Divine Arrow

Yue Shi continued his probing attacks, cutting through the chains.

The result was that two became four, and four became eight. Those chains were like living vines; the more he cut them, the more they multiplied.

The boy stood in the distance, watching the scene. The smile on his face widened as he tucked his hands into his sleeves, looking as relaxed as if he were enjoying a performance.

Many rules existed on the Bewitching Beauty Painting Workshop. Yue Shi knew nothing of them, but the boy understood them relatively well. He was using the ship's rules to corner Yue Shi, just as he had once used them to counter the Lord God.

Furthermore, he had been operating within this 'room' for many years and held an absolute home-field advantage.

“You let the Lord God go and caused my location to be exposed. Since that's the case, you can replace the Lord God and let me study you thoroughly,” the boy said triumphantly.

Yue Shi ignored him and continued to weave through the chains, his attitude unusually serious and solemn.

There were too many chains, and they carried multiple effects such as sealing, suppressing supernatural powers, and ignoring space-time interference. They grew as dense as a tightening net, and with every evasion, the available space became smaller than the last.

This couldn't go on.

His gaze swept over the increasingly dense chains before finally settling on the boy.

The boy's white hair fluttered in the wind, and a punchable, smug grin was plastered on his face.

Yue Shi's eyes narrowed. To catch the bandits, he first had to capture their leader!

Although he didn't understand the current situation and couldn't solve the immediate trouble, he could certainly solve the person who had created it!

He immediately shifted his target and moved toward the boy. He moved in a zigzag path through the gaps between the chains, each displacement timed perfectly with the intervals between the chains' attacks.

Noticing Yue Shi's movement, the boy's smile faded slightly. His fingers emerged from his sleeves, and countless invisible threads wove through the air, forming an airtight wall around him.

After setting up this layer of defense, he looked back at Yue Shi, only to see that something new had appeared in Yue Shi's hand.

It was an arrow.

Neither metal nor wood, it was dark in color, cold and sharp, with divine light shimmering on its surface.

Previously, in Zhongzhou, the Supernatural Management Bureau had used this very arrow to shoot Yue Shi down. Now, he was using it against someone else.

Seeing that arrow, the smile completely vanished from the boy's face, and he instinctively took a step back.

He could feel a sharp sense of impending doom, as if a blade were at his back.

What was that thing?

Yue Shi gripped the arrow and aimed the tip at the boy. A sudden sense of pressure made the boy's breathing turn rapid.

A thought flashed through his mind: that arrow could kill him permanently.

The arrow never left his hand; Yue Shi used it directly as a sword.

The chains pursued him relentlessly, surging from all directions.

He leaped onto a chain swinging horizontally, used the momentum to spring up, and flipped over three more chains lashing at him simultaneously. He launched himself forward, the arrow tip pointed straight at the boy.

The boy's entire body tensed. His amber eyes changed instantly, ripple-like patterns surfacing in his pupils as they turned pale purple.

He raised his hand, spreading his fingers and pressing down into the air toward Yue Shi.

“Shinra Tensei!”

A repulsive force erupted from his palm, pressing against Yue Shi.

Yue Shi was hindered, his movements slowing by half a beat.

In that single instant, the chains seized the opportunity and coiled around him from three directions at once.

Holding the arrow, Yue Shi flicked it back, parrying the three chains one after another.

The boy immediately changed his hand signs, pressing his palms together as a fine black line was pulled out between them.

The black line extended rapidly through the air, slashing straight toward Yue Shi's face.

Yue Shi leaned aside to avoid it. The black line grazed his shoulder and struck an approaching chain behind him.

The chain snapped into two, which then turned into even more chains.

Seeing that his strike had failed, the boy's hands continuously shifted through seals. Various abilities poured out from his hands like an inexhaustible arsenal.

But none of the attacks could get near that arrow.

Just moments ago, he had split off a Shadow Clone to ambush Yue Shi from his blind spot and seize the arrow.

But before the clone's hand could even touch the shaft, the arrow moved on its own, its tip pointing toward the clone.

The Shadow Clone disintegrated instantly, and the backlash even reached the main body.

The boy had also tried using spatial abilities to move the arrow out of Yue Shi's hand. His Rinnegan could warp space, but the space around the arrow was like solid concrete, refusing to budge an inch.

Afterward, he had tried illusions, mental attacks, and causality-based weapons in succession...

Unfortunately, all of it was useless!

The arrow seemed to ignore spatial interference and conventional defenses. It struck at the essence, capable of hitting the target through its clones.

The boy knew that as long as that arrow remained in Yue Shi's hand, he was in danger.

He had no choice but to increase the frequency of his attacks. The chains were still hunting Yue Shi; as long as he could trap him, he would have a chance to take that arrow.

“Everyone wants good things. This arrow is destined for me~”

Hearing the boy's exclamation, malice erupted in the depths of Yue Shi's eyes. You bastard, how dare you steal my line!

Yue Shi dodged another wave of attacks from the chains. These damn things were endless—they couldn't be fought or cut, only avoided.

The boy stood in the distance, throwing out skills like a mage with infinite mana. Although those skills couldn't harm him, they were annoying.

Suddenly, he stopped dodging. As the chains surged from all directions, he stood his ground, holding the arrow and staring at the boy.

An uneasy feeling rose in the boy's heart.

In the next second, Yue Shi teleported directly in front of the boy and thrust the arrow forward with all his might.

The boy's expression changed drastically. His hands moved in a blur, laying down multiple defensive barriers in front of him.

Unfortunately, these defenses were easily pierced by the arrow.

The boy pressed his palms together, and a pitch-black sphere appeared between them.

The black sphere was only the size of a fist, but it was so heavy that the surrounding space was collapsing.

He pushed the black sphere forward, and the tip of the arrow collided with it.

Time became distorted at that moment. The sphere cracked open a seam, and the arrow passed right through the crack.

The boy's hands froze in mid-air as the arrow stabbed into his shoulder. It wasn't deep, only breaking the skin.

However, the boy's body immediately suffered a major problem, as it stopped obeying him. His limbs twitched erratically, like a stroke patient.

Then his body began to collapse like a statue being shattered from the inside, with chunks of body tissue falling away.

Yue Shi watched as the boy fell apart before him, and then a strange thing jumped out of the boy's ruined body.

It was red and wet, looking like a heart that had just been plucked from a chest cavity. However, it was larger than a heart, its surface covered in nerves and blood vessels, with countless tiny tentacles connecting it to the boy's body like threads.

Yue Shi cursed inwardly. So this boy was also a puppet! It was just one that was incredibly close to a living person.

Now that the puppet shell had shattered, the true Reincarnator inside was revealed.

It was a pulsating red meatball. It had no eyes, nose, or ears—only a tangle of blood vessels, nerves, and tentacles.

Yue Shi reached out and grabbed the meatball. It felt slippery and warm to the touch, and it was still struggling and pulsating.

The tentacles coiled around his fingers, trying to burrow into his skin, but they couldn't get through.