Sniping

Mud churned as the shadow behind Lu Ping suddenly stretched.

A pitch-black scythe stabbed out from a blind spot without warning, carrying a chilling gust as it shot straight for his heart.

To ordinary sorcerers, this was an exquisite ambush exploiting a visual blind spot.

However, he was facing a Ten Shadows Sorcerer.

In the realm of manipulating shadows, the Ten Shadows Technique stood as the absolute ruler at the very pinnacle.

With his extreme senses enhanced by the Three Corpses within him, the supposedly concealed little move of a Grade 2 Sorcerer at such close range was nothing more than child's play in Lu Ping's eyes.

Lu Ping did not even turn his head.

Rather than drawing the longbow in his hand again, he did the opposite. He kicked off the water's surface, turning into an afterimage as he charged directly toward the scythe-wielding curse user ahead!

The scythe-wielding curse user's pupils contracted, then he was overjoyed. "You didn't run. You actually charged at me?"

The closer his Shadow Scythe was to his body, the faster and more powerful it became.

At medium range, he might have feared that strange horned longbow, but close-quarters combat was absolutely his specialty.

He laughed loudly as cursed energy erupted from his entire body. He raised his massive scythe high and brought it down in a savage slash charged with violent cursed energy.

At the same time, the black scythe extending from Lu Ping's shadow accelerated its strangling attack.

A double pincer attack, nearly impossible to defend against.

Lu Ping remained calm.

He knew perfectly well that behind these people, there had to be a support sorcerer stationed there who could provide real-time intelligence from the front line.

Unless he took that person out, the battle would remain endlessly passive.

As for the scythe-wielding curse user before him, who thought himself so clever, he had already been dead from the moment Lu Ping planted a shadow mark on him.

Deep within the pipes, inside a dry underground chamber.

A gaunt sorcerer sat with his eyes tightly shut.

Five pale little eyeballs embedded in the cloth bandages covering his eyes spun violently.

This was his technique, Fivefold Eyes, which allowed him to share the front-line view from every direction.

"Boss, 'Fist' was shot dead by that strange bow. 'Scythe' is currently tied up in close combat." The gaunt sorcerer's voice was dry and hollow.

Behind the gaunt sorcerer sat a burly man in his forties.

Mitarai Shizuru was a core Grade 1 Sorcerer of the Pan Star Religious Group's Time Vessel Association, as well as the leader of this team.

He wore a black robe modified from a monk's garment, and an iron glove covered his left hand year-round. The glove was engraved with sealing runes.

"Two pieces of trash. They couldn't even handle a Grade 2 Sorcerer who lost his shikigami. They deserved to die."

Mitarai Shizuru rose to his feet. His gaze settled on the longbow in the surveillance feed, and greed flashed in his eyes.

"But that bow is quite a treasure. Five Eyes, you and Fatty stay on standby here. If anything goes wrong, retreat immediately. The Pan Star Religious Group has other bases."

The gaunt sorcerer nodded. Beside him, a fat sorcerer giving off a cloyingly sweet scent smiled coldly.

The fat sorcerer's technique could convert cursed energy into hallucinogenic incense. He usually relied on it to abduct people and bring them here as material for human experiments.

This elite five-man squad of the Pan Star Religious Group had been reduced to four in the blink of an eye.

But they were not panicking. It was not as though sorcerers had never broken in before, but every one of them had ultimately been passed off as having died in a cursed spirit attack.

Furthermore, the gaunt sorcerer was extremely proficient with barriers. Their base was wrapped in a special Curtain.

This barrier could not only perfectly conceal the cursed energy within, but even modern electromagnetic signals could not penetrate it.

This was precisely how this underground base had existed for so long.

Meanwhile, inside the front-line pipes.

The scythe-wielding curse user's smile suddenly froze as he realized that Lu Ping had become faster.

It was not because his own cursed energy consumption had weakened him, but because the other man seemingly had not expended much cursed energy at all!

Under conventional jujutsu theory, cursed energy was a dead thing refined from negative emotions. Every bit used was one bit less.

But for Lu Ping, the Three Corpses within him continuously replenished his cursed energy, keeping him at peak condition at all times.

