Decaying World

The cold wind whistled. Demarcation Zone.

Lin Hui held his long sword pointing obliquely downward, his gaze lowered. A fine breeze naturally circled him—the passive effect of Surrounding Wind.

Whenever he engaged an enemy, this effect would activate instantly. It consumed almost nothing, yet its intensity would continuously rise as he guided and controlled the wind force.

"Interesting. Kid, did you practice Extreme Martial Arts until you went stupid?" The Black Saber sneered. "Forget it, don't waste breath on him. Take him down directly. Let's see what he relied on to make two Gold-Threads disappear. Was it Liu Wujun, or that teacher with the unknown background behind him?"

Two Gold-Threads assigned to investigate the surrounding area had mysteriously vanished. They had only come to scout and probe Lin Hui, yet their tracks disappeared without a trace. To this day, not even a fragment of a corpse has been found.

So, after being scared off last time, they had joined forces to come again. Picking up from the suspicious points where they left off, they were determined to uncover the truth behind the disappearance case.

Shua.

The Black and White Sabers drew their thick-backed sabers in unison. They did not drop their guard just because Lin Hui was alone. The reason they had survived until now, successfully avoiding every danger, was precisely this full-effort approach and caution.

"Kill him?" the White Saber asked.

"No, capture and interrogate first. A quick battle and quick resolution, to avoid unforeseen complications," the Black Saber replied. "Okay." The White Saber nodded, but suddenly he froze. "Not good—where is he!?"

In the instant they spoke, Lin Hui—who had been standing right in front of them—suddenly vanished.

"Did he teleport!? Is he from the Benevolent Heart Sect!?" The Black Saber’s expression changed drastically.

Clang!!!

Suddenly, a loud boom exploded from his side.

The Black Saber hurriedly turned his head. Before his eyes could see anything, his senses detected a scorching, violent aura abruptly appearing behind the White Saber.

One strike!

The slender Ruyi sword drew a bright silver line in mid-air, slashing horizontally across the White Saber’s back. The silver line and the White Saber instantly froze, pausing in stillness.

Boom!

A second later, a massive, distorted airflow exploded at the point of contact between man and sword. The airflow, along with the explosive impact force, forcibly lifted the Black Saber and threw him dozens of meters away, slamming him into a black wooden house behind him.

With a bang, the wooden house shattered and slowly collapsed.

He ignored his wretched state, expanding his Void Force to blast apart the surrounding timber. The already dilapidated black wooden house was like broken building blocks, instantly torn apart. The Black Saber leaped into the sky, looking in the direction of his younger brother, the White Saber.

"White!" He amplified his voice with Internal Force.

Clang!

But in the next moment, another silver line lit up amidst the flying wood chips. Pure and terrifying power once again kicked up an explosion-like airflow, clearing away all the debris. The strong wind was like a shockwave, instantly clearing the field of vision of all sundries and dust.

Only then did the Black Saber see his brother's condition.

Bad! Very bad!!

The pupils beneath his mask tightened.

On the empty roadway, the White Saber gripped his thick-backed blade, Void Force surging along its length as he hacked wildly at the air. Yet there wasn’t a single enemy in the direction of his frenzied strikes. Every swing seemed to carve nothing but emptiness, as if all his effort were utterly in vain.

But if that were true, where did the blood slowly dripping from the White Saber's back come from!?

"Old Black, watch out!" Suddenly, the White Saber cried out in alarm, looking in his direction.

The Black Saber reacted immediately, spinning around with a slash!

Void Force covered the blade, and Circulation Internal Force wrapped another layer around the outside. The entire blade edge instantly expanded several times over, turning into a blurred silver giant blade at least ten meters long and three meters wide, crashing down.

Boom!!

The wooden house behind was cut in two, but he hit nothing.

Yet a figure had already appeared silently at the Black Saber's side.

Chi!

A sword edge pierced his vest with lightning speed, stabbing straight toward his heart. The protective barrier of Circulation was as useless as a decoration, and the copper skin and iron bones of a Called One seemed like nothing.

