【Wait, don't do it yet!】
At this moment, Ren Yi was floating indistinctly behind where the Sword-man had been, holding the Withered Claw.
He had just caught the Sword-man off guard, grabbing him to separate him from his sword.
But he had underestimated the explosive temper of a certain non-human teenager nearby.
Evans, who was harboring a bellyful of rage after being blasted in the face by sword energy several times just now, couldn't care less about tactical coordination at this moment.
Almost the instant Ren Yi succeeded, a sky-blotting mass of black liquid came crashing down with reckless, violent fury!
“Boom! Splat—!”
A terrifying mass heavier than ten thousand tons bore down like a falling mountain.
Before Ren Yi could even stop him, the Sword-man had already been physically smacked into a uniform, completely unrecognizable puddle of mush.
Ren Yi's Withered Claw was still pinching the shoulder area of that pile of mush, maintaining his “grabbing” posture. The scene was extremely awkward.
“Don't what yet?” Evans only now reacted to Ren Yi's words.
By now, Evans was completely in his True Form. His voice echoed from within his body, sounding somewhat muffled.
It swayed slightly, seemingly glancing down at the mush beneath its feet. Misunderstanding something, it explained:
“Don't worry, this guy will revive!”
“I've seen it with my own eyes before.”
“He crashed into a rock wall while riding his sword and died, and then two days later, he crawled out from who-knows-where again.”
Still not fully appeased, Evans ground his weight over the pile of mush again and again, washing over it.
He looked rather pitiful right now.
He had only thought about reverting to his True Form for a total suppression, forgetting that his True Form was as massive as a hill.
The omnidirectional, rain-like barrage of wide-range sword energy that the Sword-man had unleashed earlier was no joke, and it had dealt Evans a serious beating.
Looking around, his black liquid had been split into several pieces, scattered all over the place.
Aside from the massive core blob still venting its anger on the spot, the remaining few blobs were miserably crawling back toward the main body one by one.
The problem was, the Sword-man hadn't lied.
That sword energy really did “sprout” inside the wounds.
On the surfaces of those severed black blobs, vibrant green sword light was constantly crackling and popping like electric arcs or growing sprouts.
Consequently, Evans had barely stomped a few times on the Sword-man's still-warm corpse before he had to start running in circles in a hurry.
He had to prevent those body parts that were still sparking with green light from uncontrollably merging back and “shocking” him.
【I meant we could have had a calm chat first, interrogated him, and then killed him to vent your anger.】
Ren Yi sighed as he watched Evans hopping around and fleeing in all directions in the center of the area, terrified of being caught by “himself.”
With that, he sized Evans up.
It was certain that Evans... had indeed been injured by the Sword-man's sword energy.
【So, you really aren't that Immortal Sword Venerable who devoured the Heavenly Dao,】 Ren Yi suddenly said.
“What do you mean? I definitely am not, okay!”
Upon hearing this, Evans literally exploded, his True Form's black liquid bulging outward all at once.
Ren Yi ignored him and began to ponder on his own.
Evans wasn't that “Immortal Sword Venerable” or a part of him.
But if so, did he have any connection to that previous cultivation world?
If he did, what could he possibly be?
Or perhaps there was an even simpler question to ask.
What exactly were the conditions required for a wild Anomaly to be born?
He thought for a moment but came up with nothing.
Ren Yi shook his head and simply shifted his gaze, looking toward the ancient, simple longsword quietly floating in mid-air.
Just now, the moment the Sword-man's aura had started to feel off, Ren Yi had already become alert.
While Evans reverted half of his body back to his True Form, he had also quietly sent Ren Yi out of harm's way.
Under the cover of the illusion, the Sword-man had been so immersed in his own story that he hadn't noticed.
Ren Yi turned his head and glanced at the entrance of the passage they had come through.
A massive sword scar was carved beside the passage, with a faint green light shimmering inside it.
Miraculously, however, the surrounding rock walls were writhing and spitting out a large amount of “Meat-food,” causing the massive sword scar to heal at a speed visible to the eye.
Ren Yi hesitated, then looked at Evans, who was still running in circles to dodge his own severed limbs nearby.
【It seems... that guy didn't actually intend to hack you to death either.】
The strike that left this terrifying sword scar had naturally not actually landed on Evans.
Under the cover of Ren Yi's illusion, Evans was already long gone from that spot.
But now that Ren Yi stepped back and observed carefully, he realized that the position of this sword scar seemed a bit off-center.
It looked like the Sword-man had originally planned to... slice off a third or a quarter of Evans?
Uh, well, that didn't seem much better either.
Ren Yi realized that the illusion he had woven earlier indeed had some flaws. No wonder the Sword-man had seen through it.
First, the Sword-man was extremely confident in his own swordsmanship. Yet the scene Ren Yi had shown him was “Evans being perfectly cleaved in half by a single strike.”
Second, Ren Yi didn't know the effects of his sword energy, so the presentation of the woven sword energy was instantly flawed and spotted at a glance.
What followed was very simple.
Once the Sword-man realized there was something wrong with his vision, he had directly unleashed a full-map area-of-effect attack.
Evans had failed to dodge in time and took several hits, while Ren Yi managed to avoid them thanks to his small size.
Then, just as the Sword-man confidently declared they couldn't breach his sword energy barrier, Ren Yi grabbed him with the Withered Claw.
Another way to use “disarm”: disarming the person themselves.
The Withered Claw was still far too overpowered.
And then, the furious Evans had rushed forward...
Looking at the sword in the air, Ren Yi felt a bit troubled.
【What do we do now?】 he asked Evans.
Evans had finally stopped running in circles by now.
The exploding green sword energy on those severed segments of his body had finally mostly subsided.
Thus, he was busy piecing himself back together block by block.
Hearing this, the black-haired youth reverted to his human form and replied in a muffled, pale voice.
“I don't know. Are we supposed to just wait around here like fools, waiting for him to sprout a new body from who-knows-where?”
Just then, Ren Yi suddenly felt that something was slightly off.
With the Sword-man's temporary “death,” the effect of his Seed was also temporarily deactivated.
However, the Seed had not dissipated.
This didn't seem to be a problem.
Although Ren Yi had never encountered an existence that could revive after death like this,
as long as the parasitic target wasn't completely dead, the Seed indeed would not disappear.
However, with the “reset” of this body, the illusionary realm Ren Yi had originally woven inevitably broke.
He suddenly looked up at the longsword hovering in the air.
Oh, no.
He lacked experience fighting a sword and had let his guard down.
At the same time, the sword spun gently.
Turning from its side profile, the blade now faced them head-on.
As if realizing it had been noticed, a ghostly voice drifted out from within it.
“Ahem, hello there. I didn't mean to eavesdrop.”
Right after saying this, his tone immediately perked up.
“Anyway, surprised, aren't you?”
“This Sword Immortal... actually has a Phase Two!”
Rate on N.U.
