Volume Two: Setting Forth on the Journey Chapter 16: Respite

Facing the young man’s sudden attack, Wang Jue had no intention of dodging. Instead, he stood where he was and calmly watched the man charge toward him.

One hundred meters!

Seventy meters!

Fifty meters...

“Now!”

Wang Jue gave a silent cry in his heart, and the little spiritual power he had left surged forth in a torrent.

The Bloodthirsty Sword instantly transformed into a streak of cold light and shot out from behind him. Like a bolt of lightning, it hurtled toward the young man.

“You are actually one of the legendary mind masters?!”

The young man’s expression changed drastically.

The streak of cold light moved so swiftly that it was impossible to follow with the naked eye. It seemed to pass through space itself, arriving before him in the blink of an eye.

There was no time to dodge.

Gritting his teeth, the young man abruptly changed the direction of the hand reaching for Wang Jue. Astral power erupted from his entire body as he grabbed toward the streak of cold light.

“Too late!”

The corner of Wang Jue’s mouth curled upward, his voice icy cold.

In the next instant, the streak of cold light suddenly accelerated beneath the young man’s grasp and shot straight toward the center of his brow.

“No...”

Terror finally appeared on the young man’s face. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, reflecting the bone-chilling light streaking toward him, while a despairing cry escaped his mouth.

A sharp hiss rang out.

The cold light pierced straight through the young man’s skull.

Blood sprayed into the air.

Horror, despair, unwillingness, and even regret froze upon his face as it gradually lost all trace of life.

The young man died a miserable death.

Wang Jue watched his body helplessly topple backward before crashing heavily to the ground. He said淡ly, “Sorry. I don’t want to die, so you had to die instead.”

Strictly speaking, this was the fourth time Wang Jue had killed someone.

The first time had been when he accompanied Lan Yiyi in clearing out the peripheral members of the Black Dragon Gang.

The second time had been in Blood Wolf Valley, when a man in black had used him as bait to lure out the Blood Wolf King. After escaping from the trap, Wang Jue had turned the tables and killed him instead.

The third time had been when the black-clad man’s elder sister came seeking revenge. To draw Wang Jue out, she had even attacked Monkey, his senior fellow disciple from the martial arts academy. If Wang Jue had not happened to break through at that very moment and arrived in time, engaging her while she was still injured and killing her by force, Monkey would likely have ended up dead.

The fourth time was now.

Looking at the young man’s unusually complicated expression, Wang Jue felt a faint sense of discomfort well up inside him.

It was quickly suppressed.

The main reason was that he understood a simple truth: only the strong possessed the right to speak.

The weak could only be slaughtered at will.

He had to grow accustomed to this cruel rule as soon as possible—not only for his own sake, but for the sake of his family as well.

Suddenly, Wang Jue witnessed an extremely comical scene.

With the young man’s death, the flying beast beneath him suddenly shot into the sky and then...

Flew away.

It simply flew off, abandoning the corpse of its dead master and fleeing for its life.

Wang Jue was silent for a moment, then offered the young man a second of mourning.

What a failure as a human being!

Even his own pet had abandoned him. How tragic!

Only after watching the flying beast gradually disappear from sight did Wang Jue finally relax.

“Phew... It’s finally over.”

That flying beast had caused them no end of suffering. If he had been able to, he certainly would have chosen to keep it here, but clearly, he lacked the strength to do so.

Once Wang Jue relaxed, his tightly strung spirit loosened as well.

A series of stabbing pains erupted inside his head, as though hundreds of people were wildly stirring it with hundreds of clubs.

Earlier, in order to withstand the Godslayer Cannon’s attack, he had released every ounce of his spiritual power to form a defense, consuming an enormous amount of energy.

Then, to deal with the young man, who possessed the cultivation of the ninth level of the Scarlet Star Realm, he had been forced to go all out and stake everything on one desperate attack.

As a result, his mental power had been completely overdrawn.

The aftereffects had now set in. The agony, worse than death itself, nearly caused him to lose consciousness.

After resting for quite some time, the pain finally eased somewhat, though it remained excruciating.

Even so, Wang Jue could only force himself to stay alert and search for Shen Feng and the others.

He did not believe the young man’s claim that Shen Feng and the others had all been killed.

Wang Jue, whose cultivation was the lowest in the group, was still alive. Shen Feng and the others were all an entire major realm stronger than him. Although they had already been injured, they could not have died so easily.

At most, their injuries had worsened, leaving them all gravely wounded.

Of course, Wang Jue could not guarantee that everyone in the squad was still alive.

After all, luck was impossible to predict.

...

After searching for roughly two hours, Wang Jue finally found Shen Feng and the others.

The search had taken so long mainly because Wang Jue was in poor condition. Every time he took a step, his vision darkened, slowing him down considerably.

However, just as he had expected, Shen Feng and the others were all severely injured and unconscious. No matter how loudly he called, none of them showed any sign of waking.

There was nothing to be done. Unlike Wang Jue, they did not possess such powerful spiritual strength. On top of that, they had already been injured before suffering further wounds, making it impossible for them to withstand the violent shockwaves caused by the explosion.

The fact that they were still alive was proof enough of their good fortune.

At that moment, Shen Feng and the others were covered in wounds, with many parts of their bodies charred black. Wang Jue could only stop their bleeding first, applying every healing agent he possessed, both internal and external.

He used every available method in the hope that they would pull through.

