第27章 狙击

Muddy water churned, and the shadow behind Lu Ping suddenly elongated.

A pitch-black scythe stabbed out of his blind spot without warning, carrying a chilling wind straight for his heart.

In the eyes of an ordinary sorcerer, this was an exquisite sneak attack utilizing a visual dead angle.

However, he was facing a Ten Shadows Sorcerer.

In the domain of shadow manipulation, the Ten Shadows Technique was the absolute sovereign standing at the apex.

Under his extreme senses enhanced by the Three Corpses within his body, at such close range, the small movement a Grade 2 Sorcerer believed to be covert looked like child's play to Lu Ping.

Lu Ping did not even look back.

Instead of drawing the longbow in his hand again, he did the opposite: he kicked off the water surface with both feet, turning his figure into a residual image as he aggressively charged forward at the scythe-wielding curse user ahead!

The scythe-wielding curse user's pupils shrank, followed by wild joy. "He didn't run, but instead charged right at me?"

His technique, [Shadow Scythe], grew faster and more powerful the closer it was to his main body.

He might have been wary of that strange horned longbow during mid-range pulls, but close-quarters combat was definitely his strong suit.

He gave a loud laugh as his cursed energy erupted violently, raising the giant scythe high and bringing it down in an overhead chop laden with ferocious cursed energy.

Simultaneously, the black scythe extending from the shadow behind Lu Ping also accelerated its strangulation.

This double pincer attack was extremely difficult to parry.

Lu Ping's expression was indifferent.

He knew very well that behind these people, there must be a support sorcerer sitting in real-time command, providing frontline intelligence.

If he did not pick off that fellow, the battle would descend into endless passivity.

As for the scythe-wielding curse user before him who thought his plan had succeeded, from the very moment a shadow mark was planted on him, he was already a dead man.

Deep within the pipes, inside a dry underground dark room.

A emaciated-looking sorcerer had his eyes tightly closed.

On the cloth strip wrapping his eyes, five pale little eyeballs were spinning violently.

This was his technique, [Fivefold Eyes], capable of omnidirectional sharing of the frontline's field of view.

"Boss, 'Fist' was shot dead by that strange bow. 'Scythe' is engaged in close-quarters combat," the emaciated sorcerer said in a dry voice.

Behind the emaciated sorcerer sat a powerfully built forty-year-old man.

Mitarai Shizuru was a core Grade 1 sorcerer of the Pan Star Religious Group's "Time Vessel Association" and the leader of this team.

He wore a black long garment modified from a monk's robe, and his left hand perpetually wore an iron glove carved all over with sealing runes.

"Two pieces of trash, can't even take down a Grade 2 Sorcerer who lost his shikigami. They deserve to die."

Mitarai Shizuru stood up, his gaze landing on the longbow in the monitoring feed, a trace of greed flashing in his eyes.

"'Five Eyes', you and Fatty stay here and immediately retreat if the situation goes bad; the Pan Star Religious Group has other strongholds elsewhere."

The emaciated sorcerer nodded, and next to him, a fat sorcerer exuding a sweet, cloying fragrance gave a chilling smile.

The fat sorcerer's technique could convert cursed energy into hallucinogenic incense, usually relying on it specifically to abduct people inside as subjects for human experiments.

In the blink of an eye, the Pan Star Religious Group's top five-man squad was left with only four members.

Yet they were not panicked. It was not as if there had never been precedents of sorcerers breaking in before, but in the end, all incidents were falsified as cursed spirit attacks to muddle through.

Coupled with the emaciated sorcerer's exceptionally deep barrier-crafting attainments, the stronghold where they resided was wrapped in a special Curtain.

This barrier could not only perfectly shield the cursed energy aura inside, but even modern electromagnetic signals could not penetrate it.

It was precisely by relying on this method that this underground stronghold had existed for so long.

At this moment, within the frontline pipe.

The scythe-wielding curse user's smile suddenly froze. He discovered that Lu Ping's speed had grown faster.

It was not because his own state had declined due to consuming cursed energy, but rather because the opponent's cursed energy seemed to not have been depleted by much at all!

In ordinary jujutsu concepts, cursed energy was dead matter refined from negative emotions—every bit used was a bit less.

Yet on Lu Ping's end, because the Three Corpses within his body were continuously replenishing cursed energy for him, his state was perpetually maintained at its peak.

His total volume of cursed energy and recovery speed at this moment had long since surpassed the limits of an ordinary Grade 2 sorcerer!

