Chapter 111 - Zhenjiu Pins

In the audience, Liso grinned. "I say, the little girl deserves this for trying to follow father's orders, right DaYin?"

DaYin looked at the battle below in awe.

Her deep blue eyes twinkled as she watched Cheng Xiu dodge away from the healer's vicious attack with the acupuncture needles. Such a talent, that she was able to dodge a B-Rank healer's thrown attacks…

DaYin's eyes turned red, a mad glint in them. She coveted it. She coveted it more than anything.

Cheng Xiu felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on its end. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

The healer sent multiple Zhenjiu pins at Cheng Xiu.

Cheng Xiu frowned and tried to step back. Her leg caught something, and she fell back onto the hard floor.

Cheng Xiu cringed and tried to blink away the reflexive tears that gathered in her eyes, as it made her vision blurry.

Her eyes settled on the thing that made her lose her balance and scampered away in disgust.

It was the skinsuit that the Trolls had left behind when she had killed away from the other Trolls.

Cheng Xiu's eyes widened. How strong was the skin of these Trolls? Would it be able to stop the flying in acupuncture pins towards her?

She grabbed ahold of the skinsuit, trying not to think about the gooey feeling that the underside of the skin had.

If she thought about it, she would lose her guts and everything in it.

She spread the skin in front of her, the gooey side facing the Healer.

She heard a horrified scream from the audience.

The pins got stuck to the skinsuit and started to penetrate the last layer as well.

Cheng Xiu's brows furrowed.

Thankfully, the pin stopped before it completely came through.

"How dare you!" the healer troll screamed, looking at the human cultivator in absolute anger.

Cheng Xiu felt guilt in her heart. "sorry. But it is a matter of survival."

The trolls watching the scene screamed in agitation.

"Leader! There is no need to give an honourable fight to a beast of this sort, who will use even the dead to survive!" a female Troll said.

Cheng Xiu took a step back as she saw the anger in the healer's eyes. This was not what she had intended when she had used the Troll skin. Then again, what had she expected the Trolls would do? Not care? She had seen how much of a community the trolls were, how much they loved their people, and now, she was violating what they must consider the most sacred. Using their people's dead skin as a shield from their own attack.

The leader listened as the trolls around him started to hit their weapon ends onto the ground.

He looked at the Named One on his side and nodded.

The Yellow tunic wearing ones formed a single file and marched towards the place where the healer and Cheng Xiu fought.

The white-robed girl took in the approaching enemy and understood what was happening. She was going to no longer be shown mercy. Because using patterned fighting was showing mercy. It was giving her a chance to fight back.

Cheng Xiu's eyes fell on the healer who looked at her with a vicious smile on its face.

"Now you will know the consequences of making the Troll Race your enemy."

Cheng Xiu ignored the healer's words and analysed her situation. She had incoming fighters whose capabilities was something that she was not much aware of, and she did not know how many healers were among them as the Trolls all wore the same clothes, and she was sure that if there was a healer, they would still know how to fight well.

Her eyes fell onto the figure of the Healer troll who was her current opponent.

Better to take out all the enemies she knew before she tackled the ones that were still in the realm of the unknown. Otherwise, her known enemy would join the new ones to try to defeat her.

Cheng Xiu ignored the incoming yellow tunics and dashed towards the Healer troll at full speed, the longsword held in position and the skin sheet at the ready.

The healer glared at the incoming human cultivator and raised her metal club to smash the girl.

The club reached her head.

Cheng Xiu ducked at the last moment and used an upward thrust from below.

The Troll tried to back away while throwing the pins at her.

Cheng Xiu lifted the Troll skin, and allowed it to become a barrier between her and the Healer, obscuring each other from the view of the other.

The healer troll lifted its metal club, ready to hit the human cultivator with it as soon as the skin fell.

The troll looked on, but there was nothing behind the skin curtain.

The troll felt a sharp pain from the side.

There was a single longsword that impaled its side.

The Troll looked up at the attacker.

