Chapter 2157

Void Walk!

Demonic Form!

Blink! Step! Destruction!

After a long time, he employed his most familiar skill combination; in an instant, Lin An's figure flashed like a blood‑burning demon, and within a few seconds he caught up to the fleeing heart.

With a single sword swing, it seemed as if the space before him was split apart!

Under the bolstering of explosive bodily strength, even without any other power's aid, the Cain's Blade in his hand rubbed out a dazzling red light like red‑hot iron!

Although spiritual energy and rules haven't recovered, for Lin An he never lets any opportunity slip! Even if it's just to shatter the shield a tenth of a second earlier, he'll give it his all.

Clang!!

In an instant, a sharp metallic clang rang out, accompanied by sparks that suddenly burst.

It seemed to realize that this damned human wouldn't let it go; the fleeing nightmare heart suddenly pulled back its tentacles, and the thick tentacle that had pierced the last corpse now seemed to turn into a recoiling slingshot, directly hurling the corpse at its end toward him.

As if metal collided, the Cain's Blade that should have split the shield suddenly struck the corpse's head.

Unlike in previous battles, any Fifth Stage would be split by a single sword.

After the collision, Lin An actually discovered that his sword was perfectly blocked! The rebounding huge force even split his tiger's mouth, and his whole body was flung backward like being hit by a train.

Bang!!

Strong.. defense power!

Step!

Reverse step to release force!

While flying backward in midair, Lin An suddenly reverse‑stepped; after he unleashed several shockwaves in succession, he then used the recoil to stabilize his stance, so he wasn't blown too far.

He raised his head and locked eyes; Lin An stared grimly at the Body System corpse blocking him, and his heart grew heavy.

Although his split tiger's mouth healed instantly, this brief clash made him realize how terrifying this Astral‑Shard corpse is!

Unlike the two Rule System corpses, this Body System corpse poses less threat, but if he dares to get close to the heart, its disgust level is actually higher than those two.

Defense is too high! Based on the damage of his previous strike, this corpse's defense is only slightly inferior to the shield.

(With such strong defense, its strength is probably not much weaker either. Unfortunately, this thing should have lost its mobility and must rely on tentacles to move.)

Like encountering a beast in the wild, Lin An half‑bent his waist, with Cain's Blade held horizontally before him in his right hand, his mind quickly pondering how to deal with this corpse.

The opponent's speed is poor; although he could use the Judgment Space plus Dream Mouse combo to chip away at the shield with sword after sword right under the corpse's eyelids, doing so would really waste too much time.

To quickly shatter the shield, he must destroy this thing!

At the same time, just like Lin An, the heart forced to stop counterattacking also used its tentacles to lift the last corpse high, staring at him warily like a poisonous snake.

As Lin An thought, this corpse had already been mostly digested by it; unable to move on its own, even if it wanted to throw out the corpse it couldn't.

For a moment, the situation reached a sudden stalemate.

Whoosh‑whoosh!

Time trickled by.

As if to intimidate, the heart violently waved its tentacles; the successive air bursts it kicked up hissed like a poisonous snake, trying to scare him off.

Yet faced with this, Lin An's heart steadied; he roughly concluded that the heart probably had no other means.

(Cut off the tentacles?)

(In six seconds, my recovered spiritual energy will be enough for ranged attacks. As long as I disable the tentacle controlling this corpse, that corpse becomes a live target—no need to bother!)

With resolve, he pretended to be helpless as when fighting the first corpse, then after using another bottle of mental‑burning elixir, his internal conversion core instantly began to run wildly.

Six seconds passed in a flash; before the nightmare heart could even hesitate to retreat, Lin An, who had regained considerable strength, instantly shifted into extreme stillness and surged above the heart.

Sword Breath Torrent!

Compression! Detachment Slash!

Whoosh‑boom!!

The spiritual energy that poured out instantly, under the effect of rule superposition, turned into a purple‑red arc.

Like a pressurized water knife, the forcibly compressed Sword Breath Torrent shot out at hypersonic speed, igniting all matter in its path in the blink of an eye, and slashed toward the tentacles with the force of thunder before one could cover their ears.

The tentacles have no shield protection; Lin An is confident that if his strike hits them, they'll be severed after just a few hits.

However, contrary to Lin An's expectation, at the moment the sword flow almost severed the tentacles, the corpse suddenly swelled, like a flesh‑shield, and bodily blocked his attack!

Clang! Clang! Clangclang!

Like a roar of pellet rain striking a steel wall, using the corpse as a shield, this Sword Breath Torrent that had nearly consumed half of Lin An's energy was completely blocked.

Moreover, the sword flow compressed to the limit left only a shallow scratch on the corpse. It seemed able to cancel his spiritual energy and rules; upon contact with the corpse, most of his spiritual energy mysteriously vanished.

Seeing his attack fail, Lin An's face darkened instantly.

He never imagined that this Astral‑Shard corpse still retained the traits of a Fifth‑Stage Body System from its life.

(It's spiritual energy resistance! Rule resistance!)

He couldn't help but curse quietly; for the first time, Lin An truly felt what those Fifth‑Stage beings felt when facing him—how disgusting they were!

Body System Awakened Ones are like indestructible cockroaches—ranged damage isn't enough to kill them, and up close they get blown apart!

Just like before, Lin An painfully realized he had once again fallen into a war of attrition.

He wanted to unleash his strongest attack, which required getting close, but against these Astral‑Shard corpses his advantage in melee was completely nullified.

What to do!!

Slowly wear it down?

Already exhausted to the limit, and having squeezed his will to the extreme, at this moment Lin An only felt a huge pressure weighing down on him.

Without mentioning how many times he could recover, even if he used up all his burning elixirs, he couldn't possibly wear down this Astral‑Shard corpse in half an hour, let alone an hour. Moreover, after dealing with this corpse he'd still have to face a heart shield comparable to a peak Fifth Stage.

For him now, it's not that he can't do it—it's a matter of time!

(What should I do? How should I handle this?)

Before Lin An could even start thinking about what means he still had to quickly deal with this corpse, suddenly, notification tones from the Starlight System sounded one after another.

Beep, Battlefield notification: Creator squad member - 【Ka Lian】 chose to relinquish the Captain role, and has transferred the Captain position to you.

Beep, Subsidiary member Spiked Leopard (Fourth Stage) has died.

Beep, Subsidiary member Tuo Er (Fourth Stage) has died.

Beep, Detected that the Creator Alliance's participants in this match have a death toll exceeding 80%, and the current rating has dropped to the lowest.

Warning: The Thunder Lizard Civilization squad has already used a tracking prop on you; within two hours, the coordinates of the highest-scoring member of your squad will be continuously displayed; consuming 300 Starlight-exclusive points can lift the tracking.