Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 538 – The Spear that Breaks the Deadlock

Lin Fan spread her arms wide.

Dark green Life Ripples exploded from her chest, pushing outward layer by layer, covering the entire Azurewood City.

Long Hao’s Death Rule was absorbing the life force of every living thing. She couldn’t land a hit on Long Hao, time couldn’t freeze him, and her fists couldn’t pierce through him.

So she would endure.

Endure with her life.

“Cough…”

A bloody taste surged up her throat, and she forced it back down.

The cost of pushing her Life Domain to full capacity became apparent quickly. Lin Fan opened her hands and looked at the changes on their backs. Skin that had once been translucent white was now wrinkling, fine lines crawling from her knuckles up to her wrists.

In less than five minutes, those hands had aged ten years.

“Sister!”

Su Xiaoxiao’s scream rose from below the city, her voice cracking.

“Your hair… your hair is turning gray!”

Lin Fan didn’t look down.

She didn’t need to. She could feel it. A chill spreading from her roots downward—that head of white hair was fading strand by strand into the gray-white of withered grass.

Long Hao stood directly above the Rift, arms spread wide.

Gray-black webs of light converged from all directions across the sky, countless specks of light flowing along the network toward him alone.

That was the Spirit Energy of living beings that the Spirit Gathering Array had absorbed from other regions of the Dragon Spirit Continent. Every speck of light represented the lives of countless creatures.

All of it poured into his body.

His aura was rising.

The pressure of peak ninth-level was still climbing, reaching a height that even made Lin Fan’s heart tremble.

Her Life Domain was compressed by one ring.

East of the city, a Blue Star female soldier who was carrying the wounded suddenly had her knees give out mid-step, collapsing straight to the ground. The color drained from her face within three seconds.

The second one fell.

The third.

“Lei Jie!” Long Yan shouted from below, his voice raw and torn. “You can’t hold on! Pull back your Domain—protect your own life first!”

“Shut up.”

Lin Fan’s voice was already hoarse, sounding aged from the atrophy of her vocal cords.

She glanced down at her hands.

Reαⅾ οո KаtRеαⅾiոgСαfe

More wrinkles had appeared on her knuckles. They were already the hands of a woman in her forties.

This body she had once been most proud of was being drained away, bit by bit.

The Life Domain continued to shrink.

From covering the entire city to only shielding the central two-thirds. Flowers and grass at the edges withered and toppled over. Elderly people and children who couldn’t run fast enough in the streets began to have their legs give out.

Long Hao looked down at her.

“You’re more stubborn than I thought.”

Lin Fan didn’t acknowledge him.

Her jaw was clenched too tight, her molars aching. The dark green light flickered on her body, dimming and brightening in unsteady waves.

“The Life Origin within you can’t last ten more minutes,” Long Hao said calmly. “Give up.”

“You sure meddle a lot.”

Lin Fan was still smiling.

But that face was no longer what it had been. Crow’s feet had formed at the corners of her eyes, her lips were cracked and peeling, and the collagen in her cheeks was visibly draining away.

Skin that had once glowed white now looked dull and gray, as if covered in a layer of dust.

Long Yi stood below, trembling with fury.

He slammed his fist into a broken wall.

“Damn it all… if we can’t hit him, we can’t hit him—there has to be a way!”

Long Teng said nothing.

He swept his gaze across the scene.

Su Xiaoxiao was crouched on the ground, covering her mouth as she sobbed. Long Yan stood gripping his blade, his expression like he wanted to devour someone.

Everyone was looking up at the sky.

At that aging figure of white.

The Life Domain shrank another ring.

Residents at the northern edge of the city began collapsing in droves. The elderly fell first, their legs giving out as they toppled over, followed by children whose cries abruptly cut off, their small faces turning ashen. Even the young people’s faces went pale as they leaned against walls, gasping for breath.

Lin Fan’s physical condition dropped below one hundred fifty thousand.

Her bones were growing brittle—she could hear the sounds coming from her own joints. Her muscles were shrinking, the lines of her calves already caving in.

Those hands that had once shattered a Pureblood Giant Dragon’s skull with a single punch now struggled just to form a fist.

Long Yan watched from below, the blade slipping slightly in his grip before he tightened his hold.

“Uncle Teng.” His voice was low.

Reαⅾ оո КatRеαdiոɡСаfe

Long Teng glanced at him.

“From Border Dragon City, from the moment she saved me… it’s been like this every time.” Long Yan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “For us, she doesn’t care about her own life at all.”

“Hold your blade steady.” Long Teng said only these four words. “If she falls, we are the last wall.”

Long Yan gripped the blade tighter.

High above.

Long Hao’s aura was still rising.

The Spirit Gathering Array drew Spirit Energy from both worlds without end, and the Death Domain was visibly expanding. The gray-black mist had already spread to the base of the city walls—any grass it touched turned to ash instantly, and cracks crawled across the surface of the bricks and stones.

