Decaying World

Chapter 145, Chain 145 (Thanks to Alliance Leader Jiang Qingfeng)

Inside Qingfeng Temple.

Lin Hui examined the newly evolved steel sword in his hand. To be precise, this thing was labeled as a special synthetic steel sword, as described on the blood seal.

'Special Synthetic Steel Sword—Crafted from special materials used in spaceships, its hardness allows it to withstand interstellar travel under normal conditions without damage. Evolvable Branch 3.'

Huh? It can evolve?

Lin Hui, on a whim, quickly clicked to take a look.

'1—Star Sword.'

'2—The Black Scale Sword of the Sub-Void.'

'3—The Primal Immortal Sword.'

Okay, okay, just by looking at the name, you can tell it can't evolve on its own.

Lin Hui casually clicked on it and, sure enough, the minimum was fifty years.
Over these fifty years, his skills have probably been strengthened to an unimaginable degree.

He picked up the Ruyi Sword and casually swung it.

Swish.

The blade lightly sliced ​​across the ground in the courtyard, silently and without any sensation, creating a sharp cut.

Lin Hui then pointed the sword downwards toward the ground and placed it down with its weight.

puff.

With a soft sound, the Ruyi sword, relying on its own weight, easily pierced the stone slab, penetrating all the way to the center of the blade before slowly coming to a stop.

'Truly a divine sword!' Lin Hui was overjoyed. With its sharpness and sturdiness, if he were to encounter a Three Harmony Grandmaster as tough as a tortoise shell, one or two strikes might be enough to finish him off.

The Ruyi Sword remains the same as before, capable of freely retracting, measuring one meter in short length and over one and a half meters in long length. The blade is slightly wider than before, with an overall silver edge and a faint gray-black tinge.

After retrieving the Ruyi, Lin Hui suppressed his joy and focused his attention once again on the evolution of the new sword technique.

'Typhoon Sword Technique: Derived from Gale Sword Technique.' He omitted the following long introduction and focused his attention on the final evolutionary branch.

'.Evolvable branch 3.'

'1—Star Breath Sword Manual.'

'2—Great Tornado Sword Technique.'

'3—The Solar Wind God Sword.'

"."

Looking at the simple, straightforward, and powerful name of the evolution, Lin Hui suddenly felt that the martial arts evolved from the Blood Seal might have very obvious distinguishing features.
He first checked the time required for each evolutionary stage to avoid being tempted and then disappointed when he found the time required was too long.

Fortunately, all three martial arts techniques are for people in their early fifties.

Yeah, fifty years, not too long, my foot!

Lin Hui's grip on the Ruyi scepter tightened slightly.

Fifty years!?
He had spent so much time evolving before, taking more than ten years to complete the Typhoon Sword Technique. Now he's given him fifty years in one go, which is more than three times the previous amount!

Lin Hui felt his blood pressure spike dramatically.

Although I expected it to take a long time, I didn't expect it to take this long.
He took several deep breaths to calm his soaring blood pressure before looking at the introduction to the three sword techniques.

'1—Star Breath Sword Manual: Sensing the breath of planets, transforming it into the atmosphere to dominate the field. This is a universal sword technique for manipulating airflow, evolved from the Typhoon Sword Technique. Once mastered, it grants control over the vast majority of flowing gases.'

'2—Great Tornado Sword Technique: Based on the Typhoon Sword Technique, this evolved sword technique can create a giant tornado, possessing astonishing destructive power, but consuming a large amount of energy.'

'3—Solar Wind God Sword: A sword technique powered by scorching solar particles. When used, it can incinerate all enemies within a kilometer, subjecting them to scorching burn damage. Each swing of the sword carries a temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius, and the ultimate move, Solar Explosion, can raise the blade's temperature to a staggering one hundred thousand degrees Celsius. It possesses extremely high explosive power, but its endurance depends on the amount of solar particles accumulated.'

Looking at these three options, Lin Hui immediately ruled out the Solar Wind God Sword for a simple reason.

Because the sun is rarely visible in foggy or fogless areas. This type of swordsmanship clearly relies heavily on sunlight, and progress in training in such an environment would be extremely slow.

Then there's the Great Tornado Sword Technique, which seems pretty good, but Lin Hui is concerned about the words "consumes a lot of energy." He instinctively dislikes martial arts that consume a lot of energy and aren't sustainable.

After all, in this world, perseverance is the only true measure of success.

Therefore, the more moderate and straightforward Star Breath Sword Manual is more practical. It has high applicability and no specific flaws.

Without further hesitation, he directly selected the first option: Star Breath Sword Manual.

Soon, new evolutionary options emerged.

'Star Breath Sword Manual - Remaining time: November 29th, year 54.'

A full fifty-five years
With a sigh, Lin Hui turned off the blood seal and stopped looking at it.

My disciple just presented a new box of Illusionary Dragon Lotus as a gift, and it's about to be used up here. One box can last for almost twenty years; it truly is a divine medicine.

Without hesitation, he quickly took out the Illusionary Dragon Lotus from the study. It was better to use it as soon as possible to feel at ease; he was always afraid it would be stolen if he left it outside.

For three consecutive days, Lin Hui stayed indoors, taking drugs in his room.

It wasn't until the morning of the fourth day that he had consumed all the Illusionary Dragon Lotuses.

The remaining time for the Star Breath Sword Manual also became: January 14th, 36th year. More than 18 years have passed.

But that's the limit.

After more than three days of seclusion, he opened the door and came out of his study. He took a shower first, and then checked on the cultivation of his disciples. Recently, the top ten disciples in the sect have made rapid progress, and there is hope that new internal energy martial artists will emerge again.

This made Lin Hui take it a little more seriously.

