Stranger Danger

Chapter 175: I Ain’t Doing This Shit No More

At Pawn Shop No. 8, Candle Spirit was smiling bright enough to illuminate the dim interior. Too bright, in fact. Maybe she was so pleased with herself that she lost her sense of measure, or maybe she was just reaping what she sowed, but she accidentally let slip a cackle and a hint of aura.

Ye Qing didn’t notice anything because Candle Spirit was way stronger than him, but the Deer of Balance was a different story. It immediately turned to look at Candle Spirit, and Candle Spirit subconsciously met its gaze. Her wide-eyed look was all it needed to see to know that yes, the bitch was in fact trying to trick him.

The Deer of Balance was an intelligent Stranger, and it figured out her ploy in just the blink of an eye. Enraged, it immediately fired the divine light between its horns at the Stranger.

“What are you doing, Deer of Balance? We’re in Pawn Shop No. 8 right now!”

Candle Spirit was shocked to say the least. It was one thing if she was a human, but she was an intelligent Stranger just like it. How could it attack a fellow Stranger willy-nilly? Also, they were in Pawn Shop No. 8 right now. Even if it was furious with her, shouldn’t it overlook the offense because they were in her master’s place?

Of course, Candle Spirit wasn’t going to take her punishment lying down. The woman and all the children on the ebony rask sucked in a deep breath. When they exhaled, the candles burned at an accelerated rate, and a terrific blast of fire shot toward the Deer of Balance.

The Deer of Balance paid the attack no heed though. Its divine light swept across the area and easily melted the deadly flames like snow. Forget hurting the Stranger, Candle Spirit’s flames couldn’t even get past the divine light.

“A-Are you really going to make an enemy out of Pawn Shop No. 8, Deer of Balance?” Candle Spirit stammered in a panicked voice. The Deer of Balance’s divine light was incredibly potent and immune to all elements and power. It was why Candle Spirit’s flames did nothing to it.

The Deer of Balance still didn’t say anything. It preferred to converse with its horns far more than its mouth. The divine light swept across Candle Spirit’s body like a scythe, and every candle on the ebony rack started melting at the same time. She screamed. The beautiful candle woman and children turned into snarling monsters with unholy auras, and pale hands reached out from the melted candle wax as if they would strangle the Deer of Balance. However, the Deer of Balance merely snorted through its nostrils—as it turned out, its breath was penta-colored as well—and melted all the hands into nothing with its snort. The fight was so lopsided it couldn’t even be called a fight.

“My master will kill you for this, Deer of Balance—Ahhhhh!”

That was all Candle Spirit could say before the divine light melted all of her candles into nothing. Even her humanoid body had disintegrated into dust.

“Phew…”

The bloodthirst in the Deer of Balance’s eyes subsided only after Candle Spirit was dead. As it snorted again, it felt rather confused with its own behavior. It was true that Candle Spirit had tried to trick him and commit trade fraud from right under its nose, but it normally wasn’t so hot-headed. For better or worse, it shared a long-standing relationship with Pawn Shop No. 8. It would punish her greatly for her transgressions, but it would never kill her—and yet it had.

What on earth had come over it? How did it fall prey to the sudden, destructive impulse?

The Deer of Balance turned to the only other person in the pawn shop. Did the human do something to it?

Ye Qing blinked stupidly when the Deer of Balance looked into his eyes. Out of everyone present, he was easily the most confused of them all. Why had the two Strangers suddenly battled each other to the death? Or rather, why had the Deer of Balance suddenly flown into a flying rage and slaughtered the shit out of Candle Spirit? Should he worry for his own life as well?

The Deer of Balance knew it wasn’t Ye Qing the second it saw its face. The idiot didn’t even realize that he was seconds away from dying from Candle Spirit’s trap, so there was no way he was the one who had influenced its thoughts.

“Idiot!”

Ye Qing’s expression was so stupid that the Deer of Balance couldn’t help but deride him a little. Then, it shook its body once and threw the bottle of agate into Ye Qing’s hands.

