29: Chapter 29 One Shot Teaches a Half-Step Golden Core a Lesson

Beneath the light barrier, Gu Changan leisurely finished the last sip of his tea.

High above, Xiao Zhantian's aged face was twisted and distorted by extreme rage.

He, a dignified Half-step Golden Core powerhouse, an existence who could walk sideways in this world, couldn't even crack a tortoise shell casually set up by a Mortal? If this were to spread back to the Ancient Martial World, would he, the Xiao Family Old Ancestor, still have any face left?

"Small tricks, how dare you insult me!"

Xiao Zhantian was furious, his hair standing on end, and a sharp whistle pierced the clouds.

He suddenly opened his mouth, and a cyan glow burst forth, growing in the wind to transform into an ancient longsword, about three feet long, with chilling Sword Qi flowing across its entire body.

Once this sword appeared, the surrounding air temperature plummeted, and even the churning dark clouds were sliced open by the Sword Qi.

Lifebound Treasure, Dragon-Slaying Sword.

This was a great killing weapon that Xiao Zhantian had refined for a full sixty years. Saying it could cut through iron like mud would be an insult to it; this thing could slice through the frontal armor of a tank like cutting tofu.

"Break for me!"

Xiao Zhantian formed a hand Seal with both hands and pointed fiercely at the blue light barrier below.

"Swish—!"

The Dragon-Slaying Sword let out a shrill sword cry, transforming into a cyan streak of light that was hard for the naked eye to capture. Carrying a spiral of Qi, it struck fiercely at the center of the light barrier's dome like a meteorite crashing to earth.

"Zzzzt—!"

The ear-piercing sound of friction instantly rang through the entire block, sounding like fingernails scratching hard against a blackboard, making one's teeth ache and head throb.

This time, the indestructible high-energy particle shield finally reacted.

The originally calm, water-like blue light barrier began to shake violently. Sparks burst out from the spot where the sword tip struck, ripples spread crazily, and the brightness of the light barrier dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Gu Changan brushed the melon seed crumbs off his hands and stood up from the camping chair.

The night wind whipped his black trench coat, making it snap loudly, revealing the exoskeleton armor inside that shimmered with a cold metallic luster.

He turned around and walked toward the weapon rack in the corner of the rooftop.

A long, black weapon case lay quietly there.

"Click."

Gu Changan reached out and pressed his finger on the fingerprint lock, and the case lid popped open.

Lying inside was not an ordinary firearm, but a heavy sniper rifle with an extremely exaggerated design that had undergone heavy magical modification.

The rifle body was two meters long, pitch black, without any reflection.

The barrel was as thick as a small-caliber autocannon, densely etched with countless tiny golden runes.

The stock was connected to a thick power supply line that extended all the way to the exoskeleton power pack on Gu Changan's back.

[Barrett · Immortal-Slaying Modified].

This was what Gu Changan had just redeemed from the System.

Gu Changan lifted this fifty-kilogram weapon with one hand and skillfully pulled the bolt.

"Clack!"

A crisp and heavy metallic clashing sound, enough to make one's blood boil.

He took out the box of special bullets he had redeemed earlier and pressed them into the magazine one by one.

Each bullet was as thick as a carrot, and the warhead was not conventional copper or lead, but a translucent crystal that seemed to have violent thunder sealed inside.

"System, load 'Spell-Breaking Warhead'."

"Activate 'Tactical Eagle Eye' auxiliary targeting mode."

Following Gu Changan's command, a series of green data streams instantly flashed across the tactical eyepiece worn over his left eye.

The crosshair lit up on his retina, quickly capturing the figure constantly moving in the high sky.

Wind speed, humidity, air density, the target's Spiritual Qi fluctuation frequency... all data was calculated within 0.1 seconds.

At this moment, Xiao Zhantian was still immersed in the pleasure of being about to break the shield.

Watching the light barrier below grow dimmer and dimmer, a ferocious smile appeared on his face: "Hahaha! A Mortal's tortoise shell ultimately cannot stop my divine sword! Gu Changan, once you fall into my hands, I will extract your soul and light it as a sky lantern!"

He didn't notice at all that on the rooftop below, the young man he regarded as an ant had already set up a pitch-black "fire poker."

In his eyes, this kind of Mortal firearm, even a missile, could never harm him in the slightest.

He had his Protective Aura, and even more so, his spiritual sense to warn him. A mere bullet couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes.

"Ignorance is fearless."

Gu Changan pressed the stock firmly against his shoulder, and the exoskeleton armor's hydraulic System locked instantly, uniting him with the concrete rooftop floor beneath his feet.

If he didn't do this, the massive recoil of this gun could directly shatter his shoulder.

Through the high-magnification scope, Gu Changan clearly saw Xiao Zhantian's arrogant face, even able to see a scrap of meat remaining between his teeth.

