After hearing the commotion from the courtyard, Qiaolin and Gabriela rushed to the scene.
He quickly grasped the gist of what had occurred.
It turned out that Osaran’s student, Karl, had colluded with assassins from the Barta Kingdom in an attempt to murder his teacher.
Clearly, they had succeeded.
Fortunately, Qiaolin arrived just in time.
He first tended to the guards at the edge of the courtyard.
Their bodies had been corroded beyond recognition by toxic smoke, but they were still breathing.
He used a combination of three types of magic to heal them: **[Vitality Injection]**, **[Continuous Wound Healing]**, and **[Detoxification]**.
‘I’m glad the poison they used wasn’t anything too complex,’
Qiaolin thought to himself.
‘Otherwise, it would have taken quite a bit of effort.’
“Hey! You! Did you hear me speaking to you?”
Qiaolin turned his head.
He recognized the speaker as one of the mages who had been invited alongside them, though their true identities were clearly assassins sent by the Empire.
“I have always heard that the Barta Kingdom values martial arts and respects the strong. I didn’t expect you to resort to assassination against an old, frail man,” Qiaolin said with a smile.
“Who exactly are you…”
Snake Eye stared into his calm eyes and asked in a low voice.
“As you can see, I’m just a plain and unremarkable Healing Mage.”
“You’re asking for death!”
Black Smoke threw a **[Poison Canister]** toward Qiaolin’s position.
The metal clattered against the ground, rolling to the man’s feet before instantly exploding into a cloud of mist.
Qiaolin’s reaction seemed somewhat sluggish as the toxic smoke quickly enveloped his body.
Even a robust swordsman would be completely corroded if their limbs so much as touched the gas.
“Why don’t you try healing yourself now? Hahaha!”
Black Smoke laughed excitedly.
However, after a moment, his smile froze.
Qiaolin fanned the air with his hand.
Then, out of curiosity, he picked up the still-fuming canister from the ground.
In front of everyone, he brought it close to his face, took a deep breath through his nose, and wore an expression as if he were savoring a fine wine.
“**[Belladonna]**, **[Wolfsbane]**, **[Snake Poison Fruit]**, **[Black Acid Grass]**… Hmm, the ingredients are quite complete. It’s a standard **[Corruption Type]** poison, though the purity is a bit low.”
“Are you kidding me?! What are you…”
Black Smoke’s eyes widened in disbelief.
He wasn’t shocked because Qiaolin had identified the components of his poison, but because the man was savoring the flesh-corroding toxic gas as if it were the aroma of a gourmet dish!
Qiaolin glanced at the shocked crowd and gave an apologetic smile.
“Sorry. I’ve undergone special training. General toxins are ineffective against me.”
His words caused Qiaolin to recall a past he would rather not look back on.
To help the Hero develop a poison-resistant constitution, that noble and kind Saintess had thrown Qiaolin into a swamp filled with poisonous insects and miasma to live for three months.
During that time, Tor would visit him occasionally—not to cheer him on, of course, but to inflict various negative curses upon him.
However, thanks to the growth and adaptability of the **[Hero’s Physique]**, Qiaolin’s physical strength had far surpassed those of the same rank after that training.
He had even developed a talent that was close to **[Poison Immunity]**.
“Black Smoke’s poison actually has no effect on him?”
Snake Eye drew her short sword, looking at Qiaolin as if facing a formidable enemy.
When his gaze turned toward her, he took a step forward.
“Oh no!”
Snake Eye instinctively raised her short sword to parry, but she only felt a gust of wind brush past her.
She turned around in terror, finding that Qiaolin’s silhouette was already behind her.
“Fortunately, he hasn’t fully died yet.”
Qiaolin knelt to check on Osaran’s condition, chatting as if nothing were wrong.
“If you had cut off his head directly, then things would have been difficult.”
“Now you should worry about your own head!”
Snake Eye lunged at Qiaolin, but a gold and red shadow suddenly blocked her path.
She swung her sword down, only to find that her weapon was now just a hilt.
The entire blade had vanished unnervingly.
The blonde girl with red highlights, who had appeared out of nowhere, was currently radiating a red and black Magic Power the likes of which Snake Eye had never seen.
