Chapter 573: Kill
The Sub-King let out a muffled grunt. His left shoulder wound wasn’t bleeding, but the surrounding tissue was already carbonized. His face was pale, and the flow of his Energy had become noticeably sluggish.
"All of you, attack!" the peak Sub-King roared.
Four figures lunged forward simultaneously.
Xu Wuyi’s long spear danced as he used his Quicksand Step, combined with minute adjustments to Gravity, to weave through the four-man encirclement.
Every thrust of his spear precisely intercepted an opponent’s line of attack; every block used a shift in weight to deflect the majority of the force.
But the pressure was still immense.
The main assault came from the level 49 peak fighter, supported by three others above level 45. They were perfectly coordinated, their attacks a relentless tide.
A halberd, a Curved Saber, energy beams, binding spells... all kinds of attacks assailed him from every direction.
Seven or eight new cracks had appeared on the surface of Xu Wuyi’s Battle Armor. His left arm was grazed by a Halberd Blade, leaving a gash so deep the bone was visible.
Blood ran down his arm and dripped onto the dark blue crystals, making a faint SIZZLE. The crystals were slightly corrosive.
"Martial Artist Xu, hold on!" He Yayin’s voice came through again, this time with clear urgency. "We’ve broken through the outer defenses and are advancing toward the hive core. We estimate we’ll secure it within fifteen minutes."
’Fifteen minutes.’
Xu Wuyi glanced at his terminal. Only seven minutes had passed since the start of the operation.
He needed to hold out for another eight minutes.
But in this situation, the danger mounted with every passing second.
The peak Sub-King’s attacks grew increasingly frenzied, and every swing of his halberd carried enough force to tear space itself.
Although the other three Sub-Kings were wounded, their will to fight hadn’t diminished in the slightest. If anything, their comrades’ injuries only made them more ferocious.
’I can’t keep defending passively like this.’
A cold glint flashed in Xu Wuyi’s eyes.
He deliberately created an opening. As he blocked the peak Sub-King’s halberd, he intentionally weakened the force of his parry, staggering backward.
The level 47 Sub-King to his right seized the opportunity, thrusting his Curved Saber straight for Xu Wuyi’s ribs.
’Now!’
Xu Wuyi abruptly halted his retreat. Pushing his Quicksand Step to its absolute limit, he forcibly shifted half a meter to the left. The Curved Saber scraped against his Battle Armor, kicking up a shower of sparks.
And Xu Wuyi’s left hand was already pressed against the Sub-King’s chest.
It wasn’t a palm strike.
Instead, his five fingers dug in.
Dark golden Power of Heart Image erupted from his palm, instantly flooding the opponent’s body. He wasn’t aiming to destroy the organs, but rather... to alter the local Gravity.
"Heart. Ten times the weight."
Xu Wuyi said softly.
The Sub-King’s pupils dilated instantly.
He felt as if his heart’s weight had ballooned tenfold in a thousandth of a second!
It wasn’t the pressure of Energy, but a physical change in weight. His heart muscle couldn’t withstand the sudden load. Its ability to pump blood collapsed in an instant, and the atria and ventricles ruptured simultaneously.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but only managed to spray out a mouthful of dark red blood mixed with organ fragments.
His body slumped to the ground.
The first Sub-King was dead.
"You’re courting death!" The peak Sub-King’s eyes blazed with fury as he swung his halberd down in a frenzy.
Xu Wuyi pulled back, but he was half a step too slow. The Halberd Blade scraped across his left shoulder, shearing off a large piece of his Battle Armor and the flesh beneath. Blood sprayed into the air.
A wave of excruciating pain hit him, but Xu Wuyi’s expression remained unchanged.
He smoothly thrust out the long spear in his right hand. His target wasn’t the peak Sub-King, but the level 46 Sub-King on the other side who was preparing a sneak attack.
Having just witnessed his companion’s grisly death, the man was terrified and retreated instinctively.
That retreat gave Xu Wuyi the opening he needed.
The tip of the spear carved a bizarre arc through the air, bypassing the enemy’s block to pierce his throat with perfect accuracy.
