96: Chapter 96: The Sword of Slaying is Drawn, a Shura Field in the Burial Mound

Lin Qi casually wiped the pile of black powder onto his pant leg.

He didn't look at Zhang Wei's face, which had turned pale with fright.

"Brother Qi, are you really going?"

Zhang Wei's voice trembled as he trotted down the corridor to keep up with Lin Qi's pace.

"The other party is a Second-Turn professional, and a Gold-Rank Deacon of the Shadow Guild at that."

"We could go to the school, or find Instructor Su; there's no need to go and throw your life away."

Lin Qi stopped and glanced at him sideways.

"Since they nailed the letter to the dormitory door, it means they have eyes inside the school."

"You can run, but you can't hide."

"Instead of waiting for them to poison our food in the cafeteria, it's better to cut off the source directly."

Zhang Wei swallowed hard, still wanting to persuade him otherwise.

"But..."

"There are no 'buts.' Go buy me two jin of spiced beef and a pot of strong liquor."

Lin Qi patted the karma cutter on his back.

"The blade has just been forged; I need to be well-fed to have the strength to test it."

Over the next three days, Lin Qi acted as if nothing had happened.

He still woke up at five every morning and ran fifty kilometers with a weighted pack on the track.

Then he went to the cafeteria to eat five people's worth of food, followed by spending the whole day in the Scripture Pavilion reading old-era martial arts notes.

Returning to the dormitory at night, he would sit cross-legged on the bed, circulating the wisp of True Qi in his Dantian.

That seed of True Qi was constantly compressing and rotating, its color becoming increasingly dense.

Elder Mo found him on the afternoon of the second day.

The old man didn't bring his thermos; he was carrying a silver-gray vest in his hand.

"Take this."

Elder Mo threw the vest onto the table, his tone blunt.

Lin Qi reached out to touch it; it felt cold and tough, as if woven from some kind of fine metal wire.

"Soft Hedgehog Armor?"

"In your dreams. That's a 'Spider Silk Lining' I brought out from the Abyss years ago."

Elder Mo pulled over a chair, sat down, and looked at Lin Qi.

"It can block backstabs from anyone below Third-Turn. Those rats from the Shadow Guild love stabbing people in the kidneys."

Lin Qi didn't stand on ceremony; he took off his shirt and put the lining on underneath.

"Thanks, old man."

"Don't thank me. If you die out there, who am I going to get to write my 'Detailed Explanation of Ancient Martial Arts Force Generation'?"

Elder Mo stood up and stopped when he reached the door.

"That Ghost Hand fellow used to be an assassin; he doesn't play by the rules of martial arts."

"If he challenges you to a duel, it's definitely because there are more people lying in ambush nearby."

Lin Qi nodded, continuing to wipe the karma cutter in his hand.

"I know."

"The more of them there are, the easier it is for me to kill them."

On the evening of the third day, Lin Qi's phone vibrated.

It was an anonymous text message, but one look at the tone and he knew who it was from.

"The military will seal off the perimeter of the Western Suburb Graveyard so civilians can't get close."

"But we won't interfere with what happens inside."

"If you survive, you are the calling card of Longya Academy; if you die, you are just a whetstone."

After reading the text, Lin Qi turned off his phone and tossed it onto the bed.

That woman, Instructor Su Qing, was as pragmatic as ever.

Midnight, Western Suburb Graveyard.

This place was shrouded in a persistent gray fog all year round, and the air reeked of rotting soil.

Scattered, withered bones were everywhere on the ground, making crisp snapping sounds when stepped on.

Lin Qi, carrying the massive karma cutter on his back, walked alone through the overgrown weeds.

His steps were steady; the distance of every stride seemed to have been measured with a ruler.

"Since you're all here, stop hiding."

Lin Qi stopped in front of a broken tombstone, his voice calm.

There was no response from the surrounding grass, only the rustling of wind through the leaves.

But he could feel at least a dozen gazes filled with murderous intent locked onto his vital joints.

