Amid the billowing dust, atop the ruins, Mercenary Tao radiated a bone-chilling killing intent. The enormous Ki Blast, powerful enough to completely flatten the spot where Lin Fan had just been standing, had already left his hand. Like a blue comet of death, it roared through the air and hurtled toward Lin Fan with unstoppable force. Lin Fan had only just regained his footing and looked as though he had no strength left to resist!
This strike contained the true killing intent and power of the world's greatest assassin. It was nothing like his earlier, almost playful attacks!
Lin Fan had just broken through to Foundation Establishment. The True Essence in his body was still surging violently, and his meridians ached faintly from forcing his breakthrough and the backlash of his earlier defense. He was far from being in perfect condition.
Faced with this devastating attack, he seemed to have reached the end of the road.
And yet, at this critical moment!
Lin Fan suddenly raised his head!
His eyes, which had been unfocused from pain and exhaustion, now shone brilliantly!
Deep in their depths, a glimmer of blue-gold light seemed to flash past. His gaze held the sharpness of a fearless young calf—and... absolute confidence in his newly gained power!
Successfully reaching Foundation Establishment had brought more than just a leap in the quantity and quality of his True Essence. It marked the beginning of a transformation in his very level of life!
His spiritual perception, divine sense, and ability to sense and control energy had all risen to an entirely new level!
Faced with the enormous blue sphere of energy bearing down on him, radiating an aura of destruction, Lin Fan did not try to defend himself or dodge again. He knew he couldn't evade it, nor could he block it. Instead, he made a move that caused Mercenary Tao's pupils to contract sharply and drew a shriek from Bulma, who had just crawled out of the robot wreckage in the distance!
He joined his fingers like a sword!
He pressed the index and middle fingers of his right hand together. The newly formed Foundation Establishment True Essence within him surged like a tide, pouring toward those two fingers with unprecedented speed and efficiency!
At his fingertips, blue-gold light condensed intensely. It was not dazzling; on the contrary, it was restrained to the extreme. Yet it radiated an unmatched sharpness, as if it could slice through anything!
A rudimentary form of the foundational offensive art from the Foundation Establishment chapter of the Great Dao Source Scripture—[Geng Metal Sword Qi]!
Though far from mastery, when driven by the True Essence of an early Foundation Establishment cultivator in this world, its refinement and sharpness already surpassed the ordinary!
In the blink of an eye!
The Ki Blast was right in front of him! The violent whirlwind of energy was almost about to swallow him whole!
Lin Fan's gaze sharpened. He raised his joined sword fingers toward the enormous blue sphere of energy and, with an almost casual motion, brought them down in a simple vertical slash!
There was no earth-shaking display of power, no dazzling spectacle of light.
Only a soft, yet unnaturally clear—
"Ssshhk—!"
As if a blade had cut through thick brocade!
The violent Ki Blast, powerful enough to level a small mountain and destroy everything in its path, was cleaved cleanly in two by Lin Fan's sword fingers, which were infused with highly compressed Foundation Establishment True Essence!
That was right! He had split it apart!
He had not canceled it out or detonated it. Like a hot knife through butter, he had found the least stable point in its energy structure, at its very core, and used his ultimate precision and sharpness to force it apart!
The extremely unstable energy inside the split Ki Blast instantly lost its balance. It let out a grating, distorted hum, and blue light flashed wildly!
The next moment!
Boom! Boom!!!
Two even more violent explosions erupted on either side of Lin Fan, their force clearly dispersed!
Terrifying shock waves and flames surged outward to both sides, blasting the already ravaged walls of the alley into dust! The scorching gusts made Lin Fan's gray clothes snap fiercely as his hair whipped wildly backward!
But Lin Fan himself stood unharmed at the center of the explosion!
With a seemingly plain and unremarkable thrust of his finger, he had redirected the deadly energy, splitting it apart and releasing it on either side of his body!
Only the small patch of ground beneath his feet and a little area behind him remained untouched by the explosions, forming a bizarre zone of absolute safety!
A finger for a sword, cleaving a Ki Blast!
Silence!
Deathly silence!
Only the aftershocks of the explosion continued to howl, while the occasional crackle of burning flames broke the stillness.
The coldness and killing intent on Mercenary Tao's face froze completely, replaced by utter, almost vacant disbelief!
He even parted his lips slightly without realizing it, wide enough to fit an egg!
His full-power attack... his maximum-output Ki Blast... the killing move that made countless powerful warriors tremble in fear...
Had been...
Split...
With a finger?!
How was that possible?!
It completely contradicted everything he knew about "ki" and energy!
That had not been a head-on clash of energy. It was something beyond his comprehension, a higher-level technique that targeted the very structure of energy itself... and unraveled it?!
This was far beyond anything that could be called "strange"! It was practically... sorcery!
In the distance, Bulma had just crawled out of the robot wreckage, covered in dust. She was completely dumbfounded, her little mouth hanging open as she struggled to make a sound. She couldn't understand the energy exchange, but she understood the result—Lin Fan had used two fingers to... slice that terrifying assassin's ultimate move apart like a watermelon?!
Lin Fan slowly lowered his trembling sword fingers. The blue-gold light lingering around his fingertips gradually faded.
He let out a soft breath, tinged with blood. That move had looked effortless, but in truth it had nearly drained most of the Foundation Establishment True Essence he had just formed. It had also consumed a tremendous amount of his divine sense.
His arm bones and meridians throbbed with pain, too.
But it had been worth it!
That single strike had not only broken the deadly predicament; it had also filled him with boundless confidence!
The power of the Foundation Establishment Stage, combined with the wondrous arts of the Great Dao Source Scripture, was enough to let him stand toe-to-toe with the true powerhouses of this high-martial world!
He raised his head and looked calmly at Mercenary Tao, who was still reeling in shock and doubt. His voice carried clearly to the other man:
"The world's greatest assassin..."
"Your ki is impure and muddled. You have brute force, but you don't know how to use it."
"This ends here."
His words were like icy knives, stabbing straight into Mercenary Tao's martial heart, built on absolute confidence in his own strength!
Mercenary Tao suddenly snapped back to his senses. For the first time, his face showed something other than coldness and killing intent—an extreme mixture of humiliation and fury!
"Shut up!!!"
He roared like a beast. The ki around him surged out of control once more, even more chaotic and violent than before!
"Sorcery! It has to be sorcery! I'll tear you to pieces! Then we'll see what tricks you have left!"
Consumed by humiliation and fury, Mercenary Tao lost all composure. His body became a streak of white light as he lunged straight at Lin Fan, bringing with him a frenzied killing intent!
He would tear this bug, who had repeatedly provoked him and sullied his art of killing, to shreds with his own hands!
Lin Fan's gaze sharpened as the True Essence remaining in his body circulated at full speed.
The real close-quarters battle was only beginning!
And this time, he was no longer a helpless ant!
Lin Fan, the Foundation Establishment cultivator, invited the world's greatest assassin... to test his sword!
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