Old Ma

The boy rode on the back of the old horse, leaping and shuttling through a weightless spatial tunnel.

This was a realm of extreme mystery. The surrounding stardust drifted near and far, shifting in size and shape, a kaleidoscope of five colors and ten lights. It seemed to float and ripple through the void of its own accord, yet it also appeared to be staring straight at the boy and the horse, swirling and coiling around them throughout their journey.

In any other situation, Ye Chen would have been deeply intoxicated by such a strange and profound sight, but now he had no heart to pay it any mind. His mind was filled with fragments of his life with Lyle, and the gloom and sorrow on his face were self-evident.

He looked back into the distance, but the tunnel entrance that had connected to the Prayer Hall was already gone, vanishing forever beyond the stars along with the back of that man.

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Ye Chen bit his lip, trying to pull his attention away from his myriad thoughts, when he suddenly caught sight of an extreme anomaly amidst the ever-changing celestial scenery behind him.

Under the illumination of the colorful starlight, three extremely conspicuous black glimmers appeared out of thin air. Under Ye Chen's shocked gaze, they transformed in an instant into three pitch-black spatial portals.

Immediately following, three eerie black figures darted out, drifting through the celestial phenomena like ghosts. With a ghostly and swift momentum, they headed straight for Ye Chen and Heiqi.

The boy's face turned pale as he immediately grasped the situation and shouted a warning to the old horse beneath him: "Heiqi, Abyss pursuers are coming this way!"

Heiqi's eyes sank, and its galloping hooves struck the ground with even greater force. Using the explosive power of Auling Power as a formidable propellant, it charged at full speed toward the depths of the tunnel with Ye Chen.

Ye Chen endured the onset of weightlessness in his gut and looked back again, immediately seeing the true appearance of the three black shadows.

Their upper bodies resembled humans, but their heads were covered in countless eyeballs, and their two slender arms were hung with countless pitch-black blades. Their lower bodies were like octopuses, extending numerous thick tentacles that swayed and lashed about in the void.

Just by meeting the gaze of those eyeballs from afar, Ye Chen instantly felt uneasy, and a sense of nausea began to churn in his chest.

His intuition told him that these three monsters from the Abyss were likely Abyss Elites, a level far beyond the Abyss enemies he had encountered in the three trials of the small world. For him right now, they were extremely dangerous.

However, even though Heiqi was running at full speed to shake off the three pursuers, this weightless space, similar to the deep sea, was not its home turf, while the opponents were in their element. After a few moments, they had drastically shortened the distance between them.

It seemed a battle was unavoidable.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen decisively drew his long blade, cut a bloody gash on his arm, and then flicked out the revolver cylinder to forge a bright red "Blood Bullet." Finally, he tentatively fired five bronze-colored bullets at the pursuers.

Bang.

The boy's gunfire was swallowed by the ever-changing spatial tunnel, and the three humanoid octopuses didn't even bother to dodge, taking the bullets head-on with their bodies.

The bullets struck the abdomens of the Abyss Elites like stones hitting water, causing only a ripple before falling silent. They didn't even exit from the backs of the elites; they were simply digested into dregs within their bodies.

Very well.

Seeing the arrogance of his opponents, Ye Chen did not hesitate to load the "Blood Bullet" into the barrel and fired directly at the nearest humanoid octopus.

Bang!

The bright red "Blood Bullet" leaped across the celestial scenery and, like before, struck the Abyss Elite that had not dodged.

However, this time it was not swallowed and decomposed like ordinary gunpowder; instead, it blasted countless black bits of flesh from the elite's chest, causing the creature to instantly lose its balance. It tumbled and thrashed in the narrow spatial tunnel, falling far behind.

It still has some effect, at least.

Ye Chen concluded to himself. He turned to look and found that the remaining two humanoid octopuses had already closed in on his sides. The pitch-black fangs hanging from their arms rotated and flashed in the air, and the next second, they struck directly at Heiqi, who was carrying Ye Chen.

Ye Chen reacted quickly, swinging his long blade violently to hack at the tentacles of one of the Abyss pursuers, but he immediately felt a distinct sense of resistance through his hands.

Hm!?

Ye Chen looked at the tip of his blade in astonishment, only to find that after the edge struck the enemy's first tentacle, it was tightly jammed by the pitch-black flesh, unable to complete the hacking motion!

How could this be!?

Ye Chen exclaimed in internal shock; this was the first time he had encountered a setback since awakening his blood-based Spirit Art.

In the past, whenever Ye Chen slashed objects with his blood-stained blade, it was always successful, cutting them in two. Yet now, his forceful strike was firmly held by a single tentacle—and this tentacle was the thinnest one on the creature's lower body.

The sudden scene made Ye Chen realize deeply that this Abyss Elite, with its human upper body and octopus lower body, stood across a chasm of danger from him. It was a presence he could not handle at his current level!

With Ye Chen's current realm, he had no qualifications to fight them.

In a one-on-one duel, he would only be at their mercy, let alone one-on-two!

Just as Ye Chen failed to hack through and was unable to even pull back his long blade, leaving him wide open, the Abyss Elite that had clamped his blade and the other monster on the opposite side simultaneously turned their focus toward Ye Chen.

In the next instant, four arms covered in fangs grabbed fiercely at Ye Chen's torso.

However, at the critical moment when the boy was about to be subdued by the two pitch-black beasts, the old horse beneath him suddenly unleashed its power.

At that moment, a brilliant light burst from Heiqi's open mouth. Countless threads of light appeared out of thin air and converged, rapidly condensing into a long, pitch-black scythe, the handle of which was tightly gripped in Heiqi's teeth.

The old horse bit down on the scythe, turned its body sharply, and delivered a fierce, wide rotation toward the two Abyss Elites behind it.

The scythe blade, imbued with formidable energy, flashed with black light as it swung violently. It cleanly severed the four arms of the Abyss Elites and simultaneously sliced the tentacles that had been pinning Ye Chen's blade into shreds.

With their hands severed, the two Abyss Elites were forced to slow down, and were then cast aside by the old horse in one fell swoop.

"Heiqi. You were this strong all along?"

The boy was shocked as he shook the flesh from his blade, then couldn't help but stare at the long scythe in Heiqi's mouth.

In the past, he had always thought Heiqi was just a horse that ran extremely fast and possessed high intelligence. He never expected it to hide such terrifying power, capable of flexibly wielding such a strange scythe.

Ye Chen had been completely helpless against those two monsters, yet one swing of Heiqi's scythe had repelled them both. It was truly worthy of being Lyle's mount; its abilities were as full of mysteries as Lyle himself.

Looking at it this way, it was no wonder Lyle trusted Heiqi so much, entrusting it with the heavy responsibility of protecting Ye Chen.