Chapter 175: Chapter 165: Burning 3
A cold wind howled.
「Boundary Zone.」
Lin Hui held his longsword at a slant, his face lowered. A gentle breeze swirled around him, a passive effect of his Special Effect: Wind of Surrounding.
This Special Effect activated the moment he faced an enemy. It consumed almost no energy and grew stronger as he guided and controlled the power of the wind.
"Interesting. Kid, did practicing Extreme Martial Arts make you stupid?" the old man, Black Blade, sneered. "Forget it. Let’s stop wasting time and just take him. We need to find out what he used to make those two Golden Threads disappear. Was it Liu Wu Jun, or that mysterious teacher of his?"
Two Golden Threads in charge of investigating the area had mysteriously vanished. They had come to investigate Lin Hui, to test him, and then disappeared without a trace. To this day, not even a body has been found.
After being scared off last time, they had joined forces to come here again. They were picking up the investigation where they left off, determined to uncover the truth behind the disappearances.
SHING.
The Black and White Blade duo drew their Thick-Backed Sabers in unison. They didn’t let their guard down just because they were only facing Lin Hui.
They had survived this long, avoiding every danger, precisely because of this caution and their commitment to go all out every time.
"Should we kill him?" White Blade asked.
"No. Capture him for interrogation first. Let’s make this quick, avoid any complications," Black Blade replied.
"Alright..." White Blade nodded, then suddenly froze. "Wait, where’d he go!?"
In the instant the two were speaking, Lin Hui, who had been right in front of them, suddenly vanished.
There was no warning. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. The view before and after was like two nearly identical images.
The only difference was Lin Hui’s presence.
"Did he teleport away!? Could it be the Good Heart Sect...!?" Black Blade’s expression changed drastically.
CLANG!!!
A sudden, deafening sound erupted from his side.
Black Blade whipped his head around. Before he could see anything, his senses detected a scorching, violent aura that had abruptly appeared behind White Blade.
One slash!
The relatively slender Ruyi traced a bright silver line through the air, a horizontal slash that landed on White Blade’s back.
The silver line and White Blade froze for a split second.
BOOM!
The next moment, a huge, distorted torrent of air exploded at the point of contact between the man and the blade.
The torrent of air and the explosive force of the impact sent Black Blade flying back dozens of meters, crashing into a black wooden house behind him.
With a BANG, the wooden house shattered and slowly collapsed.
He paid no mind to his disheveled state, unleashing his Void Power to blast apart the surrounding wreckage of the house.
The already dilapidated wooden house shattered like broken toy blocks.
Black Blade leaped into the air and looked toward his younger brother, White Blade.
"White Blade!" he roared, amplifying his voice with his Inner Strength.
CLANG!
But in the next instant, another silver line lit up amidst the flying splinters. Pure, terrifying power once again kicked up an explosive torrent of air, clearing away all the debris.
The strong wind, like a shockwave, instantly swept the field of view clear of all debris and dust.
Only then could Black Blade see his brother’s condition.
This was bad!
This was very bad!!
Beneath his mask, his pupils contracted instantly.
On the open roadway, White Blade was holding his Thick-Backed Saber, its blade coated in Void Power, and swinging wildly in all directions.
But strangely, there was no enemy in the directions he was swinging.
It was as if he were just shadowboxing.
But if that were the case, where was the blood slowly dripping from his back coming from!?
"Old Hei, watch out!" White Blade suddenly cried out, looking in his direction.
Black Blade reacted immediately, spinning around with a slash of his saber!
Void Power covered the blade, wrapped in an outer layer of Circulation Internal Power. The blade instantly expanded several times over, transforming into a blurry, silver giant saber—at least ten meters long and three meters wide—that he brought crashing down.
BOOM!!
The wooden house behind him was cleaved in two, but the attack hit nothing.
Meanwhile, a figure had already appeared silently at Black Blade’s side.
SHLICK!
