Chapter 595: What If I Refuse?

On the rooftop of a building on Sleepless Street, Shem had ultimately lost track of the suspicious black-clad figures.

It wasn’t a matter of lacking strength—in fact, those black-clad figures were no match for him at all. After no more than three exchanges, they had been beaten and sent fleeing.

As a member of the Miracle Order, Shem never believed in the saying that one should not pursue a desperate enemy. In the Miracle Order, one pursued to the ends of the earth, rooting out every last trace.

Yet while tracking those black-clad figures, he gradually realized that no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t catch up. Vaguely, he sensed that the entire street, everything within his field of vision, seemed to be helping the black-clad figures escape.

“Damn it. You were lucky this time!” Staring at the empty rooftop ahead, Shem sheathed his scimitar and cursed viciously. “Don’t let me see you again, or I’ll beat you every time I do…”

Before he could finish, a whistling gust of wind sounded behind him, followed by a soft “pat!” as someone landed on the roof after him.

“Who goes there?!” Shem whirled around and was taken aback at the sight of the girl who had appeared.

There stood Huá Sāng, drenched in sweat and pale-faced, gripping the railing at the edge of the rooftop with one hand to steady herself while waving the other gently to signal for calm.

Her slightly bowed head was beaded with large drops of sweat; her face was pale, her eyes wide, her blanched lips parted as if in an asthma attack, gasping violently and struggling for breath.

“Hah—! Rest… let me rest a moment… hah—!”

Isn’t she that disciple from the Great Pure Palace who was following the Lord Holy Son earlier? What is she doing here? Shem frowned, studied Huá Sāng, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

Looking at the state she was in, he suspected that she might cough up pieces of her lung at any moment.

On the bus from the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area heading to Shizhou City, Shem and Salih had concealed their psychic energy fluctuations so well that Huá Sāng had only sensed psychic energy fluctuations emanating from them, unable to gauge their true depth.

It was only when she began tracking Shem that she realized this middle-aged foreigner was alarmingly formidable…

At the very least, his speed was top-tier, while her own speed, in a situation where psychic energy fluctuation levels were not drastically different, was absolutely a deadweight dragging down the average.

Affected by her unstable Spirit Pattern, Huá Sāng always bore a crushing weight equivalent to thousands of tons. She could barely keep up with the average speed in the short term by relying on her psychic energy, but today she was already exhausted, and having just carried out a long-distance weighted sprint was essentially demanding her old life.

After a long while, Huá Sāng finally caught her breath, swallowed hard, looked at Shem, and said solemnly, “Forgive my presumption, but have you seen Wang Buliuxing? The girl who was sitting in the last row of the bus earlier.”

Shem: “…” She was following the Lord Holy Son earlier, and now she’s inquiring about the Lord Holy Son’s information. Could it be that she’s in league with those petty scoundrels from just now?

Muttering to himself, Shem’s right hand moved inconspicuously to the hilt of his scimitar.

Noticing his subtle movement, Huá Sāng hurriedly explained, “Wait, don’t misunderstand. I know her. We’re sort of… friends?”

We even share a betrothal partner, after all.

“Right now, she may have encountered an extremely dangerous psychic energy incident and could be in mortal danger at any moment. If you know where she is, please tell me so I can notify my sect and have them send help.”

“Oh?” Shem eyed Huá Sāng sideways and asked suspiciously, “How can I trust you?”

“…” Huá Sāng pondered for a few seconds, then looked Shem directly in the eye and said gravely, “I can swear an oath to prove that my words are true.”

“…” Shem stared at Huá Sāng for a long time, hesitated, and finally nodded. “Fine. Swear your oath first, and I’ll take you there.”

Although he had no fondness for the disciples of the Great Pure Palace—indeed, he harbored hostility toward them due to the former Holy Son’s cause of death—he now had no other choice.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the Lord Holy Son could perform a miracle.

But the place where the Lord Holy Son was trapped was far too peculiar. Salih had attempted to perform a miracle and was now stuck against an invisible wall, unable to be pried loose.

Besides, in times of peril, a rescuer descending from the sky was also a kind of miracle!

————

Meanwhile, in that residential area.

In the darkness, killing intent abruptly surfaced.

Three Esoteric Society members clustered together for mutual protection felt a sudden chill of dread.

When disaster strikes, each flees for themselves. Facing a life-or-death crisis, they unhesitatingly scattered in three different directions.

The youth whose feet were fused with inline skates moved with startling speed, racing across walls and roofs as if on flat ground.

Yet faster than him was Lu Yibei.

In just the space of two breaths, she had closed in on the youth, then dipped low and lunged forward into a slide tackle, the sword in her hand aimed in a sweeping arc toward his legs.

