Hell's Handbook

Su Jin was shocked at first, but he quickly noticed something amiss. This Shen Wu didn’t seem like he was the same as the Shen Wu he remembered. After scanning this Shen Wu, he realized that it wasn’t really Shen Wu – it was a less powerful clone of sorts.

Even though he looked exactly the same as Shen Wu from the outside, Su Jin’s psychokinesis could look beyond the surface and ascertain if this person was really who he looked like.

“Even if it’s not Shen Wu himself, this clone must be really formidable as well. Otherwise, Situ wouldn’t be in this state,” thought Su Jin. He and Kano Mai quickly ran to regroup with Situ Jin, especially because he noticed that Situ Jin’s vital signs were actually declining. In other words, despite being able to escape into the shadows, Situ Jin was still getting hurt.

When they finally met with Situ Jin in a corner, Su Jin realized that everything behind Situ Jin, including the shadows, were covered entirely in frost. Shen Wu’s powers turned out to be similar to Andre, since he could also control the cold. But this was only what the clone could do. Back then, Su Jin had watched Shen Wu gather all the frost from Cloud Mountain in order to freeze Ye Yun.

But after analyzing this more carefully, Su Jin realized that there was a difference. Andre’s body could generate frost, while Shen Wu seemed to have the power to control the temperature. He could shift the heat within an area away so that it would become frosty instead.

Woong! Su Jin turned his psychokinesis into an arrow that hit Shen Wu. This was only a clone, so it moved several steps back immediately after it had been hit by Su Jin’s psychokinesis. Situ Jin immediately seized this chance to hop out from the shadows he was hiding in. He was covered entirely in frost as well, and his lips were turning purple from the cold.

“What’s happened?” asked Su Jin.

Situ Jin shivered violently as he shook his head. “I don’t know! I’m just cold! I’m feeling cold from the inside and… and it’s only getting colder!”

Shen Wu had come back to his senses by this time. He looked up at Su Jin and said expressionlessly, “I recognize you. Ye Yun had been willing to let me take her away in order to protect you. She’s paid such a high price to save you. Why didn’t you cherish that?”

Su Jin narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t Shen Wu himself, but to a certain extent, it wasn’t too far off either. It was a little weaker, but that only made a difference depending on who the opponent was. If the opponent was only equivalent to one-tenth of Shen Wu’s power, then even this clone would crush the opponent just as easily.

“I will bring Ye Yun back! I swear I will!” spat Su Jin hatefully.

Shen Wu remained expressionless. Perhaps this clone was incapable of showing expression. He merely shook his head and said, “You can’t. You’re too weak. That day, it was just you, me and her, yet you failed to protect her. And now, you’re still hoping to take her away from where I am? Don’t you think that sounds absolutely ridiculous?”

“The difference between the weak and the strong,” said Su Jin quietly.

“What did you say?”

“Do you know what the difference between the weak and the strong is?”

“Oh? Tell me.”

“The strong are always strong. They stand at the peak and can oppress the world, but the weak… will become strong one day!” yelled Su Jin. He might not have been strong enough that day, but for the sake of Ye Yun, for the sake of those he loved and those who loved him, he was determined to do anything to become as strong as possible, to become strong enough to protect those people.

There was finally a slight mocking look in Shen Wu’s eyes as he stared at Su Jin in silence for a few moments, then burst out laughing. “Haha! That’s interesting. You remind me of how I used to be, so I agree with what you said. The best thing about being weak is that the weak have the chance to become strong.”

Su Jin remained silent, but Shen Wu stopped laughing and the mocking look in his eyes turned murderous as he said coldly, “Since that’s the case, I’m going to kill you today and make sure you never get the chance to become strong!”

Shen Wu was swift in his attacks. He thrust his hand out and Su Jin immediately felt cold all over. Just like Situ Jin, he could feel the heat leaving his body rapidly.

“So… so your power is really the ability to control the temperature huh,” murmured Su Jin with a frown. He called out, “Gift from the Gods!”

He activated the cloak again. This was the best thing he got out of the Train of the Supernatural. His psychokinesis had been sealed up, but the upper limit had gone over 2,000, so he could use this sort of skill consecutively without having to wait for its cooldown.

The Gift from the Gods gave off a five-color glow as it covered Su Jin’s body. The chilly feeling in his body instantly disappeared. The temperature depended on the basic elements too, after all. Fire came with heat, and once there was too little heat, water would freeze to become ice. Ice was basically a result of insufficient heat. Since this was an element based attack, the Gift from the Gods could fend it off.

Shen Wu was a little surprised to see that Su Jin wasn’t affected by his powers, but he soon figured out what was going on and smiled. “I see. You’ve got an item that’s helping you to do this. It must be consuming a lot of your Spirit Power, isn’t it? Let’s see how long you can hold out! And let’s see… how long he can hold out,” said Shen Wu as he pointed a finger at Situ Jin.

Situ Jin couldn’t stop shivering and his lips were a terrifying shade of purple. There was even frost forming inside his mouth.

Su Jin’s heart sank. He could sense that Situ Jin wasn’t left with much time. Situ Jin was losing heat too quickly, and he didn’t have anything to protect him from the cold either. If he couldn’t do something about Shen Wu within the next five minutes, Situ Jin was going to die.

“Mai, take Situ away!” roared Su Jin as he charged toward Shen Wu’s clone.

Kano Mai quickly put her hands around Situ Jin to help him walk, but she instinctively drew back once she touched him. His skin was so terribly cold. If his physical body wasn’t strong enough, he would have died by now. Even so, Situ Jin lost consciousness in no time.

Shen Wu’s clone wasn’t as strong as Shen Wu himself, but he was still more resilient than Guillaume. The fact that this clone could also execute the same ability to control temperatures made him even more powerful than Andre. This clone was pretty much a better version of Guillaume and Andre merged together.

