Because in his previous life, the term Saint Mother had practically become derogatory, so after seeing Chen Juntaing's attributes, Zhang Ping had unconsciously been led astray by his past-life experience.→Read
Fortunately, he reacted in time.
Although the two worlds had many synonymous terms, many words also carried entirely different meanings.
If Saint Mother was not a fictional existence in this world, then Chen Juntaing's ability was probably far from simple.
Zhang Ping followed closely behind the three while thinking. Suddenly, one of them stopped and turned to look toward where he was.
"Damn, I've been discovered."
Zhang Ping's heart skipped a beat, but he immediately made a decision. He could not let them abduct Chen Juntaing.
Kill!
Nether Mist covered his face, forming Reaper's Mask in the blink of an eye. At the same time, he drew the Fear War Scythe from the Golden Treasury. He leaped down from the rooftop, rolling Nether Mist trailing behind him as he slashed at the man blocking his path.
"Sleep... fuck!"
The man looked up at Zhang Ping. Before he could activate his ability, Zhang Ping's face startled him. Then his fear rapidly intensified until his mind went completely blank.
One slash.
The man's eyes suddenly widened, and a hair-thin red line appeared across his neck.
Zhang Ping did not stop. Instead, he gripped the Fear War Scythe and pursued the other two at even greater speed.
Only a while after he had left did the man's head fall to the ground, blood gushing out.
Up ahead, the man with crimson eyes and his subordinate moved quickly. Suddenly, the man frowned. "Huang San is dead. Hand her over to me, Huang Wu. Go hold him off."
"Yes!" replied the subordinate with Psychokinetic Force.
The crimson-eyed man then hoisted Chen Juntaing over his shoulder and continued running, while Huang Wu turned and stopped. Slowly raising both hands, he shouted, "Minor Meteor Belt!"
The surrounding ground instantly burst apart. Countless rocks were controlled by an invisible force and floated into the air, forming an area before him that resembled a meteor field.
Holding the Fear War Scythe in one hand, Zhang Ping rushed out from around the corner and saw the street filled with densely floating rocks.
The next moment, those rocks rained down on him like bullets. Yet as they passed through the Nether Mist, his body transformed into the Pure Water Body. Stone after stone passed through him without harming him.
Huang Wu narrowed his eyes. Seeing that his attack could not injure the mysterious man, he immediately retreated while controlling more rocks to block the path before him.
At this point, he sought no credit, only no fault. As long as he could stop this mysterious man's pursuit, that would be victory.
Zhang Ping slashed apart the rocks blocking his way. Seeing even more rocks ahead, he could not help cursing inwardly. But then an idea struck him. He lowered his head and looked at the ground ahead. Under the moonlight, Huang Wu's shadow was clearly visible.
"Die!"
He swung his scythe, splitting the rocks ahead in two, but there were still more rocks blocking the way.
But at that moment, a Nethermist Flying Knife unexpectedly shot out from the end of the scythe.
The flying knife was incredibly fast.
In an instant, it pierced through dozens of rocks in its path before shooting through Huang Wu's forehead.
As a High-Level Awakened of the mental type, Huang Wu possessed extremely tenacious vitality. Even with his brain pierced, he could still live for around ten seconds. Before he died, through the hole the flying knife had pierced through the rocks, he saw the terrifying eyes of a Reaper staring at him. His eyes gradually widened, and only fear of death remained in his heart. In the end, he fell into boundless darkness with that fear.
The more intelligent a creature was, the more it feared death. The fear that erupted at the moment of death was also purer.
Others could not see it, but in Zhang Ping's eyes, a purple aura surged from Huang Wu's body before his death. When Zhang Ping approached, all of it entered his body, then transformed into Nether Mist and surged out.
The Nether Mist around him grew denser after he killed two people in succession, faintly taking the shape of a cloak. Yet it was still insufficient to fully form it; the outline of the black trench coat beneath the Nether Mist could still be vaguely seen.
"Purple fear?"
Zhang Ping had been able to sense fear in the past, but he could not see it. This time, he had actually seen it.
He did not know whether Huang Wu's fear was simply of especially high quality, or whether repeatedly using Nether Mist to absorb fear had caused the Nethermist Body to undergo a new change.
But this was clearly a good thing.
He ran past Huang Wu without even looking at Huang Wu lying on the ground with a large hole in his forehead.
The moment he decided to kill these three, he had already prepared himself mentally. How could a mere Corpse stop his steps?
"Huang Wu died too?"
The crimson-eyed man was running ahead of Zhang Ping. The instant his subordinate died, he received feedback, and an incredulous expression appeared on his face.
The main reason was that Huang Wu was completely different from Huang San. Huang San was merely an Intermediate Awakened, and a mental-type Awakened at that. If his enemy was a High-Level or Top-Tier Awakened, being killed instantly was perfectly normal.
But Huang Wu was a High-Level Awakened, and his ability was Psychokinetic Force. It was an ability with immense advantages in direct combat. Even if his enemy was of a higher Level, he should at least have been able to hold them off for several minutes. It was impossible for him to be killed so quickly.
Fuck, just who was this enemy?
Could it be... that old bastard Situ Shibai had come personally?
The crimson-eyed man's gaze flickered. The more he thought about it, the more afraid he became, and he hesitated over whether to abandon Chen Juntaing.
Behind him, Zhang Ping suddenly saw purple aura surging out three hundred meters ahead. It quickly drifted toward him, and once it entered within ten meters of him, it naturally flowed into his body. The Nether Mist gradually enveloping his body became even denser.
The quality of this fear was extremely high.
Although Zhang Ping could not see what he looked like now, he was certain that he must look very much like a Reaper.
