"The Diviners in the organization said that the one named Sevrin will definitely pass through this mountain region within the next few days; there is no mistake."
The man in green said calmly, "It's just that as for exactly which day he will arrive, that's hard to say."
"Then why can't they calculate it more precisely?"
The armored man curled his lip and said, "If they could determine the exact time, we could just come a day or half a day early, instead of waiting this long without seeing a soul like we are now, and we might have to wait for several more days."
"You make it sound so easy."
The man in green said irritably, "But don't you know that the more detail you want from a divination, the more errors tend to crop up, and the more resources are consumed?"
"Sigh ~ That's why I say you sorcerers are a pain; you can't get anything done without external tools."
The armored man stretched, "Unlike us martial artists, who seek everything from within ourselves."
In response to his companion's belittling remark, the man in green merely rolled his eyes, not bothering to reply at all.
Despite his silence, the armored man's interest in chatting was piqued, and he said excitedly:
"Hey, tell me, what specific method do you think that Sevrin used to kill Lan Yuca?
That old fossil was as sinister as he was cowardly; he wasn't someone easy to put down."
"I don't know, but from my perspective, there are ways," the man in green said flatly. "They're just a bit complex."
"Oh?" the armored man asked curiously, "How so?"
"You just need to know Lan Yuca's background beforehand and figure out what his few signature tricks are."
The man in green explained, "Then, prepare specific artifacts designed to counter him. Once fully prepared, you can use poison curses and formations to trap and kill him.
However, before acting, you must find a way to lead away those soul-puppets and Spirit-Anomalous under Lan Yuca's command. Otherwise, if they keep popping up to take the hits for him, it will be difficult to resolve."
"Is that so? Then I'm even more confused," the armored man said, furrowing his brow. "According to the organization, that guy named Sevrin is highly likely a top-tier Valiarior-level martial artist, perhaps having dabbled in some occult arts at most.
Therefore, what kind of means did he rely on to escape the Red-String Life-Lock formation and successfully kill Lan Yuca after being trapped inside?"
"I don't know, perhaps he has also practiced some rare occult escape arts, or possesses some mysterious artifacts."
The man in green shook his head and said, "I only know that this person's martial arts talent is rare in the world. Letting him grow would surely become a disaster. Furthermore, the Commanding-Life Drum might be in his hands; this important artifact must be recovered."
"Rare talent? No one ever told me that."
The armored man's interest was piqued, and he pressed further, "Exactly how rare are we talking about?"
"No one knows the specifics for now."
The man in green spoke bluntly, "It was a flying message sent by Lan Yuca. It recorded that this man named Sevrin had reached the Valiarior realm at a young age, despite being in a desolate place like Mount Qing. He is also a meddler in other people's business, so we absolutely cannot let him grow further."
"A young age, does that mean fifty years old?"
The armored man speculated, "Surely it's not forty."
"I think..." The man in green pondered, "To be worthy of the words 'young age,' he shouldn't be over fifty. Perhaps forty-five."
"Hmm~" The armored man furrowed his brow, displeased. "If he can reach the Valiarior realm at only forty-five, then we truly shouldn't leave him alive. I was over sixty when I barely managed to reach the Valiarior rank."
After speaking, he looked around at the silver blade-spirits standing silently.
"Speaking of which, the organization dispatched such a large number of Valiarior-level blade-spirits just to deal with him alone. Isn't that a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut? This is enough to sweep through the entire Mount Qing region."
"Caution in all things is best."
The man in green took a sip of wine and said, "The Diviners said that according to the hexagrams, this person's talent is peerless and could be described as extremely troublesome. There is a very slight possibility that he has already ascended to become a True Grandmaster."
"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"
The armored man gave a cold snort and said, "In a turbid and chaotic place like Mount Qing, even if some peerless genius stayed here doing nothing but cultivating, he wouldn't become a martial arts grandmaster even after hundreds of years."
"You're right."
The man in green nodded in agreement, "That is why that Diviner later rejected his own hexagrams, leaving only the evaluation that this person is extremely troublesome within the Valiarior rank."
