"A wanted criminal of the continent, Xu Laosan!"
Withered Leaf Ape and Elder Lingchen stared in shock at the scar-faced Black-Clad Man as he revealed himself.
"Hmph! So you've recognized me."
Xu Laosan's expression turned icy. He snorted coldly, then turned to Blackwater Tu and said in a low voice, "Sect Master! These two have cultivation far too high—we absolutely cannot leave them alive!"
Blackwater Tu frowned slightly at this but said nothing. He only turned his gaze toward Withered Leaf Ape and the other man. High cultivation did not frighten him; he had plenty of ruthless methods to control them!
"Don't be delusional. The two of us would never sink so low as to consort with demonic heretics like you!"
"Enough talk. Let's fight! After decades apart, I'd like to see how much your Blackwater Claw has improved, you bloody-handed butcher!"
With a great roar, Withered Leaf Ape unleashed the Withered Leaf Palm again. Leaves scattered at tremendous speed as a sinister black Water Patterns Ghost Claw surged forward to meet the attack.
Amid booming echoes, the great battle resumed.
Xu Laosan spun around, spotted Feng Ling, and dashed toward him!
Xu Laosan's intention was obvious: he meant to seize the chance to slay Ling Weiyun and claim the Eighth-Rank Ghost Spirit Body!
This was a fat prize. He had already brutally collected five Seventh-Turn Ghost Spirit Bodies; perhaps this one could push him into the seventh transformation!
Then the Evil Spirit Master Organization would value him more, and he could stand as Blackwater Tu's equal!
Feng Ling had just slain a third-transformation Evil Spirit Master when danger prickled across his back!
"Big brother—get out of the way, quick!" A panicked figure threw himself in front of Feng Ling, and with a furious roar, forced the scar-faced Xu Laosan back.
He charged forward without hesitation and engaged the man in fierce combat. Leaves scattered through the air as the two gradually drew away from Feng Ling.
Ling Chen, thank you!
Silently murmuring the thought in his heart, Feng Ling darted into the midst of the poisoned disciples, drawing off a portion of the attacks, leaving the disciples deeply grateful.
He struck with the mighty Stone-Shattering Fist. Any third-transformation opponent it hit had their bones shattered and died on the spot, while fourth-transformation opponents collapsed howling, leaving the disciples to finish them off!
For a time, Feng Ling moved as though through an empty field. The pressure on the disciples eased greatly.
Even so, the situation remained grim. Screams of agony still reached his ears at intervals.
Fewer than thirty disciples from the two sects remained, while the enemy still had twenty Evil Spirit Masters!
That count did not include the two fourth-transformation and two fifth-transformation fighters holding Elder Lingchen and his companion at bay.
This situation was already doomed to defeat!
Feng Ling wanted to escape, but he knew this was not the best moment.
If he fled now, Withered Leaf Ape would surely join the Evil Spirit Masters in hunting him down. His situation would then be far more dangerous than it was now!
Feng Ling was waiting—waiting for the Sixth-Rank and Seventh-Turn experts present to wear each other down!
With his current cultivation,
With his current cultivation, he was confident he could use the false Forceful Qi released by the Stone-Shattering Fist to hold his own against a fifth-transformation expert for a while. At the very least, he had a good chance of escaping!
"Bastard! Old fool, your life is mine!"
Watching Feng Ling cut down so many of their own, one fifth-transformation expert broke away from Withered Leaf Ape's attacks at Blackwater Tu's signal. He turned and charged toward Feng Ling at tremendous speed.
This man was Ghost Five, known as the Mighty Ghost Hands.
Earlier, he had finished off the wounded during the battle among the Seventh-Turn experts and suffered several hidden injuries in the process.
Still, he was confident that dealing with an old fellow like Ling Weiyun, who was only in the third transformation, would be easy!
"Sect Master, watch out!" Xue Jiu was locked in fierce combat with a fifth-transformation expert. He caught this out of the corner of his eye, but his opponent held him fast, leaving him unable to break free and secretly anxious.
Distracted for an instant, he saw a cold blade slice through his robe at blinding speed. Xue Jiu broke into a cold sweat, bent sharply, and narrowly dodged the blow.