The sword’s edge pierced his back like lightning, heading straight for his heart.
The Circulation Protective Barrier was useless, and the Summoner’s Copper Skin and Iron Bones might as well have not existed.
The hair on Black Blade’s body stood on end. The mortal danger caused his entire aura to contract rapidly.
A golden Jade Pendant he wore suddenly shattered, creating a golden shockwave that exploded outward from him in all directions.
PFFT!
The golden shockwave was incredibly fast, moving at the speed of light itself. Even the person behind him couldn’t dodge it and was hit head-on.
"Die!" Black Blade’s face twisted into a snarl as he seized the opportunity, madly swinging his saber in an upward slash.
Just a moment ago, he had truly felt like he was about to die.
They had planned for all sorts of scenarios before coming, but never one like this.
The fight had just begun, yet they were already facing a terrifying, near-fatal threat.
They had considered the danger might come from anywhere: Liu Wu Jun, the Rain Palace, the Good Heart Sect, even the Government Office or the Inspectorate. But they had never once considered that Lin Hui himself would be the greatest danger of all!
In that moment, Black Blade mustered all his strength, swinging the Void Power-covered blade in a heavy upward strike, aiming up from Lin Hui’s legs!
The golden Jade Pendant was a life-saving item, a special relic that automatically activated upon nearing death. The shockwave it emitted could instantly paralyze any opponent within one meter for a single moment, at a speed that was impossible to evade.
That single moment was the difference between life and death, heaven and earth.
Not even ten seconds into the fight, it had already reached a fever pitch.
BANG!!
Black Blade’s all-out strike, filled with all his hopes, slammed heavily into the Ruyi Sword in front of Lin Hui.
Strangely, the excessively long sword hadn’t been there a moment ago, yet in the next instant, it seemed to teleport, appearing directly in front of the Void Power-infused saber.
A massive collision resounded as Void Power and compressed air clashed violently.
Friction and pressure ignited specks of red sparks that scattered around the two like flower petals.
BOOM!
The immense sharpness of the Void Power cut through Lin Hui’s Inner Strength and the torrent of air, crashing head-on against the Ruyi Sword Body.
But before the blow could fully land, he once again retreated and vanished like a phantom.
Before Black Blade could react, there was another loud CLANG. His brother, White Blade, was sent flying by a tremendous force, hurtling straight toward him.
Both instinctively raised their sabers to slash at the incoming figure, but realizing it was the wrong target, they hastily and clumsily pulled back their weapons, trying to steady themselves.
In that moment, both of them realized they couldn’t go on like this.
Their opponent’s speed was too fast, too terrifying. It was beyond what the naked eye could follow.
If they didn’t come up with a countermeasure, never mind capturing him; it was questionable whether the two of them could even leave this Relic Array in one piece.
For now, they could rely on the tough bodies of High Priest Level experts to endure the damage, but once their opponent adapted to their physical resilience and struck at their existing wounds...
’This isn’t working. We have to use our ultimate move and finish him instantly! Make it quick! Our auras shouldn’t leak out!’ Black Blade and his brother made eye contact, communicating in an instant with perfect understanding.
CLANG! CLANG!
With a flash of a ghostly figure, both brothers were once again sent flying by two heavy sword strikes. They crashed through a black wooden house by the roadside, landing far from the main roadway and deep inside the Boundary Zone.
As the house collapsed, several "blood-eyed patients" roared madly and charged forward, heedless of their own lives, only to be sliced to pieces by the brothers’ invisible Void Power in the next second.
Lin Hui’s figure flashed behind the two. He held the Ruyi horizontally and unleashed another slash.
But this time, he paused just before his blade struck.
"Interesting. Is this your little trick?"
He shifted to the side, precisely dodging an invisible blade of Void Power energy.
The blade of energy easily cut through the ground and a wooden house behind him, sliced through the bodies of two more "blood-eyed patients," and finally flew off into the sky until it vanished.