Dark golden Power of Heart Image surged down the shaft, instantly destroying his windpipe, cervical spine, and medulla oblongata.
The second Sub-King was dead.
From creating the opening to killing two men in succession, the entire sequence took less than three seconds.
The peak Sub-King and the remaining level 48 Sub-King simultaneously halted their assault, their expressions utterly grim.
They had never expected Xu Wuyi’s counterattack to be so swift and lethal.
"You..." The peak Sub-King tightened his grip on his halberd, a dark red, blood-like light seething across the surface of his body. "I’m going to tear you to shreds!"
Xu Wuyi leaned on his long spear, blood gushing from his left shoulder and staining half his Battle Armor red. But he stood firm, and within his dark golden pupils, the illusion of a great swamp continued to breathe steadily.
"Six minutes left," he said calmly.
"What?"
"In six minutes, my mission will be complete." Xu Wuyi glanced at his terminal. "I’ll be leaving then. And you won’t be able to stop me."
It was a blatant provocation.
The peak Sub-King laughed, his fury boiling over. "Leave? If you walk out of here alive today, I’ll eat my own halberd!"
His wings spread wide as a pillar of dark red, blood-like light shot toward the sky. His aura surged once more, nearly touching the threshold of level 50.
He was burning his Life Energy in exchange for a temporary burst of power.
It was the same kind of technique Jialou had used, but its power was more than twice as strong.
"Blood Sacrifice: Wing Burn, Annihilation!"
The peak Sub-King’s form vanished.
It wasn’t that he moved too fast to be seen; it was true spatial teleportation. He had torn open a short-range spatial rift and appeared behind Xu Wuyi.
He thrust his halberd, the blood-red light at its tip compressed to the absolute limit, carrying with it an aura of utter destruction.
Xu Wuyi had already sensed it.
The instant his opponent vanished, the "breathing" of the great dark golden swamp within his sea of consciousness abruptly ceased.
Then, it contracted to its absolute limit.
All his Power of Heart Image converged on the tip of his spear.
It was not the Water Drop, nor the Seal Platform.
It was a new form, a preliminary fusion of "Weight" and "Incineration."
The Flame of the Golden Crow Illusion flowed along the meridians of his Heart Image, fusing with the weight Compression of Heavy Water to form a single point of dark golden light at the tip of his spear.
Within that light, Flame swirled and weight ebbed and flowed.
Xu Wuyi turned and thrust his spear.
The movement wasn’t fast; it was almost slow.
But wherever the tip of his spear passed, space warped slightly.
The tip of the halberd and the tip of the spear collided once more.
This time, there was no deafening explosion.
There was only a soft HISS, like a red-hot iron poker being plunged into ice water.
The instant the dark red, blood-like light touched the point of dark golden light on the spear’s tip, it began to dissolve.
It wasn’t shattered, but rather disintegrated at a fundamental energy level by the dual effects of "incineration" and "compression."
Starting from its tip, the halberd began to shatter, inch by inch.
The fragments were vaporized by the intense heat emanating from the spear’s tip before they could even hit the ground.
The peak Sub-King’s pupils contracted violently. He wanted to let go and retreat, but it was too late.
The spear tip passed through the shattering halberd and pierced his chest.
It didn’t run him through.
Rather, it "touched" into him.
That point of dark golden light traveled along the spear tip, sank into his body, and then... erupted.
It wasn’t an explosion.
It was an internal gravitational collapse combined with incineration by Flame.
The peak Sub-King felt his internal organs being instantly compressed to one hundred times their normal density, then immediately carbonized by extreme heat. Two completely different powers raged within his body, destroying all of his tissue and organs.
He looked down at his chest.
There was no wound, no bloodstain.
But his Life Energy was draining away at a terrifying rate.
"What... is... this..." he asked, his voice strained.
"An experiment," Xu Wuyi said as he withdrew his spear. "I haven’t named it yet."
The peak Sub-King opened his mouth, but ultimately, no words came out. His towering body pitched forward, his grayish-white wings spreading limply across the crystalline ground as the dark red, blood-like light around him dissipated completely.
The level 49 peak Sub-King was dead.