"Wait! Stop, Ghost Spider! Listen to me!"
Marshal Moyai had barely ripped the black mask from his face when Ghost Spider's next lethal strike whistled past his ear. Forced into a corner, the Marshal had no choice but to retaliate.
In fairness to Ghost Spider, his "impulsiveness" was entirely rational. If you walk into a canyon to find your elite regiment pulverized into the dirt, and the only person standing there is wearing a saboteur's black robes while literally glowing with a murder-mark—how many people would stop to chat?
To Ghost Spider, a "calm discussion" was just a chance for Moyai to find an opening and kill him too. In the brutal world of Poison Masters, the only safety is found in striking first.
"Underworld Poison Claw!"
Ghost Spider shrieked, his withered right hand hooking into the air. A spectral claw, dripping with obsidian-colored toxic energy, tore through the space between them.
Moyai, seeing his attempts at diplomacy met with a killing blow, finally snapped. Even a clay figurine has three parts of fire, and he was the Great Marshal of an Empire! Did this spider truly think he was a soft target?
"Gale Palm!"
Moyai retreated half a step, thrusting his palm forward. A massive wave of cyan wind energy collided with the black poison claw.
BOOM!
The resulting explosion leveled a nearby cliffside, sending boulders tumbling into the abyss. The battle had officially escalated from a skirmish to a mortal struggle between Kings.
High above, hidden by the night and his Heavenly State Soul, Xiao Lin watched the fireworks with a look of mild disappointment.
"A pity," Xiao Lin sighed, leaning back against a cool rock. "If only I had a chair and a bag of melon seeds. Watching two Dou Wangs tear each other apart is prime entertainment."
If Moyai and Ghost Spider knew that their life-and-death struggle was being treated as a "dinner show" by a man who had planned every second of it, they would likely set aside their differences just to burn him alive. But Xiao Lin's calculations went deeper than mere theater.
His suspicion of Moyai hadn't just come from his intuition. From his Suhui (awakened memories), he knew that by the time the original story began, the Intel Clan no longer existed in the Jia Ma Empire. Yet, they were mentioned in passing as a former power.
What causes a Dou Wang family to vanish? Xiao Lin had reasoned. In a stable empire, only one thing: Treason.
Xiao Lin didn't need a "God's eye view" like a reader; he just needed to look at the gaps in history. And tonight, those gaps were being filled with blood.
Down in the canyon, the gap in cultivation was starting to show. As a Seven-Star Dou Wang, Moyai was slowly suppressing the Five-Star Ghost Spider. Sensing a momentary lull, Moyai tried one last time to reach the commander's logic.
"Ghost Spider! Think! I didn't kill your men!" Moyai roared over the sound of clashing energy. "Why would I be here if I did? Why would I be marked by a Stigma? It's a setup!"
"Bullshit!" Ghost Spider spat, blood flecking his lips. "If it wasn't you, why are you here in a mask? Why do you carry the scent of my fallen brothers? You think I'm a fool? You killed them to hide the evidence of our deal!"
Ghost Spider launched another Underworld Poison Claw. It grazed Moyai's scalp, taking a lock of hair and leaving a trail of cold sweat.
Moyai was livid, but his strategic mind was finally cooling down. He realized they were both dancing to someone else's tune. "Ghost Spider, listen! Someone used a technique to plant that mark on me! They lured you here just as they lured me! If I were the one playing you, why would I call you here myself? Think! The person behind this is still nearby!"
Ghost Spider's hand hesitated mid-air. The sincerity in Moyai's rage was starting to puncture his grief-fueled madness. He wasn't a moron; he was the Commander of an Army. He smelled the faint, oily scent of a conspiracy.
"Moyai... you truly swear it wasn't you?" Ghost Spider's aura flickered, his lethal palm hovering in the air.
Moyai felt a surge of hope. If they stopped now, they could hunt down the interloper together.
But Xiao Lin was not about to let his actors miss their cues.
Suddenly, from the darkness near the canyon entrance, the sound of rhythmic marching and shouting broke the silence. A squad of thirty soldiers appeared, led by a man whose voice carried with perfect, "loyal" clarity.
"Great Marshal! We are here to support you! Today, we leave the Ghost Spider's corpse in these mountains!"
Moyai's smile froze. Ghost Spider's eyes instantly turned blood-red, every vein in his face bulging with renewed fury.
The "reinforcements" had arrived at the exact second Moyai was claiming innocence. The trap didn't just snap; it shattered the very possibility of trust.
The voice that shattered the fragile truce didn't belong to a phantom; it was Mu Chen.
