Chapter 281 - 278: Body as Stable as a Mountain, Qi Flows Like a River

Chapter 281: Chapter 278: Body as Stable as a Mountain, Qi Flows Like a River

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

No longer held back, Wu Chen sprinted back with all his might.

It didn’t take long for him to reach the edge of the dense, fog-shrouded forest.

PSH! PSH! PSH!—

By the time he had completed a round trip, over a hundred fiends had charged out of the mist.

The group looked left and right, instinctively searching for which direction Wu Chen had fled.

Instead, they found the mountain-sized, savagely beast-like figure just a few dozen yards away.

He was dragging a greatspear in one hand, charging back toward the forest!

"Liu Tang, take fifty men and go after the other one!"

"The rest of you, deal with this bastard with me!"

Zhou Shi watched the approaching figure whose every step made the ground tremble, yet he still issued his commands in an orderly fashion.

"Yes, Lord Upper Envoy!"

The man named Liu Tang immediately responded and was about to leave.

But in the next moment,

SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!—

A sky full of Gang Qi enveloped him, reducing him to a bloody mist in an instant.

Zhou Shi was speechless.

"Wu Jin, you go!" he ordered, picking another man.

"Yes, My Lord!"

SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!—

The man had barely finished speaking when another barrage of Gang Qi slammed down, and this Wu Jin immediately suffered the same fate as Liu Tang.

"..."

Frustrated, Zhou Shi had no choice but to pick again. "Zheng Feng! Li Yue! Cheng Kai! You three, don’t fucking answer me! Just take some men and go quietly!"

Having seen the fate of the two who had answered, these men were smart enough not to make a sound.

Upon hearing the Upper Envoy call their names, they immediately signaled the men around them with their eyes to follow them and leave.

"None of you are going anywhere!"

But just as they moved to leave the battlefield, a white radiance of Gang Qi enveloped them.

Then, the colossal figure brought his spear down upon another group of men who were trying to move, cleaving down viciously.

CRASH!—

The spear came down with the force of a mountain splitting, instantly smashing four or five of the fiends who were about to leave into a pulp.

The impact of the spear didn’t stop there. It shook the ground, sending earth flying and creating a thunderous roar.

Then, Wu Chen lifted his spear, twisted his body, and swept horizontally. The greatspear whirled with a sound like the wailing of ghosts and howling of wolves.

A sharp aura emanated from the spear’s tip, distorting the very air where it passed.

The fiends within several yards couldn’t react at all. As the spear tip swept past, they were all sliced in two at the waist.

This aura was as sharp as a blade’s edge. The fiends, cut in half, did not die instantly but writhed in agony on the ground.

Some even flailed their arms, dragging themselves away bit by bit and leaving winding trails of blood on the ground.

It was a horrifyingly wretched sight.

This was precisely the soul-shaking effect Wu Chen wanted. Combined with his savage, beast-like black armor and an attack far more powerful than what he’d shown in the forest, he struck terror into them.

The fiends present were clearly terrified. Their movements grew sluggish as they glanced at each other, hesitating to advance.

’The reward may be rich, but you have to be alive to claim it!’

Seeing this, Wu Chen naturally struck while the iron was hot. He wouldn’t hesitate, nor would he let a single person escape.

He attacked left and right, his movements blindingly fast. The greatspear fell again and again, its thunderous impacts echoing through the mountains with astonishing force.

From time to time, he would also condense a blast of Blood Evil True Gang and hurl it out, blocking the path of any fiends in the distance who tried to bypass him to chase after Hong Ling and Sun Yuting.

Even though the unharmed Hong Ling was there, with his master secretly helping, these fiends would most likely die if they managed to get past him anyway.

But Wu Chen was more accustomed to killing these fiends with his own hands. It gave him more peace of mind.

However, his arrogant display left Zhou Shi and the other two Blood Palace Upper Envoys stunned.