"Mhm, that makes sense then."
The armored man gave a sinister grin, "Hehehe, a full 30 blade-spirits, plus the two of us. It's enough to beat the crap out of this Sevrin, and then force him to eat it himself!"
"Hahaha." The man in green also laughed, "But you still aren't as cautious as I am. In fact, before coming here, I secretly performed a divination myself. The hexagram showed that even with 30 blade-spirits plus the two of us, dealing with that Sevrin might still not be certain."
"Oh? No way!" The armored man was stunned, "This, what Valiarior-level martial artist in the world could be that strong?"
"What if he isn't just peerless in martial talent, but his occult talent..."
The man in green said casually, "...is also rarely seen in this world?"
"This?" The armored man said honestly, "I truly hadn't thought about the issue of dual cultivation of arts and martial arts."
"I did, which is why from the organization..."
The man in green pulled a palm-sized, crimson Ancient Bell covered in ghostly runes from his robes and said with a sinister laugh, "I borrowed this item."
"Soul-Wailing Bell?! You brought that thing out?"
The armored man's entire body shook, and he said in surprise, "This bell is invincible below the Grandmaster level!"
"Correct."
The man in green fondled the Blood Bell, unable to put it down, and said with a light laugh, "So this time, no one in heaven or on earth can save that man named Sevrin."
"Is that so?"
Suddenly, a powerful voice filled with mockery rang out in the ears of the two men.
At the same moment, Sevrin's burly figure appeared outside the mountain crevice.
The instant they saw him, the 30 blade-spirits drew their blades with a series of clangs, stepping forward rapidly to slaughter him.
Simultaneously, the armored man let out a low shout, his aura surging as his hands curved into vicious claws, while the man in green focused his eyes, formed hand seals, and shook the bell, his magical power undulating as they prepared to launch a joint attack on Sevrin.
Faced with the assault from so many, Sevrin merely smiled, then raised his eyes and leisurely scanned the surroundings.
BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!!!
In a flash, all thirty blade-spirits lunging forward exploded from the inside out, blowing into a mess of silver blood, flesh, and bone shards that splattered everywhere, a shocking sight to behold.
At this moment, a wave of eerie, sinister sound from the bell, mixed with the cries of ten thousand children, lunged rapidly toward Sevrin.
WOOO WOOO WOOO WOOO WOOO——
However, the sound of the bell rang for only a second before...
"Too noisy!"
With a low shout from Sevrin, the eerie ringing came to an abrupt halt.
At the same time, the armored man and the man in green were instantly forced to their knees by an invisible, crushing force.
"Emitting force from a distance?! A Grandmaster?!"
The armored man, kneeling forcefully on the ground, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets, gnashed his teeth and roared, "Diviner, I'll fuck your mother..."
"Shut up! No vulgarity."
Sevrin's thick brows furrowed, and the armored man's mouth, which had been stretched open in rage, instantly slammed shut.
But at that moment, from the head of the man in green, who was pinned to the ground by the distant internal force, a hazy orb of light suddenly flew out. It pierced through layers of rock toward the boundless horizon outside the cave, flying away at extreme speed.
Clearly, that fleeing orb of light was the man in green's Yang-Spirit.
"Decisive enough to even abandon your physical body, but unfortunately..."
Sevrin turned his head toward the hazy point of light flying further and further away into the deep blue sky outside the mountain crevice and smiled coldly, "It's too late."
As soon as he finished speaking, the sky for ten miles around suddenly turned gloomy, with rolling dark clouds and flashing lightning.
"A single thought to change the weather, stir the clouds, and lead the lightning?!"
The man in green's Yang-Spirit, hurtling desperately through the sky, wailed in despair upon seeing this, "So young, yet both a Grandmaster and a fourth-realm sorcerer. This, this, this, this... defies all heavenly principles!!"
As he let out his hopeless roar, dozens and hundreds of bolts of brilliant white lightning, as thick as a child's arm, thundered down from the gloomy firmament, hitting him with absolute precision from every direction.
BOOM!!
As if a miniature sun had suddenly appeared, the entire sky exploded into a blinding white.
