The First Kill of Chen Guan

All these changes happened in a flash.

To the outside world, it just looked like Chen Guan, besieged by Shadow Wolves and on the verge of exhaustion, suddenly stiffened slightly. Immediately after, an indescribable aura abruptly burst forth with him at the center.

The few Shadow Wolves lunging at the very front bore the brunt of it and were suppressed by this sudden aura.

An opportunity!

The sharp gleam in Chen Guan's eyes, which had previously dimmed, erupted like a reignited flame. A low growl tore from his throat, his trembling arm steadied once more, and he fiercely swung his blade, infused with this newfound power.

This strike was no longer a simple physical slash. A faint gray halo seemed to veil the edge of the blade.

Slash!

Where the blade's light passed, the bodies of the three sluggish Shadow Wolves were easily cleaved open like butter sliced by a hot knife. No blood spurted from their wounds; instead, they took on a bizarre, ashen-gray hue, as if their life force had been instantly drained away.

One strike, three kills!

The remaining Shadow Wolves were utterly deterred by their companions' bizarre deaths. For the first time, clear fear appeared in their crimson eyes.

They let out terrified whimpers and, no longer caring to attack, tucked their tails between their legs and retreated like a receding tide. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared into the deep shadows of the stone forest.

Chen Guan watched the retreating backs of the wolf pack, standing completely motionless.

After a while, seeing that he still hadn't moved, Su Yuehe tentatively asked, Are you alright, classmate Chen Guan?

There was no reply.

She felt a vague sense of unease. She tried to touch him, only to find Chen Guan falling backward, crashing heavily to the ground.

Chen Guan?!

Su Yuehe violently shook his body. Looking closely at him from the front, she realized that Chen Guan's breathing had already stopped.

Her nose stung. She looked in disbelief at the peaceful, lifeless face of Chen Guan. She had never imagined that a C-rank mission, which should have been a walk in the park, would actually result in a classmate's death.

Su Yuehe's tears instantly fell uncontrollably, pattering down onto Chen Guan's face and smudging the patches of blood.

With trembling hands, she stuffed a handful of colorful pills into his mouth, attempting to wake him up again.

She had to go back... Her father... Her father would definitely have a way to save him...

One breath, two breaths...

Chen Guan opened his eyes, meeting her sad and sorrowful purple gaze.

Don't be sad.

He wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes. Unfortunately, his hands were still covered in a large amount of blood. So, while the tear stains were wiped away, a streak of blood was left behind instead.

Feeling a bit guilty, he let go and sat up, leaning against his own coffin. Meanwhile, Su Yuehe's brain had practically short-circuited from the shock of this resurrection.

Chen... Chen... Chen...

She stammered, suddenly unable to even say his name.

I'm still alive, don't worry.

Chen Guan knew he had scared the little girl. However, he could only wipe the blood off his face; he had no way to explain this kind of thing.

But then again, this was a high-martial world. He would just let her fill in the blanks herself; whatever she imagined would definitely be more logical than anything he could make up.

Was that spiritual energy inside his body just now? It didn't seem like it. It lacked the liveliness and affinity of spiritual energy entirely, and instead felt more like... the gray mist from the coffin.

Chen Guan, are you alright? Su Yuehe wanted to slap herself the moment she said it. Did he look like he was alright?

What kind of nonsense was she spouting?

I'm... fine. Chen Guan's voice was slightly hoarse. Coming back from the dead hadn't brought him any extra side effects, but the physical weakness caused by the preceding battle was unavoidable.

He wouldn't die, but his resurrection didn't erase his original negative status effects. He just wouldn't die. Fatal wounds would heal into non-fatal wounds, and that was the extent of it.

...

In the distant battlefield, the fierce fight between An Changqing and the Wolf King was also drawing to a close.

Having lost the support of its pack and being relentlessly entangled by An Changqing, the Wolf King's aura began to falter. Although An Changqing was heavily injured himself, he seized the moment when the Wolf King's breath fell into disorder to erupt once more.

A golden light flashed in his eyes. He suddenly withdrew the longsword in his hand, holding it upright in front of his chest. Pressing the fingers of his left hand together like a sword, he slowly stroked the blade. As his fingers moved, the golden light on the blade quickly retracted, condensed, and eventually vanished completely. The entire longsword became like ordinary iron, even looking somewhat dull.

The Wolf King seemed to sense this unusually dangerous aura as well. Its offensive momentum paused slightly, and its dark golden eyes stared fixedly at the ordinary-looking longsword in An Changqing's hand, instinctively feeling a palpitation of fear.

This sword strike shouldn't have been used at this time, An Changqing whispered. His voice was calm, yet it carried an indescribable majesty.

The moment his words fell, An Changqing moved.

There was no earth-shattering light, no imposing aura of tearing through the air.

He simply, unremarkably, thrust his sword forward.

This strike looked so slow, so ordinary, as if it couldn't even slice through the air.

But the Wolf King let out a roar of absolute terror. It desperately tried to retreat, dodge, defend... but was horrified to discover that its body, the surrounding space, and even the flow of time itself seemed to be locked in place by this sword strike.

There was no way to evade! No way to block!

This was a lockdown that transcended strength and spiritual energy... a lockdown on the level of rules.

One sword... to settle the universe!

The tip of the sword lightly tapped against the tuft of silver fur right between the Wolf King's brows.

Time seemed to freeze for a split second.

The next moment.

Silently, that tuft of silver fur between the Wolf King's brows, along with the skull beneath it, the brain, and even the entire back half of its head, vanished into thin air like a pencil drawing erased by a rubber.

There was no blood, no shattered bone, no flesh.

It was just... gone.

The Wolf King's massive body stiffened in place. All the life in its dark golden eyes rapidly faded away, leaving behind only endless emptiness.

Thud.

The Wolf King's mutilated corpse, missing a small half of its head, crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Its life aura was completely gone.

The Shadow Wolf King was dead!

With the death of the Wolf King, the Shadow Wolves throughout the entire shadowed stone forest completely lost their will to fight and fled in all directions.

The battle was finally over.

Leaning on his sword, An Changqing panted and looked in the direction of Chen Guan and Su Yuehe. When he saw Chen Guan entirely bathed in blood, he was also startled.

He had been busy preparing his ultimate strike just now and hadn't had the time to pay attention to Su Yuehe's side. Now it seemed that Chen Guan had stepped in and saved Su Yuehe. Otherwise, based on his understanding of Su Yuehe, if she had forced herself to fight, she would have fainted a long time ago.

The three of them looked at each other's sorry states, speechless for a moment.

Chen Guan felt the faint yet very real power within his body and decided for the time being to call this power Gray Energy.

Gray Energy seemed to be linked to his mental strength. Chen Guan clearly saw on his status panel that the mental strength stat was soaring crazily, even surpassing his strength attribute by a bit—it was terrifyingly high.