Chapter 155 VS Great Completion Rank 2

After realizing that the enemy was at the Great Completion level, I was mentally prepared, knowing that this battle would likely be different from the past. If I were to carelessly take the opponent's attacks as before, even I estimated that I would actually bleed.

However, I was still a little stunned when I felt the pain.

It's not that I still think this battle will be easy. It's like watching a horror movie; even knowing there will be a scary scene later, I'm still terrified by the immersive visuals and music. This real pain caught me off guard. Since mastering the fire elemental form, I haven't felt such genuine pain.

I don't even know how to describe the feeling. The feeling of being punched in the face was like... like being punched in the face.

That's no nonsense. In my normal form, my pain sensation is mimicked; even if someone were to behead me, I could still detach myself and assess the excruciating pain. But in my fire elemental form, even the mimicry of pain is shut down, so theoretically, I shouldn't be able to feel any pain.

The pain I'm experiencing now feels like being slapped in the face, but I can't really pinpoint the source of the pain. After all, my skull has been shattered, and my face is gone too. I just feel pure, intense pain.

Perhaps this is the "pain of the soul." Zhu Shi once told me that as long as a demon hunter has a strong desire to attack the opponent's soul, their magic will possess the attribute of soul attack.

The soul attacks launched by the creator of the monster in the past were only based on the premise that "I am a master-level demon hunter with no soul defense." However, the soul attack launched by this master-level demon hunter is a true soul attack of this level, which is enough to kill another master-level demon hunter with normal soul defense.

No sooner said than done, seizing the moment when I was caught off guard, the Great Accomplishment Realm expert launched another attack in quick succession.

He clearly didn't think I would die from just having my head smashed; instead, he quickly turned around and delivered a spinning kick to my chest.

This kick was far more powerful than the punch before, like a cannon shoved into its barrel and launched me with a roar. The moment it fired, the earth trembled violently, a shockwave erupted, and white smoke billowed. His other leg, supporting his body, stomped the ground, making it resemble a turbulent sea, while my entire body was propelled away at supersonic speed, my vision blurring drastically.

A heavy, dull pain shot through my chest, and in the blink of an eye, I was thrown a kilometer away. Below me was no longer the edge of the city, but a highway leading to the suburbs, with many vehicles passing by.

I can still sense the space over the Zhu family mansion. The man who knocked me away crouched down, then his leg muscles exploded, launching himself towards me at more than twice the speed of sound.

It seems he won't rest until he kills me.

A fear of life and death arose within me, and this fear was precisely what I sought. Fear, a sense of crisis, the shadow of injury and death—all these things invigorated me. The long-awaited novelty surged forth in my aching, suffocating chest.

At the same time, I also had strong doubts in my mind.

—Who exactly is this person?

Aside from the Great Demon Silver Moon, I've never heard of the Zhu family having any enmity with any other Great Completion Realm expert, and the Great Demon Silver Moon is already dead. If there were any others, Old Master Zhu or Zhu Shi should have mentioned them to me long ago. We're still investigating the old Humanity Division's stronghold, and suddenly a Great Completion Realm expert has inexplicably "refreshed" here; it's truly baffling.

I just used my thermal senses to probe inside the ruins of the Zhu family mansion for any other traces of life, and there was nothing. Apart from Zhu Shi's grandmother, there was no other living person under those ruins. This is problematic no matter how you look at it, because Chang'an should be inside the Zhu family mansion right now. While not finding Chang'an's body was a relief, he shouldn't be gone no matter what.

It's quite normal that Old Master Zhu isn't here. He's been busy preparing to break the seal on the bloodline of the demons in Chang'an, traveling around collecting ritual materials, so he's basically never home. The last time I visited the Zhu family, he didn't come out from inside the iron gate, but approached us from the outside, which means he only returned after receiving a message from Zhu Shi.

Chang'an, however, was different. To allow him to focus on preparations for breaking the seal, and also to prevent him from getting involved in strange incidents outside, he was confined to the Zhu family residence. Moreover, the Zhu family had learned from his previous escape and were keeping a close watch on him, making it impossible for him to go outside.

