"I fucking knew it! Nothing good ever comes from outsourced dogshit jobs!"
Tears welled in Tang Qian's fierce eyes. He longed to howl at the heavens to mourn the pure-romance storyline that had now ascended straight to the afterlife—motherfucker, this wasn't how the plot was supposed to go!
Sure, a "more-than-friends" relationship wasn't something daytime television could broadcast, but nobody said it was going to cross all the way over into R18G territory!
Ji Jue, you dog, you've completely stopped being human.
At this moment, revived to full health and brimming with rage and resentment, the pure-love warrior abruptly erupted. Lashing out in vengeance, he vented every ounce of his hatred toward the client onto his scene partner!
Who could have guessed?
Inside an Imperial garrison base, under everyone's watchful eyes, this soft, sweet young lady wasn't just a carnivore—
She was a wolf in disguise.
Bloodflame coiled around his halberd, which shuddered violently, releasing an explosive shockwave from the beast's gaping maw. Then, empowered by the Heritage Offering, a storm of broadaxes, bone saws, daggers, and lances poured forth from his six spread arms.
The Asura was enraged, abandoning all restraint.
Wolf or dog, it was all the fucking same!
Chop it to death first, ask questions later!
*Boom!*
Amid the deafening blast, ripples like water spread across the quicksilver coating the walls. Layers of spiritus circuits emerged within it, keeping the seal intact.
It was unbelievable: a plating spread so paper-thin could contain all the roars, upheaval, and explosive surges of spiritus, dividing inside from outside and opening this narrow sliver of a battlefield right under the countless surveillance monitors of the garrison base.
Howling in agony, the wolf beast convulsed. A curved sword had plunged into its face—the cleaving blade drove into its cranium, tearing downward through its eye socket and wedging into flesh and bone. Blood gushed out in an instant.
Pitch-black fur bristled like needles in fury.
Razor claws abruptly extended and shot forward like bullets, plunging into Tang Qian's body and easily ripping open a massive wound, only to lodge tightly between bone and muscle.
Soon, squeezed by contracting muscle, they were forced back out of the flesh.
Unscathed!
No—more accurately, his entire body was mangled, a total casualty in an instant. But his regeneration rate was simply too fast.
At this point-blank range, almost like an embrace, the corrupted White Stag erupted in an instant, nearly tearing Tang Qian to shreds like a raging storm.
The moment Tang Qian raised his arms to strike, claws severed them at the root. His head had barely regenerated before it was ripped away once more.
Yet the bloodfire was inexhaustible, rushing on without end.
Before those severed, mangled limbs could hit the ground, they dissolved back into bloodfire, surging back into Tang Qian's torso to regrow and recombine.
Consequently, after a full round of explosive attacks, though he was battered and horribly mangled, he remained as resilient as ever.
*Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong!*
The ferocious, berserk wolf beast's heart went completely ice-cold, shrinking into a tight ball, shivering in spasms. Beneath its thick fur, goosebumps broke out constantly over its skin, sending chills through its bones.
*Why?!*
Where had it slipped up to get targeted like this? By whom?
The Empire?!
No, if the Empire had found out, they wouldn't have sent some ragtag clown like this—the entire NCO dormitory would have been leveled by artillery bombardment.
Then who was it? Who else could it be?
A White Stag Hunter?
The instant this suspicion surfaced, the beast's blood-red eyes fixed on Tang Qian before it, almost finding it laughable—*A Hunter? You think you're worthy?*
*If he were truly a Hunter, I probably would have been dead and cold before I even took off my mask.*
A bizarre piece of meat delivered right to its jaws, a chaotic Swarm Chosen, a senseless death match... going through all the trouble of infiltrating an Imperial garrison base just to attack it?
*Why the hell is this happening?!*
The beast racked its brains, but couldn't make any sense of it. It had no clue what the enemy was after!
The only thing it knew for certain was...
It had fallen into a trap!
In a fight between the Swarm and a wolf, the outcome was never in doubt.
A wolf stripped of intelligence and initiative was at a disadvantage the moment it stepped into the trap. Falling into an encounter battle against the Swarm was a nightmare among nightmares. And when a burst-oriented wolf failed to instantly kill its foe after an all-out assault, it was doomed to perish in the ensuing war of attrition.
It couldn't fight anymore.
It had to run!
"He's going to run."
Just as the wolf beast braced to leap, that eerie voice rang out once again.
*There's someone behind the scenes!*
But the wolf could no longer care.
It didn't even bother masking its movements. Tanking Tang Qian's frontal axe strike head-on, it swept its claws toward the door, intending to tear right through the quicksilver coating the room.
If it exposed everything happening here to broad daylight—let's die together!
*I'll drag you down with me!*
Once the alarm was triggered, in the ensuing chaos, it could disguise and hide itself again, always finding a way to slip away in the confusion. It wanted to see what a Swarm Chosen could possibly do then!
Regrettably, it didn't even have time to tear through that seemingly fragile film of quicksilver.
