Chapter 27: Liu Yuan Cut in Half? A Chance Encounter with Ling Luochen!
Leaving the solemn, heavy stone halls of the Sect Master's residence, Liu Yuan and Long Aotian did not waste a single breath lingering within the Body Sect's inner grounds.
They moved with practiced efficiency, their figures blurring across the stone pathways until they reached the edge of the training grounds. Five figures stood waiting in the morning mist: Chen Lu, Vina, Gu Tong, Wang Yanfeng, and Mu Xue.
"Let's go."
Liu Yuan's voice was flat, devoid of unnecessary small talk. After a brief exchange to confirm the mission parameters—exterminating a cell of Evil Soul Masters entrenched in Yaluo City—the seven-member squad departed, cutting a straight path toward the western borders of the Heavenly Soul Empire.
Three days of relentless travel vanished in a blur of wind and dust. Relying on the immense stamina granted by their Spirit Master physiques, the squad arrived at the outskirts of Yaluo City just as the sun began to dip below the horizon on the third day.
As elite disciples of the Body Sect, their intelligence gathering was swift and brutal. They quickly pinpointed their target: a dense, suffocatingly dark forest bordering the eastern edge of the city. The foul stench of blood and stagnant spirit power warned them of the encampment hidden deep within the treeline.
Before they crossed the threshold into the shadows of the canopy, Long Aotian raised a hand, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register as he dictated their formation.
The squad's composition was highly specialized, heavily skewed toward the control system. Vina, Gu Tong, and Mu Xue formed the fragile core. Vina's Brain Martial Soul provided unmatched battlefield calculation, while her secondary Snow Lotus offered critical healing. Gu Tong and Mu Xue specialized in mental interference and elemental restriction. They were the absolute priority for protection.
The vanguard consisted of Long Aotian, Chen Lu, and Wang Yanfeng. Long Aotian, possessing the formidable defense of his Skin Martial Soul, acted as the unbreakable wall between the enemy and the support line. Chen Lu took the agility-attack flank, while Wang Yanfeng served as the pure heavy-hitter.
Then there was Liu Yuan.
He was the anomaly. The free agent. His Double Pupils Martial Soul granted him a terrifying versatility—capable of long-range sniping, close-quarters brutality, absolute defense, and even emergency healing. He was the ghost in their machine, free to maneuver wherever the battlefield demanded.
The strategy was locked in. They slipped into the dense forest, moving as silently as drifting smoke.
Through the gnarled branches, they spotted their prey. Six Evil Soul Masters sat in a loose circle, their skin sickly pale, bodies wreathed in a nauseating, grayish-black mist of evil energy. The spirit power fluctuations radiating from them placed them all at the Spirit Grandmaster realm, with the leader sitting comfortably around the twenty-seventh rank.
Liu Yuan crouched on a high, thick branch, perfectly concealed by the gloom. His eyelids fluttered. When they opened, the deep black of his eyes had vanished, replaced by a brilliant, terrifying crimson. The dual pupils within his eyes overlapped, locking onto a target who sat with his back completely exposed.
Sss—!!!
No incantation. No warning.
Two blinding, blood-red beams of light erupted from Liu Yuan's eyes. His first Spirit Ability, Spirit Ray, tore through the humid air, instantly vaporizing a massive hole straight through the Evil Soul Master's spine and chest. The man didn't even have time to scream before his lifeless husk slumped into the dirt.
"Enemy attack!"
The remaining five Evil Soul Masters scrambled backward, their eyes wide with shock before twisting into expressions of rabid fury. These were pure attack-system combatants, vicious and unhinged. Realizing they were being hunted, they let out guttural, beast-like roars, their spirit rings flaring as they charged recklessly toward the treeline where the attack had originated.
"Hold them off!" Long Aotian barked.
Wang Yanfeng, Chen Lu, and Long Aotian exploded from the underbrush. Spirit rings rose from beneath their feet, illuminating the dark woods in hues of yellow and purple.
"First Spirit Ability: Demonic Ape Transformation!" Wang Yanfeng roared, his muscles expanding, tearing at the seams of his uniform as he met the charge head-on.
"Third Spirit Ability: Dark Gold Power!" Chen Lu's figure blurred, his strikes taking on a heavy, metallic lethality.
At the center of the clash, Long Aotian's skin hardened, shimmering with a cold, indestructible bronze luster. He became a living fortress, absorbing the brunt of the assault.
