99: Shadow traps to lure enemies in

With the dull roar of hydraulics, the cracks in the ground were completely torn open.

A behemoth accompanied by gravel and dust slowly rose from underground, obscuring the dim yellow sun overhead.

It was the flagship of the Ghost.

Rather than a vehicle, it was more like a steel monster violently cobbled together from three heavy-duty trailers.

The body wasn't painted with ordinary metal, but covered in layers of mutant biological cuticles resembling lizard skin; the joints were forcibly fixed with thick rivets and bones, and black grease was still seeping out.

Situ Xue stood atop the ramming horn—polished from the skull of a Tyrant Zombie—at the front of the vehicle, looking down at Su Chen like an ant.

With his appearance, a strong smell of sulfur mixed with the pungent scent of formalin instantly overwhelmed the surrounding smell of blood.

"This old monster's stench is really overpowering."

Su Chen complained in his heart, but his hands didn't stop moving.

He hooked his fingers slightly behind his back, manipulating the bus's control core.

Buzz—Clack!

The bus engine, which had been running with a low hum, suddenly let out a wail like an asthmatic patient taking their last breath.

Immediately after, the already dim lights inside the vehicle flickered twice and went out completely.

The entire Doomsday Fortress instantly turned into a lifeless iron coffin.

"Damn it, it's breaking down at the critical moment?"

Lin Mengyao looked up at Su Chen in horror; half of this expression was acting, and the other half was shock at Su Chen's flashy operation—he had even simulated the sizzling sound of a short circuit.

Seeing this, the last trace of caution remaining on Situ Xue's face completely vanished.

In this post-apocalyptic world where energy was depleted, a vehicle losing power was equivalent to a tortoise being stripped of its shell.

"Keep him alive. That man's body structure is very special; I want a complete specimen."

"As for those women, take them back so the brothers can enjoy themselves."

Situ Xue waved his hand with a sinister grin, and over a dozen elite death soldiers in Exoskeleton Armor jumped down from both sides of the trailer.

He himself was like an elegant vampire, stepping with a strange hovering gait, approaching Su Chen unhurriedly.

Thirty meters.

Su Chen felt Lin Mengyao's fingers grabbing his arm tighten suddenly, her nails almost sinking into his flesh.

Twenty meters.

The elite death soldiers had already spread out, the net guns and electric spears in their hands flickering with blue light, sealing off all paths of retreat.

Ten meters.

Situ Xue stopped in his tracks, his bloodshot eyes greedily scanning Su Chen's body as if looking at a piece of premium marbled beef on a chopping block.

Now.

Deep within Su Chen's originally vacant and desperate pupils, they suddenly contracted into needle-sized golden points of light.

Talent—Yang God Internal Reflection, Reverse Output.

The vast sea of Yang Energy within his body was not used to strengthen his muscles; instead, it surged wildly through the meridians under his feet into the bus's chassis drive shaft, finally converging on the pressure relief valve that had long been loosened.

Directly beneath that valve was Zhao Zihao's corpse, which had been ignored since being kicked over there.

And hidden in the corpse's long-cold pocket was a pack of high-concentration alkaloid crystals that Su Chen had conveniently synthesized while scavenging supplies earlier.

Psh—Boom!

A blast of scalding high-pressure air instantly burst through the relief valve, precisely shattering that unstable pack of crystals.

The moment the originally colorless and odorless crystals came into contact with the Yang Energy heatwave, a violent chemical reaction occurred.

A cloud of eerie pink mist centered on Zhao Zihao's corpse, like a nuclear blast shockwave, instantly engulfed all space within a twenty-meter radius.

This mist came too fast and too fiercely, making it even harder to guard against than the poison arrows from before.

"What the hell is this?"

"Ah! My face! There are bugs on my face!"

"Don't bite me! Damn it, Zhang San, are you crazy? Why are you hacking at me!"

Within the pink mist, those originally well-trained elite death soldiers instantly lost their composure.

This alkaloid, mixed with Su Chen's Yang Energy, wasn't a directly lethal poison, but a most potent nerve hallucinogen.

In their vision, the comrades beside them instantly turned into life-claiming vengeful Ghosts, and even the slightest touch was misidentified by the brain as the agonizing pain of a thousand cuts.

Gunshots, screams, and the sound of blades entering flesh became a chaotic mess within the mist.

And at the center of this chaos, Su Chen, who had been half-kneeling on the ground, vanished into thin air like a phantom.

He held his breath, using the high temperature on the surface of his Yang God body to instantly evaporate a thin vacuum layer in the surrounding mist. His feet made no sound as he moved like a Ghost wandering the edge of purgatory, weaving through the gaps in the chaotic crowd.

Situ Xue was, after all, an Extraordinary-level expert. The moment the mist exploded, he immediately held his breath and retreated, a layer of dark red protective Blood Qi surging around him.

"Trivial tricks! Are these your last words?"

He roared, claws thrusting out, attempting to tear apart the mist before him.

But he swung at nothing.

A chill—no, more accurately, a scorching heat that made his very soul tremble—pressed against his back without warning.

Su Chen stood less than half a foot behind Situ Xue; he could even clearly see the rough stitched scar on the back of the old pervert's neck.

He didn't throw a punch, nor did he use a knife.

Su Chen slowly raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together.

The restless Yang Energy within his body was frantically compressed and refined, finally condensing into a point of almost materialized golden light at his fingertips.

This golden light had no temperature and no brightness; it was restrained to the extreme, yet contained a terrifying piercing power sufficient to penetrate steel plates.

This was the single-target killing move Su Chen had developed based on ancient martial arts pressure point techniques combined with his divine body's power—the Yang God Needle.

"If you had washed your neck a bit cleaner, I might have gone easier on you."

The moment the whisper sounded in Situ Xue's ear, Su Chen's two fingers had already struck out like a venomous snake's tongue.

Target: The gap in the nerve center between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.

Puchi.

The protective Blood Qi was instantly dissolved by that golden light like paper; Su Chen's fingers sliced into the flesh without hindrance, precisely wedging into that fatal bone gap.