Healing Wounds and a Thunderclap

The bedroom was so silent it felt like a vacuum. The icy, ghostly blue glow of the two Energy Crystals reflected off the dark red stain spreading across Lanling King's shoulder, carrying the sickly-sweet stench of death. It also illuminated Xiang Yi's suddenly contracted pupils and the blood draining from his face.

Ten Rings!

The mark branded onto the bottom of the crystal seared itself into Xiang Yi's retinas like a red-hot iron! Fragments of memories from his past life—the deafening explosions in an Afghan cave, the desperate roar of the Mark armor amid smoke and fire, the millennium-old terror dynasty lurking beneath the Mandarin's shadow—erupted in his mind! How is this possible?! They... they've already infiltrated this far?! A freezing premonition of death, a hundred times stronger than what he had felt before the Beast totem, pierced through the crown of his head like a poisoned ice spike!

He did not even have time to look at Lanling King's paper-white face or his swaying body. Driven by instinctive terror and grim resolve, his body had already moved! A hoarse voice squeezed from his taut throat. "Endure it!"

Before the words had faded, his left hand shot out like lightning and seized the crystal he had just picked up, its base branded with the Ten Rings Curse! Bone-piercing cold instantly froze his finger joints. The violent energy within throbbed madly through the crystal like an ancient beast trapped in a cage, numbing his entire arm! His right palm slammed down near Lanling King's right shoulder wound with ruthless force. Through the tactical uniform soaked in cold, sticky blood, searing wetness instantly stained his palm, as if he had gripped a red-hot branding iron.

"System! Heal him! Maximum-power guidance! Now!" Xiang Yi roared in his mind, every thought carrying a tearing resolve.

[Command confirmed. Activating mental-power guidance mode. Host mental power will serve as the anchor. Severe warning: High-intensity foreign energy, 'Degraded Ten Rings Power,' detected deeply parasitizing the target wound core! Forced dispersal/absorption carries a high risk of loss of control and unknown backlash! Continue?]

"Continue!" Xiang Yi's will was like a tempered blade, utterly decisive! Lanling King's life was the greatest risk right now! He could not lose this blood-soaked Shadow Blade!

Bzzzz—!!!

A violent suction force erupted from Xiang Yi's palm pressed against the wound! The blue crystal beneath his hand suddenly burst with blinding, nearly incandescent light! Countless hair-thin streams of blazing blue-white light, each containing destructive power, were forcibly drawn from within the crystal like a swarm of enraged venomous snakes. Through the mental-power channel Xiang Yi had forcibly opened, they surged madly backward into the hand pressing against Lanling King's shoulder!

"Ughh—!" Xiang Yi felt as if he had grabbed a high-voltage cable! The raging flood of energy instantly drowned his fragile mental channel! Hundreds of millions of red-hot steel wires repeatedly pierced and tugged at his nerves! Every wave of energy brought pain as though his brain matter were boiling, as if his skull were about to explode! He did not see stars before his eyes, only a curtain of scarlet blood and warped static! The bones in his right arm groaned under the unbearable strain. Veins bulged beneath his skin like twisted earthworms, on the verge of bursting! Blood did not merely run from his nose—it sprayed out uncontrollably, instantly staining his chin and chest crimson!

"Hah—!" Lanling King's burly body arched violently upward as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer! His kneeling posture tightened to its limit, as though he might snap in half the next second! Thick veins stood out on his forehead and neck, coiling like venomous pythons! His eyeballs bulged from the excruciating pain, bloodshot and terrifying, nearly popping from their sockets! His teeth, clamped tightly onto the alloy bracer on his left arm, sank deep into the metal. His gums instantly split open, and dark red blood mixed with saliva streamed along the grooves of the bracer! His body convulsed violently like a fish dragged from the water and shocked with electricity, muscle fibers twitching and twisting madly beneath his skin! The roar he forcibly suppressed became a broken-bellows rasp from deep in his throat. Every convulsion sent more black-red blood spurting from his shoulder wound!

Enduring the agony of his own soul being torn apart and the blood-red blur in his vision, Xiang Yi forged his last shred of clarity into the finest surgical scalpel! He no longer tried to strike head-on with the blue torrent. Instead, he forcibly separated out a relatively gentle wisp of blue light, carefully guiding it to softly "wrap around" the smallest cluster of golden-red threads deepest within the wound!

Crackle—pop!

