Exalted Toxin Lord - Chapter 25

When Hua Yan awoke, he was already out of the forest. Though this place was quite different from the last, it was not a place that he was unfamiliar with.

In fact, Hua Yan knew this place quite well, especially considering the fact that he had spent the majority of his life here. He would have to have been an idiot if he said he didn’t recognize where he currently was.

After all, this was Hua Ding Manor, the place where he first had started to see the true, harsh nature of the world in which he was born.

Furthermore, this was not some random place in the manor either! Hua Yan had actually woken up in the very spot where he had met his demise earlier at the wrong end of Hua Bim’s blade.

This was the very place where he should have breathed his last, the spot where he was supposed to have met his end!

Yet, here he was, completely inconsiderate of that fact and still as alive as ever.

The new body that he had been given arbitrarily by Ashura had been completely reformed. It was recreated so well that no one would believe that it was nothing more than a rotting corpse not too long ago.

Even if Hua Yan himself went up to people and told them that his body was actually a corpse that was made to look a little better with some special techniques, no one would believe him. That was how godly the restoration process was!

There were no other methods in the whole of Gin Town that could reconstruct a corpse so perfectly. In truth, one would be hard pressed to find such a technique even if the whole of the Ming City Union was considered!

Hua Yan was very curious towards the matter, but a message from Frenzy abruptly halted his thoughts and shifted them in a new direction.

“Retrieve the ash that you left behind in your passing. Let this be your sole objective for the moment. Do anything that you must to accomplish this goal. Failure will not tolerated.”

Hearing about the mention of the ash, Hua Yan briefly thought back to his final few moments within his own body.

He had spotted Hua Gwan, the crook that had brought him all sorts of trouble. He wanted to enact his immediately vengeance, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was injured, being pursued by a Guard Colonel, and in a rush to leave the mansion.

He was literally possessed by his madness as he jumped off a rooftop and assaulted the guards that flanked his target. He didn’t care about the wounds on his body and continued to tear himself apart just to get back at Hua Gwan.

All other thoughts from within his mind were gone. The only thing there to keep him company was Frenzy.

In that moment when he had crushed all his obstacles and stood one blade-width away from his trembling foe, he felt as invincible as the heavens themselves.

Then, with just as much as grandeur as his illusions, came Hua Bim’s dream-crashing blade. As he was bested, his glorious visions had shattered. He also remembered turning soft immediately after. His body had turned to ash and all the memories he had of it had halted there.

It was this ash that Frenzy was asking him to look for!

Hua Yan wanted to know why the ash was important and why he was tasked with retrieving it, but Frenzy seemed to have gone silent.

Though it was true that Frenzy was not speaking, it did not mean that it was gone. Hua Yan could still feel it lurking around somewhere in the corners of his mind. It was just that it chose to be silent and not give answers to any of Hua Yan’s queries.

Seeing as how he could get no more information from the conscious poison, Hua Yan decided to take in his surroundings and formulate a plan afterwards.

He was still in the 37th Courtyard of the Southern Gate. Hua Yan sat on a bench and watched the people passed by. They all seemed to have forgotten about the murders that took place.

Hua Yan could not spot any signs of the fight that went down between himself and the guards. It had all been cleaned up to the extent that there was not even a trace of the battle still present in the environment.

Hua Yan had a creeping feeling that he had been out for longer than he had initially anticipated. He suddenly had a great interest to find out what the current date was. He wanted to know exactly how long he had slept for.

Since Frenzy still didn’t want to tell him anything, Hua Yan decided to use his won means of obtaining information.

Spotting a kid within an arm’s reach from him, Hua Yan called out.

“Hey, boy, come here.”

The boy, who was busy balancing an apple on his forehead, watched the apple fall down as some weird stranger surprised him from out of nowhere.

“What do you want!” the boy shouted exasperatedly, as if accusing Hua Yan of murdering his entire family.

Hua Yan, ignoring the child’s attitude, asked him for the date.

“Can you tell me what day it is today?”

The child, giving Hua Yan the “you bothered me for something as stupid and trivial as that” look, gave an answer in enunciated syllables.

“It’s the 12th.”

After doing so, the child turned off and started playing with the apple again, completely forgetting about Hua Yan.

Hua Yan, however, was quicker in dragging the child back and asking in a slightly rushed tone.

“The 12th of what month?”

“The month after the one that passed obviously!”

The child was completely unwilling to cooperate, and even tried biting Hua Yan’s hands to be free again.

The Frenzy that was sleeping within Hua Yan began to awake. It was somehow… stronger than it had been before he had died.

Hua Yan knew that if he didn’t control it, the child in front of him would be killed off before he could even move a muscle.

Hua Yan released his grasp on the kid and quickly moved some distance away.

That had been way too risky! He had almost commited a crime, a murder nonetheless, right after being given a new body. As things were going now, he wouldn’t be surprised if he killed everyone around him just because they looked at him the wrong way.

“If you want to control what’s threatening to come out from inside of you, you’ll obviously have to become stronger first,” said a Frenzy from within him, “Or else there’s no way for you to escape your fate.”

Hua Yan knew that he was weak, but getting stronger was not such a simple thing.

Though he was capable of defeating a bunch of Continuous Ballooning Stage experts, was that really his own strength that he was commanding? Was it not because of the weapon in his arms that he was able to demonstrate such prowess?

What if he didn’t have that weapon? Then wouldn’t he become nothing more than a dead body? Wasn’t that exactly what had happened when he was confronted with the stronger Complete Inflation Stage Guard Colonel took him out?

What he needed was his own power. Power that he could generate from within his body!

Hua Yan knew that he needed to cultivate, but he didn’t have the slightest clue how. He was just a Side Branch member without a family. There was no one around to teach him anything, so he could not receive any breakthroughs in his cultivation.

“Find the ashes first,” Frenzy repeated, snapping Hua Yan out of his thoughts, “The rest can be thought of later.”