That Yang-Spirit, which had been vibrant and brimming with magical power, was struck into a flickering, translucent state, seemingly on the verge of vanishing from the world in the next second.
"How could I let you die? Come back!"
With a single thought from Sevrin, his overwhelming magical power manifested around that weakened Yang-Spirit, condensing into a giant hand that seized it and rapidly hauled it back into the mountain crevice cave below.
Immediately, Sevrin threw the orb back into its original body, allowing the physical vitality to nourish it and barely keep it from dissipating.
From this moment on, the man in green could no longer project his Yang-Spirit; in his weakened, near-death state, should he dare to exit his physical shell, he would certainly not survive more than three breaths.
"I suspect..."
Sevrin walked up to the armored man and asked coldly, "You must be the so-called... Grxin Remnants."
As he spoke, he released the seal on the armored man's mouth.
The armored man immediately let out a coarse, frantic laugh:
"Hahaha, judging by your aura, you aren't even over twenty-five. Such a young Grandmaster and fourth-realm sorcerer... you really are... truly fucking incredible!
As for those 'Grxin Remnants' you speak of, that is merely your own way of labeling us."
"Mhm, I'll take that as a backhanded admission."
Sevrin nodded coldly, "Very well. Give me every piece of intelligence you have."
Upon hearing this, the armored man sneered instantly: "Hmph, hmph, hmph. Don't even dream about it. At most, you'll just kill me or torture me. Heh, a little physical torment... I couldn't care less."
"Is that so?"
Sevrin sneered back, "Hehehe, that's only because you don't know... what true torment really means."
Having said that, he turned his head toward the man in green, who was slumped to the side, gasping for breath and on the brink of death, and said suddenly:
"I suspect the organization behind you has placed some kind of sinister poison-curse on you. The moment you speak certain information, you'll die on the spot."
"Eh, you guessed right."
The armored man replied quite bluntly, "That is exactly the case. The moment I reveal any organizational secrets, my soul and physical body will instantly dissolve into nothingness.
Therefore, I have no expectations of surviving under your hands. So hurry up and get it over with."
"A brave man, truly bold."
Sevrin gave him a thumbs up, but his voice remained cold: "But if I kill you that easily, wouldn't I be doing exactly what you want? No, no, no. I want to make you... regret ever being born into this world."
"Sure, sure, sure. You've piqued my interest, so bring it on!"
The armored man laughed loudly, "Let me see just how good your craftsmanship is."
"Wait a moment."
Sevrin's gaze swept across the floor, and he used an invisible force to pull a blood-black bell from beneath the man in green's feet. He asked, "What is this thing?"
The armored man glanced at the bell and said indifferently:
"That isn't any important intelligence; I can tell you. It's called the Soul-Wailing Bell."
"What does it do?"
The armored man replied bluntly: "When this bell rings, its wailing can influence the souls of third-realm sorcerers and Valiarior-level martial artists, causing them to fall into a confused stupor, leaving them to be slaughtered at the enemy's whim."
"I suspect..." Sevrin said, holding the blood-black bell and examining it closely, "the process of making it must be quite sinister."
"Eh, you've guessed right again."
The armored man gave a hideous, cold laugh. "This Soul-Wailing Bell was forged over a hundred years using the souls of forty-nine thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven nine-year-old children who died after undergoing brutal torment, combined with a vast amount of Profound Materials and Secret resources. It is an extremely rare treasure."
"Good, very good."
Sevrin bared his teeth in a cold sneer, "You people truly are animals!"
"Hmph, pointless compassion."
The armored man looked at Sevrin and said disdainfully, "There are so many commoners and peasants in the world; so what if we kill a few tens of thousands of them? The weak deserve to die; they deserve to be trampled and crushed by the strong!"
"What a bizarre and twisted logic."
Sevrin looked down at him and said coldly, "And what about you? When you were born, you were nothing more than a fragile infant, and your mother, having just given birth, was merely a weakened woman.
What then? Should you and the mother who raised you have been tormented to death back then?"
