After a while, seeing that his opponent still refused to show himself, Lu Siye deliberately left some of the Resentful Ghost Mist unabsorbed.
A thin layer of frost slowly formed over his body, and his vital energy began to grow unstable.
"Kid, next time you run into a situation like this, remember to bring your brain with you. Heh heh heh..." A mocking voice came from all around.
Whoosh—
Amid the clouds of black mist, a shadow silently approached. A withered, blue-black hand rose behind Lu Siye.
Lu Siye seemed to notice something and spun around, raising the Blazing Blood Blade in his hand to bring it down.
"Too late!" the Black Mist Man said menacingly.
A heavy palm struck Lu Siye squarely in the chest. The intensely cold Yin energy instantly froze his lungs and internal organs.
"Not too late. I've got you!" A glint of gold flashed in Lu Siye's eyes as he raised a hand and grabbed his opponent's wrist.
Not good!
The Black Mist Man immediately realized he had been tricked.
He tried to pull his hand away, but Lu Siye had clamped down on his wrist. Even the Black Mist Man, whose realm was a full level higher, couldn't break free from Lu Siye's terrifying strength.
"Die!" Lu Siye roared.
An endless rush of energy burst from his pores, instantly dispersing the surrounding ghost mist and revealing the Black Mist Man—the gaunt, blue-black face beneath the haze.
Lu Siye poured every last drop of his mighty, searing vital energy and pure Northern Darkness internal power into the Blazing Blood Blade.
The mysterious patterns on the blade blazed with unprecedented light. A few streaks of blood red tinged its snowy-white edge. Then Lu Siye swung the blade down with all his might.
Whoosh—
"Argh!"
A piercing scream rang out as the Black Mist Man was sent flying. He landed against a streetlamp, clutching his cleanly severed shoulder and glaring at Lu Siye with venomous eyes.
Lu Siye had only managed to grab his opponent's wrist. Aside from the arm he held, he had no confidence that a strike at any other part of the body wouldn't miss.
So he had aimed for the shoulder—and the result was that he had severed the Black Mist Man's arm clean off at the root.
Though the strike had badly wounded the Black Mist Man, Lu Siye was in poor shape himself.
The Northern Darkness internal power in his Dantian had completely run dry. Only his Northern Darkness Origin True Qi remained, now larger than before, spinning all alone like a king without subjects.
His vital energy had nearly been drained as well. He felt he was only a hair's breadth from falling out of the Night Patrol Envoy realm.
"You deserve to die!" The Black Mist Man stared at him with blood-red eyes, as if trying to carve Lu Siye's image into his memory.
He couldn't believe that he had nearly been killed by someone who was only a Half-Step Night Wanderer Envoy.
Pop!
A faint sound, like a bubble bursting, suddenly came from nearby. Then the surroundings changed. The once-silent street filled with car horns and the chirring of cicadas on a summer day.
The Ghost Wall had broken!
Lu Siye immediately understood what had happened, and a victorious smile spread across his face.
By contrast, the Black Mist Man's expression turned so gloomy it seemed water might drip from it.
He glanced at the arm by Lu Siye's feet, then beckoned toward a spot behind him with his other hand. A shadow flashed past and merged into his body.
"Next time we meet, I, the Star Lord, will kill you." With that, he turned into a cloud of black mist and slipped into a roadside storm drain.
"Heh! A Star Lord? More like a rat." Lu Siye watched the black mist disappear into the drain and sneered.
Not long afterward, Lu Siye sensed an intensely scorching pulse of vital energy approaching rapidly from a distance.
His taut nerves finally relaxed. His exhausted body could no longer hold him upright, and he collapsed heavily to the ground.
With a clatter, the Blazing Blood Blade fell beside him.
The Yin energy in his chest, which he had been suppressing, suddenly surged out of control and froze all the blood around it.
His internal power was nearly depleted, leaving him unable to absorb Yin energy of such high purity.
A few seconds later, a beam of golden light descended from above. Its warm, nonviolent Yang energy swept across the entire street, evaporating every trace of Yin energy.
