Before leaving Moth Port, Ryan stood on a giant boulder at the highest point of the oasis, looking down once more at this vast and eerie region.
However, Ryan keenly noticed a few details—
The clear streams at the edge of the oasis seemed to be flowing slightly faster than when he had first entered; the edges of the tall palm leaves were faintly exuding a dim, blackish shimmer; and in the black soil at the very core of the oasis, something massive seemed to be sprouting at an agonizingly slow pace...
Moth Port itself also seemed to be undergoing some irreversible change.
Ryan withdrew his gaze, lingered no longer, and decisively disconnected from the dream.
...
The heart of the grassland under the cover of night was dead silent.
Half-human-tall, semi-dry weeds surged violently in the night wind, producing a continuous rustling sound like the tide. The distant horizon was completely dead, with only extremely sparse starlight falling upon this desolate and vast land.
Traveling by day and finding a windward clay slope to rest at night—this was the simple routine Ryan had maintained since leaving the secret realm with Lucia.
Wrapped in an old blanket, Lucia leaned against a weathered gray boulder, tightly clutching the dry wood wrapped in coarse cloth. Days of continuous travel had left her exhausted, and she now sat with her eyes closed, her small head nodding off as she dozed.
Ryan, who was shaving a hardwood branch with his scalpel, suddenly stopped his movements.
A sharpened wood shaving clung to the tip of the blade, suspended in midair.
In that instant, deep within the pupil of Ryan's left eye, an extremely faint yet incredibly pure golden shimmer quietly lit up.
【Lantern】 opened.
The originally pitch-black and chaotic world was forcibly pulled apart and peeled away in Ryan's vision and intellect.
The trajectories of air currents, the angles of broken grass blades, the faint frequencies of ground vibrations... all the chaotic physical data instantly transformed into clear, distinct lines. Four kilometers away, the air was being violently torn apart by some high-speed moving objects, and seven tiny air shockwaves were advancing in a straight line toward this camp.
Immediately after, the perception of 【Moth】 quietly spread backward along the waves of grass.
This was a power belonging to 【Moth】—it was the moth in the wood, the shedder of the glade, representing shearing, shedding, illusion, and mercurial change.
Within 【Moth's】 sensory web, seven spiritual light points were incredibly dazzling. Fanatical, foul-smelling, and thick, accompanied by violent heartbeats like drumming, a surging life force coursed wildly through the blood vessels in their bodies—this was the eternal pulsation belonging to 【Heart】.
Ryan did not make a single sound.
With a flick of his wrist, he drove the shaved wooden branch into the soil and stood up.
He walked over to Lucia, bent down, and pressed his cold fingers very lightly against the girl's shoulder.
Lucia opened her eyes groggily. “Teacher...?”
“Go to the hollow ahead,” Ryan said, his voice low as if stating an established fact. “Keep your back turned to this place. Without my command, do not look back, do not stand up, and do not make a sound.”
Lucia read something from Ryan's calm, almost cold gaze. The color instantly drained from her small face. Without a shred of hesitation or questioning, she tightly clutched the old blanket and dry wood in her arms, hunched her back, and quickly ran to a low-lying grassy pit thirty paces away, curling herself up inside.
Ryan withdrew his gaze.
Standing in the shadow beside the giant boulder, he pressed the hilt of the scalpel at his waist and proceeded to button up his trench coat one by one.
The corner of Ryan's mouth curved into an imperceptible, cold arc as the power of 【Moth】 quietly flowed around him.
The moment the night wind blew through the waves of grass, Ryan's figure "dislocated" in place in a chaotic fashion—only a blurry silhouette of a residual shadow remained in the air, while his true body, like a shed skin, quietly merged into the endless night, actively heading out to meet the seven violent presences.
...
Fifteen hundred meters from the camp, a wide, low-lying grassy meadow.
The fanaticism of 【Heart】 surged in the air.
On the skin of the seven pursuing tribesmen, dark red blood vessels wriggled like earthworms. Their chests heaved violently, and they let out heavy, beast-like gasps.
The Heart-aspected tribesman on the far left was as agile as a leopard. His feet trod on the wet, soft mud, kicking up half-foot-high mud splatters with every step.
Suddenly.
Out of the grass in front of him, a figure clad in a brown trench coat shot straight out without warning!
The Heart-aspected tribesman roared violently. The power of 【Heart】 inside him suddenly exploded, and his fist, as large as a clay pot, brought with it a whistling wind as it slammed heavily into the figure's chest!
Pfft!
There was no solid feeling of crushing bone and flesh, nor was there any splashing of blood.
The "Ryan" struck by his fist actually tore apart with a loud rip, like a dried cicada slough! The trench coat and linen fabric disintegrated in the air, turning into a flurry of withered yellow grass debris and illusory, shed moth skins!