Ye Qing glanced back and forth between the agate and the Deer of Balance while feeling more confused than ever. Why did it call me an idiot? Did I piss it off or something? But when?

Buzz…

He was still confused when the pawn shop started shaking like it was in an earthquake, and the soulless puppets working in the store suddenly dropped to their knees and quivered like leaves. It looked like something bad was about to happen.

“Deer of Balance, you have a deal with my Pawn Shop No. 8, and I do not believe that deal entails you killing my Candle Spirit. Why did you do it?” A terrifying voice boomed from above, and a pair of fiery orbs suddenly lit up under the hood of a gigantic silhouette in the sky. It looked both demonic and terrifying.

The Deer of Balance flashed once and came face to face with the giant silhouette. Then, it replied in a disdainful tone, “So what if I killed that bitch? She tried to commit fraud from right under my nose. As far as I’m concerned, her death is well deserved!”

Oh, it’s a hot-headed deer. It all makes sense.

Ye Qing felt much better after hearing the Deer of Balance’s hot-headed response. If the Deer of Balance dared to insult even the owner of Pawn Shop No. 8 to their face, then why wouldn’t it call a puny human an idiot?

Wait a second. Did the Deer of Balance just say that Candle Spirit tried to commit fraud under its nose? Could it be…?

Ye Qing figured out the gist of the truth immediately. Candle Spirit must have tried to trick the Deer of Balance, though he had no idea what she did and how she was discovered. It didn’t matter though. The Deer of Balance had already taken revenge for him, so all was well.

“What a righteous man—I mean, a righteous deer!” Ye Qing sighed in admiration. The Deer of Balance was literally going up against the master of Pawn Shop No. 8 for his sake right now. If it wasn’t a righteous deer, then who was?

“Candle Spirit is my subordinate, Deer of Balance. Even if she made a mistake, it is up to me to punish her, not you!” The shadowy figure replied calmly, though there was an unmistakable tinge of anger and bloodthirst behind their voice. “You must pay for what you’ve done, Deer of Balance!”

“Pay? Sure, you can have deez nuts on your face, you fucker!”

The Deer of Balance let out a loud snort and launched into an epic rant, “Your pawn shop has screwed over countless people using this tactic, but I’ve always turned a blind eye because you didn’t do it overtly, and because we share a business relationship. But today, your bitch of an assistant openly used me to cheat another person! Openly! Do you think I’m a tool that you may use as you please? Scratch that, even a tool would be furious if their owner treats them like trash!”

“You and your subordinates may be shameless bastards, but you can’t expect everyone else in the world to be shameless bastards too! At the very least, I ain’t sullying my reputation for the likes of you, get it?”

“Anyway, your bitch of an assistant was the last straw, which is why I decided to send her ass to the Nether. Whatcha gonna do about it, fucker?”

The Deer of Balance’s outburst was so loud, so fearless, so gangster, that Umbra found no space to interrupt from start until the end.

“You…” Umbra said in a cold, unfeeling voice, but the seething darkness behind its back showed just how angry it was.

The Deer of Balance snorted again and said mockingly, “I, what? Are you gonna attack me? Come on then! Like I’m scared of your coal black ass!”

“You’ve gone too far this time, Deer of Balance. No one may challenge Pawn Shop No. 8 without repercussions!”

“I’m not ‘no one’ though. I’m the motherfucking Deer of Balance!”

The Deer of Balance stomped the air underneath its feet and caused a shockwave that shattered the darkness around it. “By the way, how many times do I need to tell you that I hate darkness?”

“Impudence!” Umbra roared. Unspeakable murmurs suddenly erupted from the surrounding darkness, and Ye Qing immediately felt like his mind flickering like a candle flame in the wind. He could feel some sort of invisible power polluting his soul bit by bit.

