Chapter 166: Atonement (Guaranteed 2 Updates)

The three people rushing up ahead seemed to be saying something, but An Shenyi could no longer hear them clearly.

He felt that everything coming from over there was noise; what rang in his ears was all tinnitus.

His breathing grew rapid, his heart gradually accelerating.

At this moment, time seemed to slow down.

An Shenyi felt his whole body trembling. He stiffened his neck and, slowly, slowly, lowered his head to look down.

Just now… while sprinting… he seemed to have stepped on something soft…

Beneath his feet, under the glow of a faint fluorescent light, a black flower was being pinned by his right foot, pressed flat against the ground.

His pupils contracted, and An Shenyi's mind went blank with a buzz.

"An Shenyi, don't stop! Run…"

Hearing the voice ring out from behind, An Shenyi slowly, dazedly came back to himself and stiffly turned his neck to look back.

Looking at Fang Yue's vivid expression shifting from puzzlement to shock to anxious shouting, he slowly revealed a wan smile…

Boom!!

The next moment.

Fresh blood splattered.

The thigh on which An Shenyi had stepped on the black flower directly exploded into a pulp of blood, and his body tilted and fell downward.

In that instant, time seemed to slow down.

An Shenyi saw light.

A very faint black light, almost merged with the night.

Unlike the closed loop formed by the convergence of shallow ditches he had seen during the day.

This time, what An Shenyi saw was a pillar of light—a cylindrical black pillar of light shooting straight up into the night sky.

The black pillar of light covered a very small area, only crushing his right leg, but it activated in an instant, without any warning!

At the same time… he saw the black pillar of light expanding, expanding very fast!

Every part of his flesh that came into contact with the black pillar of light was crushed into fragments by the immense pressure.

In the motion of tilting and falling, the next part to touch the black pillar of light would be his head, then his chest, and finally the black pillar of light would pierce through his body, splitting it in two from the middle like a high-speed spinning saw, and as the black pillar of light expanded, it would swallow his corpse.

Death had never been this close as at this moment!

An Shenyi's mind went blank. Faced with true life and death, he didn't know what reaction to make—or rather, things happened too fast; even his thoughts couldn't turn in time before the end arrived.

Then, he felt a force.

Supernatural Strength!

At the moment his tilting body, his head, was about to crash into the black pillar of light, this Supernatural Strength yanked him violently backward.

The surrounding scenery blurred and shifted.

Accompanied by the pain of hitting the ground and rolling, and the intense pain from his right leg, An Shenyi—like a person rescued after drowning—suddenly took a deep breath, gasping in huge gulps, huff huff huff.

"I—I'm still alive?"

His thoughts became active again.

The black light ahead expanded rapidly, and An Shenyi looked at the man beside him.

"Yeye?"

Clearly, the Supernatural Strength that had just saved his life was Fang Yue's doing.

"An Shenyi, are you alright?"

Fang Yue stared fixedly at the wilted black flower ahead, his face ugly as he spoke.

"An Shenyi!"

"Deputy Captain Yeye!"

"Let's hurry over and help!"

The three riders who had caught up from the rear of the group, seeing this scene, anxiously sped up their charge over.

Fang Yue's face changed, and he hurriedly shouted: "Stop! Don't come over!"

Boom!!

Fang Yue's shout and the sight of a horse's head exploding into a pulp of blood happened almost simultaneously.

Immediately after, the rider on horseback and the front half of the horse's body were crushed into a pulp of blood.

Fresh blood splashed all over the other two riders, scaring them into terrified screams as they tightly yanked their horses around.

But it was already too late. In an instant's pause, the second rider, along with his horse, exploded together; flesh and blood mingled, pressed hard against the ground, turning into a mess of filth on the ground.

The third rider only then spurred his horse to retreat.

"A Liang, A Yan… how could this happen, how could this happen…"

That rider wiped his tears as he rode, trembling all over.

Fang Yue hurriedly roared: "Yes! Just like that! Ride back to the group, and have the people in the group go to Man Shui Cun for help!! The lives of the three of us depend on you to save!"

The black pillar of light cut between the group and Fang Yue's three.

That terrifying pillar of light, unseen clearly in the night, made people dare not act rashly.

"Okay, okay! I'll go get help! Deputy Captain Yeye, you three hold on!!"

That rider wiped away his tears and shouted as he spurred his horse into a gallop.

"Giddy-up! Giddy-up!!"

As that rider rode away, the black pillar of light still rapidly expanded its range, centered on the black flower.

Fang Yue looked at this scene, his face ugly, and silently helped the broken-legged An Shenyi up to retreat.

"An Shenyi, can you still make it?"

"I can hold on…"

An Shenyi's forehead was covered in fine sweat; even speaking had become an effort, his breathing terribly heavy.

Earlier, in the fight with the Sheep Hollow Wraith, he had already downed a great deal of medicine, and the accumulated pill-poison had built up inside him.

Now he was popping pills again just to stay alive, and the pill-poison and the pain of his lost right leg erupted together, nearly killing him on the spot; staying conscious at all was purely a matter of gritting his teeth and forcing himself to endure.

"Woof!"

The Blood Hunter and the 【Giant-Headed Blood Hound】 had only just arrived at that moment; seeing An Shenyi's wretched state, and the black flower ahead, their faces changed at once.

"How did it get ahead of us?!"

"I don't know."

Fang Yue shook his head.

"Then shall we just go around it and rejoin the group?"

Fang Yue had only just been about to nod in agreement when he saw An Shenyi suddenly grip his hand hard and shake his head with great effort.

"It's useless! Didn't you ask me earlier why the Heavy-Pressure Flower didn't activate its Pressure Circle the moment it appeared? Actually, the answer is very simple… because the one controlling the Heavy-Pressure Flower now is the Heavy-Pressure Wraith! It's no longer acting by the rules of the Heavy-Pressure Flower!"

"If we so much as move rashly, it could appear beneath our feet at any moment, accompanied by…"

An Shenyi, speaking to this point, could not help but cough hard, a look of agony crossing his face, and continued with great difficulty, in broken snatches: "Accompanied by its black pillar of light, the three of us would be crushed into a pulp of blood in an instant, with no power to fight back at all!"

Fang Yue said urgently, "Then what do we do?"

An Shenyi's expression dimmed, and he said with bitterness: "…The two of you split off, one to the left and one to the right, and run forward separately. As long as you can make it to Man Shui Cun, you'll be safe. Although it's become a Heavy-Pressure Wraith, as long as its form hasn't changed and it's still lodged inside the Heavy-Pressure Flower, its movement speed won't be too fast. Pay close attention to your feet and avoid the danger… If one person is sacrificed, there's still a chance of escaping to Man Shui Cun."

"What about you, then?"

"Me?"

An Shenyi's expression darkened: "I… I'll just stay here and wait for death."

This was the method by which An Shenyi had once escaped death himself.

That time, he had sacrificed the others, and he had lived.

And now… it was as if a cycle had come around, and he had become the one who, for the sake of letting the others live, stayed behind to wait for death.

It wasn't that he didn't want to escape; it was simply that his leg was gone. Even if someone carried him while fleeing, the two of them moving together would only raise the odds of becoming the Heavy-Pressure Wraith's hunting target, and the chances of survival would be slim.

This is… what they call atonement, perhaps…

An Shenyi lowered his head.

(End of chapter)