52: Chapter 52 I even wrote my last words, and you killed me with one blow?

An overwhelmingly domineering coercion surged from Lin Ye's palm, instantly spreading through his entire body along the meridians of his wrist.

The golden light of the Zhulong Divine Sense flashed across his body and vanished in an instant.

That bizarre force currently draining her vitality encountered its natural enemy and was instantly repelled.

Xu Zhiwei looked down at her gripped wrist, then raised her head to look at Lin Ye's unchanging profile.

Her earlobes flushed slightly, and she subconsciously wanted to pull her hand back, but Lin Ye's grip did not loosen.

To be more precise, the other party didn't notice her reaction at all; his entire attention was focused on the group of townspeople surrounding them.

"They..."

Xu Zhiwei quickly adjusted her expression, suppressing her unusual emotions. "Time miasma actively drains the vitality of living beings. The closer we get to the Bell and Drum Tower, the faster the extraction rate. My physical condition can support me going forward for at most three hundred meters before entering an irreversible state of aging."

"Then you wait here."

"No, Lu Zhanyou's order was to accompany you the entire way."

Xu Zhiwei's tone reverted to her usual cold, pedantic tune, but she did not pull her hand back.

The gathering townspeople had already formed an airtight encirclement.

Their footsteps were still moving forward. With every step they took, the smiles on their faces distorted by a fraction. What was originally just a stiff smile had now turned into a kind of exhilaration bordering on the edge of madness.

"Away go, away go, away go..."

The reversed sound turned into a chorus, echoing these words down the entire street. The pitch surged upstream from low to high, piercing people's eardrums with pain.

The little girl with braided pigtails squeezed to the front, raised her face to reveal a brilliant smile, "...yppaev yppaev yppaev..."

Seeing this, Lin Ye did something that surprised Xu Zhiwei.

He made a move that surprised Xu Zhiwei.

He reached out and gently pressed his hand onto the little girl's head.

The Zhulong Divine Sense seeped into the little girl's spiritual body through his palm. Under the oppression of the Zhulong's power, the temporal-attribute miasma controlling her to repeat fragments of her lifetime let out a weak hiss.

The next second.

The smile on the little girl's face cracked.

Like a mirror struck by a stone, starting from the smile lines, cracks spread across her entire face.

After the smile shattered, the true expression underneath was revealed.

Her lips trembled violently, large tears welled up in her eyes, her nose scrunched up, and her entire face twisted and deformed due to extreme pain.

"Older brother, it hurts so much."

She was no longer speaking backwards; her voice had returned to normal.

Squeezing a crying tone from the depths of her throat, she said, "I don't know what's wrong with me, my body is out of control... I want to leave, I want to leave this place, but I can't leave. I repeat that day's events every single day, I want so badly to stop, older brother, please help me..."

She raised a pair of tearful eyes, her gaze filled with scorching pain.

Xu Zhiwei abruptly took half a step back, her back slamming against the stone wall by the street.

A chill surged up her back.

"They aren't illusions... They are wandering souls trapped here!"

"Two years ago, Qiaotou Town suffered an attack from a ghost domain, and all 3,700 people perished. Their wandering souls were locked on the day of their death by the ghost domain's temporal-attribute miasma, endlessly repeating reversed fragments of their lives before death. Their consciousnesses have been tortured for a full two years, and they still haven't dissipated until now... Not only are they dead, but their souls are being repeatedly squeezed as an energy supply source."

She looked at the other townspeople on the street.

The vegetable vendor's mouth split all the way to his earlobes, but the corners of his eyes were twitching.

The tea shop owner's smile became increasingly exaggerated, but his hand holding the teapot was trembling violently, veins bulging one by one.

The sturdy water-carrying man smiled like the chubby baby in a New Year painting, but black liquid seeped out from the gaps of his tightly clenched teeth.

A smile hung on every single person's face.

Tears were flowing in every single person's eyes.

Lin Ye raised his head, his vision sweeping across the entire street.

