Before Lin Qingzhou could make a move, the Evil Soul Master had already sprung to his feet, his sharp claw blades slashing toward Lin Qingzhou's vital points again.
Lin Qingzhou leaned slightly aside, dodging the attack, then followed through with a kick to the Evil Soul Master's abdomen.
But the Evil Soul Master was no pushover. He used the momentum in midair to launch a vicious kick at Lin Qingzhou with his right leg.
Lin Qingzhou grunted, taking the kick head-on. He swung his hammer backhanded at the short man's knee.
The short man clearly hadn't expected him to react so quickly. He couldn't pull his leg back in time, and the hammer struck his kneecap dead-on. His leg bent backward at a grotesque angle.
He let out a piercing scream and pitched forward as he lost his balance.
Lin Qingzhou followed through, planting a foot on his back and swinging his warhammer in a wide arc at the back of his head.
"Bang!"
The short man twitched once, then lay still.
Seeing this, the tall man's face changed. He roared and swung both hands, hurling two more balls of dark-purple Soul Power at Lin Qingzhou.
This time, Lin Qingzhou didn't take the hit head-on. He rolled to the side as the balls smashed into the spot where he'd been standing, blasting a washbasin-sized crater into the ground. Gravel and chunks of concrete sprayed all over him.
He dropped to one knee and quickly pressed the launch button at the end of the warhammer's handle.
"Whoosh..."
An Armor-Piercing Fixed Soul Missile streaked toward the tall man's chest, trailing a pale-blue flame. The tall man reacted with lightning speed, condensing a Soul Power shield in front of himself with both hands in an attempt to block the attack.
But the armor-piercing missile's penetrating power far exceeded his expectations. The Soul Power shield held for only a moment before being pierced. The missile's momentum carried it straight through the tall man's right shoulder.
The tall man cried out and staggered backward, his right arm hanging limply at his side. Lin Qingzhou seized the opportunity, snatched up his warhammer, and charged forward, smashing it into the man's chest.
"Thud!"
The tall man slammed into the wall and slowly slid down. He never got back up.
Lin Qingzhou panted heavily, his lungs aching as if they were on fire.
He'd beaten three Evil Soul Masters in a row, but the effort had taken far more out of him than he'd expected.
His arm was starting to go numb. A small gash had split the web between his thumb and forefinger, and blood was seeping out.
He tore off a strip of his clothes and haphazardly wrapped it around his hand, then bent down and quickly searched the short and tall men. He found two more magazine pouches, and their ammunition was compatible with his. There were eight rounds in all.
Three Shock-type, two Explosive-type, and three Incendiary-type. It seemed these men all received the same standard-issue ammunition. That worked out nicely for him.
He poured all the ammunition into one pouch and stuffed it inside his clothes, where it bulged into a large lump, then continued running toward the villa district.
Lin Qingzhou gritted his teeth. Every movement tugged at the wounds all over his body, sending pain coursing through him.
Even more terrifying, though, was that he could feel his physical condition slowly deteriorating.
As if struck by a thought, he abruptly tore open his clothes and saw black lines, dark as ink, creeping upward from the wound on his abdomen.
Lin Qingzhou's mouth twitched, and his heart sank. He let out a faint sigh. There was nothing he could do for now, so he hurriedly rummaged through the medicine box in his Storage Soul Tool.
He took out a syringe-shaped vial of medicine. He had no idea what effect it might have on the poison in his body.
But whatever. It was better than doing nothing.
He steeled himself and plunged the needle into his carotid artery, then slowly pushed in the medicine. The black lines' upward crawl slowed a little, but they were still spreading.
Lin Qingzhou breathed a little easier. At least he could keep moving for now. There was still hope, wasn't there?
In the End-of-All Divine Realm, that god-level battlefield Lin Qingzhou feared, a strange transformation was unfolding.
Crackling currents of electricity darted through the mist, as if searching for something.
At first, there were only scattered glimmers of silver. Then they began to gather, surging in from every direction, twining and weaving together as they gradually outlined the shape of a woman's body.
A faint glow first traced the elegant line of her neck. The current flowed downward like veins, illuminating her collarbones, shoulders, and arms...
At every joint, the light paused briefly, as if making precise adjustments.
Her waist slowly took shape amid the circling currents, and her legs appeared as well. A pale-blue glow pulsed faintly across her skin, as if learning, little by little, the rhythm of breathing.
When she stood whole at the center of the mist, only her tightly shut eyes remained silent.
Then...
She opened her eyes. In that instant, the entire mist was swept away, and everything in the plane was reflected in the depths of her pupils.
Her awakening was complete.
The farther east Lin Qingzhou went, the more gruesome the streets became.
Several buildings had been blasted halfway apart. Rubble and shards of glass littered the roads, and now and then he spotted bodies sprawled haphazardly across the ground—some civilians, some city defense soldiers in uniform.
The air reeked of something burnt and acrid, mingled with the stench of blood. It was enough to make anyone sick.
The blood-red fog in the distance was growing thicker. Faintly, he could hear fighting and explosions coming from that direction. The city's Soul Masters were probably battling the main force of the Evil Soul Masters.
Lin Qingzhou did his best to stick to the side streets, avoiding the fighting on the main roads.
He climbed over a collapsed wall and took a shortcut through an abandoned parking lot. Just as he was about to turn a corner, he suddenly heard faint sobbing up ahead.
He quieted his steps and peered around the corner.
A little girl of seven or eight was crouched against the wall, trembling all over, her face streaked with tears.
A woman's body lay beside her. It was probably her mother. The girl clung to her mother's arm and strained with all her might to pull her up, over and over calling, "Mom." Her voice had gone hoarse, a broken rasp caught in her throat.
At the other end of the street, an Evil Soul Master dressed in black was slowly approaching her, a long blade dripping with blood in his hand.
"Stop!"
Lin Qingzhou had no time to think. He sprang out on instinct and raised his warhammer toward the Evil Soul Master.
The Evil Soul Master tilted his head, regarding him with an almost amused expression.
The man's aura was a notch stronger than that of the others. Dark-red Soul Power visibly coiled around him, dense as a thin veil of blood.
His eyes weren't the same dark red as the others'. They were a deep, inky green, glinting coldly in the dim street.
"Oh?" The Evil Soul Master saw the blood still dripping from Lin Qingzhou's warhammer and narrowed his eyes. "So you're the one who took down the Hong Family Three Brothers. Interesting. You're just an ordinary man with no Soul Power, yet you managed to kill three full-fledged Soul Masters."
His gaze slid slowly from Lin Qingzhou's face to the warhammer, then settled on the launcher at the end of its handle. A sinister smile curled his lips.
"You're a blacksmith? Then you deserve to die even more. Blacksmiths are the ones we hate most."
Before you continue