Before Shen Lin, a pitch-black man slowly straightened up. His skin reflected an eerie sheen, his entire body seeming as though it had been steeped in ink.
The axe blade in Shen Lin’s hand fell, going straight for the ink-covered man’s head. Yet when the axe, heavy as a thousand jun, struck his skin, it was actually bounced away, as if it had chopped into a mass of pliant rotten flesh, unable to bite in even an inch.
Shen Lin felt the axe trembling in his hand. A strange look flashed through his eyes as he stared at the man before him, analyzing the attack just now.
It was not that Shen Lin’s attack had failed. Rather, the supernatural contact that seemed effective had in truth been slipped aside by the layer of ink on the surface of the man’s skin. This person had used an extremely unconventional method of supernatural resistance to evade the axe’s attack, after which that layer of ink rebounded rapidly and knocked the axe away from the side.
Shen Lin thought to himself, “A very tricky angle of supernatural application... I’ll try again with greater speed...”
At that moment, the ink-covered man suddenly let out a low, hoarse voice. “That shouldn’t be... How did you discover me...”
Shen Lin said coldly, “I saw.”
“What do you mean...”
There was a trace of confusion in the voice of the man covered in ink.
“Behind you.” Shen Lin pointed behind him.
The ink-covered man instinctively turned his head, and a hint of astonishment flashed through his eyes. Behind him, a man was standing there quietly, yet he had not discovered him at all.
It was an utterly ordinary-looking man, the sort of face that would not draw anyone’s attention if thrown into a crowd. But the instant Shen Lin saw him, he remembered.
Li Leping, a forgotten name, a captain who had been following the team ever since they set out from headquarters.
At this moment, the man named Li Leping gently raised his arm. Waves of scorched, foul-smelling black smoke rose from his body and swiftly spread outward.
He reached out and touched.
The attack seemed slow, yet it left the ink-covered man with nowhere to dodge. Even though he was staring right at Li Leping now, under the influence of the black smoke, Li Leping flickered in and out of his vision. Every second, he would forget the fact that Li Leping had attacked him in the previous second.
The certain-death rule had been triggered.
Looking at the palm already resting on his shoulder, shock appeared on the ink-covered man’s face. “When did...”
His body abruptly collapsed. Rotten dead flesh surged out from beneath his skin, and pale bones were exposed within the black smoke.
Such was supernatural confrontation. The higher the intensity of the clash, the swifter it became; often, victory and defeat were decided in a single instant.
But this man whose whole body was coated in pitch-black ink was clearly an anomaly. Even in this state, he could still move. Those iridescent black hands reached straight for Li Leping.
But right now, there was not only one captain here.
In the next second, two illusory figures appeared before him. They were two lifeless old people, abruptly appearing in front of the ink-covered man, and his hands, which had been about to grab Li Leping, instantly froze in midair.
This time, a trace of fear appeared on the ink-covered man’s face. The two old people who had suddenly appeared before him were far too unreasonable; the fierce ghost within his body had actually been suppressed in an instant.
This kind of absolute suppression was extremely rare in the supernatural circle. There was not even a process of confrontation. Even when facing an S-rank supernatural, he had never felt such an intense sense of oppression.
Immediately afterward, under the ink-covered man’s shocked gaze, an icy glint flashed above his head. The blood-red axe descended from above, like a hot knife cutting through oil, violently splitting him in two.
There was no accident. The ink-covered man became a corpse. With three captains attacking at the same time, there were only a handful of people in the supernatural circle who could withstand it.
On Li Jun’s side, the dark-green ghost fire on the half-charred body was slowly going out.
Yang Jian stared at the shadow covered by the lake water.
“He ran...”
Before Li Jun took action, Yang Jian had already made his move. But the supernatural power that person possessed was extremely strange. Unlike Yang Jian’s headless ghost shadow, that shadow did not seem to exist in reality at all, and had no physical form.
That person seemed to have only borrowed the shadow as a medium. And in this city filled with shadows, even Yang Jian found it extremely difficult to lock onto his location.
After a moment of silence, Liu San spoke.
“A blood-red dagger appearing and disappearing within shadows. These traits match a core member of the King Organization codenamed ‘Killer.’”
“Let’s go. Keep moving. We don’t have much time.”
Li Jun picked up the ink-covered man’s corpse and threw it into a body bag, then continued leading the team forward.
“Wait...” Yang Jian stopped in his tracks. At the same time, Shen Lin also sensed something.
Tightening his grip on the axe in his hand, Shen Lin looked around. “Something is coming.”
At that moment, even Li Jun sensed the abnormality. It was as if countless pairs of eyes were watching him from somewhere, exposing his position completely.
Suddenly, a white light appeared out of thin air ahead, flickering nonstop. Yang Jian reacted the fastest. Without even hesitating, the pitch-black headless ghost shadow on the ground rapidly spread over.
However, the headless ghost shadow was actually stuck at the edge of the white light, unable to advance even an inch.
“Stop.”
A muffled voice came from within the white light.
A figure walked out. It was a foreign man wearing a black clerical robe. His attire made Yang Jian think of the church priests he had seen on television.
“Li Jun.” The foreign man greeted Li Jun. The two of them seemed to know each other.
“We are not enemies. I only came to take back his corpse.”
The priest pointed at the body bag by Li Jun’s feet. Inside was the corpse of the ink-covered man.
Without waiting for the others to speak, the priest continued, “Don’t be in such a hurry to refuse. I know where you are going. I can give you a clear direction.”
The priest before them was clearly a ghost controller. The instant he appeared, everyone felt a strange illusion, as if hundreds upon thousands of gazes were fixed on them.
Everyone could sense that the supernatural aura emanating from this person was no weaker than theirs.
But the captains present had all been tempered by countless supernatural incidents and had witnessed even stranger and more dangerous supernatural powers. None of them panicked at all.
Liu San looked at Li Jun and asked, “You know him?”
Li Jun nodded. “More or less. Zhang Sun had dealings with him before and provided headquarters with some intelligence about overseas matters.”
At this moment, Wang Chaling stepped forward.
“And the reason? You show up at a time like this wanting to take away the corpse of a core member of the King Organization. Why should we believe you?”
“An exchange.”
As the priest spoke, he slowly raised his hand, moving cautiously, as though afraid of causing a misunderstanding. A corpse that had already lost all human shape was thrown out from the white light behind him. In the corpse’s hand, it was still gripping a blood-red dagger.
“I’ll exchange this corpse with you. I am not a member of the King Organization. I have always opposed their methods, but my strength alone is limited. All I could do was protect myself.”