These sleeve arrows were crafted from top-grade materials, representing a design revised through five iterations by Songyang Mansion. They combined armor-piercing, explosive, and secondary propulsion capabilities, yet striking the Luosheng Armor, they failed even to breach its defense.
After the arrowhead shattered, a concealed steel needle within could receive a secondary boost.
This steel needle was potent enough to punch clean through the ghost ape's bronze armor, yet it still failed to pierce the Luosheng Armor!
Carried back by the momentum of the sleeve arrows, however, the dark silhouette staggered back two steps, and He Lingchuan seized the chance to leap up.
At the same time, all four of the ghost ape's fists lashed out, shattering the ice crystals coating its body, followed immediately by a direct thrust of its staff toward the target.
The dark silhouette tilted its head, hurling four or five more icicles—only this time, they were pale blue.
The ghost ape shifted its staff, intending to parry as before, but He Lingchuan roared an advance warning: "Jump away!"
The ghost ape's instincts outpaced its thoughts; hearing the command, it leaped over fifty feet away in a single bound.
The blue icicles struck right where it had stood.
With sharp clatters, the icicles suddenly burst upon hitting the ground, turning into dense, radiating clusters of ice crystals.
These things were not only pretty and gleaming blue, but also brimming with lethal intent, each crystal cluster over four feet long and tipped with points sharp as swords!
Most terrifying of all, they sprouted and spread across the ground, as dense as a colony of sea urchins on a coral reef, leaving nowhere for anyone to set foot. Had the ghost ape remained where it was, its legs and feet would surely have been skewered through and through.
Barely two breaths later, all the ice clusters across the ground exploded at once!
Fractured ice shards shot out indiscriminately in all directions, fiercer than even the Torrential Pear Blossom Needles.
Two nearby saplings were instantly riddled into sieves.
He Lingchuan thrust his heavy shield forward, and the ice arrows rattled harmlessly against it.
Midair and unable to dodge, the ghost ape took over a dozen shards to its back and thighs. Fortunately, it was wearing bronze armor, so the ice shards failed to penetrate, though two lodged themselves in the bends of its knees, wrenching a roar of pain from its throat.
The reason He Lingchuan could give advance warning was that his eyeball spider had observed the black-armored leader's entire battle with the Yao army. The leader had used these exact moves before.
In particular, the divine ability to vanish on the spot had allowed the black-armored leader to appear and disappear like a phantom among the enemy troops—otherwise, how could it have maneuvered so freely on that narrow mountain path? Having watched for a long time, He Lingchuan deduced that this trick was linked to the drifting snow powder in the air, which was why he told the ghost ape to clear out of the snowfall's reach in time.
That exploding ice cluster technique had earlier been unleashed into the tightly packed Yao ranks, hitting without fail every time. Even with origin power protecting their bodies, many Yao soldiers had been wounded or crippled.
Fortunately, they had tested the waters for He Lingchuan with their own lives and flesh; otherwise, he might have suffered a nasty setback in this fight.
Due to this explosion, icy mist pervaded the grove, reducing visibility to nearly zero.
The ghost ape had just touched down and hadn't even straightened up when the black-armored leader sprang onto its knee with a whoosh, using it as a springboard. The movement was nimble as a flea, as if the suit of armor possessed no weight at all.
Finding the giant ape troublesome, it decided to eliminate the beast first so it could focus on dealing with He Lingchuan.
The ghost ape swatted down with a palm, but it was nowhere near as agile as the black-armored leader. Before its ape paw could even touch its knee, the enemy had already bounded right before its neck!
Fast, impossibly fast!
Upon springing up, the black-armored leader had crossed both arms before its eyes, only snapping them outward the instant it neared the ape's throat.
From the outer sides of both forearms snapped out a pair of folding sabers, their blades lined with ridge-like, serrated teeth. This outward cleave sheared inward like a pair of tailor's shears; thick as the ghost ape's neck was, had it been caught, its massive head would likely have been snipped off on the spot!
