’ll go to the woods tonight and wait for him, when he shows up, we’ll ambush him!”
……………………
Eight-thirty at night.
Today was cloudy, the moon is masked behind the clouds. The ground is pitch black; with no light in the forests, we couldn’t see anything, but this also helps with our cover.
What makes me wonder is why this wizard comes here every night? Is he growing something here? I hope tonight goes well. I want to catch him soon, to stop him from harming more people, and to make He Xue owe me a favor.
Based on what He Xue has seen for the last two nights, Ma Xiujun comes around 9 PM from this one side of the forest, which is where we’re hiding. He Xue said we needed to get him alive, so she gave me a few syringes of strong anesthetic, enough to knock someone out for three days!
Because our opponent practices wizardry, I told Big Sis to hide too. I also put on some cattle tears and brought a big hammer. If I ran into another skeleton puppet, I could crush it!
Winters in Qiling City are brutally cold, even though I was physically strong and was dressed in thick layers, I still felt my feet freezing and was cold all-over.
Just as I was feeling inpatient, soft footsteps walked toward us. I stayed behind the tree and counted the steps, deciding when to launch my attack.
As the steps got closer to me and the tree, I took out the syringe, took off the needle cover, and jumped out from behind the tree. I was going to stab him with the syringe before he knew what’s happened!
But…
There’s no one around!
How is this possible? I heard the footsteps!
As I was standing there, feeling bewildered, a whooshing sound came from behind me!
Alarmed, I ducked to the side.
I turned to look. There is someone standing where I was before. It’s so dark in the woods I can’t see the person’s face.
I was going to ambush him, but never had I thought I would be counter-ambushed!
He’s lightning fast, before I knew what was going on, he has circled back behind me and is striking me!
I kept retreating, but he still outpaced me. His fists have come up right in front of me. I freaked out and raised my arms to shield myself.
“Peng!”
His fist landed on my arm, where the metal is. The blow was powerful enough to make me receded backward and pressed sat down on the ground.
“Whoosh!”
My opponent waved his hand as something small and white flew toward my eyes!
I turned my head in reflex as the object sliced my face, leaving bloodstain!
This person is pretty powerful. I got up frantically and backed up a few steps. He’s only focused on me right now, if He Xue could attack him from behind, it would be ideal!
As I was thinking this, the person said, “Young lady who’s standing over there, you must have been exhausted following me around last week!” The voice is young and gentle.
The dark clouds moved as moonlight cast over us, the light was enough to see around us now.
My opponent is a young man in his early 20s, he’s about 185 cm tall, with a kind smile on his face.
Suddenly, a paper puppet appeared in his hand, the kind used for memorial services. This one is big, at least 1.3 meter high. My eyes turned wide! He has a spatial ring!
The puppet looks like a young boy. My opponent put the puppet on the ground while chanting,
“You guys are too annoying; too bad I have no time to play with you today. But I’ll have him to play with you. Well, excuse me.”
When the man rubbed the puppet’s head, the puppet waved its arms as a gust of wind kicked up a big swirl of snow on the ground.
I quickly covered my eyes, by the time the wind finally died down after five seconds; the man has already gone, leaving only the puppet still standing there.
What is he? What kind of power does he have? Wizardry? Why is he so strong?
The puppet waved his arms again, as he barreled toward me with a blank face.
He swung at my head with a fist. I have no idea how this thing is moving, but he’s just made of wooden sticks and paper, how amazing would it be?
In spite of my opinion of the puppet, I still raised an arm to shield myself.
But when the puppet hit me in the arm, the strike felt like a metal hammer!
My arm bounced back on my face, causing my head went numb from the pain!
With my strength, I should have been able to handle fighting with a grown-up!
But this puppet is overpowering me… How could a paper thing be harder than metal?
Ever since I’ve started fighting wizardry, my idea of what’s possible has been destroyed over and over!
While my head’s still spinning after I was hit, I still managed to back up.
He Xue finally came out from behind the tree, “You deal with this thing! I’ll go after Ma Xiujun!”
I was gonna shouted “Motherfucker”! This puppet is seriously strong and equally aggressive as the Purple Haired Zombie, and you want me to beat it?
I said, “No way! I can’t beat this thing, come help me!”
“If you can’t beat it, just run! I have to get Ma Xiujun this time, I don’t know when he’ll come again!” He Xue yelled as she ran deeper into the woods.
The puppet charged toward me again, I tried to duck and tried to avoid it. but then I stumbled over something and fell.
The puppet used this chance and ran toward me. Before I could react, Big Sis grabbed the puppet’s feet and tripped it.
Big Sis said, “My Yin qi is no good for it. Just run, I’ll slow it down.”
I did want to run but what if the puppet followed me into the village?
Regular people would be killed with its strong blows, or at least get their bones broken!
Even I, was still feeling pain in my arm. The right side of my face is still numb too. I felt angry again as I raised a hand at the puppet, shooting a stream of fire at it.
“Go to hell!” I yelled like a maniac.
The next thing surprises me as the puppet is burning up!
In a few seconds, the puppet fell into the ground as ashes, leaving only the wooden stick behind.
I was startled but soon realized why. Everything in the world has their own adversaries Ma Xiujun may be able to use wizardry to make the paper puppet as strong as metal, but fire was its nemesis!
The fire cracked his magic! It’s a good thing I could use my Fire Innate Force or the puppet could have beaten me to death today!
Big Sis said, “So it’s afraid of fire.”
I didn’t reply. If this was true, then wizardry is no big deal, paper puppets can’t fight fire.
My opponent took a few seconds to make a paper puppet, but I could best it with fire in one second. Yesterday’s skeleton puppet was also defeated with a fluke.
I looked toward where He Xue disappeared and headed there too. I said to Big Sis, “Check it out, I’ll follow you.”
She answered yes and flew ahead of me.
Actually, I wasn’t keen on finding He Xue since after all, I was neither her friend nor a family. If I didn’t figure that everything had an Achilles’ heel, I’d not want to risk my own neck!
Well, since there seems to be a remedy for Ma Xiujun, I can’t let He Xue die.
He Xue has the same level of skill with me, but physically, she’s weaker and can’t match me in the fight.
If she went up against a puppet, she’s going to die for sure. And I can’t just sit behind and watch.
I thought as I ran. The way Ma Xiujun made a big puppet show up so suddenly, was definitely because he had spatial ring!
But how does the spatial ring work? I still don’t know about it. Should I ask Chen Haotian? Or Zhang Zixuan? Nah, if the Xu Family head’s coveted it too, they would’ve wanted to snatch it from me!
If they knew I had it, they definitely would want to steal it from me, so I have to learn how to use it on my own.
As I realized this, I sighed, as I suddenly felt a lot of pressure for me.