The movement of his feet conjured a phantom multitude, and Gu Xichen’s body instantly broke the sound barrier. A torrent of qi erupted from the Yongquan acupoint on the soles of his feet, blasting out two streams of vital energy accompanied by shredded flesh and blood. A faint, ethereal cloud-light flickered over his cloud boots, and Gu Xichen ripped open a white air current in the atmosphere, arriving beside Ducat and Lily in the blink of an eye.

“Shed the armor!” Gu Xichen roared.

Ducat’s eyes snapped open, and as he raised his armor, it dissolved into a stream of green vapor.

Gu Xichen seized the opportunity, grabbing both Lily and Ducat, and shot out with a fierce gust of wind. The coordination between them was exquisite; just as Gu Xichen reached Ducat, the armor dissolved from his body, allowing Gu Xichen to drag Ducat and Lily out without losing a fraction of his speed.

In three seconds, Gu Xichen had bolted nearly a kilometer, yet he was still far from reaching the sea surface.

As the Heaven-Strike Ballistic Missile bore down, Xin Jia, balanced precariously on the thin clouds, let out a sharp cry and shot out his iron chain.

The serpentine chain whipped out for thousands of meters, snagging the missile firmly. Xin Jia gave a violent heave, his immense brute force forcing the warhead’s trajectory to shift. The missile was moving at terrifying speed; Xin Jia only managed to deflect its path by a few degrees, but that sliver of difference—a hair's breadth—was everything. The missile whistled past the island, plunging into the ocean some ten kilometers to the west.

Xin Jia groaned, the missile's descent accelerating with frightening intensity. Even with his divine strength, he could barely withstand the terrifying force generated by the plummeting warhead. The cloud beneath Xin Jia’s feet suddenly shattered. The iron chain scraped violently in his palms, grinding away a large patch of skin, and copious amounts of pale gold blood sprayed forth. His colossal body plummeted for perhaps a hundred meters before he could finally manage to re-gather his magical power and summon another cloud platform beneath him.

Gu Xichen had just leaped into the sea with Ducat and Lily when a blinding flash erupted, followed by a mushroom cloud soaring nearly a thousand meters high. Scalding thermal waves and intense neutron radiation spread outward, a destructive energy envelope covering a range of several dozen li.

This was an improved neutron bomb, designed for massive biological destruction with minimal residual radiation. The blast yield was equivalent to only a few thousand tons of standard TNT, but the resulting heat and high-intensity neutron flux were enough to obliterate every living creature within range. The explosion kicked up tidal waves tens of meters high, which crashed over the small island and slammed into Gu Xichen, who had just poked his head above the water near the shore.

“Damn it!” Gu Xichen dove deep underwater, desperately bracing against the violent undercurrents churning in the sea.

Seeing Gu Xichen and the others endangered, Xin Jia plummeted rapidly from the heights, found Gu Xichen, and bound everyone to himself with his iron chain, struggling to swim toward a nearby island densely covered in jungle. A thick veil of earthen qi swirled around Xin Jia, enveloping Gu Xichen and the others within its protection. Visible ripples and flashes flickered across the earthen shield as the neutron stream from the warhead’s detonation assaulted Xin Jia’s protective qi, yet found it utterly incapable of penetration.

“Heave!”

After spitting out several gulps of seawater, and enduring more than an hour of arduous swimming, Xin Jia managed to drag Gu Xichen and the others onto the small island, nearly a hundred kilometers from the blast center. Gu Xichen realized that Xin Jia was far from proficient at swimming; had Gu Xichen not used his luck to keep Ducat and Lily’s heavy forms afloat, all four might have sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Lying exhausted on the island’s beach, Gu Xichen weakly looked up at the sky and snorted, “A neutron bomb—heh, quite the grand gesture! The Romans don’t possess such weaponry; only the Vaghri could manage this!”

“Damn it, using a neutron bomb just to deal with me alone? Damn you, Vaghri! How much did Gu Juechen offer you?”

Gu Xichen cursed for a while, then struggled to stand, looking down at the island beneath his feet and smiling faintly. “This is the place. I didn't expect this pre-set location wouldn't be needed!”

Xin Jia spat out a small fish from his mouth. He had regained his energy after meditating for a moment, and now, fully refreshed, he pointed at Ducat and asked, “Exalted One, how shall we dispose of this fiend?”

Lily, who had been tightly clutching Ducat’s arm, suddenly lifted her head and urgently called out in her clear, melodious voice, “You saved us today, I will repay you!”

A shadow of dark green light suddenly enveloped Lily and Ducat, and with a piercing sound of tearing wind, they scattered outward in all directions. Gu Xichen froze for a second, and Lily had already vanished with Ducat, transforming into a streak of hawk-shaped green light that merged into the island’s dense forest. Lily’s connection to the wilderness seemed deeper than any of the Spirit Clan; after she fled into the thicket with Ducat, Gu Xichen could no longer sense even a trace of her presence.

