The instant his palm edge sliced into the Third Councilor's neck, Lu Chen blasted Dragon Thunder True Essence from his palm.
It was not the force of a chop, but thunder. Golden-red lightning erupted from his palm and poured into the Third Councilor's neck. The sound of lightning entering flesh was like tearing apart a thick sheet of wet cloth—dull and sticky. Under the lightning's glare, the skin on the Third Councilor's neck turned translucent, revealing black muscles beneath spasming and contracting as they were scorched by the current.
His head tilted slightly. His cervical vertebrae had not broken. A body with over seventy percent dead aura fusion possessed bones far harder than others of the same realm. But the lightning surged into the gaps between his vertebrae, burning the dead aura within his bones. For one instant, the Third Councilor's ten fingers loosened around Root Severer.
Just one instant. Lu Chen yanked Root Severer free. Pulling the blade from the Third Councilor's palm felt like drawing a knife from frozen meat. Dead aura left a layer of dark-red frost upon the sword, which rapidly evaporated under the burning Dragon Thunder True Essence with a sizzling hiss.
The Third Councilor stepped back. A charred handprint remained where Lu Chen's palm had struck his neck, golden-red lightning still burrowing deeper into the skin at its edges. He raised his left hand, plunged all five fingers into the wound in his neck, and tore off an entire slab of lightning-charred flesh. The black flesh turned to ashes the instant it left his body. The ashes fell by his feet, gathering into a small pile.
"Palm Thunder." His voice emerged from his torn throat, threaded with the hiss of air. "You haven't used it before."
Lu Chen truly had not. He had improvised