The Black Saber’s hair stood on end. The brush of mortal danger caused his entire aura to contract sharply. At that instant, a golden jade pendant on his chest suddenly shattered, erupting into a ring of golden shockwaves that blasted outward with him as the center.

Pu!

The golden shockwave moved at terrifying speed—pure rays of light. Even the figure behind him couldn’t evade in time and was struck head-on.

"Die!" The Black Saber revealed a ferocious expression, seizing the opportunity to grip his saber madly and slash upward.

In that instant just now, he felt he was truly going to die. Before coming, they had pre-enacted all sorts of scenarios, but never one like this. Just as the engagement began, they faced a nearly fatal, terrifying threat.

They had considered dangers coming from anywhere—Liu Wujun, the Rain Palace, the Benevolent Heart Sect, even the government or the Inspectorate Division. But the one thing they hadn't considered was that Lin Hui himself was the greatest danger!

At this moment, the Black Saber exerted all his strength, swinging the blade covered in Void Force, slashing heavily upward from Lin Hui's legs!

The golden jade pendant was a life-saving item that would only trigger automatically when on the verge of death. It was a special Relic; the shockwave it emitted could paralyze all opponents within one meter for a split second at an unavoidable speed. That single split second was the distance between life and death, the difference between heaven and earth.

Within less than ten seconds of starting, the battle had entered a white-hot state.

Bang!!

This slash, carrying all of the Black Saber's hope and full power, struck heavily against the Ruyi sword in front of Lin Hui.

Strangely, that excessively long sword hadn't been there just a moment ago, yet in the next instant, it seemed to teleport, directly blocking the path of the Void Force chopping saber.

A massive collision sound exploded as Void Force and compressed airflow crashed together. Friction and compression lit up specks of red sparks in that moment, spraying around the two like flowers.

Boom!

Lin Hui’s Internal Force was torn open by the razor edge of the Void Force. It ripped through the airflow and slammed head-on into the Ruyi sword’s blade. But before the impact could fully settle, he had already withdrawn, vanishing like a ghost once more.

Before the Black Saber could react, another sharp clang rang out. His younger brother, the White Saber, was hurled away by a tremendous force, sent flying straight toward him.

Instinctively, the two brothers swung their sabers, slashing furiously at one another’s incoming figure. The instant they realized their target was wrong, they hurriedly—and awkwardly—pulled back their blades, struggling to steady themselves.

In that moment, both of them understood they couldn’t keep fighting like this. Their opponent’s speed was too fast, too terrifying—already beyond what the eye could follow. If they didn’t come up with a countermeasure, capturing him would be out of the question; even getting out of this Relic array alive would be uncertain.

For now, they could still rely on the tough physiques of High Divine Officers to brute-force the damage. But once the enemy adapted to their level of body strength and struck again at their previous wounds…

There was no other choice. Use the ultimate technique. Kill him in one blow. End it fast—and don’t let the aura leak out.

The Black Saber met his brother’s gaze. In that instant, an unspoken understanding passed between them.

Clang clang!

A ghostly shadow flashed, and both men were knocked flying heavily by two more sword strikes. They crashed through the roadside black wooden houses, instantly distancing themselves from the main driveway and entering the depths of the Demarcation Zone.

As the wooden houses collapsed, Blood-Eyed Afflicted roared madly, charging up recklessly, only to be shredded into pieces by the duo’s invisible Void Force a second later.

Lin Hui’s figure flashed behind the two, holding Ruyi horizontally, slashing out once more.

But this time, he paused suddenly before the slash.

"Interesting. Is this your little trick?"

He tilted his body aside, precisely dodging an invisible blade of Void Force.

That blade energy easily sliced through the ground and wooden houses behind him, cut through the bodies of two Blood-Eyed Afflicted, and finally flew into the air an unknown distance away, disappearing.

