Transcending Worlds: I Have an Invincible Shelter

The dark mist released by the talent [Poison Kill] instantly entered the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears of the man with a face full of fat.

Half a syllable rolled out of his throat, but before it could form a word.

His eyes rolled back, and two tiny black flames shot out from his eye sockets, spreading from the corners of his eyes toward his temples.

The burly man gripped his own neck with both hands, his fingers digging into his flesh, veins bulging.

The burning sensation emanating from his internal organs caused his facial muscles to contort, his mouth agape, but only hissing sounds could be heard squeezing out from between his teeth.

When the fingers touched the cheek, the subcutaneous muscles had already begun to carbonize, and the entire piece of dough curled up and peeled off like charred paper, revealing the grayish-black bone underneath.

He crashed to the ground, kicked his legs twice, digging two deep holes in the soil, and then remained still.

A shriveled, black corpse, emitting a burnt smell, remained in the position of strangulation.

Lin Xuanzhi's heart suddenly raced. Too fast.

A third-tier talent can die from poisoning in no more than four seconds.

She didn't even have time to make a second move before she was gone.

The power of the poison far exceeded her expectations; it was definitely a deadly weapon.

Lin Xuanzhi clenched her fists, her fingertips trembling slightly, not out of fear, but out of excitement.

But the veterans who had survived in the ruined city were no ordinary people. The skinny child shouted "Ambush!" and at the same second, his hands were already slamming onto the ground.

Without the slightest hesitation, without even glancing at his companion.

The third-tier talent [Gravity Field] unleashes its full power.

The soil beneath Lin Xuanzhi's feet suddenly collapsed, and she felt as if an invisible giant hand was pressing her down from above.

Shoulders, spine, knees—all joints simultaneously bear pressure several times their own body weight.

Knees bent uncontrollably, feet sank into the mud, and calf muscles were stretched to their limit.

Her pursuit was abruptly interrupted, her upper body leaning forward, almost causing her to fall headfirst into the ground.

At the same time, the taciturn, burly man moved. His body surged with source energy, activating his innate ability [Hardening].

His leg muscles bulged wildly, his skin had a grayish-black sheen, and his trousers ripped open from the knees, revealing calves thicker than an adult's waist.

The hardened right leg swept across, carrying a visible shockwave, and struck Lin Xuanzhi, who was pinned to the spot.

In the face of life and death, Lin Xuanzhi's pupils suddenly contracted.

She tried to dodge, but the gravitational field held her firmly in place, preventing her from even turning to the side, let alone dodging.

She possesses third-tier strength but lacks third-tier combat experience.

Faced with the combined attack of two partners who had worked together for countless years, her reaction was a full beat too slow.

Lin Xuanzhi gritted her teeth, gave up dodging, and crossed her arms to protect her left ribs.

The source energy within his body surged wildly towards his forearm, and a thin layer of black mist covered the surface of his skin, barely serving as a buffer.

"Bang!"

When that leg came crashing down, Lin Xuanzhi felt like she had been hit by a truck.

A clear cracking sound came from the arm bone; the black mist defense layer was pierced through in one blow. The person's feet left the ground, and they flew sideways for seven or eight meters.

She bumped her back against a dark tree, its trunk so thick that it would take two people to hug it. The impact shook it violently, and bark and fallen leaves rustled down.

Lin Xuanzhi slid down the tree trunk, knelt on one knee, a metallic taste rising in her mouth, and blood spilled from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto her clothes.

My arms hung limply at my sides, numb from my shoulders to my fingertips, and I couldn't muster any strength.

She underestimated her opponent. That leg wasn't made of flesh; it was cast in iron.

"Where did this little blonde girl come from?" The skinny child's voice came from more than ten meters away, carrying a kind of nauseating excitement.

He tilted his head, looking at Lin Xuanzhi with the same gaze he would give a toy.

"With such delicate skin, she's probably still a virgin, isn't she?" The skinny child licked his lips, grinned, and revealed a set of uneven, yellow teeth.

"After we're done, I'll take you back and have some fun."

