A violent wind blasted them head-on. Before the transport plane had even come to a stop, its hatch was impatiently lowered, and a young man in a black cloak, holding a crystal staff, leaped out first. His cloak was pitch-black, its lining blood-red. Combined with his long black hair and corpse-pale face, he looked especially sinister as an icy gust swept in from the side, carrying huge raindrops. His hair danced in the wind, and his cloak spread like bat wings as an eerie aura soared into the sky.
Gu Xiechen had sharp eyes. He noticed that the crystal staff was carved with all kinds of strange talismans and patterns, while its head bore a fist-sized demon face topped with three horns.
More than a dozen men in black tailcoats filed out of the cabin and strode toward the castle close behind the young man.
The bald old man, Peter, had somehow run to the castle entrance. He angrily gesticulated and roared at the young man for a while, but the young man merely glared fiercely at Old Peter. Peter let out a muffled groan and staggered back more than ten steps. The young man kept chuckling evilly as he casually walked into the castle.
"Looks like trouble that has nothing to do with us has come knocking," Gu Xiechen said, shooting Lawrence Lee a strange look.
Gu Xiechen sensed an oddly familiar feeling from the young man and the dozen or so attendants behind him. They seemed to share something in common with him.
A chaotic commotion rose from the first floor of the castle, followed by dull thuds of flesh striking flesh. Less than a minute later, the study door was violently shoved open, and the young man strode in with his attendants. Gu Xiechen narrowed his eyes. It seemed the thirty elite mercenaries he had brought had already been taken down.
"Unbelievable, old man Lawrence. Why are there so many useless thugs in your home?" The young man frivolously waved his crystal staff and said with a smile, "But what use are these low-class thugs against us? Don't you know our strength?"
Jack had long since shrunk into a corner of the study. The pistol Gu Xiechen had given him had been tossed far away.
Lawrence sighed softly. Just as he was about to say something, Gu Xiechen stepped in front of him.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Gu Xiechen pointed at the young man and sneered. "Did you knock out my men?"
The young man glanced at Gu Xiechen and said disdainfully, "They're all unconscious, but none of them are dead... Hm?"
A thick, blood-red gleam flashed through the young man's eyes and vanished, but Gu Xiechen saw it clearly. The young man's lips curled as he chuckled softly. "Interesting. A fighter at the Innate level? May I know your name? The strong deserve respect."
Gu Xiechen nodded and smiled as he extended a hand toward the young man. "Evil Dragon! Assistant commander of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group's Third Regiment!"
The young man stepped forward and clasped Gu Xiechen's hand. He chuckled. "Evil Dragon? The Hell Angels Mercenary Group has nineteen true Innate fighters and ninety-eight pseudo-Innate fighters. I've never heard of you. Hmm, if nothing unexpected happened, you must have joined the Hell Angels Mercenary Group within the past half month. Otherwise, our intelligence should have had your name!"
Slippery, cold, and faintly exuding a chilling aura that seeped into his bones, the young man's hand reminded Gu Xiechen of a corpse buried in an ancient tomb for centuries.
Something was wrong. There was something wrong with the sensation of this young man's hand. As Gu Xiechen considered what it was, the young man gave a sinister laugh. "My name is Rú Huá. Remember it!"
A terrifying evil power erupted like a flood bursting through a broken dam. Rú Huá's fingers suddenly tightened around Gu Xiechen's hand. A deathly evil force invaded his body and charged through his meridians toward his vital organs. The power was extremely frigid. Almost the instant it erupted, a thin layer of black ice formed over Gu Xiechen's palm.
Gu Xiechen knew what was wrong. He could not sense Rú Huá's pulse! He was holding Rú Huá's hand, yet he could not feel a pulse beating at his wrist!
This handsome, tall young man overflowing with evil energy had a heart beating normally within his body. Gu Xiechen could clearly hear his heartbeat, but aside from that, not only did he have no pulse, there was not even the sound blood should have made flowing through his veins! This guy was not alive at all. He was a genuine zombie!
A zombie that could move, talk, laugh, and come to someone's door to stir up trouble!
A zombie that should have existed only in mythological tales!
Rú Huá's hand clamped onto Gu Xiechen's right hand like a pair of steel pincers. Under the sudden burst of tremendous force, Gu Xiechen's right palm creaked. Visible black evil energy rose from Rú Huá's five fingers, continually winding around Gu Xiechen's arm.
An even more sinister smile than Rú Huá's wicked grin slowly spread across Gu Xiechen's face.
Rú Huá vaguely sensed that something was wrong. He increased the force in his right hand, ready to crush Gu Xiechen in one stroke, when Gu Xiechen's terrifying counterattack suddenly came.
Gu Xiechen's heart rate surged. A powerful energy rushed through his meridians into his right palm. The vortices slowly spinning at every major acupoint along the way accelerated tenfold. Countless strands of pure Innate Qi fused into that tyrannical energy. Gu Xiechen's right arm suddenly swelled by a full circle, and traces of bone-chilling cold shot faintly from his fingertips.
