52: Chapter 52 The Goddess Falls

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Dull and highly oppressive sonic booms exploded one after another over the Mist Forest.

Su Chen's figure had completely vanished into the deep, dark red toxic miasma, but the gale whipped up by that violent airflow was still raging across the swamp.

Mud churned, and shattered ice flew everywhere.

Not until the sound of the wind gradually subsided did this ruin, which had just experienced a life-and-death battle, fall into a suffocating, dead silence.

Below, it was a complete mess.

Lei Yu, having lost his legs, lay in the bloody water, forgetting to scream. Wang Hao, pierced by the steel bristles, had his mouth wide open, his breathing even stalled.

"Thump."

In a mud pit in the distance, the main tank, Captain Zhang Meng, coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of bloody mud, and struggled to open his eyes. He had been knocked unconscious by the Mutated Wild Boar's infrasonic waves, but the commotion of Su Chen descending from the sky and shattering the boar's skull had jolted him awake.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

A figure in a black robe wearing a demon mask was stepping on the empty air with his feet, ascending toward the sky step by step as if walking up stairs.

"He... flew away?"

The agility-type assassin, Chen Fei, who was hanging on a broken tree, spoke in a voice as dry as rubbing against sandpaper.

"Impossible." Captain Zhang Meng struggled to sit up from the muddy water, his arms twisted in a strange way, staring fixedly at the sky, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets. "Flying through the air... that is the hallmark of a Great Grandmaster! One must condense the Qi and blood within the body to the point of manifesting wings to briefly hover!"

"Did any of you feel his Qi and blood fluctuations?" Chen Fei swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva.

No one answered.

The scene was deathly silent.

"None."

Captain Zhang Meng gave the answer himself, his voice beginning to tremble violently. "There was no Protective Aura as vast as an abyss or sea like a Great Grandmaster, nor was there a single shred of spiritual energy released. Just now... he relied purely on the physical strength of his legs to stomp the air into solid stepping stones!"

Once these words were spoken, the few Prodigies from the capital felt a chill shoot straight from their tailbones to their crowns.

Flying by stomping the air with his Physical Body?

This not only violated the common sense of physics but also completely crushed the so-called top-tier "High Martial Education" of the Great Xia they had received for over a decade!

In their understanding, the Physical Body was merely a container for spiritual energy. Even if one polished the Physical Body to the limit, it was impossible to exist without the assistance of elements.

But the person just now had used the most arrogant, the most unreasonable aesthetic of violence to trample their pride-and-joy truth of "elemental supremacy" into the mud and smash it to pieces!

"No spiritual energy... relying purely on physical strength... a blue-faced, fanged demon mask..."

Captain Zhang Meng muttered these keywords, and a flash of lightning suddenly crossed his mind.

He turned his head violently, looking at Lei Yu and Chen Fei on the ground, his pupils contracting violently: "Do you still remember the casual chatter of those mercenaries we heard at the outer supply station before entering the core area?"

Chen Fei was stunned, and then his face turned as pale as paper.

"You mean that... rumor?"

"Yes!"

Captain Zhang Meng's voice changed due to extreme terror: "We thought it was a low-level lie made up by base mercenaries at the time! But look at this pig! No wounds on the surface, but the internal organs are all shattered! This is exactly the same method as the one in the rumors who killed the pack of Iron-Armored Wolves with his fists!"

"And the mid-air walking just now... the rumor said that person stepped on the air to fly into the sky and smashed a Gale Giant Eagle to death!"

All the clues came together perfectly at this moment.

Captain Zhang Meng looked at the hill-like corpse of the giant beast and gasped.

"It's him! Captain, it's him!"

Captain Zhang Meng shouted in the direction of Lin Qinghan, "He is the masked Shura who slaughtered the entire Blood Axe Gang overnight and specializes in killing high-level strange beasts in the wilderness!"

Shura.

As soon as these two words came out, the temperature of the swamp seemed to drop a few degrees.

Lei Yu, who was lying in the muddy water, his face pale from excessive blood loss, turned ash-gray at this moment.

"Shura..."

Lei Yu trembled violently as if he were shaking a sieve. He recalled how he had used a condescending tone at the supply station entrance to scold that black-robed rogue cultivator who wouldn't even give way.

