Chapter 297: The Strange Soulless Person (22)

The mist-shrouded Mei Da Xilin, eastern suburbs.

"Plop! Plop! Plop!"

In an inconspicuous inn guest room, the three lodgers all collapsed to the ground.

After a while, a squad of Shadow Guards entered the room, stripped the three unconscious lodgers naked, searched them from head to toe, and then carefully searched the room as well.

Soon, they obtained a large pile of strange magical artifacts.

Immediately after, Luosen walked into the room, spent three minutes, and cast a soul-binding spell of strength 19 and scale ten thousand Luosen on the three unlucky ones.

The three unlucky ones were merely ordinary legendary powerhouses, with soul scales no higher than ten Luosen; faced with such powerful binding force, they instantly had no room to escape.

"Safe now."

Zhuo Ya walked in, with Jia Di Ya following behind.

Jia Di Ya ordered her Shadow Guard subordinates: "Throw them all into the dungeon, keep them under tight watch, don't let them die, and don't let them escape."

After the Shadow Guards took the three unlucky ones away, Jia Di Ya asked excitedly, "Brother-in-law, any more?"

Luosen was using Mage Hand to examine the magical artifacts these guys were carrying.

"There's another team, but they're hiding very well; my Void Grand General hasn't found them yet."

Zhuo Ya stood aside looking at the spoils, her face somewhat apprehensive: "I never imagined De Rui Tan would hire so many mortal legendary mercenaries."

These mercenaries' concealment methods are extremely superb, and they all master quite powerful spells; if we hadn't ferreted them out beforehand, having to cooperate with De Rui Tan to cause trouble at the wedding could really lead to a major incident.

Luosen had finished examining the artifacts and roughly understood their functions; they were all obscure, definitely not high in strength.

They are useful for sneak attacks and assassinations, but almost useless in frontal combat.

This makes sense, mercenaries being what they are, their mission is to assassinate the emperor; frontal confrontation is meaningless, only sneak attacks offer a slim chance of success.

"These artifacts' effects are mysterious and yin‑toxic; many possess dreadful poisons, so be careful when researching them."

"Don't worry, brother‑in‑law, Shadow Guards are the most experienced at this."

Luosen then said to Zhuo Ya, "Let's go, let's keep strolling the streets and, by the way, find the last mercenary squad."

It was already 7 p. m., but because of the extensive construction of the Lightning Network, Mei Da Xilin had added a large amount of electrical equipment.

Along many major roads, even streetlights were erected.

Thus, Mei Da Xilin, already famed as a sleepless city, truly lived up to its name.

Even at this hour, the suburbs' streets were very bright, with many pedestrians strolling, and many of them were young lovers whispering sweet nothings.

Walking down such a street gave quite a romantic ambience.

Zhuo Ya found it quite amusing, and she and Luosen strolled enthusiastically for a while before she remembered the Empress's duties.

"This mercenary squad really can hide."

It was already past nine p. m., curfew was about to begin; they had the huge advantage of possessing Void Vision, and even a great demon in the Void was helping to search for people, yet they still couldn't find this gang of 'mice'.

Luosen's face showed a hint of solemnity: "They can indeed hide, and they're deliberately avoiding us, as if they can constantly know our position."

"Ah?"

Luosen's expression made Zhuo Ya slightly surprised, because they had rounded up over a hundred mice that afternoon, and Luosen had been joking the whole time.

"They actually have Void Vision too?"

Luosen nodded.

"Sajiakaer has already found some of their traces; judging from the current situation, this team has five people."

"At least one of them possesses Void Vision not inferior to ours."

"But this person is probably not the mercenary squad's captain, because he is exerting an indirect influence to alter the squad's direction of advance."

Only a small part of this information was discovered by Sajiakaer; the larger part was found by Laifu.

With the support of a vast soul, Laifu's investigative sensitivity has reached an unbelievable level.

"What should we do?"

"We need to speed up and travel using Flight Spell."

"If we're lucky, we might be able to lure the hidden De Rui Tan in the Void out."

As they spoke, he flew up into the sky, and Zhuo Ya immediately followed.

She wasn't idle either; she immediately marked friendly sigils for herself and Luosen.

That way, they could receive coordination from the city's defensive forces.

Conversely, this hidden mercenary squad cannot reveal any magic, so its movement speed would be much slower than the two of them.

Immediately afterward, Luosen expanded the range of his Void Vision, suddenly raising it from an initial radius of 2 kilometers to the limit of 10 kilometers.

