BOOM!
A violent explosion erupted where Duke Feng, Feng Yu, was standing.
But Feng Yu wasn’t dead. Instead, he had caught his assailant, holding them firmly back with one hand.
"A feint to the east while attacking the west... I didn’t expect that. Truly impressive," Feng Yu said, his voice cold.
His once-magnificent robes were in tatters, revealing a powerful physique that pulsed with savage strength.
The Jigsaw Sacred Artifact that Feng Yu possessed was called Tripod-Lifting Strongman.
The name might have been a bit underwhelming, but its effect was to grant its wielder an incredibly powerful physique.
Invulnerability and limb regeneration were trivial matters for it.
Therefore, blocking Qi Suian’s attack with his bare hands was no problem at all.
If Sharp was a high-skill player who relied on technique, then Feng Yu was a pay-to-win player who relied on stats.
He didn’t have any flashy abilities; he just had simple, unadorned stats like strength, constitution, and agility maxed out.
Feng Yu’s fist smashed toward the Tai Sui God’s head. The speed and power were so great that it instantly crushed the Tai Sui God’s head to a pulp.
However, for the Tai Sui God, having no head had little to no effect.
Under Qi Suian’s control, an iron arm thrust up from Feng Yu’s abdomen, piercing through his torso. Countless organs were crushed and torn out.
’He definitely wouldn’t aim for the bones; they’d be way too hard.’
This was only possible thanks to the Tai Sui God’s transformation module. Otherwise, such a tricky attack would have been impossible.
Despite this wound, Feng Yu’s expression didn’t change. He simply threw another punch at the Tai Sui God’s chest.
The injury was indeed severe, but with the Jigsaw Sacred Artifact, Tripod-Lifting Strongman, he was recovering quickly.
Besides, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t suffered such wounds before. On the battlefield, as long as you had a single breath left, you couldn’t retreat.
At the same time, all the generals and soldiers of the Xuan Empire activated their own Sacred Artifacts and began to attack Qi Suian.
The dense barrage of attacks was enough to make Qi Suian’s scalp tingle.
However, fueled by a massive cocktail of adrenaline, dopamine, and other hormones, Qi Suian became preternaturally calm.
When mindset wasn’t enough, hormones would have to do.
The Wind Master’s aviation system kicked into overdrive, maxing out his agility.
His protagonist halo began to take effect, causing his evasion ability to skyrocket.
Every single attack was dodged just a moment before it could land.
Seeing this, a look of surprise appeared on Feng Yu’s face.
It wasn’t that he’d never seen such a feat; a past enemy had done something similar.
They had relied on a unique Sacred Artifact to dodge a dense barrage of attacks.
"Speed... too slow," Feng Yu said. He blurred into a series of afterimages and caught up to Qi Suian in an instant.
He couldn’t truly fly, but a special ability from Tripod-Lifting Strongman allowed him to hover in the air and use it as a foothold.
So even in mid-air, he could unleash speed and power no less than when he was on the ground.
The moment he caught up to Qi Suian, his fist came crashing down.
"You think you’re so strong?" Qi Suian suddenly turned back.
The Evil Dragon and Evil Tiger manifested.
"Soul-Devouring Evil Force!"
He fully mobilized the Martial Dao will within the Tai Sui God. A strange pattern of lines appeared on the Tai Sui God’s surface.
To Feng Yu’s eyes, it looked like some kind of Array.
An invisible shockwave instantly slammed into Feng Yu’s mind.
The Enchantment Arrays from the Profound Elemental Attachment Technique—and not just one, but three of them.
A burst of three elemental attributes: Mind, Spirit, and Soul.
At that moment, Feng Yu’s body froze stiff.
Although Tripod-Lifting Strongman strengthened more than just the physical body, its mental and spiritual enhancements were far inferior to its physical ones.
Thus, he managed to control Feng Yu for a brief second.
But for Qi Suian, that was more than enough.
Force combined with power, amplified by a series of modules, caved in Feng Yu’s chest on the spot.
His sternum shattered, and his heart, lungs, and other internal organs were all turned to mush.
Yet even with such a grievous injury, Feng Yu did not die.
After recovering from the stun, a bloodthirsty smile spread across his face.
"Since inheriting the title of Duke Feng from my father, you are the first person to injure me so severely." Feng Yu’s expression grew ferocious.
Without hesitation, he brought his palms together in a clapping motion.
Qi Suian recognized the move: Two Peaks Piercing the Ears.
Against an ordinary person, it wouldn’t matter, but the one attacking was Feng Yu, possessor of the Jigsaw Sacred Artifact, Tripod-Lifting Strongman.
Moreover, he wasn’t aiming for the head, but for Qi Suian’s entire body.
If that clap landed solidly, he’d be instantly crushed into a heap of scrap metal.
The injury hadn’t made Feng Yu retreat; instead, it had further awakened his ferocity.
After so many years of living a pampered life, it would be unrealistic to say his skills hadn’t dulled.
The pain now brought him back to his former peak.
BANG!
The Tai Sui God didn’t have time to retreat and was smashed to pieces.
But his opponent had miscalculated one thing. Qi Suian hadn’t survived this long by being a good person.