The aura she exuded was terrifying.
“Snake Eye, fall back!”
Black Smoke threw dozens of poison canisters from behind.
He knew his poison likely wouldn’t work on the man, but their goal from the start had been to kill Osaran.
Releasing this much toxic gas at once would be enough to leave the old man with nothing but bones!
“Quite clever… Gabriela, I’ll leave those things to you,” Qiaolin said.
The girl nodded and raised her hand.
**[Touch of Gluttony]** shot out, the red and black tentacles transforming into a giant maw.
In one gulp, it swallowed all the poison canisters along with the overflowing toxins.
*Burp~*
Gabriela made a chewing motion and then let out a black puff of air as she burped.
“Don’t make me eat such disgusting things next time,” she complained.
“How is this possible?! She ate all of my poison… what on earth is that?!”
These successive developments had completely shattered Black Smoke’s worldview.
The only thought in his mind now was that the two people in front of him were not human—they absolutely were not human!
“Can he still be saved?”
Gabriela asked Qiaolin.
“He did indeed suffer a fatal wound. If his breathing has only stopped temporarily…”
Qiaolin raised both hands.
A golden phantom condensed in his palms, taking the form of a book.
**[Supreme Holy Magic: Universal Divine Light]**
“**[Time Backtrack]** again?”
“Just backtracking time might not be enough this time. His body was already very weak. I can only backtrack to the moment before he suffered this fatal injury,” Qiaolin explained.
The **[Universal Divine Light]** series of magic possessed the power to manipulate space and time, but its range was quite small.
It was likely designed that way to minimize Magic Power consumption.
If the target’s state had changed too significantly or too much time had passed, the effect would be greatly diminished.
Qiaolin was well aware of this. After releasing the **[Universal Divine Light]**, he proceeded to use the healing magic he had created himself—**[Spring Breeze and Rain: Sweet Dew]** and **[Spring in the Air: Sobriety]**.
While replenishing vitality, these spells cleared away mental fatigue.
One thing that still gave Qiaolin a headache was the replenishment of Magic Power; he had not yet found a way to precisely convert his own Magic Power into an attribute unique to another person.
Fortunately, Osaran’s Magic Power was identical in nature to Qiaolin’s.
Thus, he shared a bit of his own Magic Power with the old man.
A brilliant green light blossomed from Qiaolin’s other hand.
The surrounding grass and flowers began to grow vigorously under the influence of this overflowing vitality.
“What are you standing around for? Stop him!”
Rock Bear roared.
He leapt into the air, drawing back a fist with gathered momentum.
A single punch from him would crush a normal person into meat paste!
However—
*Boom!*
A similarly muscular figure became faintly visible amidst the rising dust.
Snake Eye and Black Smoke looked toward the two targets and found them still standing in place.
Qiaolin even waved at them with an innocent expression.
“What’s going on?!”
Rock Bear was the one who shouted the question.
He stared in shock as his fist was stopped mid-air.
The one who had caught it wasn’t Qiaolin, and it wasn’t Gabriela—it was the old man!
At this moment, Osaran still looked like an old man, but the bulging muscles all over his body seemed completely out of place with his white beard.
He had stopped Rock Bear’s fist with a single hand.
“You… what kind of monster are you now?!”
“Hah!”
Osaran gave a thunderous shout. His fist smashed down like a meteor.
Despite Rock Bear’s rock-like physique, he couldn’t withstand the attack.
He was sent flying back, coughing up blood!
“Damn it!”
Rock Bear tried to use the Magic Tool on his wrist, but Osaran grabbed it and crushed it raw.
With a single punch to the face, Rock Bear fell flat on his back.
“Is that the same old man from before?!”
Black Smoke felt that everything happening tonight was already absurd enough, but he never expected that Osaran—who had one foot in the grave—would suddenly become so fierce.
What kind of spell did that healer cast on him?
After knocking down Rock Bear, Osaran turned his gaze toward Black Smoke and Snake Eye.
His fierce eyes were like those of a predator looking at small animals, filled with an insatiable hunger.
Who was the prey now?