Is That All?

Bang!! Amid the splashing rain of blood, Lü Yang fell backward toward the sky. In the instantaneous silence, everyone whipped their heads around in shock, staring into the darkness behind them at the lone figure standing atop a distant cliff. Leisurely cycling the bolt with a crisp metallic friction, a glowing-red casing ejected from the rifle chamber, falling down the cliff face and carving a blazing trail of light through the dark. Glancing indifferently at the spurting blood, he remarked, "Mediocre." Counterattacking right through the blood rain. It was almost like walking right into a trap... And yet, he didn't seem affected in the slightest! Neither Lü Yang, who had metamorphosed into a Bashe, nor Gao Cheng, who could manipulate the blood rain to a degree using the Gao clan's tally, had sensed anything at all! Amid his fury, Gao Cheng's expression shifted slightly, suppressing the unease in his heart. Not only was the blank zone in his perception impossible to penetrate, but the corruption taint and the suppression of the entire aberrated Kunwu were completely useless! The guy didn't look burdened in the least. In fact... he was fucking more in his element than Gao Cheng was! Wait, had this bastard secretly defected to the Profound? A furious hiss rang out. Before the headless corpse falling backward could hit the ground, granulation tissue and blood gushed out like a geyser, writhing, swelling violently, growing—doubling! Losing one head, two grew in its place. Now both heads were a hybrid mix of man and serpent, overflowing with the same wrath and madness, hissing. Blood-red eyes flared with light, beaming toward Ji Jue across a distance of seven kilometers. Under their fixed gaze, the rain of blood filling the sky ground to a halt, and immediately following, countless raindrops began to squirm. Within the gory water, bizarre worms rapidly metamorphosed, unfurling wings and swarming in overwhelming numbers like a cloud of hornets. Both of Lü Yang's heads contorted in hideous fury, and the mouths covering his body opened and closed as he roared: "Die!" In an instant, tens of thousands of venomous insects hatched from the decaying blood of the wicked curse, converging into a tide. Like the palms of a giant snapping shut, they engulfed Ji Jue's indifferent face. From start to finish, he showed not a shred of emotion. Boom!!! As the countless grayish-black venomous insects converged and clamped shut, they were utterly unable to breach Ji Jue's perimeter. What rose from beneath the swarm of millions was an apparently endless tide of blood-fire. With a mere sweep of his hand, the countless insects were incinerated to nothingness, without even a speck of ash remaining. Non-Offensive's barehanded crafting, Embers' material property interference, the scorching heat of Crucible Blood, and even undisguised corruption alchemy... With an eruption of spiritus, the Invisible Hand swept through the void, effortlessly tampering with the nature of the air to form a thin, ethereal substance like a soap bubble. Within this film of foam, the raging heat of Crucible Blood surged outward. Driven by Unquenched Fuel, temperatures reaching thousands of degrees in an instant conjured an invisible crucible out of thin air, treating every incoming venomous bug as raw material. With seamless, fluid execution, they were extracted, purified, and smelted, until finally settling into Ji Jue's outstretched palm. They had become a solitary pellet of pure, blood-red crystal. Tossed into the air, flipping as it rose and fell, it vanished like a magic trick. "Is that all?" Fierce flames soared, incinerating the rain of blood. Under the blazing light, Ji Jue's gaze swept past their faces and landed on the very back, on Yue Chen. He sighed with regret. "Relying on teammates like this, I'm afraid it'll be tough for you to win." From beginning to end, Yue Chen remained expressionless. Only, as he stared at Ji Jue now, a faint glint that could only be called excitement surfaced within his devoid-of-humanity pupils. "You're not running anymore? Excellent..." Suddenly raising his voice, he barked, "Gao Cheng, get by my side!" Gao Cheng froze for a second, then realization dawned. Remembering how Zhou Lun had died earlier, he sprinted toward Yue Chen without a second thought. Ji Jue loved nothing more than striking where they were weak and avoiding where they were strong, resorting to any means necessary to win. If he wanted victory, there was no way he would clash head-on with Yue Chen. Quite the opposite—the moment he stepped out into the open to draw attention, it meant he was definitely