Thirty-Three Prayer Beads

"You'll regret not killing me just now."

The moment Huishi finished speaking, Chen Fan sent the Spirit Refining Sword at him.

"Enough with the chatter. Drop dead already!"

Huishi flicked out a prayer bead, sending it crashing into the Spirit Refining Sword.

Under Chen Fan's Sword Control Technique, the Spirit Refining Sword was extremely agile.

After colliding with the bead once, it moved to go around it and continue attacking Huishi.

But the bead followed it like a shadow, entangling Chen Fan's Spirit Refining Sword.

Meanwhile, the others tried to attack Huishi, only to find his prayer beads chasing them down as well.

Huishi waved his hand, and thirty-three prayer beads flew out, each seemingly locked onto a target.

Some people were pursued by one bead, while others had two or three chasing them.

The thirty-three beads scattered, tracing different paths like flowers swirling through the air.

Nie Shufeng, Zheng Alin, Wu Zhiyou, Li Yuanyuan, Yang Xiaomei... Almost everyone was under attack by the beads. They were too busy protecting themselves to join forces against Huishi.

Huishi stood where he was, watching as he alone surrounded everyone with his prayer beads, as though he had everything under control.

A smile returned to his lips. "My supernatural ability can be understood in two ways: [size] and [as I will]. As long as I concentrate on controlling them, none of you can escape."

Chen Fan's expression darkened.

He had recalled the Spirit Refining Sword, which circled constantly around him, blocking the beads attacking him.

Chen Fan was under immense pressure. Huishi had sent ten whole beads after him.

The ten beads circled him, attacking without pause. At times they grew larger; at others, they shrank out of sight before suddenly reappearing.

Chen Fan raced through the air on the Nightmare Battle Cloud, dodging constantly. Only by protecting himself with the Golden Light Glazed Shield and using the Spirit Refining Sword to block attacks did he barely manage to hold off Huishi's assault.

Huishi had clearly singled out Chen Fan and was focusing his attacks on him.

Chen Fan realized he was completely on the defensive, but for the moment, he seemed to have no way out.

He quickly surveyed the battle and saw that everyone was struggling against their opponents.

The five-meter-tall Nie Shufeng was being beaten back by a massive prayer bead ten meters across. In terms of size alone, he had already lost.

Zheng Alin switched frantically among the seven swords in her hands, but just two egg-sized beads attacking around her were enough to leave her struggling to keep up.

No matter which sword she switched to, none could effectively counter beads that could change size at will and fly freely through the air.

Li Yuanyuan's internal energy took the form of a dragon in her palm, yet she couldn't stop a single bead and was left in a sorry state.

By now, she was covered in bruises, with blood at the corner of her mouth.

And that was with Chen Fan having stationed an Iron-Armored Jiangshi beside her to block attacks from time to time.

It wasn't just Li Yuanyuan. Chen Fan had also sent Iron-Armored Jiangshi to act as meat shields for the others.

Some of the more badly battered Iron-Armored Jiangshi had twisted limbs and were no longer recognizable as human.

Without those Iron-Armored Jiangshi, the others would have been in even worse shape.

Elsewhere, Wu Zhiyou had managed to work quite well with the Iron-Armored Jiangshi beside him.

Both he and the Iron-Armored Jiangshi had stiff bodies, and both could take a beating.

After joining forces with the Iron-Armored Jiangshi to withstand several waves of attacks from the beads, Wu Zhiyou used it as cover and suddenly charged toward Huishi, who stood in the middle of the field, controlling everything.

His thinking was simple: since he couldn't do anything about the beads, he would attack their master first.

Faced with Wu Zhiyou's charge, Huishi's expression turned cold, and he took a slight half-step back.

Two prayer beads immediately flew over to intercept Wu Zhiyou.

The beads were fast and fierce. Swelling to the size of wagon wheels in midair, they slammed toward Wu Zhiyou.

Wu Zhiyou's eyes widened. He hadn't expected Huishi to send two beads to intercept him. One had already been a little difficult to handle, so he hurriedly dodged.

Even as he dodged, however, he made sure to keep heading toward Huishi.

