Chapter 578: Yin Tianhuang (Two-in-One)

Swish, swish, swish—

Hidden within a cascading river of phantom arrows, the red-robed man slipped through the plumes, reaching Long Quezhou in an instant.

A vicious gleam flashed in the red-robed man's eyes as he stared at Long Quezhou, whose form was wreathed in so many overlapping phantoms he appeared to have three heads and six arms.

No matter how masterful one's comprehension of martial arts, it ultimately came down to physical constitution.

He was confident Long Quezhou could never keep up with his speed.

With the faint cry of a phoenix, he struck. Countless red feathers bloomed around him as he plummeted in a bath of fire, transforming into a blazing meteor that clawed directly for the mask on Long Quezhou's face.

As a former "teammate," he knew exactly what that mask was capable of. It contained the legacy left behind by a Tianzi Master, capable of thoroughly unlocking Long Quezhou's martial potential.

As long as he seized it, this battle was practically already won.

But—

The moment his hand came down, A phantom intercepted his wrist.

The phantom solidified, replaced by Long Quezhou's very real palm.

"Caught you."

The Dragon Fang Ghost Mask seemed to smile. The red-robed man's heart turned icy cold, but it was already too late.

The next second, his vision spun. Even though he didn't feel any force applied to his wrist, his entire body was slammed heavily into the ground.

"Thud!"

A muffled impact echoed. It wasn't loud, as the throw didn't carry much force, but the red-robed man's expression instantly changed.

He felt as if his spine had snapped.

A small stone had been slapped perfectly into his lower back. He didn't know which acupoint it hit, but he had completely lost all sensation below his waist.

Expelling it... expelling it would be fast...

But would his opponent give him the chance?

He looked up and saw countless figures in wide-sleeved dragon robes, all raising their hands in unison.

The red-robed man channeled his Weird Energy, preparing to take the strike head-on. But when those hands landed on him, he knew he was wrong—dead wrong.

This was absolutely not Eighth Tier strength. Even though he was at the Ninth Tier now, he still felt immense pressure from those palms. As each strike landed, sickening cracks echoed from his body.

He had been far too careless. He had underestimated his opponent, losing the initiative in this life-or-death battle.

On the other side, Wang Yu and the Nightgown Girl were locked in a fierce, inseparable brawl.

Fists and feet clashed, each strike roaring like howling tigers and barking dogs, scattering the birds and beasts in the surrounding mountains.

The Nightgown Girl gritted her teeth. Wang Yu's fighting style was practically suicidal; she wasn't using any Weird Energy techniques or abilities, relying purely on her physical body to clash head-on.

Under normal circumstances, this idiotic tactic of willingly abandoning one's abilities was just asking for death.

But as it happened, this was the perfect counter against her.

Her own abilities primarily leaned toward vision, smell, and devouring; she had very little mastery over other strange powers.

Yes, she was a Ritual of the Gluttony Pathway.

And the tactic Wang Yu was using right now was exactly what the Nightgown Girl usually excelled at!

She relied on high-speed, high-intensity close combat to deliver a relentless barrage of attacks, completely denying her opponent any chance to use their abilities. If the enemy forced out an ability at the cost of taking a hit, she would simply devour them in one bite, dealing a fatal blow.

But today, she had met her match.

She didn't know what kind of medicine Wang Yu had taken. Previously, Wang Yu's physical constitution had been far inferior to hers, but today, even a casual punch felt incredibly difficult to parry.

In just a few short minutes, her arms were already covered in bloody red welts.

"Damn it! You're forcing my hand, aren't you?!"

The Nightgown Girl took a huge step back and roared at Wang Yu, baring her fangs.

She couldn't hold back anymore; she was going to unleash her ultimate move to end this farce.

But right at that moment, the red-robed man's voice rang out from the side. "Run! Get the word out!"

The Nightgown Girl jumped in shock. Only then did she realize that the red-robed man had been beaten to the ground by Long Quezhou. Judging by the blood leaking from his facial orifices, he was already at death's door.

This fast?!

The Nightgown Girl's mind raced in that split second. The very next moment, she desperately opened her mouth. A terrifying sonic wave brewed in her throat, about to erupt into the sky as a deafening howl.

Wang Yu's heart dropped, and she hurriedly lunged forward to stop her, but it was already too late.

By the time her strike landed, the enemy would have broadcasted the signal regardless.

Once that message got out, she and Long Quezhou would be in a terrible position.

Long Quezhou furrowed his brows. The hand he used to strike the red-robed man shifted into a blade chop, aiming to end the man's life before enemy reinforcements could arrive.