This expansion speed was extremely fast, obviously far beyond the opponent's reaction.

Luosen immediately detected the target's presence: "Did you see it? Seven li to the east‑north."

Zhuo Ya, however, detected nothing abnormal: "Anything there?"

"Five people, driving a Lightning Car, are still fairly fast, but they can't match our flight speed."

Luosen immediately flew toward that fleeing Lightning Car.

"They are trying to escape the range of the phase‑binding spell formation; apparently they want to abandon the mission and flee."

Zhuo Ya followed at Luosen's side: "Then we'll just drive them off; no need to risk a fight."

That is the safest course.

But Luosen was very curious about the enemy possessing Void Vision: "Under normal circumstances, doing that would indeed be best, but I sense that this mercenary squad hides something of extremely high value."

"Zhuo Ya, contact Jia Di Ya and have her send Shadow Guards to intercept the Lightning Car ahead, but be absolutely careful about safety—don't rush in yourself."

"Okay."

Zhuo Ya took out a Lightning Communicator and began to contact.

At this moment, elite Shadow Guards were distributed throughout Mei Da Xilin; not long after the message went out, the Shadow Guards within 5 kilometers of the target Lightning Car reacted swiftly.

Exactly 2000 shadow guards formed an airtight encirclement, completely cutting off the escape route of that lightning cart.

If they want to escape, they must fight their way out head-on.

Luosen and Zhuo Ya then used the Void Vision to closely monitor the opponent.

Zhuo Ya continuously reported the target's exact position and movements to the shadow guards, while Luosen mobilized Laifu's maximum computing power to carefully analyze the strength of the five targets.

All five hid themselves extremely well, their soul and magical aura almost undetectable; even if a great god appeared, they would likely not notice them.

But Laifu is an exception.

Its scouting ability is so keen that it far surpasses all living beings in the world.

And this is only natural, because living abilities are limited.

And Laifu is not considered a living being; it is a powerful soul tool that extends living abilities.

Just like the eyes of a living being are absolutely inferior to an astronomical telescope in seeing far, and the ears of a living being are also absolutely inferior to a shout.

Soon, the scouting yielded preliminary results.

"Five people, the strongest has a Legendary 11 soul, the remaining four are respectively Legendary 7, Legendary 6, Legendary 4, etc., and there is one that is a bit strange!"

Zhuo Ya immediately asked: "How is it strange?"

"Strange, I cannot see this person's soul at all; it is like a moving elemental empty shell, yet it possesses an incredibly vast amount of magical power."

The magical power's strength is not high, about Legendary 8, but its scale is roughly equivalent to that of 5000 Luosens, far surpassing ordinary mortal Legendary powerhouses.

At first glance, it looks a bit like a puppet substitute, but its magical power completely lacks the stiff mechanical feel of a puppet; instead, it is vibrant and shows characteristics similar to a soul.

"Having magical power but no soul—or perhaps it is using magical power in place of a soul?"

"Is that even possible?"

In the eyes of low-circle mages, soul and magical power are completely the same force, but in the eyes of high-circle and even Legendary powerhouses, these two are entirely different things.

Just like liquid water and water vapor are both water, but only liquid water can constitute life, while water vapor absolutely cannot.

Just as they were puzzling over this, another anomaly occurred.

"Oh no, he has detected me and is now casting a spell at me!"

At this moment, the distance between the two sides is four kilometers, far exceeding the attack range of ordinary spells.

But Legendary spells, especially Legendary soul spells, have a characteristic of 'visible means reachable'.

That is to say, as long as one can sense the opponent's existence, one can attack their soul.

In a certain sense, the upper limit of a Legendary mage's attack range depends on the upper limit of their perception range.

That peculiar soulless mage can obviously sense Luosen, and Luosen naturally dare not take it lightly.

At this moment, he could completely counterattack; with Laifu's Heart of the War God speed, he could absolutely strike first after moving second.

But just as the Heart of the War God mobilized power for a counterattack, Luosen adjusted his strategy.

"Execute the strongest passive defense strategy."

The reason is simple: because he saw De Rui Tan in the 'Void'.

This guy was hiding in the Void, secretly thinking he was concealed as he approached him.

Little did he know, Luosen saw everything clearly.

"Want to sneak attack me? Then I'll pretend not to notice and give you an opening."

These thoughts flashed through his mind, and Luosen immediately fell toward the ground.