"Certainly," the armored man laughed, baring his teeth. "What does the past me have to do with the current me? So what if she gave birth to me? So what if she raised me? Being able to give birth to and raise a Valiarior-level martial artist like me was her ultimate honor.
She should have knelt and kowtowed to me, grateful for the privilege of birthing me. Besides, if that woman hadn't sought out an old man for pleasure, how could I have been born? In the end, she just wanted to satisfy herself..."
BANG!
Sevrin finally lost his patience and slapped his head, causing it to explode.
After killing this ultimate animal, he immediately began to regret it:
"Sigh, that was hasty."
Amidst his sighing, Sevrin immediately activated the "Heavenly Lotus Earthly Saint Salvation Scripture", bringing the dead armored man back to life.
The man in green, witnessing this from the side, felt his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.
However, because he was too weak, he couldn't utter a single word and could only lean against the rock wall, gasping for breath.
As for the armored man who had returned to the world of the living, he looked confused and muttered dazed:
"Just now... what just happened?"
"Nothing happened."
Sevrin looked at him with a smile, "Very well, we can begin."
Having said that, he took a potent toxin recorded in the "Key Points of the Soutang Pou Clan's Poison Arts", the Heart-Hundred-Turn, and transformed its illusory shadow into reality, injecting it into the armored man's body.
This medicine had only one function: to enhance the perception of pain, and its magnification factor was... 99 times.
Before proceeding to subject the armored man to "a thousand cuts," Sevrin first used the Phase-less Wind-Severance to forcibly drop his martial arts foundation to the lowest rank.
Then, using his immense magical power, he suspended the man in mid-air. At the same time, he retrieved a small dagger from the Kiyou Grotto.
"You want to skin me, cut my flesh, break my bones, is that it?"
The armored man, who had already been stripped of all his armor and clothing, gave a weak but cold laugh, "Then bring it on. If I make a single sound, I'm not a fucking man!"
SWISH——
As soon as his words fell, Sevrin used the small knife to slice off a piece of bloody flesh no larger than a fingernail from his body.
"AAAAHHH!!"
In an instant, an unimaginably intense pain erupted from the wound, like thousands of venomous snakes frantically biting at the armored man's soul. He was unable to think, only capable of screaming with all his might while trembling.
Between his screams, he managed to shout: "Why does it hurt so much?! AAAHHH! This isn't normal! This isn't logical!"
Sevrin didn't bother explaining. He raised the knife again and with a swish, sliced off another piece of skin.
The armored man let out another piteous shriek, one so agonizing it made the man in green lying nearby shudder uncontrollably.
But this was merely the appetizer.
Over the next half-hour, Sevrin proceeded to slice 7,200 cuts of flesh from the armored man's body, turning him alive into a skeletal frame dripping with blood.
Throughout the process, his screams and pleas for mercy never ceased for a single moment, each one more piteous than the last.
Toward the end, Sevrin even had to continuously operate the "Lotus" and cast spells in succession just to keep the armored man's small life from flickering out.
Unfortunately, after enduring 7,200 cuts, the fellow finally drew his last breath.
But Sevrin didn't feel satisfied yet, so he once again cast a spell to pull the fellow back from death, resurrecting him once more and fully restoring his mangled body.
"I, I... wasn't I dead?"
The resurrected armored man stared blankly at his surroundings and at the smiling Sevrin.
When he was being sliced to death, amidst the extreme pain, he had felt fortunate in his heart that he was finally dying and would finally be free of the torment.
But now, why was he back in this cave? Why was this psychotic butcher still standing before him?
"I told you, I would make you regret being born into this world."
Sevrin looked at the terrified armored man and said with a bared-teeth grin, "I have learned a certain occult art that can resurrect anyone who has been dead for less than five days. So even if you die... I can still pull you back to the mortal realm to do it all over again."
"No! No, no! Please, don't!"
The armored man sobbed, his tears flowing freely as he cried out heart-wrenchingly, "I beg you, kill me! Let me die! I can't take it, I really can't take it!"
"Eh, that's not right."
Sevrin tilted his head, "Weren't you very manly just now? So arrogant and untamable? How is it you're already crying and begging for mercy? You're making me quite disappointed; quickly, get back into character."