Especially the goatee-wearing man in his flesh armor, who watched the figure send their disciples into chaos and carnage, muttering under his breath:

"Damn it all, Brother Zhou! This guy doesn’t look exhausted at all!"

"If you ask me, not only does he have Qi Power left, he has a lot of it!"

Zhou Shi watched the massive figure in black Scale Armor fighting at the foot of the mountain, momentarily unsure of what to do.

But he still shook his head and said,

"Don’t bolster his morale while lowering our own. We have hundreds of men here. You’re telling me we can’t handle this one guy?"

"He’s just one person; we can wear him down and kill him! Even if he were a boulder, we could grind him to dust!"

"Besides, if he appeared to be running out of Qi Power and still dared to wait for us here, we might have to worry about him having some hidden trump card."

"But the more ferocious he acts, doesn’t that just prove he’s all bark and no bite? This whole display is just to cover for the other person’s escape. He has no choice but to stop us here!"

He said this not only for the man with the goatee but also for the other disciples, wanting them to see a glimmer of hope and cast aside their fear.

Sure enough, the disciples felt their Upper Envoy’s words made a lot of sense. They instantly felt ’I can turn this around!’ and charged toward the giant black figure with a roar.

’You people are really good at comforting yourselves...’

The words naturally reached Wu Chen’s ears, and he almost laughed.

’So if I act weak, it means I have a trump card but am actually at the end of my rope. But if I act strong, it means I’m all bark and no bite, about to collapse?’

’No matter what, the advantage is always yours, is that it?’

However, watching the tide of fiends surging toward him, Wu Chen was quite happy to see this outcome.

’First, I’ll clip the Blood Palace’s wings, then I’ll execute the three Upper Envoys!’

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!—

Wu Chen swung his ink-black greatspear so fast it nearly threw off sparks. After a few charges back and forth, the flesh and blood of the fiends had turned the ground into a muddy mire.

The ground was like a swamp, and the air was thick with a foul, coppery stench.

Seeing the ground completely covered in the disciples’ corpses after just a few rounds of combat, the man with the goatee, who had been signaled by Zhou Shi to wait, could no longer hold back.

"Brother Zhou, shouldn’t we make a move now? If this goes on, this guy is going to kill all the men from your mountain!"

"Not yet! Nothing ventured, nothing gained!"

Zhou Shi shook his head lightly, a vicious glint in his eyes. His throat bobbed, and his voice quietly entered the goateed man’s ear.

He sent a voice transmission: "This person’s strength is far beyond ordinary. We have to use a ruthless move!"

"If we can kill him in one fell swoop, it’s worth sacrificing the lives of an entire mountain’s worth of disciples!"

"A ruthless move?"

The goateed man was confused. Looking at the vast number of disciples’ corpses on the ground, he shook his head slightly and transmitted back, "But isn’t this loss a bit too great?"

Zhou Shi said, "To take this man down as quickly as possible, these sacrifices are worth it."

As they spoke, another dozen or so fiends were smashed into a bloody mess by the ink-black greatspear in Wu Chen’s hands.

The number of disciples on the field had dwindled, becoming sparse.

In an instant, the foot of the mountain became a purgatory, with bodies piled high, limbs scattered everywhere, and rivers of blood.

And in the center of this purgatory stood a colossal black-armored figure, stained with flesh and gore. Blood slid down the creases of his armor, making him look like a god of slaughter.

Seeing the few dozen remaining fiends whose courage had been completely broken, now too afraid to advance, Wu Chen turned his head to look at the three figures watching from a distance.

"..."

Feeling the chilling gaze of the black-armored figure, Zhou Shi knew he couldn’t delay any longer. He swiped his hand over the storage pouch at his waist.

A blood-red waist token fell into his palm.

"Flesh and Blood Thorns! Erupt!"

Zhou Shi gripped the token in his right hand, used a sharp corner to slice open his left palm, and let out a low growl.

He then pressed his wounded palm against the token, frantically pouring his Origin Power into the blood-red token. A sharp, immense pain shot up from his palm, causing his face to twist slightly.

