Triple Kill

Because in his previous life, the term Saint Mother had practically become derogatory, Zhang Ping had unconsciously been led astray by his past-life experience after reading Chen Juntaing's attributes.

Fortunately, he came to his senses in time.

Although the two worlds shared many synonymous terms, many words also had completely different meanings.

If Saint Mother was not a fictional existence in this world, then Chen Juntaing's ability was probably far from simple.

As Zhang Ping pondered, he closely followed behind the three of them. Suddenly, one of them stopped and turned to look in his direction.

"Damn, I've been spotted."

Zhang Ping's heart skipped a beat, but he immediately made up his mind. He could not let them abduct Chen Juntaing.

Kill!

Nether Mist covered his face, swiftly forming Reaper's Mask, while the Fear War Scythe was drawn from the Golden Treasury. He leaped down from the rooftop, slashing at the man blocking his path amid surging Nether Mist.

"Sleep... fuck!"

The man looked up at Zhang Ping. Before he could activate his ability, Zhang Ping's face gave him such a fright that his fear rapidly intensified until his mind went blank.

One slash.

The man's eyes widened sharply, and a hair-thin red line appeared across his neck.

Zhang Ping did not stop. Instead, he wielded the Fear War Scythe and chased after the other two at even greater speed.

A while after he left, the man's head finally fell to the ground, blood spraying out in a gush.

Ahead, the crimson-eyed man and his subordinate moved quickly. Suddenly, the man frowned. "Huang San is dead. Hand the girl over to me, Huang Wu. Go hold him off."

"Yes!" replied the subordinate with telekinesis.

The crimson-eyed man then hoisted Chen Juntaing over his shoulder and continued running, while Huang Wu turned and stopped. He slowly raised both hands and shouted, "Minor Meteor Belt!"

The ground all around them exploded, countless rocks controlled by an invisible force floating into the air. Before him, they formed an area resembling a meteor field.

Holding the Fear War Scythe in one hand, Zhang Ping rushed around the corner and saw the street densely filled with floating rocks.

The next moment, those rocks rained down upon him like bullets. Yet as they passed through the Nether Mist, his body transformed into the Pure Water Body. One stone after another passed through him without causing any harm.

Huang Wu narrowed his eyes. Seeing that his attacks could not hurt the mysterious man, he immediately retreated while controlling even more rocks to block the path before him.

At this point, he sought no merit, only to avoid failure. As long as he could stop this mysterious man's pursuit, he had won.

Zhang Ping sliced apart the rocks blocking his way. Seeing even more rocks ahead, he could not help cursing inwardly. But then inspiration struck him, and he lowered his gaze to the ground ahead. Under the moonlight, Huang Wu's shadow was clearly visible.

"Die!"

He swung his scythe. The rocks ahead split in two, but even more rocks remained in his way.

But at that moment, a Nethermist Flying Knife unexpectedly shot 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 brow.

As a High-Level Awakened of the mental type, Huang Wu possessed extraordinarily tenacious vitality. Even with his brain pierced through, he could still survive for about ten seconds. Before dying, through the holes bored through the rocks by the flying knife, he saw a terrifying Reaper's eyes staring at him. His eyes slowly widened, and nothing remained in his heart but fear of death. 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 instant of death was also purer.

Others could not see it, but in Zhang Ping's eyes, purple energy surged from Huang Wu's body before his death. Once Zhang Ping approached, all of it entered his body, then transformed and erupted as Nether Mist.

After killing two people in succession, the Nether Mist around him grew denser. It had faintly taken the shape of a cloak, though it was still insufficient to fully form one. 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 of exceptionally high quality, or whether repeatedly using Nether Mist to absorb fear had caused the Nethermist Body to undergo a new transformation.

But this was clearly a good thing.

He ran past Huang Wu without even looking at the man lying on the ground with a large hole through his forehead.

When he decided to kill these three people, he had already prepared himself. How could a mere Corpse stop him?

"Huang Wu is dead too?"

The crimson-eyed man was running ahead of Zhang Ping. The instant his subordinate died, he received feedback, and disbelief appeared on his face.

The main issue was that Huang Wu was completely different from Huang San. Huang San was only an Intermediate Awakened, and a mental-type Awakened at that. If his enemy was a High-Level or Top-Tier Awakened, being instantly killed was perfectly normal.

But Huang Wu was a High-Level Awakened, and his ability was telekinesis. It was an ability with enormous advantages in direct combat. Even if the enemy's Level was higher than his, he should have been able to hold out for several minutes. It was impossible for him to be killed so quickly.

Fuck, where exactly did this enemy come from?

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 frightened he became, and he began to hesitate over whether to abandon Chen Juntaing.