In the afternoon, Lin Hui planned to visit Lin Xiaoliu and her parents at the Lin residence, exchange a few words with his stepmother, and then return to Qingfeng Temple. This had been a long-standing habit of Lin Hui's. However, today seemed somewhat different from usual.

On his way back from the Lin residence, Lin Hui had only just started walking when he noticed something was amiss.

Someone was following him from a distance.

It should be noted that his speed and agility, even though he wasn't using his full speed at this moment, were still beyond the reach of ordinary experts.

It's rather strange that someone can keep up with him from a distance without being shaken off.

With a sudden thought, Lin Hui abruptly turned and charged back at the person who was following him.

The man was taken aback at first, then immediately turned and rushed towards the outskirts.

This was exactly what Lin Hui wanted.

He also didn't want to fight in the town, because if the commotion was too great, it could easily destroy buildings and cause unnecessary losses.

The two rushed to the outskirts one after the other and stopped near the fog wall.

Surrounded by dense bamboo forest, Lin Hui lightly landed on the bank of a stream, raising his eyes to gaze at a masked man more than ten meters away.

The person was dressed entirely in a black robe and wore a white mask. There were three fine silver lines along the edge of the robe.

"Who are you?" Lin Hui stared at the other person. "What are you doing following me?"

The man in black robes with silver threads remained silent, but simply drew two wavy short swords from his lower back.

Bang!
With a sudden loud bang, his figure flashed, his speed increased several times, and he appeared in front of Lin Hui in an instant. His twin blades drew two silver lines, slashing towards Lin Hui's throat.

This somewhat familiar scene instantly reminded Lin Hui of the woman he had encountered at the Amethyst Ruins.

That person also used a massive burst of internal energy to forcefully accelerate himself, in order to achieve a great speed increase in a short period of time.

This secret technique must be very harmful to the body, but it does achieve the goal of greatly increasing burst speed in a short period of time.

clang.

He casually raised his hand, and the Ruyi scepter instantly appeared, blocking the attack vertically.

The swords clashed, sending sparks flying everywhere.

The next instant, before the man in black could change his move, the curved blade in his hand was sliced ​​in half with a whoosh, the upper half flying away and disappearing into the bamboo forest for who knows how far.

The man in black robes was clearly taken aback for a moment. In a battle between experts, a moment's hesitation can be a fatal flaw.

In that instant, a silver light shone before his eyes once again.

It was a silver sword beam that swept in with a whirlwind. Flawless, like a pure metallic vortex, it held the mind captive.

puff.

The Ruyi scepter easily pierced the neck of the man in black robes, carrying a severed head high into the air, blood splattering to the ground.

Lin Hui appeared behind him, examined the sword horizontally, and found that it was not stained with a single drop of blood.

'What a fine sword!'

He inwardly marveled; the enhanced Ruyi was completely different from the previous one. That person must have been a martial artist from Zhou Tian, ​​yet he had unexpectedly defeated him with a single sword strike.

He used only the Perfect Breeze Sword for this strike. Although the opponent was taken aback by the weapon cutting him, the Perfect Breeze Sword also caused a slight lapse in concentration.

Ultimately, however, these are all chain reactions triggered by the new Ruyi Sword.

Zhou Tian's tortoise shell was practically nothing under the sharpness of the Ruyi Sword.
'A master of the Zhou Tian realm couldn't be an unknown figure.' Lin Hui sheathed his sword and approached, his inner force creating a surge of air that lifted the mask off the person's head.

Beneath the mask was an old man with gray hair and a kind face.

He searched the corpse again but found nothing that could identify it. In the end, he could only drag it into the fog and throw it out, turning it into food for the monsters.

"Friend, you're quite skilled." Just as Lin Hui finished cleaning up the traces and was about to return to Qingfeng Temple, he discovered that a black-robed figure with gold threads had appeared at the spot where he had just disposed of the body.

This person was wearing a mask, just like the one who had just died—a pale, bare, oval mask, like a goose egg.

"Are they here for revenge?" Lin Hui was too lazy to ask any more questions. Anyway, he had offended quite a few forces. As long as he was sure they were here for revenge, he would kill them if they were, and leave if they weren't.

"No, no, no, those who just died were merely our peripheral members; in essence, they were just consumables under our control. They were pseudo-Zhou Tian cultivators forcibly raised using special drugs," the man in the black robe with golden threads said calmly.

"And then? Shall we fight?" Lin Hui gripped the hilt of his sword, intending to kill as soon as the man answered "yes".

"Lin Hui, you were the one who did the Purple Crystal Ruins, weren't you?" The black-robed man with the golden thread changed the subject. "And the New Martial Alliance branch in the inner city, were you involved too? Right?"

Although he used a question, his tone was quite certain.

"Why did you do this? We, the Qinghe Sect, have no grudge against you, have we?"

"What are you saying? I don't understand." Lin Hui, of course, couldn't admit it. He began to slowly draw his sword.

"You've got some nerve, daring to attack us. You managed to slip through our defenses during several major operations. But now that we've confirmed it's you." The golden-threaded figure also emitted white light from his hands, his black robes fluttering even without wind.

"You think you can still escape?"

Behind Lin Hui, another person in a black robe with gold thread appeared.

The two men, one with three lines and the other with one line, completely blocked Lin Hui from the front and back.

"That's strange. You're an internal energy martial artist with a spotless family background. How could you be this strong?"

A golden line appeared later, prompting a question.

"He probably has some secrets on him too, but let's not worry about that for now. We were lucky; we caught the real culprit after only a little probing. When we get back, the two lords will definitely reward us handsomely. If we report our achievement, we might even get a chance to break through to the next level before we die." The three golden lines laughed.

(End of this chapter)