Xin Jia roared in furious rage, “Fiend, how dare you!” He pointed his sword finger at the iron chain at his waist, and the chain transformed into a black shadow, shooting straight toward Lily’s receding back. Just as the chain was about to strike Lily, she phased perfectly into the dense growth, and the chain instantly lost the trace of her presence guiding it. The heavy chain tore violently through a dozen large trees, snapping the nearly hundred-meter-tall trunks clean in half as they crashed down.

Xin Jia reluctantly retrieved his chain, chuckling dryly, “Exalted One, I never expected this female demon’s Yimu Dun technique to be so marvelous... Your humble servant... is inadequate...”

Gu Xichen shook his head, waving a hand dismissively. “She’s just a little girl with a kind heart. Forget it; Ducat’s life was not meant to end here!”

He plopped down onto the sand, laboriously kicking off his cloud boots. In his haste to rescue Lily and Ducat, Gu Xichen had unleashed the qi vortex from his Yongquan acupoint, causing the high-density vortex to explode violently. Two bloody, thumb-sized craters had been blown open directly into the flesh on the soles of his feet, from which blood now oozed steadily. Since he had been submerged in seawater, the wounds were burning with excruciating pain.

Grimacing, he pulled off his socks and gently blew onto the wounds on his feet. He deliberately activated the power of his Primordial Embryo (Hanyuan Daotai), sending streams of pure energy flowing toward the wounds on the soles of his feet. Before their eyes, the bloody gashes gradually healed, and the bleeding slowly stopped.

Xin Jia watched the healing of Gu Xichen’s wounds in rapt attention, murmuring in unbroken admiration, “Exalted One’s supreme art is truly wondrous beyond measure. When I was wounded back then, that blade cut was just that—a cut. Healing it was exceedingly difficult.”

Gu Xichen looked up at Xin Jia, opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it again. Never mind, he thought. The origins of Xin Jia and the others are too bizarre; I’ll wait until I understand things better before questioning him.

In the distance, two figures were sprinting toward them at high speed, Siren, with hair like snow, and Aredia, with hair like raging fire, each enveloped in a silver or red aura as they flew closer. From far off, Siren shouted in irritation, “Damn it, a neutron bomb! Evil Dragon, what on earth did you do to offend that old bastard Vaghri? They used a strategic weapon like a neutron bomb against you? We were momentarily stunned, and now Ducat has escaped!”

Gu Xichen merely shook his head indifferently, stretching out his numb and aching feet with a contented sigh. He chuckled lightly, “It doesn't matter. Even if we didn't finish him off this time, I’ll send him another challenge in a couple of days! As long as the Holsom family hasn't been destroyed, the pride of the Romans won't allow Ducat to refuse a duel... I just love Roman traditions.”

Siren was about to reply when a lazy laugh drifted from the dense woods behind them: “Oh, I love you too, my dear little ones. Oho, three Jieshi? How impressive!”

Gu Xichen instantly donned his cloud boots, and Xin Jia shifted his stance to shield Gu Xichen.

Siren reacted like a startled bird, rapidly summoning three Silver-Winged Angels. Aredia, meanwhile, waved her hand, and a headless Lava Rhino, engulfed in roaring flames, surged forth from a burst of firelight.

“Oh, no, don't be so cautious; I’ll cherish you like my dearest treasures, especially Mr. Gu Xichen. Since you survived the neutron bomb, I shall cherish you a hundred times over!” With a sweet, cloying voice that pierced to the bone, a lithe figure slowly walked out of the forest.

Her green hair cascaded down like a waterfall, and every strand gleamed under the moonlight like the finest emeralds. The gazes of Gu Xichen and the others were drawn to the dazzling green hair of the woman emerging until she sashayed within ten meters of the group, snapping Gao Xing back to alertness with a jolt.

Taking a deep breath to divert his eyes from the woman's strange green hair, Gu Xichen said in a low voice, “Who are you?”

Green hair, golden eyes, red lips, skin the color of deep violet, and clad in slick black leather punctuated by countless tiny crystals, all topping off a fiery, perfect figure that made even Siren practically drool—this dazzling woman, delicately puffing on a slender cigarette holder, possessed a deadly allure beneath her vulgarity. Her eyes, shaded with heavy dark blue eyeshadow, winked deliberately at Gu Xichen and the others. The woman lightly tapped her lips with a finger.

“Oh, don't be so tense, boys. My name isn't important, but my nickname... Oh, handsome young man, could you give me a hand?”

The enchanting woman extended her right hand toward Siren, saying softly, “This beach is terrible; there are too many stones, and they’re hurting my feet!”

Gu Xichen looked at the sensual woman's bare feet. Although she wore a tight leather suit, her delicate, pale violet soles were exposed. Her toenails were painted a deep blue, and on the big toe of her left foot, a tiny, three-tailed scorpion was exquisitely outlined in thin, red polish.

Siren swallowed hard and eagerly stepped forward, reaching out to take the woman’s extended right hand.

++++++

Ha, the seductive woman has appeared! What kind of story will little Siren have with her?

Ah, lovely violet...

Heh heh.