Behind them, the support core went to work. Vina's eyes glowed with a soft, calculating light, her Brain Martial Soul processing every twitch and shift on the battlefield. Gu Tong's Spirit Eyes flared, projecting waves of mental interference that caused the charging enemies to stumble and clutch their heads. Mu Xue raised her hands, summoning a biting blizzard that coated the forest floor in frost, severely restricting the Evil Soul Masters' footwork.
Seizing a fraction of a second created by Gu Tong's mental spike, Long Aotian stepped into his guard and unleashed a thunderous right hook. The impact cracked like a cannon shot, sending one of the Evil Soul Masters rocketing backward through a tree trunk.
But these were men who drank blood to survive. They adapted instantly.
The twenty-seventh-ranked leader let out a shrill, piercing whistle. Responding to the command, two of his subordinates twisted their bodies at grotesque, unnatural angles, sliding around Long Aotian's guard. Their movements were sickeningly fluid, somehow predicting the trajectory of Long Aotian's strikes before he even threw them. Every time his heavy bronze fists swung, they slithered out of the way by a hair's breadth, locking him in a frustrating, frictionless dance.
To his left and right, Wang Yanfeng and Chen Lu were bogging down. The dense, root-choked terrain severely hampered Chen Lu's speed, while Wang Yanfeng's brute force was being slowly eaten away by the highly corrosive nature of the enemies' evil spirit power.
The vanguard was pinned.
Seeing the frontline stagnate, the leader let out a cruel, rasping laugh. He dissolved into a streak of black light, completely bypassing Long Aotian and the others. His target was obvious: the fragile control-system Spirit Masters standing exposed in the rear.
"Die!" he shrieked, pale green mist swirling violently around his elongated, claw-like fingernails. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, less than three meters away from Vina's throat.
From the canopy above, Liu Yuan moved.
Sss—!!!
Another flawlessly calculated Spirit Ray.
The crimson beam cleaved through the shadows. A split second before the sickly green claws could graze Vina's skin, the red light punched directly through the center of the leader's forehead.
Bang!
Momentum carried the corpse forward, slamming face-first into the dirt at Vina's feet and kicking up a cloud of dry soil.
The remaining four Evil Soul Masters froze. The blood drained from their faces as they stared at the youth with the Double Pupils, who was now shifting effortlessly between the high branches. They finally understood who the true apex predator of this squad was.
"Damn it... we should have dealt with him first..." one of them hissed, panic bleeding into his voice.
But they had no breath left to spare.
"You have no chance left," Liu Yuan stated, his voice devoid of inflection.
The dual pupils within his crimson eyes overlapped and spun rapidly. His Insight ability activated, stripping away the illusions of speed and shadow, revealing the raw, flawed mechanics of his enemies' movements.
He dropped from the branch, his descent silent. Catching the exact moment Wang Yanfeng forced his opponent into a stagger, Liu Yuan fired two rapid Spirit Rays. The beams snapped through the air, cleanly executing the two Evil Soul Masters pinning down Wang Yanfeng and Chen Lu.
Without pausing, his gaze snapped to the two bizarrely flexible enemies dancing around Long Aotian. Under the piercing gaze of the Double Pupils, their perfect evasion was nothing more than a predictable pattern. Liu Yuan calculated their next intersection.
He fired.
The crimson beam swept horizontally, catching both of them mid-dodge. Their bodies crumpled to the forest floor, lifeless before they even registered the heat.
In the span of a few ragged breaths, the terror of Yaluo City was completely eradicated.
The forest returned to a deathly, ringing silence.
"Phew..." Chen Lu retracted his spirit rings, leaning against a tree and patting his chest, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "Senior Brother Liu Yuan... thanks to you."
Long Aotian exhaled a cloud of white steam, the bronze metallic sheen fading from his skin. He looked up at Liu Yuan and gave a firm, respectful nod.
The rest of the squad gathered around, their eyes filled with a mixture of awe and lingering adrenaline. In that chaotic skirmish, Liu Yuan had been the absolute anchor. He was the heavy artillery that broke the stalemates, and the shield that saved their lives when the line collapsed.
"Everyone contributed," Liu Yuan replied, the intense crimson fading from his eyes, leaving them a calm, deep black. He stepped over a corpse, his tone pragmatic. "We are a team. Without Senior Brother's containment and Vina's control, I wouldn't have had the angles to succeed so easily."
The tension in their shoulders finally began to drop. They turned, ready to leave the blood-soaked clearing.
