348: Chapter 348 The Desperate Truth!

"Got you!"

Helan Que roared with manic laughter. His nerves stretched to their limit, he gave his opponent no room to breathe or counterattack. He surged forward, his entire body becoming like an out-of-control meat grinder, his storm-like assault instantly engulfing the other person.

"Sandstorm Bone-Crushing Fist!"

One punch! Two punches! Three punches!

His iron fists, coated in rough grit, slammed fiercely into the opponent's chest, shoulders, and cheeks.

The person opposite was clearly caught off guard by this sudden, frantic attack, unable to mount any effective defense.

Under Helan Que's suicidal combo, the other could only let out a few pained groans, body reeling backward, the crisp sound of ribs breaking audible.

"Why aren't you fighting back? Where's that spooky skill you had earlier? Use it!"

Helan Que grew more excited with each strike, his fear transmuting into sheer violence.

He launched a flying kick, a heavy whip-leg strike carrying immense force, slamming hard into the opponent's abdomen!

"Pffft—!"

With a large spray of blood in mid-air, the person finally couldn't withstand this destructive blow and flew backward.

At that moment.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound of jade shattering suddenly echoed in the darkness.

Immediately after, a dazzling, soft white absolute defense shield shot out from the person's body, like a huge inverted bowl, instantly dispelling the darkness within a three-meter radius.

The powerful recoil of the shield slammed outward, forcibly pushing back Helan Que, who was preparing to rush in for the finishing blow, by seven or eight steps.

Helan Que stumbled and fell onto his buttocks.

"Huu... huu... huu..."

He supported himself on the ground, greedily breathing in air.

His clothes were already a muddy mess of cold sweat and sand, looking utterly disheveled.

But at this moment, Helan Que let out a long sigh of relief.

The nerves that had been stretched to the breaking point finally began to relax.

"The shield is out... finally forced this monster to use all its trump cards..."

Helan Que wiped the sweat from his face, a hideous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

As long as he could force out the death-immunity jade tablet, it meant the opponent wasn't some invincible ghost, but mortal flesh and blood—they could be injured and eliminated!

"Let me see what kind of expert you really are!"

Helan Que gritted his teeth and scrambled up from the ground, dragging his heavy footsteps to quickly close in on the white-light-emitting shield.

He wanted to see for himself the miserable state of the mastermind who had tortured them so cruelly, gasping for breath inside the light barrier!

But when he reached the edge of the light barrier and, by the bright white light, saw the figure slumped on the ground inside, the sneer on Helan Que's face shattered like ice instantly frozen.

His pupils dilated, his mouth hung half-open, and he froze on the spot as if struck by lightning. A chill a hundred times colder than before raced up his spine and straight to his Brain!

Inside the white light barrier.

There was no mysterious person in a black windbreaker, nor any monster wearing a Faceless Man mask.

Slumped inside was a delicate-looking young man with a face covered in dust and messy hair!

The Daoist robe on the man had been beaten to tatters by Helan Que's Sandstorm Bone-Crushing Fist, his chest was visibly sunken, and bright red blood constantly spilled from the corners of his mouth.

The signature white silk that usually covered his eyes had long since flown off somewhere during the one-sided beating, and he was currently painfully closing his sightless eyes, breathing heavily.

It was the captain of the first team of Shushan Dao-Wu Academy, Yan Qinghuan!!!

"This... how is this possible?"

Helan Que felt as if his Brain had been struck hard by a heavy hammer, his ears ringing.

He pointed at Yan Qinghuan, who was beaten to a pulp inside the light barrier, his Legs went soft, and he collapsed outside the barrier, his voice trembling so much the pitch changed:

"How could it be you?"

Helan Que's Brain was a complete mess.

When he let go and launched his attack, he had clearly aimed it in the direction of that "fourth person"!

How did it end up that the person who took his entire desperate combo, vomited blood, and triggered the life-saving jade tablet... was actually Yan Qinghuan opposite him?

More importantly!

"Blind Yan, are you f***ing sick in the head?"

Helan Que grabbed his hair in a breakdown, roaring at the light barrier, his voice filled with intense grievance and confusion:

"Why didn't you fight back?! Even if you couldn't see in this black mist, as a formation master, couldn't you have thrown out a few defensive formation disks? If you had used a formation disk, I definitely would have recognized you immediately! How could I have laid such a heavy hand on one of my own?"

Facing Helan Que's hysterical questioning.

Yan Qinghuan inside the light barrier slowly raised his hand and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his tattered sleeve.

On his pale face, there was no anger, nor resentment.

There was only a bone-deep helplessness and a hair-raising bitterness.

"Cough, cough... cough..."

Yan Qinghuan coughed up another small mouthful of blood. He leaned against the inner wall of the light barrier and smiled miserably:

"It seems... from beginning to end, we have been toyed with like puppets by that guy hiding in the shadows."

Yan Qinghuan's voice was very soft, yet every word pierced the heart.

He slowly raised his left hand, opening his palm to display it before Helan Que.

"Do you think I didn't want to fight back?"

Yan Qinghuan's sightless eyes, though tightly closed, seemed to be able to see through Helan Que's devastated expression.

He shook his head with a bitter smile, his tone filled with deep despair:

"When I sensed you launching an attack on me just now, I immediately wanted to take out a formation disk to block it. But, when I directed my spiritual energy toward my finger, I realized..."

Yan Qinghuan paused, swallowed a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, and said word by word:

"My storage ring... is gone!"

"All my formation disks, all my attack talismans, all my life-saving artifacts... were all in that ring!"

"That's why I was stunned for a moment and didn't react in time, which is why I couldn't parry your attack!"

Boom!

The moment he heard these words, Helan Que felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

The storage ring... was gone?

In this pitch-black darkness, with the three of them—top geniuses—holding hands, with their spirits stretched to the limit...

That guy hiding in the shadows had not only silently inserted himself into their team, not only used a bait-and-switch tactic to guide Helan Que to attack Yan Qinghuan... but also, while none of them noticed, had casually swiped the storage ring off Yan Qinghuan's finger?

What kind of dimension-reduction strike of mockery was this!

The opponent never intended to fight them head-on.

He was like a ghost strolling through his own backyard, taking their weapons at will, and then coldly watching them, this group of self-proclaimed geniuses, kill each other like wild dogs in the dark!