Shen Feng and Su Yu, two thick-skinned men, were relatively easy to deal with. Wang Jue could toss them around however he pleased without much concern.

But Jiang Yunyan and Jiang Yunxin were a tremendous challenge.

In his previous life, Wang Jue had been a notorious womanizer, changing women as easily as he changed clothes.

In this life, however, he was merely a student. Apart from his mother and younger sister, the only women close to him were Luo Shui, his childhood sweetheart, and Lan Yiyi, who had helped him greatly.

Even so, none of that changed the fact that Wang Jue was still a virgin.

What was more, the sisters’ combat uniforms had apparently been damaged by the earlier explosion, exposing their pale, delicate skin beneath. Although some of the exposed areas had been charred black by the blast, most of their skin remained unharmed.

Confronted with such an alluring sight, Wang Jue kept swallowing, while his breathing gradually grew heavier.

Normally, any healthy man faced with such a scene would have lunged at them.

Two beautiful sisters.

No man could easily resist such temptation.

It had to be said that Jiang Yunyan and Jiang Yunxin were both extraordinarily beautiful—one pure and charming, the other alluring and captivating.

Because their combat uniforms had been so restrictive, it had still been possible to make out their graceful curves.

Now that the uniforms were torn and no longer holding them in, the sisters’ figures could only be described as explosive.

Wang Jue subconsciously compared them with Lan Yiyi and Luo Shui.

His conclusion was that Luo Shui was still too young to compete and could not even be considered a serious contender.

Lan Yiyi could barely match Jiang Yunxin.

As for Jiang Yunyan, she occupied first place by an overwhelming margin.

Although Wang Jue was not the kind of man who thought with his lower half, he still went through a fierce internal struggle before ultimately deciding not to touch the sisters.

The main reason was that they were all members of the same squad. Besides, they were currently completely incapable of resisting. Wang Jue could not bring himself to take advantage of them.

He still possessed that much of a moral bottom line.

Even if he wanted to win the sisters over, he would do so only when they were both conscious. That was the only way it would feel satisfying.

Wang Jue’s burning gaze swept reluctantly over Jiang Yunyan and Jiang Yunxin. Then, supporting his exhausted body, he quickly carried Shen Feng and Su Yu to a safe place and settled them there.

He returned afterward to move Jiang Yunyan and Jiang Yunxin as well. During the process, his hands took no small advantage of them, and he came perilously close to completely transforming into a beast and doing something unspeakable.

After bringing Shen Feng and the others to safety, Wang Jue returned to clean up the battlefield.

He searched the young man’s corpse, then burned the body to ashes.

Only after erasing every trace he could find did Wang Jue leave.

...

Inside a certain mountain cave.

Wang Jue spent more than an hour searching before finally finding this suitable place.

Since Shen Feng and the others had yet to awaken, Wang Jue did not dare venture too far away. He could only carry them one by one while searching for a place where they could rest safely.

At last, he found a long-abandoned cave.

The cave was not large, barely spacious enough for four or five people to lie down. It had only one entrance, roughly the height of a person. As long as someone guarded the entrance, the people inside could recover in peace.

Wang Jue did not immediately carry Shen Feng and the others inside. Instead, he first picked branches and leaves from the surrounding trees and spread them across the cave floor. Only then did he bring the injured group inside.

After that, Wang Jue left the cave without pause and gathered some dry firewood nearby, lighting a fire to keep them warm.

He himself sat near the entrance, took some healing medicine, and rested for more than an hour. Only then did his body and spirit gradually begin to recover.

It was impossible for him to return to peak condition immediately, but at least he was in far better shape than before.

What worried him was that Shen Feng and the others still showed no sign of waking.

With nothing else to do, he picked up the Godslayer Cannon he had taken from the young man and examined it. Even now, he found it difficult to believe.

The cannon was roughly as thick as an adult man’s thigh. Ancient and mysterious patterns covered its surface, making it resemble a rocket launcher from Earth.

Of course, its power was incomparable.

Who would have thought that such an unremarkable-looking object could possess such tremendous destructive force?

The entire Hurricane Squad had nearly been wiped out by a single shot.

If every warrior were equipped with one, would that not make them invincible?

However, Wang Jue knew that such a thing was impossible.

The Godslayer Cannon operated through a runic device that compressed astral power. Under the guidance of the runes, an enormous amount of astral power was compressed into a single point before being released in an instant, producing an explosive burst of force.

It was said that the astral-power compression device had been created by combining the techniques of numerous races. Its construction was extraordinarily complicated.

Furthermore, the materials used to forge it had to be capable of withstanding the compressed astral power. Otherwise, the cannon would explode before it could even fire.

Would that be attacking the enemy—or attacking oneself?

Such materials were naturally expensive and exceedingly difficult to obtain.

As a result, the Godslayer Cannon was incredibly difficult to manufacture.

Moreover, it was far beyond the means of ordinary people.

From this alone, it was obvious that the young man’s identity was far from simple.

Wang Teng shook his head.

Forget it. The man was already dead. There was no point discussing it now.

Besides the Godslayer Cannon, Wang Jue had also discovered a ring that had remained intact despite the explosion while he was destroying the corpse.

“Could this actually be a spatial ring?”

With that thought, Wang Jue hurriedly sent his spiritual power into the ring, only to feel it blocked by a layer of resistance.

After trying several times without success, he could not help frowning.

“Strange. Could I have guessed wrong? Is this thing not a spatial ring?”