Crystal Secured

The icy jade pendant etched with ten ring patterns was pressed tightly against Xiang Yi's chest. After soaking up his body heat and psychic power, it finally awakened!

"Buzzz—!"

A muffled boom, as though it had drilled up from the deepest depths of the earth, exploded directly inside Xiang Yi's head! He did not hear it with his ears; even the gaps between his bones were trembling! A wild force, pent up for ten thousand years, erupted from the jade pendant like a volcanic blast!

Boom!

Xiang Yi felt as if his soul had been thrown into the eye of a storm! This was not the faint warm current from before, but a scorching, primal power reeking of life and death! It was too fierce and too pure, treating his frail body as nothing more than a broken shell as it flooded brutally into every limb and bone like a breached dam!

"Aaargh—!"

Xiang Yi's eyes bulged, blood vessels filling them! He clenched his teeth so hard that blood seeped from his gums, barely choking back his scream! His body convulsed violently as if struck by an invisible iron hammer! Every inch of flesh and bone was screaming! Beneath his skin, uncontrollable blue light crackled and flickered like an electrical leak, casting the ruined attic in an eerie glow!

[Warning! Ultra-high-energy impact!]

[Body too weak! 89% of energy is leaking! Brain is about to burn out!]

[Forced guidance! Returning to the Hidden Formula is running at full tilt!]

The system alerts pounded so hard they made his skull ache.

Pain! Tearing pain! Xiang Yi felt like a balloon inflated to its limit, ready to explode into pieces at any moment! He had never suffered like this in either life! But he knew he could not pass out! If he did, this mad force would burn him to ash from the inside out!

"Hold... still!" Xiang Yi's will roared within the storm! Like a broken anchor lodged in the crest of a wave, no matter how towering the wind and waves were, he would not let go!

Enduring the agony of his soul being torn apart, he threw every ounce of focus into the Returning to the Hidden Formula. His psychic power spun madly, like an ant trying to hold a rudder amid raging seas!

His consciousness condensed into countless fine threads, desperately wrapping around and tugging at that violent energy, trying to force it along the path of the Returning to the Hidden Formula. Every pull felt like rolling in boiling oil. His psychic power was being violently scoured away and consumed, while his consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, on the verge of going out!

Sweat poured from his forehead, neck, and back like streams, soaking through his pajamas in an instant. His body convulsed uncontrollably across the cold floor, every spasm driving the pain deeper. His teeth ground together, and blood from the corner of his mouth mixed with sweat as it dripped to the ground, spreading into a patch of dark red.

Just as he felt his mind was about to collapse and his vision was about to go completely dark—

Buzzz!

The ten interconnected rings on the jade pendant suddenly lit up! They were not faint glimmers, but ten solid golden rings! They detached from the pendant and hovered above Xiang Yi's head, rotating slowly and radiating an ancient, majestic rhythm that seemed capable of suppressing heaven and earth!

The light of those ten golden rings was like the first bolt of lightning splitting an eternal night! The instant they appeared, they not only miraculously suppressed that wild, violent force, but also reignited Xiang Yi's nearly extinguished desire to survive!

The immense energy that had been crashing around wildly instantly became much more obedient beneath the golden rings' radiance! It was still fierce and heavy, but most of its savage urge to tear everything apart had been stripped away, making it far easier to control!

["Ten Rings" intervention! Energy stabilized! Leakage reduced!]

[Guidance efficiency soaring! Psychic power increasing...]

The system notifications brought a flicker of life!

Xiang Yi seized that lifeline. His psychic power surged wildly along the route of the Returning to the Hidden Formula, dragging that initially tamed mad force through his body again and again, expanding the boundaries of his mental world!

The pain still pierced to the bone, and his body still trembled on the verge of collapse, but the flame of hope had begun to burn!

He could "see" his pitiful little puddle of psychic power being violently widened and deepened by that immense force! The edges of the puddle rumbled outward, while its "water level" rose rapidly!

[Psychic Power: 110 → 115 → 120 → 125...]

The numbers leaped madly across the system interface! Every jump came with tearing agony in his body and a tremor of ascension in his soul!

Just as Xiang Yi fought desperately against the storm within him, having nearly lost all awareness of the outside world—

"Whoosh—!"

A shrill, ear-piercing whistle suddenly tore through the dead silence of the warehouse district! Then came a second, and a third! Like death warrants!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several thunderous explosions erupted against the warehouse's outer walls and the open ground, accompanied by blinding flames and rolling black smoke! The shockwaves, carrying scorching air, shattered stones, and broken steel bars, slammed viciously into the warehouse's crumbling walls! The entire ruined building shook as dust and broken tiles rained down from the wrecked roof!

