Chapter 46: Begin Luring the Enemy, Hunting the Evil Soul Master!
Liu Yuan finalized the tactical deployment within the suffocating gloom of the dense forest. Every coordinate, every angle of attack, and the precise timing for their ambush had been dissected and drilled into the minds of his team.
Under the pale, unforgiving cover of moonlight, Long Aotian, Chen Lu, Wang Yanfeng, and the rest of the squad scattered like phantoms. They melted into the jagged shadows cast by the piles of shattered rock scattered across the abandoned canyon. Crouched low against the freezing stone, they held their breath. They suppressed their soul power fluctuations down to an absolute standstill, transforming into lifeless statues waiting for their prey to step into the jaws of the trap.
Liu Yuan walked alone. His boots crunched softly against the frost-bitten earth as he approached the abandoned manor. The structure loomed in the darkness, bleeding an aura of deep decay and ancient slaughter.
With every step closer, the air grew heavy. A sickly sweet, metallic stench of rotting fish and old blood coated the back of his throat.
He pushed through the rotting remnants of the courtyard gate. A dead branch snapped under his heel, the crisp crack echoing like a gunshot in the dead silence.
Within his eyes, the dual irises of his Double Pupils rotated with a slow, mechanical precision. Even without actively channeling his soul power, his innate visual prowess sliced through the pitch-black environment, mapping out every lethal trap and lurking shadow hidden within the crumbling walls.
The intelligence reports were flawless.
Dominating the center of the courtyard and spilling into the ruined side hall at the rear stood four massive stone vats.
They brimmed with a viscous, bubbling sludge of dark red blood. Even from thirty paces away, the violent, chaotic soul power radiating from the crimson liquid lashed at Liu Yuan's senses. This was the grotesque battery that fueled the Evil Soul Master known as the King of Blood.
Liu Yuan did not draw a weapon. He did not summon his martial soul. Instead, he initiated the baiting phase.
He forcibly reigned in the razor-sharp aura of a seasoned killer, allowing his shoulders to slump and his posture to loosen. In the blink of an eye, he projected the exact image of a green, hopelessly naive rookie Soul Master who had wandered too far from home.
He aimlessly wandered near the edge of the blood pools. He widened his eyes, letting a perfectly calculated mixture of panic and foolish curiosity wash over his features. He paused to kick at a rusted piece of shattered armor half-buried in the dirt, then jerked his head around erratically, moving with the clumsy, uncoordinated steps of a terrified amateur.
High above, hidden within the rotting wooden crossbeams of the main hall, a gaunt silhouette wrapped in tattered crimson robes clung to the rafters like an oversized insect.
Through the flawless vision of his Double Pupils, Liu Yuan could see him. A pair of jaundiced, viper-like eyes locked dead onto his exposed neck.
The King of Blood was weighing his options, calculating the exact threat level of this midnight intruder.
To completely shatter the creature's paranoia, Liu Yuan made a fatal mistake. He stopped walking right beside the largest, most volatile blood pool, turning his back entirely to the main hall. He left his spine completely exposed, a sitting duck in the moonlight.
Lurking in the suffocating shadows, the King of Blood finally snapped. The sheer temptation of fresh, pulsating life was a drug he could not refuse.
To the Evil Soul Master, the boy below was nothing more than a pathetic three-ring Soul Elder with erratic, unstable soul power. A walking blood bag. The perfect midnight snack.
"Die!"
A voice like grinding rusted metal scraped across the courtyard.
The massive vat of blood erupted.
Fueled by a surge of malevolent soul power, gallons of the thick liquid instantly crystallized. The sludge hardened into jagged, dark red lances that gleamed with a sickening, cold light.
These blood thorns shredded the air, accelerating to a blinding speed. They angled downward, aiming to impale Liu Yuan directly through the heart.
Liu Yuan felt the icy sting of murderous intent prickle against his spine. His muscles coiled, reacting the exact microsecond the lethal projectiles entered his immediate airspace.
But he did not evade completely.
Instead, he twisted his torso at a sickeningly dangerous angle, calculating the trajectory down to the millimeter.
Puchi!
The jagged blood thorn missed his heart, plunging violently through the meat of his right shoulder.
Scalding hot blood sprayed across the frosted earth. Liu Yuan threw his head back and unleashed a shrill, blood-curdling scream of absolute terror.
Clutching his mangled shoulder, he refused to look back. He stumbled forward, kicking the rotting manor gates wide open, and sprinted frantically toward the designated canyon.
His footwork was a masterpiece of chaotic desperation, leaving a trailing line of sloppy, crimson footprints stamped deep into the snow.
Up in the rafters, the King of Blood detached from the wood and floated down to the courtyard floor. He raised a pale, withered finger to his lips, dragging his tongue across a stray drop of the boy's blood. A grotesque, euphoric smile stretched across his gaunt face.
