Chapter Ninety-Three: The Thousand-Faced Miraculous Eye

The crack of breaking enchantment rang out three times in a row, and the protective barrier formed from the golden robe finally shattered. Lan Xi was left completely exposed. Xuan Hong licked his lips, his tiny eyes fixed greedily on her full chest.

For the first time, panic appeared on Lan Xi's face. From the look in Xuan Hong's eyes, she had finally understood his true intent. He had not come to destroy her, nor to fight some foreign race. He wanted her beauty. Now she regretted sealing Lei Xiang inside the crystal golem; otherwise, at least she would have had some help.

Xuan Hong's hand had already touched Lan Xi's soft breast, yet she still did not move. Not because she did not wish to, but because she could not. Xuan Hong's spell had trapped her, reducing her to a lamb at the mercy of the knife.

With a hiss, a strip of undergarment was torn away, revealing shoulder skin smooth as congealed cream. Amid Xuan Hong's lewd laughter, Lan Xi closed her eyes helplessly. She did not cry for help, because she knew it would be useless and would only inflame Xuan Hong's beastly desire.

At that moment, Xuan Hong's hand reached toward her again. He meant to slip inside her undergarment and seize that supple prize. At the corner of Lan Xi's closed eye, a single clear tear slid down. She had already prepared herself to endure whatever torment came next.

But nothing came.

Lan Xi opened her eyes in confusion, only to see Xuan Hong's hand drawn back, his gaze no longer on her but turned elsewhere.

There was a faint fluctuation of spiritual energy there. Xuan Hong gripped a pair of steel claws warily, suspicion rising in his heart. At first he had sensed a terrifying pressure there, but when he looked closely he discovered it was merely a spirit cat, slowly creeping toward Lan Xi's back.

A spirit pet?

Xuan Hong immediately rejected his own judgment. No spirit pet could radiate such overwhelming pressure. Yet it was unmistakably a cat. No, why would a spirit cat crawl toward Lan Xi? Something was wrong here.

He lifted the steel claws with both hands and hurled himself like a streak of red light. The spirit cat paused, and the claws came smashing down. With a dull thud, the cat changed shape. In Xuan Hong's eyes, it had become a lame hunting dog, limping onward toward Lan Xi.

"Damn, what wicked trickery is this?" Xuan Hong cursed. The claws swept again. Another muffled impact sounded, but the hound had already transformed into a gray-white lone wolf. The wolf shot toward Lan Xi like an arrow. Xuan Hong watched in alarm and directed the claws in pursuit, only for the wolf to change again. Now, in his eyes, it was a black lightning leopard with a pair of wings.

While Xuan Hong was momentarily stunned, another surge of spiritual energy arose behind and to his side. Then a golden wind whistled overhead. Xuan Hong had no time to worry about Lan Xi. With a thought, the claws instantly withdrew and blocked above him.

Boom.

A massive club as thick as a water vat, seeming to have no end, slammed into the claws with a roar like a tidal wave. Fortunately, Xuan Hong had pulled the claws back in time, or that blow would have smashed him flat into the ground. As the claws intercepted the strike, Lan Xi let out a cry.

"Lei Xiang!"

The winged lightning leopard had by now become a person: a crystal man blazing with silver light from head to toe. It turned out that Lei Xiang had refined the crystal golem, reinstalled it with premium spirit stones as its power source, and then swaggered forth wearing this crystal body to rescue Lan Xiang. Under the cover of the Mystic Eye, all Xuan Hong could perceive was a spirit cat, a lightning leopard, and similar forms.

Lei Xiang, clad in his crystal armor, drew Lan Xiang's slender waist into his arm. Wind-and-fire boots unfolded at his feet, and he slid swiftly onto the white jade bed before transforming into a bolt of white light and fleeing. Xuan Hong, driven mad with rage, hurled several blood-red beams from both arms. Coiling around the claws, they pursued the white light.

By now the claws had turned bright red, as if just hauled from a furnace. With Xuan Hong's near-core-level cultivation, they quickly caught up to the white jade bed. The claws expanded, ready to sever it at the waist, but were intercepted by the dark Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff. Though Lei Xiang's cultivation was far inferior, the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff was a product of the meteor shower and virtually invincible in this realm, so it could at least obstruct the attack for a moment.

For a foreign race to snatch a person from right under his nose and escape, Xuan Hong could not accept it. Much less when this foreign creature had killed his disciple, stolen the white jade bed, and rescued the Spirit Elf Clan's foremost beauty, Lan Xiang, whom Xuan Hong was determined to possess. If she escaped and told her foster father, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Thinking of this, Xuan Hong drove ninety percent of his true power into action and spat a mouthful of blood-red thunderfire at the claws. The claws were then engulfed in inextinguishable thunderfire. After repeatedly spewing thunderfire, Xuan Hong finally spat out a row of seven thunder spheres. Now the claws were a lively spectacle indeed: thunderfire and thunder spheres hovering and flashing, all swarming toward the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff.

The Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff fought on equal footing, but Lei Xiang, carrying Lan Xiang, could not withstand it much longer. The spiritual power within him dwindled with each swing of the staff. Glancing down at the sleeping Lan Xiang in his arms, he saw her long lashes trembling faintly as she slept peacefully and sweetly. Lei Xiang gritted his teeth and took out the beauty's snuff bottle, aligning the beauty's crimson lips with his own nose. He rubbed hard against the woman's chest, and with a faint hiss, her cherry lips parted slightly, though no vapor emerged.

This was Lei Xiang's first time using the spirit snuff bottle, and not understanding its workings, he suspected the friction was insufficient and had not fully opened the switch. He increased the pressure and vigorously rubbed the beauty's chest. Pop, several successive streams of rose-colored vapor surged into Lei Xiang's nostrils. Startled by the suddenness, he coughed twice and quickly withdrew the beauty's snuff bottle.

Once the rose-colored vapor entered his nose, it automatically coursed through his meridians. Lei Xiang felt his nearly exhausted spiritual power swell again to fullness, in fact surging beyond what he could bear and spilling outward. A faint layer of fire-aspect spiritual energy gathered around his body.

Not long after, the side effects he feared appeared. Fortunately, they were only irritability, dryness of mouth and throat, and a body burning with excessive internal fire, to the point that he wanted to strip naked and leap into an icy river to quench his thirst. Lei Xiang breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had always worried that the fire spiritual energy he had just collected might be recklessly inhaled and turn against its master. If this were the extent of the side effects, then with his formidable state of mind, he could easily endure them.

And now it was time to strike back.

He pressed down with force, and the white jade bed halted in midair. Lei Xiang turned and stared at the pursuing Xuan Hong. A wisp of his divided consciousness from the boundless sea of mind and soul controlled the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff to clash with the claws, while he himself set Lan Xiang aside, drew the Immortal-Shooting Spear from his palm with his right hand, and steadily loaded a Heavenly Crystal Bullet with his left.

Do not underestimate the act of loading a round. It had already consumed one-fifth of Lei Xiang's spiritual power, which was why he had not dared to use the Immortal-Shooting Spear lightly. But now the beauty's snuff bottle contained enough fire spiritual energy that, when his inner power was depleted, he could replenish it at any time. Only then did he dare use it boldly.

"Don't move. Put your hands up."

At Lei Xiang's shout, Xuan Hong froze. He truly could not understand why this foreign creature dared to turn and confront him head-on, let alone why it held a weapon like a boomerang-shaped staff and shouted for him not to move.

His hesitation lasted only an instant. Xuan Hong quickly recovered and unleashed a blood-red thunder technique. Between the double blades of the claws, thunder boomed violently. He sneered coldly. "No matter what artifact you wield, I'll strike you down with divine thunder." As he spoke, he rapidly formed hand seals with both hands like a spinning wheel. A mass of fiery clouds slowly gathered above his head. When the red cloud grew to the size of dozens of feet, Xuan Hong opened his mouth again and spat a streak of red lightning into it. "Hahaha, you little foreign thief, let's see where you run—"

His words ended there, because at that very moment Lei Xiang pulled the trigger.

Lei Xiang's right hand was exceptionally steady as he held the spear. During his special training in a previous life, he had once set a record of holding a weapon aloft for nine hours and seventeen minutes. This little while was nothing; more importantly, he was waiting for an opportunity, a chance to land a single decisive shot. Xuan Hong's moment of shock had been an opening, but not the best one. When Xuan Hong decided to attack, his attention inevitably wavered just a little. That was the perfect moment, because Xuan Hong could never imagine the firing speed of the Immortal-Shooting Spear.

Sure enough, before Xuan Hong could react, the Heavenly Crystal Bullet had already pierced through his skull. Even then, the hand seals in his grip remained fixed. His corpse crashed to the ground, while from the crown of his head flew out a ball of light in gold and yellow hues. The yellow light wrapped around the golden core and, without the slightest pause in midair, shot off instantly. Its escape speed was close to teleportation.

"What is that?" Lan Xi, just awakened, asked while holding the railing of the white jade bed.

Lei Xiang's face was deathly pale. With a bitter smile, he shook his head. That shot had exhausted his remaining spiritual power. "That was Xuan Hong's nascent soul, and the gold core wrapped inside it was naturally his golden elixir. Alas, a pity he got away."

Lan Xi's pale blue eyes dimmed. "If he escaped this time, we will have endless trouble in the future." Then her face brightened with a lovely smile. "To be able to defeat an elder of the Spirit Elf Clan on your own, your strength is still beyond imagination. Lei Xiang, I truly can no longer tell what kind of person you are."