But it clearly wasn't that simple. The beads attacked so quickly that he couldn't dodge every time.

Wu Zhiyou hadn't advanced very far when, as he dodged one bead, the other struck him and sent him flying.

Once again, he was far from Huishi.

He had been knocked back farther than he had advanced.

Watching from a distance, Chen Fan realized something.

At a thought, he recalled some of the jiangshi wandering nearby and waiting for an opportunity into the black coffins, leaving out those assisting his teammates.

Then he pointed, and ten black coffins appeared beside Huishi, who stood in the center, controlling everything.

The coffin lids opened, and ten Iron-Armored Jiangshi lunged out.

Chen Fan had also included an Iron-Armored Ripper Jiangshi among them.

As soon as it appeared, the jiangshi spewed a dense stream of corpse qi that swept toward Huishi.

The sudden appearance of the black coffins and the jiangshi emerging from them made Huishi's face darken.

He hadn't expected Chen Fan's black coffins to be able to change position so freely.

But two prayer beads suddenly appeared beside Huishi, growing from a size invisible to the naked eye to five meters in diameter.

It turned out that shortly after sending out the thirty-three beads, he had quietly recalled two and shrunk them until they were invisible to the naked eye, keeping them beside him as a defense.

Now that the attackers had gotten close, his precaution came into play.

As soon as they appeared, the two beads began spinning wildly, creating something like a storm that knocked every Iron-Armored Jiangshi that approached flying.

The violent currents they whipped up also dispersed the corpse qi spewed by the Ripper Jiangshi.

The attack hadn't worked, but Chen Fan wasn't discouraged.

By observing the others, he had confirmed his suspicion.

As Huishi divided his attention to defend himself, the beads scattered farther away to attack the others began to move stiffly, no longer as nimbly as before.

Earlier, he had scattered all the beads and suppressed everyone. It had looked as though he stood in the center, effortlessly controlling everything.

In fact, he had been concentrating intensely on controlling the path of every bead.

Under those circumstances, it was difficult for him to spare any attention to protect himself.

At first, he had pretended to have everything under control, fooling everyone into thinking he was at ease as he effortlessly suppressed each of them.

It wasn't until Wu Zhiyou's charge, when Huishi showed the slightest sign of losing his composure, that Chen Fan formed a suspicion.

The jiangshi he sent afterward had been a test.

And sure enough, the test exposed Huishi.

"He's distracted! He can't control every bead precisely anymore. This is our chance!"

Chen Fan shouted his discovery.

The others reacted quickly.

Nie Shufeng let out a roar and strained to push away the enormous ten-meter bead that had been suppressing him.

Wu Zhiyou had landed beside him after being knocked back earlier, and now the two immediately joined forces.

Wu Zhiyou jumped into the air.

Nie Shufeng braced Wu Zhiyou from below, then gave him a mighty shove, hurling him like a spear.

Wu Zhiyou played along, raising both arms above his head and pressing his palms together like a spearhead.

"Take our blood-boiling combination attack!"

Wu Zhiyou shouted as he shot through the air toward Huishi, palms out in front.

In that position, his entire body had become a giant human spear.

Huishi looked at Wu Zhiyou hurtling toward him, his gaze indifferent.

How could such a childish attack possibly get past the two beads spinning at high speed around him?

Hadn't Wu Zhiyou seen all those jiangshi get knocked away just now? He was only one man; there was no chance.

Huishi kept the two beads spinning rapidly around him while trying to continue controlling the others to suppress everyone else.

He ignored Wu Zhiyou entirely.

In midair, Wu Zhiyou had no confidence either as he faced the rapidly spinning beads.

But his greatest strength was his sheer stubbornness. Relying on his tough body, he simply closed his eyes, steeled himself, and crashed toward the spinning beads.

He wasn't afraid at all!

Because Huishi was trying to control all the beads on the field, the rapidly spinning beads began to falter slightly.

Against extremely long odds, Wu Zhiyou's human spear met a tiny opening in their rapid rotation.

He passed through the spinning beads unscathed and slammed hard into Huishi.

The "spearhead" formed by his joined palms pierced Huishi's chest.

