Absolute Severance and Bone-Deep Venom

Yang Fuwen and Cai Bin flew one behind the other above the secret realm's forest, searching for surviving examinees.

Following the compass in his hand, Yang Fuwen planned to find his young lady first.

"Hey, wouldn't it be faster if we split up?"

He asked tentatively.

"But if I searched on my own, I'd just be running around like a headless chicken."

Cai Bin spread his hands helplessly, offering a plausible excuse.

"It'd be more efficient to follow you."

Yang Fuwen shrugged and said nothing more, tacitly accepting that Cai Bin was keeping an eye on him.

The Aristocratic Faction had no plans to do anything more during this rescue, so being watched didn't matter. If Cai Bin hadn't come along, Yang Fuwen would have worried that the people directly under the higher-ups had other plans.

As for the Fifth Realm Peak expert, he was the team leader and had to do everything he could to help the people outside repair the secret realm's space. He had no time to concern himself with infighting.

The two continued on their way, letting silence hang above the canopy.

Beneath it, Lou Shisui concealed his aura and followed them like a shadow.

Shisui sensed the Radiant Feathers scattered throughout the forest, estimating the distance between the two above and the other rescuers.

At the moment, the nearest team was twenty-seven kilometers away, while the only Fifth Realm Peak expert was forty-two kilometers away.

At that distance, no one could come to their aid without using spatial teleportation.

Shisui abruptly accelerated, quickly reaching the spot directly beneath them.

His Steel Feathers slowly unfurled, scattering blade-like Radiant Feathers in every direction. Unnoticed, they formed a circle one kilometer in diameter around him.

The next moment, [Absolute Cutting] activated in an instant.

"Crack!"

A cylindrical zone of isolated space abruptly appeared, trapping the two Fifth Realm cultivators as they traveled.

After absorbing a vast amount of spatial power, his Ukaku had evolved the ability to cut through space.

Unlike the relatively soft Owl Wings, Steel Feathers was a Kagune he had originally developed to increase his attack power and the speed at which he donned his Kakuja armor. As such, it far surpassed Owl Wings in strength.

The slashes unleashed by Steel Feathers could sever a continuous stretch of space, creating a gap that blocked the passage of creatures without a spatial attribute.

As long as he cut enough spatial partitions in the right places, he could surround and trap his enemies.

"What happened?"

Cai Bin looked warily around and moved closer to Yang Fuwen, who was ahead of him.

"I don't know. It could be a contingency the Beastfolk left behind."

Yang Fuwen spoke gravely, but inwardly he was wondering.

The rescue team just arrived. The Beastfolk our people released shouldn't have spread this far so quickly, so why have they appeared here?

Could another family have given the examinees a spiritual artifact containing lower Beastfolk ahead of time?

Before he could make sense of it, a deadly chill shot up his spine, making him step back instinctively.

"Whoosh! Boom!"

An afterimage swept past him, and as it struck down, the forest below was abruptly split apart, leaving a jagged fissure in the ground.

"Enemy attack!"

The keen instincts he had honed over years on the battlefield saved his life, but as a commander, he was slightly weaker than a typical Fifth Realm cultivator and was still cut by the blade scales that burst from the Bikaku.

The next attack arrived in an instant!

Yang Fuwen immediately judged that the attacker was far stronger than he was and signaled Cai Bin behind him to engage the enemy.

However fierce their factional disputes were, they were internal conflicts within the Human Race. This opponent appeared to belong to another race, making him their common enemy!

A bright light flowed through his lake-blue eyes, a sign that the Yang Family's ancestral talent had activated.

[Illusion-Breaking Truth-Revealing Eye], activate!

"Space has been isolated. We can't get out for the time being."

"One enemy, with a metallic exoskeleton, two pairs of wings, and eight mutated tail-like limbs. Half-Step Fifth Realm. Actual combat strength unknown."

Using his elementary [Illusion-Breaking Truth-Revealing Eye], Yang Fuwen saw the enemy's attack clearly and narrowly dodged a sweeping slash from the Ukaku.

