Chapter 164: Fleece Wool, Divine Soul Shield Technique!

Lu Shang was consumed with fury.

This martial arts tournament was supposed to be the meticulously planned opening act of his grand design, leveraging the Grand Zhou's second prince as a springboard to forge his own renown and power.

From that vantage point onward, his path would be clear for a meteoric ascent, eventually leading him to become the true sovereign of the Nine Provinces.

Naturally, this ambition was not his alone.

It was also the sacred vow that Old Soul had sworn to him.

Yet he had never anticipated stumbling so catastrophically at the very start; far from reaping glory, he had been soundly and pointlessly thrashed.

Not until the first drop of crimson fluid splashed down did the vast sky shed its cerulean hue, entirely supplanted by a bleeding red, as the iron stench of gore began to thicken through the surrounding air.

"I reckon my current mastery over magic is quite sufficient to start learning, so why the hesitation? Are you afraid that mastering third-tier magic will leave you eating my dust? Rest easy, considering the yawning chasm that already separates our strength anyway." Chu Yun remained as unendurably flippant as ever.

Having spent so much time together along the road, Wan Ying no longer went out of her way to make things difficult for Hu Tianming; though she could hardly be called affectionate, she had to admit he was immensely useful, and leaving daily necessities aside, on a more practical note, he had spared her purse from any major damage—ha, a tidy fortune saved indeed, she chuckled inwardly.

Bereft of speech, Richard focused entirely on the shadow energy, exerting every ounce of his strength to slow the catastrophic descent of the imperial capital.

Not far behind Wang Gengchen stood two stoutly built men; hearing Situ Jiannan mock Liu Shiyan in such a manner, they frowned, and one of them, unable to stomach it, stepped forward to teach him a lesson, only to be yanked back by his companion with a silent, cautionary shake of the head.

Though his mind drifted toward entirely different thoughts, those present could discern not the slightest ripple of change across his features, finding only an unvarying, placid calm, smooth and unreadable as still water.

Li Zijing personally led the contingent, guiding the base's skilled welders as they mounted pieces of tactical gear, iron netting, and ultraviolet lights onto every single vehicle, while a sizeable crowd retrieved provisions from He Miaomiao, sorting and loading them systematically into the convoy.

Seeing Wu Hao completely turn a deaf ear to her words, Huang Jinli flared with rage: "What on earth do you think you are doing?" The Black driver was still struggling, bearing an expression of utter, pathetic innocence.

Jaina's eyes widened to saucers as she clamped a hand over her mouth, for that name was far too legendary to ignore—the highest-ranking mage ever to be exiled since the founding of Dalaran for the crime of delving into the dark arts.

The two of them clung tightly to one another, and though no further words passed between them, the synchronized rhythm of their beating hearts spoke volumes more than speech ever could.

Only Wang Kedan and Xia Ningmeng, as practitioners of the Dao, managed to keep their consciousness somewhat lucid, and Xia Ningmeng in particular, by virtue of her role in the National Security Bureau, remained sharply alert throughout.

A single misstep in handling this situation would likely doom him to slide forever into an abyss of endless, mindless slaughter, completely obliterating his sense of self.

In all the previous trials Meng Niya had endured, she had never once encountered a scenario where she bound an adversary to herself twice in immediate succession.

I hurried after her and said that we could consider our encounter today a mutual rescue, but since I still didn't know her name, she ought to tell me, if only so I would have a proper memory to cherish whenever I thought back on her.

I had no idea what my senior brother meant by those words, yet my thoughts instantly flashed back to the time Hu Wei summoned the ultimate demon, except Hu Wei back then had not been covered in wounds like Wang Dazhuang, having entered a direct soul covenant; seeing Wang Dazhuang in this state now, could he be hacking off his own flesh to feed a malicious spirit?

A cacophony of bizarre noises shrieked without pause alongside the sickening sound of flesh tearing, and even from a dozen meters away, the team members could see severed limbs and bloody fragments flying continuously from the opening of the crate.

He had only just journeyed to the Holy Word Empire a few months prior and had personally experienced the prophetic visions, which naturally made him deeply attentive to such mystical forces.

What followed next unfolded with a grim predictability; seeing that we were truly at the end of our tether, Brother Yang finally bared his beastly fangs, determined to claim that fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on our heads and break me once and for all.