Better to take out at least one.

But right then, the situation abruptly changed.

A pitch-black seed materialized out of thin air, falling with pinpoint precision straight into the girl's gaping mouth.

The girl's eyes bulged. The next second, countless Thorns pierced outward through her skin, instantly transforming her into a dense, towering tree.

Terror flooded the girl's eyes, but it all happened far too fast.

The warning she was about to shout was completely blocked in her throat.

Her body was instantly sucked dry by the tree, withering until she was nothing more than an empty husk of skin hanging amid the pitch-black Thorns.

"Hk... save... me..."

The girl reached an arm out despairingly toward a shocked Wang Yu. The next second, the excruciating pain finally caught up with her. Her eyes shot wide open, and she breathed her last right there on the spot.

On the ground, the red-robed man stared in horror at this abrupt twist. "Who... who else is with you..."

"...I don't know."

After a few seconds of silence, Long Quezhou spoke coldly. "I will give you one chance. Call out the person behind you, and this ends here."

"What exactly are you trying to do?"

The red-robed man gasped heavily. "Don't tell me you're doing all this just to see that person."

"That is exactly it," Long Quezhou said, his expression calm. "We each simply serve our own masters."

Serve our own masters.

Hearing this, the red-robed man's heart jolted, an unbelievable thought surfacing in his mind.

"Who is backing you?"

"...Exactly the person you are thinking of."

"Impossible!"

The red-robed man denied it almost instantly. Then, his face twitched as he stared incredulously at Long Quezhou. "He reached the Ninth Tier?"

"I don't know." Long Quezhou rested his hand on the man's throat, his gaze freezing. "Hurry up and call them out."

The red-robed man gave a bitter smile. "You'll regret this."

"Even at the Ninth Tier, that is only the most basic requirement to even touch that person."

"Cut the crap." Long Quezhou pressed his hand into the skin, instantly drawing blood from the red-robed man's neck.

"..."

The red-robed man fell silent for a few seconds before finally pulling a red Crystal Stone out of his pocket.

"..."

Long Quezhou and Wang Yu eyed the red Crystal Stone warily, worried that the red-robed man might pull a trick.

The next second, the red-robed man crushed the Crystal Stone.

Almost instantly, both Long Quezhou and Wang Yu's expressions changed. They simultaneously sensed some terrifying entity closing in on their position at an unimaginable speed.

Their original plan to see the person before fleeing completely fell through. Without a second thought, the two turned and ran for their lives.

But it was already too late.

The incoming speed was far, far too fast. It was as if this presence was tearing through space itself. Within seconds, the two spotted a figure appearing on the distant horizon.

No matter how fast they ran, that figure continued to close the distance.

Before long, the figure in their vision grew from the size of a grain of rice to the size of a billiard ball.

It kept shifting, almost changing size by the millisecond.

The horrific pressure radiating from it left both of them completely breathless.

At this rate, being overtaken was only a matter of time.

"Help, help, help!"

Wang Yu slapped her palms together in prayer. "Domain Lord Yan, save us, save us, save us!"

She wasn't going crazy. Having just witnessed the Nightgown Girl's gruesome death, she knew Yan Jing had to have left some hidden countermeasure near them, which was why she chose to cry for help.

"Congratulations! The mission is complete!"

To their absolute shock, a childish, tender voice suddenly echoed out from the empty mid-air.

The very next second, both of them felt their collars being grabbed. Their vision warped instantly as if they had fallen into a massive whirlpool, and all sights vanished into pitch blackness.

After safely storing the two away, Xiao Xin patted her bag in satisfaction.

"Time to go home."

Humming a tune, she wobbled through the air, flying off into the distance.

But halfway there, she remembered that she still hadn't used all the seeds Yan Jing had given her, and her eyes darted around mischievously.

Then, she concealed her form and returned to where they had just been.

She watched as a man wearing a silver-red robe descended from the sky, landing precisely where Wang Yu and Long Quezhou had just disappeared.

The man had sharp, star-like eyes, thin lips, and an elegant demeanor. His tall, slender figure looked no less impressive than Yan Jing's. His long red hair was tied up high, and his slightly slanted eyes were partially obscured by his swaying bangs, but that icy, unyielding gaze remained ever constant.

He exuded a natural, imposing aura of authority. Even Xiao Xin, who didn't understand much about combat, could tell that the man before her was absolutely terrifying in strength.

"They vanished..." the man muttered, his brow furrowing.

