10 - Su Xue

Su Tao looked at his arm, which now had an arrow embedded deep into it. It was sticking all the way through and had even broken through his bones in his forearm. The force of the arrow was so strong that it had not only shot through his arm but had almost impaled his eye on the other side. The tip of the arrow was only about an inch away from his eye, but he did not even flinch.

Reacting instantly, he ran to a nearby weapons station and picked up a random bow and arrow. Then, with a motion as smooth as butter, he nocked an arrow and shot it right where the previous arrow came from.

Most other people would not be able to do this in the first place, let alone with an arrow lodged into their arm sticking all the way through and even breaking through their bone and without any warning whatsoever.

But Su Tao was completely immune to pain, and he had been stuck in that dimension for three years doing nothing but killing people with a bow and arrow. As such, unless the person he shot at was much higher ranked than him, they would have no path of survival unless he wished it.

As the arrow went whizzing through the air, the person who had just shot the arrow at him panicked. They never thought that he might survive their arrow, let alone fire one back without giving them a chance to even react.

But they were highly ranked, so they had the chance to put their own arm up, blocking the arrow the same way he did. However, when the arrow hit their arm, it was partially repelled by a weird blue force that formed a faint and translucent barrier one could see around their arm.

But as this barrier was formed hastily and without any preparation, it could not stop the perfectly aimed arrow, and the arrow impaled into their arm, going down to their bone and even slightly cracking the bone, but it did not completely break.

A scream of pain was let out as the person stepped out of hiding from nearby. It was a girl about twenty five years old, and she wore a silvery blue robe which had one silver star on it. This showed that from her age alone, she was a super genius within the Su family, and she would even be a medium to high talent within the big two families.

At this moment, Su Tao spoke out with an aura of mercilessness and brutality. "Explain yourself now or you will die!" He did not speak loudly, but the girl could hear him clearly. Even though he was over a hundred feet away from her, she was at the silver rank and her senses increased by many folds. He did not waste any words on useless things, because he knew that they both knew that she could not possibly hope to kill him now and that he could instead easily kill her.

In fact, she would not be able to shoot her bow anymore anyway, and from the precision in her earlier shot, it was shown that she specialized in the bow, which meant that she would not be good at close combat, and Su Tao was able to shoot his bow even more precise than her even after having his arm shot all the way through by an arrow. The reason she could not shoot was because Su Tao had hit a nerve point in her arm, rendering it temporarily useless.

This showed that she could only fight him head on because she was of a much higher rank. But it was obvious that she would be dead long before she reached him if she tried to do so since she was more than a hundred feet away, which was more than enough time for him to fire a volley of arrows at her, and she would not be able to block all of them, thus resulting in her death.

Running away would be even more foolish because everyone knew that you cannot run away from an archer. You either kill the archer or be killed by the archer. There is no in between, no compromise. This was the main reason why archers were feared in this world.

It was only at this moment that the girl realized just how dangerous this person in front of her was. He got shot all the way through his arm, but he didn't even flinch. Then, he instantly reacted and picked up a bow and returned another arrow, not even giving the girl any chance to react in the first place.

On top of that, the arrow was extraordinarily precise, and even though it had gone through her barrier of inner energy, it still pierced into her arm and almost broke her arm. On top of that, it had even gone into a nerve point, meaning that she could no longer even move her arm. Such precision was something that even her master did not have when he was Su Tao's age.

The very fact that he could still shoot the bow despite having his arm shot all the way through showed just how dangerous this person was and that he could easily kill her if he wanted to.

This exchange between Su Tao and the girl happened so fast that the surrounding disciples did not even see what happened before they heard the girl scream in pain and Su Tao announcing her fate.

With an immensely beautiful voice, the girl spoke. But beautiful as her voice was, she could not hide her anxiety and fear of the person in front of her. "My name is Su Xue. I was ordered by one of the elders to assassinate you."

She did not hide anything because she felt as if this person in front of her did not give a damn about her identity being a genius of the sect, so she directly told him that she was ordered by the elders to come here and kill him.

She hoped that he would not blame her and instead blame the elders who sent her. On top of this, she felt as if he would be able to tell if she lied. This left her with no choice but to tell the truth, even though it would get her in trouble. But she figured that being in trouble was better than being dead. This was because she could see in Su Tao's eyes that he would not hesitate to kill her.

As she said this, she noticed his eyes, which were locked on her, watching her every move. In an instant, she felt as if all her secrets were exposed, and that nothing could be hidden from the boy in front of her.

