The storm of death came tearing in from all directions at once! The eerie blue gleam of poisoned crossbow bolts, the transparent killing intent of tripwires, fragments of explosive flames, and the rending shadows of steel beams instantly swallowed Lin Xiao whole!
There was nowhere left to retreat! Nowhere left to dodge!
All the light in Lin Xiao's eyes suddenly contracted, leaving behind only a kind of frozen, icy madness! His exhausted soul let out an overwhelmed groan under the -0.8 burn, while the cold pulsing of the Viper's Kiss core in his right leg was completely suppressed by his instinct to survive!
Charge! The only option was to charge!
His body was like a spring compressed to its limit. The instant the explosive shock wave reached him, he abruptly accelerated again in a posture that defied physical laws! It was not a straight-line charge, but a strange, high-frequency tremor of small amplitude, as he skimmed across the ground like a ghost!
The dark cyan enhanced dagger in his left hand came alive at that moment!
Buzz!
The blade gave a faint, clear ring that pierced through the roar of the explosion! The nearly transparent sharp gleam at its edge surged, as if it could cut even light itself!
Facing the poisoned crossbow bolts that came first, sealing off the space in a triangular formation, Lin Xiao neither blocked nor dodged! Amid the high-frequency tremors, his body let the two bolts miss by mere millimeters, skimming his clothes before sinking deeply into the wall and ground behind him with dull thuds, their tails trembling violently! As for the one aimed at his face, his left hand merely flicked the dagger upward with the slightest motion!
There was no thunderous clang of metal!
Only a faint hiss, almost too soft to hear!
The menacing poisoned crossbow bolt, powerful enough to pierce steel plates, was split apart without a sound the instant it touched the enhanced dagger's edge, like hot wax beneath a heated knife! The two halves of the shaft weakly skimmed past Lin Xiao's cheeks, taking a few strands of hair with them!
The bolt was broken! He was completely unharmed!
The lethal transparent tripwire beneath his feet had already gone taut!
Lin Xiao did not slow his forward momentum. He even grew faster! Just as his toes were about to touch the tripwire, he forcefully tapped the ground with his left toe. His body borrowed the force and floated slightly forward as if it had lost all weight, while his cold, heavy injured right leg reached forward and hooked down at an awkward yet precise angle!
He was not dodging, but deliberately touching it!
Snap!
The sole of his right boot precisely tapped the tripwire! He did not collide with it head-on, but used his forward momentum and his control over the limits of his muscles to create a subtle release of force downward and backward!
The taut tripwire suddenly sank, giving off an overwhelmed hum! A line of sparks burst from the points where it was fixed to the walls on either side! Borrowing that tiny force, Lin Xiao's body was pulled along as if by an invisible rope, his speed surging again as he narrowly "slid" past the tripwire's attack range!
To his right, fragments of burning oil barrels and waves of scorching air had already rushed before him! His clothes instantly charred and curled, while a searing pain stabbed into his skin!
He could not dodge!
A fierce glint flashed through Lin Xiao's eyes! His left arm snapped up to shield his head and face, while the dagger in his right hand strangely drew backward, then stabbed forward at even greater speed! It was not aimed at any enemy, but at the empty space before him!
Command confirmed! Slightly adjusting the air density and flow 1.5 meters ahead! Creating an instantaneous low-pressure vortex! Source Energy Points consumed: 0.2! Source Energy Points: -0.8 - 0.2 = -1.0!
Buzz!
The agony of his soul being violently torn apart struck again! Blood-red garbled characters flashed wildly before his eyes!
In the real world, the air before Lin Xiao's thrust dagger seemed to turn viscous and warp in an instant! A tiny yet violently turbulent low-pressure vortex formed out of nowhere!
Whoosh!
The flames sweeping toward him and most of the metal fragments were suddenly deflected by the vortex, as if they had slammed into an invisible wall of distortion. They roared past the right side of Lin Xiao's body and crashed brutally into the wall on the left, exploding into an even larger fireball!
The scorching air still burned his right arm and the side of his face, bringing a fierce, searing pain, but the lethal direct impact had miraculously been dispersed!
At almost the exact same moment!
The broken I-beam crashing down from above arrived overhead with a destructive howl! Its shadow completely enveloped him!
The chill of death gripped his heart once more!
"Under my feet! Bluestone slab! Become brittle!" Amid the agony of his soul being torn apart, Lin Xiao's will let out one final roar! The target was the seemingly intact bluestone slab where his foot was about to land!
Command confirmed! Instantly reducing the structural toughness and load-bearing limit of the bluestone slab in the target area! Source Energy Points consumed: 0.3! Source Energy Points: -1.0 - 0.3 = -1.3!
An even greater emptiness and agony engulfed him like a tsunami! The Viper's Kiss core in his right leg gave a clear, cold pulse that seemed almost mocking!
Crack!
The instant Lin Xiao's right foot landed, the hard bluestone slab suddenly shattered and collapsed without warning, like tofu stripped of all its bones!
Lin Xiao's right foot dropped into empty space, and his body lost its balance, pitching violently forward!
Yet this seemingly fatal mistake happened to lower his entire body by half a foot in an instant! It also made his forward momentum a fraction faster!
Boom!!!!