In his psionic perception, the temporal-attribute miasma inside these townspeople was like a dense spiderweb, with every single thread connecting to the core of their spiritual bodies, while the other end converged toward the Bell and Drum Tower at the end of the street.

The miasma drove their spiritual bodies to repeat the fragments before death, and with the repetition of each fragment, a faint wave of emotional energy was generated.

Fear, pain, despair...

These energies flowed along the spiderweb toward the Bell and Drum Tower, converging into something slumbering underground.

To have even the very last drop of emotion squeezed dry even after death.

The thing inside this ghost domain was even more disgusting than a demon seed.

Lin Ye withdrew his hand and gently patted the little girl twice on top of her head.

"Don't be afraid."

He straightened his posture, his gaze sweeping over the hundreds of wandering souls along the entire street.

In his voice, every single word carried the lingering charm of the Human Emperors Coercion, echoing down the street.

"You all fell victim to evil entities, and even after death remain trapped in this place, suffering endless torment. Today, I, Lin Ye, have arrived here to help grant you all release."

The movements of the townspeople all came to a complete standstill.

"May you all find peace in your next lives."

As the very last word fell, the Human Emperors Coercion within Lin Ye erupted without reservation.

Golden light ripples radiated outward in all directions with him at the center. Wherever the light ripples passed, those miasmic spiderwebs connected to the cores of the wandering souls shattered inch by inch.

Before the black miasma had time to escape, it was evaporated into white smoke by the golden light.

The vegetable vendor was the first to fall.

His body began to disintegrate in the process of falling, turning into fine points of light starting from the soles of his feet.

The smile on his face finally disappeared, replaced by a serenity that was weary to the bone.

Then came the tea shop owner, who released the teapot he had held for a lifetime.

His lips moved without making a sound, but based on the lip movements, Xu Zhiwei vaguely discerned that he said... Thank you?

The sturdy water-carrying man pressed his palms together in a salute, lowered his head slightly toward Lin Ye's direction, and then scattered with a loud bang.

The old woman making shoe soles put down her needle and thread, revealing a kindly smile toward Lin Ye.

The little girl with braided pigtails tilted her face upward, tears still flowing, but she nodded at Lin Ye.

"Thank you, older brother."

The hundreds of wandering souls across the entire street, after being swept by the Human Emperors Coercion, fell, disintegrated, and dissipated in large swaths.

Hundreds of fine pillars of light rose simultaneously, illuminating the entire dim ancient street as bright as day.

A few seconds later, the light pillars extinguished one by one.

The bluestone slab road became completely empty.

Xu Zhiwei stood in place, remaining silent for a long time. To be exact, the scene before her eyes exceeded her cognition!

She had seen too many ways trial-takers used to kill evil entities.

Crushing them with spiritual power, slashing them with weapons, and suppressing them with sealing arts.

Every single one of them carried violence, aggressiveness, and hostility.

She had never seen this kind of method...

"What was that just now?"

She swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"It's nothing. Urgent matters come first."

Lin Ye looked around and did not explain.

"Alright..."

She looked at the empty street, and a moment later took off her glasses, bowing deeply toward the direction where the crowd had dissipated.

...

The closer they got to the Bell and Drum Tower, the more bizarre the surrounding scenery became.

On the bluestone slab road, one slab was brand new, while the one right next to it was weathered and pitted.

On the exact same tree, half of the crown was sprouting buds, while the other half was shedding leaves.

The air was permeated with an indescribable sense of disorder.

Xu Zhiwei closely followed behind Lin Ye. A line of red warnings popped up on the tablet screen: Environmental parameters exceed safety thresholds, evacuation is recommended immediately!

"There are living people ahead!"

Suddenly, she quickened her pace to catch up to Lin Ye's side. "There are five signals ahead!"

Lin Ye's perception had already locked onto a side hall on the ground floor of the Bell and Drum Tower.

Inside was a temporal-attribute miasma far more concentrated than the outer perimeter by a thousand, or even a hundred times.