about to launch a sneak attack from the shadows! And among everyone present, the greatest threat to him wasn't Yue Chen, but Gao Cheng, who commanded the blood rain through his tally and was a Celestial Chosen of the Eternal Gate! Just like an invisible hunter lurking in the dark, as long as Gao Cheng—capable of manipulating space and freely shifting through eight gates and eight directions—remained alive, Ji Jue would always have to worry about being kept in check. The matrix and abilities of [White Carriage] had their limitations and were by no means omnipotent, but in a situation where its depths could hardly be probed, the unknown was the greatest threat. Meanwhile, Gao Cheng did not forget to warn, "Watch out for that White Stag! And a Hunter from the House of An!" Before that, the foot Yue Chen planted on the earth suddenly sank, stomping down without warning. Immediately, soil and rock cracked, and strata buckled. The violent power of the Path of the Desolate Ruins gushed forth, guided by the ground across a vast distance and jutting upward. Wherever it passed, muddy pools boiled and the earth bulged. And ahead of that, blade-like earthen spikes were already bursting from the cliff where Ji Jue stood. The Bashe hissed as a colossal maw manifested in the void, enclosing the entire cliff face and snapping shut! Not only that, but a bone-chilling cold erupted without warning. The air, which still held lingering warmth, plunged below freezing in an instant and continued to plummet endlessly! It was more than physical freezing; even the circulation of spiritus slowed. Behind Yue Chen, that Entropy Chosen who had narrowly cheated death multiple times struck again. Even across such an immense distance, he presented a terrifying threat. In an instant, it was enough to freeze Ji Jue to death on the spot—assuming there was no interference from Crucible Blood... In an instant, the hearthfire rekindled. The extreme cold capable of rupturing lungs was repelled and swept back by Crucible Blood. Countless piercing stone blades and jagged rock peaks erupted from the earth, only to shatter beneath Little Niuma's stomping treads. Across such an immense distance, the residual force merely left scratches across the external armor. And the moment the Bashe's void maw snapped shut, it ground to a sudden halt! As if biting into solid iron and stone. A tooth-grinding screech echoed through the air. Little Niuma's form shifted, raising massive steel talons that rigidly propped open the invisible maw like iron pincers, refusing to let it close or break away. Pan Ying thrust and swept through the empty air, tearing through the invisible jaws and shattering the intangible mouth to pieces. And right upon Little Niuma's shoulder, the heavy sniper rifle in Ji Jue's hands had already been readied in an instant, raised once more, locking onto Gao Cheng's position, and squeezing the trigger! The instant the crystal bullet tore through the air, it was already inches away! Even knowing he had Yue Chen's protection, Gao Cheng's hair still stood on end. Boom! Blood-fire detonated from Yue Chen's hand. In the nick of time, his palm rose, intercepting the trajectory and colliding head-on with the fragments of Pan Ying. Across his palm, where the luster of iron and the hue of stone swirled, a crack actually surfaced, with the faint glimmer of burning molten rock showing through. A strike sufficient to annihilate both form and soul of a Celestial Chosen of the Regeneration rank had been blocked! It was merely a scratch on the surface. Not a wisp of blood vapor emerged from the wound, as if he possessed no blood in his entire body, and what flowed through his veins was pure scorching lava. Right on its heels, what appeared was a wisp of faint light speeding out of the darkness! After a long vigil, the art of Flying Light showed itself once more, right behind the bullet Ji Jue fired! Just as had happened before, except with the order reversed: it clung tightly behind Ji Jue's bullet to conceal its trail, and the instant the bullet exploded, that tiny gleam flared to life. Within a span of less than half a meter, it burst forward in a thrust, defying inertia to trace a sharp right angle, rising past Yue Chen's fingers and driving straight toward Gao Cheng behind him! Crack! The Flying Light shattered and ricocheted away. As if striking an invisible barrier. No, even before that, the Flying Light had been severed—severed by an empty cleave from a jade axe across the air. Every amplification from the Flying Light matrix was cut off, reverting it to its original form, leaving only an empty iron scrap