The heavy I-beam slammed down at the spot where he had stood only moments before, almost grazing his back and the back of his head, accompanied by a teeth-grating crash! Broken stones mixed with dust exploded outward like a bomb! The violent shock wave hurled the pitching Lin Xiao forward like a rag doll!
Pfft!
A mouthful of blood could no longer be suppressed and sprayed wildly from Lin Xiao's lips! His back felt as though it had been struck by a heavy hammer. The wounds that had barely scabbed over split open completely, and blood soaked through his clothes! His internal organs seemed to have been shaken out of place!
But using that impact, along with his earlier charge and fall, his body rolled forward like a tumbling gourd. He narrowly burst out of the explosive inferno and the death zone beneath the falling steel beam, slamming headfirst toward the two killers waiting at the end of the alley!
"Kill him!" At the end of the alley, the two warriors in Blood Wolf Gang uniforms, each wielding a poisoned cleaver, clearly had not expected Lin Xiao to break through the three-layered killing move like this! Seeing him covered in blood and lunging at them like a vengeful ghost, the two were shocked and enraged. They roared and swung their cleavers down viciously, their sharp blades sealing off both sides!
Lin Xiao's vision was blurred, his ears ringing, and every part of his body hurt. The dizziness of his exhausted soul and the Viper's Kiss's icy madness tore at his consciousness. The -1.3 ghostly glow was like a countdown to death!
But the body he had thrown to the ground did not pause in the slightest! His left-hand dagger pressed hard against the ground! Borrowing the force, his body sprang up like an injured tiger, brazenly meeting the cleaver descending from the left! His right fist clenched tight, and the scant True Qi within him surged forth without restraint, carrying a grim, tragic force as it smashed toward the enemy on the right!
Clang!
The enhanced dagger and poisoned cleaver collided violently!
There was no struggle! No sparks!
Only a crisp sound, like glass shattering!
The cleaver in the Blood Wolf Gang warrior's hand, forged from tempered steel, was silently sliced through at the instant it touched the dark cyan dagger's edge, as if it were made of paper! The broken front half spun away!
The vicious grin on the warrior's face instantly froze, transforming into utter terror!
Splurt!
Lin Xiao's dagger did not pause in the slightest. It thrust forward in one smooth motion, its peerless cold sharpness easily piercing through the warrior's protective True Qi and sinking into his throat!
At the same time!
Lin Xiao's fist aimed at the right passed by the other descending cleaver! He had never expected that punch to kill the enemy. It was merely a feint! The instant his fist was about to touch the other man's body, he changed it into a finger strike. The last wisp of True Qi gathered at his fingertip, and like a snake darting from its lair, it struck precisely at the Shenmen acupoint on the enemy's wrist!
The warrior felt his wrist go numb. His chopping motion instantly twisted, and the cleaver scraped across Lin Xiao's ribs, carving out a deep, bone-revealing gash!
"Urgh!" Lin Xiao grunted. The intense pain jolted his mind awake! He completely ignored his injured ribs. His body suddenly leaned forward like it had no bones, crashing into the enemy's arms! His left hand pulled the dagger from the first warrior's throat, spraying a cloud of hot blood, then drove it viciously backward in one fluid motion!
Splurt!
The dagger pierced through the second warrior's heart from behind without the slightest obstruction!
Two kills in an instant!
Everything happened in the blink of an eye! From his sudden charge to killing two men in succession, Lin Xiao had nearly exhausted his final shred of strength and luck!
Propping himself up with the dagger, he knelt halfway amid the blood and corpses, panting violently. Every breath carried bloody froth and tearing pain. His vision repeatedly darkened, and the entire world spun. The -1.3 ghostly glow in his mind was so faint it seemed ready to go out at any moment. The icy numbness in his right leg had already spread to his waist!
Yet the slaughter was not over!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The sound of something splitting the air rang out again, from above and from the mouth of the alley! Two more poisoned crossbow bolts! The hidden crossbowmen gave him no chance to catch his breath!
At the same time, the killer who had detonated the oil barrel on the left and another burly man wielding a hand axe who crawled out from beneath the van on the right charged forward together, their eyes bloodshot and their killing intent crazed! The Scorpion's figure finally appeared behind a shattered third-floor window. He held a strangely shaped hand crossbow that shimmered with energy, its bolt trained on Lin Xiao from afar, while a cruel, delighted grin twisted across his face!
This was a true dead end! His strength was spent! He was seriously wounded! Powerful enemies surrounded him!
Lin Xiao looked at the enemies lunging from different directions and at the deadly gleam of the crossbow bolts. Feeling nearly everything within him exhausted, the corner of his mouth slowly pulled into a broken arc filled with boundless madness and mockery.
He abruptly raised his nearly immobile left hand, pointing the dagger at the charging enemies. His hoarse voice rasped like sandpaper, yet carried a bone-chilling madness:
"Come on... you pieces of trash... let's see... how many more I can take down with me..."
Before his voice had even faded, his vision suddenly went black. His last strength receded like a tide, and his body fell backward uncontrollably.
Warning! Life signs are declining rapidly! Consciousness is about to be lost! Source Energy Points: -1.3 - 0.2 (extreme combat consumption) = -1.5! Viper's Kiss contamination activity: +30%! Erosion rate: 0.01%!
The cold notification tone became the final death knell before he sank into endless darkness.
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