Behind him, Zhang Ping suddenly saw purple energy erupting three hundred meters ahead. It drifted swiftly toward him, and once it entered within ten meters of him, it naturally flowed into his body. The Nether Mist shrouding him gradually 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 resemble the Reaper.

Moreover, when the amount of Nether Mist reached a certain level, many abilities he had originally been unable to use gradually became usable. For example, he could use Nether Mist to block damage, manipulate it to lift himself into the air, or even wrap it around himself to change positions. Visually, it looked like elementalization.

These were all abilities the Nethermist Black Goat had used before.

As he ran, he tried controlling the Nether Mist to lift him, and his body gradually floated up.

But he quickly discovered that doing so continuously consumed Nether Mist, and the higher he rose from the ground, the greater the consumption.

However, if he merely 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 the Nether Mist was incredibly fast—faster than bullets.

Floating above the ground, he sped along with the purple energy as he pursued the crimson-eyed man. In less than half a minute, he had already caught sight of the man's back.

At that moment, a whistling sound suddenly came from beside his right ear. He instinctively looked right, and an arrow pierced directly into his eye, blowing apart his head.

Under the arrow's impact, his body of pure water scattered onto 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. He 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 over from afar, striking the incoming arrow dead on.

As Zhang Ping restored his body, he knew Liu Sishan had arrived the moment he saw the Water Whip. He shouted, "Ignore me! They're around five hundred meters ahead, past the 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, not fixed on him. He recalled what Zhou Jielin had once said: "Look at the whole picture. Don't stare at your opponent."

In truth, Zhou Jielin's advice was easy to say but difficult to put into practice.

People would always unconsciously look at their target. It was human instinct.

"This man's combat experience is probably stronger than mine. The first arrow just now didn't carry lightning. If it had, I don't know whether my Pure Water Body could have blocked it," Zhang Ping thought.

At that moment, the masked man drew an arrow, pulled back his bowstring, and took aim. Zhang Ping hurriedly pushed away his stray thoughts and raised the Fear War Scythe defensively.

But the masked man suddenly showed a crafty look. 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 air. In the blink of an eye, its tip burst with dazzling light, while countless specks of light scattered like rain from the massive glowing body at its center.

"So you really are a rookie!"

The masked man appeared behind Zhang Ping and sneered sinisterly.

As he spoke, he plunged a violet-glowing dagger into Zhang Ping's back. Then, the ring on his index finger erupted with electricity.

Zhang Ping's body convulsed constantly. Steam sprayed out from the Nether Mist, and in the end, he became a lump of black liquid sprawled across 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 body.

But just as he was about to pour the fire 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 emerged from the black liquid.

His body moved rapidly like a snake, streams of Nether Mist shooting from him. The masked man could only dodge constantly, without even a moment to tend to his wound.

The masked man had extremely rich combat experience.

But his ability was not combat-oriented. Instead, it was a support ability: the Appraisal Technique.

Different Awakened had different levels of understanding regarding information. Thus, even if they awakened the same Appraisal Technique, the Appraisal results could be completely different.

For some Awakened, their Appraisal Technique took the form of a book. Every target they appraised added another page to the book, containing that target's information.

For other Awakened, the Appraisal Technique took the form of a line of ink-colored text. When they appraised someone, a line of words appeared before their eyes.

Because their ability forms differed, the information obtained through Appraisal could also differ enormously.

The masked man had just used the Appraisal Technique on Zhang Ping. The result 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 the Appraisal Technique to identify an enemy's weaknesses.

Thus, after learning Zhang Ping's weaknesses, he arranged his tactics specifically around them.

But he did not know Zhang Ping's ability. Therefore, after his sneak attack succeeded, he mistakenly believed Zhang Ping was no longer capable of resisting. Caught off guard, he suffered a loss.

The main reason was that Zhang Ping's age had misled him.

How powerful could a sixteen-year-old rookie possibly be, even with the advantage of equipment?

His ring could release one hundred thousand volts of electricity. Combined with the Electric Eel Snake Venom on his dagger, anyone below the Top-Tier Awakened level would certainly die if struck.

But...

It was precisely this reliance on experience that led him into a place of no return.

Squelch!

Squelch, squelch, squelch!

Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch...

The masked man truly was experienced. Even though the wound on his hand bled continuously, he still evaded most of the Nethermist Flying Knives.

But one could only defend for so long before making a mistake.

Dozens of minutes later, Zhang Ping seized an opportunity. Thirty flying knives attacked simultaneously. The masked man dodged most of them, but when one pierced his knee, the battle was over.

However, Zhang Ping was cautious.

After the masked man fell, he continued launching flying knives from afar, resulting in that long series of sounds above.