Chapter 377: Striking It Rich

"No…"

Luo Kannan let out a wail, his eyes bulging as if about to split.

Earlier, other Wizards had been killed, but none made him as angry as Feilis's death, and his face still showed a hint of inexplicable panic.

Lei En swung his axe, chopping Feilis's head off, stepped on her corpse, and with a bang the headless body was hammered down toward the ground; he used the momentum to rebound and leapt back onto the airship.

The airship had completely lost power and buoyancy, and was plummeting at high speed.

Luo Kannan hovered in the distance, his expression despondent.

He had never in his life faced such a near‑shameful defeat: watching the enemy slaughter everyone but himself, even the airship representing ParrasFloatingCity was doomed to be destroyed, and the massive taxes aboard the airship could never be reclaimed.

Lei En stood on the descending airship, axe in hand, staring provocatively at his final foe.

"What is your true background?"

Luo Kannan asked in a low voice.

After all, he was a legendary psionic, a Master of the mind, and quickly regained his composure.

The scroll Feilis used before dying was clearly crafted by his teacher, the Seven‑Ring Soul‑Rending Technique; even with his own five‑Ring Mind Protection, it was unbearable, and the spell could pose a huge threat even to Holy Soul Wizards.

However, the Soul‑Rending Technique had no effect on this beastman at all.

It seemed as if he were immune.

Even epic‑level Mind Protection gear could not produce such a remarkable effect, and the beastman wore no such equipment.

Thus the beastman must have resisted with his own powerful Willpower.

Beastmen cannot fuse with demonic souls, but they can train to master Elements; few Elements provide Mind Protection, the most famous being the "Willpower" series of psychic Elements.

From the rare‑grade "Indomitable Willpower", advancing to the transcendent‑grade "Steel Willpower", and the "Truth Willpower" coveted by all psionics.

"Truth Willpower!"

Luo Kannan's eyes widened suddenly, shocked yet suddenly enlightened, and he shouted, "You actually possess Truth Willpower?"

Lei En hummed, giving no reply.

Seeing him like that, Luo Kannan was even more convinced.

No wonder his mind spells had no effect on beastmen, no wonder the opponent also had a similar psychic ability, gaining the upper hand in battle, no wonder the Soul‑Rending scroll could not harm his soul—this beastman possessed the legendary Element Truth Willpower!

Luo Kannan's emotions were extremely tangled—astonishment, jealousy, horror, all at once.

This truly is Truth Willpower!

Among the many psionics of ParrasFloatingCity, which one does not desire to fuse with Truth Willpower? Every psionic would pay any price to obtain this legendary Element.

But over all these years, aside from the teacher, no one else has ever succeeded, and no one has even heard of this Element appearing anywhere.

Now it has finally appeared.

Unfortunately, Truth Willpower has manifested in a beastman warrior, and even more unfortunately, that beastman is his own enemy.

One who wields Truth Willpower is the absolute nemesis of all psionics.

Luo Kannan could not comprehend why a beastman without any casting ability would possess Truth Willpower; it was utterly illogical.

"Who exactly are you?" he asked hoarsely.

Lei En naturally could not answer.

While questioning, Luo Kannan applied a five‑Ring True Knowledge Technique to himself.

It is the caster's best spell for scouting a target, superior to Detection and Insight, capable of seeing through disguises, illusions, invisibility and transformation to obtain true information, on par with the Arcane Secret Eye, second only to Truth Willpower.

But the True Knowledge Technique still saw only a beastman.

Luo Kannan did not doubt the beastman's identity; the dragon roar just now confirmed that the beastman before him hailed from the Dragon Throat clan.

It is an innate ability of the Dragon Throat bloodline, activated through tattoos on the skin.

But this made him even more puzzled.

Lei En's mouth twitched imperceptibly; his transformation was a joint effect of a steel body and animated metal, not a spell, and altered his appearance and shape on a physical level, so the True Knowledge Technique could not see through it.

Luo Kannan could not discern the enemy's details, and his caution deepened.

He had originally intended to use Invisibility to strike from the shadows or withdraw, but thinking of Truth Willpower, he did not waste his soul energy casting.

The airship drew ever nearer to the ground.

Lei En swiftly grabbed several Crimson Blade Guard longswords on the deck, seized one, looked up at the sky, and the Wind Rider swooped down at high speed, passing near the airship; he leapt from the deck and landed precisely on the Wind Rider's back.

A few seconds later.

Boom!

With a earth‑shaking roar, the airship finally crashed to the ground; fortunately the magical furnace had already been destroyed, so no explosion occurred. Yet the airship, falling from several hundred meters, shattered into pieces, its structure nearly disintegrated, and none of the unconscious pilots aboard escaped unscathed.