BOOM!

Following his actions, the scarlet Blood Qi on the battlefield suddenly condensed, and the faint sound of a sonic boom seemed to echo.

A strange, pulsating aura rose from the ground and began to spread.

Then,

SQUELCH!—

Countless pieces of flesh and blood that should have rotted into dust were now, as if summoned, twisting like living things, fusing and growing together.

The upper half of a torso was ensnared by the flesh and dragged back, becoming part of the mass amidst a mournful wail.

Those fiends who couldn’t retreat in time were also entangled at the ankles by the flesh and bone, screaming as they were refined into pools of blood.

The process seemed slow, but in just a few breaths, all the flesh and blood in a radius of several dozen yards had transformed into a tangle of sharp, blood-red thorns.

Then, this vast thicket of thorns, several yards high, began to constrict, strangling the giant black figure within it.

"How vicious!"

The goateed man’s eyes narrowed, shocked by Zhou Shi’s methods.

He had previously thought that Zhou Shi planned to use the disciples to exhaust their opponent’s stamina, allowing the three of them to land the final, decisive blow. That would have been a safer approach.

It was only when he saw Zhou Shi take out the token that controlled the Blood Palace imprints that he realized Zhou Shi intended to trade the lives of his disciples for the life of this scoundrel.

"Since they were all going to die anyway, it’s better to put them to their greatest use."

Zhou Shi chuckled, seeing nothing wrong with his actions.

This Blood Palace imprint couldn’t be triggered while the disciples were alive. Only after the host’s death could the imprint be activated, transforming their flesh and blood into these thorns that were like forged iron.

Seeing no movement from within the ten-foot-high thicket of thorns, Zhou Shi was delighted, certain that the scoundrel was now bound hand and foot by the thorns formed from over a hundred Blood Coagulation Realm disciples, completely immobilized.

"Contract!"

He clenched the blood-red token in his hand, continuing to pour in his Origin Power. The thousands of thorns made of flesh and bone responded, swaying like living things as they closed in toward the center.

Each scarlet thorn was covered in countless fine, sharp barbs. Even with armor for protection, just a few moments of entanglement would be enough to scrape away all flesh, exposing the stark white bone beneath.

"This fellow has some strength, but these thorns made of flesh and blood are not weak either."

Zhou Shi watched the writhing thorns and laughed. "We just need to wait a moment. This scoundrel will surely be reduced to a pile of white bones..."

THUD!

Suddenly,

A ground-shaking sound erupted from within the bizarre, scarlet thorn thicket.

The sound was like the first clap of thunder before a downpour, heralding a coming storm and shaking the three Upper Envoys to their core.

"This..."

Outside the thorn thicket, the expressions of the three Upper Envoys changed drastically. They stared at the mass of flesh and thorns with shock and suspicion, not knowing what was happening inside.

Zhou Shi cursed inwardly, frantically activating the blood-red token in his hand and pushing his Origin Power to its absolute limit.

This made the thorns writhe even more frantically, emitting a harsh, grinding sound as they constricted.

With such force, they seemed determined to grind the scoundrel within into a pile of sludge.

THUD!—

However, the only response the three Upper Envoys received was another muffled boom!

"Insignificant tricks, not worthy of the stage..."

Then, a faint, cold snort came from within the thorn thicket.

Before the three could react to the voice, a greatspear swept out from the thicket.

The thorns, formed from the flesh of Blood Coagulation Realm cultivators and interwoven like a wall of bronze and iron, were still easily torn open, creating a massive gap.

Then, the three saw a figure leap into the air from the thorn thicket.

"Now, it’s your turn to taste my methods!"

Wu Chen was airborne, a faint smile playing on his lips as he looked at the three in the distance. At that moment, the aura of a Grandmaster was fully revealed.

A body like a mountain, a presence like a river.

He brandished his greatspear and descended upon the three remaining men on the field, ready to crush them.