stonecrandall Page 106
Page 106
"Ugh—Pfft!"
Wang Ye's body arched like a shrimp, unable to support himself any longer. His knees buckled, and he fell heavily forward to the ground!
He clutched his throbbing, convulsing lower abdomen with both hands, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. He vomited large amounts of bile, his face turning deathly pale, his forehead covered in beads of cold sweat, every nerve screaming in agony!
He tried to look up at the demon-like figure, but his vision was blurred by the intense pain and dizziness.
The Feng Hou Qi Men technique was broken! In a way he had never imagined, a near-crushing defeat!
The entire process, from the scarred man's appearance and breaking through the chaotic golden clapper to severely injuring Wang Ye, happened in the blink of an eye!
The scarred man struck successfully without even glancing at Wang Ye, who was writhing in pain on the ground, struggling like a fish out of water.
He didn't even show any extra emotion, as if he had just casually swatted a fly.
His head, clad in a baseball cap, tilted slightly to one side.
The gazes from the shadows, like two cold searchlights, fell precisely and emotionlessly upon Lin Shen at the edge of the ruins.
Time seemed to stretch out at that moment.
Only Wang Ye's painful retching and the suppressed gasps of the three members of the Zhuge family due to extreme fear remained in the ruins.
One second... Two seconds...
Under the shadow of the baseball cap, the hideous scar seemed to twitch upwards slightly once more.
Then, under the intense gaze of everyone, the scarred man... slowly turned around.
He didn't look at Lin Shen again, nor at Wang Ye, who was lying on the ground unable to fight.
It was as if the brief confrontation had never happened, as if his goal for this trip had already been achieved.
He started walking, with the same unremarkable, farmer-like steps, step by step, into the deeper, darker shadows of the ruins.
The footsteps sounded exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.
"Feng Hou Qi Men... is nothing special..."
"Next time... I'll kill you..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the scarred man's figure completely disappeared into the darkness.
His suffocatingly terrifying aura also receded like the tide, as if it had never existed.
Only a deathly silence remained in the ruins.
........
........
Chapter 113 Zhou Sheng
"Uh... Mr. Lin... Mr. Lin..." Wang Ye forced out a hoarse voice through gritted teeth, enduring the excruciating pain and dizziness, "What are you standing there for... Hurry... Hurry up and chase after them!"
He knew all too well how terrifying that scarred man was! He was no ordinary enemy!
The spacetime control that Feng Hou Qi Men prides itself on is child's play in front of it!
Such a person comes with pure murderous intent and leaves with contempt. Letting them go will lead to endless trouble!
He was powerless to pursue them at this moment; his only hope lay with Lin Shen!
Lin Shen did not respond to Wang Ye's shouts.
The moment Wang Ye finished speaking—
A blindingly bright white bolt of lightning exploded on the spot without warning!
The violent power of lightning instantly tore through the oppressive silence of the ruins!
Where Lin Shen had originally stood, a charred crater was blasted into the ground, and the rubble instantly melted into bright red lava that dripped down, ionizing the air and releasing a pungent ozone smell!
Lin Shen's figure had already transformed into a thunderous arrow that tore through the sky!
That's not a simple straight-line sprint!
The bolt of lightning refracted and leaped wildly among the ruins at a speed beyond the limits of vision!
Every turn was sudden and unexpected, leaving charred electrical marks on the broken walls and twisted steel bars. The path was treacherous and unpredictable, so fast that it left only a burning afterimage on the retina!
The target is the dark depths where the scarred man disappeared!
............
Deep inside an abandoned factory.
This was once the core area of a massive production workshop, but now only a huge, rusted steel skeleton remains. Broken conveyor belts hang down like the corpses of giant pythons, and a few pale beams of moonlight are cast through the shattered glass dome, cutting fragmented spots of light on the oil-staining and dust-covered ground.
The air was filled with the musty smell of rust, engine oil, and years of dust.
The scarred man was walking slowly among the huge, abandoned machines, his posture completely different from before, now slightly hunched.
Each step he took was unusually heavy, as if he had unloaded a thousand-pound burden, or as if he had been completely crushed by some invisible fatigue.
The shadow of the baseball cap still covered the upper half of his face, but the hideous scar at the corner of his mouth no longer drew out a cold curve; instead, it revealed an indescribable... desolation.
However, this brief respite did not last long.
A blindingly bright white bolt of lightning suddenly exploded from the end of a huge, rusty steel beam above his head without warning!
The violent plasma poured down like a waterfall, instantly melting the ground several meters in front of him into a pool of crimson lava!
A wave of scorching heat and a pungent smell of ionized air hit us in the face!
The scarred man stopped abruptly.
He did not look up at the spot where the lightning exploded, nor did he make any dodging movements. He simply turned his body slightly to avoid the scorching shockwave from the frontal impact.
