Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Gallows!

Stone Rock appeared once more.

At that moment Mu Hui’s expression turned grave. Within his strange eyes, flecks of cold light flickered as he stared with icy intent at Stone Rock, who was advancing step by step.

Three warriors of the Third Level of the Human Realm had already fallen to Stone Rock’s hand. The last two had died only after Mu Hui used his soul-bewitching power upon Stone Rock.

“You are indeed impressive,” Mu Hui said slowly, drawing a deep breath. “But the end will not change. You will still die by my hand.”

Stone Rock’s face was vicious, the negative force in his acupoints roiling like a tidal wave. Pale, ghastly mist spread over his entire body.

All manner of dark emotions surged uncontrollably through him. Thoughts of brutality and slaughter rose from him like a tornado, and his murderous aura was so dense it seemed capable of destroying all things.

Yet his mind remained astonishingly clear and calm.

In this berserk state, Stone Rock’s senses were terrifyingly sharp. He could perceive every thread of aura in this strange world with exquisite precision; he could even feel the flow of original energy within Mu Hui’s body.

Soul-bewitching martial soul.

This was the most mysterious of all martial souls. Warriors who possessed it had terrifyingly acute senses. Their words carried a power to ensnare hearts, and their perception of heaven and earth essence far surpassed that of ordinary warriors.

Mu Hui possessed precisely this soul-bewitching martial soul.

Once one reached the Nirvana Realm and formed a sea of consciousness within the mind, the soul-bewitching martial soul would become even more formidable. A single sentence could drive a person into madness and plunge them into an irretrievable abyss.

Earlier, one of Mu Hui’s words had sent Stone Rock into a deathlike state of icy paralysis. Had the two Shadow Nether warriors not been careless, he might already have been dead then.

Thus, when Stone Rock charged again this time, the first thing he did was to tightly guard his mind, refusing to let Mu Hui paralyze him with that soul-bewitching power again.

“The Stone Family’s petrification martial soul does have some merit. It seems those two failed to kill you in one blow, which is why you regained consciousness,” Mu Hui said, looking at the sword hole in Stone Rock’s chest. His narrow eyes slightly narrowed, and a trace of eerie light suddenly flashed within his pupils.

That eerie light grew brighter and brighter. Gradually, Mu Hui’s eyes seemed to become gemstones beneath the blazing sun, dazzling and brilliant.

A soul-ensnaring spiritual force flowed out from those pupils, an invisible storm that suddenly enveloped the entire area.

“Seal.”

Mu Hui gave a soft cry.

Stone Rock’s whole body stiffened, his gaze once again growing blank, and the original energy in his body seemed frozen, unable to turn and circulate.

“Nether Soul Blade!”

Mu Hui lifted his right hand. Between his fingers green lightning crackled and condensed swiftly, soon gathering in his palm into a long blade shimmering with strange green radiance.

The blade seemed real, cold light pouring from it, its divine glow dazzling.

Holding the Nether Soul Blade, Mu Hui wore an unhurried smile at the corner of his mouth as he walked toward Stone Rock at a leisurely pace, as if strolling through a garden.

Thump, thump.

Within his chest, the dark pearl pulsed ceaselessly. Drawn by the strange point of light at the heart of the stone statue, it grew increasingly restless within his acupoints.

Stone Rock, whose spirit had been wounded, abruptly sensed the disturbance within the dark pearl.

His consciousness seemed to be sinking through an endless abyss of darkness, descending rapidly, as though it would be swallowed whole and never again possess any will of its own.

Suddenly.

A torrent of negative emotions erupted violently from the acupoints in his mind. Bloodlust, madness, and hatred surged into the abyss, merging with the reason that was falling into darkness.

Boom.

His mind shook violently. Stone Rock’s slowly sinking reason was forcibly jolted awake by those negative emotions.

“Hmm?”

Mu Hui immediately noticed it and gave a light exclamation. Yet his Nether Soul Blade did not hesitate in the slightest as it came slashing down.

Sss, sss, sss.

Wherever the Nether Soul Blade passed, the air actually burst apart. Under the faint green radiance, the blade itself grew thinner and thinner, like a cicada’s wing.

The moment Stone Rock regained clarity, he saw the Nether Soul Blade hacking down at his head. His heart tightened, and he shifted sharply to the left without the slightest hesitation.

Pfft.

A streak of lightning flashed by, leaving a deep bloody wound across Stone Rock’s right arm. No one knew what force had been added to this Nether Soul Blade, but it had actually pierced even his petrification martial soul.

Stone Rock’s face changed drastically.

Mu Hui was likewise startled, his expression turning even more solemn. He said faintly, “Not bad. That blade only left a bloodstain on your shoulder instead of severing your arm completely. The Stone Family’s petrification martial soul truly has astonishing defenses.”

The Nether Soul Blade was one of Shadow Nether’s most formidable profound-grade martial techniques. Mu Hui had cultivated it over five years by gathering dead-spirit energy, and the blade carried with it that same dead-spirit force, capable of corroding flesh and possessing terrifying destructive power.

In the past, when Mu Hui’s Nether Soul Blade appeared, even warriors of the Hundred Calamities Realm had to keep their distance and absolutely would not dare fight him at close range while he held it.

In Mu Hui’s view, although the Stone Family’s martial soul was extraordinary, its essence was still flesh and blood. It should have been unable to withstand the dead-spirit energy upon the Nether Soul Blade.

And yet Stone Rock’s arm had not been severed. Only a bloody mark remained.

Mu Hui was even more shocked than Stone Rock.

Stone Rock retreated rapidly. Taking a deep breath, he quietly released three magnetic punishment fields and then tried to activate the Dark Yin Art.

This was the first time he had used the Dark Yin Art.

