The Magus Era

Ju Xiu had passed out from the pain in the hall.

At this moment, this breathtakingly beautiful woman looked horrible because of the pain. Her face had turned blue and was twitching intensely, the erect eye in the middle of her eyebrows popped out for nearly an inch, almost falling out of her eye sockets. All three of her eyes were now surrounded by thick and purple blood vessels that had swelled into the size of a little finger.

“What is wrong with her?!” Di Sha growled harshly in anger.

Two men of the Xu Clan, who had gray hair and looked not so young, walked quickly over. They pressed their fingers on Ju Xiu’s wrists, neck and near her erect eye. After that, they took a few exquisitely crafted tools out, which were various shapes and were shining faintly, and rolled them all over Ju Xiu’s body, but shook their heads after some time.

One of the men from the Xu Clan opened all five of his eyes, with all five of his dark blood-red eyeballs shining dimly, then said confused, “We don’t understand, Lord Ju Xiu’s spirit blood is flowing regularly and peacefully. We can’t find any sign that something is abnormal in her body, neither can any sign of poison or magical curses be discovered from her body.”

Two young girls of the Yu Clan held Ju Xiu up and put her on a large chair,in the middle of the hall. They carefully untied Ju Xiu’s luxurious tight armour, and took out a thumb-sized, ingenious jade talisman from her underwear.

That blood-red talisman was shining faintly, with wisps of blood-red light flowing around it. Now and then, faint blood-red ripples, which were caused by the great power contained in it, would appear around the talisman.

“Her life-protecting magic talisman shows no signs of anything being abnormal. We can say with certainty that she wasn’t hit by any physical attack.” One Yu Clan girl nodded affirmatively and said in a low voice, “The two master physicians were right, Lord Ju Xiu hasn’t been cursed, neither has she been poisoned.”

Di Sha, Di Sa and Di Mo all subconsciously pressed their hands on their body, on where they had put their own life-protecting talismans. Every one of them had a life-protecting talisman like this, which they had been wearing since their childhood. Every year they would purify and cultivate their talisman with their own spirit blood.

This tiny, decoration-like jade talisman was not able to ward off any kind of physical attack, not even from an ordinary Novice Magus, who would be able to smash it with a single punch. However, the power of this talisman was connected with their own power and mind. Even more importantly, a stream of the magical Blood Moon’s power, which they had been worshipping for eons now, was contained in such a talisman. This talisman had a high resistance towards all kinds of magic poisons, curses and other kinds of spiritual or soul based attacks.

Consider magic curses for example. If a magic curse had been cast at someone who possessed such a life-protecting talisman, the talisman would immediately emit an eye-piercing bright light and become boiling hot. At the same time, the body of its owner would be wrapped in a layer of blood-red light, which would weaken the power of the curse greatly, enabling the owner to have enough time to deal with the curse and prepare for what would follow.

Ju Xiu’s magic talisman was not showing any sign of abnormality, which meant that she was indeed not attacked by any type of magic.

“It’s also possible that the power contained in the magic curse is at an even greater level than…” murmured Di Mo in a low voice.

“Nonsense! No power can surpass the protection of the great, supreme Blood Moon!” said Di Suo in a similar deep voice, “In front of the great Blood Moon, no evil power could possibly draw near us without giving a sign!”

“That was back in our hometown, where were had the great Blood Moon floating in the sky and protecting us with its invincible power, but now, we’re in the…” Di Mo argued unpleased.

Di Suo and Di Sha simultaneously turned towards Di Mo and stared at him with a threatening expression, then said, “Shut up! The great Blood Moon’s power has shrouded the entire world, wherever we are, we are constantly protected by it.”

Di Mo’s face instantly became a bit pale. He then let out an embarrassed grin and said, “Yes, you’re right, we are protected by the Great Blood Moon’s power, no matter where we are… Anyway, what’s wrong with Ju Xiu? Hm, does she has a stomach ache or is it something else?”