The golden-red threads touched by the blue light twisted and pierced wildly through Lanling King's flesh like malevolent vines with lives of their own! When blue and golden-red collided fiercely, sparks did not burst forth. Instead, dense purple-black arcs of electricity exploded with piercing shrieks! A dense stench of ozone mixed with scorched flesh instantly filled the cramped bedroom with death!

"Ughhh—!" Lanling King's body sprang violently against his restraints, then slammed heavily back onto the floor with a brutally suppressed, inhuman scream! The golden-red threads being wrapped struggled a little less fiercely, but the devastating sensation of conflict still tore at his nerves!

It worked! But it was even more dangerous! Xiang Yi was like a tightrope walker on the edge of a cliff in a raging storm! One misstep, even the slightest fluctuation in his mental power, and the violent blue energy he was guiding would explode completely out of control, blasting Lanling King's shoulder and half his body into a shower of flesh! Blood seeped from all seven of his orifices. Scarlet and static covered most of his vision. Every breath carried a heavy taste of rust, yet he maintained the stability of that "scalpel" with all his might, repeating the process to "wrap" the other rampaging golden-red threads.

Time stretched infinitely amid the extreme pain. Sweat and blood pooled into a small puddle beneath Xiang Yi's feet. Beneath Lanling King, sweat mixed with black-red poisoned blood, spreading into a sticky swamp of death. Guiguzi's illusory figure flickered violently in the corner, while countless Xuan Weizi particles surged toward Lanling King like moths flying into flame, desperately stabilizing the flame of life teetering on the verge of collapse.

At last, when Xiang Yi guided the final few trembling wisps of blue light and with difficulty barely "wrapped" the most stubborn cluster of golden-red threads deep within the wound, like the core of a malignant tumor, the terrifying energy-conflict glow and shrieking electric arcs finally dimmed and fell silent. The crystals' light also went out completely, leaving behind two cold, lifeless stones. The wound's surface had been forcibly cauterized shut by the violent energy. Its curled flesh had turned charred black and carbonized, no longer bleeding.

[Target wound contamination from 'Degraded Ten Rings Power' temporarily suppressed!]

[Severe warning: Contamination source 'Active Ten Rings Mark' remains deeply parasitized and has not been eradicated! It continues to erode the host's life force and shadow energy! Eradication difficulty: SSS-class! Backlash may erupt at any time!]

[Host mental power severely depleted! Mental power: 3/170 (Critical)]

The cold notification sounded like a funeral bell. Xiang Yi's vision went completely black, and his body staggered backward like a puppet with its strings cut. He crashed heavily into the desk with a bang, barely managing to stay upright. He gasped for breath, every inhalation bringing searing pain like torn lungs and a heavy stench of blood. Every bone in his body wailed. The hand pressed against Lanling King's shoulder had long gone numb and trembled violently beyond his control.

Lanling King's body, taut as steel, suddenly went slack as if every tendon and bone had been removed. He pitched forward, his forehead striking the cold floor with a heavy thud. Only instinctive, broken-bellows breathing remained. Every breath tugged at the lingering pain in his shoulder that seemed to tear apart his soul. Sweat poured like a waterfall from his soaked hair, quickly pooling on the floor. Two rows of deep, bloodstained bite marks on the alloy bracer were horrifying to behold.

"My lord..." His voice was hoarse and shattered beyond recognition, like sandpaper scraping rusted iron. With endless weakness after surviving disaster and unconcealed anxiety, he used his last bit of strength to turn his head with difficulty and look at Xiang Yi, who leaned against the desk as if he might shatter at any moment.

Xiang Yi weakly waved his hand, signaling that he was still alive. Yet his gaze remained nailed to Lanling King's exposed shoulder wound. Deep within the charred wound, beneath the flesh, the dark-gold glow that had been temporarily suppressed had not disappeared. It had instead become even clearer! Like a living creature, it slowly squirmed and gathered, faintly forming a miniature Ten Rings Mark no larger than a fingernail yet incomparably distinct! The mark rotated extremely slowly deep in the flesh. Every faint pulse triggered strange, uncontrollable spasms in the muscles around the wound, radiating a cold, greedy, evil aura as though it wanted to devour everything! It resonated in a hair-raising manner with the Ten Rings Mark at the bottom of the crystal in his hand!

This was no gunshot wound! This was a brand from the abyss!

A chill colder and more despairing than before instantly seized Xiang Yi's heart, nearly suffocating him. The Hand, the Ten Rings Syndicate... what kind of gigantic web, capable of devouring everything, had these two terrifying forces entrenched in the shadows woven beneath this city?