His current total cursed energy and recovery speed had long surpassed the limits of an ordinary Grade 2 Sorcerer!

Lu Ping twisted sideways as he ran, holding the bow behind him with his left hand while drawing it backward with his right.

"Watch out! He's drawing the bow behind his back to ambush you!" A hurried warning came through the earpiece.

The scythe-wielding curse user was startled. He thought Lu Ping intended to exploit the difference in their lines of sight, hiding the bow behind him before launching a sneak attack.

Instinctively, he withdrew his long scythe and held it horizontally before his chest, switching from offense to defense and placing his killing move entirely in the shadow scythe behind Lu Ping.

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

Whoosh!

The arrow tore through the air, but its target was not the scythe-wielding curse user before him. Instead, it shot straight into the deep pipe behind him.

His body suddenly sank. Lu Ping became like a drop of ink, instantly merging into the shadow he had fired and evading the attack from behind.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Ping had opened a distance of dozens of meters and darted deeper into the pipes.

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

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

If that brat breached the line and disturbed the leader, then as the subordinate who had failed in his duty, he would definitely be skinned alive—or even thrown to Fatty and turned into experimental material.

At that thought, the scythe-wielding curse user completely lost his head.

Relying on his familiarity with the underground terrain and the full-map view provided by Fivefold Eyes, he frantically took shortcuts through the maze-like pipes.

"Stay right there!"

Several pitch-black shadow scythes clanged together in midair, forming a gigantic chain dozens of meters long. Carrying a grim aura of death, it wildly hooked toward Lu Ping's retreating figure.

Lu Ping raced through the shadows at high speed.

He passed three sharp turns in succession. With every turn, his cursed energy perception spread a little farther outward.

Charging ahead was not because he wanted to walk into a trap. He simply needed to close the distance and use his senses to further pinpoint the exact location of that intelligence sorcerer.

At last, as he stepped into a wide Confluence District, Lu Ping's gaze pierced through layers of concrete and locked onto the hidden chamber several hundred meters away, directly ahead of him.

"Found you."

He had no intention of continuing deeper into the enemy's nest.

In such a narrow, complex underground space, no one knew how many unknown traps and curse users might still be lurking within.

At this distance, he had reached the limit of his shooting range.

He would kill them from afar, right here.

But the distance was too great. A cursed energy arrow would lose spiritual energy while flying through the air, drastically reducing its power. It might not be enough to kill in one shot.

With a flick of his wrist, an arrow glowing with an icy blue light appeared between Lu Ping's fingers.

Dense azure arcs of electricity coiled around its surface, crackling sharply.

The shaft was carved with intricate ancient bird patterns, and the faint, clear cries of fierce birds echoed from it.

This was a Grade 1 Cursed Tool kept in the Zenin Clan's Cursed Tool Vault and bestowed by the old clan head—Nue's Feather.

Lu Ping loosely nocked Nue's Feather onto the string, but did not immediately adjust his aim.

The sorcerer responsible for relaying positions had strange methods. If that person noticed Lu Ping preparing an ultra-long-range assassination, he would surely evade in advance.

There was only one chance. He could not alert the enemy.

He lowered his longbow, swayed slightly, and hid behind a broken concrete beam, creating the illusion that he was preparing to ambush the scythe-wielding curse user.

"Found you!"

The scythe-wielding curse user rushed out from behind.

Seeing Lu Ping hiding behind cover, he swung his massive scythe without hesitation. Rolling shadows surged like a black tide, instantly forming a curtain that blotted out the sky and completely sealed off Lu Ping's view.

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

Inside the dark chamber, the gaunt sorcerer's Fivefold Eyes twitched violently as the image was instantly filled by the black curtain.

"Damn it, the view's blocked!" A trace of foreboding rose in the gaunt sorcerer's heart.

He did not know that this shadow curtain, meant to obscure Lu Ping's vision, had instead become Lu Ping's perfect cover.

The instant the curtain fell, Lu Ping disappeared from Fivefold Eyes' field of vision.

The light completely faded.

At that moment, Lu Ping abruptly turned around. The muscles in his arms bulged slightly as he drew the longbow to a full moon in an instant.

The electricity on Nue's Feather cast his face in an azure glow.

"Second arrow."