CHAPTER 85: CHAPTER 85 ULTIMATE OUTBURST_1

While this series of dramatic changes seemed to last a long time, they actually occurred in a mere matter of seconds.

Under the glow of fire, the figure that seemed to ’grow’ out of Zhou Ling’s back was now fully revealed before Lu Yuan.

It was a man wearing a peculiar mask.

The middle of the mask protruded outward, resembling an enormous crow’s beak.

Black Qi, like mist-like wisps, enveloped the man, swirling around him like decaying silk ribbons fluttering in the wind.

Zhou Ling had lunged at the man, and wherever his body made contact with the Black Qi, it began to melt like wax.

"Run!"

Zhou Ling yelled, and under his battle uniform, lines of blue light flared up.

The man in the grotesque mask looked down at him, raising his talon-like hand—the same hand that had pierced Zhou Ling’s head—and gently touched Zhou Ling’s face.

Zhou Ling’s voice and movement abruptly ceased.

Lu Yuan stared rigidly at the man in front of him, as if his blood had frozen in his veins.

An unusual frigid air enveloped him, making him feel as if he had plunged into an ice cellar.

Run?! Where could I run to? Could I escape?

Time felt infinitely stretched at this moment.

Countless images and thoughts flashed through Lu Yuan’s mind within a thousandth of a second.

Then, these scattered thoughts converged like rays of light, focusing into his pupils, which abruptly constricted then dilated.

His expression quickly became impassive, devoid of any emotion or fluctuation.

But his body sprang into action.

He shot forward, closing the distance to within arm’s reach of the man and Zhou Ling.

In the next instant, WHOOM! Lu Yuan seemed to swell, his entire body instantly expanding by a size.

His flesh rapidly bulged, changing from fair to dark red.

The veins under his skin erupted, wriggling like earthworms.

His bones emitted a CREAKING, CRUNCHING sound as they strained under the immense pressure...

He violently raised his arms.

Two incredibly muscular arms, the muscles churning like waves, thrust forward.

Like a giant serpent sprouting wings!

At this very moment, there was only one thought left in Lu Yuan’s mind.

An utterly pure thought.

Punch. Strike the man in front of him dead. Kill him... Only then can I live!

Lv3 Absolute Focus, Lv1 Special Burst, Lv1 Flash of Insight.

Constitution points added, double power output, Crane Cry Punch.

Die!

SQUELCH—

The grotesquely long, malformed fingers, like someone crushing an orange, plunged viciously into the head of the person before him.

The latter’s roars ceased instantly, and the glowing lines of light on his combat suit extinguished.

Underneath the mask, the blood-red eyes filled with resentment overflowed with a sense of exhilaration and triumph.

The man could already sense the fragrant, delectable Death Qi rapidly breeding within his opponent’s body.

He was greedily absorbing it, savoring it, trying to compensate for the massive losses and injuries he had suffered earlier.

Suddenly, SWISH— A faint sound of something slicing through the air reached his ears.

The man’s expression flickered slightly as he recalled there was still another living person present.

However, that person was too weak; he had almost overlooked him.

Is that the sound of an insignificant ant, sensing death’s approach, trembling in terror before its demise?

The man casually looked up, intending to see the pathetic state of the ant.

To him, it would surely be an amusing sight.

But just as he focused his gaze, the man’s pupils abruptly contracted...

BANG!

A dull, heavy THUD resounded.

A brutish arm, as muscular as a python, brutally slammed into the masked man’s face.

The protruding part of the mask was instantly replaced by an enormous, veiny fist. Almost half of the massive fist sank into the man’s face.

The masked man was thrown backward by the punch.

Because he was tightly entangled by the corpse beneath him, he didn’t topple over.

Only his head was forced backward at an extreme angle.

Even the bones in his neck emitted an extremely crisp—CRACK!

When the fist was swiftly withdrawn, its protruding knuckles dragged some dark red, viscous fluid from the man’s completely caved-in face.

Then came the second punch.

THUD!

CRACK! CRACK—

This punch landed on the man’s chest, sinking deeply into it.

The man was slightly lifted off the ground by the force of this punch.

A huge lump protruded from his back.

The Black Qi around him seemed to surge at this moment, but unfortunately... BANG! Before it could gather any momentum, it was blasted apart by the third punch, scattering like shredded, rotten cotton.

Then came the fourth punch, the fifth, the sixth...

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG...

Lu Yuan’s once-handsome face was now distorted, muscles bulging and veins throbbing, giving him an incredibly ferocious appearance.

His entire frame seemed to have swelled a size larger.

His thick arms, like pythons, kept swinging, relentlessly pounding the masked man in front of him.

They moved so fast they left trails of afterimages in the air.

Warm liquid was constantly splattering on his face.

It could have been from his burst blood vessels.

Or it could have been from the masked man’s body.

He seemed tireless, not feeling any pain, like a punching machine operating at maximum output...

Lu Yuan didn’t know how many punches he had thrown.

It wasn’t until he was forcibly ejected from the state of Absolute Focus that he felt his arms, so heavy they seemed alien to him, could barely be lifted.

HUFF—

He exhaled a long and scalding breath.

As he exhaled, his entire body seemed to deflate like a punctured bladder, rapidly shrinking a size.

At this moment, Lu Yuan’s body was a tattered mess, covered in countless gashes of varying sizes.

White tendons were even poking out of his arms.

Intense pain, like a tidal wave, washed over him in successive waves from every part of his body.

HUFF—HUFF—

Trembling, Lu Yuan slowly placed his hands on his knees for support.

He watched as blood and sweat mixed and flowed down his skin and muscles.

In the blink of an eye, a small puddle of reddish water had formed under him.

He didn’t know how long this went on.

Finally, Lu Yuan felt a little better.

Perhaps it was because he had added one point to his Constitution, bringing it to 13.

The ghastly, horrifying wounds on his body soon stopped bleeding.

Thankfully, his arms could still move.

Lu Yuan slowly stood up, finally having time to look at the result of his ultimate burst of power.

Indeed, it was an ultimate burst.

Since he began practicing Martial Arts, Lu Yuan had never launched such a desperate, all-out assault on an opponent.

Madly squeezing every bit of strength and potential from his body.

Even if a steel wall stood before me... it would have been smashed by now.

He... he should be dead, right?

Lu Yuan stood in front of a pile of shredded flesh, fighting off the urge to vomit, and gently prodded the bloody mess with his foot.

It was only when he saw skull fragments, clearly belonging to a head, that he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, confirming that the Crow God Sect’s masked man was utterly dead.

This guy was truly inhuman.

His relatively intact arms and legs resembled giant bird claws, with sporadic black feathers mixed in.

Lu Yuan almost thought he had killed some monstrous bird.

"Zhou Ling..."

By the time Lu Yuan reacted and found Zhou Ling a few meters away, his expression became complicated.

Zhou Ling was dead.

The flesh on his face had fallen off as if it had rotted, leaving behind an almost completely exposed, silver-gray metallic skull with several deep holes in it.

Naturally, there was no pulse or heartbeat.

Lu Yuan found the syringe on the ground, the one he had just used to inject the blue potion into several Yellow Bear members.

Holding it, he endured the pain and shook it vigorously.

He finally managed to shake loose a few drops of the residual blue liquid from the wall of the tube. Unsure if it would still be effective, he haphazardly injected it into Zhou Ling’s cold arm.

A Modified Human... in this state, can he still be saved?

After doing all this, Lu Yuan sat on the ground, staring blankly at Zhou Ling’s miserable corpse, and wondered.

Perhaps.