As he spoke, he pressed his hands down again.

The gravitational field contracted rapidly, and all the pressure was concentrated in a three-meter area around Lin Xuanzhi.

The ground sank another half foot, her knees were pressed deep into the soil, her sternum creaked, and she had to exert all her strength to take each breath.

The burly man stomped his left foot hard on the ground, creating a deep pit the size of a bowl, and lunged forward.

This time, instead of sweeping, he raised his hardened right leg high and chopped it down straight at Lin Xuanzhi's skull.

If this kick goes through, their head will be as big as a watermelon.

Lin Xuanzhi struggled to lift her head, staring intently at the descending leg. The black flame mark on the inside of her right wrist throbbed wildly, burning her skin red.

She opened her mouth to release the poisonous mist, but her chest was compressed so much that she couldn't exhale a single breath.

Half a meter! Thirty centimeters!

Just as that leg was less than a hand's width from her head, a roar of beasts exploded from the depths of the black forest—not just one, but a whole pack.

Green Eyes emerged from the shadows, hovering about 200 meters behind Lin Xuanzhi, as Jiang Xiaochen had specifically instructed him to do so.

The original quote was: "Let her hit, let her get hurt, but don't let her die."

Green Eyes executed the move flawlessly, its pupils blazing with green light, violently smashing through the surrounding bushes, sending twigs and debris flying everywhere.

A dozen or so mutated flying wolves charged out first, their eyes bloodshot and their mouths dripping with saliva.

Following closely behind were three mutated, mad pigs, each the size of a small truck, with their tusks protruding, hooves pawing the ground, heads down, charging straight at the strong man's lower body.

Four flying wolves leaped into the air, biting at the hardened long leg that was still hanging in mid-air from different angles.

The burly man was forced to pull back and kick away one of the flying wolves that pounced on him, but the other three had already bitten his calf.

His teeth ground against his hardened skin with a harsh metallic scraping sound. Although he couldn't bite through it, the dragging force made him lose his balance.

"Damn it! Where did all these beasts come from!" The skinny child's face changed drastically.

Mutant beasts are swarming in from all directions, and their numbers are still increasing.

If his gravitational field continues to be maintained, the weight of all the mutated beasts that rush into the area will be superimposed on him.

That's not suppressing the enemy, that's suicide. The skinny child gritted his teeth and suddenly raised his hands.

The gravitational field has been removed!

The pressure on Lin Xuanzhi's chest suddenly disappeared, and air rushed back into her lungs. She gasped for breath twice, and the smell of blood made her cough.

She pushed herself up from the mud puddle with one hand, wiped the blood from her face, and coldly locked her gaze through the gaps in the herd of beasts onto the skinny child who was spewing profanities.

The child quickly raises both hands, reversing the direction of gravity.

Just as the two flying wolves were pouncing into the air, their bodies suddenly went out of control and they were pulled to the ground by an invisible force, smashing two large craters in the bushes.

The moment the suppression disappeared, Lin Xuanzhi's lungs finally reopened.

The air rushed in, carrying a pungent smell of mud and blood, which made her cough violently twice.

Her chest heaved violently, and each breath pulled at her injured ribs, causing her eyes to twitch in pain.

My left arm is completely useless. It's numb from my shoulder to my fingertips. It hangs limply at my side, and the angle of the bone misalignment is clearly visible.

My right arm is slightly better; I can still move it, but my fingers are shaking, and I can't close them together.

The burly man's hardened leg was deflected by the three mad boars, and the force of his strike landed squarely on the back of one of the boars.

A muffled thud.

The mad pig shrank by half a head, and its four legs sank two inches into the mud.

But this beast was ridiculously thick-skinned. It shook its head, exhaled two thick breaths from its nostrils, and with a twist of its fangs, it charged forward again.

The burly man swore and was forced back three steps by the mad boar's charge. The battlefield was torn in two.

Green Eyes perched on a tall branch in the distance, looking relaxed as it watched the people and beasts fighting below without moving.