"Want to run? Once you have stepped into my territory, your flesh and blood belong to me."
A suffocating cloud of crimson mist exploded from the Evil Soul Master's pores. A pair of massive, leathery bat wings tore through the back of his robes. The man dissolved into a streaking red afterimage, launching himself into the night to run down his prey.
Meanwhile, suspended in the Void Realm a hundred meters above the chase, Elder Chen remained perfectly concealed. The old man watched the bloody pursuit unfold, a dry, crooked smile wrinkling his weathered face.
He looked at Liu Yuan, who was currently putting on the performance of a lifetime, and then at the arrogantly swooping Evil Soul Master hot on his heels.
"Who exactly is the one who cannot escape?" Elder Chen muttered under his breath, shaking his head. "The young people these days really know how to act."
...
Elder Chen did not intervene. His presence remained as intangible as smoke as he drifted lazily behind the hunt.
On the ground, Liu Yuan constantly regulated his stamina. He deliberately held back the explosive momentum of his Qilin Step, maintaining a grueling, desperate pace that kept the Evil Soul Master convinced he was always just one second away from catching him.
To cut off the boy's escape routes, the King of Blood fired volley after volley of crystallized blood arrows from the sky.
Liu Yuan ensured his luck remained terrible. He allowed himself to be clipped twice more. Hideous, tearing wounds opened across his back and calves. He staggered, his breathing ragged, painting the picture of a boy who had burned through the very last drops of his life force.
Finally, Liu Yuan dragged his battered body into the center of the rock-strewn canyon.
The exact moment his boots hit the designated kill zone, the King of Blood descended.
A massive spike forged from pure essence blood shot forward, impaling Liu Yuan through the lower back.
Liu Yuan let out a choked groan. He collapsed face-first onto the freezing stone, his limbs twitching violently as if his nervous system was shutting down. He lay there, a broken doll unable to rise.
"Run. Why aren't you running anymore?"
The King of Blood touched down softly, his boots clicking against the stone less than three meters behind the fallen boy.
He loomed over the blood-soaked youth, his sunken eyes practically vibrating with gluttonous greed.
Slowly, he raised a withered, claw-like hand. A dense sphere of corrosive blood light began to gather at his fingertips, preparing to blow a hole through the boy's skull and claim his prize.
But the moment he stepped into Liu Yuan's shadow, the boy lying in the dirt abruptly turned his head.
The mask of terror had vanished. The weakness was gone.
Within those Double Pupils, the dormant, obscure crimson light detonated like a waking volcano.
"Caught you."
Liu Yuan's voice carried the absolute, freezing zero of the Far North.
Without a fraction of a second's warning, two thick, blinding pillars of crimson light—the devastating Laser Eye—erupted directly from his pupils at point-blank range.
Boom!
The explosive, scorching kinetic force was something a mere five-ring Soul King Evil Soul Master could never hope to process, let alone evade.
The King of Blood's innate defenses, already fragile from his offensive pursuit, shattered like cheap glass.
The terrifying, superheated beams punched clean through his sternum, blowing a massive, charred, and smoking crater straight through his chest cavity.
"Do it!" Liu Yuan's roar shattered the silence of the canyon.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three catastrophic shockwaves of soul power detonated simultaneously from the surrounding rocks.
Long Aotian, Chen Lu, and Wang Yanfeng could hold back no longer. The second the signal dropped, the ambushers unleashed absolute hell.
Long Aotian transformed into a towering, dark golden god of war. He plummeted from the sky, his fist the size of a millstone carrying the weight of a collapsing mountain, slamming brutally into the Evil Soul Master's spine.
From the left and right flanks, Chen Lu and Wang Yanfeng executed the Body Sect's most lethal finishing techniques.
A devastating storm of fist shadows and palm strikes converged. The overwhelming kinetic pressure instantly swallowed the King of Blood, who was still paralyzed by the gaping hole in his chest.
With a sickening, wet explosion, the body of the five-ring Evil Soul Master simply gave out. Under the synchronized, merciless assault of three top-tier Body Sect geniuses, the man detonated, reducing into a fine mist of blood and pulverized bone that painted the canyon walls red.
Long Aotian landed heavily, his boots cracking the stone. He exhaled a long breath, staring down at the unrecognizable smear of gore on the ground. He scratched his head, looking over at Liu Yuan with genuine confusion.
"Is it over just like that? This is too easy, right?"
Liu Yuan slowly pushed himself off the ground. The horrific puncture wounds on his shoulder and lower back were already knitting together, his flesh regenerating at a terrifying, visible speed.
He did not smile. He stared down at the eerie, viscous blood that was slowly pooling and creeping across the cracks in the stone. The volcanic red light within his Double Pupils refused to dim; instead, it grew sharper, heavier.
"No," Liu Yuan said quietly. "It is not over yet."
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