Chapter 31 – Triple kill
Because in his previous life, the term "Holy Mother" had almost become a derogatory term, Zhang Ping couldn't help but be influenced by his past experiences after seeing Chen Junting's attributes.
Fortunately, he quickly snapped out of it.
Although there are many synonyms between the two worlds, there are also many words whose meanings are completely different.
If in this world, the Holy Mother is not a fictional existence, then Chen Junting's abilities might not be that simple.
While thinking, Zhang Ping followed closely behind the three people. Suddenly, one of them stopped and turned to look in his direction.
"Not good, I've been discovered."
Zhang Ping's heart skipped a beat, but he immediately made a decision: he couldn't let them take Chen Junting away.
Kill!
His face was covered in Nether Mist, quickly forming the Face of Death. At the same time, the Fear War Scythe was retrieved from the Golden Treasury. He leaped down from the rooftop, bringing a rolling wave of Nether Mist as he slashed at the man blocking his way.
"Sleep... Oh shit!"
The man looked up at Zhang Ping, and before he could activate his ability, he was scared stiff by Zhang Ping's face. The fear quickly magnified, leaving his mind blank.
One slash.
The man's eyes widened, and a thin red line appeared on his neck.
Zhang Ping didn't stop. Holding the Fear War Scythe, he chased after the other two at an even faster speed.
It wasn't until he had left for a while that the man's head fell to the ground, blood spurting out.
Ahead, the man with crimson eyes and his subordinate moved quickly. Suddenly, he frowned and said, "Huang San is dead. Hand the person over to me, Huang Wu, you go block him."
"Yes!" The subordinate with telekinesis responded.
The crimson-eyed man then carried Chen Junting and continued to run forward, while Huang Wu turned and stopped, raising his hands slowly and shouting, "Meteorite Cluster!"
The ground around them exploded, and countless rocks were controlled by an invisible force, all floating up to form an area resembling a meteorite cluster in front of him.
Zhang Ping, holding the Fear War Scythe in one hand, rushed out from the corner and saw the street filled with floating rocks.
In the next moment, these rocks fell on him like bullets. But as the rocks passed through the Nether Mist, his body transformed into Pure Water Body, allowing the rocks to pass through without causing any harm.
Huang Wu squinted his eyes. Seeing that his attack couldn't harm the mysterious man, he immediately retreated while controlling more rocks to block his front.
At this moment, he didn't seek to achieve anything but only to avoid failure. As long as he could stop this mysterious man's pursuit, it would be a victory.
Zhang Ping slashed through the rocks blocking his way with his scythe. Seeing more rocks ahead, he couldn't help but curse inwardly. But then, he had a sudden idea and looked down at the ground ahead. In the moonlight, Huang Wu's shadow was clearly visible.
"Die!"
He slashed out with his scythe, splitting the rocks in front of him in half, but there were still more rocks blocking his way.
At that moment, a Nether Mist flying knife unexpectedly shot out from the end of his scythe.
The flying knife was incredibly fast.
In an instant, it pierced through dozens of rocks in front of him and then shot through Huang Wu's forehead.
As a high-level psychic Awakener, Huang Wu had extremely tenacious vitality. Even with his brain pierced, he could still live for about ten seconds. Before he died, through the hole made by the flying knife, he saw a terrifying Reaper staring at him. His eyes gradually widened, and his heart was filled with pure fear of death, eventually falling into endless darkness with this fear.
The more intelligent a creature is, the more it fears death, and the purer the fear that erupts at the moment of death.
Others couldn't see it, but in Zhang Ping's eyes, a purple aura emerged from Huang Wu's body before he died. As Zhang Ping approached, the aura all entered his body and was then transformed into Nether Mist that surged out.
The Nether Mist around him became denser after killing two people in a row, faintly forming the shape of a cloak. However, it wasn't fully formed yet, and the outline of a black trench coat could still be vaguely seen within the mist.
"Purple fear?"
In the past, Zhang Ping could sense fear but couldn't see it. This time, he actually saw it.
He wasn't sure if it was because Huang Wu's fear was of high quality or because his repeated use of Nether Mist to absorb fear had caused a new change in his Misty Body.
But this was clearly a good thing.
He ran past Huang Wu without looking at the body with a big hole in its forehead.
When he decided to kill these three people, he had already made up his mind. A mere corpse couldn't possibly stop him.
"Huang Wu is dead too?"
The crimson-eyed man running ahead of Zhang Ping received feedback immediately after his subordinate died, showing an incredulous expression.
The main reason was that Huang Wu was completely different from Huang San. Huang San was just an Intermediate Awakener and a psychic one at that. If the enemy was a high-level or top-level Awakener, it was normal for him to be killed instantly.
But Huang Wu was a high-level Awakener with telekinesis, a power with a strong advantage in direct combat. Even if the enemy was of a higher level, he should at least be able to hold out for a few minutes. It shouldn't be possible for him to be killed so quickly.
Damn it, who on earth is the enemy?
Could it be... Situ Shibai himself?
The crimson-eyed man's eyes flickered, growing more fearful the more he thought about it. He hesitated whether to abandon Chen Junting.
Behind him, Zhang Ping suddenly saw a purple aura erupting 300 meters ahead. The aura quickly floated towards him, and when it entered within ten meters of him, it naturally flowed into his body, making the Nether Mist surrounding him even denser.
The quality of this fear was very high.
Although Zhang Ping couldn't see his current appearance, he was sure he looked very much like the Grim Reaper.
