Lin Jin withdrew his hand and turned to Su Qianxue.
Su Qianxue stared at him blankly, unable to speak for a moment.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
Su Qianxue came to her senses and hurriedly shook her head. "I... I'm fine."
Lin Jin nodded and turned to leave.
"Lin Jin!" Su Qianxue called after him.
He stopped and looked back at her.
Su Qianxue opened her mouth. There was so much she wanted to say, but in the end, it became just two words: "Be careful."
A barely perceptible flicker passed through Lin Jin's eyes.
"Mm."
Then his body began to distort, and he vanished.
Su Qianxue stood where she was, watching his departing figure disappear. Her racing heart took a long time to settle.
People's Square.
In the deserted square, the central fountain had long since dried up. In its place was a huge blood-red ritual array, slowly rotating.
Three supernatural entities stood at the edge of the array.
On the far left was a humanoid entity wreathed in eerie green flames. It stood over three meters tall, and flames spurted from its seven facial openings with every breath.
[A-rank entity: Ghostflame Walker]
In the middle was an enormous ball of flesh, over five meters in diameter, its surface covered in hideous human faces. Every face was wailing, weeping, or cursing.
[A-rank entity: Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost]
On the far right was the entity that looked most human. She could even be called a beauty.
Dressed entirely in white, she had waist-length hair and an exquisitely beautiful face, but her skin was so pale it was nearly transparent, and her eyes were entirely black, without any whites.
[A-rank entity: Phantom Shadow Ghost King]
The three A-rank entities each radiated a suffocating pressure.
Scattered around them were five corpses.
They were members of the reserve team sent by the Paranormal Bureau, an Awakening Stage squad that could not even handle B-rank entities, let alone A-ranks.
They were nothing more than cannon fodder.
"It has begun," the Phantom Shadow Ghost King said, her soft voice carrying an eerie echo. "After the sacrifice, this city will become our paradise."
The countless faces on the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost let out shrill laughter in unison.
The Ghostflame Walker raised a hand, gathering eerie green flames in its palm, ready to pour them into the array.
At that critical moment.
A figure descended from the sky and landed in the center of the array.
Boom!
The shock wave from the landing forced all three entities back several steps.
Lin Jin's original body straightened up and brushed the dust off his clothes.
"Sorry to interrupt."
The Phantom Shadow Ghost King's pitch-black pupils contracted slightly.
"A human?" the Ghostflame Walker sneered. "You dared come here alone to die?"
Lin Jin swept his gaze across the square.
"An extra A-rank entity?"
"But it doesn't matter."
He pressed his palms together, opened his mouth, and exhaled.
Scorching flames erupted from Lin Jin's mouth, instantly becoming a towering sea of fire that swept across the entire square.
Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame.
This was the Fire Release Ninjutsu the Uchiha Clan took pride in, powerful enough to reshape the terrain and burn everything in the world of Hokage.
All three A-rank entities' expressions changed at once.
The Ghostflame Walker instinctively stepped back. Though it controlled eerie green ghostfire, flames this hot and powerful stirred a trace of instinctive fear within it.
The countless faces on the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost screamed in terror, twisting as they tried to retreat into the ball of flesh.
A trace of gravity flashed through the Phantom Shadow Ghost King's pitch-black eyes.
"Join forces!" she shouted, forming an eerie hand seal before her.
Eerie green ghostfire erupted from the Ghostflame Walker and collided with the flames of Majestic Destroyer Flame, hissing on contact.
The countless faces on the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost opened their mouths together and spewed black mist. Upon meeting the flames, the mist actually held back the spreading sea of fire for a moment.
The Phantom Shadow Ghost King's figure flickered, instantly appearing behind Lin Jin. Her pale hand thrust straight toward his heart from behind.
Lin Jin did not turn around.
He merely shifted slightly sideways, and the Phantom Shadow Ghost King's hand thrust past, grazing his clothes.
The next second, Lin Jin's right hand had already seized her wrist.
"Got you."
The Phantom Shadow Ghost King's pupils constricted sharply.
Her abilities were Genjutsu and mental attacks. Her physical body was the weakest of the three A-ranks, and being caught at close range meant death.
She tried to activate her Genjutsu, but met Lin Jin's eyes, which had turned scarlet at some point.
The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Three tomoe spun, merging into a straight-bar tomoe pinwheel.
"Tsukuyomi."
The Phantom Shadow Ghost King's body abruptly froze.
Her consciousness was dragged into a dark space, where she saw countless versions of herself, each experiencing the most horrifying ways to die.
Only one second passed in reality.
Lin Jin released her hand. The Phantom Shadow Ghost King's body slumped limply to the ground, blood flowing from her seven facial openings, with no sign of life remaining.
[System: Killed A-rank entity Phantom Shadow Ghost King. Gained 100 points of world power. Current total: 760 points.]
The Ghostflame Walker and the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost both froze.
The Phantom Shadow Ghost King had been the strongest among them, her eerie abilities and mental attacks nearly impossible to guard against.
Yet she had not lasted even a second against this human.
"Retreat!" The Ghostflame Walker made an immediate decision, turned, and ran.
The Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost also wanted to escape, but its enormous size meant it could never be as nimble as the Ghostflame Walker.
Lin Jin did not pursue the Ghostflame Walker.
He simply raised his right hand, gathering lightning in his palm.
"Chidori Sharp Spear!"
Blue lightning extended from his palm, becoming a ten-meter-long spear of lightning that instantly pierced the Ghostflame Walker, which had already fled fifty meters away.
The Ghostflame Walker lowered its head and stared at the charred hole in its chest. The eerie green flames in its eye sockets flickered violently.
"You... how could you..."
Before it could finish, its body exploded with a boom, scattering eerie green flames in every direction.
[System: Killed A-rank entity Ghostflame Walker. Gained 100 points of world power. Current total: 860 points.]
Lin Jin lowered his hand and turned to the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost.
The Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost had already given up fleeing.
It knew it could not escape.
The expressions on its faces shifted from terror to madness. Countless mouths opened together, spewing even denser black mist.
The mist condensed into countless hideous ghost faces that swarmed toward Lin Jin, blotting out the sky.
This was its final struggle.
Lin Jin watched the approaching ghost faces quietly and pressed his palms together.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere."
A fierce blast of wind erupted from his mouth, instantly scattering the ghost faces.
Immediately afterward, he opened his mouth and exhaled again.
"Fire Release: Dragon Flame Song Technique."
Four dragon-headed fireballs blasted toward the Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost from four directions at once.
The Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost had nowhere to run.
Boom!!!
The light of the explosion illuminated the entire square.
The Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost's enormous body burned in the flames. Its faces let out one final scream before turning completely to ash.
[System: Killed A-rank entity Ten-Thousand-Faced Ghost. Gained 100 points of world power. Current total: 960 points.]
The battle was over.
From beginning to end, it had lasted no more than three minutes.
All three A-rank entities were dead.
Lin Jin deactivated his Sharingan, his gaze falling on the blood-red ritual array.
The array was still operating.
And more violently than before.
He frowned slightly.
Logically, with all the entities presiding over the sacrifice dead, the array should have stopped.
But not only had the array before him failed to stop, it had instead absorbed the energy released after the three entities' deaths, its light growing ever more blinding.
"Something's wrong."
Just as Lin Jin was about to step forward to investigate, a terrifying surge of energy suddenly erupted from the center of the array.
The energy shot straight into the heavens, tearing through the night sky.
A blood-red moon slowly appeared in the sky.
At the same time, all of Jiangcheng shook violently.
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