Chapter 472: Yan Jing's Ruthlessness (Two-in-One)

With a stumble, the Eighth Prince's massive, fleshy body pitched forward.

Just as he was about to smash into the ground, his slender arms shot out, grabbing the surrounding rock walls to forcefully halt his fall.

He raised his head, his eyes gradually regaining their clarity from the chaos. He glared at Yan Jing, his pupils bloodshot. "You—have—some—skills—"

With every word he spoke, his body rose a fraction higher.

Finally, he returned to a full standing posture.

The bloody hole in his chest healed at a visible rate.

"But it is not enough."

His voice rang out, full of condescension, like a sovereign issuing decrees and commanding the realm.

Yan Jing said nothing in response, simply smiling as he raised his right hand.

Then, he beckoned with his index finger.

The gesture acted like a starting pistol.

In an instant, the three of them moved simultaneously, clashing together once more.

The Eighth Prince's arms swung wildly like two iron chains, shearing off chunks of stone every time they smashed into the mountainside.

Colossus swung his fists, each strike seemingly carrying the weight of ten thousand tons. The immense pressure caused the air in front of him to explode, setting off terrifying sonic booms.

But the most exaggerated of all was Yan Jing.

His frame was the smallest among them—like a grain of rice before the sun and moon.

But a faint glow lit up around his body, and every punch he threw left behind thousands of afterimages. The surrounding space distorted, even forming patches of cobweb-like fissures. The sight terrified his two opponents, forcing them to do their utmost just to dodge.

Neither of them lacked speed, but the Eighth Prince's sheer size turned him into a living target for Yan Jing. Bursts of blood mist continually bloomed in the air, raining down upon the valley.

Though he could heal quickly after each injury, anyone present could see that the Eighth Prince's face was growing paler by the second, his skin completely drained of color.

Such regeneration was almost certainly not limitless.

Thus, the two could only attack even more furiously.

They hoped to trade injury for injury and wear Yan Jing down.

Yan Jing's flesh shimmered with a faint light. Every punch and claw strike that landed near him caused that radiance to ripple, mitigating the vast majority of the damage.

Meanwhile, every punch he threw landed squarely on the Eighth Prince's body.

Seeing that defeat was inevitable if this continued, the two grew increasingly frantic. Finally, the Eighth Prince threw his head back and let out a furious roar as a long, slender figure emerged from the center of his brow.

The figure was a few decimeters long and entirely black. It looked like a swamp eel commonly found in any wet market, except it was unusually fat—slender at the head and tail, but as thick as a bucket in the middle.

It looked like—

A deformity.

The Eighth Prince grabbed it and swallowed it directly into his stomach.

Almost instantly, his body began to shrink.

His stacked rolls of fat tightened bit by bit until they transformed into rows of dense muscle. His originally ten-meter-tall frame shrank to an ordinary two meters. Only his arms remained as long, tentacle-like appendages dragging on the ground.

Only after his potbelly vanished could the others clearly see his legs—he actually had a full six of them.

"You really shouldn't have pushed me."

The Eighth Prince opened his eyes; the whites were entirely gone, replaced by pitch black.

He clenched his fists, channeling his strength and circulating his energy, and a faint glimmer actually lit up around his body as well!

The next moment, he rushed toward Yan Jing, who had just driven Colossus into the wall. His speed was incredible.

He lifted his legs and bent his knees. Four of his six legs lashed out in four distinct kicking styles, all aimed at Yan Jing with immense killing intent.

Yan Jing turned to face the enemy, while Colossus also went all out, traces of weird energy rising tightly against his skin.

It was not pure weird energy, but a kind of weird momentum unique to him.

In his eyes, every move Yan Jing had used previously replayed itself. He then charged forward. His every gesture and stance bore a slight resemblance to Yan Jing's earlier techniques, even allowing him to anticipate many of Yan Jing's attacks.

They clashed again. This time, the tide of battle finally began to tilt the other way.

Fist imprints visibly multiplied across Yan Jing's body. Blood slowly trickled down the corners of his mouth, and even his nose began to bleed.

That blood carried faint streaks of multi-colored light, a sight that shocked the other two.

Their opponent was truly on the verge of reaching the Summit solely through his physical body. If he succeeded, he would be one of a handful of such existences in this era.

At this thought, the two intensified their assaults, determined to slaughter him within this cage.

Seconds later, Yan Jing crossed his arms over his chest and was violently swatted away.

Piercing winds howled recklessly past him like a barrage of blades. The gales caught his form, but also tore into skin that had already weathered too many blows.

Watching the two charge at him again with murderous intent, Yan Jing smiled. "The two of you have indeed walked quite far down the path of the physical body."