that struck Gao Cheng's barrier and bounced off. Unharmed! "Tch..." Hiding in the shadows, An Ning's expression turned cold. Her gaze fell behind Yue Chen, upon the Entropy Chosen who was turtling inside the defenses, refusing to show his head. In his hand was an eerie jade axe—a blessed creation originating from the Tianyuan lineage. With just an empty chop through the air, it could sever all spiritus connections within its range out of nowhere. Like a drone losing its control signal, even a single instant was enough to achieve its purpose—without pin-point control, the destructive power of Flying Light couldn't be unleashed at all! She had thought he was cannon fodder unworthy of even a name, yet now, like Gao Cheng, he had become the most troublesome obstacle on the field. Furthermore, the trace she revealed the instant she attacked had actually been caught! After mutating into the Bashe, Lü Yang's senses had undergone a qualitative leap. Sight, hearing, smell, and spiritus perception alike—the slightest anomaly was as clear as day to him. "Get the hell out here!" The moment An Ning flickered and vanished, a gigantic maw emerged from the void, pouring out a massive torrent of emerald-green breath like a waterfall. Wherever it passed, all things rotted, foul odors spread, and the bloody water turned into a venomous pool. "Got you!" Amid the momentary shift in spiritus, Gao Cheng couldn't stop a grin from spreading across his face. In just a few seconds, with the assistance and amplification of the sky-filling blood rain, he had successfully pinpointed that crucial location: Ji Jue's coordinates! The moment he captured them, he signaled without hesitation for everyone to prepare. The invisible White Carriage turned once more. In an instant, the Four Symbols revolved, shifting across all eight directions! The distinction between near and far blurred. Without warning, space folded like origami, a massive aperture emerged from the void, and the blood rain whirled into a vortex, swallowing Ji Jue in an instant. Then, it bloomed right before all of them— —[Shift], complete! Ji Jue, who had been six kilometers away, appeared right before their eyes in the blink of an eye. There was no longer any distance left to flee. And even before that, everyone had unleashed their strongest attacks toward that predetermined area without a second thought—extreme cold tore up from the ground, enveloping the entire zone as temperatures plunged a hundred degrees below zero, locking down all circulation of spiritus. Lü Yang's body swelled again, layers of scales surfacing as sword-like fangs and talons jutted from his hands. Venom mutated furiously as he threw his entire frame forward, intent on strangling Ji Jue in a split second. Yue Chen's body shuddered. His already towering frame expanded once more. The shadow of a giant flickered around him for an instant, the luster of iron and the hue of stone converging between his arm and fingers. The earth across thousands of meters violently shuddered as matchless, terrifying mass gathered into that punch along with the flow of the Desolate Ruins' quintessence. Without holding back, he drove it forward ferociously! BOOM!!! A terrifying force sufficient to crush a craftsman ten, a hundred, a thousand times over suddenly ground to a dead halt! As though striking an impenetrable iron wall, unable to advance even an inch... It was blocked! The bone-deep chill vanished, and a scorching wind swept outward like a blast furnace, thawing frost and churning up a white mist so thick nothing could be seen, swallowing everything. Within the dense, impenetrable white mist, only a streak of surging blood-light could be seen, flashing by. Slash! Lü Yang hissed and went flying backward! Across his mutated Bashe body, a deep gash that nearly severed him in half appeared out of thin air. His fangs and bone blades shattered in an instant, and an entire arm was sheared off at the shoulder, tumbling from midair. He hadn't even had time to react... When violent air currents surged out of nowhere and blew away all the steam and white mist, everyone finally saw—standing amidst the encirclement, an armored monstrosity standing over several meters tall like an iron colossus. At this moment, waves of tooth-grinding screeching continued to erupt. An iron hand was raised, bracing before the Earth-Vein Fist, and in turn clamped tight around Yue Chen's fist, fearlessly locking in a contest of strength against the giant. A wolf-like metal beast mask tilted up, and from its eyes blazed an almost tangible infernal light. Looking down in mockery: "—What were you expecting?!"