Combat Power Soars! The Red Ribbon Army's "Ghost" Codename!

In the square, the villagers' cheers resounded through the night sky.

It stood in stark contrast to the deathly silence among the soldiers on the other side.

Lin Xuan's gaze passed over the crowd and settled on the hundreds of disarmed soldiers.

Killing them would taint the merit he had only just acquired.

Letting them go would be like releasing tigers back into the mountains.

These scum would soon go on to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Lin Xuan had an idea.

Instead of walking toward the soldiers, his figure flickered and vanished from where he stood.

The next second, he appeared inside the base's armory.

According to Wright's memories, all of the base's heavy weapons were stored here.

Lin Xuan did not even glance at the tanks and armored vehicles. He headed straight for the rows of shelves.

They were packed with all kinds of firearms and ammunition.

He extended a hand, his palm covered in a layer of soul power invisible to the naked eye.

His hand swept lightly over them.

"Crack... crack-crack-crack..."

A dense series of metal twisting and snapping sounds rang out.

At the same instant, the barrels of every firearm were twisted into spirals from within by an invisible force.

The trigger mechanisms were completely destroyed, and the firing pins were ground into powder.

Within seconds, those murderous weapons had become piles of scrap metal.

Once he was done, Lin Xuan vanished again.

Like a king inspecting his territory, he "visited" the base's vehicle depot, energy center, and the towering communications tower one by one.

Using his soul power, he precisely pulverized the engines of the tanks and armored vehicles.

He melted the core components of the backup generators into a lump of molten iron.

Finally, he arrived beneath the communications tower.

He did not climb it. He merely looked up at it.

Then he lightly stomped on the ground.

"Bzzz—"

An invisible shockwave traveled through the steel reinforcement in the tower's foundation, instantly spreading through its entire structure.

The steel giant that towered into the clouds let out a teeth-grating groan.

Then, before the horrified eyes of countless villagers and soldiers, it began to fracture inch by inch from the bottom.

And collapsed with a thunderous crash.

A massive cloud of dust surged into the sky.

From that moment on, the base had been completely erased from the map in every physical sense.

After dealing with all the hardware, Lin Xuan finally appeared before the captured soldiers.

His appearance sent a wave of commotion and panic through the soldiers, who had already been steeped in despair.

"Devil... he's coming over!"

"He's going to kill us!"

Lin Xuan ignored their fear and simply walked slowly into the crowd.

His figure moved with ghostly speed, weaving among the hundreds of soldiers.

Each time he paused, a soldier let out a muffled groan and collapsed to the ground.

Lin Xuan did not kill them.

His fingers merely struck the main meridian nodes in each person's limbs with unparalleled precision.

Dao technique: severing the meridians.

He crippled their ability to act, ensuring that for the next few years, they would be unable to wield weapons or run about committing evil.

As for whether they lived or died, that would be left to this land they had ravaged, and the living beings they had harmed, to judge.

This was Lin Xuan's "Heavenly Dao."

A few minutes later, not a single soldier in the square remained standing.

Lin Xuan stood amid the wreckage and ruins, sensing the resentment and karmic burden that had long clung to this land slowly dissipating along with the villagers' joy.

He sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes.

"Panel."

A translucent panel appeared before him.

The merit value in the lower-right corner clearly displayed [168].

"All in."

With a thought from Lin Xuan, he poured this fortune-like sum of merit points entirely into his cultivation technique, raising the power of his divine soul.

The numbers on the panel began to surge wildly the next instant.

The [Combat Power] value in the lower-left corner began soaring at a rate visible to the naked eye.

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 301]

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 325]

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 380]

The power of merit was like the purest fuel, ignited by the cultivation technique as it tempered his divine soul.

His body was like a vessel continuously being filled with energy, beginning to emit a faint glow.

The numbers showed no sign of slowing.

Very soon, they broke past the 600 mark.

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 433]

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 466]

When the number reached 666, it seemed to encounter a minor bottleneck and flickered several times.

But the vast power of merit paused only slightly before crushing through the obstacle with unstoppable force.

