96: Chapter 96 The Black Sword is Drawn, One Man's Battle Against an Army

In mid-air, Su Chen steadily cradled Lin Qinghan's waist with one arm. Due to excessive blood loss and overdrawing her life force, the young girl in his arms was as light as a feather that might dissipate at any moment.

The sensation of weightlessness had vanished, replaced by an unprecedented sense of security.

Lin Qinghan leaned against Su Chen's solid chest. Through the tattered clothing, she could clearly hear that strong, steady heartbeat, which sounded like a war drum.

This sound completely shut out the roars of the surrounding beasts and the clamor of the battlefield.

She struggled to open her heavy eyelids.

What came into Lin Qinghan's view was a young profile, sharp-featured and exuding absolute determination and calmness.

"You… succeeded?"

Lin Qinghan looked at this face so close to her, her pale, cracked lips moving slightly. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's, her breath wispy, yet her tone carried a hint of undeniable relief at having survived a catastrophe.

Hearing the voice in his arms, Su Chen lowered his head slightly.

Those scarlet Two-Tomoe Sharingan gazed quietly at the stubborn girl in his arms, who had nearly exhausted all her life force to buy him time.

The violence and coldness toward the Abyss Cult in Su Chen's eyes quietly receded at this moment.

He looked at Lin Qinghan and nodded slightly.

"Mm."

Su Chen's voice was no longer hoarse; it had returned to its original, clear tone, calm and firm.

"You've worked hard."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the dense beast tide below, then looked back at Lin Qinghan.

"Leave the rest to me."

There was no impassioned guarantee, just these few plain words.

But to Lin Qinghan's ears, they were like a stabilizing needle, instantly steadying her crumbling Soul.

The nerve that Lin Qinghan had kept taut to the limit, ready to snap at any moment, finally relaxed completely at this instant.

She looked into Su Chen's deep blood-red eyes, and with great difficulty, the corners of her mouth curled up, outlining a beautiful and reassuring smile.

Afterward, she closed her eyes, her head lolled to the side, and she fell into a deep coma.

"Thud."

A very slight landing sound. Stepping with [Moonwalk], Su Chen, like a weightless leaf, landed steadily at the very front of the ruined highland.

The hundreds of surviving students around were all stunned, staring at him as if frozen in place. The crowd unconsciously retreated to the sides, clearing an open space.

He walked straight to the blood-covered Jiang Feng.

"Brother Chen…" Jiang Feng dragged a leg that had been broken by a Demon Bear, his voice trembling.

Su Chen knelt on one knee and placed the unconscious Lin Qinghan very carefully onto a clean stone slab beside Jiang Feng.

"Protect her." Su Chen looked up at Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng wiped the blood from his face fiercely, gripped the half-section of steel pipe on the ground with his only remaining right arm, and nodded heavily like a beast protecting its young: "Don't worry, Brother Chen! Anyone who wants to touch her today will have to step over my, Jiang Feng's, corpse!"

After settling Lin Qinghan, Su Chen slowly stood up.

He lowered his head and glanced at the clothes on his body. The originally black tactical combat suit had already been torn to shreds during the limit Breakthrough where he had forcibly compressed his Qi and blood and Haki into his bone marrow. The fabric was torn into strips, covered in mud, sweat, and the dark red blood that had seeped from his pores when he broke through his realm.

He crossed his hands and grabbed the two largest pieces of torn cloth on his chest.

"Riiiip—!"

A crisp tearing sound rang out. Su Chen suddenly spread his arms, completely ripping apart the tattered combat suit on his upper body!

The torn black fabric strips flew in the strong wind, scattering away.

Under the intense gaze of the thousands of surviving students behind him and the Cult Deacon in the air, Su Chen finally revealed that perfect torso, reshaped by the System in high dimensions and tempered thousands of times using Armament Haki as a millstone!

There were no exaggerated, bloated dead muscles like those of a bodybuilder. Every inch of his muscle lines presented an extremely smooth, streamlined aesthetic, like that of a cheetah. The eight-pack abs on his abdomen were like carved by a knife and axe, and the muscle groups on his shoulders and back emitted a faint trembling sound like a taut bowstring with his breathing.

Even just standing there quietly, this body exuded an explosive physical power like a nuclear bomb about to detonate, causing one's heart to skip a beat!

