Hunters and Prey

*Boom!* In the gloom, a pale hand reaching out from the black water was abruptly caught in Tong Shan's grip. The Water Ape's hand, originally appearing as if carved from fine jade, instantly showed its true form—covered in dense hair and crisscrossed with scars. Sharp claws sprang from its fingertips, stabbing ruthlessly into Tong Shan's flesh. Tong Shan remained completely expressionless, not minding in the slightest. The Water Ape, on the other hand, shrieked with mounting shrillness. Its arm trembled and spasmed violently, as if clutching a piece of red-hot iron. The disorder object forged by the Lord was overridden by the Order of Tianyuan and the Law of Tianyuan, turning frenzied once more. Inch by inch, it was ravaged from within, dissolving like melting wax. The Water Ape's hand thrashed madly, tearing at his flesh until it nearly scraped his palm down to the bare bone. From beginning to end, Tong Shan was unmoved. He did not even bother glancing down at the Water Ape in his hand. His cold eyes swept his surroundings; his telekinesis, which had seemed like a flickering candle in the wind, still maintained an exceptionally stable domain that perceived everything. His other hand suddenly drew Huihao, slashing at the uncanny figure that materialized out of thin air behind him. A bone saw appeared in the hands of the Stitched-Face Tax Collector. Wailing faces contorted across the saw blade as it hacked, slashed, and chopped relentlessly, heedless of its own injuries and moving with unbelievable speed. Amid the dizzying storm of slashes, Tong Shan felt his spiritus draining away at terrifying speed! Was it the saw in its grip?! Every strike siphoned off a tenth of his spiritus. The Tax Collector's extortion was absolute. Once it locked onto a target and became entangled with them, every effective slash stole a third of their life, and every collision stole a tenth of their spiritus. It was calculated not against their remaining reserves, but against their maximum total! There was no way to resist or exempt oneself from it. Yet the problem was—how much time had already passed? The pupils of the watcher lurking in the dark constricted slightly. In other words, this man's spiritus recovery rate might be even faster than the Tax Collector's siphoning! No, the Tax Collector had not received the spiritus tax at all—otherwise, its aura would not have remained unchanged. Yet the spiritus drained with each strike was distinct and tangible... Even the Tax Collector itself was growing frenzied. It was incomprehensible: had the harvested spiritus simply vanished into thin air?! Tong Shan made no effort to hide it. Beneath his collar, a jade pendant hanging at his chest gleamed faintly, altering his condition again and again, rolling back his state to the moment before the extortion had occurred! Yet another blessed relic of the Aether school! Who could have dreamed that a Tianyuan would carry even more equipment than an artisan—and far more outrageous gear at that?! In his current state, how could he possibly bear such a colossal burden? How had he not been drained dry and crushed by all the blessed relics covering his body? The Gu Huo roared once more. Plundering life, it caused thick, viscous blood to leak from Tong Shan's nose and mouth, draining away once again. Single-handedly, he pinned down both the Water Ape and the Tax Collector—and still had strength to spare. His burning eyes snapped upward, glaring at the Gu Huo. Telekinesis erupted, surging forward in a roaring torrent. Suppressed for an instant! The Gu Huo tried to rise again, but it was too late. An even more ferocious dark silhouette loomed behind it. Little Niuma—no, the Dragon Mountain armor! Perched on the armor's shoulder, An Ning idly twirled a hairpin between her fingers. Her other hand rested atop Little Niuma's head as she said softly, "Beat it up." With that, Dragon Mountain ran wild. A colossal iron fist lifted and smashed down upon the paralyzed Gu Huo. Flames erupted from the iron elbow, boosting and accelerating its descent—*boom!* The rearing, shrieking Gu Huo was pounded deep into the mire, the crunch of shattering bones ringing out incessantly. Dragon Mountain showed no sign of stopping; its dragon blood boiled as the armor's four iron arms swung like pile drivers on a construction site, crashing down in turn. Heedless of the Gu Huo's Restoration, the armor pulverized it into paste again and again. As if that were not enough, two hands roughly seized one of its heads and violently ripped it off! Amid the sickening tearing sound, it raised the head and poured the viscous blood all over itself, gulping it down with ravenous greed. The dragon blood surged voraciously; even a beast of disorder created by the Lord would be devoured whole. Crimson eyes stared fixedly, crying out repeatedly, yet failed to siphon the slightest trace of life. What life could possibly be stolen from a mechanical creation that had never been alive to begin with? Machine oil? Or phlogiston?! The infants crawling and clinging across its frame shrieked in agony as the armor abruptly clanged open. Scorching red dragon blood extended like tentacles, wrapping around them and dragging them toward the Crucible, shoving them into the engine one after another. Delicious, savory, hungry for more! Dragon Mountain roared, starved and berserk. In that split second of silence, An Ning snapped her head back and saw a crimson arrow already right before her eyes! After lurking for who knew how long, the hunter had struck without warning! She could not even dodge in time. The Flying Light unleashed with all her might could only deflect the arrow's trajectory by a hair's breadth. The shaft grazed past her face, tearing open her cheek and spraying blood. The wound looked as if mauled by a wild beast, the flesh cruelly peeled back to expose her gums. "How disgraceful, Uncle," An Ning sighed softly. She looked toward the figure that had finally stepped out from the deepest shadows, her eyes distant, bearing