Dark Phoenix eyes looked at the Troll with calculating eyes.

Cheng Xiu pulled the sword out of the troll's body and used the momentum to try to impale the troll's heart with the longsword.

The healer Troll raised the Zhenjiu pin in its hand and aimed for Cheng Xiu's forehead.

Cheng Xiu grabbed the pin-holding hand, and the Troll grabbed her sword-holding wrist.

The two figures started a tug of war with each other.

Cheng Xiu's peripheral vision showed that the yellow-tunics were waiting for the winner to emerge. If it was their own, they would celebrate Cheng Xiu's death, but if it was Cheng Xiu, they would immediately pull her into an all-out battle.

Cheng Xiu made a quick decision.

Relaxed her hold on the longsword just a bit, to give the opponent the illusion that she was losing control.

Sure enough, the Healer troll gave her a triumphant look and pulled the longsword out of Cheng Xiu's hand viciously.

But that smile did not last long.

Cheng Xiu had used the brief distraction that the healer troll had gone through, and snatched the Zhenjiu pin from the Troll's grip.

The Troll's eyes widened as the acupuncture pin was slammed hard into her neck.

The healer screamed in agony as pain wracked through its every pore.

Cheng Xiu stepped away as the Troll's entire body bubbled like it was put into a deep-fryer, and slowly turned to dust.

12 Trolls down. 18 Trolls left to go.

Cheng Xiu's eyes fell on the line of yellow tunics. There were eight of them.

Her eyes fell to the watching trolls. Including the leader, there were 9 of them over there. Which left the entire troll count at present to 17.

She needed one more and Cheng Xiu was not sure how she would get that one unless there was a bigger boss that was yet to make its appearance.

Cheng Xiu decided that she would deal with that spare 1 when she got there. She needed to kill 17 Trolls before that.

The yellow tunic at the far end jumped over the line and threw darts at Cheng Xiu.

Cheng Xiu smirked, and grabbed the skin sheet pierced with those dangerous pins, and used it to block the incoming attack.

The darks deflected off the Troll skin.

Cheng Xiu pulled out one of the pins embedded in the skin harshly and threw it at the Troll that threw the dart at her.

The Troll's eyes widened and fear entered its eyes.

The creature tried to dodge it.

The pin grazed past the troll's neck, leaving behind a thin wound.

Blood oozed out a bit from the wound.

That was enough.

The Troll started to scream in pain as its skin started to develop blisters. The dart Troll's death was even more gruesome to watch as the poison took its time in killing the creature off.

Cheng Xiu removed threw more pins from the skin.

She raised the poisoned weapon with a smile on her face. "Who is next?"

"You cruel woman!" Liso screamed at Cheng Xiu. "How can you do such a dishonourable thing as to use their own comrade's weapon against them? Don't you have a heart?"

Cheng Xiu scoffed. "I only have one aim today. To survive. If it means I have to use methods that I don't agree with or weapons that are not mine, or I am familiar with, then so be it. I would rather live with the guilt than to die and become the food of these trolls."

Liso gritted her teeth. She turned angrily towards DaYin. "Can you believe her audacity, DaYin?"

The paler woman smiled, her eyes fixated on the thin figure of cheng Xiu. "She has sure a strong body, despite it being so beautiful."

Liso frowned. "I…I guess? So what?"

The pale woman licked her lips. "And did you see her handling of the weapons right now? A longsword, a screening sheet, and now Zhenjiu pins…her hand-eye coordination must be near perfect."

Liso frowned as she realised what the beautiful woman was thinking. "You can't be thinking-"

"Such a beauty will always be loved by men, more than a simple flowery girl like DaYin is now."

Liso shook her head. "DaYin, that is not true. Lord Yi is not-"

"I want that," DaYin said with a wistful sigh. "I want that for myself."

Liso looked at the girl with concern in her eyes. "DaYin…"

"It is the only way that he will accept DaYIn," the beautiful woman whispered, her eyes filled with obsession as it watched Cheng Xiu's movements.. "It is the only way to make it perfect."