"This brat's Physical Body…" In mid-air, the Cult Deacon looked at Su Chen's bare upper body, his eyes twitching violently. From that physique, he felt a wild sense of oppression that was pure to the extreme.

"Boom—!"

Su Chen did not hold back in the slightest. The heaven-reaching Qi and blood of the Peak Third-Rank Martial Master Realm erupted from his body at this moment like a bursting river, without reservation!

Not only that, this blood-red Martial Master Protective Aura was mixed with that [Conqueror's Haki], which stood above all living things and viewed everything as ants!

The two forces intertwined, forming a terrifying dark-red pressure that radiated wildly in all directions with Su Chen as the center!

"Hum, hum, hum—" The air within ten meters of Su Chen was visibly distorted and rippled because it could not withstand this high-density energy compression! Under the anomaly of gravity, the rubble and blood on the ground even began to float upward slowly!

"Retreat! Retreat quickly!" Chen Fei and the others standing behind Su Chen were forced to retreat repeatedly by this unreasonable pressure; even breathing made their internal organs ache faintly. This was simply not an Aura that a high school student could possess!

"Playing god!" The Cult Deacon in the high air was enraged by this pressure, and he let out a hysterical roar: "So what if you forcibly broke through to the Peak of the Martial Master Realm! I have thousands of high-level beasts here! I can exhaust you to death! Tear him apart for me!"

"Roar—!" The beast tide below received the order and fell into madness once again. The dense Shadow Demon Wolves, Iron-Armored Steel-Bristled Beasts, and Earth-Splitting Demon Bears, like a black tsunami rolling backward, stepped on the corpses of their companions and scrambled to launch the final general attack on the highland.

Facing this sky-covering, tens of thousands of beast tides capable of instantly razing a city to the ground, Su Chen did not reach for his own bladeless iron saber. He bent down slightly, his gaze falling on the muddy water at his feet.

There, lying quietly, was a frost longsword broken into two pieces, its blade still stained with Lin Qinghan's blood.

Su Chen reached out his right hand and grasped the cold hilt. He slowly pulled the broken sword from the mud.

"Hum—" At the very moment Su Chen grasped the sword, a mysterious black substance, deep to the extreme and seemingly capable of swallowing even the surrounding light, poured out frantically from Su Chen's palm like boiling mercury!

[Armament Haki: Ryuo]!

The black Haki climbed up Su Chen's arm, instantly crawling onto the broken frost longsword, wrapping it tightly! Not only that, the Haki continued to extend and condense forward at the broken blade's edge, actually using solidified will to forcibly fill in the missing half of the blade!

The originally crystalline frost longsword, which emitted a cold Aura, transformed in an instant into a supreme "Black Sword" that was pitch-black as ink and radiated an endless Aura of silence and darkness!

"This…" Chen Fei leaned against a rock in the back, looking at the black sword that could even suck in light, his eyes wide open, his brain completely losing the ability to think.

Su Chen was shirtless, his muscles as hard as steel in the night wind. He held the black sword, which was still dripping with mud and blood, slanted in his right hand. Under the awe-filled gazes of the thousands of surviving students behind him, who were looking up as if at a god, Su Chen stood with his back to everyone. Facing the tens of thousands of violent, sky-covering beast tides rushing toward him like a tsunami, and facing the Martial Ancestor Realm Cult Deacon in the air, who was standing on a dragon skull and stunned by this Aura, Su Chen took a step forward.

"Step."

His tactical boots stepped into the blood-filled mud, making an extremely steady, dull sound. There was no fear. No hesitation. Just like that, carrying the black sword, he was alone. Facing the beast tide capable of crushing everything. One step, one step at a time. He walked forward.

"Since you like to bully the few with the many so much."

Su Chen slowly raised his head, those scarlet Two-Tomoe Sharingan acting like two lighthouses guiding to Hell in the darkness, coldly locking onto all living things.

"Then let me see."

"Whether your lives are tougher."

"Or if my sword is faster."

The moment his voice fell, a piercing sonic boom erupted from under Su Chen's feet. A black afterimage instantly tore through the vanguard of the beast tide. The one-man war against an army belonging to the Masked Asura had officially begun at this moment!