He then swiftly reported the intelligence he had gathered about the enemy at first glance, his voice level.

Cai Bin reacted at once. Thick vines suddenly grew from his hand and pulled Yang Fuwen to his side in just one second.

As Cai Bin acted, the forest began to stir and expand. All manner of living things were roused and driven to grow, becoming Cai Bin's limbs and weapons.

[Growth Acceleration] forced the living things within the isolated space to grow at full speed, making them charge at the enemy at the cost of burning their life force.

Though his ambush had failed, Lou Shisui did not stop attacking.

His Ukaku burst open, unleashing a torrent of crystalline feather projectiles that immediately suppressed the oncoming branches and vines.

No matter how much the secret realm forest's plants were stimulated, they were ultimately mortal things. How could they possibly withstand feather projectiles made entirely of Rc Cells?

Under the cover of the Owl Wing Ukaku's firepower, Shisui shook his Steel Feathers and abruptly charged at the prey stubbornly resisting ahead of him.

The eight Bikaku waving behind him attacked from every direction, battering the two men so relentlessly that they could barely raise their heads.

Before the dense barrage of highly destructive Radiant Feathers, the hastily grown plant barrier crumbled in an instant, unable to withstand a single blow.

Even the surrounding space was sliced with tiny cracks, showing signs of instability.

"This won't work. We have to retreat."

"Retreat?"

A fierce, bone-eating pain erupted from an inconspicuous wound on Yang Fuwen that had turned black, making him convulse uncontrollably. As his arm flailed, it struck Cai Bin, who was shielding him in front.

Suddenly "stabbed in the back," Cai Bin left a brief opening in his barely sustained defense.

A scorpion tail that shot out without warning struck his body.

Huh? What is...

The chaos in his mind and the weakness spreading through his body overwhelmed Cai Bin in an instant.

He stood there dazed and powerless, allowing the Bikaku to pierce him.

If they had been in a game just then, a notification like this would surely have appeared in the status bar.

[You have been poisoned and will soon enter an abnormal state]

The Bikaku radiated a chilling killing intent under the moonlight, its jet-black blade scales reflecting a dark red metallic sheen.

[Bone-Deep Rot] had evolved from Shisui's original mixture of toxins. Once an enemy was afflicted, it was as though they had contracted a disease that penetrated deep into their marrow.

The toxin either waited for an opportunity to strike back or erupted instantly. It was a talent skill formed from the toxin produced after the Rinkaku Kakuhou underwent Metamorphosis.

The battle ended in one minute.

Shisui wrapped his Bikaku around them. The neatly arranged blade scales parted slightly, engulfing both men in dark red Kagune.

He deactivated [Absolute Cutting] and retrieved the many Radiant Feathers scattered nearby. The surrounding space slowly began to settle.

The fight had ended so quickly partly because his attack had come without warning, and the rescue team hadn't known that his Bikaku attacks carried a potent poison.

The other reason was that these two Fifth Realm cultivators were surprisingly weak.

That was right—weak.

These two clearly weren't combat personnel.

One specialized in gathering and analyzing intelligence, while the other appeared to be able to control plants. For a rescue in a secret realm containing vast forests, they were the best choices.

But when it came to fighting an enemy, they could only be described as easy pickings.

The fight had left Shisui unsatisfied, and his fighting spirit was running high. His crimson Kakugan flickered with an eerie light beneath the moon.

After absorbing two Fifth Realm Mid-Stage cultivators, he vaguely sensed something indistinct.

Rc Cells surged through his body as his desire for slaughter and battle mounted. He longed for an exhilarating hunt and more bright red Psychic Energy to break through the final barrier.

Shisui pulled up his hood to conceal his conspicuous appearance and suppressed his stirring, violent urge to kill. Then he cut open a spatial rift and stepped inside.

Before I leave, I might as well go meet the Fifth Realm Peak expert.