"Found you, you little bastard!!" An enraged roar, rough as sandpaper scraping a wall, approached with heavy footsteps like muffled thunder! "Blow it up! Blow this damn shack to pieces! I want to see him alive or see his corpse!"

It was Scarface from the Black Serpent Gang! And the shrill howl of that one-eyed old freak followed: "My jade! Give me back my jade!!"

The pursuers had arrived! And they had come fast and hard! They had even brought homemade explosives!

The violent shaking and thunder of explosions hammered against Xiang Yi's taut nerves! The mad force he had barely restrained inside his body was startled and immediately began raging again!

"Pfft—!" Xiang Yi could no longer suppress it and vomited a mouthful of scorching blood! His psychic guidance instantly fell into chaos! The energy that the golden rings had only just stabilized spun out of control again, rampaging through his body. The tearing agony turned his vision black!

[Warning! Explosions outside! Guidance interrupted! Brain about to explode!]

[Leakage increasing again! Host is failing!]

It was over! Xiang Yi's heart sank to the bottom! Attacked from both inside and out, this was a dead end!

"Master!!" Lanling King's furious roar exploded inside Xiang Yi's consciousness! He had remained outside the warehouse like the most loyal shadow, and this sudden assault had completely ignited his killing intent!

At the warehouse's front entrance, Scarface and more than a dozen vicious Black Serpent Gang thugs were crazily pouring fire into the building! Bullets and iron pellets struck the rusted metal walls with a crackling rattle! On the flank, the one-eyed old ghost crouched atop an abandoned gantry crane like a phantom, his single eye bloodshot, its cloudy pupil viciously "biting" onto the unique trace of aura left behind by the jade pendant in the air!

It was him! He had led the Black Serpent Gang here!

"He's in the attic! Kill your way in!" Scarface sneered and raised his gun, unleashing a barrage at the chain locking the warehouse doors!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Sparks flew from the chain!

"Courting death!" Lanling King's killing intent erupted like an ice storm!

He no longer hid himself! His figure shot from the shadows beside the warehouse like black lightning tearing through the night sky! His target was the one-eyed old ghost above—the old bastard capable of locating his master had to die first!

"Die!" Lanling King snarled, the dark blue dagger in his hand carving a bleak arc as it stabbed toward the old ghost's heart from behind! He was so fast that only an afterimage remained!

Yet the one-eyed old ghost seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. At the instant the dagger neared him, he twisted his body strangely and narrowly evaded it! At the same time, his withered claw struck backward, sending a cold, sticky psychic attack at Lanling King like a venomous snake!

"Hmph!" Lanling King took the psychic attack head-on, turning his dagger thrust into a slash aimed straight at the old ghost's neck!

At the very instant the two fought desperately in midair!

"The one courting death is you!" Scarface spotted Lanling King below, and a vicious gleam flashed in his eyes! With a savage grin, he abruptly swung around the crude but terrifyingly powerful blunderbuss in his hands. Its dark muzzle instantly locked onto Lanling King, who was entangled with the old ghost in midair and inevitably slowed for an instant!

A cold premonition of death coiled around Lanling King's spine like a poisonous snake!

But he was fully occupied dealing with the old ghost's treacherous psychic attacks. There was no way for him to evade this killing blow from behind!

"Die for me!" Scarface pulled the trigger!

BOOM—!!!

A deafening gunshot exploded! A broad fan-shaped storm of scorching iron pellets, enough to tear a man apart, blasted toward Lanling King's back! The spread was too wide to dodge!

"Get out of the way!" Xiang Yi's mental scream exploded inside Lanling King's mind!

Lanling King's pupils shrank sharply! His old force had just run out, while his new force had yet to rise! At that critical moment, all he could do was twist desperately, moving his heart out of harm's way!

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Dull tearing sounds rang out! Countless scorching iron pellets buried themselves viciously in Lanling King's right shoulder and back! The massive impact hurled him from midair like a broken sack!

"Urgh!" Lanling King crashed heavily onto a pile of rotten wooden crates! The moment he hit the ground, the last of his powerful core strength erupted. He forcibly twisted and rolled to dissipate the force, preventing his spine from taking the impact directly!

But the agony ripping through his right shoulder and back was like molten iron being poured over him. His vision darkened, and he nearly passed out! Blood instantly soaked through his black clothes. His right shoulder was a mangled, bloody mess, with jagged white bone even visible! The pain and blood loss drained all color from his face. He could no longer maintain invisibility, and his body was completely exposed amid the flames and smoke!

"Ha ha! Got him! Capture him alive!" Scarface roared in wild delight, raising his gun again!

The one-eyed old ghost above took the chance to unleash an even stronger psychic attack, hammering it toward the severely wounded Lanling King like an invisible iron mallet!