He had even mocked those rumors as bullsh*t.

Lei Yu finally realized what kind of terrifying taboo existence he had been mocking just now.

A perverted maniac who could kill a Half-Step Martial Master Realm great monster with a single finger and killed without blinking!

If the other party had even a shred of killing intent at the supply station just now, or if the other party felt they were an eyesore here...

Lei Yu didn't dare to think any further.

Looking at his severed legs, he suddenly felt that being able to survive was already because that man considered them air that wasn't even worth the effort of a stomp.

Completely different from the terror and breakdown of the male team members.

Lin Qinghan remained kneeling on the spot.

She didn't listen to Captain Zhang Meng's shouting, nor did she look at Lei Yu's breakdown.

She gripped the broken sword stuck in the mud tightly with both hands, raised her head, her beautiful face covered in black mud and striking blood, but her cold, clear eyes stared fixedly at the sky where Su Chen had disappeared.

"What Divine-Grade Martial Skill."

"It's just a basic attack. Making a fuss over nothing."

That hoarse, cold voice, carrying thirty percent boredom and seventy percent disdain, was like a red-hot blade, repeatedly cutting and engraving into the depths of her Soul.

She was the legitimate daughter of the Lin Family, after all.

Growing up, what kind of peerless Geniuses hadn't she seen? What kind of Heaven Rank Cultivation Technique hadn't she read?

In the capital, those Young Lords of noble families would do anything to make her smile, wishing they could bring out their entire Family's foundation to show off.

But she had never taken anyone seriously. Because she felt that those so-called Geniuses who relied on Family resources were all too weak.

She was a complete martial arts fanatic. She craved absolute power that could break conventions and stand at the pinnacle.

And today.

She finally saw it.

That man fell from three hundred meters in the sky like a meteorite, his feet forcing a Half-Step Martial Master Realm giant beast to kneel and submit.

That man didn't even draw his blade, using only two fingers to ignore the abyss heavy armor that even SSS-level frost couldn't freeze, shattering the giant beast's heart from a distance.

What made her tremble the most was.

The man who possessed such god-like power actually described this earth-shattering attack as a mere "basic attack."

"Shura..."

Lin Qinghan's dry lips parted slightly, silently reciting this name.

Her coldness and aloofness that usually kept people thousands of miles away were, at this moment, completely smashed to pieces by that pure, extreme aesthetic of violence.

Replacing it was an unprecedented, burning fanaticism.

For the first time, Lin Qinghan felt an extremely strong desire to explore and conquer a peer—even one who sounded younger than her.

She wanted to know what the face under that mask looked like.

She wanted to know what kind of secrets were contained within that shell.

She wanted to know exactly what step one had to take to catch up to the back of the man who trampled on the void.

"Captain? Captain, are you okay?"

Captain Zhang Meng dragged his broken arm over, looking at Lin Qinghan's dazed state, and asked with some concern.

Lin Qinghan took a deep breath.

She let go of the hilt of the broken sword and used the back of her muddy hand to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth forcefully.

"I'm fine."

Lin Qinghan stood up. Her snow-white hair, which had turned white due to overdrawing her life force, danced in the wilderness wind.

Her gaze regained its sharpness, but deep in her eyes, there was an added touch of obsession that no one could understand.

She walked to the side of the mutated giant beast's corpse.

The giant beast's skull had already been cut open by a sharp blade, and the extreme-yang mutated crystal core inside, as well as the hardest reverse scales on its chest, had long been looted.

But Lin Qinghan didn't care.

What she wanted, in the first place, was just the heart blood of this beast.

"Captain Zhang Meng, send a distress signal."

Lin Qinghan looked at the tiny bloody hole on the giant beast's chest that had been pierced by the Finger Pistol, and ordered in a cold tone: "Have the Lin Family's garrison in Jiangnan City send a helicopter immediately. Take Lei Yu and the others back for emergency treatment."

"Captain, what about you? Your backlash..." Captain Zhang Meng asked anxiously.

"After taking the blood, I will return."

Lin Qinghan turned her head and took one last look at the empty sky.

That black back had completely filled her heart.

The proud Ice Goddess, at this moment, made a vow that even she felt was crazy.

"No matter who you are."

"No matter which corner of Jiangnan City you are hiding in."

"I will definitely find you."