One hundred thousand.

Physical condition dropped below one hundred thousand.

Lin Fan’s knee buckled.

She steadied herself.

But the second time it buckled, she couldn’t hold.

One knee nearly hit the ground before she forced it straight through gritted teeth.

Was this… was I really going to fight all the way here, just to be a wedding dress for him?

How many Skins. How many lives. How many times crawling out of piles of corpses.

Starting from that broken wheelchair in Hangcheng, step by step, walking over bodies and lies to get here.

Just to stand here and watch myself turn into an old woman? Then have my Spirit Energy run dry and scatter into specks of light in the air?

Unwilling.

Lin Fan bit hard through her lower lip. Blood flowed from the corner of her mouth, dripped down her chin, and fell onto her collar. She squeezed out the last trace of Life Origin within her body and pushed outward three meters.

Just three meters.

Then the Death Qi pushed her back five.

A net loss of two meters.

Long Hao let out a sigh.

There was no mockery in that sigh—only something complicated.

“We are the same kind of people.”

“Both madmen who refuse to admit defeat until the very last second.”

Lin Fan raised her head.

Her lips had already split into several cracks, dry as paper. But she pulled out a smile.

Rеαd οո KαtRеαԁіnɡСafе

“Then you should know… I won’t stop.”

Long Hao looked at her.

Silent for two seconds, he didn’t respond.

Su Xiaoxiao was sobbing uncontrollably below. Long Yan shoved her behind Sun Jing and charged forward two steps before Long Yi blocked him with an arm.

“What the hell is you charging up there going to do?” Long Yi shouted at him.

“I don’t care if it works or not!”

“Enough.” Long Teng’s voice wasn’t loud, but both of them fell silent.

Long Teng looked up at the high sky.

He had lived for decades and seen too many people die. But he had never seen a death like this.

She just stood there, feeding her own life to every living person in the city, mouthful by mouthful.

Long Yi turned to look at him, eyes bloodshot. “How long do you think she can hold on?”

Long Teng said nothing.

Just then.

“Bang.”

The sound of a gunshot rang out, so faint it was nearly inaudible amid the crashing of buildings.

The bullet flew.

It grazed the area of Long Hao’s abdomen.

It didn’t hit anything—his body was still in a state of Spatial Etherealization, and the bullet passed straight through him, flying into the void behind.

Everyone assumed it was some soldier making a final desperate struggle.

Long Hao himself didn’t take it seriously.

He didn’t even look down.

Then his expression changed.

He lowered his head, staring at his abdomen.

On the surface of his etherealized body, at the spot where the bullet had passed through, a ring of extremely fine, minuscule ripples appeared.

The ripples were spreading.

Long Hao’s pupils contracted.

The Spirit Energy surging into his body suddenly went into chaos.

The energy converging from the Spirit Gathering Array stopped obeying him, beginning to burst out from his pores, his fingertips, the corners of his eyes.

Reaⅾ on КatReadіngСαfe

The gray-black Death Domain trembled violently.

Contracting and expanding without cease.

The boundless Spirit Energy no longer under his control transformed into streams of light that shot out from his body, surging outward along the direction of the Rift.

“What…?”

Long Hao’s expression—this was probably the first time in three hundred years it had looked like this.

Lin Fan whipped her head around.

Following the direction of the gunshot.

On the eastern side of the city lord’s mansion, atop the roof of a half-collapsed civilian house, lay a person.

Thin. Dark circles under his eyes so heavy they were startling. Chewing something in his mouth, holding a gun in his hand.

Pale blue smoke still drifted from the muzzle.

Chu Chen.

His mouth was moving, speaking.

Lin Fan’s ears had long since deteriorated—at this distance, she couldn’t hear a thing.

But her Omniscient Domain was still holding, and she read his lip movements word by word.

“I hit his Death Point.”

He stood up, brushed the dust off his pants, pulled a USB drive from his pocket, and hurled it toward Lin Fan with all his strength.

At the same time, he said: “His Spatial Etherealization can dodge physical attacks, but it can’t dodge energy resonance.”

Lin Fan caught the USB drive. Without time to examine it closely, she stored it in her System Space while listening to Chu Chen’s words.

“The Spirit Energy fluctuation frequency of Crystal bullets is fixed. When it passes through his etherealized body, it leaves a 0.3-second oscillation window in his energy structure.”

“0.3 seconds. That’s enough.”

Long Yi below stared wide-eyed. “This kid… when did he get back?”

Chu Chen paid no attention to the reactions of those below. He opened his mouth and shouted toward the high sky—his voice not loud, but every word crystal clear.

“At most, it can only make his energy dissipate—it can’t kill him!”

“The dissipated energy will converge at the Formation Eye!”

He paused, crunching the last bits of sugar residue in his mouth.

“Go to Hangzhou!”

“Zhou Ming is already waiting there!”