With a series of crisp cracks, the thin black ice coating Gu Xiechen's palm shattered. Before Rú Huá's shocked eyes, Gu Xiechen's right hand turned translucent. His once soft palm suddenly became a weapon tempered a thousand times, indestructible and unstoppable. The bone-chilling, incomparably sharp Snow Soul Divine Claw abruptly clamped down on Rú Huá's staff. A teeth-grating screech of metal friction rang from where their palms met, while great flakes of black-and-white ice crystals showered down.
The temperature in the study plummeted. Lawrence Lee and the others retreated in terror, quickly curling up in the corner of the study alongside Jack. How could these pampered noble gentlemen ever have seen such an unbelievable scene? How could snow possibly spray out from the clasped hands of two living people?
"Let me introduce myself!" Rú Huá gritted his teeth and tightly gripped Gu Xiechen's hand. "First disciple under the Corpse Emperor, First Dao Master of the Nine Nether Dao of the Asian Dao Alliance—Rú Huá!"
"Let me introduce myself!" Gu Xiechen also clenched his teeth tightly. Rú Huá's strength was extraordinarily great, and Gu Xiechen was actually having trouble suppressing him. "Assistant commander of the Hell Angels Mercenary Group's Third Regiment, temporarily enjoying the rank of second lieutenant—Evil Dragon!"
The clothes on their right arms exploded at the same time, revealing two muscular arms tangled together viciously. Gu Xiechen savagely drove his elbow toward Rú Huá, while Rú Huá's elbow struck toward Gu Xiechen in turn. Their right palms remained locked, and their right elbows collided with every ounce of force they possessed. A dull boom rang out, like two tanks crashing together. Gu Xiechen and Rú Huá's bodies sank violently, and the floor of Lawrence Lee's study collapsed with a thunderous crash. The two fell straight into the first-floor hall.
Directly below stood an old oak table. Its tabletop, over a foot thick, shattered inch by inch at the slightest touch of their toes. They landed steadily on the floor, but their right arms had swollen another circle.
Gu Xiechen's heart beat faster and faster. The energy released by his Dao Embryo grew stronger and stronger, while the Innate Qi flooding into his arm became increasingly violent. The strand of black evil energy in Rú Huá's palm was forced back inch by inch by Gu Xiechen. Gradually, the Snow Soul Divine Claw had shattered the evil power in Rú Huá's palm.
Yet Rú Huá's physical strength was terrifyingly immense. Though his evil cultivation was far inferior to Gu Xiechen's, his raw bodily strength was at least five times greater. Gu Xiechen could easily lift a two-ton barbell, while this living zombie, Rú Huá, possessed at least ten tons of strength.
One possessed formidable Qi cultivation, while the other possessed absurd physical strength. The two were evenly matched. Rú Huá's evil power was shattered into fragments, while deep claw marks were crushed into Gu Xiechen's right palm. The Snow Soul Divine Claw, capable of shattering jade and splitting gold, had been injured by pure physical force. To Gu Xiechen, it was an entirely new experience.
Their clasped right hands remained deadlocked for a full ten minutes. Gradually, Gu Xiechen's fingertips turned black. Rú Huá's grip had cut off the blood flow in Gu Xiechen's palm, and pooled blood gathered at his fingertips. Gu Xiechen felt excruciating pain, soreness, and swelling. The discomfort was nearly at his limit. Rú Huá, meanwhile, discovered in horror that a pure, tyrannical energy was madly battering the meridians in his right arm. Dozens of cracks had appeared in meridians tougher than alloy steel wire. If not for the corpse power continuously flowing from his heart core to resist that energy's assault, his right arm would have been completely destroyed long ago.
"It hurts!" Rú Huá finally could not hold on any longer! The corpse power stored in his heart core was utterly incomparable to the energy in Gu Xiechen's Dao Embryo.
"It hurts for me too!" Gu Xiechen gritted his teeth and stared hoarsely into Rú Huá's blood-glimmering eyes. "How about we let go together? It'd be too stupid for both of us to end up badly hurt!"
"I agree!" A trace of cunning flashed through Rú Huá's eyes as he said in a deep voice, "I'll count to three. We let go at the same time!"
"Fine!" Gu Xiechen narrowed his eyes, and his heart began pounding fiercely.
"One... two... three!" Rú Huá counted to three swiftly.
They let go at the same time, but Rú Huá used the momentum to lash out with his left foot, viciously kicking Gu Xiechen in the lower abdomen. Rú Huá's powerful body unleashed a terrifying impact. With a bang, the clothes over Gu Xiechen's abdomen exploded, and a clear footprint sank three inches deep into his flesh.
At the same time, Gu Xiechen drew two specially made triangular military spikes from his belt with his left hand. The instant he released his grip, he viciously drove both spikes forward.
One spike pierced through Rú Huá's lower abdomen, while the other punched a hole straight through his chest. Fortunately, Rú Huá's kick had come in time and knocked Gu Xiechen's body off line. Otherwise, the second spike would certainly have pierced Rú Huá's heart core—a completely fatal blow for a zombie!
Clutching his abdomen, which felt as though it were splitting apart, Gu Xiechen glared at Rú Huá and roared, "Shameless!"
Rú Huá struggled to pull the two spikes from his body. Equally close to tears, he howled, "Despicable!"
The two looked at each other, and suddenly, a feeling of mutual admiration welled up between them.
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