Beneath that baseball cap, in the shadows, his brow seemed to furrow very subtly.
The next moment, not far from his side, a figure that was extremely condensed and seemed to be made of liquid lightning silently "appeared" from the air.
The lightning around him subsided, with only fine arcs of electricity occasionally leaping across his body, emitting a faint crackling sound. His deep eyes, like icy pools, coldly locked onto Zhou Sheng.
"Tsk..."
A hoarse, deep voice, tinged with surprise and obvious impatience, came from under the baseball cap. It was Zhou Sheng's natural voice, but now it lacked the deliberately feigned ferocity and instead carried a hint of genuine weariness and... annoyance at being disturbed.
"Your speed... is really... a bit too fast, it's illogical."
He slowly turned around, facing Lin Shen directly. His gaze, hidden in the shadows, was like a solid icicle, piercing Lin Shen.
Lin Shen was not intimidated by that gaze. He stood there quietly, his aura like that of a volcano about to erupt, calm on the surface but containing earth-shattering energy within.
He didn't act immediately. Instead, he spoke in an unusually calm tone, even with a strange familiarity. His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly pierced the factory's silence:
“Senior,” Lin Shen’s voice was calm and even, “Don’t tease Wang Ye.”
These few simple words are like a boulder thrown into a calm lake!
Zhou Sheng's seemingly hunched body suddenly stiffened!
An aura far more terrifying, profound, ancient, and vast than when he was disguised as the scarred man erupted from his body like a sleeping ancient beast suddenly awakened!
The entire abandoned factory space seemed to be gripped tightly by an invisible giant hand!
The air instantly became as thick as lead and mercury!
The massive steel frame groaned under its own weight, and rust dust fell in clumps!
The tiny metal parts scattered on the ground were pulled up by this invisible force and floated up against gravity!
Beneath the brim of the baseball cap, two sharp, piercing gazes, seemingly capable of penetrating the soul, were fixed on Lin Shen's face!
His gaze was filled with disbelief, astonishment, and a hint of utter fury at being seen through in disguise!
“Youngster…!” Zhou Sheng’s voice suddenly rose, “You… know who I am?!”
The pressure was so strong that it could cause an ordinary superhuman to have their mind collapse instantly!
The ground beneath Lin Shen's feet silently caved in and cracked, but his upright body remained as still as a pine tree rooted to the earth.
Faced with this soul-crushing question, Lin Shen slowly raised his head, meeting the pair of eyes that seemed to burn with flames beneath the brim of the hat. His gaze was clear and sharp, and he uttered, word by word, the name that had been sealed away for many years, a name capable of stirring up a monstrous wave in the world of supernatural beings:
“If I’m not mistaken,” Lin Shen’s tone remained calm, yet carried an undeniable certainty, “you are Zhou Sheng of Wudang.”
The moment the words "Zhou Sheng" were uttered—
Time seems to have frozen.
The terrifying aura emanating from Zhou Sheng, which was so overwhelming that it could distort space, suddenly stopped as if a pause button had been pressed!
An even deeper, more profound silence enveloped the abandoned factory.
The suspended metal parts were frozen in mid-air, the falling rust dust was frozen in mid-air, and even the moonlight seemed to stop flowing.
“Heh...hehehe…” A low, suppressed laugh, carrying an indescribable complex emotion, squeezed out from deep within Zhou Sheng’s throat.
The laughter started softly, with a hint of absurdity, but then grew louder and more manic, eventually turning into a near-hysterical burst of laughter!
"Hahaha! Hahahaha—!!!"
The maniacal laughter echoed, collided, and overlapped wildly in the vast, empty factory, making the surrounding steel structures hum and howl like ghosts!
The laughter was filled with sorrow, mockery, relief, and a deep-seated madness!
Amidst this maniacal laughter, Zhou Sheng's body began to undergo bizarre changes!
His once lean and wiry scarred man's body began to twist, elongate, and hunch over like a melting wax figure!
The muscles on his face twitched as if they were alive, and the hideous scar slowly faded and disappeared as if it had a life of its own!
The drab gray work clothes covering his entire body vanished like a phantom, replaced by a tattered, filthy Taoist robe whose original color was almost unrecognizable.
The Taoist robe was simple and ancient in style, and the cloud pattern of Wudang Mountain could still be vaguely recognized, but it was already tattered and ragged, like a beggar's clothes!
The shadow under the hat brim also dissipated amidst the laughter, revealing a true face.
It was an extremely old face, covered with deep wrinkles, like dried tree bark.
His cloudy eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, were now burning with a terrifying light as he stared intently at Lin Shen.
His sparse, graying hair was tangled together like withered grass, hanging down in front of his forehead.
Most strikingly, there was a dark red, old scar at the corner of his mouth, which, though not scarred by a knife, looked as if burned by some corrosive force, extending all the way to his ear, adding a touch of ferocity and eeriness to his aged face.