Lanling King's gaze was cold as ice, as though he could not feel the agony in his shoulder at all. He braced himself with his left hand and tried to rise, but blood loss and pain slowed him by a beat! The psychic attack and Scarface's second shot were about to swallow him whole!

Life and death hung by a thread!

Buzzz—!!!

An indescribable, terrifying aura, as if it had come from the dawn of creation, suddenly erupted from the warehouse attic! It was like a ferocious beast that had slept for hundreds of millions of years opening its eyes! A pale blue pillar of energy shot into the sky, instantly blowing away the warehouse roof's rotten planks and stabbing into the pitch-black night! Within the pillar, the faint phantoms of ten slowly rotating golden rings could be seen!

[Success!]

[Pure Energy Crystal ×1 acquired!]

[Psychic Power limit +20! Current: 130!]

[Energy Points +200! Current: 250!]

[Mission "Find the Jade" completed!]

[Warning! Body is about to fall apart! Heal immediately!]

The system notifications sounded like heavenly music, but Xiang Yi could not hear them clearly at all. He was in terrible condition. His body felt like a broken sack that had been emptied out and forcibly stuffed full again. His meridians burned, his psychic power shook violently from the recent outburst, his vision was dark, and his ears rang. Only a trace of consciousness remained.

But he saw it! He saw Lanling King's blood-soaked figure amid the flames! He saw that vicious gun muzzle and the one-eyed old ghost's venomous psychic attack!

"Lanling King!" Xiang Yi's eyes split wide, and his hoarse cry carried terror and rage unlike anything he had ever felt before! Ignoring the agony wracking his body, he desperately squeezed his psychic power like a dying beast making one last struggle!

Seeing Lanling King about to be swallowed by death, the string called "reason" in Xiang Yi's mind snapped completely! Draining the last shred of strength from his soul, he roared at the system like a wild beast:

'Ghost Ward coordinates! Cut all signals! Maximum power! Right now! Immediately!!'

[Executing! Consuming 50 Psychic Power!]

["Ghost Ward" coordinate marked! Strong electromagnetic interference activated! Coverage: 500 meters!]

Buzzz—!

An invisible electromagnetic pulse far beyond modern technology exploded outward from the warehouse!

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Within five hundred meters, every electronic device erupted in sparks and was completely destroyed! The electronic firing mechanism in Scarface's blunderbuss blew apart on the spot! The Black Serpent Gang's radios began spewing black smoke! Even the alarms on several wrecked cars in the distance fell silent! The entire area sank into a strange, deathly darkness—not because there was no light, but because every light source, from flashlights and headlights to the sparks from explosions, seemed to have been snuffed out by an invisible hand! The air filled with the pungent stench of ozone and burnt electronic components! The deafening gunfire, curses, and alarms all vanished, leaving only the crackling of flames and the wind's mournful howl through the ruins. The silence was terrifying!

The one-eyed old ghost's psychic attack, which was about to strike Lanling King, was also violently disrupted and twisted by the sudden eruption of that chaotic, violent electromagnetic field, losing most of its power! By the time it struck Lanling King, less than a tenth of its force remained!

"Fuck! What the hell is this?!" Scarface stared at the smoking, misfiring blunderbuss in his hands. The savage grin on his face froze, turning into stunned disbelief and a trace... of fear toward the unknown.

"An electromagnetic pulse?! Impossible!" The one-eyed old ghost was even more terrified, feeling as though his psychic tendrils had reached into a pot of boiling oil. The chaotic electromagnetic currents tore at them with excruciating pain. He grunted, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth! The psychic field he used to track the jade pendant had also been stirred into complete chaos!

"Go—!!" Xiang Yi used the last of his strength to roar toward where Lanling King had fallen! Blood welled from the corner of his mouth again, his vision went completely black, and his body crumpled forward.

In the final instant before losing consciousness completely, he seemed to feel... something cold and ancient, carrying an endlessly profound aura, silently merge into the depths of his soul alongside the absorbed energy... His last remaining awareness was of Lanling King's bloodstained figure—

He completely ignored the agony in his right shoulder, pain enough to send an ordinary person into shock, along with the rushing blood. His eyes held only the fallen figure in the attic! Shadow Power forcibly coagulated around his wound to stop the bleeding, and he burst forth with speed beyond his limit. Like a bloodstained bolt of black lightning, he tore through smoke and flames and lunged toward the warehouse without hesitation!

The warehouse groaned amid the dying flames. The aftereffects of the electromagnetic interference still left faint crackles in the air, while the thick stench of blood, gunpowder, and burning debris mingled together over the ruins that had just been ravaged. The unconscious youth and the gravely wounded assassin were like small boats stranded after a storm, exposed beneath the lingering shadows of danger...