The mutated beasts he controlled were only responsible for stalling, interfering, and wearing down the enemy; none of them actually attacked vital points.

Lin Xuanzhi touched the trunk of the black tree behind her with her right hand, her fingernails digging into the rough bark, using it to prop herself up.

Standing up straight was a slow process. Her knees were trembling, and a dull pain radiating from her lower back caused her spine to arch slightly before she straightened it again.

She wiped the bloodstain from the corner of her mouth with the back of her right hand, and when her fingertips touched her skin, her own body temperature was frighteningly high.

His eyes changed.

It wasn't the tense and excited look in his eyes from the first battle, nor the panic after being kicked away by the strong man.

All those things were completely removed, revealing a very clean killing intent beneath.

He had no other emotions, only one thought: to kill.

She had witnessed too much death during her years at the night watch camp. She survived until now not because of luck or kindness.

Lin Xuanzhi did not retreat; she loosened her grip on the tree trunk and walked forward.

The pace was not fast, one could even say slow.

With each step she took, you could see her right leg trembling slightly. But the direction was clear: towards the thin child.

The chaos created by the mutated beasts' rampage provided natural cover; mutated flying wolves, mutated mad pigs, shattered bush branches, and flying dirt turned the entire area into a mess.

The skinny child was unable to truly handle Lin Xuanzhi.

He was alternately raising and lowering his hands, using the alternating force of gravity to push away the flying wolves that were pouncing on him.

He used his talent too often; the sweat on his forehead washed away the dirt on his face, leaving deep furrows, and his breathing became faster and faster.

This indicates that the source of power is being depleted.

Out of the corner of his eye, the skinny child caught a figure approaching from the left front—ten steps, eight steps, six steps.

The woman who had been kicked away by Shi San was walking this way.

The skinny child's heart skipped a beat, and he forced out a roar.

"Shi San! Kill that woman first!"

The burly man was entangled with three mad boars when he heard the shout and punched the nose of the flying wolf in front of him.

With a cracking sound of bones breaking, the flying wolf howled and rolled over. The burly man stepped on its corpse and charged towards Lin Xuanzhi.

Lin Xuanzhi didn't even look at him; her eyes were fixed on the thin child, unblinking.

His eyes were fixed on the child, and the black flame mark on the inside of his wrist was burning hot, the heat penetrating his skin and seeping into his bones.

There isn't much source energy left in my body.

She didn't use it sparingly; she released it all without holding back a single drop.

Tier 3 talent: [Poison Kill].

This time it's different from before; it's no longer the kind of mist that diffuses in the air and needs to be inhaled to take effect.

Two pure black flames, each as thick as a thumb, shot out from her pupils, trailing two extremely short black tails in the night.

It was so fast that the child's gravitational field didn't even have time to change direction.

The child's pupils contracted sharply, and he desperately slapped his hands down, the gravitational field pressing down hard on the two black flames.

The trajectory of the poisonous flames veered slightly, veering a few inches below the ground.

But it was only a few inches off.

Two streaks of black flame grazed the ground for three meters, their tails curling up before plunging into the child's chest.

Screams ripped through the night.

The moment the poisonous flames enter the body, it doesn't burn, it devours.

Black flames spread in all directions from the two bullet-hole-sized wounds, spreading along the ribs to the sides and climbing up the collarbone to the neck.

The child fell to the ground and tried to extinguish the flames on his chest with his hands, but his fingers caught fire the moment they touched the black flames.

His ten fingers burned before his eyes, and he watched as his joints turned to black ash piece by piece. His cries became distorted and inhuman.

It rolled around on the ground six or seven times before finally coming to a complete stop.

ten seconds.

From poisoning to death, it takes ten seconds.

All that remained on the ground was a pile of black ash, still curled up in its original shape.

It was trampled and scattered by the running mutated flying wolves and mutated mad pigs.

Lin Xuanzhi stared at the pile of ashes, her chest heaving violently.

The first time I used poison to kill that burly man, it took four seconds.

This time, ten seconds.