Its movement halted abruptly.
Frozen in place.
"Third Grandaunt—!"
Tang Qian made a split-second decision and roared. Instantly, an old woman's face materialized on the head resting on his shoulder. Wrinkled and scowling, with drooping triangular eyes, a sliver of venomous, icy light shot from the slits of her gaze.
The arsenal in Tang Qian's hands vanished, replaced by an angular, thumb-thick chain. Slithering like a viper, it shot forth and coiled tightly around the berserk giant wolf.
As the chain tightened, it dug deep into flesh, its sharp edges crushing muscle and wrapping around bone.
With the circulation of bloodflame across it, it forcefully suppressed all erupting surges of spiritus, completely shutting down any room to use spiritus arts.
Just like slipping a leash on a rabid dog.
Held fast!
"Don't blame me, little sister! We're all just trying our best to survive!"
Tang Qian's face flushed crimson. He gripped the chain with all his might, hauling it backward and tightening the hold. Sharp pangs of agony shot through his palms, and his entire body trembled.
A mere single second.
So brief.
Yet for the wolf, it was an eternity—long enough to unleash countless full-powered bursts. Wave after wave of fury and explosive force piled up and mounted, each more violent than the last.
It even tore into the beast's own body and flesh.
A secret art of desperate struggle had no ceiling or end; as long as its heart beat, it could ramp up its power infinitely to an unimaginable scale.
Unfortunately, one second was more than enough.
Just as the chain was on the verge of snapping—
The wolf froze.
A hand pressed gently against its deformed, twisted face.
Ji Jue!
From within a vortex of shifting silver radiance, Ji Jue's upper body breached through space!
Relying on the coordinates and fix left on the lighter, as well as the guidance formed by the quicksilver, Sovereign Virtue - Eternal Gate's Celestial Craft: Doomsday Express deployed him across the void!
In a single step, he bypassed the countless layers of lockdown inside and outside the base, ignoring the phase lock enforced by the Star Core Association that prohibited teleportation, arriving directly before the wolf.
As that slender five-fingered hand pressed down, the malice held back until this moment erupted completely!
In this unavoidable instant, mercilessly—
Dissociation Art: Jingzhen!
*Boom!*
With a dull thud, the berserk wolf beast stiffened on the spot. Then, like a limp sack of rags, it lost all its strength as thick, viscous blood erupted from its seven facial orifices.
Pan Ying's ferocity, Chunjun's mutability, Zhanlu's savagery—between Ji Jue's five fingers, three entirely distinct types of spiritus underwent qualitative change, stimulating one another like a bomb.
With crushing ruin, it broke through the matrix's barrier and breached the soul, colliding and fueling one another within, causing its destructive power to soar exponentially before fully detonating!
Soul devastated, consciousness blank, spiritus disrupted, matrix shattered, and blessings no longer responding—in this critical instant, it lost its final shred of resistance.
In Ji Jue's raised hand, a bone blade materialized out of thin air, plunging into the beast's flesh and seizing control of its body.
Next, several beads of quicksilver scattered from his fingers onto the wolf's frame, rapidly spreading and hardening. Under Solid Alchemy, the containment was complete.
Done and dusted.
"Holy shit..."
Dumbfounded, Tang Qian hadn't even had time to react when he saw Ji Jue reach down and lift the wolf beast from the floor.
"Wait here."
With a simple command, the silver vortex expanded once more, swallowing Ji Jue and the wolf in his grip.
It collapsed inward, turning into a small cube that dropped to the floor.
He was gone.
Leaving only a stunned Tang Qian behind in the room, which had returned to dead silence. The stifling heat lingered amidst the wreckage. Outside the window, a faint commotion drifted in, while a speck of dust rose and danced in a beam of sunlight slanting through the curtains.
"Wait, what about me? What about me?!"
Tang Qian opened his mouth, poked the small cube on the floor, and said, "Hello? Anyone home?"
No response.
***
Cold. Shivering.
In the endless dark, the beast shuddered and opened its eyes.
It had had a nightmare. Everything that occurred in that dream was so utterly absurd that it almost suspected it had suffered some kind of delusion.
Yet after opening its eyes, it realized.
It wasn't a nightmare.
It was real.
In the nightmarish darkness, not a sound could be heard. There was only the endless agony wracking its body—long spikes driven into its marrow, pinning it to the ground.
Blood seeped out silently, carrying life and spiritus, spreading, circulating, and diffusing along grooves carved into the floor. In the end, it traced out the secret rituals of Great Sin heritage—using its own life and soul to bind it in turn.
Such a familiar aura, such reminiscent malice and cruelty, made it shiver uncontrollably. It instinctively widened its eyes, yet in its daze, everything remained blurred and indistinct.
Where on earth was this?
Who was this...?
It couldn't stop the terror from taking hold.
Until, inches away in the darkness, a playful, soft sigh sounded.
"Not bad. Among this batch, your qualities are the best—"
Chapter 592