Chapter 600: Zhang Huainan Gradually Understood Everything

Passing through the invisible barrier into the lockdown zone, the light before Zhang Huainan’s eyes suddenly dimmed.

He paused, calmly surveying his surroundings as usual, sensing the psychic energy fluctuations permeating the air, and nodded thoughtfully.

Then, with a slight furrow of his brow, a phantom-like cyan flame emerged at his forehead, sending out faint ripples.

Psychic sense condensed into flame.

That terrifying psychic sense instantly spread out, covering the entire lockdown zone. Every blade of grass and every tree within this area was meticulously perceived in an instant.

“So that’s how it is… Truly a horrifying method I’ve never seen before…”

As he spoke, his eyes slowly opened, a fierce glint faintly flickering in his aged pupils.

From the corpses in the residential buildings and the bizarre entities, something between hauntings and objects, chasing Huá Sāng and “Gu Qianqian,” he finally detected some clues about the harm caused by the Esoteric Society, leaving him sighing inwardly.

Over the past nearly one hundred years, he had seen almost all types of psychics and hauntings and understood the origins of their powers. But as the nights began to grow longer, more and more hauntings with powers beyond his existing knowledge started appearing, giving him a feeling of being unable to keep up with the times.

“Perhaps Senior Brother Qing Ji was right; living too long becomes dull instead…”

Zhang Huainan murmured to himself, refocused his mind, and once again directed his psychic sense’s attention to Huá Sāng and “Gu Qianqian.”

In this area, several old residential buildings clustered together, forming a complex terrain within the streets, like a primeval forest built of reinforced concrete.

Countless dark shadows darted through the “forest,” crashing forcefully, accompanied by booming sounds, sending earth and stones flying and dust swirling.

Two figures, like trapped beasts chased by hunters, were sprinting desperately.

“Oh? The situation is much better than I thought!” Zhang Huainan raised an eyebrow, a kind smile appearing in his eyes.

Although he often felt he was falling behind the times, what comforted him was that since the nights began lengthening, many excellent young people, whom he also couldn’t fully understand, were emerging.

With these young people around, he didn’t worry about being eliminated one day or falling on his path of guardianship, because he believed that successors would carry the banner forward.

But before that… they might need some more trials.

Huá Sāng, that fellow, always found unexpected ways to slack off whenever she organized disciples for training trips down the mountain. This time, he’d finally caught her!

This area was already sealed off by an unknown haunting, surrounded by enemies and fraught with danger, yet he could instantly provide aid. Could there be a better training ground than this? Zhang Huainan thought.

He didn’t know the extent of “Gu Qianqian’s” strength, but he was well aware of Huá Sāng’s capabilities.

Among the seventy-two elders of the Great Pure Palace, probably less than a handful were stronger than Huá Sāng.

“Ah, this girl! It’s just that she cares too much about the harm her out-of-control Spirit Pattern might cause others…”

In a sense, her Spirit Pattern was “alive,” conscious. The more she feared it, the harder it was to control.

Zhang Huainan sighed softly. Watching Huá Sāng being chased so pathetically, the smile on his face became increasingly meaningful.

He recalled the scene from his youth when Qing Ji took him to Yumen for training. Back then, he was surrounded by thousands of Yin Soldiers, and Qing Ji suddenly vanished. He lingered on the brink of death, struggling desperately to hold on.

It was only when he was nearly beaten to death by those Yin Soldiers that Qing Ji reappeared before him—one man, one sword—sweeping away all the Yin Soldiers with thunderous force.

And now, this fine tradition would be passed down through the torch!

“However…” Zhang Huainan scanned the entire lockdown zone meticulously with his psychic sense again and frowned. “Where did that kid Lu Yibei run off to?”

He had searched very carefully but failed to find any trace of Lu Yibei within this area.

Without any exaggeration, even if Lu Yibei had been killed, blown into tiny pieces of flesh, he could still detect the faint psychic energy fluctuations contained within those pieces.

But the current situation was as if… Lu Yibei had never been here at all.

“Did I guess wrong? That kid isn’t with Gu Qianqian? Didn’t Huá Sāng say he was also trapped here?” Zhang Huainan muttered, “This… I’ll have to ask carefully later.”

————

Within a dark, winding alley.

Huá Sāng carried Lu Yibei on her back, her expression grim. Dust mixed with her long hair, plastered to her cheeks by sweat, looking utterly disheveled.

Occasionally, alchemical bullets or spell formations shot through the darkness, tracing brilliant arcs. She took them all with her body, then seized the brief openings after the enemy’s attack to retaliate in the most ferocious manner.

A dark shadow swooped in. After taking several alchemical bullets with her body, Huá Sāng met the shadow head-on, took a step forward, and brought her ferule down vertically with both hands.

At that moment, though she held a slender ferule in her hands, it felt as if she were swinging a heavy hammer.