This was the final "East Wind" Xiao Lin had prepared. Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible for Mu Chen and thirty Da Dou Shis to sneak within shouting distance of two Dou Wang powerhouses without being detected. The sensory range of a King-class expert is vast—but they hadn't accounted for the Lao Liu (crafty veteran) hiding in the tall grass.
Xiao Lin had used his Heavenly State Soul to weave a silent, spiritual veil around the battlefield. In the eyes of a Dou Zong, the space might have seemed slightly distorted, but to these two Dou Wangs, Xiao Lin was an invisible god. He could have stood between them and plucked their nose hairs, and they wouldn't have sensed a ripple.
Under this celestial shroud, Mu Chen's group moved like ghosts. And when the timing was perfect, Mu Chen delivered the line Xiao Lin had fed him.
For Mu Chen, the sight of Marshal Moyai in black night-robes at the secret meeting spot was the ultimate confirmation. Xiao Lin was right. The man leading their empire was a maggot eating it from the inside.
As Mu Chen's cry echoed through the canyon, Moyai felt the world tilt. Decades of military prestige, his standing in the capital, the future of the Intel Clan—it all vanished in a heartbeat.
He was trapped in a nightmare of "impossible coincidences." Even if he looked into a mirror right now, he might struggle to believe his own innocence. The setting was too perfect, the timing too lethal. He looked at Ghost Spider and saw a man beyond the reach of reason.
"MO... YAI!"
Ghost Spider's voice was a jagged shriek of pure agony. "You despicable, treacherous, double-dealing snake! You sat there and spun tales of 'setup' and 'shadowy figures' just to buy time for your reinforcements? You invited me here to be ambushed?!"
Ghost Spider's rage was so volcanic that blood actually sprayed from his lips. He began to hurl curses so vile they would make a mercenary blush. He cursed the Intel ancestors, he cursed Moyai's future descendants, and he promised to dig up the Marshal's family graves and feed them to his scorpions.
Xiao Lin, watching from the ridge, raised an eyebrow. Ghost Spider is literally spitting blood from anger. If words were Dou Qi, Moyai would be a heap of ash by now.
The Internal Combustion of a Marshal
Moyai, who had been struggling to remain logical, finally reached his limit. He had been framed, marked like a dog, and now he was being screamed at by the very "ally" who was supposed to be his ticket to the Dou Huang realm.
"Pfft!"
A spray of blood erupted from Moyai's mouth. He had been physically and mentally pushed too far. He looked at Ghost Spider—the man who was supposed to be his partner in crime—and saw only a raving lunatic who wouldn't stop insulting his mother.
"ENOUGH! ENOUGH ALREADY!" Moyai roared, his aura turning violent and erratic. "Ghost Spider, I don't care if we're being played anymore! I'm going to tear that tongue out of your head!"
Reason died. In its place was a primal, mindless bloodlust.
The two Dou Wangs didn't just fight; they collided like stars. They ignited their Dou Qi Wings, taking the battle into the midnight sky. Cyan wind blades and purple poison claws crossed again and again, each strike aimed solely at the other's throat. They began to chug recovery pills like candy, refusing to let their momentum drop for even a second.
The Forbidden Gambit
Ghost Spider, sensing that Moyai's higher cultivation was still giving him the edge, reached into his robes for his final trump card. He pulled out a pulsating, violet-black medicinal pill that reeked of decay.
"Moyai! Even if I rot in hell today, I'm taking you with me!"
He swallowed the pill.
BOOM.
Ghost Spider's aura exploded. His Five-Star Dou Wang strength surged through the Sixth Star and hammered against the gates of the Seventh Star. The price was catastrophic—a permanent drop of two stars in his cultivation once the effect wore off—but Ghost Spider didn't care about the future. He only cared about the man in front of him.
"Increase your power all you want," Moyai snarled, his eyes glowing with a frenzied light. "I'll still kill you!"
The Spectators in the Shadow
While the sky burned with the clashing of two madmen, Xiao Lin had quietly drifted down the ridge to regroup with Mu Chen and the thirty Da Dou Shis.
They sat in a dark ravine, watching the light show in the sky.
"Should we... help?" one Da Dou Shi whispered, his voice trembling.
"Help who?" Mu Chen replied, his voice dripping with cold irony. "The traitor Marshal or the enemy Commander? Let them kill each other. We're here to witness a 'tragedy,' not prevent one."
Everyone in the squad had heard Ghost Spider's screams. They had heard the mentions of the secret deal and the betrayal of the empire. They weren't idiots; they knew they were watching the execution of a traitor and the downfall of an enemy.
Xiao Lin leaned against a rock, watching the purple and cyan light illuminate the canyon. His plan had transitioned into its final, most beautiful phase. The "Lao Liu" of the Xiao Clan was just getting started.