Yin Mingchen had ultimately fallen.
Ye Jingchen secretly breathed a sigh of relief, inwardly thankful that he had not fallen to the God-Splitting Spike. At most, he had merely been forcibly killed out of this Plot World.
A sharp glint flashed through his eyes, and his tone grew heavier. "Now that Yin Mingchen's God-Splitting Spike has also fallen into enemy hands, the hardest thing to predict is who will be killed out of the Plot World next—and who will truly run into the God-Splitting Spike's fatal blow."
He said it for the Royal Clan members beside him, but also for himself.
Things like God-Splitting Spikes were one-use items, but no one knew whose head the next one would fall upon. They had been muddling through their days in the Waste Disposal Bureau as criminals serving their sentences. If they were struck by a God-Splitting Spike and sent back again, it was hard to say whether their families would truly help them.
A clear streak of sword light tore down from the sky, and Wang Xuan appeared in the depths of the crater in an instant.
At the bottom of the pit, Yin Mingchen's corpse had been cleanly split in two down the middle. Blood had already seeped into the soil, staining it dark red.
Wang Xuan raised a hand and made a grasping motion. The two halves of the corpse rapidly shriveled, their skin losing its luster, muscles withering, and bones collapsing. Within a few breaths, they turned into ash that filled the sky, swept away cleanly by the wind.
A Storage Bag threaded with gold and patterned in black dropped into his palm.
[Six Styles of Proud Cold][Wind God Leg][Zhouliu Wind Energy][Wind Control Art]
"Six Styles of Proud Cold, Wind God Leg..." Wang Xuan glanced over them. Those two were familiar enough and hardly worth surprise, but when his gaze landed on the latter two, one brow rose slightly.
Zhouliu Wind Energy? Wind Control Art?
The names sounded somewhat familiar.
He ran through his memories. In Canghai, there was an unrivaled Divine Art said to let one become a Terrestrial Immortal upon mastering it: the Zhouliu Six Voids Technique. It could command the eight energies of heaven and earth, circulating through all things.
Once cultivated to great mastery, one could summon wind and rain, command nature, and be considered no different from an immortal god. This Zhouliu Wind Energy was merely one branch among those eight energies, while the Wind Control Art was only one martial art derived from it.
"What a pity... it wasn't the complete Zhouliu Six Voids Divine Art after all." Wang Xuan could not help feeling regretful.
That technique took "harmony" as its way. If heaven and earth were not in harmony, one would force them into harmony with martial might. Once mastered, it allowed one to run rampant without restraint. If he could obtain its full inheritance, then when he entered high-rank Plot Worlds in the future, he could firmly suppress an entire region. Unfortunately, this was all Yin Mingchen had. Though the wind energy was wondrous, it was ultimately only an incomplete fragment.
After a moment of reflection, he probed the Storage Bag again, his fingertips brushing against two items.
One was that dull black, lightless God-Splitting Spike that made one's skin crawl at a glance. Yin Mingchen's spike was still here; together with Chu Lingtian's, that made two already.
The other was Yin Mingchen's gleaming long saber from before, its blade emanating a chill.
There was no time to carefully count his spoils. In the distance, the remaining Royal Clan members had already fled in panic the instant Yin Mingchen died.
Wang Xuan did not hurry after them.
He raised his head, his gaze passing through the smoke and dust to rest on those shrinking figures. The corner of his mouth curved slightly.
Elsewhere, Ye Jingchen was also fleeing amid the crowd.
Chu Lingtian excelled in swordsmanship but was mediocre in lightness skill. Yin Mingchen possessed Zhouliu Wind Energy, making his movement technique peerless beneath heaven. Ye Jingchen, however, followed an entirely different path.
Mystic power rose beneath his feet. With every step, the earth seemed to ripple like waves, pushing him forward in a gliding motion as though he were walking upon water. His speed was not the least bit inferior, and even faintly surpassed the other Royal Clan members.
Yet whenever he was about to overtake the others, he would deliberately slow down, always remaining level with his companions without drawing attention to himself.
Whenever he occasionally looked back, cold light surged beneath his eyes.
What he mainly cultivated was the Emperor's Qi-Gazing Technique.
Paired with his S-Rank Talent, All-Seeing Eye, this peerless Supernatural Power left nothing within a hundred miles hidden from his sight.
By observing the principles of the three powers, weather and terrain, mountains and Dragon Veins, vitality and baleful aura, he could see through them all. When observing people, he could see through the flow of True Qi, the substance and feints of techniques, flaws in thought, even the deeply buried weaknesses in an opponent's temperament.
In his usual fights, he did not need to charge forward and clash head-on at all.
He only needed to secretly stir the opponent's aura, provoking the forces within their body into colliding with one another, and he could defeat them without a fight. Even opponents far stronger than him would often inexplicably suffer deviation and lose control.
But at this moment, Wang Xuan's aura appeared terrifyingly vast in his eyes.
Five-colored energies intertwined and tangled around him, like an immovable divine mountain holding up the heavens. Every movement drew upon the momentum of heaven and earth around him, his pressure heavy and oppressive. Ye Jingchen secretly tried several times, using his Qi-Gazing Technique to guide and suppress those complex, mixed energies within Wang Xuan, hoping to throw them into disorder.
It was useless.
Those energies inside Wang Xuan were as stable as a mountain weighing a thousand tons. He could not stir even the slightest ripple.
Ye Jingchen's heart slowly sank.
This bizarre situation was something he had never encountered since cultivating the Qi-Gazing Technique. A person cultivating so many internal arts at once should have had their True Qi fighting inside them, blowing themselves apart.
Yet Wang Xuan was perfectly fine. The energies that should have conflicted with one another were utterly obedient within him, as though some force had forcibly suppressed them.
How could he know that this was the heaven-defying aspect of Wang Xuan's unique talent? If others cultivated numerous internal arts at once, their meridians would have long since burst and they would have suffered deviation. All the hidden dangers and side effects of conflicting internal energies and mutually interfering auras were completely ineffective against him.
A chill ran through Ye Jingchen's heart as his mind raced.
"No, Wang Xuan hates our Royal Clan to the bone. He definitely won't let us off easily, and he still has two God-Splitting Spikes..."
The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became. A thought suddenly surfaced.
Would it be better to abandon the mission and voluntarily leave this Plot World?
He had calculated it clearly. If he truly wanted to escape, he could simply kill himself and leave. Once dead, he would be kicked out of this world. That was still better than being struck by a God-Splitting Spike and suffering Soul-Splitting pain upon returning.
But the problem was that if he fled back to the real world in such a sorry state, having lost the God-Splitting Spike and failed the mission, then forget clearing his crimes and returning to the family's inner circle—even the length of his sentence would likely increase by a great deal.
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