216: Chapter 215 The Explorer Possessed by Gray Mist! S-Rank Talent Plus Legendary Physique
The middle-aged man struck first.
His fingers tightened sharply on the hilt, and the longsword, covered in grayish-white fungal mats, was drawn from its sheath. As the blade cut through the air, it didn't produce the normal metallic hum of steel, but rather an extremely low, muffled sound, as if something were resonating.
Lin Feng's pupils constricted slightly—that wasn't the sound of the sword itself; it was the fungal mats wrapped around the blade vibrating. The patterns on those fungal mats were identical to the vines on the office building walls—they had come alive.
The middle-aged man's sword techniques had no unnecessary flourishes. He started with a heavy, forceful frontal slash. The sword momentum was deep and fierce, and the speed was extremely fast—it was a level of power that a person long eroded by Void Realm energy and suffering from a stiff body should not have been able to produce.
Lin Feng blocked horizontally with the dragon slaying sword in his right hand.
Clang! The instant the two swords clashed, a massive force far exceeding his expectations surged from the blade.
The rainbow avenue light strip beneath Lin Feng's feet flared with seven-colored light. He was forced to slide back several steps by this single strike, his boot soles grinding against the road surface with a sharp screech, his right hand's web between thumb and index finger numbed by the shock.
He didn't have time to steady himself before a freezing aura forced its way to his ribs from the left.
Lu Yun had somehow circled to his flank without him noticing.
She spread the five fingers of her left hand, and an extremely thin, sharp ice thorn condensed at her fingertips. The edges of the ice thorn shimmered with a faint, seven-colored light—that was the ice-attribute control skill she had specialized in during her lifetime. After being possessed by the gray mist, she still retained the instinct to cast it, and its power was actually even stronger than before her death.
The ice thorn shot out, moving so fast that it left a trail of white frost in the air.
Lin Feng backhanded a diagonal slash with the taixu sword in his left hand, leaving a trail of silvery-white runes where the blade passed. The ice thorn was sliced into two pieces. The broken ice crystal fragments flew past his vambrace, and as the shards grazed his cheek, they left several tiny bloody scratches.
But just as he blocked this, the middle-aged man's second sword was already slashing toward his face.
He didn't choose to block—that previous strike had already tested it; the middle-aged man's strength far exceeded the Rank limit of his lifetime. Taking it head-on would not only waste mana but would also make it easy for him to seize the rhythm and suppress Lin Feng continuously.
Lin Feng dodged to the side, and the blade grazed his chest, slamming into the rainbow avenue. The seven-colored light strip flickered violently, but the road surface remained undamaged, though the shockwave pushed Lin Feng back several more steps.
"This strength isn't right."
Lin Feng steadied himself, shook his numbed right hand, and quickly glanced at his attribute panel—that previous block had directly shaved off tens of thousands of health points. Although it was quickly pulled back up by the Source of Life, the single-hit damage was close to the full-force strike of an ordinary Domain Lord Level Void Creature.
He had previously seen data in the encyclopedia on how gray mist possession enhanced the physical functions of human Explorers, and he knew that strength and speed would increase significantly after being possessed.
But now, after experiencing it firsthand, he realized that the gap between the theoretical values in the encyclopedia and reality was too large—the gray mist didn't just simply attach to the host; it had completely fused with the host's muscle fibers, Meridians, and even bone structure, pushing the original human physical functions to a level far exceeding the Domain Lord Level.
In other words, these three people were no longer simple human Explorers, but semi-Void-transformed warriors based on human Explorers, long-soaked and reshaped by the gray mist—they retained their combat instincts and partial skill memories from before their deaths, but their bodies had already become something else.
"Lin Feng! Leave this young one to me!"
Xiao Guang maneuvered the mecha and charged toward Chu Han.
It had also just seen the data popping up on the attribute panel—the combat power of a host enhanced by the gray mist far exceeded that of a Void Creature of the same level. Fighting in coordination with these three experienced Seniors, Lin Feng would be worn to death if he carried two of them alone.
All it could do now was use the mecha to fully restrain one of them, reducing the pressure on Lin Feng.
Chu Han was half-kneeling on the ground, the broken blade in his hand still propped up in front of him. The mecha's Dark Energy Cannon finished charging, and a dark red beam blasted directly at Chu Han's chest.
