Quadruple split.

Chapter 2887 Testing Poison
"Huh...huh..."

It wasn't until Sarah coughed up blood and collapsed to the ground, silent and still, that Cole, who had remained silent from the very beginning and had gritted his teeth and endured even the worst beatings, swayed and knelt on one knee, clutching his chest and breathing heavily.

"Cole."

Rona slowly walked to her childhood sweetheart's side, knelt down in front of him, and looked into his bloodshot eyes. Although her tone was calm, she asked with a trembling voice, "Are you alright?"

"Not bad... Hah... Hah..."

Not only were his eyes bloodshot, but his skin was also stained with a bluish-gray hue. Cole forced a smile, then reached his trembling right hand into his pocket and pulled out a palm-sized bottle. Just as he was about to twist it open, a stream of foul blood gushed from his mouth and nose, and he collapsed heavily to the ground.

"Cole."

Lorna swiftly caught the bottle before it shattered on the ground, calmly gazing at the man before her who was drawing ever closer to death, and asked, "How do I use it?"

Unable to speak, Cole struggled to look up at Lorna, pointed to his completely bloodless mouth, then to his throat, and finally let his right hand fall limply, his eyes fixed on the bottle in Lorna's hand.

“His muscles have started to atrophy, and he can't drink anymore.”

Mu Xuejian, who had appeared beside them unnoticed, gave a casual reminder, then muttered under her breath, "What a cliché plot."

"I'll feed them."

Lorna said something indifferently, then poured the medicine from the bottle into her mouth and cradled Cole's head in her hands.

Five seconds later—

"Waaah!"

Just moments ago he was on the verge of death, but now his face was unusually rosy. Cole suddenly lifted his head from Rona's lap and said, his face flushed, "That stuff, actually, can be put into my mouth without me having to swallow it, and it will still work!"

Lorna glanced at the empty bottle in her hand and frowned, saying, "You didn't say that."

"I couldn't speak just now."

The boy, who had lost his first kiss, turned his head away, clutching his shirt tightly at his chest, his entire face and ears turning deep red.

"Ah."

The girl, who had lost her first kiss, nodded, casually stuffed the bottle into the pocket of her dress, and said softly, "Then we're even."

Cole turned around in astonishment, bewildered, and asked, "Are we... even?"

"It's even, that's settled."

Lorna stood up, no longer looking at Cole's flushed face, and said in her usual calm tone, "Also, I have no intention of becoming your lover."

"cough!"

Finally, although she herself enjoyed watching the drama unfold, she couldn't stand being ignored any longer. Mu cleared her throat forcefully, then adjusted herself back to her cool and aloof heroine persona, turned to Cole who seemed unharmed except for minor injuries, and asked, "What happened just now? Were you poisoned?"

Cole slowly stood up and nodded, saying, "Yes, because I felt that I would most likely fail if I confronted her head-on, I prepared some concoctions in advance. The incense in her room was a great help, as it reacted with the powders I had prepared beforehand."

Incense? Powder? Mixture?

Mu Xuejian frowned slightly and asked again, "So what are all these? Please explain briefly."

"Powder is a type of additive, which can be understood as a variety of materials with different effects, such as these things."

Cole magically produced three transparent glass tubes with contents of pink, light blue, and dark purple, respectively, and explained, "They could be anything, perhaps dust from agave, powder from black charcoal, or the core of a synergistic tree, but all of these things I brought have one thing in common: they can generally react strongly with other things."

Mu Xuejian nodded slightly: "I see."

"Based on this, things that can react with my blends can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category is things that are common and ubiquitous, but correspondingly, blends that can react with them to produce a toxic reaction are very rare; the second category is things that, although not common, have very distinctive toxicity after the reaction."

Cole put away the three glass tubes in his hand, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth as he said, "As for the third one, it is a combination of both."

Mu Xuejian glanced at Sarah, who had been completely dead the moment she collapsed and was no longer breathing, and asked, "So what kind of poison did this woman take?"

