Moonlight scattered down as Netherworld danced in idle boredom. With every step she took, a vivid red spider lily sprang up where her foot had fallen.
Just then, Lu Ling emerged from the basement with Liu Ru and her sister.
"Let's go. We'll head home first."
"Oh."
Netherworld blinked, took a careful look at the two newcomers, and quietly answered.
Jinyuan Apartment.
No one was home at the moment. They were probably all outside searching for the shadow beast.
"Rest here for now. You can take a shower, too. There are clothes to change into. There's food as well... never mind, you probably can't stomach human food."
"That's it. I still have things to do. Someone might come back later. Just tell them I brought you here."
After temporarily settling the sisters at home, Lu Ling immediately returned to the scene. The vampires were merely a brief interlude. Tonight should have been a fine night to hunt the Black Vatican!
"Where did you go just now?" The moment his communicator reconnected to Ling Ling, he heard her question.
"To save young women from fire and water," Lu Ling said casually. "How's the situation? Anything unusual?"
"No."
"In that case, I'll go scout out the warehouse."
Huangpu River warehouse.
"Is that prey really so clever? We've been here for so long, and he still hasn't taken the bait."
"Keep waiting!"
"This is our best chance to get the Earth Sacred Spring!"
"Didn't Mo Fan nearly kick you to death last time? Do you think he might have realized long ago that someone was targeting him?"
"Impossible!"
"..."
On the warehouse roof, Lu Ling and Netherworld slowly appeared.
"So this is where they are."
Judging by the situation, he had arrived early. Xu Zhaoting wasn't here, and neither was Mo Fan. Yu Ang wasn't around this time, so there was no telling who had put this plan into motion.
"Li Fire Domain."
Waves of crimson-gold fire suddenly exploded outward, fierce flames igniting out of nowhere in the pitch-black night sky.
"Ever-Burning Fire Seal." Lu Ling held nothing back. The Li Fire Domain covered an extremely wide area, and all these people were within its range.
The instant the Li Fire Domain enveloped them, they had already been marked. Now, at Lu Ling's command, one of them abruptly burst into flames.
"Aah!! What's happening!? Save me!"
The flames burned with unimaginable speed. They did not spread bit by bit; every inch of his body, from head to toe, caught fire at the same time!
"Oh, are you here looking for the shadow beast too?" Lu Ling strolled in through the main entrance, an utterly relaxed smile on his face. Beneath the shadows, however, that smile seemed somewhat sinister.
"Kill him," one of the gray-clad men said.
He was not ordering his colleagues, but the Black Beast Demons under his control!
"Burst." Lu Ling softly uttered a single word, and all five Black Beast Demons concealed on the warehouse rafters erupted in flames. As endless fire burned them, they could not move at all, nor could they even howl in agony!
"Monster..."
"Monster!" With their trump cards gone, the previously confident gray-clad men all looked terrified.
"Let me go!"
"Spare me!"
Lu Ling said nothing. He merely walked slowly forward, tracing a Star Map with an extremely clumsy technique, all but writing his openings across his face.
"Chaos Magic Blade."
"Aah!!!"
The gray-clad man at the very front was severed at the waist and fell to the ground in a gruesome sight.
The others swallowed, then turned and fled in terror.
Even the magic they had struggled to use before was successfully cast in their fright. They did not use it against Lu Ling, however, but to escape.
Strangely, why wasn't one of them running?
"What's happening..."
Why couldn't he move!?
The gray-clad man's voice trembled. Before him lay his companion, already cut in half at the waist. He could even see the pleading expression his companion had worn before dying. Everyone else had already escaped the factory, leaving him alone.
Would he end up like that in a moment, too?
No! Please, no!
"You've been hit by a Giant Shadow Nail. You can't run," Lu Ling said casually.
"P-please let me go!" The gray-clad man wept, tears and snot streaming down his face. Had he been able to move, he probably would have fallen to his knees and kowtowed.
"No hurry, no hurry. Let me see if there's anything interesting to look at first," Lu Ling said.
"What..."
Then the gray-clad man saw a pale pink glow slowly begin to shine from the delicate-featured Lu Ling.
"What are you doing... Aah!!!!!" The gray-clad man let out a piercing scream. It seemed even the agony of being cut in half at the waist thousands upon thousands of times could not compare to the pain he felt now.
A minute later, the screaming stopped abruptly.
"Hm? Dead."
Yet he hadn't seen any useful memories at all.
This was a Psychic Element ability he had "learned" from Ding Yumian. By invading another person's mind, he could inspect their past memories. The process was simply rather painful! A mild case meant death; a severe case meant a painful death.
"Aren't you going to kill those others?" Netherworld asked in confusion.
She could tell Lu Ling was holding back, so she had not taken it upon herself to kill the ones who fled.
"No. I'm still waiting for them to hook me a big fish." Lu Ling closed his eyes and carefully sensed the psychic marks he had just placed.
The three who had escaped had split up. Their survival instincts should drive them to seek out their powerful backers.
Use the gray-clad members to draw out the black-clad ones, and the blue-clad ones would naturally be his for the taking.
"Ling Ling, on my end..."
"You bunch of idiots! Did you really think he would be stupid enough to let you come back?!" The man's face was dark as he furiously berated the useless fools who had suddenly fled to him.
To think not one of them had realized this was the enemy's scheme!
"Blue... looks like you're the only ones left!" Lu Ling's voice came from above the dome.
The Heavenly Star White Dragon descended from the sky, its golden slit pupils sharp and imposing, as though light of death would shoot from them in the next instant!
"Hmph!" The blue-clad man sneered.
The Heavenly Star White Dragon's presence had not frightened him. He began tracing his magic!
"Silent Thunder Death Ray!"
Seeing the lifelike, sacred, magnificent purple constellation slowly take shape, Lu Ling looked surprised.
"Advanced Level Lightning Element?"
He had thought most people who joined the Black Vatican were fanatics with poor magical talent who thirsted for greater power.
"Chaos Vortex."
Atop the white dragon, an ethereal Star Map formed with a single thought.
A gigantic vortex over ten meters in radius instantly appeared between them!
The deadly lightning shot into it, silently vanishing without a trace.
"What is that!?"
The blue-clad man's expression shifted slightly. Clearly, he had never seen this kind of magic. Or perhaps he had encountered the Chaos Element before, but had simply never seen it cast on such an enormous scale.
With a thought from Lu Ling, the Chaos Vortex that had swallowed the Silent Thunder Death Ray began spinning counterclockwise, faster and faster!
"Chaos, reversal."
"Your Silent Thunder Death Ray, of course." Lu Ling chuckled. Just then, the deadly lightning beam from earlier blasted straight toward the black-clad group.
Before they could even scream, they were utterly dead, leaving only the blue-clad man.
Lu Ling slowly walked forward as he spoke.
"A blue-clad member should be worth more alive than dead."