Instantly, the light in the sky seemed to dim a few shades in response to his frown.

He raised his palm, and silver-red Weird Energy surged from it, transforming into countless small streams that spread out into the surroundings.

Those streams acted like tentacles, continuously gathering and analyzing information.

Soon, currents of air rose up around him, funneling back into his palm.

The man closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he slowly opened them.

"It is the scent of a Deity. A God's Candidate Ticket...?"

Unlike ordinary people who would panic upon sensing the aura of a Deity, the man appeared incredibly composed.

Though his opponents possessing a God's Candidate Ticket wasn't exactly good news for him, it wasn't enough to make him afraid.

He reached out and gently swiped a finger across the center of his brow.

A bloody mark appeared on his snow-white forehead, and the very next second, it ripped open.

In the center of that bloody slit was a hollow, fleshy cavity.

Just when Xiao Xin thought there was nothing inside, a fleshy tentacle suddenly and sluggishly poked out from the bloody hole.

The aura emanating from that tentacle made Xiao Xin's eyes go wide.

She could tell that it was also an item belonging to a Deity.

This guy, just like her Zhu Leng, had deep ties to a Deity.

Time to go, time to go...

Feeling guilty, Xiao Xin flapped her wings and turned around. She was suddenly feeling a bit homesick.

But the very next instant, the man suddenly raised his head, looking straight at Xiao Xin's location.

"Heh." The man's lips curled up slightly. "Quite gutsy, aren't you?"

He reached out, and countless Space Rifts materialized all around Xiao Xin.

The pitch-black fissures looked like knife gashes carved directly into the air, steadily closing in on her.

Seeing this, however, Xiao Xin let out a sigh of relief.

There was no divine aura on these rifts.

Which meant that the enemy's connection to the Deity was primarily through that eye.

Since he wasn't using a Deity's spatial powers...

Then for her...

Wasn't this basically equivalent to going home?

Xiao Xin casually picked a rift that looked pretty and dove right inside.

But from the man's perspective, he only saw the blurry figure get swallowed up directly by one of the rifts.

The corners of his lips lifted, and he retracted his hand.

Like a contracting net, the rifts drew closer, folded up, and landed in his palm.

With a profound gaze, the man opened the exact rift where Xiao Xin had vanished.

"Whoosh—whoosh—"

The freezing aura of Chaos blew out from the rift.

But just as the man prepared to check what exactly that blurry figure was, four pitch-black objects rolled right out of the fissure.

And then—

They spectacularly bloomed!

The man's hair instantly stood on end. He took a step backward, directly phasing through space to reappear hundreds of meters away.

He looked up at the opposite side, only to see four towering, pitch-black trees swaying continuously where he had just stood.

Mournful shrieks wrapped around the branches, and every sharp barb on the Thorns gave off a chilling glint, striking fear into the heart from just a glance.

The man scowled deeply, reaching a hand up to touch his right eye.

Right there—blood was gushing out.

His reaction time just now had been extremely fast, but it had all happened too suddenly. Furthermore, the area covered by four trees, each thousands of meters tall, was simply too vast.

He had still taken a hit.

"Ugh..."

The man hunched over, his face twisted in agony.

He hadn't expected it to hurt this much.

How long had it been... He couldn't even remember how long it had been since he was last injured.

But to think it would happen here—

The man couldn't hold back a low growl, balling his right hand into a fist.

A colossal boom erupted.

The space within hundreds of meters around him spectacularly collapsed.

A massive, pitch-black void manifested directly in mid-air, greedily sucking in everything in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Xiao Xin, who had just gleefully found Yan Jing to report on her mission, was now laying teary-eyed in Yan Jing's arms.

"You can't do this! Zhu Leng, don't be angry, Xiao Xin knows she was wrong..."

Xiao Xin had just smugly reported exactly how she had toyed with the enemy, causing a certain pessimist—who absolutely despised unexpected variables and loved to plan for everything—to realize that his safety briefings were still severely lacking.

Therefore, he gave Xiao Xin two choices.

Either confiscation of her camera for ten days, or ten slaps on the palms.

Xiao Xin painfully chose the latter.

But looking at Yan Jing's deliberately darkened face, she still couldn't help but well up with tears, hiccuping through her cries. "Zhu Leng, don't be angry... Xiao Xin won't ever do it again... Zhu Leng, just hit Xiao Xin... Xiao Xin will never, ever dare to do it again..."

Saying so, Xiao Xin extended her lotus-root-like arms out in front of Yan Jing, biting her lip tight.