"A debilitating toxin is formed by the reaction between the core of the synergistic tree and the fragrance of Ritz."

Cole answered without hesitation, and then further explained: "This toxin is very unique because it only takes effect within three seconds of spreading. Once the time exceeds three seconds, it turns into a simple foul odor and has no effect other than being unpleasant."

Although Mu Xuejian wasn't particularly interested in poisons, she was still curious after witnessing what had just happened and asked, "What about the three seconds?"

"If ingested within three seconds of the reaction between the two substances, the toxins will be completely absorbed into the body and rapidly integrated into the blood and muscles, reaching a dose equivalent to two normal breaths. After that, each breath will catalyze these toxins."

Cole walked over to Sarah's body, bent down, and casually plunged the dagger into her back: "And when these catalysts accumulate to a certain level, the poisoned person's organs, muscles, and respiratory system will all begin to fail simultaneously, eventually leading to a painful death in a short period of time."

Mu Xuejian stared blankly as Cole stood up nonchalantly, slowly wiping the blood from his dagger, and hesitated before asking, "You... do you have some kind of fetish for torturing corpses?"

"abnormal."

Rona's icy voice immediately rang out.

"I don't have that kind of strange fetish!"

Cole raised his hands with a wry smile and explained, "I'm just a little worried that Ms. Sarah might use some kind of fake death to deceive us. After all, the master has always taught me that if it's someone who must be killed, you must finish them off after killing them, otherwise it's easy to run into problems."

"Tanmo."

Mu Xuejian's expression immediately returned to normal, and he nodded vigorously, saying, "Then it's not surprising."

"What the master said..."

With her back to the two of them, Rona nodded and said softly, "That's very conservative."

"Well, that's roughly the gist of it."

Cole ignored the already dead body on the ground and continued, "Because I knew very well that I was weak, and Ms. Sarah was a monk who was very sensitive to auras, it would be difficult for me to kill her with one blow even if I attacked first. So I wanted to see if there was a chance to poison her. And she happened to have Aromatherapy Liz at home, so I decided what to do as soon as I entered the house."

Mu Xuejian glanced at the half-open door of No. 29 Changming Street and asked, "So, her hammering you out of there was also part of the plan?"

"No, I was exposed and exposed after the fact, but it's really not a big deal."

Cole chuckled and said in a light tone, "I deliberately exposed myself while I was making the reconciliation, and rushed over as soon as she reacted. Then, as you can see, I was punched away by her, but by then she had already inhaled at least two mouthfuls of poison, and the ensuing struggle prevented her from realizing that she had been poisoned at first."

While gently stroking [Wu Shuang], who seemed somewhat disgruntled because no one was killing her, Mu Xuejian asked, "Won't she notice anything once a fight breaks out?"

"If it were any other profession, nine times out of ten one would still feel some discomfort, but the problem is that she is a martial monk, and when a martial monk enters a combat state, the internal energy will subconsciously protect the internal organs and strengthen her physical strength."

Cole sheathed the dagger and explained, "Remember when she used her neck to block my dagger at the beginning? That was the energy she released to the surface of her body for attack and defense. She also has energy inside her body that can protect and strengthen her lungs. Under these circumstances, she shouldn't have been able to feel it in the early stages of poisoning."

Mu Xuejian nodded slightly and speculated, "By the time we get there, it will probably be too late, won't it?"

“That’s right. As I said before, that toxin is catalyzed by the frequency of breathing. Once this catalysis reaches a certain point, unless she can maintain the flow of her qi at all times, she will be killed instantly if she relaxes even slightly.”

Cole gave an affirmative answer and laughed, "And her final attack, which was meant to finish me off, caused an imbalance of energy within her body. Ultimately, the poison, which had been catalyzed to its extreme, destroyed her internal structure, leading to her weakened state and death."

Lorna turned to look at Cole: "You've been poisoned too."

"To ensure success, I had to pester her a bit, so I did get poisoned."

Cole gave Lorna a reassuring smile and explained, "So I held my breath throughout the fight, only taking a short breath when absolutely necessary, to ensure I wouldn't be immediately poisoned without my internal energy protecting me. And in the end, as you all saw..."