The greater the distance, the greater the energy expenditure, but the result is the same—one hit means certain death, there is no other possibility.

This talent is a true weapon.

The burly man stopped in his tracks.

He was less than ten meters away from Lin Xuanzhi and had seen the whole scene clearly.

The skinny boy had been his partner for six years, starting from a small camp in a ruined city, and had seen all sorts of battles.

It burned to ashes in ten seconds.

The burly man's Adam's apple bobbed once, his hardened skin still covered his entire body, and his gray-black skin gleamed in the night.

But he dared not gamble; he could withstand physical attacks, and neither knives nor bullets could penetrate him.

But that black, poisonous fire wasn't a physical attack; it burned inside the blood vessels.

Without further hesitation, the burly man turned and ran. His hardened legs had an enormous stride, and each step he took caused the ground to vibrate.

It was very fast, more than three times faster than other talents of the same level.

Lin Xuanzhi stood still and did not chase after her.

She couldn't keep up either; her energy was depleted, her legs were weak, and she was lucky to even be able to stand.

But she shifted her body slightly, and with her right hand, she reached behind her back and grabbed a mud-covered submachine gun.

Unable to use her left hand, she gripped the butt of the gun with one hand, her right index finger on the trigger, the muzzle following the burly man's receding figure.

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—"

Gunshots rang out in the Black Forest, flames leaped and bullet casings clattered around their feet.

The accuracy was terrible; the bullets hit tree trunks three meters away, mud five meters away, and bushes ten meters away, but never touched the strong man's back.

But there were enough bullets; with 15 million US dollars in weaponry, Su Yuyang had Audi buy a massive amount of ammunition.

As the dense barrage of fire swept past, the burly man had to dodge left and right, turning his straight-line run into an arc.

A stray bullet bounced off his shoulder blade, deflected by his hardened skin, and the crisp metallic clang was clearly audible.

The burly man wasn't injured, but his body swayed to the right due to inertia, and he stepped on a vine that shouldn't have been there, staggering half a step.

Just half a step.

The green-eyed man's lips twitched slightly; there were others lurking in the shadows.

The mutated flying wolves that had been lurking on the perimeter were waiting for this opening. The wolves charged forward, biting the burly man's right calf one bite after another.

The teeth grind against the hardened skin, making a sound that makes your teeth ache.

It can't bite through, but the bite force of the mutated flying wolf isn't used to break through defenses; it's used to pull.

The burly man stumbled, lost his balance, and his knees slammed to the ground.

The burly man struggled furiously among the wolves, his hardened fists striking left and right, breaking the ribs of one flying wolf with one punch and dislocating the jaw of another with the next.

The flying wolf whimpered and rolled away, but the empty spot was immediately filled by a new companion.

Lin Xuanzhi threw away the submachine gun with its magazine empty and walked over step by step.

She walked very slowly. Her left arm hung down, swaying back and forth with the rhythm of her walk, and with each sway, her brow furrowed.

His right hand was free, hanging at his side. The black flame mark on his wrist had stopped flickering and was now quietly embedded in the texture of his skin.

The burly man was still struggling when he turned his neck and saw Lin Xuanzhi's footsteps stopped a step away from him.

He tilted his head back, and from this angle, Lin Xuanzhi's face didn't show any particular expression.

There was no anger, no pleasure, and no hesitation.

She simply looked down at him calmly, almost as if she were looking at a stone.

"No...don't kill me!"

The burly man's voice was hoarse, and his words came out hurriedly and incoherently, "I surrender! I'll tell you everything!"

"surrender?"

Lin Xuanzhi squatted down and pulled a pistol from behind her waist with her right hand. It was a spare weapon that Jiang Xiaochen had given her and had always kept on her belt.

She checked the magazine, pushed it back in, and pulled the slide. Her movements were much more agile than those of the miners she'd seen on the training field during the day.

"I can't make that decision."

The burly man paused, a glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes. "Can't make the decision?" meant he could consult with superiors? Could they talk?

Lin Xuanzhi raised the muzzle of her gun in her right hand and aimed it at the burly man's face.

