Fan Yi was gripped by the vertical-eye pattern for a brief moment before he forcefully broke free.
The sensation was wondrous, much like when he had reached Mingjin a year ago.
Back then, perceiving Mingjin felt like a person blind from birth regaining their sight, or like suddenly sensing an extra limb without any awkwardness, as if it had been there since birth.
It was the same this time, except that what he perceived now was spiritual power!
His formidable cultivation had also fed back into his spirit. Normally it might not have been noticeable, but the moment he was struck by this harmless little attack, he directly achieved an epiphany regarding the existence of spiritual power!
Before Fan Yi could fully recover his wits and savor the feeling, a furious roar rang out.
A fiercely powerful fist came hurtling through the air, tearing through it with a sharp whistling sound.
This was the strongest punch Lei Laohu could muster in his shock and rage. Brimming with the strength of an ox and a pig combined with blistering speed, it actually triggered a sonic boom!
In urban novels of his past life, this was known as a sound worth a thousand gold, but Lei Laohu's power was even greater!
Seeming slow yet arriving at precisely the right moment, Fan Yi raised his arm and met the punch head-on. Since the sneak attack had failed, he would fight him square on!
The one who should be terrified was this Lei Laohu!
Upon taking the blow, Fan Yi's arm went numb, and the rocks beneath his feet shattered! He thought to himself that Lei Laohu's strength truly differed from ordinary people. Judging by brute force alone, an ordinary practitioner of Dark Jin taking this punch would have to use the Threefold Ripple to dissipate the force!
However, this punch was Lei Laohu's peak strike seized by taking the initiative; he would not get a second chance!
Lei Laohu felt as though he had struck a spring, his power being stripped away layer by layer!
"Who are you?" Failing to achieve his goal with that punch, Lei Laohu immediately leaped back to put some distance between them.
"The one who's taking your life." Looking at the four unconscious children, Fan Yi's eyes radiated an endless chill.
Lei Laohu did not waste breath talking about how they had no grievances between them; he knew full well that the trade he practiced was universally reviled and deserved to be punished.
"Hehe, you're nothing more than a little brat." Though inwardly terrified, Lei Laohu refused to yield verbally.
"Humph!" Channeling Tongbei Fist and stepping into the Tread-Sky Step, Fan Yi charged forward.
Lei Laohu had no inclination to fight hundreds of rounds with this mysterious yet formidable youngster.
He immediately crossed his hands over his chest while the vertical-eye tattoo on his forehead faintly flickered with yellow light.
Seeing that Lei Laohu was neither dodging nor evading and intended to take his punch head-on, Fan Yi was overjoyed and unleashed his Ninth Layer of Dark Jin straight out.
The opportunity was right before him, but this very opportunity made him forget about Lei Laohu's sorcery. When all was said and done, he had never truly experienced a battle of life and death!
With a soft pop—
Fan Yi's punch carried enough force to shatter not just a person, but a massive boulder!
As Lei Laohu caught the punch with both arms, wave after wave of immense force washed over him. His chest burned with an agonizing pain akin to an explosion, and his internal organs were instantly pulverized into mush!
With a loud crash, Lei Laohu was slammed against the cave wall behind him, his entire body rippling outward with as many as nine concentric circles, just like a drop of water hitting a pond!
Lei Laohu collapsed lifelessly to the ground. He had intended to trade an injury for his life, but never expected it to become a trade of life for life!
Glancing at Fan Yi, who had been left dazed after being struck by his yellow light, Lei Laohu's face—with its shattered facial bones—froze in a ferocious, terrifying, and deeply resentful expression.
Meanwhile, Fan Yi's momentary rush of blood to the head had made him lose his composure, and by the time he saw the yellow light, it was already too late to dodge!
He felt a bone-chilling cold that seemed capable of freezing his very soul, and that ray of yellow light pierced toward his spirit like a sharp arrow.
Within Fan Yi's spiritual realm, the aggressive yellow light lunged straight at his chaotic spiritual essence, crashing violently into it!
To everyone's surprise, Fan Yi's spiritual essence proved remarkably resilient. The arrow formed by the yellow light only managed to breach a tiny outer layer before being blocked!
Then, two bizarre-looking tentacles extended from Fan Yi's spiritual essence and wrapped tightly around the yellow light.
The yellow light writhed frantically like a small snake, but could not break free from the two tentacles, and was ultimately torn to pieces by them, dissolving into specks of fluorescent light that vanished into the spiritual realm!
Just as Fan Yi was clumsily struggling to control his spiritual essence in defense against the yellow light, the sacrificial array suddenly emitted an evil red light, and the blood in all five blood pits flowed backward along the array's patterns straight into the vertical eye at the center!
"Who's there?" Accompanied by a hoarse voice, a plume of black smoke billowed upward. Seeming short on energy, it could ultimately only materialize into a black skull.
The black skull's hollow eyes glanced at Lei Laohu, who was now slumped like a pile of mud, before instantly being drawn to Fan Yi!
"To think there is such a young and immense reservoir of vital blood!" The skull's hoarse voice held a barely suppressable excitement!
It then lunged fiercely toward Lei Laohu on the ground: "This idiot still has some value!" With that, it plunged directly into Lei Laohu's brain!
At this moment, Fan Yi was drenched in cold sweat, his complexion turning deathly pale. His eyes were tightly shut as if enduring excruciating agony!
"Gagagaga!"
Lei Laohu's once robust muscles on the ground rapidly withered away and turned pitch black! Suddenly springing to his feet, Lei Laohu let out a bizarre laugh across his twisted face!
"Prime blood and nourishment!" Stretching out withered, chicken-claw-like fingers, Lei Laohu swiped toward Fan Yi's throat!
"Audacious fiend, I can tell with a single glance that you are no human!" Fan Yi snapped his eyes wide open as a series of explosive reports erupted from his body!
"Face your doom!"
Swiping his palm downward in a reverse motion, Fan Yi shattered Lei Laohu's withered, blackened body into pieces!
The entire Hidden Dragon Cave was filled with invisible jin, and the array pattern on the ground had its top layer of earth cleanly shaved off!
……
……
Another morning arrived. On the riverbank outside Bailong Town, a plain-looking young man in white, standing around one meter seventy-eight tall, wore a long sword at his waist. The scabbard was a verdant wood color with a black hilt. Overall, he looked as unassuming as a youth yet carried his own hidden edge!
"Ah, what a pity." This youth was none other than Fan Yi.
Around the autumn and winter transition of the previous year, Fan Yi had slain Lei Laohu and then returned the four children.
Following police inquiries, the news of a fifteen-year-old expert in Dark Jin had already spread through certain circles in Daxia, creating quite a sensation.
In truth, he had already broken through to Hua Jin, but after that last battle, Fan Yi had secretly resolved to always leave himself a backup plan in everything he did.
Over these past five months, his body had grown much taller due to reaching Hua Jin!
Yet this was not necessarily a good thing. Hua Jin emphasized the integration of spirit and Internal Force. In fact, his two old masters had suspected as much in the past, but dared not be certain because they could not perceive the existence of spiritual power.
Thus, whatever those two old men had said remained vague and ambiguous, for fear of misleading Fan Yi.
When Fan Yi shattered and absorbed that beam of yellow light, his spiritual power had completely spun out of control! The spiritual power—which had previously been self-restrained because his body had yet to meet the requirements—directly and forcefully merged with Fan Yi's Internal Force!