Chaotic Times and Disasters: I Hunt Down Martial Arts Masters and Become a God

"Fu... Fu Qing!"

Suwen swallowed hard. "Those bones are moving!"

The scattered skeletons along the street came to life. Dozens, hundreds, and countless white bones crawled out from the ruins, from under the sand, and from the cracks in the broken walls.

Clutching their former weapons—rusted swords, broken spears, shattered hammers, and bone knives forged from their own bones—they approached the two with stiff steps.

Suwen's face turned pale instantly.

She wasn't some frail woman who had never seen a dead body before; she had seen just as many corpses on the battlefield of Ironblood City as anyone else. But the sight of skeletons standing up and walking towards her was beyond her understanding of "horror."

She instinctively took a half step back and tightly hugged Fu Qing's left arm with both hands.

Fu Qing drew his cold iron sword, and the first skeleton rushed in front of him, raising its rusty sword and slashing down at him.

He parried with his sword, but the rusty blade struck the blade, startling him.

Seven levels of meridian opening!

A skeleton that's been dead for hundreds of years actually has the cultivation level of the seventh level of the Meridian Opening Realm?!

With a single stroke, he cleaved the rusty sword in two and then cleaved the skeleton in two. The upper and lower halves of the skeleton flew off and crashed to the ground, but the two pieces of bone were still twisting and turning. The upper half, dragging its spine, continued to crawl toward Fu Qing.

Fu Qing then slashed several more times, meticulously chopping each bone of the skeleton into fragments, until the skeleton finally stopped moving.

"It actually needs to be chopped up."

Fu Qing frowned slightly, gripping the hilt of his knife tightly, as the other skeletons had already surrounded him.

Hundreds of skeletons formed a white torrent that rolled toward the two of them.

Fu Qing swept his blade across the foremost skeletons, then grabbed Su Wen and hoisted her onto his back. "Hold on tight!"

Suwen's leg was still not healed, so he walked slowly and had to carry the other person on his back.

Suwen wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

"There are three on the left."

Fu Qing dodged the bone spear thrusting from the left, and with a backhand slash, simultaneously cleaved back three skeletons.

He charged left and right through the horde of skeletons, fighting and retreating as he went, constantly retreating deeper into the ancient city.

There were too many skeletons to kill them all. Every time he chopped one down, two more would appear from the side, and the bone fragments were spread out on the ground layer upon layer.

"Why do you always save me...?"

Suwen's muffled voice reached his ears.

"You're my personal pharmacist; if you die, there will be no one to cure my poison."

"That's it?"

"What else?" Fu Qing cleaved a skeleton away with a single strike.

"oh."

Su Wen paused for a moment, then said, "Then don't try to save me next time. I've already written out the prescription and put it in my medicine box. Su Xue knows how to use it, so you can ask her to prolong my life as well."

"Nonsense, I'm waiting for you to develop the real antidote. Just prolonging life isn't enough. You're more useful to me if you're alive." Fu Qing cleaved two skeletons in two with a single strike and quickly retreated.

Just as he was about to break free of the encirclement of skeletons, a worm suddenly crawled out of a white bone head.

The insect was about half the size of a palm, completely black, with a pair of transparent wings on its back and two curved, sharp spines in its mouth.

It emerged from the skull fragments, shook its wings, and then transformed into a streak of black light, flying straight toward Fu Qing's face.

Fu Qing slashed back with his knife, sending the insect flying. It hit the wall, bounced back, shook its head, and flew up again.

Fu Qing was startled and finished off the insect in two with a single strike. A system notification sounded in his mind:

Killing a level two Gu worm grants +26777 plunder points.

Fu Qing's pupils constricted slightly—an insect with the cultivation level of the second stage of the Meridian Opening Realm?! Is this even possible?!

"This is no ordinary insect."

Suwen's voice rang in his ears, "It's a Gu worm, and a very high-grade one at that. Ordinary Gu worms only have the cultivation level of the Body Tempering Realm, but this one is at the second level of the Meridian Opening Realm. Only a Gu Master of at least the fifth or sixth rank could refine it."

"Gu worms of this caliber cannot be generated naturally. Someone must have refined them. These skeletons did not resurrect themselves; they were manipulated by the Gu worms."

"Is someone controlling this?"

"Not necessarily. The Gu Master may be dead, but the Gu worm may still be alive. The lifespan of the Gu worm is much longer than that of the Gu Master. It is also possible that the Gu Master gave a final order before he died, and the Gu worm has been carrying it out ever since."

Su Wen's voice grew increasingly somber, "So many bones, so many Gu worms... This city wasn't conquered back then, it was slaughtered by Gu cultivators!"