After that, he dared not let his guard down and could only pray silently for Feng Ling.
"Boom!!"
A thunderous crash rang out as two iron-hard fists met head-on in midair, waves of force radiating off Feng Ling's body, sending his robe snapping and fluttering!
The next instant—
To everyone's astonishment, a powerful force surged from Feng Ling's fist and drove the overconfident Evil Spirit Master, Ghost Five, back in one blow.
Feng Ling stood where he was, a thread of blood at the corner of his mouth. He sighed inwardly: Damn it, I'm still a step short!
Even Feng Ling was astonished that he could take the punch head-on without suffering serious harm.
He had underestimated the strength of a fifth-transformation Ghost Spirit Master—and his own defenses as well!
"Mighty Divine Fist!"
Ghost Five let out a great roar, his eyes fixed on Feng Ling with undisguised contempt. Though startled that the man had withstood his full-power blow without dying,
Ghost Five still did not take Feng Ling seriously, assuming that only the old-timer's fighting skill had saved him.
In the face of an absolute gap in strength, no amount of skill would matter once he smashed it apart with a single punch!
As the wind shrieked, Ghost Five sent another punch smashing toward Feng Ling.
"Underestimating your enemy is never a good idea!"
A blurred afterimage flickered. The fifth-transformation Evil Spirit Master punched through empty air, then spun around in stunned surprise.
His striking wrist suddenly locked in an iron grip. A massive force surged from his side and hurled his entire body away!
"Ahh!!" He screamed as brains splattered and blood sprayed. His mangled, headless corpse crashed to the ground!
Ghost Five hit the ground, sprang up in a flawless kip-up, and punched dead a disciple who had come to finish him off. His speed was astonishing.
"Old bastard! Didn't see that coming—you've still got some tricks left! Come again..."
Having been humiliated again and again at Feng Ling's hands, Ghost Five flew into a rage of shame and charged forward once more—though this time far more cautiously than before!
"Boom, boom-boom!!"
A string of explosive blows rang out. Ghost Five's strikes were broad and forceful, while Feng Ling's fists were swift and fierce.
Every punch landed true, each carrying savage force. Their clashes were raw and direct, without the slightest flourish.
For a moment, the two of them, trading blows in the most direct and unadorned way, fought to a deadlock impossible to untangle!
"Well done, Sect Master! Kill that son of a bitch..."
"Brothers, today we fight this bunch of bastards to the end!"
The brutal hand-to-hand combat stirred the entire battlefield. The others' blood began to boil, their attacks growing more ferocious and madness gleaming in their bloodshot eyes!
"Kill!" Their momentum was overwhelming, and their battle cries shook the heavens. The contest had become a clash of sheer momentum!
Every disciple fought with savage abandon, trading wounds for wounds as though injected with adrenaline!
Tearing, biting, clawing, scratching—everything was used, with no regard for proper form whatsoever!
There was no defending against it!
One unlucky Evil Spirit Master was even caught by a dying disciple he had struck down. With his last strength, the disciple bit off more than half the man's ear!
Before he breathed his last, the disciple's excited eyes gleamed with extreme, unrestrained madness.
It was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine...
Before long, the twenty-odd suffocating Evil Spirit Masters lost control of themselves as well.
The Evil Spirit Masters hurled handful after handful of Poisonous Gas and Poison Powder, and screams of agony filled the field.
Pools of foul-smelling pus flowed everywhere, driving everyone into even more frenzied slaughter. The Poisonous Gas and Poison Powder flew in ever greater quantities, creating a vicious cycle!
Above the Weiyun Sect, a bloody glow flared. A Black Cloud tinged with eerie crimson turned slowly, showing signs of spreading in every direction.
Heads rolled and hot blood spilled beneath the blazing sun. Shrill screams rang out without pause, while the spraying crimson blood caught the sunlight in a terrible, unnatural glow!
The brutal battle raged from morning until dusk. The setting sun lit faces streaked with blood, and the sounds of slaughter gradually faded as the frenzied Massacre neared its end.