*Shing!*
The folding blades snapped shut.
Given their size and razor sharpness, the sound of the shear was virtually imperceptible.
Yet the blades closed on thin air. The black-armored leader felt none of the satisfying crunch of lopping off a head—
In the nick of time, the ten-foot-tall ghost ape shrank back into a foot-tall little monkey.
Before the leader could retract its folding blades, the little monkey transformed back into the towering ghost ape, raising its staff high with both hands and bringing it crashing down right on the leader's head.
This move had been learned from Qiu Hu. The staff swung so fast and fierce that it etched an afterimage in the air.
Trapped midair with no way to evade, the black-armored leader raised both hands, hastily conjuring a shield of ice to meet the crushing blow head-on.
*Boom!*
A thunderous crash shook the ground violently.
The black-armored leader smashed heavily into the earth. Dust billowed, and the sandy soil cratered a foot and a half deep under the impact.
The foot-thick ice shield shattered into fragments.
The blow was originally meant for the dead center of the black-armored leader's skull, but it had been braced forcefully by both arms.
Even He Lingchuan would never want to take a full-strength strike from the ghost ape head-on.
This was sheer brute force overwhelming all technique.
Even with the ice shield cushioning the blow, the black-armored leader's left arm was broken, bent at an unnatural angle.
Yet it flipped upright in an instant, grabbed its left arm with its right hand, and snapped it back into place with a *crack*.
In less than two breaths, the left arm had mended, its wrist rotating smoothly as if it had never been hurt.
Such regenerative ability made even the ghost ape stare wide-eyed.
If the ape had a broken arm bone, it would have to drink Dong Rui's specially formulated red potion and rest for a quarter of an hour before healing.
That was already formidable enough, but the Luosheng Armor was utterly unreasonable.
Having scored a hit, the ghost ape was just about to follow up with several more swings to hammer its foe into the dirt, when without warning two objects darted out from the woods directly behind it, shooting straight for the nape of its neck with blinding speed.
These things were roughly the size of fruit bats, practically minuscule compared to the ghost ape. With the bodies of spiders and the tails of venomous scorpions, they looked like grotesque stitched chimeras, completely hairless. Their pale gray bodies blended seamlessly against the backdrop of swirling snow and mist.
Their eight legs could run and leap at ludicrous speeds; the front two were sharp as scalpels, held aloft during normal movement, but now thrusting straight toward the back of the ape's neck.
Fortunately, the ghost ape had eyes in the back of its head and had no desire to let these little monsters perform cranial surgery on it. Its rear pair of fists snapped open to the left and right, aiming to snatch them out of the air.
Quick of eye and hand, it did manage to catch one, only to immediately roar in agony.
The creatures' blade-like legs curled, stabbing right through the seams of its gauntlet straight into the palm of the ape's hand.
Tough-skinned and thick-hided as the ape was—ordinary blades couldn't even leave a scratch on it—the prick of this little monster sent a piercing pain shooting through it, nearly causing it to let go.
However, under Dong Rui's control and well aware of the endless trouble letting go would invite, it gritted through the pain and bore down with all its might, crushing it into paste!
*Squish.* The little monster burst, but instead of blood and flesh flying, it dissolved into a pale gray scale.
This was merely an assist manifested by the Luosheng Armor, much like the shoulder-perched beasts on General Red's war armor. Recognizing at a glance that the ghost ape possessed staggering strength but lacked agility due to its massive frame, it hadn't formed bulky beasts, but small, nimble, highly targeted ones instead.
Seeing the ghost ape reaching for it, the other little beast suddenly flared out a membrane under its belly like a miniature parachute, the gust catching it and pulling it sharply backward.
The ghost ape's grab missed. It had to arch back and spit a blast of blue fire at it.
The creature went from pale gray to charred black before snapping back into a scale with a *crack*.
By then, the black-armored leader was busy resetting its broken arm, unable to launch an attack for the moment.