Still "impaled" in Huishi, Wu Zhiyou sent him flying over a hundred meters.

Huishi spat blood, and a vicious look appeared on his face for the first time.

But he still hadn't been struck in a vital spot. He had shrunk his important organs, so Wu Zhiyou's attack had once again failed to injure them.

Even so, having a large hole punched through his body was still a fairly serious injury.

Avoiding damage to his organs had merely kept the blow from killing him outright.

The massive wound still restricted Huishi's movements and left him weakened.

Huishi struck back with his palm. The powerful force of a third-tier supernatural sent Wu Zhiyou flying, and he grunted as blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Even with his whole body transformed into metal, he had still been injured.

Huishi had never imagined that Wu Zhiyou could get through the rapidly spinning beads.

How had he done it?

Huishi lay on the ground, blood flowing from the wound in his chest.

He pushed himself up, trying to stand.

At some point, a figure had already circled around behind him.

It was Zheng Alin, attacking once more with the Thunderous Sword and the Electric Light Sword in hand.

First, an exceptionally swift slash opened a long wound across Huishi's back. Then the Thunderous Sword's thunderclap sent him into a daze once more.

Another enormous figure charged over.

It was a giant cat the size of a minibus.

After watching from nearby for a long time, Yang Xiaomei had finally made her move, riding the Cat Bus.

Little Red's paw, nearly the size of a wagon wheel, struck Huishi.

The blow sent the dazed Huishi flying.

Even if the Cat Bus only had first-tier strength, its enormous body meant that a blow from its paw could hardly be weak.

Huishi spat blood again as he was sent flying.

Watching everyone concentrate their attacks on Huishi, Chen Fan felt it was time to make his move.

But this time, he had to seize the opportunity and find a way to kill Huishi for good.

Just then, Chen Fan noticed a rusty iron nail by the side of the road.

In a flash of inspiration, an idea sprang into his mind.

Perhaps he needed a new magic artifact.

With a movement of his telekinesis, the nail rose and floated into Chen Fan's hand.

Holding the nail, Chen Fan aimed at Huishi in the distance as he flew through the air.

[Consume 100 points of Origin Material to refine the rusty iron nail into an immortal-path magic artifact?]

Refine!

[Consumed 100 points of Origin Material. Refined the rusty iron nail into the low-grade magic artifact Annihilation Death Nail]

810 points remained.

A low-grade magic artifact wasn't enough...

With a thought, Chen Fan discarded two jiangshi that were close to being battered to pieces.

[Refined first-tier Iron-Armored Jiangshi x2. Obtained 200 points of Origin Material]

1,010 points remained.

[Consumed 1,000 points of Origin Material. Refined the low-grade magic artifact Annihilation Death Nail into a mid-grade magic artifact]

10 points remained.

Sent flying by the giant cat, Huishi regained consciousness in midair and slowly opened his narrow eyes.

In the originally gloomy sky, dark clouds suddenly gathered.

The already feeble sun was completely obscured.

The dark clouds gathered into a vortex, from which fell a thick, heavy, pointed nail in the shape of a four-sided prism.

The nail was reddish-brown all over, wreathed in waves of death qi. It descended from the sky at a speed that seemed slow but was actually swift.

Looking at the thick nail hurtling toward him, Huishi closed his eyes.

He sensed the threat of death from it.

He couldn't dodge this attack...

It was all arranged by fate.

"Amitabha. Buddha, I'm coming..."

At the very end, Huishi pressed his palms together and murmured to himself. No one heard clearly what he said.

Like a pillar, the thick iron nail slammed him into the ground and pinned him there.

After the nail pinned him down, Huishi's body began to show signs of "necrosis" around the wound.

His flesh turned a decayed, dark gray.

The discoloration spread rapidly from the wound across his entire body.

His flesh and soul alike lost all vitality.

Not a single sign of life remained.

Huishi's entire body turned ashen at an astonishing speed.

Then cracks appeared in his body, and it broke apart into pieces scattered across the ground.

Immediately afterward, those pieces turned into gray powder and drifted away between heaven and earth.

In the end, he vanished completely.