The Broken Sword, wreathed in crimson flames, erupted with light and fire as if emerging from the void itself.

Accompanied by the howling wind, the keen blade clashed with the finely-made inline skates—like skimming across water, it sliced through without the slightest sound, cutting them apart like dead twigs!

The skating youth let out a scream. His two fleeing companions instantly froze in their tracks, turning back in hopes of catching sight of that harrowing figure.

But when they looked back, Lu Yibei had already vanished from where she had stood.

Silent and signless, just as when she had come.

Then, a savage silhouette flickered briefly in the darkness.

Two sounds of viscous liquid spraying rang out one after another—an arm clutching a kitchen cleaver and a head wearing a plush hood were swept up by the roaring sword wind, soaring skyward in a graceful arc.

…

Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven…

Lu Yibei’s hunt continued without pause for a full thirty-five minutes.

The streets shrouded in night were ruined in her successive ambushes—everywhere lay scorch marks glittering with embers, craters deep and shallow, and dense smoke rising on all sides.

Corpses, barely recognizable as human, were strewn haphazardly by the roadside like discarded trash. A few gravely wounded still clung to a last breath, but their pupils were already dilated, their gazes unfocused, too weak even to wail.

In thirty-five minutes, she had slain one A-minus psychic, incapacitated three Class A psychics, and sent multitudes of Class B and Class C psychics to their deaths under her sword. Such a record could only be called terrifying.

Throughout this process, Esoteric Society members would frequently be conversing with a comrade one moment, only to hear a scream from beside them the next. After a brief moment of shock, they would regain their senses to find themselves completely alone.

Gradually, some Esoteric Society members began to think that this operation might have been a mistake.

They had never imagined that under the assistance of that great lord, intercepting a witch-type haunting would unfold like this, nor had they ever faced such a terrifying opponent.

It felt as though the enemy was a beast with sharp claws and fangs, while they were lambs with horns not sharp enough, able to survive only by clustering together.

In the darkness, the Esoteric Society members gathered in small groups for mutual defense, clearly able to perceive the panic and unease in their comrades’ eyes.

However, what they did not know was that this fearsome opponent was already a spent force herself.

To ensure that each strike could deliver a fatal blow, Lu Yibei had held nothing back every time she attacked, her psychic energy consumption pouring out as rapidly and violently as floodwaters through an open sluice gate.

After more than thirty minutes of such high-intensity combat, with her psychic energy severely drained, the weaker enemies almost entirely slaughtered, and the remaining Esoteric Society members rallying together, the time Lu Yibei needed to complete a kill increased sharply.

When she struck at the first enemy, it had taken less than two seconds; her most recent major blow had required nearly thirty seconds and she had nearly been surrounded by “items” surging from all sides, trapped in an inescapable quagmire.

Her progressively heavier breathing, slightly trembling hands, clearly skewed sword trajectories, slowing incantation recitation, and a powerful hollow sensation from her psychic energy being nearly exhausted… everything reminded Lu Yibei that she was about to collapse.

She felt like a cellphone that had automatically shut down once the battery hit zero, then was forced to turn on again—liable to “black screen” at any moment.

But she couldn’t stop.

Her current situation, she felt, was like a legendary bird born without feet, forced to fly without end, sleeping in the wind when tired, able to land only once in its lifetime—and that landing would be its death.

She could only wait—wait for the Great Pure Palace’s reinforcements to appear at some unknown time, or for the mastermind behind these Esoteric Society members sent to intercept her to call for a retreat.

And then…

She finally got her wish.

Not reinforcements, but a compromise.

“Clap, clap, clap—!”

Applause sounded from nowhere; every object around seemed to produce the noise.

“Hahaha, well done, well done! Young lady, I admit you’re quite formidable. How about we each take a step back? I’ll let you go, and you stop pursuing this matter. What do you say?”

Listening to the featureless voice, Lu Yibei tilted her head and scanned her surroundings coldly. “You’ve lost so many underlings, and you’re just going to let me walk away?”

“Underlings? Oh no, no, I think there may be a misunderstanding there! They aren’t my underlings—at most, they’re… tools I happen to like. It’s a bit sad when a tool breaks, but I can just acquire new ones afterward.”

Acquire new ones? Using those terrifying methods… Lu Yibei frowned and bit her lip lightly. “And if I refuse?”

The voice fell silent for a few seconds, then asked, puzzled, “I don’t understand. What could be more important than your own life? What exactly do you want?”

“I want…” Lu Yibei paused mid-sentence. The hellish scenes she had witnessed earlier in the residential building surfaced in her mind, and she said in a low voice, “Fairness. What do you think of that?”