Dense black ink flowed from the tip of the brush, first forming the outline, then the features, followed by the folds of the clothing and the details of the hair.
In barely two or three seconds, a person identical to Santai was formed from ink and appeared in midair.
The ink-made reflection had the exact same upward curve at the corners of her lips as Santai herself.
She slowly opened her eyes. Those pupils, composed entirely of black ink and devoid of even the slightest trace of human emotion, locked onto Chen Guan, who was already staggering on the ground.
Chen Guan looked at the Santai floating in midair, and his heart sank little by little.
That figure formed from ink hovered silently in the air.
The only difference between her and Santai was probably those eyes. The ink figure’s pupils were pure black, making her look like a paper effigy that had just been given eyes. It was downright creepy.
Leaning on his scythe, Chen Guan felt as though his chest were being scorched by flames with every rise and fall of his breath. Agonizing pain tore through his lungs.
The power he had borrowed in his left arm was receding like a tide, leaving behind an emptied-out weakness and a feeling of being torn apart. His body had truly reached its limit.
“Don’t look at me, kid. I can’t help you either.” Baal’s voice rang out in his mind. This time, even he was powerless.
Chen Guan’s body was far too weak. It simply couldn’t bear Baal’s power.
Unless he logged into the account, Baal could only serve as a commentator.
On the other side, Long Ao couldn’t stand by any longer.
“We can’t just watch this happen.”
An Changqing grabbed him and shook his head, his expression more solemn than it had ever been. “If we charge in, we’ll only give her two more toys.”
This wasn’t a battle on the same level.
“That’s still better than standing here like useless trash.”
Long Ao shook off his hand, his eyes filled with resolute determination. “I don’t care who she is. If she wants to touch my friend, she’ll have to get through me first.”
Before the words had even left his mouth, he stomped on the ground.
Boom!
The concrete floor of the tunnel cracked beneath his foot, forming a shallow pit. His entire body transformed into a streak of golden light. Without any unnecessary flourish, he drove a plain, straightforward punch toward Santai’s flank, wrapped in an overwhelming force.
Take down the leader first.
An Changqing sighed. His reason told him to stay put, but his hands moved without hesitation. The moment Long Ao charged forward, he followed up.
The sword in his hand flashed into motion, its radiance weaving through the dim tunnel into a great net that sealed off every possible avenue of escape for Santai.
Points of starlight glittered as sword energy crisscrossed the air. The coordination between the two was flawless.
Yet in the face of this pincer attack—enough to leave any sixth-tier powerhouse scrambling—Santai merely let out a scoff.
The instant Long Ao’s fist was about to connect, her body bent backward at an unbelievable angle, as though she had no bones at all. Her entire figure flowed through the gap between the force of the punch and the web of sword energy like running water.
“I told you. Don’t interfere.”
Her voice sounded beside Long Ao’s ear like a ghost’s whisper.
Long Ao’s pupils contracted. Before he could react, he felt a numbness spread across his back.
It was a light, almost weightless palm strike, but it landed precisely on one of the vital acupoints between his shoulder blades.
A strange paralyzing sensation instantly spread through half his body. His surging blood and qi slammed into an invisible wall and was cut off on the spot. The entire right side of his body immediately lost all feeling.
Long Ao grunted and staggered forward. An Changqing arrived just in time to catch him.
With a single move, half of Long Ao’s combat strength had been crippled.
Supporting Long Ao, An Changqing looked at the woman who couldn’t even be bothered to turn her head, and felt nothing but helplessness.
The instant Santai shifted her attention away from Chen Guan and toward Long Ao and An Changqing, Chen Guan looked at the perfect ink reflection floating in the air.
An invisible ripple quietly spread outward from him.
Void Weaving—activate.
The ink-made Santai in midair, who had just been preparing to attack, suddenly froze.
Her body began flickering like a faulty signal. Countless fine cracks appeared across her flawless outline.
“Hm?”
Santai sensed that something was wrong and finally turned around.
What the hell?
She could feel the connection between herself and the ink clone being forcibly severed by a power that refused to obey any logic.
Under everyone’s astonished gazes, the all-powerful ink reflection vanished without even letting out a cry of anguish. It dissolved into countless drifting specks of ink, completely disappearing into the air without leaving behind the slightest trace.
It was as if it had never existed.
“What the hell?!”
“??? What just happened? Am I seeing things?”
“He one-shotted it? Just like that? What did Brother Coffin use? Why were there no special effects at all? One star. Couldn’t afford them?”
A deathly silence descended upon the tunnel.
Supporting Long Ao, An Changqing stood there with his mouth hanging open, unable to say a word for a long while.
Long Ao had even forgotten the numbness in half his body. He stared blankly at the scene, his mind completely unable to process it.
Santai looked at her own hand, then at Chen Guan. There was a hint of existential doubt in her beautiful eyes.
Her ink clone wasn’t unused to being one-shotted. But where were the special effects?
You just stood there and looked at it, and somehow one-shotted it?
Santai looked as though she had seen a ghost. Being one-shotted wasn’t frightening. Being one-shotted for no apparent reason was.
Amid the silence, Chen Guan rose from the ground.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and shook his numb right hand.
“What a coincidence.”
His voice rang clearly through every corner of the tunnel.
“I’m not a melee fighter either.”
Santai froze when she heard this. Then she laughed—laughed out of sheer exasperation.
That was her line! Her line!
“Looks like ranged attacks don’t work on you.”
She reached out and grabbed at the air in front of her with her right hand.
Countless points of light gathered in the air, condensing into a completely transparent crystal dagger that appeared in her palm.
This time, she was far more cautious. Afraid that strange flame would stick to her, she had switched weapons.
“Then Big Sis will get a little more serious.”
The instant she finished speaking, Santai disappeared.
Chen Guan’s pupils contracted. Before he could react, a freezing killing intent was already at his face.
Relying entirely on his battle instincts, he raised his enormous scythe horizontally in front of his chest.
Clang!
A piercing metallic impact exploded through the tunnel.
A force like a landslide and a tsunami surged through the scythe. Chen Guan’s hands went instantly numb, and the tremendous power shoved him backward. His feet carved two deep furrows into the concrete floor.
Before he could steady himself, a second strike and then a third came one after another.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The dense impacts ran together into a single roar as sparks flew in every direction throughout the tunnel.
Santai’s attacks contained no unnecessary flourishes. Every strike was the simplest possible thrust, slash, or upward cut, yet her speed was astonishing. The blade flashed into a blur, completely enveloping Chen Guan.
No mechanics, just raw stats!
Chen Guan gritted his teeth. He pushed his mental power to its limit just to barely track those lethal trajectories, desperately swinging his scythe to block them.
He was like a swaying candle in a storm of blades, liable to be torn apart completely at any moment.
No, this is too close…
The narrow terrain, combined with Santai’s proximity, meant Chen Guan had no way to kite her the way he had Gao Yan back in Yunlan City.
Baobao’s abilities were practically useless in such a cramped space. They could only be used to keep the coffin safe. For now, Chen Guan could rely only on himself.
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