"I truly do not delve deeply into the ways of the physical body, so this battle today has been quite rewarding."

"But I would also like to show you what I excel at."

As his voice fell, his fingertips lightly played across the air.

Powerful weird energy surged through the valley like a torrent. The surrounding winds, as if stimulated, instantly whipped into an extreme frenzy. Massive chunks of rock from the sheer cliffs on both sides were sheared off and swept into the air. Several tornadoes materialized between heaven and earth, shattering the starry night.

Yet, before these hurricanes could fully form, everything around them seemed to freeze, turning into a canvas of ashen gray.

Yan Jing sliced open a rift, blinked to their sides, and threw the two directly inside.

Then, he stepped into the rift as well.

Inside the Space Rift.

The figure in the ice stared at the figures appearing before her, completely unable to grasp the situation.

At first, she thought he had actually captured the others, but upon closer inspection, they were merely two humans.

"Heh—bluffing—"

She sneered, preparing to sit on the mountain to watch the tigers fight.

But the more she watched, the more she felt something was off.

This six-legged fellow clearly bore the handiwork of predecessors in his body. He likely possessed some item related to mutation that stimulated his bloodline day and night, leading to such a high degree of bodily alienation that he was practically on par with inner world residents.

Objects of mutation were exceedingly rare. Even in her era, shortly after the Source of Mutation first descended, obtaining one was monumentally difficult.

The only reason he hadn't lost control was because the item had been nourished by generations of the bloodline.

In other words, they had sacrificed the lives of their forebears generation after generation to nurture this item into perfect harmony with their descendants.

The other fellow was even more outrageous.

It was glaringly obvious—his body bred a divine bloodline!

That was a divine bloodline capable of resisting the Source of Mutation!

She remembered a race in their time known as the Medicine Clan, who valued alchemy as their very lives. They had once offered several Crystal Stones containing divinity in an attempt to seek out a divine bloodline to refine into medicine.

But after the Source of Mutation descended, their search for a divine bloodline gained an additional requirement: it had to be capable of resisting the Source of Mutation.

To obtain such an existence, they had even offered a Pseudo-Divine Source.

Yet, in the end, it seemed they had still failed to find one.

And now, it had unexpectedly appeared in a human?!

The figure in the ice watched in shock, but when she shifted her gaze to Yan Jing, her pupils trembled violently.

Facing two such individuals, Yan Jing didn't fall into a disadvantage in physical combat at all. If it weren't a two-on-one fight, he probably could have taken them down individually.

More importantly, she couldn't see through Yan Jing's foundations at all.

The physical body was an ability heavily reliant on innate talent.

If your physical talent wasn't sufficient, no matter how many tonics you swallowed, you would eventually hit a ceiling.

And Yan Jing seemed like a completely unremarkable, ordinary person.

Yet he was absurdly strong.

This caused a violent clash against her understanding of the world.

Just as she tried to get a clearer look.

Suddenly, a Black Apple manifested in Yan Jing's palm.

"What is the meaning of this—"

The figure watched as Yan Jing took a bite of the apple.

The next instant, her face froze in absolute stupor.

Equally dumbfounded were the Eighth Prince and Colossus.

Cold, dark, and evil energy instantly flooded the entire Space Rift, completely swallowing the two of them.

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' has fallen into the trap of the player with the honorary title 'Giant Dragon']

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' has been besieged by the players with the honorary titles 'Giant Dragon' and 'Colossus']

[In physical combat, the player with the honorary title 'Yi' is not at a disadvantage in the slightest]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' gains the upper hand]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' gradually falls into a disadvantage]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' steadily retreats in defeat]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' suffers heavy injuries]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' is pushed to the brink of peril]

[The player with the honorary title 'Yi' defeats Giant Dragon and Colossus]

"A poor start, steady defeats, pushed to the brink of peril—then a victory speech? Why do I feel like I've seen this plotline before?"

"According to my imprecise calculations, it took the other two about twenty-odd minutes to push Yan Jing to the brink of peril, but from the brink of peril to giving his victory speech, Yan Jing took less than two minutes."

"Incredible."

"Incredible."

"Incred—"

"Little Jian lost too—"

The T-shirt man's face was filled with disbelief.

He was well aware of Zhu Jian's strength; out of the nine of them, he could definitely rank in the top six.

The reason he was ranked eighth was due to Zhu Jian's own request.

The top six were as close as siblings, and because his appearance was somewhat grotesque, he had voluntarily applied to withdraw from their six-person group.

But now—he had actually lost in physical combat to that man named Yan Jing.

"Time stop, physical body—"

His expression darkened.