When the golden light faded, it revealed a tall, powerfully built man, his muscles knotted like those of an iron tower.
The newcomer was none other than Meng Jianmin, a Night Wanderer Envoy of the Third Realm and captain of the Metal Unit. He was in charge of paranormal affairs in West District for the Town Demon Suppression Division of Tianhai City.
"Hey! What are you doing here, kid?"
Meng Jianmin looked around. He spotted Zhuang Xiaoman, fast asleep in a corner, then saw Lu Siye collapsed by the roadside, looking as if he had been drained dry.
He hurried over, helped Lu Siye up, and asked, "I just sensed a Yin energy surge at the Vengeful Ghost level. Where is it?"
Lu Siye opened his mouth, but with his lungs frozen, even breathing was difficult, let alone speaking. All he could do was weakly point to his chest.
Meng Jianmin saw Lu Siye's deathly pale face and looked down at his blue-black chest, which was radiating waves of cold.
"Good grief, you took a palm strike from a Vengeful Ghost." With his wealth of experience, Meng Jianmin immediately recognized the problem.
He extended his fingers, which were thicker than an ordinary person's, and pressed several acupoints on Lu Siye's chest, channeling Yang energy into him.
Lu Siye could clearly feel the Yin energy in his chest crumble under the assault of the Yang energy and vanish in the blink of an eye.
The blood in his chest began to flow again, and the feeling of suffocation eased considerably.
"Hah... whoo..." Lu Siye drew a deep breath, then let it out.
I'm finally safe!
Meng Jianmin saw that Lu Siye had recovered somewhat, though his face was still deathly pale.
He gritted his teeth, took a small porcelain bottle from a cloth pouch at his thigh, and tipped out a dark red pill.
"You're lucky, kid." Meng Jianmin said with a pained expression, then stuffed the pill into Lu Siye's mouth.
As soon as the pill took effect, Lu Siye felt a gentle wave of vital energy rise within him, soothing his depleted reserves like a steady stream.
Good stuff!
Lu Siye's eyes lit up. He looked at Meng Jianmin with added warmth and gratitude.
"Hey, what's with that look? I'm not into men." Meng Jianmin shuddered and backed away two meters, looking disgusted.
"Right, where's the Vengeful Ghost?" Meng Jianmin asked once he saw that Lu Siye was out of danger.
"He got away! Through the storm drain." Lu Siye picked up the Blazing Blood Blade and used it to help himself stand. "But he wasn't a Vengeful Ghost. He was a Star Lord from the Web of Arrows."
"The Web of Arrows! Damn rats, the lot of them." A murderous glint flashed in Meng Jianmin's eyes.
"By the way, which Star Lord was he?"
"I don't know. He didn't say." Lu Siye shook his head. "But I took one of his arms."
Lu Siye pulled a blue-black arm from behind him and handed it to Meng Jianmin.
Meng Jianmin took the arm, examined it, and squeezed it. "The flesh is blue-black and hard as iron. Looks like he's sealed a ghost inside himself. Judging by the purity of the Yin energy, he should be at the First Realm of the Night Wanderer Envoy, or the strength of a low-level Vengeful Ghost. Strictly speaking, he can't really be called human anymore."
After a moment, Meng Jianmin asked, "Did that man have any distinguishing features?"
"He was blue-black all over, as gaunt as a skeleton, and shrouded in a layer of black mist," Lu Siye said.
"So it was him. Rats will be rats. Four years, and he hasn't improved at all—still at the First Realm of the Night Wanderer Envoy." Meng Jianmin sounded as though he knew the Black Mist Man, and his tone was full of disdain.
"Brother Meng, you know him?"
"More than know him. Four years ago, just after he became a Star Lord of the Web of Arrows, he went around boasting that he'd kill the Night Wanderer Envoys of the Town Demon Suppression Division. Then he ran into me, right after I became a Night Wanderer Envoy."
"If that black mist hadn't been so useful for escaping, and martial artists weren't so bad at tracking, he'd have been dead long ago!"
"By the way, his title in the Web of Arrows is Black Abyss!"
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