Xia Tian coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face turning deathly pale. He slumped to the ground, collapsing weakly. This single blow had nearly destroyed most of his fighting ability.
Just as Xia Zhen was about to unleash the Thousand Star Light Slash for the third time, the black mist rope swiftly closed in, instantly scattering all the stars around her. The girl only had time to scream before the rope coiled around her delicate body, and an extremely cold aura instantly enveloped her. In the blink of an eye, a thin layer of cold mist rose from Xia Zhen's skin.
The long rope slowly lifted the struggling Xia Zhen into the air, several meters high, and then violently slammed the girl to the ground. With a loud bang, Xia Zhen lay in a pit covered in blood. Her eyes were lifeless as she looked at the sky, her small mouth slightly open, and bright red blood was flowing from the corner of her mouth.
"Lingyun, don't worry about us, run!" Xia Tian looked helplessly at Lingyun, who was struggling to stay afloat under the long rope of black mist. After uttering a few words with difficulty, he spat out another mouthful of blood.
Ling Yun was carefully winding his telekinetic energy around the long rope when he suddenly heard Xia Tian's voice. He turned around and was immediately shocked. A crack instantly appeared in his mental energy field.
The all-pervasive black mist rope, which had been looking for an opening to break through its opponent's defenses, seized this opportunity and immediately pierced through the gap. One end of the rope suddenly transformed into a sharp spike, which pierced through Ling Yun's chest with a soft thud and emerged from his back.
"Hehehe..." The black-robed man's shrill and triumphant laughter rang out, and two long black ropes swiftly extended back into his sleeves. One of the ropes, piercing Ling Yun's chest, also moved Ling Yun to the front of the black-robed man.
The man in black robes slowly used a long rope to bring Ling Yun, who had already fainted with his head drooping, to his face. He grinned and said, "Out with the old, in with the new. Kid, didn't you want to be my corpse puppet? I'll grant you that wish right away."
He suddenly pointed at Xia Tian and Xia Zhen from afar, and their bodies were dragged by telekinesis, flying to the feet of the man in black robes and crashing heavily to the ground.
"You," the black-robed man's chilling voice rang out, "will all become my corpse puppets!"
Xia Tian closed his eyes in anguish. If he had known this would happen, he would have let Ling Yun escape from the beginning; perhaps there would have been a chance to get away. But now, all three of them were severely injured by the black-robed man, and Ling Yun's fate was unknown. Xia Tian wasn't afraid of death, but if he were to be turned into a corpse puppet and controlled after death, he would tremble uncontrollably.
Xia Zhen tried to sit up, but multiple fractures throughout her body had left her utterly powerless. "I can't die! I absolutely cannot be turned into a corpse puppet by him," the girl thought unwillingly, but the fact that she couldn't move told her that the most terrible and horrific consequences were right before her eyes.
The man in black robes stretched out his pale, withered hand and lifted Ling Yun's chin in mid-air: "Kid, weren't you so good at pretending? Why aren't you pretending now?"
The pale-faced boy with his eyes tightly closed was slowly lifted up by his telekinetic power.
Ling Yun suddenly opened his eyes, shooting out two cold and sharp glares.
The man in black robes was taken aback, not expecting the boy to still be alive. He instinctively tried to activate his mental energy field for protection, but a weak yet resolute psychic force suddenly surged upwards from his sleeve, instantly paralyzing his arms.
"Let's end it here." Ling Yun raised his right arm with lightning speed, and somehow, a black pistol appeared in his hand. The dark muzzle was less than ten centimeters from the black-robed man's eyes. The boy pulled the trigger with almost all his remaining strength.
The M5906 automatic pistol bullet pierced the black-robed man's last panicked eyes without any suspense. A line of blood splattered from the dark eye socket. The black-robed man took two steps back, as if trying to grab something, his hands flailing wildly in the air for a while, before finally falling straight down.
"Thank you for the bullet." The boy smiled at Xia Tian, his face pale.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Mysterious Girl
Xia Tian looked at Ling Yun in utter surprise, her left hand instinctively reaching for her lower back, only to find nothing.
"You're really something, Ling Yun," he murmured, trying to stand up with difficulty. But he had only stood halfway when his legs gave way, and he slid back down against the rock. The black-robed man's all-out attack with telekinesis had thoroughly injured his internal organs. He appeared unharmed on the outside, but he had actually suffered severe internal injuries.
Xia Zhen tilted her head towards Ling Yun, her beautiful eyes filled with gratitude and joy. She had witnessed everything that had just happened, and the young girl was utterly shocked. No one could have imagined that in the end, it was this ordinary boy, who didn't even know the simplest of the Clear Spirit Eyes technique, who, through extraordinary courage and wisdom, ultimately slew the powerful psychic.
Even those unafraid of death wouldn't willingly choose to die. Let alone be turned into a corpse puppet after death for others to humiliate and manipulate. Xia Zhen had already resolved to die a glorious death rather than live a shameful one; if the black-robed man truly intended to refine her corpse, she would rather use a secret technique to self-destruct than allow him to touch her body.
