Chapter 853: The Secret Is in Our Grasp
"Damn it, Gu Yunchi. You would actually try to kill me over a piece of trash like Lin Yang..."
Ouyang Che's face twisted into a grimace as he swallowed a handful of spirit pills. He forced himself into a meditative posture, his chest heaving with bitter indignation.
His losses this time were catastrophic. If not for a rare, life-saving treasure pill shielding his heart and Purple Mansion at the very last second, he would already be a cooling corpse. Yet, even though he had survived, the sheer scale of his ruin threatened to shatter his Dao Heart.
The False Core he had spent years painstakingly refining and polishing was entirely gone. Condensing a new one would be twice as difficult. He had once been absolutely certain of forming a top-grade Golden Core, but now, the future looked bleak. His cultivation had plummeted from the False Core realm straight down to the late Foundation Establishment realm, and his physical injuries would require months of secluded healing.
What gnawed at him most was the certainty that Gu Yunchi would not let this go. Returning to the Xuanhuang World was out of the question for now. Should he seek out an alternative spatial passage?
The mere thought deepened his festering hatred for both Gu Yunchi and Lin Yang. Especially Lin Yang. That pathetic love rival. Ouyang Che wished he could grind the man's bones to dust and swallow them whole.
"Who goes there!" Ouyang Che's expression shifted violently. Without a second thought, he raised his hand, hurling dozens of spirit talismans toward the southeast.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A storm of fireballs, jagged lightning bolts, sweeping wind blades, and freezing ice spikes instantly blotted out the sky, completely engulfing the southeastern perimeter.
Ouyang Che did not pause to admire his work. A flash of genuine dread crossed his eyes. Assuming Gu Yunchi had already tracked him down to finish the job, he immediately shifted his weight, preparing to flee for his life.
"You speak of bloody revenge, yet your legs are quite eager to run."
A clear, melodious voice drifted through the clearing, laced with a dry, playful amusement.
A handsome young man strolled out of the elemental smoke. A translucent golden shield surrounded his body, effortlessly deflecting the chaotic barrage of talisman magic. He wore a faint, easy smile.
Seeing a complete stranger—and one only at the late Qi Refinement realm, rather than the terrifying Gu Yunchi—Ouyang Che halted his retreat. He stared at Shen Anyu, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.
Every single talisman he had just thrown was at the Foundation Establishment level. While their individual power was nothing special, dozens of them detonating at once would force even an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator to fall back. How could a mere late Qi Refinement cultivator brush them off like a gentle breeze?
Still, a starving camel is larger than a horse. Ouyang Che refused to put a Qi Refinement junior in his eyes. His face hardened into a mask of cold arrogance.
"Speak. Who are you, and how did you find me? If your answer displeases me, you die."
Despite his haughty words, Ouyang Che's mind was already locked on murder. He had to silence this witness. If Gu Yunchi learned of his current location, it would be a disaster. He had fallen in cultivation and suffered grievous wounds, while Gu Yunchi remained a flawless False Core realm expert. He was in no condition for a rematch.
Shen Anyu lazily tossed a Seeking Person Compass in his hand, his smile never wavering.
"My compass possesses a rather miraculous tracking ability. As long as it captures a single wisp of the target's aura, it can find them across a thousand mountains and rivers..."
As he spoke, Shen Anyu silently activated his super divine ability, Six Senses Control. An invisible wave washed over the clearing, quietly invading Ouyang Che's mind. Bridging such a massive gap in cultivation was normally difficult, but Ouyang Che's mental defenses were in tatters from his severe injuries. The heaven-defying power of the ability slipped through the cracks, subtly hijacking his sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and divine sense.
If a third party were present, they would have witnessed a truly bizarre scene. Shen Anyu was casually walking straight toward Ouyang Che from the east. Yet Ouyang Che stood completely still, his eyes locked dead on the southeast, entirely oblivious to the man approaching his flank.
Worse still, Ouyang Che felt absolutely no premonition of danger—a fatal blind spot for a cultivator whose instincts should have been screaming.
Staring at the phantom image of Shen Anyu holding the compass in the southeast, Ouyang Che felt a stir of greed.
