"Whoosh—"
A figure burst through the air, creating rippling shockwaves as it plummeted toward the ground. Just as it was about to collide with the earth, the figure transformed into black-purple lightning, changing direction at an impossible angle and avoiding becoming paste.
Immediately after, the original landing spot was engulfed by a surging red tide. When the crimson wave disappeared, that patch of ground looked as if a chunk had been carved out of thin air, revealing a massive depression. The smooth, spherical soil walls at the edges were now emitting wisps of white smoke, releasing a foul, acrid stench.
The lightning suddenly stopped at another location, and a figure stepped out from within it, the electrical glow completely dissipating.
This person was none other than Lin Yu, whom Glenn and Hermione had mentioned.
"Strange... why did I suddenly sneeze?"
He rubbed his nose, looking toward the distant forest shadows where tree silhouettes swayed, crimson blood and countless paper figures shooting skyward.
Lin Yu had just been hit by an enemy attack because of that inexplicable sneeze.
He wasn't actually injured—Lin Yu had managed to wrap the impact point of his body with lightning just before being struck, deflecting the opponent's attack. Otherwise, his fate would likely have been the same as that soil and parts of his clothing: completely corroded away.
A wisp of electrical light sparked from his fingertips as Lin Yu quickly cut away the corroded portions of his clothing to prevent further trouble. Just then, a violent impact crashed down beside him, but Lin Yu neither dodged nor avoided it, simply continuing his actions before speaking with confusion.
"I say, Yaolin, you blood practitioners—do you all end up transforming when you reach the endgame?"
"Cough cough, hiss, damn it... several ribs broken... Of course not! I've never seen the blood magic that guy used before, okay? If there really were evil arts that could boost one's power more than tenfold in such a short time, I would've learned them ages ago!"
From the crater, a left hand emerged, corroded enough to reveal stark white bone. Yaolin used the strength from his grip to pull himself out of the pit. His face was already deathly pale, gaunt as a skull, looking like he might ascend to heaven at any moment from malnutrition and excessive blood loss.
In his right hand, a vicious crimson sword dripped with drops of fresh blood, as if it had just been bathed in gore.
"Do you have any leads then? Regarding the magic that dark wizard used—as a fellow evil cultivator who specializes in blood arts, even if you don't know the specific spell name, you should have some general information, right?"
While asking, Lin Yu grimaced as he used electrical light to cut away the continuously corroding parts of his clothing bit by bit. Finally, finding it too troublesome, he simply tore off his tattered garments entirely, revealing a lean, muscular torso. Then he reached into the void, producing another dao robe and putting it on.
"Tch, even if you ask me like that... I can only understand that it's some kind of sacrificial method. Didn't you see what happened to that person after he roared and went berserk? His body underwent some mutation, erupting in a spray of blood that devoured several dark wizards who'd been standing nearby, plus that strange guy casting spells with a wooden stick?"
Yaolin glared at Lin Yu, who was struggling to get his head through the robe's collar. The latter finally managed to poke his head out and nodded at Yaolin:
"That's what I think too."
"Then why are you asking me?!"
"Well, I had to confirm with someone more professional."
Lin Yu shrugged helplessly, seemingly casually putting on his sleeves, but in his dark pupils there wasn't a trace of ease.
At the beginning, with Teacher Wan's assistance, even though their three-person team was vastly outnumbered, Lin Yu hadn't really exerted much effort. He'd easily captured many dark wizards from the enemy formation under Yaolin and Teacher Wan's charging cover, tying them up, knocking them unconscious, and tossing them aside without breaking a sweat, significantly weakening the enemy's effective strength.
Although the opponents had wizards—who seemed to come from the same place as Glenn and Hermione—using strange but dangerous magic to assist them, the situation was basically completely in their favor.
But after what was most likely the dark wizards' leader—not knowing his name, he'd just call him the leader—let out an angry shout, the situation began to change.
During a certain moment in his battle with Teacher Wan, the dark wizards' leader suddenly spat out large amounts of fresh blood, then looked toward some distant direction with an expression of disbelief and extreme rage, before beginning to roar madly.
Subsequently, his body transformed into a pool of blood and exploded outward. The blood seemed to come alive, extending tendrils of gore that devoured everything around it.
This naturally included his own allies standing nearby.
It was precisely at that moment that Lin Yu keenly detected strange fluctuations coming from all directions toward their location, flowing directly into the increasingly massive blood pool in the air.
Through this phenomenon, Lin Yu roughly determined this might be some kind of cult sacrifice—after all, he'd participated in several cult suppression operations during his missions and was quite familiar with such things.
He just wasn't entirely certain, which was why he'd asked Yaolin, who specialized in blood arts.
"A sacrifice, huh... This is troublesome. Teacher Wan was already drunk and not in great condition, and now that guy over there has transformed. This won't be easy. We should head back quickly... Hey, I'm dressed now."
Despite his words, Lin Yu still methodically put on his clothes properly, looking extremely reluctant and disgusted.
He was well aware that these guys connected to cults all had cockroach-like vitality and were very difficult to kill.
"Do I need you to tell me that... But wait a moment, let that drunkard get beaten up a bit to sober up. I need to replenish some blood... I nearly bled to death just now trying to launch attacks and resist the corrosion from that monster's blood."
Yaolin dusted off his clothes, thrust his sword into the ground, then raised his right hand, causing several bottles filled with viscous crimson liquid to appear in his grasp.
Uncorking the bottles, he chanted an incantation and poured all the liquid down his throat in one go.
"Hiss!"
Crimson steam instantly erupted from Yaolin's body. When the vapor dissipated, the anemic mage's complexion had finally improved considerably, with more flesh on his face.
Properly storing the glass bottles back in his dimensionally expanded container, Yaolin viciously wiped away the fresh blood that had spilled from the corner of his mouth, frugally licking his fingers clean before revealing a truly ferocious smile:
"What a joke! When it comes to blood arts, I'm the strongest one here. I've got several hundred bottles of blood stored in advance in my bag. Worst case, I'll just fight to the death!"
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