I Really Can't Believe You, You Sneaky Bastard

"Lina, are you serious? But I'm only at the first tier. I just awakened my Awakening Sequence Ability!"

Su Yang couldn't believe his ears.

What did she mean, they would be watching from the side?

He could let it go that they'd done this at the Soul-Reaping Bureau before, but now they were doing it again?!

"But Su Yang, you're the Sword-Bearer, and we're Sword-Guardians."

"How could Sword-Guardians go around fighting and killing? If a monster got close to us, we'd be in real danger."

Lina spoke in all seriousness.

Sword-Guardians couldn't go around fighting and killing?

If Su Yang hadn't noticed Lina forcing down the corners of her mouth, he would have believed her.

"Su Yang, don't worry! We'll be watching from the side!"

Zhao Shengshen patted Su Yang on the shoulder, assuring him there was no need to be so nervous.

"The people buried in this cemetery were all second- or third-tier holders of the last three Sequence Abilities. Even after mutating, they won't have much fighting power."

"Just treat this mission as practice."

Not much fighting power?

Hearing Zhao Shengshen say that, Su Yang breathed a small sigh of relief.

Su Yang found Zhao Shengshen's reasoning convincing.

After all, he had only just awakened his Awakening Sequence Ability. Apart from the incident with Maiden's Soul, Su Yang had never experienced a proper fight.

It was perfectly reasonable for the Soul-Reaping Bureau to arrange a few fights to help him get familiar with his own Sequence Ability.

Su Yang steadied himself and raised a hand lightly. An ink-black saber appeared in his hand out of thin air.

The instant he gripped the ink-black saber, Su Yang felt as though it were connected to him by flesh and blood.

The feeling immediately put Su Yang much more at ease.

"Since it's just practice, let's go now!"

Zhao Shengshen and Lina exchanged smiles, and both headed toward the Northern Suburb Cemetery.

Su Yang gripped his saber and followed close behind.

Ten minutes later, Su Yang and the other two arrived at their destination.

Only then did Su Yang get a full view of the Suffocation Screen.

It was a gigantic, semicircular, earthen-yellow barrier, embedded deep in the ground.

Tens of meters tall, it rose even higher than many of the towering ancient trees.

The Suffocation Screen blocked Su Yang's view, preventing him from seeing what was happening inside.

Su Yang and the other two stopped outside the Suffocation Screen.

"Yesterday, an A-rank perception-type containment object at our Soul-Reaping Bureau detected an abnormal disturbance here."

"People from the bureau arrived at once and sealed the place off with the Suffocation Screen."

"If nothing unexpected has happened, the dead inside have already broken out of the ground."

Zhao Shengshen turned to Su Yang, his gaze growing somewhat grave as he instructed him.

"In a moment, I'll open the barrier, and the three of us will take the opportunity to go in."

Su Yang nodded to show he understood.

Just then, Lina, who was standing beside Su Yang, beckoned to him with a radiant smile.

"Su Yang, come here. I have something good for you."

"Something good? What is it?"

Seeing Lina's suggestive expression, Su Yang was a little puzzled, but he walked over to her anyway.

The instant Su Yang reached Lina's side, a beam of white light suddenly shot from her emerald-green eyes and fell on him!

When the white light shone on Su Yang, he felt countless tiny particles surging through his blood vessels.

They flowed freely through Su Yang's vessels, spreading throughout his body with his blood.

Immediately afterward, a bloodthirsty urge rose within Su Yang.

The change in his body left Su Yang dumbfounded. "This is..."

But before Su Yang could finish speaking, Zhao Shengshen, standing behind him, suddenly twisted the disk in his hand.

A gap large enough for one person instantly split open in the earthen-yellow barrier.

Zhao Shengshen stepped forward, grabbed Su Yang by the shoulder, and lifted him off the ground!

Then Zhao Shengshen flexed the muscles in his back, sending the force into his arm. Su Yang's body traced a graceful arc through the air, flying straight through the gap in the Suffocation Screen.

Zhao Shengshen twisted the disk back, and the gap in the Suffocation Screen instantly vanished.

The entire sequence of movements was seamless, as though he had repeated it countless times.

Zhao Shengshen dusted off his hands, his face full of satisfaction.

"Done!"

"Lina, how many hours did you enhance Su Yang for?"

Lina pursed her lips and said with some uncertainty,

"The Enhancement should last about two hours, I think? Su Yang only just awakened his Awakening Sequence Ability, after all. I was afraid his body couldn't take it."

"Mm, two hours should be about right. We'll bring Su Yang out in two hours, then!"

Inside the Suffocation Screen, Su Yang fell from the air and crashed to the ground.

The instant he hit the ground, Su Yang understood!

Zhao Shengshen was being inhuman again! He'd tricked him again!

Perhaps because of what Lina had just done, Su Yang was extremely irritable.

Hot blood surged through him, and Su Yang raised his face to the sky and cursed.

"Zhao Shengshen! I really can't believe you, you sneaky bastard!"

"If you wanted me to go in alone, couldn't you have just said so? Did you have to pull this?!"

Su Yang rubbed the shoulder he had landed on and got to his feet.

But when he saw the scene before him, a chill ran down his back, and even the blood in his veins seemed to freeze.

The ground before Su Yang was covered in shriveled limbs and broken bones, with a chunk of meat covered in green fuzz to the east and a withered arm to the west.

Everywhere were clots of black blood and flesh covered in green fuzz!

Only four empty pits remained where bodies had once been buried, and broken, incomplete gravestones lay beside them.

Even the gravestones looked as though something had gnawed chunks right out of them!

Stranger still,

In the distance, three inhuman-looking monsters were crouched on the ground, gnawing on something.

Their bodies were covered in green fuzz. Some had lost both arms, while others had lost both eyeballs.

The remaining one looked as though someone had pulled out its spine, and it twisted and writhed on the ground like a snake.

"Th-this is what Sequence Ability holders look like after they mutate?"

Su Yang swallowed. The sight sent a chill down his back.

"One, two, three, four... four pits. Does that mean four corpses mutated?"

"But why are there only three monsters here... Could that pile of rotting flesh they're gnawing on be the remaining corpse?"

The three monsters in the distance seemed to sense something and suddenly stopped gnawing.

The next moment, they all charged at Su Yang!

Seeing the three monsters with clots of blood still in their mouths, Su Yang's gaze sharpened.

The feeling he had experienced when the white light from Lina's eyes shone on him once again rose within Su Yang's body, and a violent mood surfaced in his heart.

The Black Blade appeared in Su Yang's hand out of thin air, and Su Yang actually charged at the three inhuman-looking monsters!