Shadows Conceal Their Edge, Killing Intent Tempers Sinew and Bone

Lu Chen raised his head, his gaze falling once more on the massive corpse of the Wind Cutter Falcon.

Though the demon bird was dead, the fierce, razor-sharp wind-attribute Killing Intent accumulated within its body had not fully dissipated.

Like masterless savage beasts, it rampaged freely through the corpse's meridians, flesh, and blood, occasionally coalescing at wounds and erupting into lethal Wind Blades.

For other Corpse Handlers, this was a death sentence—a fatal omen.

But for Lu Chen at this moment, it had become an exceptional whetstone!

He suppressed all stray thoughts, his mind focused with unprecedented intensity.

The scalpel in his hand felt like an extension of his arm. The newly learned Shadow Step granted him not only enhanced evasive ability but also an extreme, microscopic control over his own muscles and breath.

Lu Chen's figure flickered unpredictably beside the massive Wind Cutter Falcon carcass. Each step landed silently, each sidestep was perfectly timed.

Shiiing!

Another pale-green Wind Blade burst from the bird's wing root, shrieking sharply as it grazed past his ear, carving a deep gash into the distant wall.

Lu Chen didn't even blink. Instead, taking advantage of the gap in the Killing Intent's eruption, his scalpel moved like an agile fish, precisely slicing into the joint between wing and torso, following the grain of sinew and bone in a smooth, flowing stroke.

The entire process seemed like dancing on a blade's edge, fraught with danger, yet everything remained under his control.

Feathers, talons, beak bones...

Materials that would take ordinary Corpse Handlers several hours—risking their lives to barely manage—were perfectly separated by Lu Chen in the time it takes an incense stick to burn, neatly categorized and set aside.

When Lu Chen finally reached into the Wind Cutter Falcon's still-warm abdominal cavity to extract the most crucial Demon Core, a thought struck him, and he made an even bolder decision.

Instead of immediately avoiding the purest, most condensed Wind Blade Killing Intent coiled around the Demon Core, he deliberately split off a sliver of his focus, carefully guiding a strand of Killing Intent—thinner than a hair—through his fingertip and into his meridians!

Hiss—

An indescribable pain, as if countless tiny blades were slicing through him, shot up his arm instantly!

Lu Chen grunted, his face turning deathly pale, beads of sweat the size of soybeans forming on his forehead.

He dared not delay, immediately activating the Turtle Breath Absorption Technique, channeling the faint warmth in his dantian to painstakingly envelop and refine that overbearing Killing Intent, like drawing silk from a cocoon.

The process was agonizing. Each cycle of refinement felt like grinding his own meridians against a millstone.

But when Lu Chen finally completely dissolved that strand of Killing Intent, an indescribable sense of relief flowed through that meridian.

He could clearly feel that battered meridian, after being broken down and rebuilt through this ordeal, had become tougher and slightly wider than before!

"It really works!"

Lu Chen's eyes blazed with light. The door to a brand-new world in his mind was flung wide open.

Suppressing his body's fatigue and pain, he extracted the pigeon-egg-sized Demon Core from the carcass—flawless, its entire surface shimmering with cyan light.

Just then, the system's pleasant notification chimed in his mind.

Code
[Processed Wind Cutter Falcon. Obtained Demon Devil Lifespan: 2 years.]
[Due to perfect processing, lifespan reward slightly increased.]

After finishing everything, Lu Chen let out a long breath of turbid air. His entire body was drenched in sweat, as if he had just been pulled from water.

Bang!

The heavy stone door of the Corpse Handling Room was rudely shoved open. Foreman Wang, right on time, walked in with his hands behind his back, taking measured steps.

His eyes immediately fell on the perfectly dissected materials on the floor and the cyan-glowing Demon Core in Lu Chen's hand. Greed practically dripped from his triangular eyes.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Foreman Wang rushed forward in a single bound, snatching the Demon Core from Lu Chen's hand. He examined it closely, his face beaming like a blooming chrysanthemum.

"Well done, kid! I knew I wasn't wrong about you. You've got some luck on your side!"

He excitedly reached out his large, spade-like hand and slapped Lu Chen heavily on the shoulder. The force was immense, carrying a probing hidden strength that could shatter an ordinary person's bones.

Yet, just as his palm landed, the muscles in Lu Chen's shoulder trembled, sank, and deflected with an almost imperceptible, peculiar rhythm—undetectable to most.

Foreman Wang only felt as if he had slapped a slippery, unyielding fish; most of his force vanished into nothing, leaving only an indescribable sense of awkwardness.

A flicker of strange sensation passed through his mind like lightning.

But when he looked down, Lu Chen was still the same—staggering back from the force, face pale, blood and Qi churning in a weak display. He suppressed the doubt.

Maybe it's just an illusion from the kid being too frail.

Foreman Wang withdrew his hand, tucked the Demon Core contentedly into his bosom, and turned to leave.

But the moment he turned, his smile-filled face instantly turned grim, his eyes deep and icy cold.

"Lucky every time? Once is luck, but every single time?"

As if reading Foreman Wang's thoughts, Wang Mazi, following him out, glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and embellished his suspicions.

"Foreman Wang, that Lu Chen is downright sinister! I watched him handle that Wind Cutter Falcon. At first, he was pretending to clutch his head and scream like he was dying. But later? His hands were steady as a rock, smoother than the old masters with decades in the bureau!"

"With Killing Intent that violent, it only scratched his skin? Do you believe that, Foreman Wang? I don't think he's just lucky. I reckon he's hiding some skill we don't know about! That kid's got deep schemes. Don't raise a tiger to bite you, boss!"

Zhang Mazi's words, like so many venomous needles, struck precisely the most sensitive chord in Foreman Wang's heart.

He recalled Lu Chen's string of narrow escapes, the autopsy report so detailed it seemed beyond any newcomer, and—most of all—the strange, slippery sensation he'd felt when he'd clapped a hand on the man's shoulder, as if he'd touched a fish darting through water...

All the suspicions linked together, and Foreman Wang's gaze turned utterly cold.

"Hiding his skill, huh...?"

Foreman Wang let out a sinister, icy laugh, his knuckles cracking audibly.

"I don't give a damn if you're a genuine waste or some ghost playing tricks... a mule or a horse—take it out for a walk and you'll know."

"If you've got real skill, then go scrape by death for me; if you don't, then die... and that's that."