“I’m going to kill you!” Su Jin wasn’t scared of him. His physical body was as powerful as this clone’s and he was protected from temperature changes as well. The only problem was that he didn’t have a lot of time to fight the clone.

Boom! Boom! Boom! It looked like a battle between Superman and Superman. Every blow could shatter buildings. Su Jin’s punches kept getting faster, and he used the Demon Lord’s Boning Knife, Black Fire, White Ash, Rumor – he had used everything but not a single one was able to kill this clone.

The only thing he had that could do that would be the Demon Lord’s Longbow, but while it was powerful, it was too hard to use on opponents who were too strong, because such opponents could dodge the attack easily. The Roar of the Demon Lord would fail as long as he wasn’t able to entrap or keep his opponent in the same spot long enough.

“I really don’t have enough methods to deal with my enemies. I have to do something to improve on that,” thought Su Jin with a sigh. It was no wonder that these extremely powerful owners would rather suppress their actual powers than to stop going through Challenges. Being so powerful made them almost invincible in a Challenge anyway, and they could gain so much from it. If given the choice, Su Jin wouldn’t give it up either.

Su Jin continued to attack Shen Wu’s clone mentally with his psychokinesis as well as physically. Shen Wu’s clone wasn’t as powerful as Su Jin, but he could hold up for a while.

“Haha! Your friend is going to die but you still can’t take me down! Looks like you’re going to add one more regret to your life!” The clone had no expression whatsoever, but the maniacal laugh he made was certainly enough to make Su Jin really angry.

“And who says I can’t take you down?” Su Jin suddenly snickered.

“What?” Shen Wu was stunned as someone suddenly hugged him from behind. Su Jin had flung the pigheaded warrior out and it grabbed hold of Shen Wu immediately.

“The Demon Lord’s Longbow!” Su Jin summoned the longbow and executed the Roar of the Demon Lord. He would rather sacrifice the pigheaded warrior than to sacrifice Situ Jin.

Just as the sparkly arrow left the longbow, Kano Mai suddenly stuffed a purple pill into her mouth and her eyes turned cloudy.

“I’ll use my slothful powers to stop him! Pull back the warrior!” she yelled at Su Jin.

Su Jin immediately summoned the warrior back, while Shen Wu seemed to have stopped in time. His body could barely even move as the Roar of the Demon Lord covered him entirely, consuming him and turning him into nothing but powder.

Elsewhere, a small spark in Shen Wu’s eyes flickered and eventually went out. There was a faint smile on his lips as he thought, “That fellow seems to have grown quite a bit. I really should have killed him back then.” But that thought stayed in his head for just one second before he turned to look back at the mess before him. He pointed his finger in one direction, and a powerful group of fighters were instantly turned into ice sculptures.

“Let’s go. There are many other places that are still a mess,” said Shen Wu lazily. The people behind him immediately nodded.

Back on the island, Su Jin turned his attention to Situ Jin and was relieved after scanning Situ Jin’s body with his psychokinesis. After Shen Wu’s clone was turned to nothing, Situ Jin’s body temperature stopped falling and his incredibly strong constitution was able to return to normal fairly quickly.

Kano Mai clutched her forehead like she was in pain, so Su Jin ran over to ask if she was alright.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I took a pill that could help me increase my Spirit Power temporarily, that’s all. I’ll be fine after taking a rest,” said Kano Mai with a smile.

“How could you do something like that! I don’t care if I had to sacrifice the pigheaded warrior! I wouldn’t know what to do if something bad happened to you,” said Su Jin as he frowned at her. It was true that this pigheaded warrior was a rare item to come by, but it wasn’t worth sacrificing Kano Mai.

Kano Mai stuck her tongue out at him playfully and said, “Alright, alright, don’t be so upset. I mean, there was a way to not sacrifice the pigheaded warrior, so why not? Otherwise you’d have lost such a powerful item. That would be such a waste.”

Su Jin sighed and shook his head. “Thankfully, that clone had a small portion of his soul, which was why he was affected by one of the seven sins. If not, that wouldn’t have worked out and we would have been in great danger.”

Even though Situ Jin’s body temperature had returned to normal fairly quickly, he was still feeling a little unwell. But he picked himself up, led his two companions to where the teleporting crystals were, and they took everything.

“That’s a total of 30 crystals. This is a huge fortune we’re talking about,” marveled Su Jin. He remembered the pained expression on Han Linmei’s face when she exchanged that bag for just one of these crystals. And now, they got their hands on 30 of them. How lucky!

Su Jin then found the red-eyed man and the rest, but they were all nothing but corpses strewn all over the floor. According to what Situ Jin saw, Shen Wu’s clone had been placed inside the same room as these crystals. But after he had been awakened, he did not know that the red-eyed man and his companions were on the same team and killed them all, since they arrived at this room first.

The good part was that they hadn’t died for too long, so Su Jin’s psychokinesis was still able to get some information out of their minds. But he was still disappointed in the end. These people were too low ranking in the organization, and the red-eyed man was the only one who was in a higher position. But he didn’t know much about Ye Yun either.

Su Jin went to retrieve Guillaume and Andre’s memories, but they weren’t much better than the red-eyed man. They were only in charge of robbing and killing other owners, and they had no knowledge of anything else within the organization.

Only one thing was consistent across all three men. Everything they snatched away from other owners would not be split among themselves, but given entirely to Shen Wu. Shen Wu would reward them later.

“Shen Wu seems to be looking for something.” Su Jin furrowed his brows. He guessed that Shen Wu had created this organization perhaps not out of simple selfish gain, but to use it to find something. But that was just his guess and he couldn’t be sure.