A miserable shriek rang out as the terrifying wind pressure whipped up by the ferule crushed the dark shadow into a pulp, the smell of blood spreading through the air.

Just as Huá Sāng’s blow landed, another member of the Esoteric Society darted out from a nearby building, silently opening the giant shears over two meters long in hand, aiming for her neck.

Catching the sneak attack with premonitory thoughts, Lu Yibei hurriedly warned, “Watch out…”

Before she could finish her sentence, the sound of tearing air exploded.

Hearing it, Huá Sāng spun around abruptly, stomped her feet on the ground, and actually launched herself into the air, charging headfirst towards the gleaming, chilling giant shears.

Bang!

Huá Sāng’s head clashed hard against the giant shears, a metallic humming sound erupting from the collision.

The roar of colliding psychic energy fluctuation flickered and disappeared in an instant.

The deadlock lasted less than a second before Lu Yibei saw blood plasma mixed with sparks flying everywhere.

It wasn’t Huá Sāng’s blood plasma, but a pale, viscous plasma.

Huá Sāng’s headbutt had directly shattered the giant shears fused with the Esoteric Society member. The impact spread outward, even blasting apart the flesh and bone of the connected arm.

Metal fragments mixed with bone and flesh scattered in mid-air.

Watching Huá Sāng resolve the crisis in this manner, Lu Yibei couldn’t help but exclaim, “Whoa! Didn’t realize you were so violent in a fight?”

“But, you probably sensed that sneak attack just now, right? Why didn’t you dodge?”

Huá Sāng glanced at Lu Yibei out of the corner of her eye and said flatly, “Couldn’t be bothered to dodge.”

Lu Yibei: “…”

She seemed to have a point? If you knew you wouldn’t get hurt, why bother dodging?

Just like nobody would bother dodging a flower petal falling from a treetop onto their head… well, except for people with pollen allergies.

If I had this ability too, plus premonitory thoughts, plus alchemical dirty bombs… Perfect! I’d be a mobile human fortress!

Coach, I want to learn this!

“What kind of ability is this? Immovable Myo-o Golden Body? Can you teach me? In exchange, I can teach you whatever you want to learn. How about a formula for making alchemical dirty bombs? Extremely powerful!”

“Will you at least say yes or no? Don’t just pull a long face!”

“…” Huá Sāng glanced at her helplessly. “Aren’t you suffering from psychic energy exhaustion? How can you still talk so much?”

She suspected this woman’s psychic energy exhaustion was entirely an act, secretly conserving her strength.

Otherwise, who becomes seemingly more energetic when their psychic energy is depleted?

Lu Yibei pursed her lips. “Psychic energy depletion doesn’t stop me from talking.”

Huá Sāng: “…” Damn it, was she actually making a sliver of sense?

Just as she was grumbling inwardly, a roar descended from the sky.

Above, in the patch of sky carved into a narrow slit by the surrounding buildings, thick fog churned, and crimson light poured down through the haze.

Then, a colossal figure burst through the mist.

A body forged from piled metal plummeted from the sky at terrifying speed, its friction with the air igniting brilliant, blinding flames—like a falling meteor.

“BOOM—!”

The roar shook the ground, dust and smoke surging in every direction.

A sharp screech of grinding metal rang out, and the smoke was blasted away by a shockwave of pressure. The towering form, half-kneeling in the cratered ground, slowly rose to its feet. Traces of what were once vehicles were still faintly discernible on its body.

Behind it, a tangle of arms—varying in length and thickness, their ends fitted with drills, soldering irons, chainsaws, and other implements—unfurled in a grotesque spread. Beneath a hideous faceplate, twelve eyes blazed with crimson light. A formidable psychic energy fluctuation rippled outward, spreading far and linking with the strange creatures lurking in the shadows as if they were all one single entity.

“Whoa, that’s kind of cool, like a Xenomorphic Autobot!”

“…”

Lu Yibei opened her mouth as if to say more, but when Huá Sāng cast a sidelong glare at her, she obediently shut it again, wrapping her arms tightly around Huá Sāng’s neck.

No choice—her psychic energy was depleted, she was stuck on someone else’s back, and she had to follow their lead.

Besides, she had already noticed that this strange creature was far stronger than anything they had been chased by before.

So…

Go for it, Huá Sāng! Use Rocket Headbutt!

“WHAM—!”

The metal-encased, thick lower limbs crunched through the concrete underfoot. With a thunderous blast, the colossal inhuman shell surged forward like an out-of-control armored vehicle, kicking up a howling gale as it closed in on Huá Sāng in the blink of an eye.

Seeing this, Huá Sāng stepped forward, pulling the same trick as before, swinging the ferule in her hand to meet the attack.

But just as the ferule was about to strike that massive body, it suddenly vibrated violently. With a resonant hum, it shattered without warning, breaking into countless black-iron razor-sharp fragments that reversed direction like bullets, hurtling straight at Huá Sāng.

