Chapter 58: The Appearance of Li Yun

It was that voice again. Could those two red beams of light have been emitted by this woman?

However, this was not the time to ponder that; Huang Ying's safety was paramount. Ignoring the voice in the void, I walked straight toward Huang Ying. Surely this little girl wasn't trying to develop some self-harming technique again like she did when she drank the corpse oil last time?

Huang Ying lay there quietly. Because the night was pitch black, it was impossible to make out her condition.

I hurried toward her, taking two steps in one.

Right at that moment, another red beam of light pierced through from the outside. Its target was none other than me.

I kicked off the ground and retreated five paces, cursing inwardly. The red beam struck the earth, and the vegetation instantly withered, turning a sickly yellowish-brown.

"Who on earth are you?" I shouted into the void.

This person had always been an enigma. From the incident with the department manager until now, everything she did baffled me. First, she saved Huang Ying and me, and now she was attacking me.

There was no reply. I scanned my surroundings, finding no trace of her, only rows of black tree trunks.

"Regardless of anything, thank you for helping us just now!"

Had it not been for her assistance earlier, that man in the suit would certainly not have been driven off so quickly.

Still no answer. Silence enveloped the surroundings. I cast a cautious look around and then slowly moved toward Huang Ying once more.

Just as I was a mere meter away from her, another beam of light shot in from the outside. I hurriedly leaped back, and the beam struck the exact spot where I had been standing just moments before.

A sensation of being played with washed over me, and anger flared in my chest.

"Please stop playing games!"

Bang...

Another beam of light shot out from a different direction.

"Damn it!" I swore loudly, breaking into a sprint. I formed a sword-finger gesture with my right hand and began chanting an incantation.

With her interference, I would never be able to reach Huang Ying.

A light sphere, so faint as to be negligible, materialized at my fingertips.

"Soul-Gathering Technique!"

Yet this was far from enough. I bit the middle finger of my left hand, drawing a drop of crimson blood, which I smeared across my forehead. Then, I charged fiercely toward the direction from which the beam of light had originated.

However, there was nothing there.

I turned my head and caught a glimpse of a dark shadow flashing past swiftly behind me.

I lowered my right hand, drew out an ancient copper coin, and chanted a different incantation, realizing my Soul-Gathering Technique had far too little effect on her.

The copper coin hung suspended in mid-air—a method similar to the way the man in the suit wielded his peach wood sword.

With a flick of my finger, the coin vanished into the void.

Clack...

A red dot suddenly appeared in the darkness and slowly expanded.

Bang...

The red dot burst, transforming into wisps of red light that scattered in all directions. A tiny ray of light rushed toward me. I reached out and grabbed the source of the beam—it was a fragment of my copper coin.

I frowned, then slowly pulled out my phone. In the heat of the moment, I had forgotten that my grandfather had told me I could reach out to him if I encountered danger.

I stood in place and dialed my grandfather's number. A few seconds later, the call connected.

"We're in trouble!" I said in the quietest whisper possible.

Grandfather uttered a hum of acknowledgment, and then I heard mumbling sounds coming from the other end.

"Take out the red sticky fluid!" grandfather instructed.

I complied immediately.

"Smear it on the Baihui, Zhangmen, Taiyang, Shenting, Fengchi, and Renying acupuncture points!"

Those were all fatal pressure points! I remembered flipping through a medical book out of boredom once; it stated that out of the human body's seven hundred and twenty acupoints, thirty-six were fatal, and every single one of the points he named belonged to that lethal group.

Despite them being fatal points, I did not hesitate, because grandfather would never harm me.

Once I finished applying the fluid, I pressed the phone back to my ear.

This time, I heard the sound of grandfather chanting an incantation from the other side. My eyes widened abruptly. The sensation of my soul being eroded—why would grandfather chant such an incantation against me?

I felt my soul being continuously compressed, and my senses grew increasingly hazy. Suddenly, a pattern of white mist appeared in the depths of my mind. It was dense and vibrant—it was a soul. Why would another soul appear within my mind? Could it belong to that mysterious, eerie voice?

I attempted to direct my thoughts, but they had absolutely no effect on my physical body. My soul was imprisoned within a tiny, confined realm, left with no choice but to quietly look on.

That soul was immensely powerful, vastly superior to Huang Ying's. My own soul trembled involuntarily in the presence of that entity—a primal, instinctive trembling of the spirit.

The white mist slowly shifted and transformed, eventually coalescing into a woman dressed in white. I struggled to make out her features, but her form was perpetually shrouded in a thick layer of white mist, rendering her entirely indistinct.

