As soon as he finished speaking, his figure vanished on the spot.
Lin Qingzhou's pupils shrank. Almost purely on instinct, he swung his warhammer horizontally to his left.
The air was flowing differently in that direction. He had died far too many times in these Ruins of the Divine War, and the sensation of death drawing near had been etched into his bones.
When a subtle ripple passed through the air, his body reacted faster than his mind.
"Clang!"
Sparks flew.
The Evil Soul Master's long blade was blocked by the warhammer. The blade struck the hammer's face, unleashing a shrill metallic clang.
The Evil Soul Master clearly hadn't expected his sudden ambush to be blocked by an ordinary man. A flicker of surprise crossed his dark green eyes, then gave way to an even stronger killing intent.
"Not bad reflexes. But how many times can you block me?"
His long blade whirled, becoming a dense blur of shadows. Every strike was fast and vicious, aimed straight at a vital spot.
Lin Qingzhou gritted his teeth. Relying on the dangerous instincts honed by hundreds and thousands of deaths, he blocked left and right, narrowly dodging the fatal blows. Even so, several new wounds of varying depths appeared on his body.
His shoulder, thigh, and ribs—none of the cuts were fatal, but the blood wouldn't stop flowing. His coarse cloth jacket was already soaked through with blood, and every swing of his hammer brought a tearing pain.
He couldn't let this drag on.
Taking advantage of a moment when they crossed paths, he abruptly pressed the firing button. A Shock-type Fixed Soul Missile shot toward the ground beside the Evil Soul Master's feet.
"Boom!"
Shattered stone flew everywhere as the shock wave spread in an instant. The Evil Soul Master staggered, his body momentarily frozen. Lin Qingzhou seized the chance to haul the little girl upright and pull her behind him.
"Follow this road west. Keep running and find someone to help! Hurry!"
The little girl was so terrified that her legs had gone weak; she could barely stand. Lin Qingzhou gritted his teeth, pulled a magazine pouch from his clothes, 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 came to her senses and stumbled off to the west.
The Evil Soul Master steadied himself after the shock wave's lingering effects, dusted the stone grit off his clothes, and gave Lin Qingzhou a look of appreciation. Then it was swallowed up by an even greater cruelty.
"Not bad. It's rare for an ordinary person to have that kind of nerve."
He rested his long blade on his shoulder and grinned at Lin Qingzhou, revealing teeth stained an unnatural dark red. "But are you planning to take me down with you using that Shock-type missile? I'm guessing you're not eager to die. Your eyes give it away."
Lin Qingzhou clutched his bleeding shoulder and slowly backed away, quickly scanning the area around him.
Behind him was a narrow alley, walled in on both sides. There was nowhere to retreat.
In front of him stood this Evil Soul Master, several times stronger than the rabble he'd faced before.
Judging by the depth of his Soul Power, the Evil Soul Master was at least a Soul Elder, perhaps even stronger. Lin Qingzhou had no chance of beating him head-on.
"I don't think we need to fight to the death."
Lin Qingzhou backed away, speaking as steadily as he could, while quickly glancing at the magazine pouch in his arms.
He'd made a rough count earlier. He had five standard Fixed Soul Missiles left, plus the two Shock-type ones still loaded in the warhammer launcher—seven in all. Would that be enough? He wasn't sure. Could he beat the man? He wasn't sure. But he had no other choice.
His fingers brushed against the Tracking-type Fixed Soul Missile he'd taken from the two Evil Soul Masters earlier, and an idea stirred in his mind.
Tracking-type ammunition had a simple Soul Power lock-on function. A tracking missile alone couldn't kill an opponent of this caliber, but if it could distract him, perhaps Lin Qingzhou could create an opening to counterattack.
He ran through the possibilities in his mind, then bent down, deliberately making his voice sound a little desperate, as though he'd been cornered.
"I'm just a useless nobody without Soul Power. Killing me won't do you any good. Besides, your target tonight is to slaughter Aolai City. Wasting Soul Power and ammunition on me would be a terrible deal, wouldn't it? You're here for something, aren't you? I don't have it. You've got the wrong person."
Part of what he said was a probe, and part was to buy time.
The commotion he'd heard in the workshop, combined with the number of Evil Soul Masters deployed and the quality of their equipment, all suggested that this was no ordinary raid of killing and looting. He wanted to know what they were looking for.
The Evil Soul Master narrowed his eyes. His dark green pupils flickered beneath the dim streetlights, as if he were weighing how much of Lin Qingzhou's story was true. A moment later, he smiled again, his expression even stranger than before, tinged with an inscrutable complexity.
"A kid without Soul Power can casually swing a warhammer weighing dozens of pounds and kill three people, block an ambush at forty percent of my speed, and bargain with me without batting an eye in the middle of a fight..."
He took the long blade off his shoulder and pointed its tip at Lin Qingzhou, his tone turning amused. "If you're useless, then what does that make my men, who can't even lift a twenty-pound hammer?"
"And since we're talking, don't be afraid to ask why I hate blacksmiths most of all. It's because they humiliated me back then."
"Back when I was still a normal Soul Master, I spent every last coin I had and begged those lofty blacksmiths to forge metal for my Battle Armor. But what did they do?"
His face twisted. He couldn't help snarling, flames of menace dancing in his eyes.
"They ground me into the mud and trampled all over my dignity. And in the end? They not only beat me up, they stole my money and metal, then laughed at my dream of becoming a Battle Armor Master."
Listening to the man explain himself, Lin Qingzhou couldn't help twitching the corner of his mouth. A deep sense of helplessness rose in his heart.
What did that have to do with him? He was just an ordinary person without Soul Power. The most he'd done was learn a little blacksmithing—how had he gotten dragged into this?
The man seemed to have finished venting. He sneered and stepped forward. The cement beneath his feet cracked in a web of fissures under the pressure of the Soul Power radiating from him.
"But you're right. I didn't come looking for you in particular tonight. I came for something Feng Qingyun left behind—a cultivation technique supposedly hidden somewhere in this city."
His gaze stayed fixed on Lin Qingzhou's face, as though watching for the slightest change in expression with every word he spoke.
"If you know anything, I might consider giving you a quick death."
Lin Qingzhou's heart leapt into his throat.
His expression didn't change, but his fingers tightened around the warhammer in an instant, his whole body tensing.
Feng Qingyun's legacy?
Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art.
That thing was locked away deep inside the cabinet in his bedroom, buried beneath a pile of odds and ends by his own hand. He didn't know how these Evil Soul Masters had learned about it or where they'd gotten their information, but he knew one thing for certain.
If these Evil Soul Masters had come for the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art, they would sooner or later search his home.
And Na'er was still there.
His heartbeat suddenly quickened, but he forced himself to keep breathing steadily, his face still blank with confusion.
"What cultivation technique? I've never even heard of it."
He looked bewildered and deliberately made his voice sound weak, as if he were playing dumb—or barely holding on at the edge of terror.
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