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 480]

[Divine Soul Combat Power: 599]

In the end, at the very instant all the power of merit was exhausted, the number settled firmly at [666].

His physical combat power also rose by one point, reaching [66].

Lin Xuan slowly opened his eyes and let out a long breath of stale air.

He could feel unprecedented power filling his body.

If 300 Divine Soul Combat Power had been solid rock, then his current 666 Combat Power was refined steel forged a hundred times over.

A sense of having everything under his control arose within him.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away.

Deep within a snow-covered mountain range stood a massive hidden military fortress—the headquarters of the Red Ribbon Army.

The atmosphere in the highest command room was oppressive to the extreme.

A short but imposing red-haired man stared fixedly at the enormous surveillance screen before him.

He was Red, Supreme Commander of the Red Ribbon Army.

The screen was filled with static.

The displayed signal source was Violet's base, which Lin Xuan had just destroyed.

"Report, Supreme Commander! Colonel Light's base has been completely cut off for more than ten minutes. We have been unable to contact them through any communication channel!"

An intelligence officer delivered the report in a trembling voice.

"Useless!"

Supreme Commander Red slammed his fist against the console, producing a thunderous crash.

"A fully staffed A-rank base, with nearly a thousand elite soldiers stationed there, and Light personally in command! How could it possibly vanish off the face of the earth in ten minutes?!"

Standing beside him was a tall, dark-skinned man—the Supreme Commander's most trusted aide, Adjutant Black.

Adjutant Black's expression was equally grave. "Supreme Commander, before the signal was completely cut off, we recovered a three-second fragment of footage from an encrypted backup line."

"Play it immediately!"

Red roared.

"Yes!"

The technicians immediately got to work.

The static on the main screen flickered a few times before an extremely blurry image, filled with distortion and tearing, was forcibly pieced together and played.

The footage seemed to come from a camera hidden in the corner of an office.

In it, Colonel Light was firing frantically in one direction.

Yet the target she was shooting at was an incredibly bizarre figure.

That figure strolled through the dense barrage of bullets, every round seeming to have eyes as it actively veered away from him.

The image quality was too poor to make out the person's features at all. Only a blurred humanoid outline could be seen.

The next second, the image jolted violently.

That figure abruptly appeared in front of Lait, extending a single finger.

The footage ended there, cutting off without warning.

The entire command room fell silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Every senior officer who witnessed the scene wore an expression of shock and disbelief.

"Th-this... what was that?"

One officer muttered to himself.

"A ghost? Or some kind of new optical camouflage we don't know about?"

"No... his movements, the way he moved... it completely defied the laws of physics!"

Adjutant Black's pupils contracted as he stared fixedly at the final frozen frame.

"Commander, this intruder... isn't an ordinary person. He may be a martial artist beyond all common sense!"

"A martial artist?"

A trace of savage killing intent flashed through Commander Red's eyes.

He stared hard at the blurry, ghostlike figure on the screen.

"He infiltrated without a sound, ignored a hail of bullets, and instantly dismantled one of our A-rank bases..."

Red's voice was as cold as if it had come from hell.

"Someone like that is no longer just a martial artist."

He rose to his feet, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced back and forth.

"Transmit my orders!"

"Classify this mysterious intruder as the highest-level threat!"

Red suddenly turned around, madness gleaming in his eyes.

"Give him a codename..."

"Ghost!"

"Notify the entire army immediately and issue an S-rank wanted order! Spare no cost in dragging this 'Ghost' out! I want him torn to pieces!"

"Yes!"

The entire Red Ribbon Army, that massive war machine, began to operate frantically because of a single name.

Meanwhile, the instigator of it all, Lin Xuan, was sensing the surging power within his body, and joy filled his heart.

A power level of 666 gave him far greater confidence.

But after the joy faded, a trace of realization surfaced in his mind.

The sudden surge in strength had caused a slight instability in his state of mind.

His comprehension was insufficient. If this continued, a major problem would inevitably arise when his next inner tribulation came.

"Looks like it's time to enter the mortal world and temper my heart."

Lin Xuan stood up, dusted off his clothes, and looked toward the distant human city.