Chapter 157
Decaying World
"If it was caused by killing monsters, why didn't this happen when I killed them before?"
Lin Hui was intrigued. Enhancing the Spirit-Sealing Array meant enhancing his strength, so he was naturally very interested.
"Let's test it."
Glancing at the Blood Rhino on the ground, he simply began circling nearby.
Before long, he found two more Mist Zone monstersātwo Mist Barbarians. He dispatched them with one sword strike each. That was it.
But the Green Eye showed no change.
Lin Hui decided to venture deeper into the Mist Zone. Soon, he encountered another Dangerous-level monster, a Wandering Barbarian.
This type of barbarian monster was much larger than a standard Mist Barbarian. With a burly physique standing over five meters tall, it resembled a small mountain. Its defenses were even stronger than a Blood Rhino's, making it a monster infinitely close to the High-Threat level within the Dangerous-level category.
It took Lin Hui three strikes to chop its head off, yet the Nine Eyes still showed no reaction.
"What exactly is going on?" He frowned, carefully recalling the differences between his kills then and now.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration crossed his mind.
"Wait!"
He held Ruyi in his hand and stared at the corpse of the Wandering Barbarian, which was still twitching on the ground.
Pu.
With a sudden motion, he thrust his sword into the barbarian's head, the tip piercing deep into its brain.
Hiss.
The next moment, Lin Hui was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the Nine Eyes crystals on his shoulder had lit up again. This was the third crystal!
"So that's it! This Spirit-Sealing Array needs to absorb brain marrow to charge. No, it doesn't necessarily have to be something so disgusting. The head is likely the seat of the life spirit; it isn't absorbing brain marrow, but the spirit of life!"
A series of guesses flashed rapidly through Lin Hui's mind.
He cut open the head and examined the brain marrow inside. He soon confirmed his guess; the marrow was still there. This meant the Spirit-Sealing Array likely absorbed the consciousness or some ethereal spirit substance contained within.
Immediately, he deployed his movement technique and soon found a new Blood Rhino. This time, he once again decapitated it with a single strike, resolving the massive monster.
Bang!
The Blood Rhino fell to the ground, blood spraying continuously from the severed neck, but the Nine Eyes remained motionless, showing no sign of increase.
It wasn't until Lin Hui walked up to the severed head and stabbed down with his sword.
Chi.
The fourth of the Nine Eyes lit up softly.
"As expected!" Lin Hui's eyes brightened. His previous tests had all been instant decapitations, so he hadn't absorbed any spirit a single time. Now, by chance, he had finally figured out the replenishment method for the Nine Eyes!
Having found the trick, he quickly hunted down five more Dangerous-level Mist Zone monsters, easily filling the Nine Eyes' charge to completion.
"It seems I must be more meticulous when testing new abilities next time. If I had been more thorough before, the Nine Eyes would have been fully charged long ago."
Satisfied, he stroked the nine green eye-shaped crystals on his shoulder and adjusted his robes.
"Next, I'll go check out the monster area polluted by Purgatory. Then I'll go to the resource points recorded in the handbook. I'll likely encounter experts from other factions gathering at the resource points, so it's safer to go after absorbing the Purgatory monsters."
After prioritizing his tasks, he planned to cultivate in the Mist Zone for a good while this trip.
His trip to the Moon Tower had reignited a strong sense of crisis in his heart, which had been calm for some timeāespecially after seeing the Truebloods killing people at will, and seeing people like Azhe having their lifespans absorbed.
If you don't eat Myriad Blessings Meat, you will be targeted. Something could happen at any time. If you do eat Myriad Blessings Meat, you will inevitably leave a hidden danger in your body.
Sigh...
Heaving a long sigh, he sped forward. The cavity formed by the Tranquil Incense around him was dragged into a long, flat oval shape.
This was without him even traveling at full speed.
Moo...
Just then, a vague sound resembling a cow's bellow came from ahead.
Lin Hui raised his head and looked forward through the thick Mist. Faintly, he could see a massive figure, over ten meters tall, walking step by step toward the right in the distance ahead.
