Chapter 678: Death

Chapter 678: Death

Knowing how precious time was, Yan Liang didn’t even waste a second before acting. The mask on his face suddenly morphed, the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, and scars turned into strange colors that clashed and darted around, but never breaking out of the constraint of the palette that was the mask.

At the same time, the space around Yan Liang distorted slightly the way scorching heat from the asphalt street distorted the air on a hot summer day.

He lifted his hands and parted his four fingers and thumbs, aiming at Lithe Snake and Qing Ling, and Gao Yang and Hong Xiaoxiao. From his perspective, it would seem like the angle between his thumbs and fingers was locking onto the targets gradually.

Two seconds later, he bent his thumbs, closing the gap between the fingers.

Meanwhile, Lithe Snake had been crawling on the ground in an attempt to flee, but his movement was stiff, and his thinking slow. Looking at the wall before him, he even had to put his mind to figuring out a path of escape, which should’ve been part of his instinct and would take him less than 0.1 seconds.

Qilin made him dumb.

Lithe Snake hated the feeling of helplessness. He jumped back onto the wall and devoted three hundred percent of his attention to gathering his energy to his hands and feet with difficulty.

Like a gecko, he crawled toward the second floor with hands and feet.

Good. There’s a window on the left. I’ll vault in and...and jump out of the window in the back. Then I should...I should be able to escape the psychic control.

Lithe Snake’s eyes sharpened. A strange energy hit him in the left chest.

After a dazed moment, he felt something pulling away.

What happened?

Lithe Snake slowly looked down. His chest seemed intact, but something was missing inside.

His heart was gone.

It hadn’t been broken by a punch, pierced by a weapon, or crushed by a hand. It vanished from his chest without being touched.

Lithe Snake threw up a mouthful of blood, falling from the wall.

The pale face with a long thin scar looked shocked and confused, his widened eyes staring at the sky as he met a death he refused to accept.

The same thing happened to Qing Ling at the same time.

Unlike Lithe Snake, though, Qing Ling didn’t attempt to run. While her thoughts were slowed, she did her best to activate Metal and send her blades flying toward Yan Liang to stab him.

The next second, though, her Black Gold blades vanished but remained detectable, only they had been moved.

Gao Yang grabbed him by the elbow.

Whoosh. Gao Yang teleported to Lithe Snake and Qing Ling with Wang Zikai and Hong Xiaoxiao. The next second, an invisible distortion followed like an obsessive grim reaper.

Yan Liang was surprised. He didn’t expect Gao Yang to be able to move so quickly even under the effect of Qilin’s Statues. As expected of the Divine Scion.

Of course, a large part of it was thanks to Gao Yang’s Teleportation. Without the Talent, Gao Yang would’ve died many times over.

Yan Liang moved his hands. Instead of trying to lock onto Gao Yang, he speculated the general direction Gao Yang would teleport to and used another skill, Spatial Blender.

The skill covered a greater area with hundreds of spatial vortexes the size of a ping-pong ball, hitting everything in a certain area. While it couldn’t kill with precision like how he had killed Lithe Snake and Qing Ling with a single move, it was good for catching an agile target like Gao Yang.

With the wide range the skill covered, Gao Yang would get many holes put into him, and while losing some muscles, a bone, an eye, or a few teeth wouldn’t necessarily kill a target, the target would lose much of his mobility.

Yan Liang drew his power and pushed it to his palms, about to make a predictive move, but then something strange happened.

Having grabbed Wang Zikai and Hong Xiaoxiao, Gao Yang stayed where he was instead of teleporting.

He saw Lithe Snake and Qing Ling dead on the ground. Their bodies looked intact, but the lumps of tissues not far from them looked like hearts. And in his state of absolute rationality, Gao Yang realized what had happened.

Yan Liang had carved out Qing Ling’s and Lithe Snake’s hearts. They were dead.

With Hong Xiaoxiao’s hairpin, Lithe Snake could be brought back if they managed to flee with him, but Qing Ling didn’t have a hairpin. With her heart carved out...

What did it mean?

It meant that Qing Ling was dead. There was no second chance. Fresh Snow couldn’t save her. Vermilion Bird couldn’t save her. Hong Xiaoxiao couldn’t save her.

No one could bring her back.

She was dead, gone for real. It wasn’t a game, a test, an illusion, or a nightmare.

Something broke in Gao Yang’s head.

While he should be absolutely calm and rational, and his brain didn’t register any sadness, it went blank like his soul had been pulled out of his body.

Hum.

The familiar ring in his head returned.