However, Ling Yun completely saved her from the likely humiliation and even killed the man in black at the last moment. How could Xia Zhen not be deeply grateful and happy for all of this? After finally relaxing, Xia Zhen felt the excruciating pain all over her body.
A sliver of golden sunlight shone from behind the distant mountains, and the sky began to lighten. Unbeknownst to them, a night had already passed. Looking at the bright world, the three of them felt a sense of relief, as if they had escaped a calamity.
Ling Yun stood there, clutching his chest, his face pale. Although he was still swaying, he did not fall to the ground.
Xia Tian looked at him in astonishment and asked worriedly, "Ling Yun, are you sure you're alright?" He had just witnessed the strange black mist rope pierce through Ling Yun's body. An ordinary person would probably be dead by now, and even a superhuman would likely not survive such a severe injury. But although Ling Yun looked extremely weak, he was perfectly conscious.
“When he stabbed me, I had already used my telekinesis to control my internal organs to avoid the penetrating force of the black rope, so I only suffered a superficial wound. Although it was severe, it did not threaten my life,” Ling Yun said, slowly unbuttoning his clothes.
Xia Tian and Xia Zhen were speechless for a moment. Ling Yun spoke lightly, but in the fierce and dangerous battle, the black rope was as fast as lightning. Controlling the tightly packed internal organs to avoid the black rope's attack in a time precise to the millisecond required extremely precise telekinetic control.
"You expected him to do this? So you just took my gun?" Xia Tian asked after thinking for a moment.
“No, but since even the three of us combined couldn’t defeat him with our special abilities, we had to think of another way. Luckily, I have the real bullet that was switched with yours. I thought I’d play it by ear. Sure enough, in the end, we still had to use a pistol to kill him.” Ling Yun glanced at the black-robed man’s corpse, recalling the thrill of the final moment, and couldn’t help but feel lingering fear.
Xia Tian laughed: "Then we should thank Xia Zhen. If you hadn't replaced my bullet, the three of us might have become unique superpowered zombie puppets."
Xia Zhen had been using her supernatural ability to relieve pain, and when she heard Xia Tian say that, she couldn't help but smile: "What's the use of changing the bullets? In the end, it was Ling Yun who saved us. Ling Yun, thank you. I apologize to you. I am ashamed of my powerless attitude when I first met you."
Ling Yun smiled sheepishly. Faced with the girl's sincere apology, the usually introverted and honest man didn't know what to say. After thinking for a while, he said, "It's good that things are over. Besides, if it weren't for the two of you holding back the enemy, and if I hadn't taken advantage of his underestimation of us, I wouldn't have succeeded in the end."
Xia Tian and Xia Zhen nodded in agreement. After a night of fighting, the distance between the three of them seemed to have suddenly shortened a lot.
Ling Yun unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his chest. A shocking bloody hole appeared on the left side of his chest, but the bleeding had stopped. The flesh around the wound was slowly writhing, and granulation tissue could be clearly seen growing inside the hole. The severe injury that had pierced through his entire body was healing at an astonishing speed.
Xia Tian and Xia Zhen both witnessed this scene and exclaimed in unison, "Self-healing!"
Ling Yun glanced at the two of them with suspicion, then looked at his own chest. He wasn't checking his injuries, but mainly to see if the barrier mark on his chest had been damaged by the black rope. When he saw that the mark was intact, he breathed a sigh of relief. If the mark had also been pierced by the black rope, he didn't know if Elder Yu would be in danger.
Xia Tian said softly, "Ling Yun, are you sure you're human?"
Ling Yun glanced at him in surprise, thinking that Xia Tian had been seriously injured and was confused, and asked in return, "What do you think?"
Xia Tian smiled wryly and said, "I don't know, but only vampires have such terrifying self-healing abilities, but you are obviously not a vampire."
Ling Yun was startled: "Are there really vampires in this world?"
Xia Zhen's beautiful eyes widened: "You don't even know this? Are you a superhuman or not?"
Ling Yun imagined the terrifying appearance of vampires and couldn't help but shudder: "I've already said it, I only recently gained superpowers. My family are all ordinary people, how would they know these things?"
"You... never mind, let's not talk about this." Xia Tian really wanted to make a sarcastic remark about this "acquired mutant." But considering that Ling Yun had saved him, he decided to stop the conversation.
Ling Yun slowly sat down on the gravel, his eyes fixed on the sun that had just risen above the distant mountains. The dazzling light had no effect on his eyes: "What do we do now? Wait for someone to come and rescue us?"
"Hehe." Xia Tian chuckled softly. After resting for a while, his face finally regained some color. He slowly stood up, leaning against the rock, and then leisurely pulled out a slightly twisted Nokia 7210 from his tattered clothes.
"Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and GPRS satellite positioning, I love it!"
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