Xueluo Crystal

Li Dui ignored Kuang Yu's indignation.

The power of his blade strikes steadily increased.

Before arriving in the Xueluo World, he had already steeled himself mentally. In this world, reason often held little sway.

Within the City Lord Mansion, buildings were constantly being destroyed by the scattered aftershocks of battle.

If Li Dui hadn't relaxed his domain pressure over other areas after finding Kuang Yu, countless people inside the mansion would have died by now.

Outside the mansion, many experts who sensed the commotion watched the battle from afar.

Kuang Yu's pressure mounted. He had been fighting for so long without even touching his opponent. Instead, he had suffered minor injuries from forcefully blocking attacks.

He no longer believed he could defeat this Iron-Armored Man head-on. At this point, he had abandoned all pretense of saving face as City Lord. Lowering his voice, he said, "I am willing to hand over all my possessions, if only you will let me leave. What do you say?"

Li Dui paused in surprise at these words. Was there really such a good deal? Was a City Lord this afraid of death?

Ha.

"Hand them over."

With a face full of humiliation, Kuang Yu pulled a ring and a bracelet from his left hand and tossed them toward Li Dui.

Li Dui caught them and was about to inspect them when Kuang Yu's expression turned vicious. Blood sprayed from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. The Long Halberd in his hand let out a fierce blade light, suddenly striking at Li Dui.

"Hum."

A massive surge of soul energy, weakened after passing through the original force battle suit, slammed into Li Dui's mind.

Kuang Yu was confident that even another City Lord, struck by this desperate soul attack, would be dazed for a moment.

Then his strongest killing move would surely hit his opponent. A mere Cloud Sky Rank, taking his killing strike head-on—how could he survive?

But... something about this bastard's armor seemed off?

No time to worry about that now. Seeing the Long Halberd about to strike his opponent, joy began to rise in Kuang Yu's eyes.

The onlookers outside watched the Iron-Armored Man freeze in place. Some sighed, others sneered. Strong as this Iron-Armored Man was, he still couldn't match the City Lord.

Suddenly, a glimmer of light flashed from the tip of Li Dui's blade. Silently, it condensed into a dazzling blade light, gently cleaving into the incoming Long Halberd.

"Clang!"

A thunderous crash rang out.

The Long Halberd flew from Kuang Yu's hands and rebounded, smashing into his own head. His entire body was flung backward, cratering the ground.

Li Dui flickered and appeared in the pit. He saw Kuang Yu's shattered skull slowly beginning to regenerate.

A Domain Lord—as long as the Life Core was not destroyed, they would not die. And the Life Core could be hidden anywhere within the body.

Of course, even for a Domain Lord, the head was a vital point. If the head was crushed, even if they didn't die, their thinking and self-control would be severely impaired. Unless they had already killed their opponent, a Domain Lord with a destroyed head was nothing but a lamb for slaughter until they recovered.

Li Dui searched with his soul power for a moment, then struck again with his blade, cutting into Kuang Yu's left thigh. The Life Core shattered. His entire body shuddered, and the regeneration of his head stopped.

The City Lord was dead.

The onlookers scattered in all directions. The fastest to flee were three Domain Lords. They directly deployed their domains to accelerate their escape.

Li Dui couldn't be bothered with a few ordinary Domain Lords. Suppressing the slight discomfort in his stomach with original force, he shot straight up into the clouds.

Those three Domain Lords had probably noticed something off about his battle suit.

The Xueluo World also had communication tools. At the Domain Lord level, they might well have some.

But communication tools here couldn't transmit in real time—only at the speed of light.

And light speed, in a place where distances were often measured in light-years, was very slow.

Bursting through the cloud layer, Li Dui directly took out his spaceship and ordered Xiao Le to fly out of the Xueluo World.

He didn't bother to check his spoils yet. Instead, he focused his attention on his mind.

The "Ring" remained as always—silent and still, with only streams of colored light flowing within.

When Kuang Yu had openly begged for mercy in front of so many onlookers, Li Dui knew it was a trick. He could have transmitted his words telepathically. Doing it openly was simply meant to distract him.

Kuang Yu probably hadn't expected him to believe it anyway. He was just deliberately creating an opportunity to strike.

What Li Dui hadn't expected was Kuang Yu's soul attack.

Under normal circumstances, Kuang Yu's soul attack would have been weakened by the Tier 5 Battle Suit. And Li Dui's own willpower was not low. It wouldn't have caused him much trouble.

The problem was that his consciousness hadn't been affected at all.

It was like when he was in the Illusion Sea, connected to the "Ring."

He could "see" the soul attack coming, "see" the impact, the shockwaves. He could even clearly distinguish the minor damage.

But his consciousness remained untouched.

Just now, of course, he had been connected to the "Ring." More precisely, ever since entering the Xueluo World, his connection to the "Ring" had never been severed.

Simply maintaining the connection without comprehending it cost him very little mental energy now.

Originally, he had done this to immunize himself against illusion attacks. Now, it seemed soul attacks were also nearly nullified.

At the very least, Domain Lord-level soul attacks were completely nullified.

To be more precise, it wasn't immunity. The impact still existed. The soul attack just now had indeed harmed him.

But the damage to his consciousness that would normally result from such harm—and the subsequent reduction in control and combat power—was all completely nullified.

Why were soul attacks so terrifying? Wasn't it precisely because of this? When consciousness is damaged and control drops to a certain level, a person falls into slumber. Then others can do whatever they want to you.

If you only considered the damage itself, it wasn't that bad. Injury—well, it wasn't much different from taking a slash to the leg.

At least you wouldn't die from just a little wound.

Li Dui decided to tie himself to Brother Hula Hoop for good. Anyway, they were already linked, linked no matter where he was—couldn't lose out on the link, couldn't be cheated by it.

Having sorted out his own condition, he could finally enjoy the spoils of war.

Come out, Xueluo Crystal.

He searched through the space bracelet, finding piles of all kinds of items. No Xueluo Crystal.

"Damn it!" Li Dui refused to believe that a proper city lord had no spare Xueluo Crystals. He continued rummaging through Kuang Yu's space ring.

Finally, in an exquisite wooden box, he found two long, triangular prism-shaped crystals, blood-red throughout.

These crystals were faintly transparent. Holding them in his hand, he felt an intangible ripple emanate from them. It gave a sensation somewhat like a heartbeat, pulsing wave after wave.

This was it. Li Dui was certain.

This was a good thing. At best, it could increase the gene multiple to a hundred times. If Li Dui remembered correctly, this was something derived from the blood or similar essence of a certain Natural Beast God after it was surrounded and killed. He didn't know the specifics. In any case, this item was only produced in the Xueluo World.

It should be renewable. Otherwise, the human race wouldn't let the natives here fuse with it.

The problem was that the fusion difficulty was too high. The mission description had stated that 99.5% of those who completed the Xueluo World training mission chose the option of handing in a single Xueluo Crystal.

Li Dui didn't doubt that he could succeed in fusing it. This was the Earthling's advantage zone. At most, it would take some time to slowly grind it out in places dense with Blood Sha Energy. Before coming here, he had already prepared to station himself in the Xueluo World for the long haul.

He just didn't know how many crystals he could ultimately fuse. No matter—he'd grab a bunch later and stash them in his pocket. In the future, he could trade them with the Giant Axe Martial Arena for the refined version. Li Dui thought to himself.