Alchemy Master

Chapter 1119, Li Shang’s Escape

Translator: Silavin

Beneath the flow of that surge of warmth, Li Shang noticed that even his torn muscles had begun to emit a numb, tingling sensation.

That was the sign of rapid recovery!

“Just what kind of Pill is this?” Alarm spread through Li Shang’s heart. That young man had produced a Pill whose effects were, quite frankly, more terrifying than any of the precious Pills he had prepared for himself.

And yet, despite all of this, not a trace of it showed on his face.

At this moment, if Xiong Xiong noticed just how swiftly he was recovering, he would not hesitate, not even for an instant, to deliver a killing blow.

Under the watchful gaze of one pair of eyes after another, Xiong Xiong maintained a constant smile, bearing the air of an absolute gentleman.

Before long, the time it takes to burn one incense stick had slowly passed.

“Li Shang, it is time to settle the grudge between us.”

The moment that single incense stick’s worth of time had elapsed, Xiong Xiong spoke, his feet already carrying him in measured steps toward Li Shang, who lay sprawled amongst a field of rubble.

“Xiong Xiong…” Almost simultaneously, Li Shang’s tightly shut eyes snapped open.

Within his gaze, every onlooker saw a shade of furious despair.

Indeed, how could such a brief span of time, the burning of a single incense stick, restore a man’s ability to resist, when he had entirely lost the capacity to move?

*Cough cough…*

Under the scrutiny of countless eyes, Li Shang coughed up dark, filthy blood again and again, seemingly exerting every last scrap of strength he possessed as he hauled himself, with great difficulty, up from the rubble.

The very instant he stood, his legs buckled beneath him, and he nearly crumpled straight back to the ground.

Nearly everyone could see it plainly that Li Shang at this moment was utterly spent. He was a spent arrow with no flight left in it.

Watching all of this from the side, Qin Yichen’s eyes flickered with a faint trace of curiosity.

Though, what surprised him was not that Li Shang could move at all. Rather, he had simply not anticipated that a man of Li Shang’s blunt, straightforward character could actually put on a performance of this calibre.

He had absolute confidence in his Pills.

Even within this brief span of a single incense stick, Li Shang would certainly not be in the state he was outwardly displaying.

While that Pill was not enough to allow a full recovery in such a short time, it should, at the very least, have restored half of his strength.

It appeared that Li Shang, though rough and wild in appearance, possessed within him a certain level of shrewdness.

If Xiong Xiong were to detect the true condition of his body at this moment, he would undoubtedly bring his full power to bear and obliterate him on the spot.

Under the strange and probing gazes from all around, Li Shang’s body trembled continuously, looking for all the world as though he might collapse at any second, and yet, even so, he staggered forward one unsteady step at a time, as though his sole intention was to walk down from the Blood Boulder Platform.

“Ah, what a pity.”

“I guess even Li Shang never imagined he would come to this.”

“He can only blame himself for weaving his own snare.”

Sighs and murmuring rippled through the crowd on all sides.

Among the countless onlookers, genuine sympathy was a rare sight indeed. What filled most faces was a kind of indifference.

After all, though this place was one of the rare havens of peace in the continent, those who ventured beyond their own people and came here to this place harboured no capacity for pity. Under such circumstances, it was even less likely that anyone would break the rules of the Blood Boulder Platform to intervene.

Xiong Xiong’s conduct was underhanded, yet it fell entirely within the rules of the Blood Boulder Platform. For anyone to interfere at this juncture would be to openly disregard those rules.

The consequences of doing so were something none of them could afford to bear.

“Li Shang, do you wish to go down so much? Why not let me see you off.”

Watching Li Shang in his wretched state, Xiong Xiong let out a cold laugh, stamped his foot, and launched forward like a sharp blade.

*Bang!*

At the same instant, the sound of air being violently compressed rang out in all directions. Xiong Xiong’s face twisted with a savage grin as one great, thick fist drove forward without mercy toward Li Shang with crushing force.

That posture, that intent, spoke plainly that he meant to shatter Li Shang with a single blow.

Watching this scene, not a few people heaved a sigh, and some, unable to bear looking, closed their eyes.

Whatever one might say of Li Shang, he was a mighty figure with a name known across the land. Who could have imagined that one day he would come to such an end.

*Peng!*

A solid crack rang out, and everyone felt the ground beneath their feet shudder violently.

“Damn you!”

Yet before anyone could react, Xiong Xiong’s furious roar had already filled the air.

When the crowd fixed their eyes to look, they found that Li Shang, who moments ago had worn the look of a dying man’s last struggle, was now standing outside the Blood Boulder Platform.

What was even more startling was that at this moment, a mocking smile sat at the corner of his lips. Though the aura around his body was somewhat uneven, the listlessness of a man gravely wounded had vanished without a trace.

“What… what is going on!?”

Watching this scene, innumerable pairs of eyes contracted sharply, all of them blazing with disbelief.

Not a moment ago, Li Shang had been the very picture of a man who could not summon even half an ounce of strength. How had he transformed in an instant into this?

Had Xiong Xiong gone soft at the final moment? Had he never truly intended to kill him at all, and merely pushed him off the Blood Boulder Platform?

But the moment they took in Xiong Xiong’s dark and stormy expression, that notion was swiftly put to rest.

With the depth of enmity between Xiong Xiong and Li Shang, it was absolutely inconceivable that he would let slip a golden opportunity like this.

The only possibility was that Li Shang had been concealing himself all along.

Yet everyone could see clearly that after his battle with Qin Yichen, Li Shang’s condition had been genuinely dire to the extreme, so dire, in fact, that he had not even possessed the strength to leave the Blood Boulder Platform of his own accord. This was precisely how Xiong Xiong had seized upon this moment.

And yet, in the span of a single incense stick, how had he managed to use the force of Xiong Xiong’s own blow to retreat and leave the Blood Boulder Platform?

“Could it be…”

Suddenly, someone recalled that earlier, Qin Yichen had appeared to toss out a Pill.

Could it have something to do with that Pill?

As for Qin Yichen’s identity, quite a few people had been speculating, yet the aura radiating from him was one that approached the Human Race, with near perfection.

In this continent, only certain Top Tier Races with deep-seated foundations could achieve such a thing.

And so, the crowd was fairly certain that Qin Yichen was not of the same Race as Li Shang. But if they were not of the same Race, why would his Pill have any effect on Li Shang?

Moreover, the effect was this terrifying.

In the span of a single incense stick, a Li Shang with close to no combat ability had been restored to nearly half his strength, enough to narrowly escape disaster.

If in a fight to the death, when both sides were spent and exhausted, someone were to suddenly swallow a Pill such as that, would it not be trivially easy to turn the tide of the entire battle?

“Many thanks.”

At this moment, Li Shang cupped his fists toward Qin Yichen, speaking with considerable respect.

Now, toward Qin Yichen, there was not even half a shade of resentment left in him. Neither the latter’s strength, which he could not see through, nor the identity he could not penetrate, were things he dared take lightly any longer.

And most critically of all, there was that Pill from moments ago.