Lu Ping sidestepped while running, holding his bow backward with his left hand while pulling his right hand back to the limit.

"Careful! He's drawing his bow behind his back to ambush you!" An urgent warning came through the earpiece.

The scythe-wielding curse user felt a jolt of alarm, thinking Lu Ping was going to use the perspective difference to hide his bow and launch a sneak attack.

He instinctively retracted his long scythe, holding it horizontally across his chest to shift from offense to defense, placing all his lethal hopes on the shadow scythe behind him.

The very moment the shadow scythe behind him was about to touch his clothes, Lu Ping released his fingers.

Swish!

The arrow tore through the air, but its target was not the scythe-wielding curse user before him; instead, it headed straight for the deep pipe behind him.

His body suddenly sinking, Lu Ping's entire person vanished like a drop of ink, instantly blending into the shot-out shadow and dodging the attack from behind.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Ping widened the distance by dozens of meters, darting toward the deeper parts of the pipe.

"Damn it! His target is Boss and the others!"

The scythe-wielding curse user stared at the empty space ahead, breaking out in a cold sweat.

Once this brat broke through the defense line and disturbed the leader, his derelict self would definitely be skinned alive or even thrown to Fatty to be made into experimental material.

Thinking of this, the scythe-wielding curse user panicked completely.

Relying on his familiarity with the underground terrain and the full-map view provided by [Fivefold Eyes], he frantically sprinted through the intricate pipes taking shortcuts.

"Stay right here!"

Several pitch-black shadow scythes clinked and spliced together in midair, transforming into a massive chain dozens of meters long that frantically hooked toward Lu Ping's retreating back with bone-chilling dead qi.

Lu Ping's figure shuttled through the shadows at high speed.

Passing three sharp turns in succession, with every turn he crossed, his cursed energy perception expanded outward by another fraction.

Rushing forward was not to walk into a trap; he simply needed to close the distance and use his senses to further lock onto the exact location of the intelligence sorcerer on the other side.

Finally, upon stepping into a wide drainage basin, Lu Ping's gaze pierced through layers of concrete and locked firmly onto that concealed dark room situated hundreds of meters away in a straight line.

"Got you."

He did not plan to continue penetrating deep into the enemy's lair.

In such a narrow, complex underground space, no one knew how many unknown traps and curse users were buried inside.

At this distance, it was already his limit shooting range.

He was going to kill him from afar right here.

However, the distance was too great; the cursed energy arrow would experience spiritual energy dissipation during its flight through the air, causing its power to plummet drastically and perhaps failing to secure a one-hit kill.

Lu Ping flipped his wrist, and an arrow radiating a chilling blue light appeared between his fingertips.

Dense, pale-blue electric arcs wound around the surface of the arrow, emitting a crisp crackling sound.

Dense ancient bird patterns were carved onto the shaft, faintly transmitting the crisp screeches of fierce avian beasts.

This was a Grade 1 Cursed Tool gifted by the old family head and treasured within the Zenin Clan's Cursed Tool Vault—[Nue's Feather].

Lu Ping nocked [Nue's Feather] against the string without rushing to adjust his direction.

The sorcerer responsible for spotting had bizarre methods; once the opponent detected that he was carrying out an ultra-long-range sniping operation, that sorcerer would definitely evade in advance.

He had only one chance and must not alert the enemy.

With his longbow lowered and his body swaying slightly, he hid behind a fractured concrete beam, putting on the illusion that he was preparing to ambush the scythe-wielding curse user.

"Found you!"

From behind, the scythe-wielding curse user rushed out.

Seeing Lu Ping hiding behind cover, he swung the giant scythe without hesitation, rolling shadows like a black tide instantly transforming into a curtain that blotted out the sky, completely sealing off the field of vision around Lu Ping.

"Let's see where you hide this time!"

Meanwhile, inside the gloomy dark room, the emaciated sorcerer's [Fivefold Eyes] twitched violently as the view was instantly filled by the black curtain.

"Damn it, the view is blocked!" A wisp of ominous premonition rose in the emaciated sorcerer's heart.

He did not know that this shadow curtain used to block Lu Ping's vision had instead become Lu Ping's most perfect cover.

The very moment the curtain fell, Lu Ping vanished from the field of vision of the [Fivefold Eyes].

The light darkened completely.

At this moment, Lu Ping turned around abruptly, the muscles on his arms slightly bulging as he instantly drew his longbow to a full moon.

The electric light on [Nue's Feather] illuminated his face in a pale blue.

"Second arrow."