Just as the beam was about to hit, Chu Han's body tilted backward in an almost eerie posture, and the broken blade slashed diagonally from bottom to top. The grayish-white blade aura and the dark energy beam collided in mid-air, exploding into a blinding ball of light.
The shockwave pushed the mecha back several steps, and the thrusters at its feet spewed two rings of light flames before it managed to barely stabilize its body. Chu Han stood up.
Clutching that broken blade, there was no emotion in his grayish-white pupils, but his hand gripping the blade was very steady—he was an S-Rank Explorer and a possessor of a legendary grade Physique. Although he had been possessed by the gray mist for many years, his combat instincts and muscle memory were still carved into his bones.
During his lifetime, he was a melee assault type, skilled in Dual Cultivation of ice attributes, and specialized in rapid assaults and close-range bursts. After being possessed by the gray mist, these abilities not only didn't degenerate, but were instead amplified to the extreme by the gray mist's enhancement of his body.
Xiao Guang did not give him time to charge up.
The mecha's right-arm Dark Energy Cannon fired again, this time a three-shot burst—three beams formed a triangular shape, sealing off Chu Han's frontal evasion routes. At the same time, the left arm ejected the Alloy Combat Blade, the mecha's thrusters were fully opened, and the entire machine rammed toward Chu Han like a black meteorite.
Chu Han didn't dodge or evade; the broken blade carved an arc of a grayish-white blade curtain in front of him, and the three dark energy beams were simultaneously slashed apart by the blade curtain. When the mecha rammed over, he pressed his left palm directly onto the mecha's chest core, and a mass of extremely cold ice-attribute energy erupted from his palm.
Ice-type skill Frost Burst; the alloy armor on the mecha's chest was instantly frozen with a thick layer of ice, and the propulsion flames at its feet flickered several times under the infiltration of the cold air before stabilizing again.
Xiao Guang gasped in the cockpit, but its hand movements didn't pause for even a second; the mecha's right-arm Alloy Combat Blade slashed from the side toward Chu Han's neck.
Meanwhile, the battle on Lin Feng's side had already entered a white-hot phase. The middle-aged man's sword techniques were becoming faster and heavier; every strike carried that heavy humming sound like a wheezing bellows. The grayish-white fungal mats on the sword constantly writhed with every slash, and occasionally, a few hair-thin, vine-like tentacles would suddenly shoot out to wrap around Lin Feng's face and wrists.
Lin Feng used the dragon slaying sword in his right hand to slice and hack, cutting off two tentacles, while his left hand used the taixu sword to block the middle-aged man's frontal slash.
Clang! His feet sank, and the seven-colored light strip of the rainbow avenue flickered violently again. The two swords locked together; the fungal tentacle and the silvery-white runes on the taixu sword were constantly eroding each other at an extremely close distance, emitting a hissing sound.
Lu Yun's attack struck again from the flank.
She clasped her hands together in front of her, and the cold air at her fingertips condensed into six ice thorns, each one carrying that eerie seven-colored edge—Lin Feng now knew that the seven-colored edge wasn't a special effect of her skill, but rather the layer of light film wrapped around her body surface continuously supplying her with energy.
The ice thorns shot out simultaneously, moving faster than the single shots from before, and at even trickier angles—two blocked his frontal retreat, two circled around from the side to seal his ribs, and two dropped straight down from above to seal his head.
Lin Feng didn't have time to block with his sword; he pinched a seal with his left hand, and the Taixu Shield deployed at his side. The golden light shield caught the two ice thorns from the side, the two from above were sliced off by the dragon slaying sword, and the two from the front flew past, grazing the edge of the Taixu Shield.
But just with this split second of distraction, the middle-aged man seized the gap in his defense and slapped over with a palm.
That palm had no flourishes; it was purely physical strength, enhanced to the limit by the gray mist.
Lin Feng didn't have time to bring his sword back to block, so he could only turn his body and take it head-on with his left shoulder.
Bang! In the muffled sound, he was slapped and slid back several meters, his boot soles scraping two shallow marks on the rainbow avenue road surface. The star gauze armor absorbed most of the impact, but his left shoulder was still numbed by the massive force, and his health points dropped by another chunk.
