Keep a Hand

"Xu Ye, how the hell can you put up with this? Even I, a cat, can't stand it! Beat him up!" Alice flailed her paws in fury.

Xu Ye put away his gun.

His opponent wasn't fast, but his Sequence Talent was extremely strange.

The Dawn Blade's chart of Sequence Talents had been compiled from Heavenly Dao interpretation data, and many entries were incomplete, so there wasn't much information on this particular talent.

The young man kept snapping his fingers, his figure advancing rapidly.

When he reached a rooftop, he looked back at Xu Ye over a hundred meters away and paused briefly.

This man didn't seem as impressive as the rumors claimed. All he'd done was show off a little, and he'd already intimidated him. Why had his father insisted that he come and bring this man under control?

He gave a disdainful smile.

That smile made Xu Ye smile too.

He loosened up his limbs, tightened his shoelaces, and crouched slightly. In an instant, under his opponent's shocked gaze, Xu Ye leaped high into the air, and a tentacle coiled around a utility pole ten meters away.

The tentacle contracted.

Xu Ye shot forward as though launched through the air.

That single move closed the distance between them by fifty meters.

The young man's face twitched unnaturally, but he still showed no panic. Looking toward downtown Night Spirit City, he calmly extended his right hand.

He snapped his fingers.

Bang.

The tentacle growing from Xu Ye's left hand pierced straight through the spot where the young man had just stood.

The "mirror" shattered.

The young man reappeared farther away.

He sneered without looking back this time. Leaping high, he landed halfway up an iron tower, rolled several times, then spread his limbs as though skydiving and jumped down.

He landed atop a pavilion, pushed off with his toes, and vanished again.

He could no longer hear any movement behind him. He must have opened up a gap of over a thousand meters.

His Sequence Talent was suited to movement in the first place, making his movements unpredictable. Combined with the special Taboo Object pendant he wore, it made him light as a swallow, allowing him to escape an enemy's attack range in an instant.

"Alice!"

As the young man abruptly widened the distance, Xu Ye snorted, his gaze icy.

"Watch me tear his face apart."

Xu Ye leaped high. The two tentacles on his arms kept winding around nearby buildings like spider silk, propelling him forward at speed. Whenever he encountered an obstacle, he dodged it as nimbly as a cat.

When the young man slowed down and turned his head, he looked as though he'd seen a ghost. A figure was already moving right alongside him.

Then he saw Xu Ye smile at him.

He actually kept up with me?

Alarm jolted through the young man's heart. His feet moved rapidly, constantly shifting his position through streets and alleys.

Xu Ye followed close behind.

At the same time, he called Li Yunyao.

"Someone's trying to kill me..."

He gave her a brief account of what had happened.

Li Yunyao had clearly just woken up, and her voice was still groggy. At Xu Ye's words, she immediately snapped awake. "Sequence 9-044, Mirror. As far as I know, only one person in Sky City has awakened it. He's the son of a Bronze Noble, named Andre."

"A noble?"

Xu Ye's heart tightened.

He had no favorable impression of that word whatsoever.

"I'll speak to the captain. Hold something back."

Hold something back?

Xu Ye muttered the words, then accelerated again as he sensed the sound of air being cleaved ahead of him.

Air howled past his ears, and the wind burned.

They rounded a dozen streets, then passed through markets, buildings, and bus stops. Neither attacked during that time. His opponent seemed to have reservations as well.

Andre stopped in a park. Clicking his tongue, he watched with uncertainty as a dark figure sailed overhead, finally wrapping a tentacle around a large tree. Xu Ye landed lightly on its leaves.

"You're faster than I imagined. Maybe we can talk this out."

Bang!

A bullet was his answer.

Space shattered.

The bullet struck the earth, kicking up flecks of mud.

Whoosh!

Xu Ye didn't pause. The instant his opponent appeared, a tentacle shot toward him, slicing through the air, piercing a tree trunk, and plunging straight into his abdomen.

Andre screamed, terror spreading across his face.

What he hadn't expected was that his opponent seemed to have already worked out the rules of his Sequence Talent.

Snapping his fingers moved him ten meters diagonally forward to the left of the direction he was facing. Without a snap, he moved ten meters diagonally forward to the right.

There was also a one-second interval between uses.

"Wait, I'm Andre! I'm a noble!" Andre stumbled back several steps.

But he realized that the man he'd provoked was an utter lunatic. As though he hadn't heard a word, Xu Ye closed in on him.

This is a rookie?!

His heart lurched. In his haste, he drew the knife at his waist to block the attack.

But a moment later, Andre saw only a blur. Years of pampered living had left him with no opportunities for actual combat against others, nor had he ever needed any.

Although he possessed a high-ranking Sequence Talent, it wasn't offensive.

A chill touched his wrist.

Andre watched helplessly as his arm fell to the ground.

"You!"

Fear consumed him.

Xu Ye's eyes were empty and calm, like a robot's, making him feel the threat of death for the first time.

The muzzle pressed against his forehead.

"I'll give you a million. Let this end here. Don't make this into a big deal."

Xu Ye frowned.

Andre seized the opportunity. Fighting the excruciating pain in his arm and the dizziness in his head, he maintained his composure. "Really, let's settle this peacefully. Why make things ugly? We could have been friends."

At his words, Xu Ye slowly nodded and put away [Final Sigh]. "True. There's no need."

Sitting collapsed on the ground, Andre heard those words. Although cold sweat covered his entire body, he knew the man had yielded, whether to his money or his power.

A fierce resentment welled up inside him.

I'll have you killed as soon as I get back!

Suddenly, immense terror rose from the depths of his heart. Every hair on his body stood on end. Instinctively, he tried to use his Sequence Talent, only to discover that Xu Ye's tentacle had already wrapped around his body.

Szzzt-

A flash of lightning streaked past.

Andre felt his head grow light.

He looked down.

He saw his neck and body receding farther and farther away.

As though realizing something, his eyes widened in terror and helplessness, and he let out a silent scream.

Fear, anger, regret, disbelief... all those emotions surged into his mind at once, along with the darkness.

But it was already too late.

Under gravity and momentum, his head tumbled to the ground.

Blood spurted from his neck in one burst after another, staining the grass red in the early morning light.

Xu Ye silently watched the corpse.

This was his first time killing someone, but surprisingly, aside from a slight shudder, he felt no discomfort or panic at all.

"Phew..."

He slowly exhaled a stale breath.

He felt no moral burden over killing Andre.

Someone had nearly killed him. Why should he show mercy?

He had never believed nobles stood above everyone else.

In the face of death, everyone was equal.

Anyone who wanted to kill him had to be prepared to be killed.

"Huh? His soul dispersed so quickly. I only managed to take one bite," Alice said in surprise.

"Looks like he had a countermeasure specifically for soul-related Sequence Talents." Xu Ye wasn't surprised. Quite a few talents in the Sequence Talent chart involved souls or the mind.

How could a force as powerful as Sky City have no countermeasures?

Of course, the main reason was that Xu Ye had only developed a tiny fraction of his [Soul-Seizing] ability.

Still, he'd at least obtained some information.

"Xu Ye, Andre is pretty arrogant. The captain said that if necessary, just leave him alive. Anything else goes."

Xu Ye paused after answering Li Yunyao's call.

He picked up Andre's right hand from the ground. "I did what you said. I held back a hand."

"Just one hand."

He emphasized that.

Li Yunyao: "..."

"Come back to headquarters first. Don't touch Andre's body. I'll send someone to deal with it. All you need to remember is that you weren't the one who killed him." Meng Chengfei took over the call, his voice gentle but firm.