At the same time, Laifu faithfully executed the strongest passive defense strategy.

That is, mobilizing power to construct on Luosen's flesh and soul a shield of utmost scale and intensity.

Just as Luosen's feet touched the ground, the soulless mage's attack arrived.

Clearly, the place where he landed was a square beside a fountain, with a floor of flat stone slabs.

But after landing, his feet felt no sensation, as if stepping on air; immediately afterward, he felt the surrounding light rapidly dim, turning pitch black, as if he had fallen into a vat of thick ink.

At the same time, he discovered he could no longer feel the presence of his body.

Luosen found this feeling somewhat familiar: 'Is this a soul attack similar to a dreamscape domain?'

In the next instant, his ears heard a booming 'rumble', and a brilliant bolt of lightning sliced through the dense darkness, striking straight at him.

No, not on his body, but on his soul! The opponent has no soul, yet they are using soul magic.

At this moment, Luosen's soul surface was wrapped in a layer of soul shield with a scale of up to ten thousand Luosens and a strength of Legendary 19.

Facing this soul strike, he felt his mind tremble slightly.

It felt like driving a lightning cart over a pebble—no big sensation.

"Pa-cha~ pa-cha~~ pa-cha~~~"

Brilliant lightning struck repeatedly, one after another; within a single second, it actually struck thirty-six bolts!

Luosen also felt his soul tremble slightly thirty-six times.

Laifu transmitted a message.

"Suffering a soul strike, the soul shield sustained minor damage, consuming about three hundred Luosen worth of power."

This information made Luosen slightly surprised.

"This attack is quite fierce; if I were an ordinary mortal Legendary, this blow alone would be enough to shatter my soul countless times."

Taking a hit without retaliating has never been his temperament.

Although the current situation is somewhat strange and he cannot sense the opponent's position, power certainly does not arise from nothing.

Since this soul lightning can strike him, Luosen can naturally trace the lightning back to locate the caster.

"Hmm~~ actually using ghost resonance to transmit power—quite cautious, but I have also studied ghost resonance."

With a thought, he instantly condensed a soul power of one thousand Luosens, shaping it into a Soul Blast Technique, and poured it all along the lightning's path.

Once the power was poured in, the thick 'ink' dissipated, and Luosen once again felt the presence of his body.

He was standing firmly on the ground.

After the soul and body reconnected, the lost bit of soul power was instantly replenished.

The entire exchange was covert and swift, lasting less than five seconds.

He checked the target's condition again.

He discovered that the target's lightning car had already overturned on the ground.

Inside the car were five people; four of them had souls that had scattered, clearly they were done for.

The remaining strange being had its magical power weakened by about fifty percent compared to before, yet it still moved.

Soon, Luosen inferred the previous battle process from the combat traces.

"This soulless mage has no soul of his own, so my soul strike cannot directly harm him."

"But the immense soul power must be released, or else once it decays into magical power, he will be completely done for."

"Thus, the released soul power brought misfortune upon his four companions, while he himself preserved his life."

At this moment, the strange soulless mage's body emanated an aura of phase-shifting power.

He could actually still run away.

But we cannot let him escape.

Luosen's thought moved; infinite phase shift activated, his body instantly appeared 50 meters beside the overturned lightning car, and immediately he cast an enhanced phase confinement array.

Immediately after, he unleashed a fierce mental shock spell on that person, the spell's scale reaching 300 Luosen.

It could have been stronger, but Luosen feared he might kill the opponent.

After the two spells, the opponent's phase shift was interrupted, his body violently shook, and he collapsed inside the car, motionless.

Yet he could still feel breathing and heartbeat, indicating the person was still alive.

And by the time he arrived promptly, Luosen still could not sense this person's soul, as if it were merely an empty magical husk.

He grew increasingly curious: 'Just where does this guy come from?'

He prepared to step forward for a look, but before his thought could turn into action, a cold yet pleased voice sounded in his mind.

"Ah-ha~ Finally caught you!"

De Rui Tan finally arrived.

Luosen also felt a flicker of joy: 'Heh heh, I've been waiting for you!'

A being close to Legendary 13, a Strong God, attacked with speed far surpassing mortals; Luosen himself had no time to make any responsive action.

So, he had already fully delegated the relevant combat authorization to Laifu.

Laifu's Heart of the War God has also been preparing.

Its reaction speed is even faster than De Rui Tan's! Defensively it's already sufficient; the soul giant shield just activated remains active, enough to block De Rui Tan's attacks.