More and more black insects crawled out from the skull fragments, each one possessing the cultivation level of the Meridian Opening Realm.

They emerged from all parts of the skeleton, spread their wings, and coalesced into a buzzing black mist in the air.

Fu Qing felt a chill run down his spine and quickly retreated with Su Wen on his back.

The Gu worms were much faster than the skeleton, and the first few had already caught up with him.

A gu worm pounced on his back, its mouthparts piercing his flesh. In that instant, Fu Qing felt as if he had been stabbed with a red-hot iron spike, and he grimaced in pain.

He grabbed the Gu worm with his backhand and yanked it off. Just as he was about to stomp on it, he noticed that the Gu worm was emitting white smoke in his palm, its body stiffened, and its six legs twitched twice before becoming still.

System notification: Killed the Triple Meridian Gu Worm, Plunder Points +34192.

Fu Qing looked down at the still-smoking insect corpse in his palm, his expression strange.

"Is my blood poisonous?"

Su Wen was also stunned for a moment, but she quickly recovered, poked her head out from his back to look at the insect corpse, and suddenly spoke.

"Yes, it's poisonous! And it's a highly toxic poison."

Fu Qing was taken aback. He raised his hand to tap Su Wen's head, but then suddenly realized that Su Wen did indeed have a strange poison in his body!

The temple of the five internal organs.

The Gu poison engraved in the bloodline of the Feng clan, the work of the royal family of the Li Kingdom a thousand years ago, is the overlord of all Gu poisons in the world.

Su Wen was somewhat excited, "I've been researching the antibodies in your blood, but I never thought of using your blood directly to kill the Gu worms!"

"The Five Internal Organs Temple is the overlord of Gu poison. These Gu worms of lower rank are utterly insignificant in its presence. Your blood is a natural enemy to Gu worms. This is a very interesting topic!"

Fu Qing stopped and looked at the swarm of Gu worms that was still pouring in ahead, then suddenly smiled.

"That makes things much easier."

He plunged the cold iron knife into the ground, gripped the blade with his right hand, and pulled hard, cutting a gash in his palm from which blood gushed.

He clenched his fist, letting blood pool in his palm, and then flung it away at the swarm of Gu worms that were attacking him.

Blood droplets sprinkled among the swarm of insects. The moment the Gu worms touched the blood droplets, they would burst into white smoke, their wings would stop flapping, their mouths would open wide, and they would fall from the sky and land on the ground, frozen in a heap.

The system notifications rang in his mind—kill, kill, kill, kill... The loot points were jumping wildly.

"Your blood is more effective than my medicine."

Suwen peeked out from behind him, looking at the insect corpses scattered on the ground.

"I'll have to study your blood composition carefully after we get out. You promised to let me draw six vials of blood—that might not be enough now."

"How much do you want to smoke?"

"Draw twelve tubes first."

"You're going to beat me to death!"

"nonsense!"

Suwen buried her face in his neck, her voice muffled, "With me here, you won't die."

...

Meanwhile, at the other end of the ancient city.

An Sheng's silver spear pierced the spine of a skeleton, and the shaft shattered the skeleton into pieces.

Yunnan's short sword pierced the skull's eye socket, and the tip of the sword twisted around, nailing the newly awakened Gu worm inside the skull to death.

Xiahou Jun smashed the skulls of two skeletons with both maces, but he was still bitten several times when the Gu worms flew out from the skull fragments. His left arm was covered with red and swollen bite marks. If it weren't for the antidote given by Su Xue, he probably would have fainted long ago.

"Holy crap! How come there are so many bugs?!"

Yu Fu, holding his heart lamp, huddled in the middle of the group. The lamp's light was noticeably weaker than before. He muttered curses as he pulled out his Vajra talisman.

"I'm almost out of talismans! Does anyone have any more medicine? Sister Suwen isn't here, damn it!"

"Since Suwen is not here, I will take her place."

Su Xue took out a bandage from her medicine pouch and bandaged Xiahou Jun's wound.

Song Zhiwen stood anxiously by, the Confucian and Taoist protective aura on the bamboo slips already as thin as paper. He chanted scriptures while watching the densely packed white bones and Gu worms swarming around him.

"Where are Fu Qing and Su Wen? If this continues, we'll all die here."

Yunnan cleaved a skeleton in two, then looked up into the depths of the ancient city. "He'll come. He never abandons his teammates. Not in Ironblood City, not in Quzhou, and not here either. Hold on, wait for him!"

An Sheng pierced two Gu worms with one shot, "I believe him."

Yu Fu, holding a lantern, huddled in the middle of the line and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"My brother, come quick—if you don't come soon, my dad's treasures are all used up!"