Just then, the air in the corner of the room twisted and rippled soundlessly. Guiguzi's illusory figure gradually solidified from faint to clear, gathering without a sound. His broad sleeves billowed faintly as countless tiny Xuan Weizi particles flowed into them like weary birds returning to their nests. The old man's face, usually as still as an ancient well, was now filled with unprecedented gravity. There was even a hint of exhaustion between his brows, and his figure seemed somewhat fainter than usual.

"My lord, the Shadow Guard's injuries?" Guiguzi's sharp gaze swept over Lanling King, who looked as if he had been dragged from a pool of blood, and Xiang Yi's deathly pale face, as though his vitality had been drained away. His brows drew tightly together.

"Temporarily... suppressed..." Xiang Yi's voice was hoarse like a broken gong. He raised a trembling hand and fiercely wiped his face with a bloodstained sleeve, only smearing the nosebleed and cold sweat into an even bigger mess. He pointed at the miniature Ten Rings that squirmed and rotated on Lanling King's shoulder. Every word weighed a thousand pounds. "But... that damned thing... is still inside... alive! What about... the port?"

Guiguzi's gaze instantly became like a peerless murderous blade drawn from its sheath, glinting with icy light. "The winds are tight! The hounds have arrived, and... they are no ordinary hounds!"

He swept his broad sleeve through the empty air at the center of the room. In an instant, innumerable dust-fine Xuan Weizi particles surged out like a startled galaxy, rapidly weaving, spinning, and gathering!

Bzzzz!

An incomparably clear holographic projection instantly unfolded in the center of the bedroom!

The image showed an aerial view of Pier Seven, East Sea Port District! Yet the silent pier had now been illuminated like hell by glaring red and blue police lights and stark-white high-powered searchlights! Several black SUVs bearing the markings of the FBI and the local police department had sealed every entrance and exit like steel beasts. Armed personnel in heavy body armor, holding assault rifles, occupied every high point with grim expressions like statues, their hawk-like eyes sweeping the dark corners.

The projection's viewpoint closed in like a ghostly eye, focusing on the entrance to Hold Seven of the Eastern Pearl cargo ship. Several people in sharply tailored black suits, utterly out of place among the surrounding police, were directing the scene. The man in the lead had a slightly receding hairline and a gentle, refined appearance. A habitual, perfectly measured polite curve even rested at the corners of his mouth. But his eyes—sharp as scalpels capable of dissecting souls, cold and deep as an ancient frozen pool—seemed able to pierce every disguise and stab straight into the darkest corners of the human heart! Wearing immaculate white silk gloves, he was crouched beside an area circled in white on the deck, his fingers professionally and gently brushing over the perfect, chillingly precise fatal cut across a black-clad ninja corpse's throat, where barely a trace of blood could be seen.

Phil Coulson! Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.!

The projection shifted and enlarged with Guiguzi's thoughts. Several oddly shaped hexagonal shuriken lay scattered beside the corpse, their blades gleaming with an eerie ghostly blue beneath the searchlights. They were certainly not made of any metal common to Earth! Nearby lay several twisted, trampled fragments of brass—the remains of the cargo-container lock Lanling King's Shadow Dagger had violently severed! At the fracture, under the special perspective formed by the Xuan Weizi particles, a faint yet exceptionally pure fluctuation of shadow energy remained. Guiguzi had specifically marked it with pale golden points of light!

The image shifted again, focusing on an inconspicuous metal deck plate farther away. A nearly flattened metal shell casing, stained with thick black blood, was clearly visible! That black blood carried the unique sickly-sweet stench of Lanling King's poison!

"Three ninja corpses, all killed by a single cut to the throat. The technique... was perfect." Guiguzi's voice was low as an underground cold current, every word carrying a metallic weight. "The abandoned hidden weapons contain highly toxic foreign metal. The destroyed lock bears the residual mark of 'shadow' power." His gaze passed over Xiang Yi and Lanling King on the ground, carrying unprecedented gravity. "The leader of these hounds possesses an aura as deep and condensed as an abyss, and his perception is exceptionally sharp. His subordinates carry precise instruments this old man has never seen, and they are fully capturing and analyzing the residual characteristics of 'shadow' and 'Xuanwei' particles at the scene! The previous energy scan from the west side of the city was not aimless. Its energy signature had a clear intent to lock onto a target. The target... was this area!"