Then, the air itself seemed to scream.
A terrifying, suffocating pressure crashed down from the sky above the distant treeline. The sheer weight of the aura made the martial souls of everyone present tremble violently in their chests.
"Get lost! Don't block the way!"
A violent, desperate roar shattered the quiet. Tearing through the canopy was an Evil Soul Master. Pitch-black, bat-like wings sprouted from his back, beating frantically. Around his body, five terrifying spirit rings pulsed with oppressive light: yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black.
A Spirit King.
He was flying low and erratic, clearly fleeing in a state of absolute panic. His target wasn't Liu Yuan's squad. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And Vina was standing directly in his flight path.
Faced with the overwhelming speed and pressure of a five-ring powerhouse, Vina's mind went blank. She couldn't move. She could only watch in mute horror as the man's claws, dripping with thick, black spirit power, rapidly expanded in her vision.
"Watch out!"
Liu Yuan didn't think. His body reacted, pushing his physical limits to the absolute breaking point. He lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into Vina and shoving her violently out of the trajectory.
Boom—!!!
The Spirit King didn't even slow down. He merely lashed out with a casual, sweeping strike to clear the obstacle in his path.
But the casual strike of a Spirit King was an apocalyptic disaster for a twenty-seventh-ranked Spirit Grandmaster.
The black light blade sheared through the air, completely bypassing Liu Yuan's hastily raised defenses. There was no resistance. No sound of tearing flesh. Just a sickeningly smooth glide.
The black energy sliced horizontally straight through Liu Yuan's waist.
His upper torso separated from his legs, tumbling backward through the air in a spray of bright crimson.
"Liu Yuan!!!" Vina's shriek tore her throat raw.
"Senior Brother!!!" Long Aotian roared, his eyes bloodshot as he lunged forward.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Even as his body was brutally bisected, suspended in mid-air, Liu Yuan's face did not show fear. Instead, his features locked into a mask of pure, unadulterated ruthlessness.
His Double Pupils ignited, burning with an unmatched, blinding crimson light.
Hmph!
In the exact instant his upper half hit the dirt, his final Spirit Ray erupted. The beam shot upward at an impossible angle, punching directly through the thick, fleshy root of the Spirit King's right wing.
"Ah—!"
The Spirit King let out a miserable, agonizing shriek. The crimson beam completely vaporized the joint, filling the air with the sickening stench of burnt feathers and roasting flesh.
Losing all aerodynamic balance, the five-ring powerhouse tumbled out of the sky, crashing heavily through the branches and slamming into the forest floor in a chaotic tangle of broken wood and dirt.
He scrambled to his feet, clutching his ruined wing. His face was twisted into a grotesque mask of agony and violent killing intent as he glared at Liu Yuan's severed remains.
"You troublesome bastards! I'm going to kill you all!" he bellowed, black spirit power erupting from his core.
But before he could take a single step, the ambient temperature in the forest plummeted.
The humid air froze instantly. Frost crawled up the tree trunks. Summer turned to the dead of winter in a single heartbeat.
"The one to be killed is you."
A voice, as cold and absolute as a glacier, echoed through the clearing.
A girl materialized from the freezing mist. She wore a delicate mask, her graceful figure draped in an elegant uniform. In her hand, she held a crystalline ice staff.
Spirit rings shimmered beneath her feet. Without a second word, she gave her staff a casual, dismissive wave.
The Spirit King's eyes widened in terror, but he couldn't even scream. Thick, absolute ice encased him instantly, freezing him into a solid, grotesque sculpture of agony.
The girl stepped forward and tapped the sculpture with the tip of her staff.
Crack.
The Spirit King shattered into thousands of bloody, frozen fragments, raining down onto the frosted grass.
Ling Luochen lowered her staff. She turned her gaze toward the bisected youth who had been caught in the crossfire. Beneath her mask, her eyes softened with a heavy trace of self-reproach.
"What a pity," she murmured, her breath misting in the cold air. "An unnecessary casualty. If only I could have caught up with this scum a few seconds sooner."
She stepped closer to inspect the remains, intending to offer a silent prayer.
But as she looked down, her breath hitched. Her eyes widened in absolute shock.
On the blood-soaked earth, the two severed halves of Liu Yuan's body were not lying still.
Tendrils of flesh, bone, and crimson spirit power were reaching out from the wounds, pulling the upper torso and lower legs toward each other, beginning to knit back together bit by agonizing bit...
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