Despite being so far away, she felt as if she was being watched from not even a couple inches from her face. She even felt like she had been seen naked. It was an immensely uncomfortable feeling.

"If the elders want to kill me, tell them to do it themselves instead of being so shameless and cowardly to send a disciple of the family to kill me. Also tell them that next time I won't show any mercy like I did to you, no matter how much of a genius they are." His voice was cold and wicked, without a single falter.

It was as if he did not even care about a super genius who was at the silver rank. But it did not seem to contain any sort of ill will towards Su Xue, who was the one who had just shot him.

Then, without another word, he turned around and left, leaving Su Xue extremely confused. Then, before she had a chance to think about what happened, a weird purple liquid started to leak out of her wound. At first, she panicked thinking that it was poison, but when she looked at the arrow next to her, there was nothing on it. Then, looking back at the wound on her arm, she saw the purple liquid merge into her bone and start to heal the cracks generated by the arrow.

She once again looked towards where Su Tao was standing, but she was surprised to find that he had completely vanished like a ghost. This whole experience was surreal. She realized that this youth was not someone who would kill without a reason and he had shot her purely as a warning not to try to resist along with a way out for himself. He seemed to have even put some form of valuable medicine onto the arrow to heal the damage it caused. Little did she know that this was not at all the case.

The reason that purple liquid was there was because Su Tao had used the power of his left eye when he shot the arrow. He had been experimenting over the past few days, and he found that the purple power of his left eye could heal, while the green power of his right eye could corrode and destroy.

If he put this power into a weapon, the effects would be directly transferred onto the target they hit. Of course, this used a lot of the power from the used eye, but Su Tao decided to use it to heal her wound to show that he was not her enemy.

The whole reason why he decided to do this was because the second he saw the arrow, he saw where it came from. He had seen the girl hiding, and he saw a slight look of hesitance on her face when she released the arrow, and he saw the pulses of her heart speed up on her wrist.

It was clear that she did not try to kill him out of her own free will, but rather, she was doing it because either she was told to or because someone else felt threatened by him and forced her to do it.

This was why he decided to use his left eye's power to heal the wound he caused to her. Otherwise, he would have chosen to kill her right then and there without hesitation. After all, he was merciless and he had also lost all respect for the Su family and he would not hesitate to kill even a genius of the family to protect himself.

He may be young, but he was extremely smart, and he figured all this out within a matter of moments. Before the girl had even told him that an Elder had sent her, he had already figured it out. He simply said that to make it seem like he knew less than he did.

Most people would not be able to figure this out even if they were given an hour, but he figured it out in only a moment. He also felt that this was because of his eyes. Because of his left eye, he was extremely calm, and that already contributed to a faster mind, but more than that, he felt as if his mental speed was many many times faster.

Otherwise, even if he saw the arrow that was flying at him, he would not be able to block it with his arm so quickly. On top of that, he had the ability to process to look at the person that fired the arrow and their heartbeat to see any signs of hesitation or something similar. And he would not be able to return an arrow back at her so quickly and with such precision.

After that, he saw signs of hesitation and instantly deducted that this girl was not trying to kill him of her own free will, and instantly after that, he figured out that it was the Su family elders that had sent her because she was a super genius in the Su family who specialized in the bow, and that was not someone that just anyone would be able to send.

Along with that, he analyzed that there was someone interfering within the top levels of the family. Otherwise, he would be killed along with his mother that day, which meant that they would try to kill him in the dark. All these facts showed that there was no way that this girl was not sent by the family Elders to kill him.

As such, he put the power of his left eye into the arrow and healed her wound that he caused to her, showing her in the process that he was not her enemy, while at the same time warning her of just how dangerous a person he was.

Then, before she had a chance to look at him, he got away while she thought that the purple liquid in her arm was poison, and by the time she looked up, he was already long gone.

Such calculation abilities would terrify the family should they find out about it. On top of that, they would be terrified to know just how dangerous he was despite being only at the second rank of the martial path and being a two star bronze ranked warrior.

His archery skills alone made him invulnerable to someone at the one star silver rank as long as they were far enough away, or unless they focused on a certain weapon that could block the arrows or body strengthening. If he got a lucky hit, he could even kill the one star silver ranked warrior instead.

But all this was under the case that he had a bow. If he did not, then he would just be a regular second bronze star ranked warrior. Su Tao also knew this well though, and he would prepare for the future now that he knew the Elders of the family were going after him.