"According to Article 232 of the Criminal Law, the crime of intentional homicide."

"Plus assaulting an officer, destruction of public property, illegal possession of controlled weapons..."

Gu Changan muttered softly, his finger slowly resting on the trigger, his breathing becoming almost imperceptible.

"In view of the suspect's high danger and the fact that they are committing a violent crime, authorization to execute on the spot is granted."

At this moment, Xiao Zhantian in the sky seemed to sense something amiss.

That was a Cultivator's instinctive intuition regarding death.

He subconsciously looked down, just in time to meet Gu Changan's pitch-black gun barrel and the pair of extremely indifferent eyes behind it.

An unprecedented chill shot straight up from his tailbone to his crown.

"What is this thing?"

Alarm bells rang in Xiao Zhantian's heart, but his pride as a Half-step Golden Core made him choose not to dodge, but instead to increase the output of his Protective Aura once again.

A three-foot-thick blood-colored light shield instantly wrapped him up tightly, looking from afar like a red cocoon of light.

"Small tricks! Break for me!"

He roared and controlled the Dragon-Slaying Sword, preparing for the final strike.

"My lord, the times have changed."

Gu Changan whispered, and his index finger pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"Bang—!!!"

This gunshot didn't sound like a gunshot; it sounded more like a thunderclap on flat ground.

The massive muzzle flash instantly illuminated the entire rooftop, and the powerful blast of air blew the surrounding dust flying in all directions. The special concrete floor under Gu Changan's feet even cracked into spiderweb-like fissures.

A bullet engraved with miniature demon-breaking runes, with a core made of depleted uranium alloy and filled with high-purity compressed Spiritual Qi, shot out from the barrel.

Three times the speed of sound.

At this moment, the air seemed to become solid, forcibly torn apart by this vicious warhead, pulling out a visible white shockwave trail.

Xiao Zhantian only felt his vision blur.

Before his spiritual sense could react, the bullet was already in front of him.

"Clang!"

There was no crisp sound of the bullet being deflected as expected.

That layer of Protective Aura, which could ignore even heavy machine gun fire, at the moment it touched this special warhead, was like butter cut by a red-hot table knife, making a "pssh" weird sound, and was melted through without any obstruction.

The runes on the warhead suddenly lit up, releasing an interference wave specifically targeting Spiritual Qi, instantly shattering the originally stable spiritual power structure around it.

"Pfft!"

That was the sound of metal drilling into flesh and bone, then shredding it at high speed.

The bullet accurately hit Xiao Zhantian's left shoulder, and instead of passing through, it detonated directly inside his body.

"Boom!"

A ball of blood mist exploded in mid-air, mixed with minced meat and bone fragments, scattering like rain.

"Ah—!!!"

An extremely shrill scream rang through the night sky, even more ear-piercing than the thunder just now.

Xiao Zhantian's proud protective Spell instantly collapsed, and he tumbled violently in the air like a kite with a broken string, nearly crashing down.

His originally immortal-looking left side was now a bloody mess, with his entire left arm connected by only a layer of skin, revealing white bone fragments inside.

What was even more terrifying was the wound.

There was no blood spraying wildly; instead, a strange, eerie green flame was burning—that was the incendiary agent attached inside the warhead, crazily scorching his wound and preventing it from healing.

"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

Xiao Zhantian, disheveled, clutched his severed arm and swayed in the air, his face full of horror and disbelief.

He endured the excruciating pain, mobilizing the Spiritual Qi within his body in an attempt to Seal the wound.

But he discovered with horror that once his proud Spiritual Qi approached the wound, it was like ice and snow meeting boiling water, instantly melting away without a trace.

"Poison! You poisoned the bullets?!"

Xiao Zhantian's eyes were splitting, staring fixedly at Gu Changan below, his voice hoarse like a broken bellows, "Despicable villain! To actually use such a potent poison that destroys a person's Foundation!"

On the rooftop.

Gu Changan unhurriedly pulled the bolt, a scorching casing popped out and landed on the ground with a clatter.

He pressed in a new bullet, raised his gun again, and looked through the scope at the disheveled old man in the air.

"Let me correct you, that's not poison."

Gu Changan's voice, amplified by a loudspeaker, clearly reached Xiao Zhantian's ears, carrying a hint of mockery.

"That is a depleted uranium armor-piercing incendiary round. To accommodate your Cultivator Physique, I specifically added some 'industrial-grade Spiritual-dispersing powder' inside."

"Whether it's Protective Aura or Golden Core and Nascent Soul, as long as you get hit by this thing, the Spiritual Qi circulation obstruction rate is as high as 90%."

Gu Changan's finger rested on the trigger again, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"How does the taste of a mixed double-team of physics and magic feel, Old Ancestor?"