Combined with Meng Bing's earlier description, the opponent had used an ability similar to a time stop, then beat her unconscious while time was paused.

The combination of these two abilities was practically no different from cheating.

He was even a bit puzzled as to why that Moon Yin domain lord hadn't focused on cultivating this young man.

A person like this would easily rank in the top five of any of their three domains.

Or perhaps—this was a deliberate smokescreen laid by that insidious woman, and this person was Yueyin's true trump card.

"He has to be eliminated—"

He closed his eyes, murderous intent gradually welling up within him.

If his previous desire to kill Yan Jing stemmed purely from the latter's insulting actions toward Meng Bing, at this moment, he genuinely wanted to strike him down for other reasons.

Just then, his brow twitched. His figure flickered, rapidly appearing in the Dungeon's exit room.

"Little Jian—"

He called out subconsciously, but in the next second, his pupils violently contracted.

Because the one who came out was not Zhu Jian.

At least, not the Zhu Jian he knew.

It was a head attached to a chest cavity.

Reduced to nothing but skin and bones, with sunken eye sockets and devoid of the slightest trace of color, he was exhaling far more breath than he was taking in.

"Your Majesty, Yan Jing... he—"

Zhu Jian used all his strength to open his mouth, but before he could finish his words, his head lolled to the side and he passed out on the spot.

This time, even though the T-shirt man tried with all his might, he could not wake Zhu Jian up.

The T-shirt man's hands clenched tighter and tighter.

Within the clouds above the First Ring Domain.

The dragon shadow slowly cruising through the air seemed to grow increasingly corporeal.

The First Building.

"My Lord, someone has landed at the airport."

Standing at the office door, Zhuang Yun, dressed in her airport uniform, lowered her head and spoke to the figure shrouded in a white veil.

"Who?"

"I don't really recognize him, but—he said he knows you."

Remembering the old man she had just run into, Zhuang Yun felt a little short of breath.

The oppressive aura the man gave off was simply too intense.

The last person to give her such a strong sense of oppression was the Yueyin supreme leader standing right in front of her.

But Yueyin was only supposed to have one Summit climber...

She was full of doubts but didn't dare speak.

There were truly too many inexplicable things in this world.

Just like how she hadn't believed the man in the light brown trench coat could beat her, yet now that very man was slaughtering indiscriminately in the Inner World Dungeon.

Whenever she recalled her attitude toward Yan Jing at the time, she still felt the urge to crawl into a hole and hide.

"What does he look like?" Seemingly unaware of her internal thoughts, the figure beneath the white veil asked flatly.

Zhuang Yun immediately snapped back to attention and replied, "He has a goatee, leans on a cane with one hand, and holds a pair of walnuts in the other. He looks like he can barely walk.

"I tried to gauge his weird energy, but I couldn't sense much. I only felt an intense pressure."

"Understood."

The figure beneath the veil tossed out the single word, and by the time Zhuang Yun raised her head, she only saw a wisp of white veil drift past her eyes.

The room was already completely empty.

At the airport.

"Elder Ge has arrived; please forgive this junior for failing to welcome you properly."

A white veil fluttered wildly at the arrival gate as the figure inside spoke softly to the old man sitting on a chair in the lobby.

The old man didn't look up at this supreme expert of Yueyin. His cloudy eyes stared forward, seemingly fixed on the ground, while the walnuts in his hand rubbed against each other, emitting crisp clacking sounds.

After a long while, he uttered a cryptic sentence: "Is that your handiwork?"

The figure answered softly, "Yes."

"No wonder you were willing to gamble with me back then. So you had this kind of seedling." The old man's lips curved slightly.

Pausing for a long time, he finally spoke, "But do you know you've broken a taboo?"

Beneath the veil, the figure's expression shifted slightly.

She had only wanted to seize the opportunity to use Yan Jing's hands to secure this gamble.

For one, it would add an extra layer of insurance for winning the gamble; for another, it would forcibly pull Yan Jing into their circle of Summit climbers.

Once inside this circle, Yan Jing would be isolated and helpless, forcing him to rely on her.

But looking at it now, the situation might have changed.

"You said back then... that life or death wouldn't matter."

She spoke softly, "I don't understand what you're talking about."

"Hmph."

The old man snorted coldly and lightly tapped his cane. Rings of cracks spread out from the base of the cane, covering the entire airport floor.

Then, the floor actually began to ripple with waves like the surface of a lake.

The fragments of the ground trembled without scattering, ultimately forming those ripples.

He looked at the Yueyin domain lord with a sneer. "I did say that."

"But your person severed my disciple's hands and feet to research the divine bloodline, and in the end, even drained all his blood and dismantled his bones."

"If that isn't a taboo, then what is?"