The white woman turned around, her gaze piercing through everything, as if she intended to read every hidden secret within my soul. Unable to withstand her piercing look, I averted my gaze to avoid meeting her eyes. This woman was extremely dangerous; I now suspected that none of my thoughts had escaped her notice.

Sigh...

I seemed to hear the woman in white sigh softly before she turned away, ceasing her scrutiny of me.

Hiding within that minuscule space of my mind, I watched the woman. With a wave of her hand, my physical body suddenly sprang into motion.

Power. My body was suffused with overwhelming strength. Although my soul was imprisoned, I could still perceive it.

Such power was something I had never experienced before. As a mere spectator, one could only ever comprehend the might of such power from the outside, never truly grasping what it was capable of achieving.

I remained trapped in that narrow space, watching the woman manipulate my body.

"I" looked around the surroundings, smiled faintly, and formed hand seals. Two massive Taiji symbols manifested between "my" hands.

"I" pushed my hands apart; one Taiji diagram rapidly expanded and sank into the earth, while the other ascended into the sky.

Following that, "I" gently pointed a finger into the void. Suddenly, the heavens and earth shook. The ink-black Taiji diagram beneath the ground slowly emerged, and the heavenly Taiji diagram did the same.

The world was illuminated by the radiance of the Taiji diagrams, and an oppressive, terrifying pressure descended from above and rose from below toward the center.

The trees caught between the Taiji diagrams were ground into fine powder in a matter of seconds.

A powerful shockwave rippled outward from the center.

"Oh no, Huang Ying!" Under such terrifying pressure, would Huang Ying be harmed?

The moment the thought crossed my mind, the woman in white turned her head to look at me, then looked away again.

"I" turned around to look, and there Huang Ying lay peacefully.

This tract of land had been flattened into a plain, and the mysterious woman finally appeared. "I" observed that her body was likewise wreathed in blood-red mist.

Her eyes were closed, masking the expression on her face.

Streams of blood-red light emanated from her body, clashing against the ink-black radiance of "my" Taiji diagram.

The two contrasting lights filled the heavens and earth.

"I" rapidly formed hand seals, causing the Taiji to spin swiftly with the movement of my hands, unleashing wave after wave of immense force.

The mysterious woman stood with her eyes tightly shut and arms outspread, slowly rising from the ground.

"I never expected you to possess such strength!" "I" declared.

The mysterious woman ignored me, tilting her head slightly before suddenly snapping her eyes open. Two beams of red light shot forth from her pupils.

Unflustered, I swept my hand upward. The heavenly Taiji diagram shrank rapidly, positioning itself before me as a shield.

Bang...

The resulting explosion was far more violent than the one with the man in the suit, and the shockwave generated directly churned up massive boulders from the ground.

I stepped back a few paces, and the mysterious woman likewise retreated a short distance.

"I" extended my right hand, formed a sword-finger, and strode forward.

"The Soul-Gathering Technique?" The mysterious woman tilted her head and glanced at "me."

I couldn't use that now; Huang Ying was still right here.

The moment the thought formed in my mind, my body halted, and my hand lowered.

I breathed a sigh of relief. If I were to use the Soul-Gathering Technique now, Huang Ying would undoubtedly suffer severe collateral damage.

Simultaneously, the mysterious woman made her move. Waving her arms, she gathered wisps of pure white energy from all directions. The moment they touched her, all that pristine energy turned crimson red.

I retreated rapidly while forming hand seals, but it was already too late. The strands of blood-red light had already reached me.

Bang...

My body was struck dead-on. I saw the figure of the white-clad woman in my mind rapidly dissolve. She turned to look at me one last time before vanishing completely, and my soul was released from that confined realm.

Now that my greatest reliance was gone, I had no choice but to rely on myself. Yet the moment I scrambled to my feet, the woman was already right before me.

Instead of deploying the red light this time, she simply flung me aside with a sweep of her arm and reached out. Huang Ying, lying on the ground, instantly vanished.

"I'll damn well kill you!"

I scrambled up immediately and dashed in that direction. However, the woman pointed a finger at me, and I froze in place, utterly unable to move.

"All of you are going to die!" With those words, she vanished from the spot.

The moment she departed, my body regained its normal mobility. I gave chase at the absolute limit of my speed, mobilizing every ounce of my strength, and caught sight of a dark shadow ahead.

Right at that juncture, another figure materialized in front of me.

I looked closely, my eyes narrowing.

"Li Yun?"