In the thousandth of a second when the Heart-aspected tribesman's old strength was spent and his new strength had not yet gathered, the real Ryan had already folded his body silently, pressing close from the absolute blind spot of his left rear!
【Lantern】 locked onto the weakest gap where the opponent's cervical vertebrae connected to the skull.
The steel scalpel stabbed in from the rear-flank with absolute precision!
Crack!
With a twist and a pull of the sharp blade along the gap in the bone, the spinal cord and artery were severed in a single stroke.
Blood sprayed wildly, and the tribesman collapsed heavily onto the muddy ground before he could even let out a scream. The moment Ryan used the momentum to spring back, he grabbed the corpse's collar and pushed it forward, using it as a shield to block the view of those behind.
“He's on the flank! That wasn't his real body! Watch out!!”
The tribesmen from behind roared as they closed in.
In the shadows, one illusory figure after another glided through the waves of grass, shifting left and right, continuously deceiving the fanatics' instincts; yet the real Ryan, with every appearance, was inevitably accompanied by the dull sound of a steel blade tearing through flesh and windpipes.
Pfft! Pfft!
Two more muffled thuds of falling bodies echoed.
The other two Heart-aspected tribesmen did not even have time to organize an effective counterattack before collapsing into limp heaps under Ryan's precise strikes. The cracking of their severed cervical vertebrae was perfectly masked by the rustling of the wild wind blowing through the grass.
“Roar—!!”
The remaining four Heart-aspected tribesmen were thoroughly enraged.
The power of 【Heart】 burned violently inside them. Three tribesmen lunged forward in a triangular formation, the bone spears and stone axes in their hands bringing about sharp, wind-breaking sounds as their violent, dark red spirituality wove a dense, inescapable iron net of death in the air!
Faced with the combined crushing force of the three, the golden light deep within Ryan's pupils flared brilliantly.
The first was on the left, sweeping with a bone spear; the second was directly in front, hacking with a stone axe; the third was to the right-rear, attempting a stealthy flank attack.
In this desperate situation where three fatal killing intents intertwined to block all paths of retreat, Ryan's eyes narrowed slightly, and the spirituality surrounding his body completely transformed into the frantic disorder of 【Moth】.
【Moth】 was cutting, tearing, and irregular leaps.
His body bent in the air at an extremely bizarre angle impossible for a normal human, his bones letting out a tooth-gritting, soft cracking sound. He seemed to transform into a moth weaving through the gaps of a hurricane, brushing past the edge of the descending stone axe!
Boom!
The stone axe slammed heavily into the muddy ground, smashing out a half-meter-deep pit.
Yet Ryan had already slipped into the tribesman's embrace.
His left hand formed a claw. The spirituality of 【Moth】 attached to his fingertips and transformed into 【Edge】, as he ruthlessly struck a palm directly into the center of the opponent's chest!
Pfft—!
The tribesman's eyes bulged wildly, blood spraying from the corners of his eyes and eardrums simultaneously! His massive heart instantly exploded into shredded meat inside his chest cavity!
Using the momentum to leap into the air, Ryan stepped on the man's shoulders and flipped. In the instant he spun half a turn in midair, the scalpel in his right hand flew from his grip!
Shoosh—!
The steel scalpel pierced through the night, precisely driving into the eye socket of the attacker from the right-rear, sinking all the way to the hilt!
The fourth and fifth had fallen simultaneously!
From the very beginning, this counter-hunt involved no probing and not a single wasted word; there was only the absolute calculation of 【Lantern】 and the unpredictable changes of 【Moth】.
Less than a minute had passed.
Five Heart-aspected tribesmen lay dead across the meadow, their blood staining the half-human-tall weeds a shiny, dark black.
The remaining two stopped in their tracks.
The fingers of one of them holding a bone spear trembled violently, while the other was the young hunter whose face was painted with dark green sap.
The young hunter stared dead-on at Ryan as he slowly stepped out from the blood mist.
At this moment, Ryan's trench coat was neat, and his breathing was as steady as if he had just finished a stroll. Only the golden light flowing deep within his left eye and the faint spiritual mist rising around him indicated that he had just completed a clean, swift slaughter.
“You... you used a heretical transformation... You are not human...”
The young hunter growled in stiff, ancient syllables. He bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of highly toxic and spiritual dark red blood onto the bone spear before his chest!
Buzz!!
The power of 【Heart】 exploded within his body exponentially! The young hunter's eyes instantly turned a pure, blood red, the blood vessels on the surface of his skin tore completely open, and blood mixed with violent spirituality condensed around him into a crimson armor!