He had experienced this feeling countless times in his past life.

It was the look of a hunter watching its prey.

Lin Qi continued walking forward.

When he stepped into the center of a clearing, the situation suddenly changed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three spots on the ground exploded without warning, sending soil flying.

Three black shadows emerged from underground, the short daggers in their hands shimmering with a ghostly green luster.

Their targets were very clear: they aimed respectively for Lin Qi's ankles, knees, and lower back.

This was a typical strategy for maiming limbs.

Lin Qi didn't even turn his head.

His right hand gripped the hilt on his back, the muscles on his arm bulging violently.

The karma cutter was unsheathed.

The black blade drew a massive semicircle in the air.

There were no flashy skill effects, only a suffocating sense of heavy oppression.

That was the absolute power of three hundred jin of meteoric iron combined with an explosion of True Qi.

Puchi!

The movements of the three assassins froze at that moment.

Their daggers were still half a foot away from Lin Qi, but that black door-sized blade had already swept across their waists.

The sturdy leather armor was like paper in front of the karma cutter.

The three bodies were severed in two simultaneously, blood gushing out and staining the withered grass on the ground red.

Lin Qi held the blade with one hand, the tip pointing diagonally at the ground.

"The first."

He shook the blood off the blade, his eyes filled with a chilling coldness.

He had pushed the power of this heavy weapon in a melee to the extreme.

One force overcomes ten techniques; in the face of absolute power, any technique appears pale.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A dense sound of breaking air rang out from the surrounding forest.

Countless poisonous arrows and tiny flying needles covered the area where Lin Qi was standing like raindrops.

Lin Qi's eyes narrowed slightly, and he began to wield the long blade in his hand.

The karma cutter felt as light as nothing in his hands, the dense sound of clashing forming a continuous stream.

Those lethal hidden weapons collided with the blade and were either deflected or shattered.

Within three meters around him, an impenetrable black wall was formed.

"Hiding in the shadows and shooting cold arrows, is that all the Shadow Guild is capable of?"

Lin Qi roared, his voice carrying far across the silent graveyard.

"Come out! Ghost Hand!"

"Your subordinates are all dead; it's your turn now!"

Following his roar, a figure slowly walked out of the darkness in the distance.

The person wore a wide black robe and a pale white skull mask on his face.

With every step he took, the surrounding temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.

That was the aura of a Peak Second-Turn expert, already vaguely touching the threshold of the Third-Turn.

"To be able to kill so many of my subordinates, you certainly have the capital to be arrogant."

Ghost Hand's voice was hoarse and unpleasant, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

"Lin Qi, you shouldn't have refused the guild's invitation."

"In this world, a Genius without a backing usually doesn't live long."

Lin Qi grinned, revealing a mouthful of stark white teeth.

"My backing is the blade in my hand."

"You talk too much. I'll take your head."

Ghost Hand sneered and extended his hands from his sleeves.

It was a pair of sharp claws with a metallic luster, with ghostly blue flames dancing at the fingertips.

"Then let's see whether your bones are hard, or my ghost claws are sharp!"

The battle was on the verge of breaking out.

Lin Qi could feel that this Ghost Hand was much harder to deal with than Li Qingxuan.

Li Qingxuan was a flower in a greenhouse, while the person in front of him was an evil spirit that had crawled out of a pile of dead bodies.

Just as the two were confronting each other, on an ancient tree at the edge of the graveyard.

Li Qingxuan was standing quietly on the treetop, his white trench coat flapping in the night wind.

He was also clutching an identical black envelope in his hand.

"Lin Qi, don't die too quickly."

"Your life can only be mine."

A complex emotion flashed in Li Qingxuan's eyes; he had no intention of interfering, he was just waiting for a result.

At this moment, Ghost Hand had turned into an afterimage, lunging at Lin Qi with a shrill whistle.

Lin Qi didn't retreat but advanced instead, the karma cutter in his hand slashing down fiercely with the momentum to split a mountain.

The two forces collided, and the surrounding tombstones shattered one after another.