Xu Zhiwei rushed in first, her entire body freezing at the doorway.

The side hall was roughly thirty to forty square meters. Originally, it should have been the incense hall of the Bell and Drum Tower, enshrining a clay divine statue that had long since been damaged.

And now, lying haphazardly at the feet of the divine statue were five people—four men and one woman, all wearing the uniform dark blue rescue team outfits.

Their postures varied, but their expressions were astonishingly consistent.

Their eyes were wide open, their pupils dilated to the maximum, their lips cyanotic, and their facial muscles twisted into the exact same face due to extreme fear.

"They are people from the rescue team, the batch that lost contact!"

Xu Zhiwei squatted down to check one of their pulses. "Skin temperature is rapidly dropping, but the heartbeat is still there. No, the frequency of the heartbeat is wrong."

The heart rate monitor on the tablet showed that the heart rates of these people were fluctuating drastically.

One second ago their heartbeat was once per second, the next it became once every three seconds, and after that it became once every fraction of a second.

"Their hearts, lungs, and brains are all existing in different time flow rates."

Xu Zhiwei's voice sounded somewhat hoarse. "The blood flows at a normal rate in the left atrium, but slows down sevenfold once it flows into the right ventricle. The speed at which neurons transmit a signal to the brain is twenty times slower than normal. Their consciousnesses are trapped in whichever organ has the slowest time flow rate, and simply cannot transmit out."

She suddenly felt a stinging sensation on her skin.

The miasma of this ghost domain had already begun to penetrate her protective barrier.

"You're quite professional; you can even tell this much."

Lin Ye was somewhat surprised.

"You gain experience after going through a lot, and besides, don't underestimate our reconnaissance devices."

Xu Zhiwei suddenly took out a palm-sized black device from the tactical pouch at her waist.

That was the emergency recorder issued by the Demon Suppression Division.

"Xu Zhiwei, serial number BQ-0387, Deputy Leader of the Intelligence Analysis Group of the Northern Town Demon Department. Time calibration has failed, roughly around the fortieth minute after entering the ghost domain. Mission executor Lin Ye and I have arrived at the core area of the Qiaotou Town Bell and Drum Tower. The five lost members of the rescue team have been found; all of them have suffered deep jet-lag injuries, and the possibility of treatment is zero."

Her tone was as flat as if she were reading someone else's obituary.

"My estimated survival probability does not exceed five percent. Please hand this record over to Lu Zhanyou, and it is recommended to seal off the Qiaotou Town ghost domain, prohibiting any trial-takers below four stars from entering. Also, I voluntarily give up my pension application, donating it instead to the provincial capital defense line logistics group; they need this money more than I do."

She put the recorder back into the tactical pouch, then took out her phone to send a message home.

Then she set her phone to silent and drew the short blade at her waist.

"Lin Ye, I won't hold you back."

She took a deep breath. "At least before you find the core of the ghost domain, I can help you block one round of attacks. Although my combat rating is not as high as my intelligence analysis rating, a three-star peak can still manage to block a fatal injury once."

After saying these words, she suddenly realized something was wrong—why didn't Lin Ye have a shred of crisis awareness?

She turned her head to look.

Lin Ye was walking past her side, his footsteps unhurried, just like taking a stroll in his own backyard.

There was no fear on his face, no hesitation, and not even the kind of tension one ought to have when facing a formidable enemy.

"Lin Ye?"

Xu Zhiwei wanted to call out to him, but the words were swallowed back before they left her mouth.

Because the side hall began to shake violently.

The clay divine statue cracked open from the top of its head, gushing out dense black miasma.

The miasma condensed, twisted, and expanded in mid-air, turning in the blink of an eye into a writhing dark red flesh aggregate.

Immediately afterward, countless arms stretched out from the surface of the flesh.

The backs of the hands faced upward, and the palms faced downward; right in the center of each palm grew an eyeball.

