Zhao Zonghan clutched his sunken, deformed chest, scrambling backward on all fours, his voice completely distorted:
“You... you can't touch me! I'm the one who tipped you off! I'm a hero!!”
Jiang Ye looked down at him from above, staring at him like he was an idiot:
“Do you actually believe that nonsense yourself?”
“I'll give you one last line. Tell me the whereabouts of the white wolf, or you can go ahead and die.”
Zhao Zonghan's pupils shook with terror.
He actually even knew about the "white wolf"?!
This was the ultimate secret among secrets.
The thought of making up a lie to buy time had just crossed his mind when everything above him went dark.
The Meteorite Greatsword was already raised high.
Scared out of his wits, Zhao Zonghan blurted out in a shriek:
“I'll talk! I'll talk! Lord White Wolf... no! I really don't know where that beast is! We usually only contact the werewolf, we never get to see it at all!!”
Jiang Ye's brow furrowed slightly.
Bang!!
The greatsword slammed down violently, instantly crushing Zhao Zonghan's right femur into splinters!
“Aaaaaargh!!”
The agonizing pain of his marrow tearing apart made Zhao Zonghan curl up like a shrimp, thrashing wildly on the ground:
“I... I really don't know!”
In his mind, watching this scene, Bai Zhirou felt incredibly vindicated! These beasts deserved to die ten thousand times over!
Suddenly, Bai Zhirou's body trembled slightly as she took back control of her character.
Her hand holding the greatsword trembled imperceptibly as she stood frozen in place.
Jiang Ye's lazy voice echoed in her mind:
“I'm tired, I'm tired. Xiao Bai, you play for a bit.”
Bai Zhirou's heart warmed.
She slowly lowered her head. The usual timidity faded from her eyes, leaving only a bone-chilling coldness.
Carrying the heavy greatsword, the young girl walked step by step to the side of Zhao Zonghan, who was still screaming and twitching on the ground, her gaze falling upon his intact left leg.
The greatsword was slowly raised.
Looking at the girl's icy face, terror flooded Zhao Zonghan's heart:
“No... please, no...”
Bang!!
Dirt splattered.
His left leg was once again reduced to a pixelated blur.
“Aaagh!!”
Bai Zhirou took a deep breath and whispered in her heart:
“This strike is for Senior Sister Qin.”
With an expressionless face, she swung the greatsword once more, aiming at Zhao Zonghan's ribs.
Boom!
“This strike is for Senior Sister Qi.”
Boom!
“This strike is for Senior Brother Gu.”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Heavy, dull impacts echoed one after another across the wilderness.
“This strike... is for the deceased villagers of Baishui Village!”
In the crater of shattered stone, Zhao Zonghan's body had long since devolved into faint, involuntary twitching.
He had completely dissolved into a massive puddle of mangled flesh and bone, deeply sunken into the mud, deader than dead.
Standing not far away, the corners of Gu Qingxue and Ye Jinghong's eyes twitched wildly.
The two silently exchanged a glance, the exact same thought rising in their minds:
As they say, you might get a name wrong, but never a nickname.
Her second personality truly lives up to the name "White Slaughterer."
Bai Zhirou frowned slightly.
It wasn't because she felt soft-hearted seeing this scene, but rather because she was frustrated to find that before she had even gotten halfway through the long list of names in her mind, this guy had already fallen apart and stopped breathing.
He really couldn't take a beating.
The surrounding circle of kneeling Beast-Taming Peak disciples stared at that pixelated blur, their teeth chattering uncontrollably. Many of them were so terrified they practically wet their diapers.
In her mind, seeing that Bai Zhirou was done venting, Jiang Ye decisively logged back in.
Time to get down to business.
Stepping over the rubble, Jiang Ye leisurely walked up to the white-furred werewolf.
The greatsword hovered right over the werewolf's crown, the pressure dialed up to the maximum.
He said in a flat tone:
“Where is the white wolf? You only have one sentence.”
The werewolf swallowed a mouthful of bloody spit, his eyes filled with a frantic desire to survive:
“I... I'll talk! But you must promise to spare my life!”
Jiang Ye nodded perfunctorily:
“Suuuure.”
Gritting his teeth, the werewolf spoke at breakneck speed:
“Lord White Wolf was in a cave ten li to the west just now! But I just sent a warning signal, so there's a very high probability it has already fled!”