“Seriously? You think you can talk me to death? Pathetic!” The Deer of Balance let out a cold snort and unleashed its divine light. Like a five-colored sun, the light cleared out an entire patch of the darkness and killed the murmurs.

This was just the appetizer though. The darkness stirred and formed three gigantic faces. Their expressions kept flitting from one expression to another, and a closer look would reveal that the three faces were really made up of countless souls. Every time they shifted, the faces’ expressions would shift as well.

“Hehehe…”

“Hahaha…”

“Kekeke…”

The three faces laughed crazily as they slowly descended toward the Deer of Balance. It was like the sky itself was falling toward it. their auras were unbelievably powerful.

It felt like the three faces were much stronger than the Deer of Balance, but a hint of disdain flickered across the Stranger’s eyes as a strange light flowed out of the scale behind its back. At first, the scale was tilted toward the right side, but it slowly evened out over time.

As the scale evened out, the aura of the three faces plummeted. It eventually got to the point where it was almost at the same level as the Deer of Balance’s.

The next moment, the Deer of Balance leaped into the air and launched a series of kicks with its forelimbs,

“Eat my Serial Shadowless Kick, you gnat!”

Boom!

Divine light erupted from the Stranger’s legs every time it kicked out at the giant faces. They spread out like explosions and melted large chunks of the faces with ease.

The souls swimming across the giant faces wailed in pain. As evil energy permeated the sky, transparent tentacles stretched out of the void and slithered toward the Deer of Balance.

“Not good!”

Ye Qing was observing the battle with his spirit when suddenly, the tentacles appeared inside his head and began corrupting his mind with its tainted powers. Sucking in a deep breath, Ye Qing hurriedly visualized the Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method and purified the tentacles’ tainted power. However, not only was he unable to dispel the transparent tentacles, they were actually growing stronger as if they were feeding off something.

“Dammit! I didn’t do anything this time!” Ye Qing swore and withdrew his spirit immediately. The tentacles had appeared in his head because he was observing the battle with his spirit, so withdrawing it should alleviate his symptoms.

Meanwhile, the mysterious lines on the Deer of Balance’s body glowed brightly, and a colorful ball of energy gathered between its horns. When so much power was gathered that the energy looked like a colorful inferno, it swept out and burned every transparent tentacle in the sky. Sensing grave danger, the three giant faces tried to retreat back into the darkness but were just a step too slow. Countless souls screamed and died as the three faces disintegrated into dust.

As it turned out, the darkness wasn’t infinite after all. The divine light punched a massive hole through the darkness and revealed a sea of stars.

The transparent tentacles in Ye Qing’s head disappeared when both the transparent tentacles and the giant faces were destroyed. It was only then he let out a sigh of relief and muttered, “What a deer! Its innate magic is just insane!”

At the beginning, the three faces were clearly stronger than the Deer of Balance. However, the Stranger managed to overcome the power imbalance and even crushed the three faces with impunity all thanks to its innate magic.

The Deer of Balance possessed two potent magic. The first one was called the Scale of Balance. Not only could it measure the true value of items and check if someone was trying to commit fraud, it could forcefully balance out the power disparity between itself and its enemies.

It wasn’t omnipotent, of course. If the enemy’s strength far, far exceeded the Deer of Balance’s, then not even the Scale of Balance would be able to lower the enemy’s power to its level. But barring that one scenario, there was nothing and no one that could resist the effects of the Scale of Balance. It was a kind of power that superseded even the laws of reality.

Its second innate magic was the Pentacolor Divine Light. Just like the Scale of Balance, it superseded the laws of reality to a certain extent and was immune to the five elements, all things evil and dark, and most arts. Assuming that the Deer of Balance and its enemies were on the same level, the Pentacolor Divine Light wasn’t insurmountable, but it was close enough that anyone who went up against the Deer of Balance would have a field day trying to defeat it.

It was why no one wanted to provoke the Deer of Balance if they could help it, and how it was able to overcome an opponent it should not have been able to defeat.