He was already struggling just to stay alive. Now that someone was trying to take his life, Qi Suian’s own vicious nature was fully unleashed.
The upper half of his body emerged from the Expedition-Grade Ecological Circulation Unit. By controlling his own cells, he transformed into a black shadow.
He dove headfirst onto Feng Yu, squeezing directly into his body through the wound.
"What?" Feng Yu could feel a strange, squirming sensation inside him.
At the same time, some kind of terrifying disease began to spread, eroding his entire body.
It was as if he was being hollowed out... No, his internal organs had already been hollowed out. A better description would be the feeling of being eaten from the inside.
He was certain that the black shadow that had lunged from inside the Iron Armor Man was definitely not human.
His first instinct was to contract his muscles and squeeze the strange invader out of his body.
But the invader was small and dispersed quickly. In less than ten seconds, it had spread through his blood vessels to every part of his body.
"If you won’t let me live, then I’ll eat you..."
A voice traveled up his own bones and into his mind.
"I have lived to this old age. Do you think I’m someone who clings to life and fears death?!" Feng Yu wasn’t the least bit afraid.
A man of his age had crawled out from piles of corpses on the battlefield. Whether Qi Suian’s threat was real or not was useless against Feng Yu.
It was just death; he had long since come to terms with it.
How many people who have lived through war truly fear death?
"Yesterday I killed them, today you kill me. It’s just the way of war."
As his words fell, every muscle, bone, and blood vessel in Feng Yu’s body tensed, creating terrifying pressure to crush the strange entity inside him.
However, it had no effect. He could feel the gnawing sensation inside him intensifying.
By this point, Feng Yu understood that his time was near.
His Jigsaw Sacred Artifact, Tripod-Lifting Strongman, had no way of killing the Qi Suian that had entered his body.
Feng Yu couldn’t understand what kind of Jigsaw Sacred Artifact Qi Suian was using.
He had originally thought the iron armor was Qi Suian’s Jigsaw Sacred Artifact, but now it was clear that it was something else entirely.
As for using two Jigsaw Sacred Artifacts? It was possible, but an ordinary person wouldn’t have enough energy for that.
Using multiple standard-issue Sacred Artifacts was possible, but not Jigsaw Sacred Artifacts. It might look like a single item, but a Jigsaw Sacred Artifact is composed of many Proto-Sacred Artifacts, and using it is equivalent to using all of them at once.
Therefore, a person’s energy is finite.
Unless you are exceptionally gifted.
In truth, Feng Yu was using the wrong method. If he had used a Sacred Artifact for healing or dispelling disease, he might have been able to purge Qi Suian from his body.
But how could he have possibly guessed what kind of species Qi Suian truly was?
At most, he could only think of it as a curse.
And even if he thought of a countermeasure now, it was already too late.
By now, more than half of Feng Yu’s body had been devoured by Qi Suian, the consumed parts naturally being filled in by the Profound Virus.
So, from the outside, there was no visible change, other than his complexion turning a bit darker.
Even Feng Yu himself didn’t realize he was being eaten so quickly.
This was for no other reason than that Qi Suian had come prepared.
After entering Feng Yu’s body, he began to secrete endorphins, a neurotransmitter, and used this opportunity to rapidly invade Feng Yu’s brain.
He then used Feng Yu’s own central nervous system and pituitary gland to secrete even more endorphins. Endorphins can bind to specific receptors in the brain, producing an analgesic effect.
Of course, they also produce a sense of euphoria, though Feng Yu wasn’t feeling that right now.
After all, since his own body was producing them, not some external source, Feng Yu couldn’t detect it.
Apparently, the bodily control granted by the Jigsaw Sacred Artifact, Tripod-Lifting Strongman, was not as meticulous as Qi Suian’s.
"Everyone... attack me!" Using the last of his strength, Feng Yu issued one final command before his death.
The crowd hesitated for a moment, but no one asked why. They obeyed Feng Yu’s command and launched their attacks at him.
"You’ve lost, Iron Armor Man. The Empire’s soldiers, they obey orders. Even if it means attacking..." Feng Yu didn’t finish his sentence. A massive barrage of attacks slammed into his body.
Caught in the full brunt of the assault, he was instantly torn to shreds, leaving nothing behind.
When the attacks stopped, Qi Suian’s gaze swept over the crowd.
With a wave of his hand, the shattered pieces of the Tai Sui God returned to him and began to repair themselves ceaselessly.
"Hah. Losing doesn’t matter. Surviving is what’s key," Qi Suian sneered.
He had never cared about so-called winning or losing; he just wanted to survive.
Without Duke Feng, Feng Yu, the remaining people were still troublesome, but it wasn’t as if there wasn’t a chance to slaughter them all.
"Well then, round two begins."
As Qi Suian’s voice fell, the Evil Dragon and Evil Tiger manifested once more, accompanied by the Profound Virus seeping from his body.
His assault was like a tiger let loose in a flock of sheep. He powered through the attacks from the enemy’s various Sacred Artifacts and began a massacre.
The effect of his protagonist halo was now in full force, making all attacks miss him as if the enemies were merely tracing the outline of his body.