Assassination

Leng Yaozhu's voice was calm.

But the moment Li Qingyue took the ring, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Was this how powerful people protected their disciples now? So hardcore.

At the slightest sign of trouble, they simply summoned their masters to the rescue.

Mu Chen had given him a similar ring before, but that one had to be pressed to send a signal.

This one was simpler: a thought and a wisp of Soul Power injected into it were enough.

Behind the previous ring stood a Three-Word Battle Armor Master and Soul Douluo.

That was already a top-tier arrangement beyond anything Eastsea City could hope to match.

This time, the backing was even more outrageous.

A Level 98 Super Douluo who was also a Four-Word Battle Armor Master.

Once he revealed that kind of backing, even the strongest experts of other organizations would find hunting him down far harder, to put it bluntly.

This, too, was Leng Yaozhu's way of watching over him.

Of course, there were reasons for all that protection and favoritism.

Mu Chen valued Li Qingyue's talent for Forging.

Judging by the talent Li Qingyue had shown, his future achievements in Forging would be astonishing.

He might even shatter Mu Chen's expectations for what was possible.

What Leng Yaozhu valued was Li Qingyue's combat talent and his abilities in every other respect.

From his three innate Martial Souls to the power he had inherited, Li Qingyue's potential was staggeringly high.

Though Leng Yaozhu still knew little about him, what she had seen had already caught her interest.

That was why she gave Li Qingyue the ring.

Naturally, Li Qingyue did not refuse.

After accepting the ring and putting it on, he finished his meal, and Leng Yaozhu sent someone to see them off.

The two went downstairs side by side.

From beginning to end, Li Qingyue and Gu Yue did not speak.

Gu Yue's feelings toward Li Qingyue remained complicated. Unsure how to act around the boy, she could only pretend to be cold.

As they walked out of the Spirit Pagoda, a black vehicle waited by the entrance.

Gu Yue was about to reach for the car door when Li Qingyue suddenly caught her hand.

It was so abrupt as to be almost absurd.

Though they had become fellow disciples, having Li Qingyue suddenly take her hand still left Gu Yue stunned.

Because of the contract, she could not even pull away.

Before Gu Yue could speak, she saw the boy's calm, gentle eyes turn icy in an instant.

He yanked her hand, and they both sprang backward almost at the same moment.

It happened so suddenly that Gu Yue had no time to react.

The driver, who had been standing calmly beside the car, raised his hand.

A Soul Tool shotgun appeared in his grip.

It was a short-barreled gun, much like a sawed-off shotgun.

At close range, however, the damage it could unleash was terrifying.

It was probably a Level 4 Soul Tool.

The chief feature of this kind of Soul Tool was that ordinary people could use it.

Not just a grown man—even a young adult or a teenager could handle such a weapon with ease.

A flawless Soul Power circuit was engraved inside it. Pulling the trigger activated it, just as with an ordinary gun.

That was why weapons of this sort were strictly forbidden throughout the Federation.

They gave ordinary people the power to kill Soul Masters.

Soul Masters were the Federation's most important resource.

The Federation could allow powerful Soul Masters to suppress ordinary people, but it could never allow ordinary people to threaten Soul Masters in return.

Under normal circumstances, a specialized Soul Tool like this was impossible to obtain.

Yet one was now in the middle-aged man's hands.

Surprise flickered through his eyes, but he raised the gun steadily.

He pulled the trigger. A round chambered and fired in virtually the same instant.

After the briefest pause, the shot burst from the barrel.

Two pellets collided as they left the muzzle, then exploded apart.

Countless fragments rained toward the vehicle and Li Qingyue.

The car roof was pierced in an instant.

Then the fragments hurtled straight toward the two of them.

Li Qingyue remained calm.

As Yaoshi's inheritor, he had gained another ability after breaking through to the Third Ring, besides the Abundance Divine Kingdom's faith domain.

Or rather, it was an ability he had possessed all along.

He could roughly sense the good and evil in others' hearts, and how they regarded him.

The sense was vague, so Li Qingyue had paid it little mind at first.

But the instant he stepped out of the Spirit Pagoda, he had clearly sensed malice.

It was directed at both of them and had appeared with startling suddenness.

Li Qingyue realized almost immediately that something was wrong.

As the pellets hurtled toward them, Li Qingyue calmly stepped forward.

He put himself directly in front of Gu Yue.

An instant later, countless pellets slammed into him, tearing through his clothes and punching out through his back.

Bullet holes opened across his body. The pellets had riddled him in a heartbeat.

Li Qingyue fell toward Gu Yue. Only then did she finally react.

It was not that Gu Yue lacked combat instincts, nor that she was too slow.

The attack had simply come too suddenly.

Before she could even grasp what was happening, the man had attacked them.

And the attacker was the very driver who had brought them here.

The driver had had plenty of other chances to strike.

The journey here, or the moment before they got into the car, would both have been better opportunities.

Yet as he watched every pellet strike Li Qingyue and flecks of blood spray from the boy's body, the driver's face remained cold and impassive.

Once he was sure both shots had hit Li Qingyue, he did not even check whether the boy was dead or merely gravely wounded.

He paused for only an instant.

Then he turned over a ring he had been clutching in his palm.

A sharp spike was hidden inside it.

He drove the spike straight into the carotid artery in his own neck.

The middle-aged man collapsed almost instantly.

In the blink of an eye, his life was gone.

Less than five seconds passed between his attack and his suicide.

Those five seconds went by so quickly that even Leng Yaozhu upstairs could not react in time.

She had been about to go take a milk bath when she suddenly sensed Li Qingyue's life force vanish in an instant.

The sensation was deeply unsettling.

By the time she reacted and burst through the window into the sky, Li Qingyue had already fallen.

The middle-aged man had already pierced his own carotid artery and died.