"Hah... hah..." White Blade endured the excruciating pain in his back, his face pale as he gritted his teeth and stared intently at Lin Hui.
"Just who... are you!?"
The few short seconds of their exchange were arguably the most oppressive he had ever felt since he began his career.
The terrifying, irresistible, and savage force; the unpredictable, phantom-like movements—it felt as though no matter how he swung his weapon, he couldn’t touch even a hair on the owner of that ghostly Body Technique.
That immense sense of oppression and the unknown caused a faint trace of despair to well up in his heart.
If Black Blade hadn’t provided timely support and slowed the opponent’s attack frequency just a little, he might have already collapsed.
Now, the two brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, their gazes heavy as they stared fixedly at Lin Hui.
Lin Hui, however, let the tip of his longsword rest on the ground, casually placing some of its weight on the ravaged black earth, his expression composed.
The scene returned to the standoff from before.
The only difference was that their attitudes had been completely reversed.
Before the fight, the Black and White Blade duo had been supremely confident, believing that capturing Lin Hui would be effortless. They thought the real trouble would be some special trump card he carried or had in his backing.
But once the fight truly began, they realized they were wrong.
Completely and utterly wrong.
So wrong that now, they were the ones in real danger!
The Relic wasn’t isolating Lin Hui; it was isolating them.
"Again!" Black Blade saw his brother’s morale faltering and let out a low shout. He raised his saber, stepped forward, and charged toward Lin Hui at full speed.
He fiercely unleashed a killing move from the Spiritual Continuation Sword Technique.
Void Power danced over the saber’s blade like electric arcs. The moment he swung, all the Void Power exploded, forming a massive, dense net that spread out to envelop Lin Hui.
This was the only method he could think of to restrain their opponent’s terrifying speed.
"A good idea, but unfortunately... by the time you swung your saber, I was already gone."
A calm voice reached Black Blade’s ears from behind.
But even before the voice registered, he shuddered, his face paled, and the sound of a massive metallic impact erupted from the back of his neck.
Blood splattered.
As if struck in the back by a giant beast, Black Blade shot forward like a rocket. He tumbled across the ground, creating a series of craters with loud THUDS, skipping like a stone on water in a straight line before finally crashing into a relatively sturdy, dilapidated stone house.
"Go to hell! I’ve got you now!!" White Blade, however, had no time to worry about his brother. From behind, he unleashed the Spiritual Continuation Sword Technique’s Secret Technique: Cyan Moon Mist Kill, with all his might.
Cyan Moon Mist Kill was an ultimate killing move the two brothers had developed while practicing the Spiritual Continuation Sword Technique together.
The greatest effect of this move was its ability to release nine consecutive, sharp cutting nets made of Void Power at more than double their normal speed. The nets could automatically bypass an opponent’s weapon block; after slipping through the gaps, they would contract to slice the enemy’s body.
Because this move was a combined burst from both brothers, the Void Power they unleashed was also much stronger than that of a typical High Priest.
This gave them an unparalleled advantage, whether fighting against lower-level opponents or their peers.
Using it now, White Blade felt a small sense of relief.
He had finally managed to use this ultimate Secret Technique. Before, his opponent was so fast he couldn’t even lock onto his position. No matter how powerful the Secret Technique was, it couldn’t harm a target that wasn’t in its path.
Thankfully, Black Blade had used his own safety to buy him that momentary opening.
’This guy probably isn’t some Outer City Martial Artist at all, but a High Priest from the Inner City in disguise! He must be hiding in the Outer City for some ulterior motive!’ The thought flashed through White Blade’s mind.
He rushed to Black Blade’s side, but what he saw made him shudder, despite his own injuries.
On the back of his brother Black Blade’s neck, a horizontal gash had appeared. It was clearly made by a sword, and it had nearly severed his neck in half.
Blood stained Black Blade’s outer robe, but fortunately, he had used his Inner Strength in time to seal the wound and stop the bleeding, preventing further danger.