"I'm not a man, I'm a woman! I have no guts, no balls! I'm an animal, I'm a piece of stinking dog shit!"
The armored man shrieked and wailed, his whole body shaking, "Father, Master, my Grandfather! Please spare me! I submit! I completely submit! I cannot endure your torment!"
"Hey, this is only the beginning."
Sevrin waved his hand and laughed, "I still have plenty of tricks I haven't played yet."
Having said that, he retrieved a small crossbow from the Kiyou Grotto and asked with a smile:
"Take a look, what's this?"
The armored man's pupils constricted suddenly, and he said in a trembling voice: "The Inverse Chaos Bow!"
"Right again. Here's a bolt for your prize."
Sevrin squinted and smiled, raising the small bow and firing a bolt directly into the armored man's pale, broad face.
WHIZ~
In an instant, the armored man's hands and feet, ears and nose, mouth and anus, all shifted and swapped positions.
Following that, Sevrin reversed the operation of the "Lotus" scripture once more, injecting several types of toxins into him in succession.
The names of these toxins weren't important; what mattered was that once they were mixed together, they would cause the armored man's liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and intestines, all his internal organs, to slowly dissolve and then gurgle and spray out of his anus.
While the toxins were still brewing and had yet to fully take effect, Sevrin began another session of a thousand cuts with his dagger.
However, he had underestimated the speed of the poisons. After only seven or eight minutes of slicing, the armored man, who was screaming and begging for mercy, began to uncontrollably spray and erupt.
The details of the eruption are omitted.
In short, the tongue that had been swapped to his anus got to taste the exquisite flavor of his own liquefied internal organs.
He was filled with a despair... that absolutely no words could describe.
As for the man in green who had been watching all of this, Sevrin naturally did not let him off either.
However, the way he dealt with this one was a bit more perfunctory.
He simply reversed the "Lotus" scripture and injected every terrifying, bizarre, disgusting, or painful toxin from the "Key Points of the Soutang Pou Clan's Poison Arts" into the man in green's body.
In just a few seconds, the fellow shrieked as he partially dissolved into a pile of living, salted meat. Under Sevrin's "kind" care, he continued to linger on in this state that should have been impossible to survive in.
After the armored man underwent the massive eruption of his internal organs, he naturally died in extreme agony within a short time.
"Dead again."
Sevrin frowned at the remains of the armored man, who no longer looked human, suspended in the air. He whispered, "Resurrect him again? Tsk, forget it, dead is dead."
His interest having faded, he swept his gaze across and instantly crushed the dazed, stupid soul of the armored man, which was attempting to flee its shell, into absolute nothingness.
At the same time, he also obliterated the pile that was the man in green, wiping out both his Yang-Spirit and physical form.
As for the martial arts and occult techniques of these two, although Sevrin didn't think much of them, he had already learned every single one the moment he first laid eyes on them.
Having dealt with the two, Sevrin stepped out of the blood-scented mountain crevice and leaped into the air.
In an instant, he soared to a height of a hundred thousand meters, flying toward the border pass of Graew.
...
Deep within the Qing Mountains at the southernmost border of Graew, a magnificent city-fortress stood tall.
It was flanked on both sides by solid, thousand-meter rock walls, looking like a prehistoric beast crouching upon the earth and among the mountains.
On the "forehead" of this beast, two rows of ancient characters were inscribed:
A thousand-meter precipice, the ancient armor-clad pass; the sun shines on the high peak, a tribute to the years. The gateway of the southern border of the Dynasty; the Azure Dragon's horn-call stills the desolate mountains.
This magnificent city was the Azure Dragon Pass, the gateway connecting the Graew Dynasty and the Mount Qing region.
Regardless of which side one came from, if they wished to take the official route, they had to pass through here.
Beneath this city pass lay a broad, winding highway, covered in wheel tracks and footprints.
This was the essential path for entering or exiting the Graew territory. It had existed for over a thousand years, bearing the profound scars of time and history.
And Sevrin was now walking slowly along this winding, time-worn highway.