The figure was generally humanoid, with thick limbs and a hunched frame, dragging many things under its feet that looked like ribbons or water plants.
He continued forward, slowing down. Gradually, the massive figure ahead became clearer.
It was a gray-white giant, over ten meters tall.
It hunched over, its entire body hairless. The top of its head was also bald, occupied only by a withered, small black figure whose lower body was buried deep into the giant's skull.
The small figure had its mouth open, facing the sky, emitting a loud, cow-like bellow from a mouth that looked like a black hole.
The giant walked its path, while the small figure on its head bellowed continuously. The two seemed to be doing their own things, neither interfering with the other.
At this distance, Lin Hui could clearly see that the giant's skin resembled a water-swollen white wall. With every step it took, a fine white powder continuously flaked off and drifted downward.
"Howling Giant..." Lin Hui recalled the content in the handbook.
Among the dozens of monsters that left a deep impression on him in the handbook collected by his disciple Lin Wuhai, this Howling Giant was one of them.
"How could this thing run to a place like this? This area should still be within the cleaning range of the Tuyue Cleanup Squad, right? How could such a High-Threat monster be allowed to approach?"
There wasn't much information on this level of monster in the handbook, only three points: strong corrosion, strength, and strong defense.
Comparing it with information on other monsters of the same tier in the handbook, generally, for monsters of this level, the simpler the attribute description, the harder they were to deal with.
According to the information in the handbook, even the people from the Cleanup Squad wouldn't dare to fight this level of monster head-on. They would only dare to lure it away, or if lucky, wait for subsequent reinforcementsāstrong individuals at the Palace Master levelāto arrive and resolve it.
Yes, the only ones who could steadily win against this thing were strong individuals at the Palace Master level. And in the area beneath the Inner City Moon Tower, there were only about ten or so people at that level... and most of them were figureheads of major factions.
So, to avoid meaningless casualties and consumption, when facing this type of monster, the primary strategy was basically to lure it away.
Lin Hui quietly gripped his sword hilt. After thinking for a moment, he took a step forward and slowly drew his sword.
"Since I'm looking for High-Threat monsters to test my sword anyway, I'll give it a try first. If it doesn't work, I'll just rely on super-high speed to shake it off."
Although his tested speed was only over one hundred meters per second, using the Wild Wind Sword Technique to accelerate could boost it significantly. As for using the Typhoon Sword Technique, that was different.
The Typhoon Sword Technique didn't actually have an acceleration function; it was more like a stationary, super-large-range bombardment skill.
So in actual combat, for small-range, close-quarters engagement, the Wild Wind Sword Technique remained useful.
He guessed that if the Typhoon Sword Technique were tempered to the limit, perhaps it could naturally achieve an effect surpassing the acceleration of the Wild Wind Sword Technique. Therefore, the Typhoon style didn't have acceleration sword moves in that regard.
"Let's see what it feels like to face a monster corresponding to the Divine Officer and High Divine Officer levels... Just as well, the Spirit-Sealing Array is fully charged. According to the Blood Seal's description, it should be able to serve as a safety net."
Hiss.
Fine currents of air began to linger around Lin Hui. The currents slowly grew larger and more urgent.
Shua!
In the next instant, he suddenly vanished from his spot. The Tranquil Incense cavity was stretched into a thin line, disappearing likewise.
He crossed the distance of dozens of meters in an instant.
The plaster-like skin of the giant before his eyes rapidly magnified as he approached.
Lin Hui raised his handāa sword strike of the Wild Wind Sword Technique, Soothing Mountain Form: Shattering Awl!
Pu!!
Ruyi sliced deeply into the depths of the giant's skin, then cut a huge gash from the left side as the blade slid out.
"This isn't considered very hard. Is it because Ruyi's sharpness is too high after enhancement? Or is it because my Internal Force has been strengthened too much by recent Body Tempering?"
A guess flashed through Lin Hui's mind.
But in the next instant, he felt something was wrong.
