Chapter 145 The Heartless

Ye Mingke had been ambushed before, and had been driven into desperate straits, but never before had he been plunged so suddenly and unpreparedly into a death trap.

The three piercingly cold murderous intents coming from ahead, behind, and to his left were like jagged ice daggers that made the blood in his entire body curdle as if it were about to explode. Meanwhile, the immense spiritual energy fluctuations, each as radiant as the midday sun, made him feel instantly helpless.

His martial arts Qi was just beginning to surge when the waiter who had crept up behind him moved silently and struck first. A hand had already seized his shoulder, slicing through the Qi of his Ninth Stage Martial Realm as a sharp sword smoothly and effortlessly cuts through flowing water.

It did not sever anything, yet it slipped in with consummate ease.

Creepy goosebumps erupted densely across Ye Mingke's neck near that hand. A sense of despair gripped his heart for the very first time, while the thrusts from the front and the left had already closed in to a distance that could not possibly be any closer.

Yet abruptly, Ye Mingke felt himself pulled backward by a tremendous force. In the fraction of a second, Ye Mingke only had time to unleash a punch toward the waiter on the left, before a blur of figures filled his vision, a sharp pain pierced his chest, and he was run through by a short sword imbued with violent sword Qi, crashing heavily backward.

"Cough."

Clutching his chest with one hand, Ye Mingke spewed a mouthful of dark blood as he slumped against an overturned table, staring dazedly and uncomprehendingly ahead.

He stared at the figure ahead dressed in waiter's attire, whose right hand remained frozen in a backhanded stabbing posture. That figure's left side was pierced by a claw of white bones, drenched in half a body of blood, while its right side was run through by a thunderous short barb, faint arcs of lightning still flickering across it—a figure that swayed stubbornly upright, refusing to fall.

All of this transpired in just a few fleeting moments. Only then did screams pierce the silence within the tavern. The mortals who had been eating and drinking in the shop began to scream in terror, scattering in all directions and flooding out the front door. Yet even after the mortals had fled, several ordinary-looking, sinister-figured individuals remained inside, spreading out in a circle and slowly closing in on Ye Mingke and that standing figure.

"Cough, cough!" The waiter who had ambushed Ye Mingke with the thunderous short barb had been blasted into a wooden wall by Ye Mingke's desperate counterattack. Struggling now to crawl out from the collapsed wall and shattered tables and chairs, he stared straight at Ye Mingke and the figure standing between them, spat out a bloody phlegm, and viciously snarled, "What kind of madman are you? For the bounty of the Purple Zenith Token, you attack friend and foe alike, even throwing your life away?"

In the split second of that lightning-fast ambush, another figure disguised as a waiter had pulled Ye Mingke aside, using his own body to shield Ye Mingke from the attacks of the other two. Yet at the same time, with a backhanded stroke, he had driven a short sword filled with violent sword Qi straight into Ye Mingke's chest.

That figure possessed two eyes—one blood-red, the other deep blue—staring at Ye Mingke with a look that was aloof, rigid, yet stubborn. He opened his mouth, which was dripping with fresh blood, and smiled with a cold, somewhat harrowing detachment.

"That sword was my junior brother's, and it belonged to my sect as well."

"And the life I owed you has now been paid in full."

Ye Mingke stared fixedly at the completely unfamiliar face of that figure, his eyes growing ferocious and crazed bit by bit as the figure swayed and finally collapsed backward like a falling mountain of jade.

"Cut the weeds and root out the stem." "Kill them, smash their bones and scatter their ashes."

The fall of that figure seemed to act as a signal to strike. The various assassins standing silently in the surroundings all lunged simultaneously toward Ye Mingke and that fallen figure.

Ye Mingke struggled to sit up, but the moment he moved, the sword Qi contained within the short sword lodged in his chest detonated abruptly, blowing a massive, gaping hole right through his torso.

"I fuck your mother, Ying Wei!"

Ye Mingke let out a suppressed, furious roar. Disregarding the grievous wound in his chest, he lunged forward fiercely. The instant he moved, crimson scales resembling volcanic rock erupted from every inch of his skin, and a ferocious flame mask covered his face, transforming him into a roaring demon god striding forth from the molten depths of hell.

The fire spiritual Qi between heaven and earth surged into a wild, violent frenzy, rushing toward him from all directions.

Bathed in blood, Ye Mingke swung his fists with savage fury, smashing toward the spiritual artifacts converging from all directions. Wrapped in violent fire spiritual Qi, his fists swept out in a revolving arc, and an invisible domain expanded outward in tandem with the tempestuous force of his punches.

Calamity is a circle.

It was precisely the pugilistic technique the old beggar had once taught Ye Mingke while slaying wolves in the snow.

Countless streams of spiritual power blasted into that circle were deflected by the fire spiritual power within the violent punch force, swirling aimlessly within the barrier. The energy accumulated inside grew increasingly frenzied, and the circle grew blindingly bright until, after mere seconds, it detonated with a thunderous roar.

The stacking, tumultuous force overturned the entire tavern and blew away the assassins closing in from every side. Yet Ye Mingke yanked the waiter-disguised Ying Wei toward himself, gathering all the controlled fire spiritual Qi to encircle and protect Ying Wei, while he himself met the oncoming tidal wave of spiritual explosion entirely with his own physical body.

With a deafening boom, the two of them were lifted skyward by the surging shockwave of spiritual energy, hurled high into the air. Devoid of spiritual power for protection, the volcanic rock scales on Ye Mingke's body were shattered piece by piece, streaming with blood before being vaporized into a hazy red mist by the raging, escalating flames.