The other surviving tribesman was also inspired. Roaring, he thrust his bone spear into his own abdomen, forcibly squeezing out every last ounce of life force within his body to transform into a bolt of crimson lightning, leading the charge toward Ryan!
The final onslaught was explosive to the extreme!
The tribesman who sacrificed his life to extract power crossed the distance of dozens of meters in a mere instant. The bone spear in his hand brought forth a blood-red crescent several meters long, sweeping wildly toward Ryan's waist!
The young hunter followed closely behind, leaping over ten meters into the air. The bone spear in his hand was like a blood-red meteorite falling from the sky, crashing heavily toward the top of Ryan's head!
A dead-end strike!
Faced with this violent strike that consumed the entire life force of two Heart-aspected powerhouses, Ryan finally fully released the interwoven authority of 【Moth】 and 【Lantern】.
【Lantern】 illuminated all trajectories, while 【Moth】 deconstructed all laws.
Faced with the sweeping blood-red crescent, Ryan did not dodge. He took a half-step forward, and the space and light around him underwent an extremely distorted refraction across his body!
The blood-red crescent sliced heavily through Ryan's waist and abdomen!
However, what that blade sliced through was merely a refracted illusion and a shed-skin mirror image created by 【Moth】 within a thousandth of a second! The real Ryan had already shifted past three displacement points, appearing like a ghost beside his opponent!
Ryan pressed his left hand against the opponent's head, and the shearing and shedding power of 【Moth】 exploded violently!
Pfft!
A massive amount of blood sprayed from the tribesman's neck. His entire head and neural connections were instantly sheared off by the power of 【Moth】, and his large body collapsed heavily to the ground!
The sixth man was dead!
At the same time, the young hunter's heavy strike from the heavens slammed violently into the muddy ground!
Boom—!!!
A terrifying shockwave exploded out, sending soil and stones flying as muddy water splashed in all directions like torrential rain!
Amit the billowing smoke and mud dust, Ryan's figure stepped out from the empty space to the side.
Not a single speck of mud clung to the hem of his coat. He smoothly retrieved his steel scalpel from beside the sixth corpse.
The young hunter knelt on one knee in the center of the giant crater, the blood in his body almost entirely burned away, his skin presenting an extremely sickly, grayish-white color. He raised his head, staring fixedly at the approaching Ryan.
Ryan walked to a spot three paces away from the young hunter and stopped.
The golden light of 【Lantern】 flowed in his eyes, and the spiritual perception of 【Moth】 stripped away the young hunter's faintly remaining spiritual state completely.
“You... cannot kill them all...”
The young hunter spat out a mouthful of blood, his voice halting but carrying a hair-raising fanaticism. “【Heart】 is watching... you... She belongs to... 【Heart】...”
Ryan looked at him.
There was still no emotion in his eyes—no anger, no victor's pride, and not even any pity for the dead.
“It cannot see.”
Ryan said calmly.
In the next second, the scalpel transformed into a cold flash of light!
【Lantern】 locked onto the most absolute fatal spot, and 【Moth】 completely erased the sound of the wind and the trajectory of the blade's thrust.
The young hunter did not even manage to adopt a defensive posture before the steel blade pierced vertically beneath his jawbone, cleanly shattering his medulla oblongata!
The fanatical curse ground to an abrupt halt.
The young hunter's eyes remained wide open, the red light in them completely dispersing, leaving only turbidity and emptiness.
His body slumped forward, crashing heavily into the muddy water, devoid of any further breath of life.
...
The night wind howled.
The weeds covering the ground were stained dark red with blood, and seven corpses lay scattered in various bizarre and cold postures across this wide meadow.
Ryan stood in the center of the seven corpses.
He shook the blood off his scalpel, took out a clean handkerchief, and wiped the blade bit by bit until it was as bright as new, then slid it back into the leather sheath at his waist.
His breathing remained steady. This counter-hunt against seven powerful Heart-aspected extraordinary beings had taken less than three minutes from start to finish.
Ryan confirmed that there were no other living things or potential spiritual tracking marks around, then turned and walked toward the hollow thirty paces away.
“Come out.”
His faint voice carried in the night wind.
From the distant grassy pit, Lucia crawled out, her small hands trembling as she tightly clutched the old blanket and dry wood.
The girl kept her head down, her small face so pale it lacked any color. She did her best to control her gaze, not daring to steal a glance at the dark, viscous shadows and the source of the heavy stench of blood on the meadow to the side.
She walked to Ryan's side, her small hand subconsciously clutching the back hem of his trench coat.
Ryan's expression was no different from usual, and his tone remained low and steady:
“Wait for me nearby.”
With that, he turned and walked once more toward the meadow strewn with corpses.
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