What Does This Have to Do With Me?

The words had barely left his lips when his figure vanished from where he stood.

Lin Qingzhou's pupils constricted, and he swung his warhammer horizontally to the left, driven almost entirely by instinct.

The flow of air in that direction had shifted; he had been killed so many times in these Ruins of the Divine War that the sensation of impending death was etched into his very bones.

When a subtle ripple passed through the air, his body reacted faster than his brain.

"Clang!"

Sparks showered the ground.

The Evil Soul Master's long blade was blocked by the warhammer, the collision between the edge and the hammer face emitting a shrill, metallic roar.

The Evil Soul Master clearly had not expected his instantaneous ambush to be blocked by an ordinary person; a flash of surprise crossed his dark green eyes, immediately replaced by even deeper killing intent.

"Not a bad reaction. But how many times can you block?"

The long blade danced, transforming into a dense web of shadows, each strike fast and vicious, aimed directly at vital points.

Lin Qingzhou gritted his teeth, relying on the dangerous intuition honed by a thousand deaths to parry and dodge, narrowly avoiding fatal blows, though several wounds of varying depth appeared on his body.

His shoulder, his thigh, his flank—none of the cuts were lethal, but they bled incessantly. His coarse, short tunic was already soaked through with blood, and every swing of the hammer was accompanied by tearing, agonizing pain.

He couldn't keep this up.

Seizing a moment when their positions shifted, he slammed the firing button. A concussion-type fixed soul missile shot toward the ground at the Evil Soul Master's feet.

"Boom!"

Debris flew, and the shockwave expanded instantly. The Evil Soul Master's momentum was stalled by the blast, and Lin Qingzhou took the opportunity to grab the little girl and pull her behind him.

"Run west along this road! Find someone to help! Go!"

The little girl was paralyzed with fear, her legs too weak to even stand. Lin Qingzhou gritted his teeth, pulled a magazine pouch from his chest, and shoved it into her hands.

"Take this, go to the Spirit Pagoda, and find a blacksmith named Mang Tian. Tell him Lin Qingzhou sent you. Run!"

The little girl finally snapped out of it and stumbled away toward the west.

The Evil Soul Master steadied himself from the lingering shockwave and brushed the dust and gravel from his clothes, a flicker of admiration in his eyes, quickly replaced by even greater cruelty.

"Not bad. It's rare to see such courage in an ordinary person." He rested his long blade on his shoulder and grinned at Lin Qingzhou, his teeth stained an unnatural dark red. "But, were you planning to go down with me by holding onto that concussion grenade? I guess you aren't willing to die—your eyes told me that."

Lin Qingzhou clutched his bleeding shoulder and retreated slowly, his eyes rapidly scanning the surrounding environment.

Behind him was a narrow alley flanked by high walls; there was no way out.

In front of him stood an Evil Soul Master far stronger than the cannon fodder he had faced before.

Judging by the density of his soul power, this Evil Soul Master was at least a Soul Elder, perhaps even higher. He had no chance of winning in a head-on confrontation.

"I don't think we need to fight to the death."

Lin Qingzhou spoke in as steady a tone as he could manage while retreating, his eyes darting to the magazine pouch in his arms.

He had counted quickly earlier; he had five standard fixed soul missiles left, plus the two concussion types loaded in his warhammer launcher, for a total of seven. Was it enough? He wasn't sure. Could he win? He wasn't sure. But he had no other choice.

His fingers brushed against the tracking-type fixed soul missiles he had scavenged from the two previous Evil Soul Masters, and his heart stirred.

The tracking ammunition had a simple soul power lock-on function. While it wouldn't be fatal to an opponent of this caliber, if he could distract him, it might create an opening for a counterattack.

He calculated rapidly in his mind, hunching his shoulders and deliberately making his tone sound desperate, as if he had been pushed to the brink.

"I'm just a piece of trash without soul power; killing me won't do you any good. Besides, your goal tonight is to bathe Proud Arrival City in blood—what a waste of soul power and ammunition to spend on me, right? You lot must be here for something specific! That thing isn't on me; you've got the wrong person."

His words were half-probe, half-stalling tactic.

The commotion he had heard in the workshop earlier, combined with the scale of the Evil Soul Masters' deployment and the level of their equipment, made it clear that this operation was no ordinary raid. He wanted to know what they were really looking for.

The Evil Soul Master narrowed his eyes, his dark green pupils flickering in the dim streetlights as if weighing the truth in Lin Qingzhou's words. A moment later, he began to laugh again, a smile even stranger than before, carrying a complex, indefinable meaning.

"A kid with no soul power who can casually swing a dozens-of-pounds warhammer to kill three men, block a surprise attack at forty percent of my speed, and bargain with me without changing his expression during a fight..."

He took the long blade off his shoulder and pointed the tip at Lin Qingzhou, his tone becoming intrigued. "If you're trash, then what does that make the idiots under my command who can't even lift a twenty-pound iron hammer?"

"And I don't mind telling you why I hate blacksmiths the most: it's because they bullied me back in the day."

"Back when I was a normal soul master, I spent all my wealth and humbled myself, begging those high-and-mighty blacksmiths to forge metal for my Battle Armor. And what did they do?"

His expression turned hideous, and he couldn't help but growl, mesmerizing flames dancing in his eyes.

"They stepped on me like mud and trampled my self-esteem. And in the end? Not only did they injure me and steal my money and metals, they even mocked my dream of becoming a Battle Armor Master."

Lin Qingzhou listened to the man's explanation, his mouth twitching as a sense of profound helplessness rose in his heart.

What did this have to do with him? He was just an ordinary person without soul power; how could he be implicated just because he learned a bit of blacksmithing?

The man seemed to have finished venting. He sneered and took a step forward, the concrete ground beneath his feet cracking into spiderweb fissures under the pressure of his soul power.

"But you're right, I didn't come here specifically for you tonight. I'm here for something Feng Qingyun left behind—a cultivation technique, rumored to be hidden somewhere in this city."

His gaze locked firmly onto Lin Qingzhou's face, as if trying to catch the micro-expressions triggered by every word he spoke.

"If you know any clues, I might consider giving you a quick death."

Lin Qingzhou's heart leaped into his throat.

The expression on his face did not change, but his fingers tightened around the warhammer in an instant, his entire body tensing up.

Feng Qingyun's relic?

Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art

That thing was locked deep within a cabinet in his bedroom, buried by his own hands beneath a pile of miscellaneous items. He did not know how these Evil Soul Masters had found out about it, nor where they had obtained the information, but he was very clear about one thing.

If these Evil Soul Masters had come for the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art, they would search his home sooner or later.

And Na'er was still at home.

His heart rate accelerated abruptly, but he forced his breathing to remain steady, his face still wearing an expression of bewilderment.

"What cultivation technique? I've never even heard of it."

He revealed a look of confusion, his voice deliberately softened, as if he were playing the fool or barely holding himself together on the verge of being scared out of his wits.