This Shot, Stylish Enough, Right?

"Boss, we messed up. We messed everything up!"

A thug ran over, firing his ray gun wildly at Yang Fan while relaying the news of their failure to their leader.

"The carriages have detached, the bombs in the rear cars have been dismantled, and the hostages are protected by Soul Guidance Devices. We've ruined everything, Boss!"

The thug leader's face turned beet red upon hearing this.

Are the lives of terrorists not lives too?

Looking at his fallen and wounded subordinates, he thought to himself, All I did was hijack a Soul Guidance Train, kill a few hostages, and kidnap the daughter of a Federation councilor. What did I do wrong?

The fault isn't mine; it's this world's!

"Since you're pushing me this far, I'm done acting! I am the renowned double agent for the Star Luo Military Command and the Dou Ling Empire, codenamed Shrek!"

"I hijacked this Soul Guidance Train! I was behind the explosions from the past few months! I kidnapped the Federation councilor's daughter! I'm definitely going to die, but you... Amon, don't think you're getting out of here alive either!"

"Emperor Xue Yuntian, Your Majesty Dai Tianling, Boss Yun Ming! My mission is a failure, but everyone else is coming to the grave with me!"

Seeing the Federation helicopters and various guard units arriving, he knew his plan had completely collapsed.

The thug leader laughed maniacally, his hand pressing down on the bomb detonator.

"Damn it, playing dirty, are we? Let's just get it over with!"

He closed his eyes, as if waiting for a masterpiece to bloom.

The art of explosion!

"Are you looking for these?"

Yang Fan casually flicked three Soul Guidance bombs toward him with the tip of his gun.

"It's all over. Surrender now."

Deep within a dark, gloomy cave nearby, cold winds howled.

"Heh heh heh heh... A bunch of useless fools. It seems I have to step in myself."

As the figure underground finished speaking, the thug before Yang Fan suddenly stiffened. His facial muscles twitched uncontrollably, and his mouth stretched into an extremely grotesque arc.

Immediately after, he didn't hesitate to tilt his head back and swallow a pitch-black pill.

In an instant, a violent and evil surge of soul power erupted from him as the center!

Soul Elder... Soul Ancestor... Soul King... Soul Emperor!

In just a few breaths, the thug had skyrocketed from a Soul Elder to the Soul Emperor realm.

However, along with the surge in strength, his flesh withered at a visible rate. His skin clung tightly to his bones, and his life force flickered like a candle in the wind.

Yang Fan felt something was wrong... Which Soul Hall elder wandered into the wrong scene? Could there be an even stronger expert? He couldn't help but furrow his brows, his gaze tightening instantly.

"Corpse Explosion Technique!"

The thug's voice, raspy as sandpaper rubbing against stone, echoed through the carriage.

Yang Fan's pupils dilated. A chill shot straight to his scalp. His previously calm expression turned grave in an instant, his brows knitted, and his eyes narrowed sharply.

Corpse Explosion Technique!

One of the most notorious evil arts on the Douluo Continent!

Ten thousand years ago, the "Death God Envoy" had used this very technique to detonate hundreds of corpses in a narrow cave, leading directly to the near-total annihilation of the Shrek Academy main team!

Yang Fan's heart skipped a beat, and an unprecedented sense of crisis gripped him tightly.

A Soul Elder using drugs to forcibly boost himself to the Soul Emperor realm before self-destructing—which Evil Soul Master possessed such "shocking wisdom" for this insane human bomb art?

With life and death hanging by a thread, Yang Fan's brain raced, but his body's instincts were faster than his thoughts. The moment he heard the word "corpse," he had already made his decision.

"Clang!"

The Silver Dragon Spear transformed into a brilliant silver streak, imbued with scorching fire-attribute soul power, and swept out with the force of a thunderbolt.

The connection between the fourth and fifth carriages was severed instantly. Molten metal splashed everywhere, and the fifth carriage became a relatively enclosed, independent space.

"Sister Mo Lan, watch closely! The next strike is going to be a cool one!"

Yang Fan shouted toward the retreating fourth carriage, his voice filled with the resolve of burning his bridges.