Xiang Yi's heart seemed to plunge into an icy abyss. S.H.I.E.L.D. had moved faster than he could have imagined! Coulson was personally overseeing the operation. The scene still held shadow-energy traces Lanling King had been unable to completely erase, traces of battle—the lock—and most fatal of all, a shell casing carrying his unique poisoned blood! Biological evidence! Guiguzi had cleaned up afterward, but against S.H.I.E.L.D.'s black technology and Coulson's eyes that saw through everything... how much longer could they remain hidden?

"Also," Guiguzi swept his sleeve again, and the projection instantly changed to the interior of the Zhang family villa in the west of the city!

Bloodshed! A slaughterhouse!

Within the projected secret room, the Beast statue that had once stood there so menacingly had been melted by some unimaginable heat into a warped, grotesque lump of metal, like a crushed clay figurine! A thick layer of gray-white bone ash, still warm, lay scattered across the floor! Vast splatters of dark red blood stained the walls, not yet fully dry, like an abstract painting of hell—blindingly horrifying! Yet not a single intact corpse could be found! The heavy safe that had held the crucial list, along with any documents that might have been inside, had been entirely "cut" away. Only a huge hollow with mirror-smooth edges and an unnatural ghostly gleam remained! At its edges lingered a faint yet bone-chilling ripple of energy—the same in origin as the squirming Ten Rings Mark deep within Lanling King's wound!

"The Zhang family... has been erased." Guiguzi's tone remained calm, yet it carried a chill that froze the soul. "The Beast totem was burned away. The core members... left not even bones behind. The list and safe... were transferred through spatial cutting. The scene retains... the power of the Ten Rings."

The room fell into a dead silence, heavy as if filled with lead. Only Lanling King's severely suppressed, broken breathing and Xiang Yi's own heartbeat, pounding like a war drum and smashing against his skull with every beat, roared and exploded beside his ears.

The port had been exposed. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s blade hung over their heads. Ten Rings Power gnawed at Lanling King like gangrene clinging to bone. The Zhang family had been bloodily silenced, and vital leads had been severed through spatial cutting... An invisible net, a thousand times greater and more terrifying than the Hand, had suddenly opened from the deepest darkness. Carrying icy murderous intent and an irresistible pressure, it descended over them! The source of it all pointed to the Ten Rings Mark branded upon the crystal and deep within Lanling King's flesh!

The hollow sensation caused by severe mental-power depletion devoured Xiang Yi's remaining consciousness like a black hole. Every heartbeat triggered lingering pain as though his skull were exploding, and his vision repeatedly darkened. Yet the phantom image of S.H.I.E.L.D. searchlights piercing the night beyond the window, along with the golden Ten Rings glow slowly squirming through Lanling King's flesh and radiating a cold devouring sensation, branded themselves onto his collapsing nerves like two red-hot irons!

"Mr. Guiguzi!" Xiang Yi suddenly raised his head. A crazed flame driven to the edge of desperation burned in his bloodshot eyes. His hoarse voice rasped like a grinding wheel against steel, filled with ruthless, all-or-nothing resolve. "Reinforce the barrier! Drain it dry! Drain every last energy point! Weld the damned turtle shell shut for me! Cover the whole block! Not even a fucking fly's thoughts are getting in to spy!"

His gaze turned to Lanling King, who was struggling on the floor to push himself up. The squirming golden glow of the Ten Rings stabbed at his eyes. "Lie down!" His voice was absolute and beyond dispute, carrying gritted hatred. "That damned thing... I'll dig it out myself!"

Finally, Xiang Yi slowly lowered his head. His hand, smeared with blood and cold sweat, suddenly clenched the cold, lifeless blue Energy Crystal in his palm, its base branded with the Ten Rings! Its sharp edges, like fangs of vengeance, instantly sank deep into his tender palm! Warm blood immediately surged out, soaking the cold crystal and staining the Ten Rings Mark—the symbol of endless shadow—a glaring crimson!

He suddenly raised that bloodstained hand, his five fingers clamped around the bloodied Ten Rings crystal like iron pincers. As if gripping a declaration of war from the abyss, he pointed it fiercely toward the deep night outside the window that devoured everything. His voice, tempered with ice and fire, erupted from his young body in a roar powerful enough to rip apart the darkness:

"As for those filthy hands hiding in the shadows, thinking they can treat everyone like pieces on a chessboard..."

"I'll grind them, skin and bone, inch by inch, into dust!"