With two more arms on its front, the ape fought front and back simultaneously. Its next two staff strikes were swift and ferocious, yet the black-armored leader dodged and wove with its arm clutched, showing no sign of internal injuries—as if the person smashed into the ground moments ago had been someone else entirely.
Snow powder drifted through the woods.
The black-armored leader had just taken two steps back when a shadow suddenly emerged behind it. The blade swept through the falling snow powder, aiming straight for its throat.
He Lingchuan had waited for this opening; the assassination strike came entirely without sound.
Yet the instant the snow powder stirred, the black-armored leader sensed it and vanished from the spot.
Within its domain of snow powder, ambushing it was almost impossible.
Thus the blade swept through nothing but air.
Instead, the black-armored leader materialized out of thin air behind the ambush-maker. Its arm blade bent backward, tracing an arc through the air, and its pointed tip punched straight into the front of He Lingchuan's chest!
The blade bore barbs; blood sprayed violently as it ripped free.
He Lingchuan stabbed backward with a reverse grip, only for his strike to be blocked by the leader's other arm blade.
Immediately after, it turned its head toward the west, red light flashing in its eyes.
Beyond the snow powder, a figure flashed across twenty feet, hurtling straight to the black-armored leader's flank.
Shadow Follows Form!
Yet the black-armored leader had already slammed the "He Lingchuan" in front of it toward the oncoming ghost ape. Its arm blade suddenly sprang outward, extending to five feet, sweeping right toward the incoming figure.
This person was the real He Lingchuan.
He had stood outside the snow powder's range earlier and sent out an avatar to draw the leader's attention before closing in with Shadow Follows Form for an ambush.
Who knew the black-armored leader would pinpoint his position in a split second and prepare in advance?
From his breast, the soul-snatching mirror cried out, "It can sense your position—so accurately!"
He Lingchuan cursed under his breath.
Ever since he had combined the Avatar Shadow Art and Shadow Follows Form, this was the very first time it had failed completely.
What was more, a whip-like object shot up from the ground, attacking him in concert with the folding saber.
The chain was still there, extending from beneath the leader's pauldron. It moved with lethal flexibility, just like a third arm growing from its back.
Under the pincer attack of the ghost ape and He Lingchuan, the black-armored leader not only possessed the power to retaliate, but did so with astonishing ferocity.
He Lingchuan was finally trading blows with it head-on.
How to put it? The creature's strength was not inferior to his in the least, and wielding this eccentric set of weapons, it fought with mounting ferocity.
It truly lived up to someone who had carved through the Yao army back and forth multiple times.
With a flurry of clangs, the two traded over a dozen blows in a mere three breaths. Black vapor billowed around the leader's body, and its strength actually surged to another level!
Clashing with it several times, the webbing between He Lingchuan's thumb and index finger throbbed with dull pain, giving him the familiar sensation of standing on the tournament ring against Meng Shan back then.
This monster had just fought a whole battle against the Yao army, yet upon returning to these ruins, not only was it not exhausted, its power grew even further?
The Luosheng Armor truly lived up to its reputation.
He Lingchuan swept the area with his divine sense. Swirling snow and mist still enveloped their surroundings with visibility under a few feet, and Fu Liushan had yet to arrive.
The black-armored leader lashed out with another sweep of its folding-flick saber. This peculiar weapon was composed of a folding blade and an extending flick blade. If the folding blade was parried, the flick blade could snap out in a secondary thrust; not only was its trajectory unpredictable, but its attack range easily doubled, even capable of curving around the opponent's guard to strike from behind.
Yet just as the flick blade sprang out, He Lingchuan's saber, Fusheng, suddenly caught between the teeth of the serrated edge, and he twisted with vicious force.
His strength spiked exponentially, wrenching the black-armored leader completely off balance.
"Origin power?"
For once, astonishment colored the black-armored leader's voice. From its eyes, its opponent was actually radiating a dark red glow!
Chapter 1170