"Huff, huff..." The White Saber endured the severe pain in his back, his face slightly pale, staring deathly hard at Lin Hui. "Who exactly... are you!?"

The few seconds of combat just now were arguably the most suffocating he had experienced since his debut. That terrifying, irresistible brute force, paired with that flickering, unpredictable movement—it felt as though no matter how he swung his saber, he couldn’t even brush the hem of his opponent’s ghostlike footwork.

That crushing pressure and the unknown stirred a faint, involuntary despair in his chest. If not for the Black Saber’s timely support, slightly slowing the opponent’s assault, he might already have been unable to hold on.

At this moment, the two brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at Lin Hui with grave eyes. Lin Hui, meanwhile, let his long sword drop to the ground, resting part of its weight casually in the broken black soil, his expression composed.

The scene returned to the standoff from before. The only difference was that the attitudes of both sides had undergone a complete reversal.

Before the fight, the Black and White Sabers had been utterly confident, certain that taking down Lin Hui would be effortless and that the real danger lay in whatever hidden trump cards he carried or forces stood behind him. But once the battle truly began, they realized they were wrong.

Utterly, absurdly wrong.

To the point that the ones truly in peril now were them.

The Relic was no longer isolating Lin Hui—it was isolating them.

"Again!" The Black Saber saw that his brother's spirit had dropped. He immediately shouted in a low voice, raised his saber, stepped forward, and charged at Lin Hui at full speed.

He boldly unleashed a killing move of the Spirit-Continuing Saber Technique.

Void Force crackled like electric arcs along the blade. The instant he slashed, all of it erupted at once, unfurling into a dense, wide-reaching net that closed over Lin Hui. It was the only method he could think of to restrain that terrifying speed.

"Good idea. Unfortunately… by the time you swung, I was already gone."

A calm voice sounded behind the Black Saber.

Even before the words fully reached him, his whole body shuddered. His face drained of color—then a deafening metallic crash detonated at the back of his neck.

Blood splattered.

As if struck from behind by a giant beast, the Black Saber shot out like a projectile, tumbling across the ground. Bang, bang! He gouged a chain of craters into the earth, skipping like a stone on water and plowing a straight trench before finally crashing into the shell of a relatively sturdy stone house.

"Go to hell! I’ve got you!!" The White Saber had no time to worry about his brother. Gripping his thick-backed blade, he unleashed the Spirit-Continuing Saber Technique’s secret art—Pale Moon Storm Kill—with everything he had, striking from behind.

Pale Moon Storm Kill was an ultimate killing move that the two brothers had comprehended through their coordinated cultivation of the Spirit-Continuing Saber Technique. The greatest effect of this move was to continuously release nine layers of sharp cutting nets constructed of Void Force at more than double super-speed. Furthermore, it could automatically avoid the opponent's weapon blocks, passing through the defense via the net's holes before contracting to slice the enemy's main body.

Because this move was an explosive joint effort, the Void Force used was also much more powerful than that of an average High Divine Officer. This gave them an unparalleled advantage whether fighting subordinates or engaging peers.

Using it now, the White Saber let out a faint breath of relief. He had finally managed to unleash this ultimate secret art. Before this, his opponent’s speed had been far too great to even lock onto. No matter how powerful a secret technique was, it could never hit a target that wasn’t even in its line of attack. Fortunately, the Black Saber had staked his own safety to buy him that fleeting opening.

This guy probably isn’t an Outer City martial artist at all, but a High Divine Officer from the Inner City in disguise. If he’s hiding out here, he must be harboring some unspeakable secret. The thought flashed through the White Saber’s mind.

He rushed to the Black Saber’s side, but the sight that met his eyes made his entire body shudder, wounds and all.

On his brother the Black Saber's back neck, a horizontal cut had appeared at some point. The cut was obviously made by a sword slash, slicing almost halfway through the entire neck. Blood stained the Black Saber's outer robe red. Fortunately, Internal Force had sealed the wound in time to stop the bleeding; otherwise, it would have caused even more danger.

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