Without further energy reduction, Mo Lan and the hostages would be harmed even with the protection of the Soul Guidance Device within this distance.

The defensive Soul Guidance Device Leng Yaozhu had given him was meant for personal use; it wasn't difficult to block an attack as a single target, but he had set it to group mode to protect the hostages.

Facing a Corpse Explosion Technique of this caliber, it was hard to say if it could hold.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the surging blood in his body. His second and third soul rings lit up beneath his feet, the brilliant light illuminating the dim carriage.

Accompanied by a clear phoenix cry, a pair of massive fire phoenix phantoms erupted behind him. Scorching fire elements gathered frantically, causing the surrounding air to distort.

Bathing Fire Phoenix!

Leng Yaozhu's signature soul skill, which significantly boosts attack, defense, speed, and explosive power!

Yang Fan slowly raised the Silver Dragon Spear, its tip pointing directly at the body that had swollen to its limit and was on the verge of bursting.

A flash of icy killing intent flickered in his deep eyes.

"It's time to end this!"

The moment the words fell, the Bathing Fire Phoenix flapped its wings, and flames soared into the sky!

Yang Fan transformed into a streak of crimson light that tore through the darkness.

Borrowing the extreme explosive power granted by the Bathing Fire Phoenix, the Silver Dragon Spear in his hand surged with a heat capable of incinerating everything. His strike was like a dragon, piercing straight into the body about to detonate!

Yang Fan's soul power collided with the blast of the Corpse Explosion Technique, and a dark red light swallowed everything.

The fifth carriage completely disintegrated in the explosion; steel twisted, melted, and turned into countless lethal fragments that shot out in all directions.

When everything returned to a deathly silence, only the flickering embers of dark red remained.

Yang Fan collapsed onto a patch of scorched earth, his Silver Dragon Spear snapped in two, embedded in the rock beside him, its shaft dim and lusterless.

His body was battered and broken, the phantom of the Bathing Fire Phoenix long since dissipated, leaving only the seven-colored tattoo left by the Dragon God Reverse Scale on his chest, flickering stubbornly on the edge of life and death.

He was not dead.

But he was in a state worse than death.

His meridians were completely severed, his soul power was exhausted, and his internal organs were riddled with holes, eroded by corpse poison.

He lay in the ruins he had created with his own hands, listening to the heart-wrenching cries of Mo Lan coming from the fourth carriage in the distance, yet he managed to pull his lips into a difficult arc.

"...That strike, it was cool enough, right?"

His voice was as light as dust in the wind, immediately swallowed whole by the darkness.

Not far away, Mo Lan's vision was sharp; through the smoke, she read his lips and wept like a broken person.

Cool, it was incredibly cool!

From the moment he called himself Amon, she had recognized him—that slightly naive, genius little soul master.

A low rumbling sound echoed as several yellow, military-standard soul mechs, each about twelve meters tall, approached rapidly to participate in the rescue operation.

But they had not expected that by the time they arrived, the battle would have already ended completely.

More than ten thugs, all dead.

Not a single bomb had detonated.

However, this terrorist attack had still resulted in the deaths of over a hundred civilians.

Yang Fan had only seen the bodies of the few punks in the fourth carriage earlier, but the front carriages had even contained elderly people and children, showing just how cruel these thugs were.

"Did you see the person called... Amon?"

Mo Lan asked the military leader before her anxiously.

Mo Lan's status was special, so the man did not dare to be negligent.

"No, the scene is a mess, nothing was left behind, only some dried bloodstains and this jade pendant."

As he spoke, the officer in the Federation uniform handed over the jade pendant his subordinates had found while clearing the battlefield.

Mo Lan's fingertips trembled violently. She clutched the broken jade tightly and, catching the sunlight, made out the messy handwriting on it:

"I will return, do not worry. Give to B-"

The unfinished character felt like a dull blade stabbing deep into her eyes.

Mo Lan's breathing suddenly hitched. She slowly lowered her head, pressing the still-cold, hard jade pendant tightly against her heart.

A scalding tear fell onto the jade without warning, followed by a second, then a third...

She bit her lip, not making a sound, as only large, heavy tears gushed out like a broken dam, splashing onto the back of her hand, burning her skin.