Chapter Forty: The Encirclement and Assault on General Chen
That aura was not human.
It transcended the ordinary!
With a thunderous roar, the Corpse King, Jiang Chen, delivered his final punch, driving the last veteran wielding a dagger into the earth. His gaze then turned, cold and indifferent, to the female general charging toward him.
He could sense it.
This woman possessed an aura.
An aura that even made him feel a tinge of fear.
Yet—
It was far too weak.
Only just emerging, not yet fully formed!
“Heh.”
“So you wish for death,” Jiang Chen spoke with chilling calm, “then I shall grant you the privilege of dying by my hand.”
“Your life, your strength, will be mine to consume.”
In the next instant—
With a thunderous crack, his fist shot toward Situ Hong!
Situ Hong thrust her saber, but it shattered instantly. The massive fist grew rapidly in her vision, and with a single blow, she was sent flying through the air!
She coughed violently, blood spurting from her lips as she landed hard on the ground.
Yet, still gripping her broken dagger, she trembled as she hissed, “How dare you… kill them!”
“So insignificant a life, and yet you dare oppose me?”
Jiang Chen’s form flickered. In a flash, he appeared before her, and a gigantic foot descended!
That foot filled her entire vision, crashing down mercilessly. With all the strength she had left, Situ Hong stabbed upward with her broken saber.
She knew.
This creature—her shattered weapon could not possibly wound it.
Yet she burned with hatred!
This monster had slain her comrades!
The warriors who had fought by her side had died before her very eyes!
And now, was it her turn?
Situ Hong squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face.
The foot struck down.
A gust of clear wind swept through.
With a sharp sound, the blade pierced flesh!
Situ Hong’s eyes snapped open in disbelief.
Had she truly—
But before her stood a young man.
A youth wielding a short blade, standing tall beneath that monstrous foot. Incredibly, his knife sliced effortlessly through the hide impervious even to bullets!
That frail form stood as though a god descended!
Situ Hong stared in awe at the boy before her. “It’s you…”
“Are you alright?” The youth’s eyes were cold as he glanced back, then said, “Five minutes.”
Five minutes!
The three hundred veterans of Situ Hong’s Special Force One had held out for five minutes, at the cost of three hundred lives!
“At last…” she coughed blood, and darkness claimed her.
Almost simultaneously—
A furious howl erupted from Jiang Chen as he stared in disbelief at the blade piercing his foot. With an anguished wail, he leaped backward, landing with a thunderous crash over thirty meters away!
His rotted, ferocious face was filled with shock as he stared at the youth who had appeared so suddenly.
He had actually—
Pierced through his foot?
Impossible. How could a human harm him?
No, no, this—
“Who are you?” Jiang Chen fixed his gaze on the boy.
“Who I am is irrelevant,” Lin Fan replied, blade in hand, facing the legendary, monstrous figure. “What matters is, you killed the soldiers of Daxia.”
“And I am one of Daxia’s own.”
“So do not think of surrender,” Lin Fan continued, blade tip slowly rising, blue blood dripping from its edge. “You must die.”
On his way here, Lin Fan had considered—if this supernatural being was willing to submit to Daxia and serve the nation, perhaps after a beating, he might even let him join the Godslayer Corps.
But—
Having witnessed this tragic, blood-soaked scene before him, nothing else mattered.
He had crossed Lin Fan’s bottom line.
He had slain Daxia’s soldiers.
Therefore—
He must die!
“You, kill me? Are you even worthy?” Jiang Chen snarled with a twisted grin, but eyed the short blade with obvious wariness, making no move to attack.
“If you were at your peak, I could not kill you,” Lin Fan advanced step by step. “But now, you are weak.”
Jiang Chen’s expression grew darker.
The boy spoke true.
At his zenith, he was the Corpse King Jiang Chen, feared by gods and devils alike!
But after being sealed by Nuwa, he had fallen into slumber.
That was why, upon awakening, he had immediately gone on a rampage—he needed nourishment!
Now, he was exceptionally weak, not even a fraction of his former self.
Even so, could this youth possibly kill him…?
But then Lin Fan coldly declared, “Moreover, I am not the only one here to kill you.”
“Godslayer Corps, Squad One—prepare to engage!”
From behind Lin Fan, an elderly man in Daoist robes stepped forward.
The moment he appeared, Jiang Chen’s eyes widened. This old man’s presence felt like that of a natural enemy.
A trace of Daoist energy—once the head of their sects—emanated from him.
Daoism, after all, was a sect dedicated to slaying monsters and exorcising demons! The aura emanating from the old man was the bane of any being born of the world’s yin energy.
Dao Wanqian began forming seals and chanting incantations, whisk in hand, a fierce wind swirling about him, his robes billowing.
“Fire of the Nine Heavens, purify all evil!”
Dao Wanqian’s eyes snapped open, a blaze flickering within them!
He cast a talisman inscribed with vermillion symbols. It soared on the wind, shrieking as it flew toward Jiang Chen!
Jiang Chen tried to evade, but the talisman seemed to lock onto him, swirling toward him in the gale.
In a flash, thirty-six talismans surrounded Jiang Chen within a hundred meters, encircling him completely.