Lu Yibei: “???” What’s going on? A fragment of the Pure Lotus Sword… turned out to be a traitor?

Huá Sāng: “!!!”

When she had woken up earlier at Chenyi Inn, she had sensed that something had entered her room, watching from the shadows.

She had also noticed something off about the ferule, but at the time, she couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong. She’d just thought it was some subtle, hard-to-detect change caused by its resonance with the Broken Sword.

But now, she suddenly understood what had really happened.

Had it been corrupted by the Esoteric Society? Or had someone secretly swapped it while she was unaware?

In that split-second of shock, countless fragments poured onto her body.

Sparks flew, and the muffled “thud-thud” of impacts fell as densely as a drumbeat.

For a moment, Lu Yibei could even feel the shockwave of those fragments passing through Huá Sāng’s body and slamming into her own chest, making her ribs let out a mournful creak.

Just then, a piercing howl ripped through the air.

A massive fist came roaring forward, a red-hot soldering iron on it blazing with a psychic energy fluctuation rivaling that of a spell formation above Rank 70. The very air breathed in burned.

Without the ferule, and still reeling from the impact of those razor-sharp shards, Huá Sāng had no chance to steady herself before the oncoming blow. She couldn’t dodge—she could only raise both fists to meet it head-on.

Fist met fist. The compressed air detonated with a thunderclap roar.

“!!!”

Watching as Huá Sāng’s punch slammed the massive fist—nearly as big as her entire body—to a dead stop, Lu Yibei’s eyes widened slightly.

A psychic’s body could actually become this formidable? She was stunned by Huá Sāng’s display.

Honestly, in the instant Huá Sāng exchanged that punch with the hulking strange creature, what Lu Yibei felt she was witnessing was something like… a moe-fied Gundam brawling with a Cybertronian.

And as the so-called “pilot” behind that moe-fied Gundam, she found it thrilling as hell!

Mechs were a boy’s romance, but the romance of a mech in a bare-knuckle brawl? That had its own unique flavor.

And yet…

Almost instantly, the rest of the massive body’s arms came crashing down. Overwhelmed by the relentless, frenzied assault, Huá Sāng couldn’t keep up. All she could do was retreat step by step, throwing punch after punch.

One blow. Two. Three…

The sound of impacts, like war chariots colliding, rang out in an unbroken chain of thunder.

As she fought that colossal body, her face gradually flushed red, then turned deathly pale, and finally took on a faint trace of iron-blue.

She could feel that with every collision, a filthy, alien psychic energy fluctuation, hidden within the berserk physical force, was seeping through her fists and drilling into her body. It was pushing her already unstable Spirit Pattern into an increasingly precarious state.

Tendrils of night erosion, beyond her control, began to seep from beneath her skin, spreading into the surroundings…

————

Meanwhile.

From a distance, Zhang Huainan watched as Huá Sāng and “Gu Qianqian” were cornered by the towering strange creature, her Spirit Pattern on the verge of losing control, the risk of severe injury imminent. His gaze sharpened. One hand formed a mudra, and he was just about to intervene.

Just then, “Gu Qianqian” on Huá Sāng’s back suddenly moved. Like a nimble little monkey, she scrambled up to Huá Sāng’s shoulder, sprang several meters into the air, and slammed a palm against the strange creature’s chest.

“Oh? Absorbing night erosion and converting it into her own psychic energy?” Zhang Huainan let out a soft exclamation.

As he spoke, a bright, clear light erupted from “Gu Qianqian’s” palm. With irresistible penetrative force, it bored a bowl-sized, cylindrical hole straight through.

As the light of the Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon faded, Lu Yibei seized the moment to stuff two alchemical dirty bombs into the hole.

And then…

The bombs detonated. Crimson fire instantly engulfed the massive body. Amid the shrapnel of torn metal spraying everywhere, flames intertwined with pale, ghastly blood plasma, like a giant dahlia in red and white blooming into full flower.

Having watched the entire process of “Gu Qianqian’s” ambush killing of the strange creature, Zhang Huainan slowly lowered his mudra-forming hand. His brows furrowed in thought.

The Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon… an innate skill that could detonate a hand seal… those rather ingenious little bombs… absorbing night erosion and converting it into psychic energy…

When all these factors were combined, the word “Calamity” quietly surfaced in Zhang Huainan’s mind.

If the young friend Wordless Book’s intel was correct… then Calamity should be Lu Yibei, shouldn’t she?

In other words, Gu Qianqian, Wang Buliuxing, Juejuezi—all of them were Lu Yibei?

Tch, no wonder the lass Huá Sāng said Lu Yibei was trapped inside here too… That little bastard actually dared to deceive this old man?!

After a moment of deduction, Zhang Huainan gradually pieced everything together. His mouth twitched, and his expression turned increasingly complicated.