Jiang Ye's eyes narrowed slightly, his tone turning cold:
“Then you can go ahead and die now.”
“Don't! Wait!!” the werewolf shrieked in terror. “It won't go far! If the Lord senses danger, it will very likely go to harvest the Taisui ahead of schedule!”
Jiang Ye's eyes focused as he countered with a question:
“The Taisui can be harvested even if its nine apertures aren't open?”
The werewolf's eyes went wide as he gasped:
“How... how do you even know about the Taisui opening its nine apertures?!”
Seeing Jiang Ye's increasingly dangerous gaze, the werewolf shuddered all over and quickly spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube:
“Opening the nine apertures means perfect maturity! But as long as one has the secret technique's mark, an immature Taisui can also be dug up early, though it will severely deplete its vitality!”
Jiang Ye had obtained the key information.
The corner of his mouth twitched:
“Alright, scram.”
“Remember, don't show your face in front of me again, or you will definitely die the next time we meet.”
The white-furred werewolf felt as if he had been granted a divine amnesty.
Bursting with an intense desire to live, he dragged his legs—which had been shredded by sword qi—and scrambled on all fours, crawling toward the depths of the dense forest.
In the rear, Gu Qingxue's delicate brows furrowed tightly. She was just about to speak up to warn him not to let the tiger return to the mountain...
Swish.
Jiang Ye's figure vanished into air.
Up ahead, the white-furred werewolf, who was just rejoicing at his narrow escape, suddenly slammed headfirst into a cold, hard piece of black iron.
Thud.
He looked up in bewilderment.
Meeting his eyes was that door-sized, pitch-black greatsword, along with the young girl's breathtakingly beautiful face, adorned with an innocent smile.
Jiang Ye blinked, his tone exceptionally sincere:
“You really have some massive guts.”
“I just let you go, and you dare to run right into me the very next second?”
The werewolf's pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, his scalp tingling with dread.
But in the next instant, his head stopped tingling—because his head was flying.
Pfft!
The wolf head, eyes wide with lingering resentment, rolled over a dozen meters across the muddy ground, slowly coming to a halt right by Gu Qingxue's foot.
The corner of Gu Qingxue's mouth twitched slightly.
Well.
In the end, I still estimated this "White Slaughterer's" bottom line way too high.
Watching Jiang Ye walk back with the greatsword slung over his shoulder.
Gu Qingxue tightened her grip on her sword. She still couldn't help but ask:
“Junior Sister Bai... could that force you used just now be... Grand Achievement sword intent??”
During the battle earlier, as a Golden Core cultivator, she had already sensed that terrifying sword intent enveloping "Bai Zhirou's" entire body.
Yet she still found it hard to believe, because it was simply too absurd.
It was as ridiculous as your roommate, whose aim in Valorant yesterday looked like they had Parkinson's, suddenly being possessed by a Radiant-tier player today and headshotting everyone in the lobby.
One had to know that even peerless geniuses of Sword Peak like Gu Qingxue and Ye Jinghong, who were already in the Golden Core Stage, still had their sword intent stuck at Minor Achievement.
Although they could constantly feel their sword intent slowly progressing, they could never break through that final barrier to take that next step.
Hearing this.
Even Ye Jinghong, who had been staring up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle trying to look profound, abruptly snapped his head around, his eyes burning as he stared at Jiang Ye.
Jiang Ye paused in his tracks.
Crap.
How was he supposed to know anything about Minor or Grand Achievement theories?
In the eyes of the Fourth Calamity, wasn't this stuff just something you got good at after killing enough things?
To summarize it in one sentence: It's nothing special, just practice.
But as a veteran player, could he say that?
Of course not! That would completely ruin his style!
Jiang Ye's brow furrowed, his expression hardening as his gaze instantly shifted to a world-weary mode. He began to make up a story on the spot:
“During the battle earlier... at the critical juncture of life and death, looking at the enemies all around, I only felt that I was too weak. To my very bones, I desperately yearned for power.”
He sighed, speaking in a melancholy tone:
“And then... I had an epiphany.”
The two stood in place, nodding thoughtfully in quick succession, looking completely enlightened.
Jiang Ye stared at them: “?”
No, seriously, guys?
Isn't this basically the equivalent of saying "a minute on stage takes sixty seconds of work"?
It's literally pure nonsense literature, isn't it?!
What on earth did you guys read into that, hey?!
...
Rate on N.U.