Catching Ying Wei with one hand and barely steadying his posture in mid-air, Ye Mingke abruptly stepped down and plummeted. The next instant, his gaze locked sharply onto the air beneath his feet. The space there warped violently, rushing toward him as if drawn into a massive black hole. Then, firelight boiled in the air, transforming into a brilliant crimson expanse that detonated violently. Treading upon the compressed and heated explosive air, Ye Mingke surged rapidly forward through the skies.

Before long, however, Ye Mingke realized that Ying Wei—already severely wounded and lacking the protection of his fire spiritual energy—could not withstand this peculiar and violent mode of flight. Abruptly changing direction, he plunged downward toward the mountain forest below.

Utilizing the recoil of the air explosion to dive into the woodlands, Ye Mingke slapped his sword case, and Ling Chen eagerly poked his head out from within.

"My lord, how is it? Did you succeed?"

Before he could even finish his sentence, two explosions rang out as cultivators descending from the sky plummeted down, magical treasures howling as they struck toward Ye Mingke.

The volatile spiritual energy fluctuations indicated that both assassins were cultivators of the Penetrating Origin Realm.

"Holy shit, goodbye, my lord!" Ling Chen, who had just poked his head out, instantly tried to dive back in, only to be grabbed by Ye Mingke's crimson-armored hand and hurled directly onto Ying Wei's body.

"Take good care of him."

Ye Mingke said coldly, turning to face the oncoming flying sword and short barb, drawing his back-sheathed Jingji sword and charging forth.

A thread of extremely fine, brilliant sword light pierced between the two spiritual artifacts, then abruptly shifted into a horizontal line of light that swept toward the two Penetrating Origin Realm assassins.

The next moment,

Heads flew into the air, and raging fires spread.

The heads of the two assassins soared high, their headless torsos erupting into towering infernos.

Ye Mingke slapped his sword case once more, and a swarm of tiny wax figurines chattered as they surged out from the case on his back, leaping onto the ground and greeting little Ling Chen along with Ying Wei at his feet.

Continuing forward with his sword in hand, Ye Mingke rasped hoarsely, "Lead them and take the person I gave you into hiding. Do not let anyone find you. If you accomplish this, I can grant you one reasonable condition."

As his voice trailed off, Ye Mingke abruptly raised his head to gaze in a certain direction within the forest, his figure transforming into a streak of crimson light as he plunged into the woods.

Ling Chen stood atop Ying Wei in utter bewilderment, his delicately sculpted face a mask of question marks. As the chattering little wax figurines approached his feet, Ling Chen finally snapped back to reality, hastily pressing a forefinger against his lips to make a shushing gesture at them.

The little wax figurines all lifted their chins in unison, imitating him by pressing a forefinger against their lips and shushing forcefully, their tiny, dot-like black eyes staring at him with curiosity.

Ling Chen, however, paid them no heed. Instead, his gaze tracked the scorched earth left in Ye Mingke's wake as he vanished deep into the forest.

"Whoa, is he already capable of instantly slaying Penetrating Origin Realm experts?"

Ling Chen lowered his gaze to look at the two severed heads and two burning corpses lying on the forest floor, his expression shifting unpredictably.

...

Ye Mingke tore howling through the forest, his eyes and entire body blazing red, leaving behind nothing but scorched earth and blood in his wake.

He could feel the hollow void in his left chest where his heart should be—the wound blown open by Ying Wei's sword. Yet prior to this, it was not the first time he had been left without a heart. During the previous battle at the Dragon-Neck Fire Cavern, he had once sacrificed his own heart to the mortal sword before plunging into a sea of flames, only to crawl back out after another physical transmutation.

Ever since then, his heart had no longer been his fatal weakness; even without a heart, he could still survive.

Though this made him live more like a monster, he did not care to dwell on it. From the moment he stepped into the mortal world and faced wave after wave of assassinations, he finally came to truly understand that even without ideals, preferences, or obsessions, mere survival was already incomparably difficult and arduous.

Being able to live was already quite enough. If he had to live as a monster, he could accept that too.

After all, the power of a monster was so exquisite and pure that it intoxicated him, making him feel delirious and wildly exhilarated amidst the constant brushes with death and oppression.

Faint wisps of sword light swept past amidst layers of blazing fire. Another assassin's head was hurled high into the air, turning into a burning headless corpse before slumping to the ground and reducing to charcoal.

The enemies encountered this time were not overwhelmingly powerful, generally concentrated in the Penetrating Origin and Wheel Sea Realms. While these assassins possessed formidable explosive power, once they lost concealment and the advantage of surprise, and once their formation was scattered, killing them was even simpler than slaying Ling Chen had been back then.

Ye Mingke did not stray too far from Ying Wei and the others. Using his spiritual eye to monitor a fifty-foot radius, he swept through all incoming enemies within this perimeter. Seeing via his spiritual eye that Ling Chen had begun leading the little wax figurines to carry Ying Wei into the thickets and conceal them with spells, he finally let go of his restraints, leaped beyond the fifty-foot boundary, and systematically hunted down the scattered assassins one by one.

It was truly a sweep. After the battle at the Vermilion Bird Gatehouse, though he remained at the Ninth Stage of the Martial Realm, supported by his ever-strengthening physique, anyone below the Spirit-Transforming Realm was no longer a match for him.

Employing his spiritual eye for repeated searches, he hunted down and slaughtered more than a dozen scattered assassins one by one until not a single figure remained within the range of his vision. Even then, he was not entirely at ease, for the very reason he had nearly capsized this time was precisely because he had relied too heavily on his spiritual eye's detection and failed to notice the assassins lurking within the tavern.

Recalling once more the faces of everyone in the tavern at that time and matching them against the faces of those he had killed, he only turned back once every single one accounted for.

Across half the mountain wilderness, the bone and blood amidst the flames were still burning...