Assassination

Fang Yan forcibly suppressed the turmoil in his heart, walked to the front of the behemoth's head, and sat down cross-legged.

He closed his eyes and extended his consciousness toward that vertical eye.

The sharp pressure of the laws was the first to rush at him, followed by the law insights of the Windforce Behemoth drifting through the air.

Yet at that very moment, a glint of cold light arrived first, followed by a spear that shot forth like a dragon!

By the time that cold glint pierced to the bone, Fang Yan had not even managed to make out the assassin's outline.

Too fast.

A blade that had grown from a living body pierced into Fang Yan's lower back and emerged from the front of his abdomen.

Fang Yan lowered his head and glanced at the half-section of silver-white blade protruding from his lower abdomen. Only one thought remained in his mind.

Damn it, an assassination!

Before he even had time to cry out in pain, an eerie chill exploded from the wound.

A grayish-white liquid, carrying an intense stench of decay, instantly spread through every inch of his body along with his blood.

Fang Yan felt his cells screaming.

Tens of trillions of cells let out dying wails at the same time. Their membranes shattered and dissolved from the inside out, turning into pus.

Wherever that grayish-white liquid passed, flesh and blood vanished in swathes, as though someone were erasing them from paper with an eraser.

His World Lord-level vitality drove newly formed cells forward in a frenzy to fill the gaps, but the instant those new cells came into contact with the grayish-white liquid, they were destroyed again. The cycle repeated endlessly.

"Spirit-Melting Venom! They really think highly of me."

Fang Yan gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging.

Then an enraged roar rang out, like thunder rolling across the heavens.

"Who dares touch a member of the Fang Family on Fang Family territory?!"

Fang Yan saw a figure appear out of thin air, then take a single step forward.

The space within ten thousand miles trembled.

Teleportation!

Fang Yan was overjoyed. His family's ancestor was actually a King-Level Immortal!

The ancestor grabbed the assassin in one hand. Only then did Fang Yan clearly see what the assassin looked like.

It was a slender humanoid creature, a little over two meters tall, its entire body covered in a layer of silver-gray exoskeleton.

Its arms were not hands, but two naturally formed blades.

Fresh blood from Fang Yan still clung to the tip of the blade on its left arm, dripping down drop by drop.

The Brahma Gold Race!

An exceptionally active warrior race during the early days of the Primordial Universe, every member was born with a natal weapon. Its sharpness far surpassed artificial weapons of the same rank, and after reaching immortality, they could even evolve their blades to wield power comparable to a heavy treasure.

By Luo Feng's era, the Brahma Gold Race had long since vanished into the river of history.

But at this moment, they were still the most feared assassins in the Southern Border Star Domain.

"Flame Ruins King! Hahaha, your little brat is going to die!"

The assassin's voice sounded like two pieces of metal grinding against each other, shrill and piercing.

He was clearly no more than a soul servant, and there was not the slightest fear of death in his eyes.

The ancestor hovered in midair. His clouded old eyes had opened fully, and two clusters of dark-red flames blazed deep within them.

He stretched out his hand and curled his five fingers in the air.

The flaming barrier abruptly contracted. An irresistible force forcibly crushed the Brahma Gold assassin's limbs back into his torso. His exoskeleton cracked and shattered with a series of crunches, while silver-gray blood poured from all six of his compound eyes.

"A High Army Lord. They were willing to pay quite a price."

The ancestor's voice was terrifyingly calm, but anyone who knew him understood that this calmness was precisely the most dangerous signal.

The Brahma Gold assassin grinned.

No expression could be seen on the face covered in exoskeleton, but the mockery in his laughter was unmistakable.

"Flame Ruins King, your Fang Family occupies seven liquid-metal veins along the Southern Border frontier. Why does my Spirit Magpie Race only get three? This time, we're collecting a little interest first. Just wait—we'll make you pay later!"

With that, the Brahma Gold assassin prepared to self-destruct.

However, with a clench of the Fang Family ancestor's fingers, the assassin found that he could not even self-destruct!

Seeing that self-destruction was impossible, the assassin began shouting again.

"Flame Ruins King, Spirit-Melting Venom has no cure. Your precious little grandson is already dead. Hahaha!"

He gestured toward Fang Yan with his chin, his tone full of delight.

"A genius with the potential to become a King in exchange for the life of one High Army Lord—worth it!"

"Who said I was going to die?"

A voice suddenly rang out.

It was not loud, and was even somewhat hoarse from pain, yet amid the wreckage-filled Artifact Refining Hall, it reached everyone's ears with perfect clarity.

The Brahma Gold assassin's smile froze.

The ancestor's hand paused slightly as well, and everyone turned toward the source of the voice.

Fang Yan, who had been sitting cross-legged before the Windforce Behemoth's head, was slowly rising to his feet.

The puncture wound in his abdomen had not fully healed. The Wind Law Imprint on his forehead flickered in and out, while blood dripped from the hem of his robes onto the ground, staining a patch of Fire-Pattern Stone tiles red.

Yet his expression was calm.

So calm that he did not look like someone who had just been pierced through and poisoned with a lethal toxin.

"Spirit-Melting Venom really is formidable."

Fang Yan raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, then grinned.

"Unfortunately, your Spirit Magpie Race is still too poor. Did you buy expired poison?"

All six of the Brahma Gold assassin's compound eyes widened at once.

"Impossible!"

For the first time, his voice wavered, becoming so shrill it nearly pierced their eardrums.

"The Spirit-Melting Venom has been in your body for more than a hundred breaths. How could your cells still be..."

He stopped halfway through.

Because he saw what was happening to Fang Yan.

The erosion of the grayish-white liquid was reversing!

The Spirit-Melting Venom that had already spread throughout Fang Yan's body seemed to be forcibly erased from the timeline by an invisible hand, retreating inch by inch.

His dissolved flesh regrew, shattered cells returned to their original state, and even the grayish-white liquid seeping from his wound flowed backward into the puncture made by the blade.

Time Reversal!

Fang Yan stood where he was as the Spring Autumn Cicada avatar within his body let out a long, resonant cicada cry.

A flash of black-gold secret-pattern light streaked across his brow, and an invisible ripple spread outward from him, covering an area ten meters around him.

Reversal range: ten meters.

Reversal time: one minute.

The caster himself: follows the reversal!

With the option to follow the reversal, the Spirit-Melting Venom within Fang Yan's body rapidly vanished, while the flesh and cells destroyed by the poison were restored to their original state.

The wounds all over Fang Yan's body vanished before everyone's eyes!

The blood that had seeped from his wounds returned to his body. His skin healed as good as new, and even the holes in his robes were restored by the effects of Time Reversal.

In any case, his own ancestor would not harbor any ill intentions toward a Fang Family descendant like him, so Fang Yan decisively used his innate secret technique to save his life.

Although Time Reversal was far too terrifying, he could always claim afterward that it was a restorative innate secret technique.

Fang Yan bent down and picked up the Wind Crystal Spirit Fruit that had fallen to the ground.

He had bought it an hour ago. It had been knocked to the ground just now, but it was now completely intact.

Fang Yan stuffed it into his mouth and took a hard bite. Then, amid the deathly silence, he cupped his hands toward the ancestor hovering in the air.

"Ancestor, can I kill this person?"