Zichen's cold laugh was grim. She raised one hand, spread her five fingers wide, and then clenched them fiercely!
Wang Miaoyin immediately felt herself locked by an intangible force and, moreover, felt her breathing grow difficult...
It was as if oxygen was being withdrawn.
No — not just oxygen, but the air itself was vanishing.
"Big Sister Zichen is truly impressive."
Wang Miaoyin's delicate lips curled slightly upward, her expression showing not a trace of panic.
However, because sound cannot travel in a vacuum, Zichen and King of Strength could not hear what Wang Miaoyin said — they could only see the shape of her mouth.
"You're very beautiful, but also very dangerous." King of Strength shook his head.
The very next second, he appeared directly at Wang Miaoyin's left side, making her heart tighten — who would have thought that someone with such a massive frame could be so remarkably agile.
King of Strength thrust out one hand, the blood vessels on his arm bulging as he surged forward like a mountain bearing down, forcefully crowding toward Wang Miaoyin's center line.
"Be careful now — this palm carries the force of a thousand jin." A cruel hint curled at the corner of King of Strength's mouth as he spoke.
Wang Miaoyin felt the dense, oppressive pressure. Her body shuddered. Her mind whirred, and amidst her ears she heard the tearing of fierce winds and the explosion of air.
A rough, calloused palm, gathered with mountain-toppling momentum, appeared out of nowhere before Wang Miaoyin's chest like a heaven-piercing giant hand breaking through the void. The wind from the palm was so fierce it made even her brows ache.
She wanted to dodge, but her body was responding far too slowly.
Just as the iron palm was about to crash into her body, threatening the horrifying outcome of torn flesh and shattered bones...
"Life and death, stand still."
Her moist, red lips parted slightly, as if profound and mysterious laws flowed forth from within.
"What?!"
Zichen, off to the side, widened her eyes, looking utterly disbelieving.
In that single instant, Wang Miaoyin had vanished without a trace. She could not comprehend how Wang Miaoyin had managed to evade her qi-lock.
"Zichen, look out!" King of Strength let out a piercing howl.
Zichen's pupils swept rapidly, finally catching a glimpse of Wang Miaoyin in the corner of her vision.
Wang Miaoyin was like a ghost — the outline of her figure tinged with a layer of blood color. With a single leap, her entire silhouette overlapped with the moon in the night sky behind her. Faintly, it actually made the moon itself seem to grow redder.
The blood-red ghostly figure rapidly enlarged in Zichen's eyes, and her nose caught a wicked, anomalous scent.
"Hold still!"
Zichen raised both hands and abruptly clenched them toward the void!
A qi-force far stronger than before instantly enveloped Wang Miaoyin, pressing in on her like masses of seawater, making her as uncomfortable and oxygen-deprived as if diving into the deep ocean.
Wang Miaoyin's movements were restricted once more. She no longer smiled. A trace of displeasure flickered through her eyes.
Bang!
Following the sound of shattering stone slabs, King of Strength attacked again with fierce winds, his fists coated in an iron-gray sheen!
"Just in time," Wang Miaoyin murmured to herself.
King of Strength drew both elbows to his abdomen, then suddenly thrust them outward in a continuous barrage like machine-gun fire, madly pouring a torrent of fist-wind toward Wang Miaoyin.
Fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh!
Gales howled and air exploded.
But as the blood-moon light burst forth in Wang Miaoyin's eyes, King of Strength's fist momentum abruptly turned soft and powerless, stopping dead at a distance of one inch from Wang Miaoyin.
Even more bizarrely, King of Strength's face registered half a second of dazed vacancy.
"No... impossible..."
Realizing what had just happened, King of Strength's eyes nearly split with rage as his figure rapidly retreated. "Just what sorcery did you cast?!"
Even Zichen pulled back, eyeing Wang Miaoyin warily, as if reassessing the latter entirely.
"Let me go. I won't harm you," Wang Miaoyin said with a light laugh.
"No, that's not possible," Zichen shook her head firmly.
"Oh? Could it be that you two still have the confidence to keep me here?"
"Hmph, we can't, but someone else can."
"Someone else?"
Hearing this, Wang Miaoyin swept her gaze around the area, but only spotted some law enforcers.
"Looking for me?"
A mechanical voice utterly devoid of emotion came from the sky.
Wang Miaoyin followed the sound and saw a green-glowing figure slowly walking into the silver moon.
No — not walking, but "gliding." Beneath the green figure's feet was a device resembling a skateboard, and the figure rode this flying device, traversing the void.
Wang Miaoyin took half a step back. "You, alone?"
The mechanical voice responded: "Originally, I assumed those two C-ranks would be enough to apprehend you. I didn't expect that dealing with a mere Wraith-rank anomaly would require me to step in."
By now, the green figure had gradually descended to just before Wang Miaoyin.
The newcomer's muscles were gray all over, covered in dark green mechanical armor. The armor gleamed with metallic luster, and occasionally green lines passed across its surface. Atop the head was a green lamp emitting a faint glow.
He looked like a mechanical being — more precisely, a semi-mechanical being.
Even more eye-catching was the dark green long blade on his back.
"What's your ability?" Wang Miaoyin asked curiously.
"You ask about my ability?" the blade-bearing mechanical being murmured.
"You may call me 'Sword Heart.' My ability... is my sword."
"But if I'm not mistaken, that on your back is clearly a blade, isn't it?"
"Don't worry about it."
"...Fine."
The atmosphere sank into silence. Two seconds later, a green light abruptly blazed through the night sky.
Wang Miaoyin only felt a flicker of shadow at the corner of her eye, and a voice came from behind. She turned at once.
But the mechanical being, Sword Heart, had already closed in and stuck to her. Simultaneously, one edge of his blade — the smooth blade body reflecting tonight's bright moonlight — emitted a brilliant, dazzling gleam.
Dazzling, yet deadly enough.
Wang Miaoyin's pupils contracted. Once again, four words spilled from her mouth: "Life and death, stand still."
In that instant, Sword Heart and his blade-sword both fell into stasis. This scene was fully taken in by King of Strength and Zichen, who were both paying absolute attention.
"What kind of ability is that?"
"Could it be time-stopping?"
"But... doesn't time only exist within human imagination?"
Wang Miaoyin shifted her body and was already three meters away.
Sword Heart looked at Wang Miaoyin and said only one sentence: "That ability of yours — it must have a usage time limit, right?"
The words had not even fully landed when Wang Miaoyin saw the terrifying dark green blade aura sweep horizontally across the void like a vicious shark biting toward her.
This time, Wang Miaoyin did not choose to utter those four inexplicable words. Instead, the blood-moon light flashed in her eyes, her gaze tracing Sword Heart's figure directly.
But the next second, Wang Miaoyin let out a muffled groan.
Her right hand clutched her left wrist tightly as she watched helplessly, several streams of blood bursting from her own left wrist, and then the entire left palm dropping cleanly to the ground...
Not only that, a long, narrow blood trail extended from beneath Wang Miaoyin's chest down her abdomen all the way to her thigh and knee.
Thankfully, this blood trail was not deep — otherwise, she would have already been bisected.