Feng Ling's hair hung in disarray, and blood drenched his body. Both fists were rubbed raw, with pale bone faintly visible beneath the torn skin. He looked coldly at the corpse beneath his fist, blood still gushing from it.
After collecting several Ghost Spirit Bodies that had escaped from nearby corpses, Feng Ling straightened his trembling body.
Ghost Five was dead!
His eyes, wide as a bull's, still held the terror of his final moment!
He could not understand how his relentlessly forceful fists had suddenly shifted into a soft, yielding style that completely overpowered him.
After enduring the terrifying force of a hundred punches, Ghost Five finally breathed his last, still unwilling to yield.
Feng Ling used the Ghost Shadow Traceless Step to circle Ghost Five and wear him down. He struck fiercely at intervals, keeping his opponent tense and exhausting his mental strength.
When the moment came, Feng Ling gritted his teeth and took one of Ghost Five's punches head-on under the man's horrified gaze. He endured the pain, switched techniques, and unleashed the profound Taiji Fist!
Each punch grew mightier than the last. After a hundred blows had accumulated, their force reached a terrifying level; on the hundredth punch, Feng Ling forcibly drove Ghost Five through the Gate of Hell!
He raised his head and looked around. Severed limbs and mangled bodies lay scattered across the devastation, while half-dead, blood-soaked figures writhed in agony amid the corrosive Poisonous Gas.
The stench of blood filled the sky. Eerie black blood mixed with bright crimson and gurgled down the two-meter-wide stairway, forming a harrowing Underground River of killing intent!
It was as if—an Asura Hell had opened before him!
"Slaughter... escape..." Feng Ling muttered under his breath, his eyes clouded with confusion, as the scene seemed to drag him back to the Assassin Training Camp.
The wretched scene before him now,
How eerily similar it was to that place!
"No! This isn't... it's still far from that!" Feng Ling snapped back to his senses and laughed coldly, as if mocking himself.
This scene barely matched an ordinary day at the training camp. The Hunter's Game or the Beheading King's Contest would have been something else entirely...
As Feng Ling painfully recalled the inhuman darkness of his past life, a furious roar and a mad, cackling laugh reached his ears together.
"Pfft—damn you! Old butcher, you resorted to trickery..."
"Cough, cough! Hah! Withered Leaf Ape, even if your strength is slightly greater than mine, you are still doomed to die from my Blackwater cold poison!"
Withered Leaf Ape's face was mottled purple-black. He spat out a mouthful of blood, clutched the Black Qi-corroded wound on his chest, and roared at Blackwater Tu across from him.
Blackwater Tu was faring no better. His face was deathly pale, most of his body buried beneath withered yellow leaves. Blood escaped his mouth as he spoke, yet his words remained venomous and unrelenting.
They had fought to the point of grave injury, while the three flies harassing them had long since died beneath their wild, indiscriminate attacks!
What a wretched way to die!
By now, fewer than fifteen people remained alive on the entire battlefield!
The Evil Spirit Master side had six lightly wounded fourth-transformation fighters, two lightly wounded fifth-transformation fighters, a lightly wounded sixth-transformation Xu Laosan, and a gravely wounded seventh-transformation Blackwater Tu.
On the Weiyun Sect's side, only the lightly wounded sixth-transformation Xue Jiu remained; every other disciple had fallen.
The seventh-transformation Withered Leaf Ape, sixth-transformation Elder Lingchen, and Feng Ling, who had just advanced to the fourth transformation, all suffered grave wounds!
Every disciple brought by the Withered Leaf Sect had perished, and Withered Leaf Ape himself had been struck by Deadly Poison, leaving his life hanging by a thread! Most absurd of all, the four strongest fighters had become so consumed by fury that they forgot why they were fighting. It was as if a Demonic Voice echoed in their minds, driving them to annihilate whoever stood before them at any cost!
Vultures wheeled through the air,
They settled on the bare branches of the Ancient Dead Tree and eyed the shredded flesh below with hungry anticipation.
A brutal, tragic, bloodthirsty air drifted away on the evening wind, with no telling where it would finally settle!