neither pity nor hatred. "Has even a hunter turned into a wolf?" The Dongjiao hunter offered no reply. In silence, he drew his bow and nocked another arrow! His ravenous eyes burned crimson. Holding nothing back, he unleashed the Sun-Reflecting Arrow with full force! No, it could no longer be called the biting, ferocious Sun-Reflecting. It was a crimson blood moon. An Ning remained serene, as if feeling no pain at all, sitting motionless atop Little Niuma's shoulder. She did not move; neither did he. Hunter and hunter, predator and prey—the moment their eyes met, the duel had already begun. Their mastery of Flying Light and Sun-Reflecting was equally matched; whoever exposed a flaw first was doomed to perish! Caught off guard, Tong Shan had no time to support her. Nor could he attend to anything else. The moment the Dongjiao werewolf sprang forth, a razor-sharp claw materialized out of thin air from the shadows behind Tong Shan, lunging for his skull. Seizing this critical instant, wolf joined wolf—the two lurking wolves broke cover, launching a pincer attack against their quarry. What answered was a sudden, violent surge of telekinesis from Tong Shan's supposedly weakened state, exploding like a tempest! Right within the domain, inside the Harmonious Lord Masterwork's territory—Domain: Calamity Prevention Codex suddenly unfolded! Without the slightest hint of frailty, its biting majesty was even more formidable than before! He disregarded his own safety and cared nothing for range, compressing the boundary to the absolute limit of several dozen meters around him. Immediately following that— *Fire over Heaven: Great Possession!* A spark of flame flickered into existence, illuminating Tong Shan's faint, mocking smile and the stunned expression of the wolf behind him. Entangled by the Water Ape and the Tax Collector, the seemingly dying Tong Shan suddenly unleashed all his former might—surpassing his peak by an even more absurd degree. The flames made no distinction between friend and foe, swallowing everything! A fire tornado rose straight from the ground! A terrifying blaze akin to the core of a blazing sun roared outward, engulfing Tong Shan and swallowing the wolf. Amid agonized shrieks, a charred silhouette flew backward, mangled and nearly cleaved in half at the waist by Huihao! As the firelight subsided, Tong Shan stood entirely unscathed. True, calamities spared no one, but within the boundary of the Calamity Prevention Codex, he could freely alter his own attributes—for instance, converting himself into part of the flame for a split second, then forcibly shifting back to his original form. Horrified, the Water Ape finally tore off its own hand. Faces resembling drowned corpses surfaced from the dark water, glaring with venomous hatred. Meanwhile, Tong Shan calmly looked down and slowly drew out the Tax Collector's saw embedded in his chest. He clenched his fist around it. Crushed to dust! Just a moment ago, when the wolf had turned to flee, the bewildered Tax Collector had only managed to launch a desperate final strike. Sadly, it was utterly useless. It had failed. How could it possibly fail? The Mountain Wolf, nearly bisected, backed away to put distance between them, staring fixedly at him. Jin Wuyan's ambush, the suppression of the Kingdom of the Woods, the third wolf's roaring charge, the artisan's domain interference, the Harmonious Lord Masterwork's suppression, the entanglement of the Water Ape, the assault of the Tax Collector, and the draining power of so many assorted blessed relics... Any single one was enough to leave an unwary Tianyuan at death's door. Yet with all these factors combined, they amounted to only one question: *Why the fuck aren't you dead yet?!* "What a shame. Ever since I was little, for whatever reason, my life has just been a bit too tough to take." Leaning on Huihao, Tong Shan offered a faint smile across his pale face, still looking as though his breath hung by a thread. Right before their eyes, he uncapped a potion bottle, poured it down his throat to restore his spiritus and condition, and forcibly stimulated the matrix's power. Potent, violent medicines were downed one after another. Any other Celestial Chosen would have dropped dead from the backlash long ago, yet he remained alive. No matter how wretched his condition appeared, he was still breathing! And to be alive meant he was a threat—it meant he could unleash his full power again at any moment! "Just a spent force. Nothing to fear," Tong Shan comforted them with a smile. "Who knows? Maybe I'll drop dead right here in the next second. Doesn't hurt to try." A fissure surfaced across his face, cracking open to reveal an internal glow like burning blood. With a backhand sweep, he erected his domain once more, instantly dissolving the frostfire surge Tao Chen had used in an attempt to drive Ji Jue back. The palm resting against Huihao vibrated slightly, spreading ink that began interfering with the Harmonious Lord Masterwork in reverse. *A spent force?* *Who the fuck are you kidding?!* Yet was this state a deathbed struggle, or an elaborate bluff? The Mountain Wolf prowled and watched, refusing to step forward despite Tao Chen's repeated curses and urgings. Seeing that the wolf refused to advance, Tong Shan was in no hurry either. He shifted his gaze toward the Dongjiao hunter-turned-wolf who was locked in a standoff against Flying Light. Ink materialized like a sword blade and slashed downward. Biting deep into the bone, blood spurted out. The Dongjiao Wolf did not flinch, as though incapable of feeling pain. His bow-drawing posture was forged of iron, locked firmly onto An Ning's aura as he sought the faintest flaw or vulnerability. Instead, An Ning smiled, curling her lips in mockery. At that exact instant, the Dongjiao Wolf finally moved—the blood-moon arrow vanished from the bowstring into thin air. It was gone, yet it did not fly toward An Ning. Instead, it locked onto Ji Jue, who was high in the sky and completely defenseless against it!