90: Chapter 90 A Bond of Life and Death

"Then I will die with you."

These seven simple words dispersed with the cold wind on the high ground.

The thousands of panicked students in the area fell dead silent in unison.

They looked at the thin, calm youth before them. No one doubted the truth of his words. This was because he could have used his unpredictable movement technique to hide alone in a blind spot of the ruins to survive, yet he chose to step forward on his own initiative.

The suffocating silence lasted for only three seconds.

"Hahahahaha!"

A burst of rough, unbridled laughter suddenly broke the dead silence.

Jiang Feng took a large stride forward.

Covered in blood, his school uniform had long since shredded into rags. He walked up to Su Chen, spun around abruptly, and faced the only ramp leading up to the high ground.

"Brother Chen, sit down and focus on your Breakthrough!"

Jiang Feng clenched his fists, the veins on the backs of his hands bulging like coiled steel cables. With a boom, the Qi and blood of a Martial Artist within his body erupted without reservation!

A three-meter-tall, reddish-yellow phantom of a Titan Giant Bear materialized behind him with a crash, roaring deafeningly toward the sky.

"Tekkai!"

Jiang Feng roared, and his flesh instantly took on a greenish-gray metallic luster. Like an insurmountable iron tower, he planted himself firmly at the very front of the ramp.

The fatty grinned with his blood-stained mouth and spat at the beast tide closing in below:

"If these beasts want to touch a single hair on your head today, they'll have to trample over my chewed-up corpse first!"

Looking at Jiang Feng's broad, tower-like back blocking the way at the very front...

In the crowd behind him, several children of noble families, who had just been fighting tooth and nail over cover, froze.

"Dammit..."

In the crowd, Chen Fei, an agility-type assassin whose arm was crippled and tightly wrapped in bandages, cursed through gritted teeth.

Using his only remaining right hand, he dug a broken dagger out of the mud on the ground.

"I am a proud Kyoto Prodigy, there's no way I can be inferior to a fatty from Third Middle School's Cannon Fodder Class!"

Limping out of the crowd, Chen Fei stood to Jiang Feng's right. He stared at the drooling Shadow Demon Wolves below and tightened his grip on his dagger.

"It's death either way. Dying while hiding in a corner and getting eaten is just too pathetic."

Another student stepped forward.

"I've never gambled with my life in my entire existence. Today, I'm going to take that gamble!"

"Count me in!"

"Let's fight these beasts to the death!"

The scraping sounds of swords and sabers being unsheathed rang out continuously across the high ground.

Those noble Prodigies, who had originally harbored hostility toward Su Chen or usually looked down on commoners from their high horses, completely cast aside their ridiculous noble pride in the face of harsh reality and the threat of death.

They picked up broken weapons from the ground and wiped away the blood and tears from their faces.

One.

Ten.

A hundred.

Over a thousand students, each gritting their teeth, walked over to Jiang Feng's side.

No one backed down anymore.

Because they all knew very well in their hearts that if Su Chen didn't break through this predicament, everyone would die here today. Rather than being slaughtered like pigs and sheep by the exotic beasts, they would rather exhaust the last shred of their dignity as the martial arts Prodigies of the Great Xia in this final battle!

In less than half a minute,

a thin defensive line built of flesh and blood materialized in front of Su Chen.

With their bodies, they blocked the only entrance for the exotic beasts to charge onto the high ground.

The army pressed in.

The ground began to vibrate violently.

Only thirty seconds remained before the vanguard of exotic beasts charged up the ramp.

Su Chen didn't look at the wall of flesh and blood in front of him.

He sat on the ground, crossing his legs, and placed his hands flat on his knees. Closing his eyes, he began to regulate his breathing, preparing to forcibly release the suppressed Qi and blood in his body to guide Haki into his bones.

Tap, tap.

A very light set of footsteps stopped in front of Su Chen.

Su Chen didn't open his eyes, but he already knew who it was.

Lin Qinghan.

Holding her broken frost longsword, she didn't immediately walk toward the defensive positions on the front line like the others.

She turned around, walked up to the cross-legged Su Chen, and slowly squatted down.