“What I saw was—” Lorna looked at Cole’s smiling face through the black veil and said seriously, “You almost died.”

"Yes."

The latter nodded and shrugged, saying, "But I survived."

"What about next time?"

Rona's tone was calm and even as she asked, "Will you survive next time? The Ace of Spades can't cure poison, and she's good at nothing except using a sword and eating snacks."

Mu Xuejian: "There's no need to put it that way..."

"I hope I can survive."

Cole looked at Lorna and said seriously, "If I were to die by accident, the master would probably still find a way to get me back to work, since I'm still quite useful."

Mu Xuejian nodded and agreed, "Indeed, Tan Mo once told me that when training a clown, you should carry a soul-guiding bottle with you, and the corpse must be intact."

"So thoughtful it brings tears to my eyes."

Cole made a face, revealing a rare hint of youthful spirit that one would expect at his age.

"..."

Rona remained silent, her eyes lowered, lost in thought.

"You guys go back first."

After quickly treating his injuries, Cole picked up the corpse from the ground and carried it towards the broken door of No. 29 Changming Street: "I'll clean up the mess a bit."

"Do not."

Lorna decisively expressed her refusal with her actions, following Cole toward the body's home: "I'm not sure if you'd be interested in dead people."

Cole turned back to his crush, who had always been a bit cunning and often left people speechless with a single sentence, with a wry smile: "How could I possibly have feelings for a dead person..."

Lorna blinked: "What?"

"nothing."

Under the girl's gaze, the boy awkwardly turned his head away and said helplessly, "If you want to come along, then come along."

"On the way back, we'll go to the hostel."

What are you going to the hostel for?

"New egg tart."

What kind of new product is it?

“A beautiful elf is looking into your eyes while making you pay for the egg tart.”

"Uh, what about the egg tarts?"

"The egg tarts are still the same as before."

What's new about it?

“A beautiful elf is looking into your eyes while making you pay for the egg tart.”

"Didn't you just say that once?"

"Ah."

"So what's the difference between the two?"

"New products are more expensive."

"..."

"Shall we go?"

"go."

"Ah."

So the two of them walked into the house while talking, leaving Mu Xuejian standing there staring blankly with dead fish eyes.

In the end, this handsome Ace of Spades decided... to draw his sword and kill!
Unsheathed without frost.

【Jianhan Jiuzhou】

"!?"

The assassin, who had been lurking on the rooftop twenty meters away, was originally sent by some important figure to protect Sarah. However, he was so terrified by the intimidating sword pressure that he dared not show himself until the very end. He immediately leaped up, trying to escape the range of the opponent's unreasonable 'physical attack'.

however--

[Sword Qi Soars]

Three cold sword lights flashed past. Despite his best efforts to dodge, the assassin, who had lost an arm, still groaned and turned to run away.

【Bitter Sword - Sparse Stars and Snowy Moon】

Frost-free return to its sheath.

The assassin, pierced from behind by a series of sword intents as numerous as stars, collapsed and died instantly.

"Ugh."

Clutching her increasingly restless beloved sword tightly in her arms, Lady Mu sighed helplessly, utterly exhausted.

Because of [Frostless], she was stuck at the half-step epic level and had a very hard time every day. If it weren't for the 'sword test' at Shuangye's behest, she would probably have had it even harder.

That's about enough...

While calculating the remaining threat posed by [Clown Card] in the 13th Street of the East District, the girl forcibly carried [Frostless] on her back, making plans for the future.

Soon, the Ace of Spades' mission in the City of Freedom came to an end.

Of the remaining 'jobs' available for selection, one stands out as particularly tempting.

The guy who promised to help me break through to the Epic level should probably keep his promise by now.

It's strange...

Why won't Mo accept my friend request?

With these questions in mind, Lady Mu headed towards the Wanderer's Inn in the Nightless Zone.

She also wanted to eat egg tarts.

Chapter 2878: The End