pjbooks Chapter 1004 Siege
Chapter 1004 Siege
"If the master descends, everything that is alive on the entire Canggu Mountain Range will become the first nourishment for the master after he awakens."
The air in the hall seemed to be sucked out at that moment. In a flash, Lin Qiye moved.
He didn't listen to Mr. Xun—no, that monster—continue speaking. Before the monster's last words had even faded, Lin Qiye's body shot forward like a spring compressed to its limit. The black iron spear twirled in his hand, its tip tearing through the air, leaving a dark golden trail, as it thrust straight towards the monster's throat.
This shot was so simple that there was no technique involved—pure explosiveness, pure speed, pure power.
The monster was clearly prepared for Lin Qiye's sudden attack, but even so, Lin Qiye's speed still exceeded its expectations. He suddenly took a step back, simultaneously raising the short staff that had been integrated into the crystal core, the staff and the spear tip colliding by a hair's breadth.
clang--!!
A shockwave exploded at the point of impact, sending bone fragments and crystal shards flying several meters into the air. Several cracks appeared in the horny ground beneath the monster's feet, and the force sent it sliding backward several meters. The fluorescent blue crystal core on the tip of its short staff flickered violently. Lin Qiye was also thrown back by the recoil; his knuckles gripping the gun turned slightly white, and a tingling sensation ran through his hand, but he didn't retreat. The moment he landed, he pushed off with his feet and lunged forward again.
His judgment was extremely accurate—this monster had just fused with its core and its control over its new power was not yet fully stable, making this its most vulnerable window of opportunity. If they waited until it fully fused with its core, no one knew what it would become.
Mo Yuan's reaction was equally astonishingly fast. He and Lin Qiye activated their attacks almost simultaneously, flanking the monster from its side and rear. His narrow blade drew a cyan arc in the air, its blade aura stretching several meters, blocking the monster's retreat. The cyan blade light collided with the fluorescent blue crystal core's glow in mid-air, producing a piercing sonic boom.
Ajiu didn't try to force her way in the first two rounds of attacks—she knew her offensive power wasn't enough to break through the crystal core energy barrier—but she had her own battlefield. As Lin Qiye and Mo Yuan charged, she swiftly moved along the shadows of the hall's flank, her twin daggers twirling between her fingers. Each step she took landed precisely in the darkest corner, her figure almost blending into the fluorescent blue light and shadow of the hall. She was searching for an opportunity, for any possible crack in the monster's defensive barrier, and for any possible vital points on the monster's body.
Although their coordination was rough, the combat instincts honed by years of life-or-death missions allowed them to launch a fairly tight offensive rhythm without any prior communication. Lin Qiye launched a fierce frontal attack, Mo Yuan suppressed the flanks, and Ajiu roamed around waiting for an opportunity—this was a standard triangular offensive formation, most efficient when targeting a single strong enemy.
The monster was overwhelmed by this offensive and retreated continuously, swinging its short staff to parry. The crystal core energy formed a fluorescent blue shield around its body, and each time it was hit by the spear tip or blade energy, it would create a ripple. However, its steps were backward, and its breathing began to become rapid. No matter how many memories and powers it had integrated, this body was ultimately just a replica made by the Bone Tower, and its foundation was still inferior to that of a true top expert.
But the gap is narrowing.
With each parry and each collision, the monster's movements became smoother than before. The memories and power he had just regained were rapidly merging into this body, gradually elevating him from a barely controllable replica to a level where he could fully master his own power. His retreating steps became more and more stable, his parries more and more precise, and he even began to counterattack in the gaps in his defense—a beam of fluorescent blue energy shot from the tip of his short staff, grazing Lin Qiye's shoulder and leaving a fist-sized crater in the bone pillar behind him.
"His adaptation speed is too fast." After being knocked back by another clash of sword energy, Mo Yuan lowered his voice and said to Lin Qiye, "In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, his strength will at least double."
Lin Qiye didn't answer, but his brows furrowed slightly. He could already feel the recoil from each of the monster's parries increasing, indicating that its control over the crystal core's power was rapidly solidifying. At their current speed, they had less than half a cup of tea's time left—after that, the situation would reverse.
We must break through his defenses before that happens.
He took a deep breath, and the dark golden light within his body suddenly surged. The newly generated source energy and blood demon power merged and circulated in his meridians at an unprecedented speed, forming a more condensed and violent force. Under the infusion of the dark golden light, the tip of the black iron spear actually emitted a faint humming sound, and the originally inconspicuous iron-gray patterns on the spearhead lit up one by one, as if they had been injected with new life.
His eyes locked onto the monster's throat, and with a powerful stomp of his foot, he shot forward like a cannonball. His spear traced a semi-circle in front of him, its tip rising from below like a dark golden lightning bolt tearing through the ground.
This shot was no longer a probe, but a direct and fierce attack.
The monster sensed the difference in this shot; its pupils contracted slightly. It gripped its short staff with both hands, pushing the energy of its crystal core to its limit. Layers of fluorescent blue shields stacked up, instantly forming an energy barrier half a foot thick in front of it. At the same time, its body leaned to the side and back, preparing to deflect the force and dodge while blocking.
The spear tip collided with the blue shield.
The dark gold and fluorescent blue lights clashed violently, the shockwave exploding outwards, the resulting blast sending bodily fluids and bone fragments swirling and scattering outwards. A-Jiu was thrown back by the shockwave, only regaining her balance after her back slammed against a bone pillar. Mo Yuan, using the recoil, slid to the side, repositioning himself to attack.
But this time, the monster's shield didn't completely block the shot.
The spear tip pierced nearly two-thirds of the protective shield's thickness, blasting radial cracks across its surface. The ground beneath the monster's feet couldn't withstand the immense force, cracking inch by inch, his feet sinking two inches deep. His expression turned extremely grim, the muscles in his arms trembling violently under the pressure from the short staff, and the veins on his forehead bulging. But he ultimately managed to deflect the penetrating force of the spear tip into the ground beneath his feet, and the shield barely remained intact.
However, in that extremely brief interval between the extinction of the old force and the generation of the new force, a burst of blood suddenly exploded on the back of the monster's neck.
A black, ghostly figure silently emerged from the shadows behind him; it was Ajiu.
She had been waiting for this moment—waiting for the monster to be pushed to its limit by a frontal assault, waiting for its defensive shield to bear maximum pressure, waiting for all its attention to be drawn to Lin Qiye, revealing the slightest opening. The instant the shockwave exploded, she wasn't knocked back, but instead actively circled behind the monster, following the direction of the airflow, and lurked in the shadows overlooked by everyone, finding the perfect position to strike.
The dagger in her left hand pierced precisely into the gap between the spines at the back of the monster's neck. The tip of the blade encountered resistance the moment it entered—a passive defensive layer formed by the crystal core energy within the monster's body. But Ajiu didn't greedily thrust the dagger in. Instead of trying to push it deeper, she used the force of the thrust to twist the dagger sharply. A layer of pale black source energy condensed on the blade into fang-like spikes, piercing through the still-forming passive defense and directly injecting into the monster's body.