"A Seeking Person Compass? Such a treasure exists? It must be an ancient artifact."
The artifact refining methods of ancient cultivators differed vastly from modern techniques. The ancients focused on pushing a single attribute to the absolute extreme, often sacrificing the ability to store the item internally in exchange for bizarre, overwhelming power. Modern treasures were more balanced, offering a mix of defense, attack, flight, and internal storage. One was a specialized weapon, the other a versatile tool.
Ouyang Che scrutinized the compass, convinced it was a priceless ancient relic. If he could take it, his survival would be guaranteed. He could track Gu Yunchi's exact movements and travel in the opposite direction to evade pursuit.
As for obtaining Gu Yunchi's aura? He had plenty of it. The woman's tyrannical sword qi was still wreaking havoc through his internal organs, limbs, and meridians, entirely unsuppressed.
"Heh. For the sake of delivering this ancient treasure to me, I will leave you a complete corpse." Ouyang Che, anxious to resume healing, lost all interest in talking. He let out a cold sneer and prepared to strike.
A soft, wet squelch of tearing flesh echoed in the quiet air.
Ouyang Che's arrogant sneer froze. A strange numbness spread through his chest. Slowly, he lowered his head.
A blood-soaked hand protruded straight through his sternum, its fingers casually wrapped around his shattered heart.
When?
Ouyang Che's eyes widened in absolute horror. He stared at Shen Anyu as if looking at a ghost.
Wasn't this boy standing over ten feet away to the southeast? How did he suddenly appear right in front of him? How had he launched a fatal strike without triggering a single warning instinct?
"Did the sudden agony wake you up?" Shen Anyu withdrew his hand slightly, shaking his head with a look of mild disappointment. "It seems the realm gap is still a bit too large. The grip of Six Senses Control weakens when the target experiences extreme physical trauma. I need to temper my divine sense further."
Ouyang Che stared at the young man, his mind reeling in terror. They were separated by more than an entire major realm. What kind of illusion technique could completely blind an expert a full realm higher? Not even the demonic prodigies of the Heart Demon Dao possessed such heaven-defying means.
What made the situation even more absurd was the look on Shen Anyu's face. The boy was actually dissatisfied with the result.
"I was lying to you. I actually think the effect is quite excellent. You didn't notice a single thing out of place, did you?" Shen Anyu tilted his head, offering Ouyang Che a bright, chilling smile.
His abilities scaled directly with his base strength. Just as his Steel Body had grown more than ten times tougher since its inception, Six Senses Control would only become more terrifying as his cultivation advanced. To effortlessly manipulate a former False Core realm expert with a single thought was a result Shen Anyu found highly satisfactory.
Once he broke through to the Foundation Establishment realm, even Golden Core realm cultivators would fall prey to his illusions. It was an utterly broken ability.
Hearing Shen Anyu's calm voice, a delayed wave of freezing dread finally crashed over Ouyang Che.
His heart was literally being crushed in this boy's grip, yet his first reaction had been to stand there in a daze rather than launch a dying counterattack.
The moment that thought crossed Ouyang Che's mind, the sheer terror on his face vanished, replaced by a smooth, dead, expressionless void.
"Too late."
Shen Anyu smiled, looking over the blank-faced Ouyang Che with deep approval.
He had just activated the Celestial Corpse Refining Divine Method—a technique copied directly from the Child of Destiny, Qin Yuan—to instantly convert Ouyang Che into a living corpse puppet.
Deep within those dead eyes, a faint glimmer of trapped horror remained. Ouyang Che's consciousness was still struggling, but under the combined suppression of Six Senses Control and the corpse refining method, invisible puppet strings had already seized total command of his nervous system. The refinement was absolute.
Shen Anyu chose not to kill him outright because a living puppet held immense strategic value. Ouyang Che was a prime trump card to use against Gu Yunchi, the suspected Destined Heroine.
More, keeping the man technically alive prevented his natal soul lamp from extinguishing back at his sect. Disciples from prominent families and massive sects always had those annoying tracking methods. If Ouyang Che died, a death mark would lock onto Shen Anyu.
"Now, it is time for the harvest." Shen Anyu flicked the blood from his fingers, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. "Let us see what good things you brought me."
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