The sudden disappearance of Chang'an, and the sudden appearance of a strange, highly skilled demon hunter—in the most outrageous possibility I can imagine, the tall, strong, highly skilled demon hunter I'm fighting now is the super demon hunter transformed from Chang'an after his demonic bloodline went out of control. Although his clothes and pants don't seem ill-fitting, many characters in fictional films and television shows inexplicably conjure new clothes after transforming…

Let's put aside this absurd assumption for now and consider a more realistic possibility. As far as I know, there is only one person at the Great Completion level who is still alive and has ties to the Zhu family.

—The Black Tortoise of the Navy.

Could he be the naval Xuanwu?

Even if I think at an incredibly high speed, time still passes slowly, and my opponent's speed is definitely not slow either. When I deduced this, he accelerated continuously, moving above me with lightning speed.

I focused my attention on him.

Since he'll dodge my attacks with his hands, I'll use my eyes. No matter how fast he is, he can't outrun my gaze in my fire elemental form.

However, my approach seems to have exposed my shortcomings once again.

Whether it's using an extended arm to capture an opponent alive or locking onto them with a gaze and setting them ablaze, these are skills I used frequently when targeting opponents far weaker than myself. They were invincible against the weak, but against the strong, they became nothing more than trivial tricks.

I immediately realized the problem—admittedly, I could spot him with my gaze, but I couldn't ignite him directly. Just like when I tried to probe the barrier around the Zhu family mansion, I couldn't focus my attention on him.

Focusing one's attention on a specific target is tantamount to transferring one's spirit onto that target. From a mystical perspective, this is a form of spiritual intrusion. His body, however, seemed to be enveloped in an invisible force field, keeping my intrusion at bay.

This force field that automatically rejects external spiritual intrusion is probably not some special spell, but simply because his body is filled with powerful magical energy.

I could try to force my way through this inviolable domain, just as I could crush the barrier of the Zhu family mansion with a single glance. Although the opponent's domain is indeed much more solid, I should only need a second to break through. However, this is a rapidly changing battlefield at the Great Completion level, and a second is far too long, leaving me no room for distraction.

In an instant, his leg slammed heavily onto my torso like a falling battle axe.

I was hit again, and it felt like I had transformed into a falling meteorite that crashed into the wasteland outside the highway. My body smashed through the ground and went deep, even penetrating dozens of meters underground.

According to basic physics, even if you accelerated the human body to more than ten times the speed of sound, it wouldn't actually send a person tens of meters underground. This phenomenon was due to the force acting on me. An invisible magical force, as if trying to completely corrode my body and soul, coiled around my entire body, attempting to cause continuous damage. This magical force also instantly disintegrated the external matter that came into contact with me. It felt like being doused with boiling water.

Flames erupted from my body, and the foreign magical power was blown away like shredded paper. In my perception, "Water Master Xuanwu" remained suspended in the air. I couldn't see how it flew; it's normal for a Great Completion level cultivator to fly.

Sparks danced around him; those were the "blood" he had shaken off me when he attacked me. In other words, they were "fireflies."

As soon as I had that thought, the "fireflies" in the sky suddenly expanded and turned into dozens of large fireballs.

At the same time, a look of surprise appeared on his face, and he immediately sprang into action, trying to escape the encirclement of the large fireballs.

In the blink of an eye, all the large fireballs exploded. Massive streams of flame, carried by the shockwave, surged and spread, transforming into a fiery "cloud" in the air.

Using the heat from the explosion, I teleported myself into the air, then surveyed the surrounding inferno. My attack method still needed improvement; I wasn't fast enough, and he escaped the epicenter first. Also—I must not have been mistaken—his expression changed before my "firefly" even had a chance to transform into a giant fireball. Was this a sixth sense?

He seemed to have entered a stealth mode. I could grasp his general direction, but I couldn't determine his exact location and distance. I simply dispersed the "fire clouds" obstructing my view and wanted to try judging by sight.

And just as the "fire clouds" dispersed, his figure appeared—I don't know when, he had already rushed in front of me, at close range.

His fist slammed down mercilessly, shattering my skull once more.

This time was different from the first; I deliberately let him hit me. As he threw his punch, I raised both hands, making a grabbing motion. His attention was immediately drawn to the movement of my hands. However, this was just a feint.

As he tried to back away, I caught the hand he had used to smash my skull.

The hand I'm extending is neither my left nor my right.

The cut in my neck has regenerated, and what has grown out is not a head, but a hand.

The hand gripped his wrist, and a single eye and mouth sprouted from the back of the hand.

I looked at him with my one eye.

"I've got you," I said.

His expression changed drastically.

(End of this chapter)