Looking at Su Chen's face from a close distance,

Lin Qinghan's breathing grew slightly rapid.

Just now, across dozens of meters in the chaos, she could only vaguely capture Su Chen's posture and exertion of force during combat.

But now, the distance was less than half a meter.

She looked at Su Chen's calm, cold profile, which showed not a single trace of emotional fluctuation.

This steadiness of remaining unfazed even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, this absolute rationality that treated life and death as nothing,

that invincible figure wearing a black cloak and an evil ghost mask, who had shattered a Half-Step Martial Master Realm great demon with a single finger in the Mist Forest, merged frantically and perfectly in her mind with the youth in the tattered school uniform before her.

Body shape,

aura,

that suffocating physical oppression.

Everything matched.

Lin Qinghan stared at Su Chen, and within her eyes, which were usually as cold as ice, extremely complex waves were surging at this moment.

There was shock,

there was a desire to probe,

there was even a trace of a young girl's affection, hidden deep within her heart, which she herself had not yet noticed.

"You..."

Lin Qinghan bit her pale, bloodless lower lip.

Unable to suppress the tumultuous impulse in her heart any longer, her voice trembled slightly as she spoke softly, "Are you... the one from the wilderness..."

"Shh."

Before Lin Qinghan could finish her sentence,

Su Chen suddenly raised his right hand.

A slender index finger reached forward without warning.

Gently, it pressed against Lin Qinghan's cold, soft lips.

Lin Qinghan froze, her pupils dilating suddenly.

The words "Masked Shura" that were on the tip of her tongue were forced back down her throat by this slightly warm finger with its rough calluses.

Su Chen's deep, dark eyes looked directly into Lin Qinghan's slightly trembling eyes.

Their eyes met.

He offered no defense on this matter, nor did he make any attempt to cover it up with a denial.

Su Chen looked at her, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upward into a smile.

He did not move his finger away, but whispered in a voice that only the two of them could hear:

"Some things..."

"...can wait until we survive."

At this moment, Lin Qinghan's heart seemed to skip a beat.

Su Chen withdrew his finger.

He closed his eyes again, his tone returning to that unquestionable, absolute dominance:

"If you can survive and hold out until I wake up this time..."

"I will teach you."

Boom!

This brief promise,

to a martial fanatic like Lin Qinghan who dedicated her entire life to the martial path and had an ultimate pursuit of power,

was simply the most lethal poison in the world!

I will teach you.

Lin Qinghan felt a roaring in her mind, and an extremely unfamiliar, tingling sensation rushed straight to her cerebral cortex like an electric current from her lips, which had just been touched by Su Chen's fingertip.

In her eighteen years of life, no man had ever dared to speak to her in such a tone.

Yet, no man had ever been able to completely pierce through her Soul and will with a single sentence.

"Roar—!"

Below the ramp, the first 3rd Order Shadow Demon Wolf had already leapt onto the edge of the high ground, the sound of its foul, pouncing attack close at hand.

"Block it!" Jiang Feng's angry roar resounded.

The battle erupted.

Lin Qinghan did not say another word.

She took a deep look at Su Chen, who sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, as if she wanted to engrave this face, along with that silencing gesture, into her mind forever.

Then,

she stood up abruptly.

Her snowy hair, which had turned white due to overdrawing her life force, fluttered wildly in the foul wind of the wilderness.

Gripping the broken frost longsword with both hands, she walked toward the perilous front line without looking back.

"Don't die."

Lin Qinghan silently thought to herself.

She stepped onto the very front of the defensive line.

"Extreme Cold Ice Domain, open!"

The ice-blue aura of Absolute Zero erupted from her body once more. Though it was far inferior to her peak state, it still managed to freeze several pouncing wolves into ice sculptures.

In the very center of the defensive line,

behind everyone,

Su Chen blocked out all external perception.

The deafening roars of the beasts, the miserable screams of the students, and the metallic scraping of clashing weapons were all shut out of his Sea of Consciousness.

He opened the System panel.

"System, open the Consumables Section."

Facing this fatal Breakthrough with zero chance of survival,

Shura was finally about to reveal his ultimate trump card to the abyss.