Chapter 276: Further Reinforcements

At that moment, a sudden calamity erupted.

Thud!

The White Bone Heart beat heavily.

That sound was no longer a dull drumbeat, but a roar like a great beast breaking free from its chains.

A brutish, savage force brimming with primal hunger surged back along the Blood Net!

"Hm?"

Chen Shao let out a low hum from his throat.

His ever‑victorious Psychic Force, which could easily crush steel, now seemed to have struck a rubber wall full of elasticity.

The palm pressing down was forced upward by two inches by the rebounding force!

"Resistance?"

Chen Shao raised his eyebrows higher, and a look of displeasure finally appeared on his cold face.

To him, it was like ants beneath his feet trying to overturn an elephant—a desecration of his authority of domination.

"Get... on your knees!"

His five fingers curled into claws, the suit fabric on his arm tightening instantly, outlining his muscles. The crimson Demon Eye spun wildly, and the massive Psychic Force, solidified like a hammer, slammed down on the mutating heart.

Crack!

A series of crisp cracks burst through the air.

The Bone City even emitted a grinding squeak that made teeth tingle.

But at that moment, the entire Tongzi Lou— or rather this living Bone City—underwent a complete transformation.

It was no longer passively taking hits.

Whoosh—!

That was not the sound of a building collapsing at all.

Thousands of pale Bone Spikes suddenly fell from the tower‑like façade. They did not fall to the ground but hovered Weirdly in mid‑air, twisting.

Flesh rapidly proliferated on the Bone Spikes, stretching into a membrane as thin as a cicada wing—wings!

In just two seconds.

Those Bone Spikes bizarrely transformed into thousands of head‑sized monsters with bony fangs and flesh wings!

Buzz—!

The sound of the Bone Worms vibrating their wings converged, forming a high‑frequency noise that could make ordinary people's brain fluid boil.

Without hesitation, driven by the heart's will, they turned into a gray‑white vortex that swept over everything toward Chen Shao at the pit's center!

All directions—front, back, left, right, up, down.

Everywhere his eyes could see were these ferocious monsters.

"Numerical advantage?"

Chen Shao sneered, not even turning to glance at the swarm behind him.

"In the Rules, numbers are meaningless."

Buzz!

Centered on him, the air within a ten‑meter radius solidified instantly.

The Bone Worms that rushed into that zone collided with an invisible amber, their movements abruptly halted; no matter how wildly they flapped, they could not advance a single inch.

"Shatter."

Chen Shao's lips twitched, uttering a single word.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

The dense explosions sounded like countless fireworks lit for the New Year, detonating around him.

Hundreds of frozen Bone Worms were instantly compressed and twisted by an invisible Psychic Force, then shattered into a sky of bone shards and Blood Mist!

But this did not frighten the remaining swarm.

On the contrary, the shared scent of blood only heightened their ferocity.

More Bone Worms peeled off and hatched from the heights of the Bone City, continuously pouring onto the battlefield. They were no longer mindless chargers; they began to coordinate tactically.

Some spiraled in the high air spitting acid, some skimmed the ground to attack his lower body, and some Bone Worms slammed directly into Chen Shao's Psychic Force Shield, opting to self‑detonate to drain his mental energy.

Chen Shao still stood unmoving, his feet not shifting a hair.

His crisp suit rustled softly.

But he began to feel some strain.

Because these Bone Worms seemed to be evolving.

They had evolved resistance to Psychic Force and mental energy.

Killing a single individual was now more than twice as hard as before.

Snort!

At that instant.

A razor‑thin yet unbearably screeching tearing sound rang in his ears.

Chen Shao's movements froze.

He slowly lowered his head.

A slit about five centimeters long appeared on the left side of his expensive bespoke suit, tearing his white shirt.

It was a Bone Worm that had slipped through the net.

It used the shockwave from a companion's self‑detonation to cunningly pierce a blind spot in the Psychic Force Shield; although it was pulverized by Chen Shao's will the next instant, its sharp bone wings still sliced through his defense.

The damage was less than a mosquito bite, not even reaching his flesh.

But Chen Shao's face had darkened to the extreme in that instant.

It was ten times uglier than the disgusting heart he had just seen.

He reached out a finger and lightly touched the tear in his suit.

The composure and mockery in Chen Shao's eyes gradually faded at that moment.

In their place came a chilling, cold calculation.

He glanced up at the endless swarm of insects filling the sky, then at the huge heart that kept mutating, even beginning to sprout human-like limbs.

This monster was evolving, constantly adapting to his ability.

Moreover, the speed of its evolution exceeded his expectations.

If he were to fight to the end, he would have to exhaust his mental power without reserve, possibly paying with his life—and even then he might still fail to stop it.

For what?

To save the city? For those people who have nothing to do with him?

He might as well bet that a nuclear bomb would obliterate this thing.

A red light flickered in Chen Shao's eyes several times, and the violent psychic force suddenly retracted.

He is a chess player, not a desperate pawn, and certainly not a lackey of the Investigation Bureau.

"Retreat."

Once that thought arose, Chen Shao hesitated no longer.

He tapped the ground with his toe, his form like a black great bird, drifting backward.

However, the monster seemed to sense his intention to retreat.

"Roar——!!!"

The face on the heart—Ouyang Feng's face—broke into a twisted, maniacal laugh.

Want to leave?

Too late!

From countless holes on Bone City's surface, a large amount of black gel suddenly spewed out, quickly hardening in the air into massive cages that blocked all of Chen Shao's escape routes.

At the same time, tens of thousands of Bone Worms gathered into a gray-white dragon, radiating a devouring aura, and slammed fiercely into Chen Shao's back.

Chen Shao stopped his steps, looking at the surrounding cages and the insect tide pressing down from above.

He sighed.

It seems that to leave here, he must fight desperately.

He slowly raised his right hand, aiming at his own left eye.

Just then.

Between heaven and earth, it suddenly darkened.

It wasn't clouds covering the moon.

But a color purer and deeper than night instantly swallowed all light.

It was a flash of blade light.

A pitch-black, ink-like blade light, impossibly swift.

It made no sound.

Because its speed cutting through air had already surpassed the limit of sound propagation.

Swish——!

The gray-white dragon formed from tens of thousands of Bone Worms, less than three meters above Chen Shao's head, suddenly split open down the middle.

Neatly.

Like a red-hot carving knife slicing through butter.

Tens of thousands of Bone Worms, under that blade, didn't even have time to scream before being severed in half, then turning into black ash that fell like snow.

That black blade light, undiminished, carrying an edge of extreme dominance, slashed into the black gel cage blocking Chen Shao's retreat.

Boom!

The supposedly impregnable cage shattered instantly.

Blade energy crisscrossed, carving a bottomless chasm in the ground that stretched all the way to Bone City's base, leaving a horrendous gash on its hard bone wall!

The formerly noisy battlefield fell into a brief silence under that terrifying strike.

The rain continued to fall.

But the rain that fell around Chen Shao was deflected by an invisible aura.

Chen Shao lowered the hand he had readied to touch his left eye.

A meaningful smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"So you really came? Looks like I don't need to leave after all."

Behind him.

In the darkness split by the blade light.

A figure in a black windcoat walked out slowly.