Dao Wanqian cried out, “Nine Suns of the Earth—arise!”
The talismans flared, vermillion symbols erupting with dazzling light.
With a roar, a sea of fire exploded forth.
But this flame was no ordinary fire. It was not tinged with blue, but blazed pure crimson!
Its heat was terrifying—at its appearance, the air itself warped, and the scorched earth cracked open like turtle shells.
A howl of agony erupted from Jiang Chen, engulfed in the inferno.
This was the Daoist Nine-Sun Flame, conjured from pure spiritual power!
The nemesis of all evil, all things born of yin!
No matter how impervious his hide, invulnerable to gun and cannon, these flames seared into his very soul, as though his entire being were melting away.
Yet—
Jiang Chen could sense that the old man’s cultivation… was not deep!
At least, even now, he was not a match for Jiang Chen.
For Jiang Chen had seen the true Nine-Sun Flame—in the past, a Daoist Grandmaster’s palm could incinerate ten thousand miles, reducing all demons to ash!
“You are not enough!”
From within the flames, Jiang Chen’s voice rang out, chilling and furious. Enduring the pain, he rose, wreathed in fire, and charged toward the old man!
But in the next instant, he spun around and fled instead!
For the youth with the short blade still stood at the old man’s side!
The old man was not strong, but the boy was enough of a threat.
Jiang Chen was no fool. He knew what he needed most now was not a brutal fight, but recovery—restoring his strength by feeding on the lives of weak humans.
Then—
Dealing with these two would be as easy as turning a hand.
Yet just then—
A sound reached him from the direction he fled.
The sound of someone reciting poetry.
“Sunlight bathes the incense burner, purple smoke rising; from afar, a waterfall hangs before the river!”
At that moment, the world trembled, as if in answer to the recitation.
Mo Buzhi, clad in scholar’s robes, holding a scroll, approached at a measured pace.
Though merely human,
At this instant, an aura surged from him. Each word resonated with heaven and earth!
This was the righteous qi of the scholar!
Behind Mo Buzhi, as his recitation continued, the sunlight shimmered on the sea, and a thousand-meter torrent rose into the air, arching skyward like a waterfall!
“What is this…” Jiang Chen stared in disbelief at the frail human before him, unable to comprehend how such power could reside in one so small!
But as he hesitated—
Mo Buzhi extended a finger, pointing straight at Jiang Chen from afar!
His voice rang with killing intent.
“A cascade plunging three thousand feet—could it not be the Milky Way falling from the heavens?”
With a crash, the world shook.
The waterfall suspended behind him surged forth, sweeping forward with terrifying force, as if nothing could withstand it!
Each droplet of water glimmered in the sunlight—
Yet they struck with the sharpness of blades!
A cascade plunging three thousand feet!
The Milky Way descending from the heights!
With a thunderous roar and a furious howl, the waterfall crashed down upon Jiang Chen as he fled the inferno. He felt an overwhelming force pummel him, his enormous body forced to kneel, powerless!
One of his arms was pulverized, shattered by the relentless torrent!
As a waterfall shatters stone!
This was not human strength.
This was the power of heaven and earth!
In this moment, Mo Buzhi of the Scholar’s Sect stirred the world with righteous qi!
Jiang Chen drew a ragged breath, but before he could rise, a shadow emerged from his own, inky darkness!
A presence as elusive as ink!
Jiang Chen’s face twisted in shock—for he had not sensed this person’s approach, not even a whisper of their aura until now.
An aura hidden to the utmost!
He roared, twisting back in alarm.
“Kneel!”
A flash of cold steel filled his vision.
Like a meteor streaking through the night.
Falling Star, the Mo Yin Sect’s shadow art—Meteor Slash!
With a wet sound, a howl tore from Jiang Chen as he was forced to his knees, clutching his left eye, howling in agony!
Thick, gray-blue blood seeped through his fingers.
His left eye had been shredded, ruined beyond repair!
Had he not instinctively flinched back, that blade might have pierced his brain!
Howling in fury, Jiang Chen lashed out with a ferocious punch, aiming to crush the human assassin who dared ambush him!
But his blow struck only air.
In the instant the blade landed, Xing Ye, in a low crouch, leapt high.
Her form, shrouded in black, moved with feather-light grace. Her ponytail traced an arc as she retreated into the shadows, vanishing once more into darkness.
The Falling Star technique of the Mo Yin Sect—an order of ancient assassins.
Their ways were those of the assassin.
What is an assassin?
One who hides in darkness, striking once, then vanishing!
The only thing their enemies saw, was the meteor-like flash of their blade.
They were the steel erupting from the shadows at the very moment the enemy was weakest, most unguarded!
With another furious roar, Jiang Chen did not hesitate this time. He spun and fled at full speed in another direction!
Why did these frail humans
Possess such power to wound him?
Though Jiang Chen was a mighty force of the world’s yin energy, he had only just awakened—he was terribly weak.
Together, these few could indeed bury him here.
But in the next moment,
Jiang Chen halted.
For the path before him was blocked by a standing Buddha.
And the roar of a tiger echoed in the air.