Because the giant's leg before his eyes seemed much, much thicker than it had appeared from a distance.
Clearly, when he looked from afar just now, this giant was only over ten meters tall. But at this very moment, standing close, he felt that thigh alone was over ten meters thick, like a gigantic stone pillar, occupying the vast majority of his visual space.
So much so that after Ruyi's 1.6-meter length cut out a large gash, the opening looked like a tiny scratch on the giant's leg, completely inconspicuous.
"What is happening!?"
Lin Hui raised his head and looked up at the giant's body.
At this moment, the Howling Giant in his eyes was far, far taller than what he had just seen.
It didn't look over ten meters tall at all, but rather dozens of meters, hundreds of meters...
"No! Wait! This giant... seems to be growing taller and bigger!?"
Lin Hui suddenly snapped to his senses and discovered the anomaly.
The Howling Giant in his eyes was still emitting those cow-like bellows, and its body was shooting up, thickening, and enlarging at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In his eyes right now, it had already turned into a small mountain, its head almost touching the mist clouds in the sky.
Moo!
The Howling Giant lowered its head, raised a foot, and stomped heavily down toward Lin Hui.
Lin Hui retreated at extreme speed, his form turning into a thin line. But strangely, no matter how he retreated, he couldn't escape the range of the opponent's stomp.
"This is a Mind-Spirit attack?! The handbook didn't record this! No wonder only a High Divine Officer can withstand it!" Lin Hui realized.
He didn't panic. Instead, in this short amount of time, he executed Shattering Awl at extreme speed, stacking the speed of the Wild Wind Sword Technique.
Powerful air currents
whooshed
and surged around him. Lin Hui simply closed his eyes and flew rapidly in circles around the giant's foot.
Boom!!!
Finally, the giant's raised foot stomped ruthlessly onto the ground, stomping on the area where Lin Hui was.
At the final moment of being stomped on, Lin Hui, eyes closed, escaped just in time, nearly being hit head-on.
But the crisis was not resolved. He opened his eyes and saw that the Howling Giant in his vision was still growing larger.
At this point, it had changed from a small mountain to something like a skyscraper. The upper half of its body had completely vanished into the Mist, leaving only two skyscraper-like thighs taking a step to stomp toward him.
And this time, because its volume had become even larger, the speed of the stomp also instantly multiplied many times over.
It was like how, for an ant, a distance of one meter takes a good while to crawl.
But for a human, one meter requires only a single step. Less than a second, if fast.
It was the same for the Howling Giant right now. With one step, it instantly crossed a hundred meters, stepping toward Lin Hui.
The gigantic sole of its foot had now swelled to a diameter of over a hundred meters, covering everything on the ground around Lin Hui.
"How am I supposed to fight this?!" Lin Hui stared at the white powder constantly drifting down from the giant's sole, his brows tightly furrowed.
He suspected a Mind-Spiritātype attack was causing this illusion, but he had no way to dispel it.
Even pushing the Wild Wind Sword Technique to its limit, stacking speed again and again until he far surpassed his tested maximum, it still made no difference.
The giant's sole was expanding its surface area at the same rate that he accelerated.
The white sole, blotting out the sky and sun, slammed down with a thunderous crash.
Only then did Lin Hui barely manage to scrape past its edge and escape.
"This is completely different from a High Divine Officer's Mind-Spirit attack in terms of focusā¦ but it's just as troublesome." Lin Hui's expression darkened.
Only by facing a High-Threat monster on par with a High Divine Officer did he truly grasp what kind of enemies the Inner City Cleanup Squads confronted every day.
"So, how do I break this kind of attack?!"
His thoughts raced. Underfoot, the Wild Wind Sword Technique never paused. This time, he abandoned Shattering Awl and shifted entirely into evasive footwork and retreat.
His figure shot backward at extreme speed, yet the giant's sole lifted again, swelling and pressing down with terrifying momentum.
Lin Hui was stunned to find that his retreat could no longer keep pace with the giant's advance.
Noā¦
Itās not getting bigger.
Iām the one getting smaller.