Countless fragments of the airship scattered over a hundred‑meter radius, leaving a scene of devastation.

Luo Kannan hovered mid‑air, watching coldly.

Lei En had at least three ways to strike the distance‑keeping Luo Kannan, but each risked revealing his identity, beyond the scope of a legendary beastman warrior's abilities.

"Go!"

He forcefully slapped the Wind Rider, flapped his wings, and surged forward.

The Wind Rider's flight speed was already very fast, and it possessed the "Wind's Breath" Element; upon activation, its broad wings churned a pale‑blue airflow, boosting its speed further.

After only a few breaths, the Wind Rider closed in on Luo Kannan, within a hundred meters.

Luo Kannan swung his staff, preparing to unleash a Mind Blast.

A beastman with Truth Willpower is unafraid of mind spells, but against a flying dragon there will be no problem.

The spell was only half‑cast when a sense of danger arose.

Riding on the Wind Rider's back, Lei En hurled a longsword; the over‑twenty‑pound blade became the most terrifying arrow, blasting the air, and in a blink it flew straight ahead.

Luo Kannan felt a chill in his heart, forced to abandon the spell and flash‑step away.

His mastery of flash‑step was exceptional, allowing him to leap a great distance and, unexpectedly, appear behind the Wind Rider, out of the beastman's sight.

The surrounding scenery shifted, and the flash completed.

Luo Kannan realized the dangerous omen had not vanished; his telepathy still warned him, but before he could react, another long sword shot toward his eyes.

Helpless, he was forced to flash again, dodging the sword by a hair's breadth.

This time he flashed to the Wind Rider's head.

Danger still closed in.

Looking down, he saw a third long sword shooting up from his feet.

"How is this possible?"

Luo Kannan could not believe the Orc's reaction could be so swift. Even though this legendary Orc possessed Willpower of Truth and telepathy, it could not so precisely pinpoint the flash's landing spot, pre‑emptively predicting each time and hurling the long swords.

It's sheer divine skill!

If anyone were watching from the side, they would witness a marvelous sight: Lei En continuously threw long swords in different directions.

Whenever a long sword seemed destined to miss, a Wizard would flash onto its trajectory, as if rehearsed a thousand times, becoming a moving target, exhausted, forced to the point where no spell could be cast.

All of this is thanks to the Key of Doors.

Any time‑space spell is laid bare before Lei En; the flash's landing point is as conspicuous as the center of ripples on a lake, instantly identifiable.

In the blink of an eye, Luo Kannan could only flash a third time, yet he was still half a step too slow.

At the instant his figure was about to vanish, the long sword struck his shield, the blade shattering into metal fragments, yet the shield nearly collapsed, just shy of being pierced.

The shield's violent fluctuation triggered a soul‑force resonance, causing Luo Kannan's flash to deviate—jumping only half the distance and reversing direction, landing in front of the Wind Rider, less than twenty steps from Lei En, practically under his eyes.

The final long sword had already been thrown early.

Bang!

Luo Kannan's shield shattered completely; his enchanted robe passively activated, a surge of cold energy erupted, instantly solidifying into a massive ice block that enveloped him.

Six‑Ring Ice Barrier Spell.

The long sword struck the hard ice, shattering into countless fragments, leaving only a faint mark.

The ice block carried Luo Kannan down, thudding onto the ground with a "dong", carving a huge crater; the frozen Luo Kannan emerged unharmed.

Lei En also leapt down, landing beside the ice barrier; instead of wasting effort chopping the ice, he snarled at the frozen Luo Kannan, his two fangs giving his expression a feral grimace.

Hehe…

As soon as the ice shield ends, it will be Luo Kannan's death.

Luo Kannan cannot move, his eyes filled with despair.

The ice shield is an excellent life‑saving spell, able to rescue oneself at a critical moment or block a lethal strike, but most of the time it only postpones danger by a few minutes.

If no one steps in to rescue, death is still inevitable.

Time passes second by second.

In the blink of an eye, three minutes elapse—the maximum duration the ice shield can hold. The incredibly hard ice instantly melts, exposing Luo Kannan inside.

He immediately triggers a flash.

But Lei En was already prepared; he opened his mouth early with a dragon roar.

A dragon's roar at such close range is deafening; even though Luo Kannan steadied his mental shield, his eardrums still throbbed, and a terrifying intimidation pierced his mind, freezing his soul for an instant.

That brief instant decided life or death.

Lei En's massive axe came down, and the horrific force instantly turned Luo Kannan into minced meat.

A soul fragment flew out and was absorbed, the energy continuously rising.