The middle-aged man did not pursue, but stood in place and raised his sword again—he was waiting for Lu Yun's next round of ice thorn coordination.
After these two people were possessed by the gray mist, they not only retained their combat instincts from their lifetime but also retained the tacit coordination between teammates, even more precise than before their deaths: the middle-aged man was responsible for frontal suppression, and Lu Yun was responsible for control and flanking sneak attacks. One frontal, one side, alternating offense and defense, the coordination was creepily perfect.
Lin Feng stared at the two people opposite him while panting.
He couldn't keep taking beatings passively like this—his swordsmanship couldn't gain any advantage in the face of the strength gap, and the defense value of the Taixu Shield was also continuously dropping. If he dragged it out any longer and let his mana hit rock bottom, he would really have no chance of a comeback. He had to disrupt their rhythm.
His right hand's dragon slaying sword suddenly changed its momentum; he no longer blocked the middle-aged man's frontal slash but instead launched an active attack—golden sword light flared from the blade, and an extremely thin, sharp sword aura thrust directly at the middle-aged man's throat.
This strike had no charging time; it relied purely on the instantaneous burst of the light element, and the speed was extremely fast.
The middle-aged man instinctively blocked with his sword.
Clang! The two swords clashed again, but this time Lin Feng didn't take the recoil force head-on. Instead, using the reaction force from this block, he leapt into the air, flipped in mid-air, and thrust the taixu sword in his left hand directly into the ground in front of Lu Yun.
He didn't intend to use area-of-effect Spells to cover both of them—AoE attacks would enrage both of them simultaneously. What he needed now wasn't damage maximization, but to disrupt their coordinated rhythm.
The instant the taixu sword pierced the ground, silvery-white runes spread out from the tip, forming a small Taixu Earth-Stabilizing Formation on the ground. It wasn't to trap the enemy, but to interfere—the energy fluctuations spreading from the Formation would cause the release accuracy of Lu Yun's ice-attribute skills to drop by a few points.
Lu Yun instinctively took half a step back, and the two ice thorns that had just condensed between her hands were skewed by the interference of the Formation, flying past Lin Feng's sleeve.
From opening the distance to landing, in just a few short breaths, Lin Feng had readjusted his positioning, placing himself between the middle-aged man and Lu Yun.
He rapidly revised his tactics in his mind: he had previously tried compressing energy balls for delayed detonation when using light bullets to snipe Single-Horned Dogs. If he applied the same delayed detonation principle to Fusion skills, compressing the light-fire composite energy ball to the limit and then delaying the explosion for a moment, he could utilize that split-second time difference to simultaneously force back the pincer attack of both people.
Lu Yun's ice thorns required condensation time, and the middle-aged man waited for her signal before every attack—as long as he could disrupt both of their rhythms simultaneously, even if only for a few seconds, he could seize that few-second gap to deliver a fatal blow to them.
Meanwhile, the commotion of the duel between Xiao Guang and Chu Han had moved deeper into the avenue. The roar of the mecha's Dark Energy Cannon and the metallic shrieking of the Alloy Combat Blade clashing with the broken blade came from the distance from time to time, occasionally interspersed with the crisp sound of frost bursting and the whistling of thruster light flames.
Xiao Jin was lying on Lin Feng's shoulder, the purple light patterns on its antennae glowing constantly; it was monitoring the battle on Xiao Guang's side—although the pulsation frequency of the mecha's chest core was much faster than usual, its movements were becoming sharper and more fierce each time. It was not falling behind.
Xiao Guang's fighting style was completely different from Lin Feng's: Lin Feng tended more toward precision and efficiency—never using a second sword if one could solve the problem—while Xiao Guang, in its mecha maneuvering, carried a confidence unique to a Genius Formation Master—every landing point of its Spatial Warp was at the trickiest angle behind Chu Han, and every firing timing of the Dark Energy Cannon was timed to the instant Chu Han had just finished his previous action and his new force had not yet arisen. It was performing with ease in this duel.
Lin Feng withdrew his gaze and refocused on the two opponents in front of him.
His complexion looked somewhat pale under the reflection of the light film, but his hands gripping the twin swords were still as steady as two pieces of iron.