While saying this, complicated and subtle facial expressions appeared on Di Suo’s and Di Mo’s faces. They both glanced quickly at Di Sha.

In the strictly feudalistic Yu Dynasty, which was almost ruled by males, Ju Xiu, as a woman, was powerful enough to become an army commander. Judging from that, her body should be more than strong enough to be immune to all kinds of illnesses. If it was not an illness that had given such a sudden and intense pain to this woman that had even caused her to pass out, then there was a real problem Indeed, some special physiological status could bring such kind of sudden and unbearable pain, but…

Di Sa touched his own beardless chin and murmured while pondering, “Well, I haven’t heard about any intimate male friends of Ju Xiu. I can tell that Ju Xiu is quite traditional, to…to do that kind of things.”

Di Mo touched his beardless face as well, took another glance at Di Sha and added, “Well, but you know, nothing is definite. Although Ju Xiu hardly ever hangs out with young men from our Blood Moon, she is actually quite close to the side of the Overflow Moon…You all know that Ju Xiu is pretty interested in all kinds of power transformation and advanced knowledge.”

Di Sha glanced at the two of them a bit angrily. Of course he knew what they were trying to imply. There was no need to say those things when talking about the lifestyle of young people of the Yu Clan. Di Sha, being one the young Yu Clan noblemen, knew that they were nowhere near ‘traditional’ when it came to having a sexual experience.

Romantic affairs were a necessary pastime of these noble Yu Clan people, it was like an important seasoning for their long and boring lives.

The thing was that Ju Xiu and Di Sha were engaged to each other. That engagement was settled only ten years ago, which was also the main reason why Di Sha could be promoted from the Blood Tooth to the Liang Zhu City, as an official army commander. It was not hard to tell that their engagement was made upon many complicated, profit-related conditions.

Nevertheless, no matter what, the engagement was real and well known, therefore, if anyone other than Di Sha made Ju Xiu pregnant before they got married, it would be a huge humiliation for Di Sha and his family. If it really was so, then due to his current position and power, he and his noble family would never be given a chance to pretend it never occurred.

Back on the small island, Ji Hao and the others were staring at Taisi speechlessly.

That last shot hadn’t missed its target, but, it hit in such an embarrassing part of the body of that straw doll…Did Taisi do that intentionally? Or it was only because of his lousy shooting skill?

Ji Hao rubbed his own face for a short while, then asked, “Well, anyway, what does that Nailhead Seven Arrow Book say?”

Taisi carried that tiny bow, gave an embarrassed grin and responded, “Shoot seven arrows each day at her, which will take a part of her life-force away each day. Seven days, twenty one days, at longest, we can make it three hundred and forty three days. During this period of time, she will suffer pretty badly and will die eventually.”

Ji Hao nodded and said, “We don’t have too much time, neither should we finish it too soon, twenty one days sounds perfect.”

Taisi raised that tiny bow quite proudly and said in a cold voice, “Let's make it twenty one days then.”

A series of weird, ancient spells smoothly flew out of Taisi’s mouth, after which he raised the tiny bow and aimed at that straw doll again and took another shot.

He managed to hit the target again, well...barely. Ji Hao began wondering if Taisi had received special training on how to miss the target, if that someone was standing three zhang away from the target, which was an over six-feet tall straw doll. He took the shot, but the arrow ended up on the fingertip of that straw doll.

In the luxurious hall, suddenly all three eyes of the unconscious Ju Xiu pop out. Three seemingly huge eyeballs all popped from her eye sockets for over an inch out, and the blood vessels around her eyes popped out as well. At the same time, her left hand became twisted in a weird shape. Followed by an abrupt bone cracking noise, the little finger of her left hand cracked entirely off, right in front of everyone.

Blood gushed out instantly.

This scene made all those commanders of the non-human race gasp deeply in shock.

SR: In the past we had seen what Shaosi’s curse can do, but it seems Taisi can do even worse stuff (even though he really should work on his aim if this the main component of the curse XD).

Edited by SecondRate

Translated by XianXiaWorld