The few Wizards he had killed earlier and a squad of Crimson Flame Sword Guards—Lei En, recalling the last Black Emperor's lesson, dared not casually devour their souls; he only absorbed Feilis and Mi Er Dun, two foes, converting their energy into electricity and investing it into the Destruction Critical Element, raising it from level 2 to level 3.

Luo Kannan is an eleven‑level Legendary Wizard; his soul power is several times greater than the sum of those two.

Lei En poured everything into Destruction Critical.

In less than half a minute, Destruction Critical reached level 4, still a rare Element; the progress bar below advanced steadily, and Lei En halted in time, just one notch away from reaching level 5.

He predicts that a level‑5 Destruction Critical will evolve into a Super‑Ultimate Element, possibly triggering his own soul's metamorphosis.

But now is not the time to ascend to Legend, and no suitable Legendary Demon Soul has been found.

Some of the converted soul power remained, and Lei En invested it into Power, nudging the progress bar up a couple of notches.

Lei En retrieved a silver bracelet from Luo Kannan's shattered corpse.

It is a piece of Dimensional Space Gear.

The space inside the bracelet is vast, comparable to his own gem brooch, packed full, mostly occupied by a dozen iron boxes.

Lei En didn't rush to inspect the boxes; he leapt onto the Wind Rider and, inside and out, found Feilis's corpse.

He also found an enchanted ring on her body.

He had seen this ring two years earlier at Viola's trade fair, when Feilis flaunted it, never expecting it to end up in his hands.

Feilis possessed luxurious gear, but against an absolute power gap it made little difference; her enchanted robe was trampled to tatters by Lei En's kick, yet her other enchanted necklaces, another magic ring, and staff remained intact.

The high‑rank psionic's corpse also bore several enchanted items, but no Dimensional Space Ring.

After locating everything, Lei En finally returned to the airship's crash site.

He cleaved the airship's wreckage with his massive axe, breaking through two planks, and entered the mangled cargo hold.

Inside the cargo hold, hundreds of iron boxes were stacked.

The crash shattered many boxes, scattering their contents everywhere. The most abundant were beast pelts and materials, along with various precious minerals and gems; box after box of magical metals, herbs, alchemical ingredients, and demon souls nearly filled the entire hold.

Even though Lei En is wealthy, seeing so much valuable cargo made him gasp sharply.

Just these goods alone are roughly worth at least five hundred thousand Gold Shields!

He took out the dozen‑plus iron boxes from Luo Kannan's bracelet.

He split the lock and lifted the lid.

Instantly, a burst of dazzling golden light shot out, the box filled with bright yellow gold coins!

These gold coins are not all Empire Gold Shields; there are gold dragons from Kangjiatuo, wolf‑head coins of the Orc tribe, gold rubs of the Saref Empire, and various other coin standards, even a few elf and dwarf golden currencies, but the majority are still Empire Gold Shields, whose golden gleam cannot be ignored.

Bang bang bang, with a few axe swings, Lei En consecutively opened seven or eight iron boxes.

All of them were filled with gold coins!

"Got rich, hahahaha…"

Lei En let out a delighted shout in Orc language, as if a long‑planned robbery had finally revealed the treasure, and he couldn't help but burst into laughter.

All of this is tax collected by ParrasFloatingCity, truly the people's blood and fat.

The airship passed through many tribes, levying double taxes along the way; some paid a lot, some paid little, or offset with equivalent goods, totaling over a million Gold Shields!

Now it's all cheap for himself.

Lei En thought, "Killing, arson, gold belt—damn, that makes sense!"

This time he targeted the airship; revenge was the primary goal, looting was just a side effect, but to conceal his identity he had to make it look like he came solely for the loot, misleading ParrasFloatingCity's investigation, especially the light‑shadow rewind of Duke Hong Shi.

Lei En deftly repacked the dozen or so boxes of gold coins back into his silver bracelet.

For the remaining massive cargo, he couldn't take it all, so he selected the most valuable batch of demon souls, gems, magical metals and rare materials, stuffing them into Feilis's dimensional space ring until it could hold no more.

"What a pity…"

Lei En shook his head regretfully; the items left in the cargo hold were worth about three hundred thousand Gold Shields, just thrown away for nothing.

Before leaving, he set a big fire.

When the blazing fire engulfed the airship wreckage and everyone's corpses, Lei En lingered no longer, leapt onto the Wind Rider and flew north at top speed, departing as fast as possible.

Daybreak came… thanks to "the big monster that eats watermelon", "fkingbitch", "Suffocating Paulo" and all the friends' tips, too many to list, sorry I can't name everyone, thank you!

(End of chapter)