Hundred Personas

Wu Ling did not move out of caution. Although his Mind's Eye and skills could locate the Ghost Leopard's true body and injure it, he had no way to defend against the Nether Ghost Leopard's clone substitution skill. If the Ghost Leopard switched places with a clone after he used Swallow Reversal, he might be injured by the Ghost Leopard himself.

Therefore, he had to maintain this stance and wait for the Nether Ghost Leopard to lose patience and walk into his trap.

The Nether Ghost Leopard, meanwhile, did not move because of instinct. Its intuition as a fellow Assassin allowed it to vaguely sense that if it entered a certain range around Wu Ling, even it might be killed.

Therefore, it had to maintain this distance and wait until Wu Ling lost patience before delivering a fatal blow.

Thus, with one man and one leopard harboring different thoughts yet making the same decision, the two remained locked in confrontation from sunrise until the sun had fully risen.

During that time, Wu Ling and the Nether Ghost Leopard seemed to understand each other's intentions as though their minds were linked.

"As fellow Assassins, one strike will decide the victor!"

In the distance, as the sun rose higher, a drop of dew fell from a yellowing leaf onto the Blue Silver Grass below. Under the impact of the droplet, the grass bent beneath its weight. Rolling along the tip of the blade, the drop finally reached the ground.

The moment the dew touched the earth, Wu Ling and the Nether Ghost Leopard moved at the same time.

The Nether Ghost Leopard and its two Clones formed a triangle around Wu Ling. Then, separated by less than a second, the three lunged at Wu Ling from three directions and three angles.

"Front right, twenty degrees above the ground, fastest of the three.

"Front left, thirty-five degrees above the ground, slowest.

"Behind me, low to the ground, average speed.

"The true body is the one behind me, but it may switch places with either of the other two."

The instant the Nether Ghost Leopard attacked, Wu Ling used Mind's Eye to grasp all the details of its assault.

The Nether Ghost Leopard had presumably assumed that Wu Ling possessed only one blade. Even if he attacked, he could only attack one target. Thus, by attacking from different directions, even if Wu Ling endured the attacks and cut down two of them, it could still kill him with its true body.

That might indeed have been the optimal solution against an ordinary person, but unfortunately, Wu Ling was no ordinary person!

"Swallow Reversal!"

That was right—Swallow Reversal again. Swallow Reversal was a technique that used peerless skill to attack one opponent from three angles at the same time.

Then, if those three angles were adjusted slightly, could it not attack three directions simultaneously?

During those two and a half years, Wu Ling, with the mindset of a modern man, had once envisioned this three-directional Swallow Reversal.

After two months of improvements, Wu Ling succeeded. Yet the result left him deeply disappointed, because the three strikes of Swallow Reversal were originally a technique meant to restrict an enemy and guarantee a hit and kill. If the target changed from one to three, the attacks could still land, but the technique merely became three slashes swung in three directions at the same time.

As a result, this sword technique was utterly useless in one-on-one combat. In one-against-many battles, it consumed so much stamina that ordinary sword techniques were more cost-effective.

Wu Ling had originally felt somewhat disappointed and regretful over the Three-Way Swallow Reversal he had developed. Yet he had never imagined that this sword technique would actually be used in a situation like this.

Centered on Wu Ling, three violet-black afterimages and three slashes flashed past in an instant. Then, the three Nether Ghost Leopards appeared with their backs turned, one in each of the three directions around Wu Ling.

"Phew... I concede."

As Wu Ling let out a breath, two of the three Nether Ghost Leopards turned into specks of starlight and dissipated into the air. The Nether Ghost Leopard's true body, meanwhile, had been cleaved in half down the middle by Wu Ling's slash.

"...Back then, I said you might never use that move in your lifetime. I never expected you to use it so soon."

Gui Mei suddenly appeared, sighing with self-mocking emotion. He had been one of those who had not thought highly of that move back then, and now reality had slapped him soundly across the face.

"No, Grandpa Ghost was right. This will probably be the first and only time I ever use it."

With the way out Wu Ling offered him, Gui Mei's inner embarrassment eased considerably. He then shifted his gaze to the Nether Ghost Leopard's corpse and the purple Spirit Ring floating above it.

"A Nether Ghost Leopard nearly fifteen hundred years old. This is far stronger than a thousand-year Ghost Tiger. Still, with your physical condition, you have a chance of absorbing it successfully."

"Alright, I'll absorb it now. Please stand guard for me, Grandpa Ghost."

Gui Mei nodded and said confidently, "Absorb it without worry. If even a single Spirit Beast appears nearby, that will count as my failure."

"Having a Title Douluo stand guard just for my second Spirit Ring—what absurd luxury. But I like it." The slight upward curve of Wu Ling's lips revealed both his current mood and his overwhelming sense of security.

The Spirit Ring absorption went smoothly, and it was all thanks to the physical strength he had built over the past two and a half years by constantly tearing his muscles apart and allowing them to heal again and again.

"Fifteen hundred years still isn't my limit. My current limit is probably around eighteen hundred or nineteen hundred years."

As he made his estimate, Wu Ling gradually opened his eyes.

"How was it, Wu Ling? Did the Spirit Skill suit your wishes?"

Wu Ling gave Gui Mei a thumbs-up and flashed him a brilliant smile. "Awesome!"

Wu Ling immediately summoned his Unregistered Spirit Origin. Beside the first yellow Spirit Ring was a purple Spirit Ring even larger than it!

"A purple second Spirit Ring... You've truly broadened this old man's horizons. By that calculation, as long as you can withstand the spiritual shock, Wu Ling, your fourth Spirit Ring might even be able to absorb one that is ten thousand years old."

Wu Ling was just as excited as Gui Mei. Under his control, the purple Spirit Ring lit up, and a phantom of a woman with black skin and a thin, tight-fitting outfit appeared within the energy sphere at the center of the Unregistered Spirit Origin.

"Is this the person summoned this time?"

Since Gui Mei and Yue Guan had interacted with Wu Ling fairly often, and as time passed they had earned more and more of Bibi Dong's trust, they had both heard a little about the true abilities of Wu Ling's Martial Soul and the Age of Gods.

"This woman feels like one of my kind, a resident of the darkness, living where the light cannot reach."

Looking at the woman while reading the Spirit Skill description transmitted into his mind, Wu Ling's satisfied smile widened further.

"Grandpa Ghost, your eyes are sharp indeed. This is the nineteenth leader of the Assassin Order to inherit the name 'Hassan-i Sabbah'—Hassan of the Hundred Faces!"

As he spoke, Wu Ling merged the phantom of Hassan of the Hundred Faces into his body.

In an instant, his entire aura changed. If he had not been standing right in front of Gui Mei, Gui Mei might have thought he had vanished.

"We are many, yet we are one; we are one, yet we are many..."

As Wu Ling chanted, the shadow behind him began to boil violently as well.