The eyeballs rotated simultaneously, all focusing uniformly on Lin Ye.

"Time... Time..."

A hoarse voice resounded from deep within the flesh core, "Your time... belongs to me..."

Xu Zhiwei looked at the back of her hand, where wrinkles were growing on her skin at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Her hair began to turn white; in the span of just three breaths, the whiteness spread all the way to her hair roots.

"Damn it, that guy is playing for real!"

She clenched her teeth tightly, making a cut on the palm of her left hand with her short blade, trying to use pain to stay awake. "Lin Ye, whatever you're going to do, hurry up! I can still help you right now, I feel like I won't last much longer..."

Just as her voice fell.

Golden light lit up from Lin Ye's body.

The zhulong staff condensed and formed in his hand, and the dragon scale patterns on the staff body were more solid than ever before.

The golden color carried a faint layer of earthy-yellow halo.

The aura of the Origin of Houtu and the golden light of the Zhulong Divine Sense blended together!

"Lin Ye, you..."

Xu Zhiwei had only uttered a few words.

The zhulong staff swung out with a single strike, the staff wind whistling as it smashed directly into the center of the flesh core.

A sickening sound rang out.

The flesh core was smashed into a half-meter-deep depression, and the eyeball that was hit exploded into a mass of black paste, but it did not damage its foundation.

This avatar of the ghost domain was far too bizarre compared to ordinary evil entities, able to rapidly reshape its flesh even after taking a zhulong staff strike head-on.

Xu Zhiwei staggered forward a step, her legs already unstable, but she gritted her teeth and persisted.

Preparing to pounce forward at any moment to block the damage.

Then, she saw Lin Ye clench his right hand into the empty air.

The entire world went quiet!

Those eyeballs currently draining vitality stopped rotating.

Xu Zhiwei felt the invisible shackles pressing down on her suddenly loosen.

She watched wide-eyed as Lin Ye's figure flashed three times around that flesh core.

The first staff strike smashed into the top of the core, shattering over a hundred eyeballs simultaneously.

The second staff strike swept horizontally across the side, cleanly severing all those arms stretching out from the flesh surface.

The third staff strike scooped upward from bottom to top, lifting the entire flesh core off the ground and into the air!

After finishing the three staff strikes, time returned to normal.

The flesh core let out an extremely piercing hiss; all the eyeballs burst simultaneously, its arms danced wildly, and black mucus gushed out from every wound like a fountain.

Until its death, it never figured out what had happened just now.

Because in its time perception, Lin Ye's attacks were instantaneous teleports!

"？？？？？"

Xu Zhiwei thought she was hallucinating.

Had time really stopped for just a split second just now?!

At the same time, a fist-sized dark red crystal core rolled out from the debris of the flesh core.

Inside the crystal core, smoke-and-mist-like dark light churned.

It emitted an extremely dense temporal-attribute origin aura.

The zhulong seal on Lin Ye's wrist didn't even wait for him to activate it before voluntarily shooting out a golden light to wrap around that crystal core.

With a speed that could almost be described as "wolfing it down", it sucked the temporal-attribute origin inside the crystal core completely clean.

The moment the crystal core shattered into powder, the golden vortex of Temporal Divine Power in Lin Ye's dantian violently expanded by a notch.

Expanding from its original fist-size to the size of a bowl mouth, its rotation speed skyrocketed, causing his entire dantian to vibrate slightly.

Lin Ye closed his eyes to feel it, then opened them.

"Three seconds?"

Previously, his full effort could only achieve two seconds of time-stop, but now, it was a full second more than before!

Do not underestimate this one second.

In the domain of the Temporal Law, even a single second was an extremely terrifying metamorphosis and improvement!

Lin Ye looked down at the zhulong seal on his wrist, which had lit up by another notch.

Behind the dragon body, the outlines of its two front claws had completely manifested, and even the outline of the dragon head was faintly beginning to emerge within the shadows.

Just the slightest bit more, and he would be able to break through to the third stage!