[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 75 - Murder-Hobo Tendencies

The tension in the air would have been palpable had there been any actual threat to Yin Hu and crew. 

He stared at the gathering forces around him, wondering whether he should just end the entire fight. Yet, the opportunity to provide this as a real life battle experience for his girls was too good to pass. They would likely never encounter another situation where they were so outnumbered, but were under no danger of actually fighting an enemy they could not beat. 

Jun and Shui started circling around the circle formed around him, trying to find their way toward Jin Bao without Zhong Da and Wu Xui getting in the way. 

Both were likely strong enough to smash his face in, but Zhong Da had earned the right to do it after having to listen to the fat man talk his ears off for the past few days. A constant, non-stop trail of thoughts that always painted Jin Bao as God’s blessing upon this cultivation world. A saint in human skin that was packing heat and bedded all of the most beautiful women on the planet. 

All at once if he wanted to do so too. 

Yin Hu turned toward the left where he saw a couple knights, who he discovered were cultivators too, rush up to the fat man and hand him a blade that had taken both of them to carry. As wide as a man’s torso and as tall as Jin Bao too. It was a piece of metal slab that had been sharpened by someone foolish enough to make a blade like that. 

Wonder if I got anything that ridiculous stored in my rice bag.

As much as he wanted it, he couldn’t get into the mood of preparing for this battle. They were all just so weak–

Yin Hu froze.

These past few weeks were filled with dawning realizations that kept shaking his foundation. 

He caught himself belittling an enemy before him just like any arrogant young master would have. Setting himself up for the perfect opportunity for someone to level up and blast him out of the air with a single attack that he was unprepared for. The same exact thing he had been trying to teach his girls to avoid like the plague and here he was falling for it hook, line, and sinker. 

Jin Bao roared, like he was an uncaged wild beast, as he charged Zhong Da with his giant sword. 

Hu Jun sprinted to meet the fat man, dodging Zhong Da’s and Wu Xui’s attempts to catch her. Her sword appeared in her hands and glowed a bright green. 

The couple's mistake kept them busy enough for Hu Shui to escape their attention. She crashed into the packed numbers of cultivators with a fury that left Yin Hu stunned. His little, innocent girl had just crushed someone in a mass of limbs, broke another man with a sideways swipe of the massive hammer, and then sent out a blast of Qi from her body as she gave the world a battlecry reminiscent of a bear standing on its hindlegs. 

Yin Hu’s mouth dropped when the dozen cultivators around her started retreating with actual fear in their eyes. 

He looked back toward Jun. 

The older girl vanished through Jin Bao’s strike, slashing a hundred times, only to reappear a dozen feet away posing in the end of her final kata he had always made them work on. The chaotic mayhem around them was silenced for a few seconds–

An eruption of green Qi in the form of blade attacks that she had been practicing covered the fat man as he screamed in pain, dropping to his knees. 

It didn’t escape Yin Hu that there was no blood leaking out of him. 

“Fat pig,” Jun spun on her heels, head tilted up as she sneered at her foe. She extended her sword arm out. Striking another pose. “You dare speak to my Ancestor with such a tone? Dare to think you are worthy…” she strolled toward him, pointing her blade at his head from a distance. “...to speak his name? Nay, you aren’t worthy of standing before him.”

She stopped above his downed form. Raising her blade up–

Zhong Da appeared beside her, grabbing Jin Bao’s arm. “To think you would stoop so low as to set a trap like this?”

Jin Bao shook as he fought against Zhong Da’s grip, his giant sword half swung toward Jun. 

Yin Hu frowned as he stared at her shocked expression. There was still so much he needed to teach her before she was ready to fight wily foes like Jin Bao. Experience was what she lacked, even if she had more Qi and was of a higher realm than the fat man was. Would she have survived his sneak attack? Tanking big hits didn’t seem to be her strong suit at all. 

Did I unintentionally make my girls into glass cannons? At least she’s getting a direct wakeup call rather than just my lessons. 

Zhong Da had that situation in hand. He had the necessary experience and power to make sure nothing untoward happened to his girl. 

Yin Hu turned back toward Wu Xui and Hu Shui. He flinched.

The ground was covered in blood and viscera. Broken limbs and crushed bodies that looked revolting. Blood pastes that covered the surrounding trees and foliage around the camp grounds. He searched for Shui only to find her raising her giant hammer above her head, a poor sod was beneath her shadow with his hands raised begging, she dropped the hammer and crushed through his hands and face. 

Wu Xui stood to the side with a hand covering her mouth, equally as shocked as he was. 

“Shui!” Yin Hu shouted, unsure how to even begin addressing what he saw. “Hu Shui! Come here right this instant.”

This time she flinched as she came to a full stop. She had already been charging at her next victim. Her stone stoic face shattering as she snapped her head toward him. “B-But, Ancestor!”

“No ‘Buts’! Come here right now or expect to be punished,” Yin Hu said, trying his best to stop his bemoaning parent syndrome from escaping him. 

Except it was impossible to stop. 

Seeing Shui take even a single step toward becoming a murder-hobo main character made all of his barriers shatter as he tried to prevent it. There was no way he would allow it to happen while under his wing. It was his sole responsibility to make sure she never became corrupted enough to kill so brutally. Yin Hu refused to check on her victims in case some of the deformed and crushed piles of limbs were still alive. 

“Wu Xui. End the misery of everyone else around us,” he narrowed his eyes at Shui who stood beside him with her arms crossed and cheeks puffy. Not an ounce of remorse on her face. “I have to handle this little one right now.”

The lady ran off, blood spears appearing around her. “Y-Yes, patriarch.”

“Me and you are going to have a very, very long talk after we get some privacy, young lady. You hear me?.”

“But, Ancestor! They were trying to–”

“Don’t you talk back to me,” Yin Hu knew he was pushing it too far, yet how could he not when the danger of his lovely, innocent Shui might end up developing an MC persona. 

Just the thought made a shiver run down his spine and butterflies go wild in the pits of his stomach.

“Enough!” someone shouted. 

Yin Hu and everyone else on the battlefield snapped their heads toward the source of the voice. 

Shan Yue stood above the wagon he had been on the entire time, never having come down since the start of the battle. He surveyed the entire camp, area by area until his eyes fell upon Yin Hu. The old man stumbled, nearly falling off his perch. “Y-You aren’t…” he pointed at Yin Hu with a shaking arm. “H-How could someone…? How were we so blind?”

And now they begin to hallucinate… These people really needed a reality check considering how arrogant they were acting this entire time. The fat man acted like he was the greatest cultivator to have walked the entire planet before Jun pimp slapped him. 

Yin Hu waved his hand and everyone of his party appeared around him kneeling. Jun joined them and Shui tried to as well, but he held her shoulder closer to him to prevent it. He didn’t need bootlickers for family. “We’ve overstayed our welcome.”

“As you command, Patriarch,” all of them shouted in sync. 

Shit. They took it too far. What happened to acting like Zhong Da was the main person?!