He wasn't running to flee; he was running to kite.
The speed advantage of a lightning user was pushed to its absolute limit in this moment.
Silver-white lightning exploded beneath his feet continuously, each crackle accompanied by a sudden change in direction.
His figure pulled out a series of afterimages in the mist, moving irregularly in all directions.
The middle-aged man’s first light sphere slammed into the spot where he had just been standing. A deep pit two meters in diameter was blasted into the ground, and the shattered bluestone slabs were melted into dark red lava by the high temperature.
Lin Yuan had already sprung to the left a moment before the light sphere hit the ground.
A second light sphere flew after him.
He forced his body to twist in mid-air, tapping his long spear on the ground to propel himself sideways, narrowly avoiding the direct impact of the light sphere.
However, the shockwave of the light sphere brushing past his right shoulder still scorched a patch of his black clothes, leaving a burning pain on his skin.
Third shot.
Fourth shot.
Fifth shot.
The middle-aged man seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse. The light spheres were fired one after another, unhurriedly, each one grazing Lin Yuan’s body as it flew past.
He was testing Lin Yuan’s speed limit and wearing down his stamina.
Lin Yuan’s breathing finally began to grow heavy, for the consumption of the lightning ability was too great.
Moving at full speed with such frequency burned through energy every second, and his reserves of lightning ability were dropping rapidly.
He couldn't drag this out any longer.
At the moment of a sudden turn, he lightly hooked his left index finger.
Space-time system ability, activated.
It wasn't a large-scale time stop; with his current Tier 1, Level 2 space-time level, he couldn't make a Tier 2, Level 5 enemy freeze.
But he didn't need a freeze... he only needed interference.
The middle-aged man was about to condense a sixth light sphere when he suddenly felt his finger stiffen for an instant.
The duration was extremely short, less than a tenth of a second.
But it was enough for Lin Yuan to charge in front of him.
Lightning exploded at the spear tip, blindingly bright.
“Thunder Walk Through Nine Heavens, Third Form: Thunderclap.”
This was the same move he had used to defeat Su Qingyue yesterday.
The spear lunged like a dragon, piercing straight toward the middle-aged man’s chest.
The lightning coiled around the spear tip was even more concentrated than yesterday, the silver-white arcs almost compressed into a single line.
The middle-aged man’s left eye narrowed slightly.
He didn't dodge.
Dark red light condensed at his chest into a palm-sized rune shield, which perfectly blocked Lin Yuan’s spear tip.
Ding—
A crisp sound rang out.
The spear tip struck the rune shield, and lightning exploded. The dark red lines on the rune shield flickered violently, but ultimately did not break.
Lin Yuan’s spear tip was bounced away by the counter-shock.
But the counter-shock was exactly what Lin Yuan had been waiting for!
Borrowing the force of the rebound, he flipped the long spear in his hands. The butt of the spear whipped upward, striking the middle-aged man squarely on the chin.
All the power of Nine Rounds of Bone Tempering was concentrated into this single point at the end of the spear.
The middle-aged man’s reaction was also swift, as he hurriedly condensed a small rune shield at his chin.
Immediately following the impact, the middle-aged man’s head snapped back, and he stumbled back two steps.
Even though he had condensed a rune shield at the fastest possible speed, Lin Yuan still left a large, bloody gash on his chin.
If not for the rune shield, the middle-aged man would have been killed by Lin Yuan’s counter-attack.
With all of Lin Yuan’s buffs combined, as long as he caught an opening, instantly killing a long-range ability user with weak defense was not a problem.
The middle-aged man’s blood flowed down his neck, staining the collar of his cloak red.
He steadied his footing and reached out to touch his chin.
His palm was covered in blood.
He looked down at the blood in his palm and remained silent for a second.
Then he laughed.
“Good, very good. You almost killed me, you bastard,” he said, his voice carrying a type of pleasure that made one's hair stand on end.
Dark red light surged from his entire body.
It was no longer individual light spheres, but a dark red curtain of light condensing behind him.
Densely packed runes emerged within the curtain of light, each one an inverted eye pattern. They all opened, staring intently at Lin Yuan.
Tier 2, Level 5, going all out.
Lin Yuan knew that if he took this hit head-on, he would be heavily injured at the very least.
The source energy of his lightning ability had hit rock bottom, and the source energy of his space-time system had been mostly used up in that one hook earlier.
But he did not retreat, still thinking about how to kill his opponent in return.
Lin Yuan was certain that as long as this battle ended, his strength and combat experience would rise significantly again.
But at that moment, he heard a sound coming from outside the mist.
More accurately, it came from outside this enclosed space.
A dull thud of an impact.
Like something had heavily slammed into the boundary of the gray-black mist.
Then came a second sound.
A third.
When the third sound rang out, a crack appeared on the wall of mist.
The gray-black mist was like a piece of shattered glass; cracks spread in all directions from the point of impact, and the dark red runes within the cracks shattered, peeled off, and turned to ash.
A fourth sound.
The entire enclosed space shattered.
The gray-black mist dissipated like a receding tide, revealing the hidden real world.
The familiar street in front of the Su Manor.
The shops on both sides were still there, the roadside stalls were still there, and the sunlight overhead was still there.
Only the pedestrians on the street had been frightened by the commotion and had hidden inside the shops, poking their heads out to look.
The smile on the middle-aged man’s face froze.
His full-strength strike hadn't even had time to be released when the curtain of light behind him shook violently under the impact of the space breaking, and the runes went out one by one.
Then he saw a fist.
A fair-skinned fist smashed through the shattered mist, striking him squarely on the side of the face.
The middle-aged man was sent flying sideways. He flew across the entire street, crashing through the door of a cloth shop and smashing the counter inside.
Finally, he was embedded into the back wall, creating a human-shaped indentation.
Broken bricks and wood chips rustled down, covering him completely.
Shen Man walked in from the street corner where the mist had completely vanished.
She was still wearing that same loose, dark red hoodie from yesterday, with the two drawstrings on the hood being of different lengths.
Her right hand remained in a punching posture, and dark red lightning that had yet to dissipate still coiled around her knuckles.
It wasn't ordinary silver-white lightning; it was dark red, like clotted blood.
Tier 5, Level 3, lightning system.
Her milk tea wasn't in her hand, but tucked into the large pocket on the front of her hoodie.
The straw was crooked, and the pearls inside had already sunk to the bottom.
“You dare touch my student?”
She withdrew her fist and shook the dust off her hand, her tone lazy.
Lin Yuan leaned against the wall, his long spear propped against the ground, the corners of his mouth curling upward slightly.
Lin Yuan caught his breath and said, “Teacher Shen, your milk tea spilled.”
Shen Man looked down. Some of the milk tea in her pocket had indeed splashed out when she punched, and the dark red lightning had evaporated the spilled tea into a small cloud of white mist.
She looked up expressionlessly.
“You're paying for it.”
Lin Yuan burst out laughing.
At the end of the street, the middle-aged man embedded in the wall struggled to lift his head.
In his left eye, the inverted eye pattern was rapidly fading.
His face was covered in blood, and the gruesome wound Lin Yuan had left on his chin was still seeping blood. Shen Man’s punch had left a clear fist print on his left cheek, and half his face was swollen.
He looked at Shen Man, then at Lin Yuan.
Suddenly, he began to laugh like a madman...
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