The six dark pearls suddenly exerted force together, releasing surging yin power that poured into the three dark whirlpools.

The three dark whirlpools began spinning wildly. Within them, strands of pure power rushed along Stone Rock’s arm and into the palm of his right hand.

A cyan sphere of light, the size of a human head, quickly formed in his palm. Within the sphere, electric serpents entwined and coiled, while threads of cold, sinister force seeped out, filling the air with a dark and frigid aura.

Yin power continued to surge into the sphere.

The cyan sphere grew larger and larger. In just a few short seconds, it had become the size of a washbasin, blazing with cyan radiance like a cyan sun.

Mu Hui’s expression changed for the first time.

“Friend, stop struggling,” Mu Hui said, his soul-bewitching martial soul striking Stone Rock’s spirit again like a shockwave.

“Explode!”

Before the soul-bewitching power could take effect, Stone Rock suddenly roared and hurled the cyan sphere in his hand out like lightning toward Mu Hui.

Boom.

The cyan sphere burst open in an instant. Threads of concentrated yin force, carrying Stone Rock’s aura, rained down upon Mu Hui like droplets.

In the midst of the explosion, Stone Rock’s restrained spirit was once again dragged out from the dark abyss by those negative emotions.

His eyes regained clarity once more.

Over there, Mu Hui was drenched in that rain of yin force. His body abruptly stiffened, and the circulation of his original energy suddenly slowed.

The Nether Soul Blade in his hand, blazing with brilliant green light, flickered repeatedly, also affected by the yin force born from the cyan sphere’s explosion.

Move.

Three magnetic punishment fields drifted out from before Stone Rock in silence, surging toward Mu Hui.

Taking advantage of Mu Hui’s momentary hesitation, Stone Rock shot forward like a cannonball. His lean body plunged abruptly into one of the magnetic punishment fields, and he drove a fist straight down toward Mu Hui’s head.

“Courting death!” A bloodthirsty chill flashed in Mu Hui’s eerie eyes.

“Nether God Great Palm Seal!”

Mu Hui raised his left hand. The veins in his arm swelled violently, and his palm instantly doubled in size, becoming an appalling dark cyan.

A breath of lingering death spirits emanated from that hand. With a single strike, Mu Hui seemed to seal off the space before him, smashing head-on toward Stone Rock’s iron fist.

Boom.

Amid the thunderous impact, Stone Rock stood like a boulder and landed firmly upon the ground. Mu Hui, however, looked utterly horrified as his body was sent flying backward.

A terrifying force, like a great torrent of mountains and seas, erupted from Stone Rock’s fist and burst apart within Mu Hui’s Nether God Great Palm Seal, actually sending Mu Hui flying away by sheer force.

Stone Rock, only at the First Level of the Human Realm, had with a single punch driven Mu Hui, a Third Level Human Realm warrior, into repeated retreat.

A punch infused with all manner of negative forces, under a berserk state, had its power multiplied several times over. It was absolutely not something a warrior of the same realm could withstand.

Mu Hui’s calamity had only just begun.

When he finally managed to steady himself, he suddenly felt as though he had sunk into a swamp, his body once more spinning involuntarily.

He had been directly blasted by Stone Rock into the magnetic punishment field.

Mu Hui’s expression changed drastically.

“Heh heh.” Stone Rock grinned savagely, his gaze icy and ruthless as he flew forward like a mad gale.

“Suppress!”

Inside the magnetic punishment field, Mu Hui bellowed. A vast spiritual thought shot in a straight line and violently plunged into Stone Rock’s mind.

Stone Rock’s charging body paused midway and then crashed headfirst to the ground.

Mu Hui’s expression was frigid. The Nether Soul Blade in his hand traced strange arcs, while strands of dark nether chill radiated from within it and churned through the magnetic punishment field.

The soul-bewitching martial soul was stimulated again. Mu Hui kept silently telling himself to remain calm, to focus all his attention on the changes in power within the field, and to find a way out.

Yet the magnetic punishment field was after all a spirit-level martial technique, and it was formed from a mixture of negative force and original energy. Although Mu Hui possessed a soul-bewitching martial soul, he could not discover its patterns in such a short time.

As the magnetic punishment field spun at high speed, not only did it slow the flow of his original energy, it even seemed to reduce the sharpness of his soul-bewitching martial soul.

Sweat had already begun to appear faintly on Mu Hui’s forehead. His body kept turning, yet he still could not grasp the field’s pattern.

By contrast, after Stone Rock paused on the ground for a moment, his negative emotions flared once more, dragging him out of the dark abyss again.

His eyes instantly cleared. Stone Rock snorted coldly and fixed a frosty gaze on Mu Hui, who was spinning within the field. As his thoughts shifted, he drove the yin force within his body once more into the magnetic punishment field.

Within the magnetic punishment field, the greater the variety of forces, the greater the power when it was driven.

With only negative force and original energy feeding it, the magnetic punishment field had already been able to forcibly restrain a warrior of the same realm. Now that yin force had been added, its power surged once again.

A chaotic force suddenly erupted from the magnetic punishment field, and the speed of the field’s flow abruptly doubled.

Pfft.

Mu Hui spat out a mouthful of blood. His soul-bewitching martial soul seemed to have fallen into a meat grinder; his head throbbed with intense pain, the vital energy throughout his body was shredded into disorder, and his bodily defenses also dropped sharply.

Stone Rock held his breath, his expression cold and severe, and devoted his full mind to controlling the magnetic punishment field.

The chaotic force of the magnetic punishment field exploded in full.

The wild, grinding power crazily tore Mu Hui’s body apart. Within the field, blood sprayed everywhere, flesh split open, and the eerie light in Mu Hui’s eyes gradually dimmed.