The burly man instinctively opened his mouth as if to say something more.

The gun barrel was inserted.

With the metal gun barrel pressed against his tongue, the burly man's eyes nearly popped out, and he could only make muffled sounds in his throat.

His hardening talent turned his skin into an iron plate, but his gums, tongue, throat, and brainstem inside his mouth were no different from those of an ordinary person.

Lin Xuanzhi's index finger was on the trigger. She looked down at the burly man's distorted face and paused for about two seconds.

Those two seconds weren't hesitation. She was simply checking if the angle of the gun was right.

"Bang."

A cloud of blood and mist exploded at the back of his head, and grayish-white stuff mixed with bone fragments splattered far away.

The burly man's body stiffened for a moment, his hardening talent began to fade from his limbs, his gray-black skin returned to its normal color, and he went limp, lying face down in the mud.

The flying wolves released their jaws, retreated one by one, and licked the bloodstains from their mouths.

Lin Xuanzhi stood up, tucked the pistol back into her waistband, and turned around.

"Thank you both."

Green eyes emerged from the shadows behind the tree trunk, clapped their hands, and walked over unhurriedly.

Upon receiving the signal, the mutated flying wolves and mad pigs quietly retreated into the bushes, disappearing completely within seconds.

"You reacted too slowly."

Green-eyed man walked up to her and said this first.

Lin Xuanzhi remained silent.

"Even worse defense." Another voice came from behind the black tree not far away; it was Lou Tengjing.

Green-eyed Lou Tengjing didn't understand. Her gaze swept over Lou Tengjing's limp left arm, lingering on the fracture site for a moment.

"If he had kicked you in the head instead of your arm, you would be no different from those two puddles on the ground right now."

Lin Xuanzhi gave a bitter smile, pressing her right hand against the broken part of her left arm. The veins on the back of her hand stood out, and beads of sweat rolled down her forehead.

Green Eyes tilted her head, looked at her for a while, and then her tone suddenly softened.

"However, they're quite efficient at killing people."

He walked over to the burly man's corpse, glanced at the hole in the back of his head, and clicked his tongue.

"Shoot with a gun in your mouth? Who taught you that?"

"Nobody taught me."

Lin Xuanzhi finally spoke, her voice hoarse beyond recognition. "The hardening talent can't cover the internal organs, am I right?"

Green-eyed paused for a moment, then smiled.

"Alright."

He straightened up, his smile fading. "Let's get down to business. Which direction did these three people come from?"

"They came from the southeast, from the deep trench."

Lin Xuanzhi endured the pain and adjusted the position of her left arm, her forehead covered in even more cold sweat.

"The team of third-tier talent users is not from the direction of the Ash Earth Camp. They must have been sent by another camp to scout ahead."

Green Eyes raised an eyebrow. This person, who had only awakened their talent less than two days ago, had lost an arm, killed two third-tier talent users, and was still able to calmly analyze the enemy's approach.

"There seems to be more activity going on in the ruins of Tokyo."

Lin Xuanzhi managed to finish those words, her voice so weak it was almost inaudible.

"As expected."

Green-eyed girl raised her head and looked towards the deep trench.

He couldn't see anything in the dim light of the night, but he knew what lay on the other side of the crack.

"Glas Jintu is much more ruthless than his brother Glass Mingyuan; he could never possibly carry this alone."

Of the ten camps at Water Jade Lake, he'll definitely bring in the other nine. Right now, the entire city of ruins is probably eyeing the Black Forest.

He paused, then glanced at Lin Xuanzhi. "How's your arm? Can you walk back?"

"able."

Lin Xuanzhi took a step, her knees buckled, but she gritted her teeth and steadied herself.

Green Eyes didn't offer a hand to help, but simply followed beside her, keeping a half-step distance.

The two walked one after the other towards the camp.

Behind them, three corpses—or more precisely, a pile of ashes, a black corpse, and a dead man with his head split open—were soon smothered into the ground by vines that sprouted from the earth.

Before long, not a trace will remain.