Moreover, once the amount of Nether Mist reached a certain point, many abilities he had previously been unable to use gradually became available. For example, using Nether Mist to block damage, manipulating it to lift himself into the air, or even wrapping himself in Nether Mist to change positions. Visually, it looked like elemental transformation.
These were all abilities the Nethermist Black Goat had used before.
As he ran, he tried controlling the Nether Mist to support him, and his body gradually floated into the air.
But he soon discovered that doing so continuously consumed Nether Mist, and the higher he floated above the ground, the greater the consumption.
However, if he only floated a few centimeters above the ground, the consumption was not particularly great.
Most importantly, while floating, the Nether Mist could carry him along, and Nether Mist was incredibly fast, faster even than bullets.
Floating above the ground, he rapidly pursued the crimson-eyed man along the trail of purple aura. In less than half a minute, he could already see the man's back.
At that moment, a whistling sound suddenly came from his right. He instinctively looked right, and an arrow struck directly into his eye, blowing apart his head.
Under the arrow's impact, his body of pure water scattered across the ground. At the same time, a masked man landed in front of him.
"Body Mutation type... Ink Body?"
The masked man watched from afar as Zhang Ping rapidly reassembled into human form, then frowned and said coldly.
Holding a bow, he immediately fired another arrow at Zhang Ping. The arrowhead crackled with electricity.
Whoosh!
A blue Water Whip lashed out from afar, striking the incoming arrow.
Zhang Ping restored his form. The moment he saw the Water Whip, he knew Liu Sishan had arrived, so he shouted, "Don't worry about me! He's around five hundred meters ahead at the next corner. Save her!"
Liu Sishan, who had originally been preparing to support him, immediately changed direction. She leaped rapidly across the rooftops, chasing after the fleeing crimson-eyed man.
Only Zhang Ping and the masked man remained facing each other in the alley.
Zhang Ping noticed that the masked man's gaze was unfocused and was not fixed on him. He recalled what Zhou Jielin had once said: "Look at the whole picture. Don't stare at your opponent."
Zhou Jielin's words were easy to say, but difficult to put into practice.
People always instinctively looked at their targets. It was human nature.
His combat experience is probably stronger than mine. The first arrow didn't carry lightning. If it had, I don't know whether the Pure Water Body could have blocked it, Zhang Ping thought.
At that moment, the masked man drew an arrow and aimed his bow. Zhang Ping quickly dismissed his stray thoughts and raised the Fear War Scythe in guard.
But the masked man's eyes suddenly flashed with cunning. He raised his hand and fired the arrow into the sky.
Not good!
Zhang Ping immediately threw a Nethermist Flying Knife at the arrow, but he was still too late.
The arrow flew high into the sky. In the blink of an eye, its tip erupted with dazzling light, while countless points of light scattered like rain from the massive glowing object at its center.
"So you really are a rookie!"
The masked man appeared behind Zhang Ping at that moment and sneered sinisterly.
As he spoke, the dagger glowing with purple light in his hand stabbed into Zhang Ping's back. Then the ring on his index finger burst with electricity.
Zhang Ping's body convulsed violently, steam spraying from the Nether Mist. Finally, he became a lump of black liquid collapsed on the ground.
"Remember this in your next life: never take your eyes off your enemy so easily."
The masked man withdrew his dagger, then took out a small can of fire oil, preparing to destroy the evidence.
But just as he was about to pour the oil, countless spikes suddenly shot out from the black liquid. Caught off guard, the hand holding the fire oil was pierced straight through.
"Thank you for the lesson. I'll remember it well!" Zhang Ping's face surfaced from the black liquid.
His body moved rapidly like a snake, and streams of Nether Mist shot out from him. The masked man could only keep dodging, without even having time to treat his wound.
The masked man possessed extremely rich combat experience.
But his ability was not combat-oriented. Instead, it was a support ability: Appraisal Technique.
Different Awakened understood information differently, so even if they awakened the same Appraisal Technique, their appraisal results could be entirely different.
For some Awakened, their Appraisal Technique took the form of a book. Every time they appraised a target, the book gained another page containing that target's information.
For others, the Appraisal Technique took the form of a line of ink-colored words. When they appraised someone, a line of text appeared before their eyes.
Because the forms of the ability differed, the information gained through Appraisal also differed enormously.
The masked man had just used Appraisal Technique on Zhang Ping. The result he received was: "Surname Zhang, given name Ping. Sixteen years old. Cheerful personality, neurotic. Weaknesses: extremely poor combat experience, low resistance to elemental attacks. Ability: ???"
He could use Appraisal Technique to identify an enemy's weaknesses.
Therefore, after learning Zhang Ping's weaknesses, he had arranged his tactics specifically around them.
But he did not know Zhang Ping's ability. Thus, after his sneak attack succeeded, he mistakenly believed Zhang Ping had lost all ability to resist. Caught unprepared, he suffered a loss.
Zhang Ping's age was the main thing that had misled him.
How strong could a sixteen-year-old rookie possibly be, even with the advantage of equipment?
His ring could release a hundred-thousand-volt current. Combined with the Electric Eel Snake Venom on his dagger, anyone below the Top-Tier Awakened rank would certainly die if struck.
But...
It was precisely this reliance on experience that had plunged him into a place of no return.
Splat!
Splat, splat, splat!
Splat, splat, splat, splat, splat, splat...
The masked man truly had abundant combat experience. Even as the wound on his hand continued bleeding, he still avoided the vast majority of the Nethermist Flying Knives.
But constant defense would eventually fail.
Dozens of minutes later, Zhang Ping seized an opportunity. Thirty flying knives attacked at once. The masked man avoided most of them, but when one flying knife struck his knee, the battle ended.
However, Zhang Ping was rather cautious.
Even after the masked man fell, Zhang Ping continued firing flying knives from afar. That was how the string of sounds above came to be.