Thus, Laifu split off as many as twenty threads of operation.

In an extremely short time, it condensed twenty swords, each with a scale of 500 Luosen and strength likewise reaching Legendary 19, the Soul Oath Swords.

Because it was parallel operation and the spell scale was small, the speed reached its extreme.

At the same time, the Heart of the War God also used the Ghost Resonance Staff to quickly draw massive amounts of legendary power from the endless crystal array, and via a conversion formation, converted that power into pure soul power to replenish the main body's soul power consumption.

The instant Laifu finished these actions, De Rui Tan's attack followed closely.

Because Luosen's soul was hidden inside the magic ring, and the soul mist was thick beyond belief, De Rui Tan could hardly see the specific situation inside the magic ring.

The only thing he could see clearly was the power nexus linking Luosen and the eleventh magic ring.

"Hmph, if you keep hiding inside the magic ring, I may not be able to kill you. But you actually dared to link with the eleventh magic ring—if you don't die, who will?!"

Because he can directly attack Luosen's soul essence through this nexus.

He thought so, and did so! In the eleventh magic ring, his attack was an incredibly thick soul lightning, with intensity focused to Legendary 17 and scale around 500 Luosen.

Although this spell's scale is not large, it is already a burden too heavy for mortals to bear.

The advantage of small-scale spells is their swift activation.

After landing a hit, he would flee into the void, then simply wait for the mortal world to descend into chaotic civil war.

De Rui Tan secretly gloated: "With such a sudden sneak attack and such swift attack speed, let's see how you block me."

In the next instant, an abrupt change occurred.

On the wall of the tenth magic ring, twenty light swords suddenly pierced out.

The speed was actually faster than De Rui Tan's, so he didn't even have time to make a dodging reaction.

Siss—

The light swords were extremely sharp, piercing De Rui Tan's body in an instant, turning him into a porcupine.

In the next instant, De Rui Tan's soul lightning fiercely struck Luosen's soul.

Then, there was no change at all.

Luosen's soul still existed, and the soul light swords he had activated remained lodged in De Rui Tan's body, quickly turning into runes that wreaked havoc inside him.

In the void, a deep-blue light cluster representing De Rui Tan revealed a human face, full of astonishment.

"How could this be?"

This was completely different from what he had expected.

On the other side, the moment Luosen struck De Rui Tan's soul, he immediately felt something was wrong.

"This is not the body of a void lifeform; it's a puppet substitute!"

He had stabbed the soul oath sword into the void lifeform's body several times, so he knew exactly what that felt like.

"Laifu, leap pursuit kill!"

Luosen himself was proficient in puppet substitutes, so how could he not guard against the opponent using this trick?

The so-called leap pursuit kill is a newly developed combat soul technique of his.

He simply used the lingering soul on the substitute as a stepping stone for spiritual resonance, directly pouring power into the controlling main soul behind it.

At this point, the expended soul power had already been replenished into his soul.

Taking advantage of De Rui Tan's moment of shock, the Heart of the War God condensed as much soul power as possible, violently poured it into the puppet substitute, and used it as a springboard to project toward the distant void.

Almost in an instant, far above the moon's magical ring, De Rui Tan, sitting beneath an ancient potted tree, suddenly opened his eyes, then immediately clutched his forehead, his body uncontrollably lunging forward to collapse on the ground, lying there and trembling violently.

As soon as he felt something was wrong, he immediately severed the soul link with the substitute, but it was already a step too late.

A tiny strand of extremely condensed power entered his soul.

He lay on the ground trembling violently, shaking for a full half hour before gradually calming down.

When he sat up again, the runic light and shadow swirling around De Rui Tan had noticeably dimmed, and the blue light emanating from him became somewhat unstable.

His eyes showed deep shock: "I actually lost?!"

If he hadn't used the substitute, and if the moon's magical ring weren't far enough from the planar magical ring to greatly weaken the opponent's final soul spell, he might very well be dead by now.

Although he wasn't dead now, his injuries were severe; even a slight thought would cause his soul to flare with intense pain.

It would likely take two or three years for him to fully recover, otherwise he might never heal.

He simply couldn't understand: "Why did I lose?"

"He's just a mortal—what method did he actually use?!"

He couldn't figure it out, truly couldn't figure it out, not a single clue.

But one thing was beyond doubt.

The path of void assassination cannot be taken, or he will truly die! (End of chapter)