Moreover, when the amount of Nether Mist reached a certain level, many abilities that were previously unusable gradually became usable, such as using the mist to block damage, manipulating the mist to lift himself into the air, or even wrapping himself in mist to teleport, giving the visual effect of elementalization.
These were all abilities that the Nether Mist Black Goat had used before.
He ran while trying to control the mist to lift himself, and his body gradually floated up.
But he quickly realized that doing so continuously consumed the mist, and the higher he was from the ground, the greater the consumption.
However, if he only floated a few centimeters off the ground, the consumption wasn't particularly large.
The most important thing was that in a floating state, the mist could carry him, and the mist moved very fast, faster than a bullet.
He floated off the ground, his whole body moving quickly along the purple aura towards the crimson-eyed man, and within half a minute, he saw the man's back.
At this moment, a whistling sound suddenly came from his right ear. He instinctively looked to the right, just in time to see an arrow piercing his eye, blowing his head apart.
Under the impact of the arrow, his body made of pure water scattered on the ground, and at the same time, a masked man landed in front of him.
"Body mutation type... Ink Water Physique?"
The masked man looked at Zhang Ping quickly reconstituting his human form from a distance, frowning coldly.
Holding a bow and arrow, he shot another arrow at Zhang Ping, this time with an arrowhead crackling with electricity.
Whoosh!
A blue water whip lashed out from a distance, hitting the incoming arrow.
Zhang Ping reformed his body and, seeing the water whip, knew that Liu Sishan had arrived. He shouted, "Don't worry about me, the person is about 500 meters ahead at the corner, save her!"
Liu Sishan, who was originally coming to support, immediately changed direction, quickly jumping across the rooftops towards the fleeing crimson-eyed man.
In the alley, only Zhang Ping and the masked man were left facing each other.
Zhang Ping noticed that the masked man's gaze was unfocused and not fixed on him, reminding him of what Zhou Jielin had said: "Look at the overall picture, don't stare at the opponent."
Actually, what Zhou Jielin said was easier said than done.
People always instinctively look at their target; it's human nature.
"The opponent's combat experience is probably stronger than mine. The first arrow didn't have electricity; if it did, I don't know if my Pure Water Body could have blocked it," Zhang Ping thought.
At this moment, the masked man drew another arrow, nocked it, and aimed. Zhang Ping quickly put away his distracting thoughts, holding the Fear War Scythe defensively.
But the masked man suddenly showed a cunning look, raised his hand, and shot the arrow into the sky.
Not good!
Zhang Ping immediately threw a Nether Mist flying knife at the arrow, but it was too late.
The arrow flew high into the sky, and in an instant, the arrowhead burst into dazzling light, with numerous light points scattering like rain from the large glowing body in the middle.
"So, you're really a rookie!"
The masked man appeared behind Zhang Ping, sneering sinisterly.
As he spoke, he stabbed a dagger with a purple glow into Zhang Ping's back, and the ring on his index finger emitted a burst of electric light.
Zhang Ping's body convulsed continuously, steam spewing from the mist, and finally turned into a black liquid mass on the ground.
"Remember this in your next life: never take your eyes off your enemy."
The masked man retrieved his dagger and took out a small can of kerosene, preparing to destroy the body.
But just as he was about to pour the kerosene, the black liquid suddenly shot out numerous spikes, piercing his hand holding the kerosene.
"Thanks for the lesson, I'll remember it well!" Zhang Ping's face emerged from the black liquid.
His body moved quickly like a snake, and streams of Nether Mist shot out from him. The masked man could only keep dodging, not even having time to tend to his wound.
The masked man had very rich combat experience.
But his ability wasn't combat-oriented; it was an auxiliary ability: Appraisal Skill.
Different Awakeners, due to their varying understanding of information, could have completely different appraisal results even with the same Appraisal Skill.
Some Awakeners had appraisal skills in the form of a book, where each target appraised added a page with the target's information.
Others had appraisal skills in the form of ink-colored text, where a line of text would appear in front of them when appraising a target.
Because of the different forms of the ability, the information obtained from appraisals could vary greatly.
The masked man had just used his Appraisal Skill on Zhang Ping and got the result: "Surname Zhang, given name Ping, age 16, cheerful and neurotic personality, weakness: extremely poor combat experience, low resistance to elemental attacks, ability: ???"
He could determine the enemy's weaknesses through his Appraisal Skill.
So after understanding Zhang Ping's weaknesses, he devised a strategy targeting them.
However, he didn't know Zhang Ping's ability, so after his sneak attack succeeded, he mistakenly thought Zhang Ping was no longer able to resist, which led to his downfall.
Mainly, Zhang Ping's age misled him.
A 16-year-old rookie, even with the advantage of equipment, couldn't be that strong, right?
His ring could release 100,000 volts of electricity, and combined with the electric eel venom on his dagger, anyone below a top-level Awakener would be dead for sure if hit.
But...
It was this kind of experience-based thinking that led him to a point of no return.
Slash!
Slash, slash, slash!
Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash, slash...
The masked man indeed had rich experience. Even with his hand continuously bleeding, he still avoided most of the Nether Mist flying knives.
But as they say, no defense is perfect.
After dozens of minutes, Zhang Ping seized an opportunity and launched an attack with thirty flying knives simultaneously. The masked man dodged most of them, but when one knife hit his knee, the battle was over.
However, Zhang Ping was cautious.
Even after the masked man fell, he continued to throw flying knives from a distance, leading to the continuous sound described above.