Go Ahead and Kill — We've Got Your Back
At Meng Jiang's words, Lu Yuan blinked in surprise, then smiled and nodded.
"Alright."
Perfect timing, actually. His Spirit Power was completely depleted, and there was no recovering it with Spirit Crystals in the middle of an arena fight.
Besides, if the next opponent turned out to be someone like Bloodrage Fang, fighting at less than full strength would probably mean getting chased around the stage.
After all, Bloodrage Fang was a high-level Battle Venerable — a full major realm above him, with one extra Transcendent Gene etched in.
For now, stepping down was the right call.
Lu Yuan hopped off the arena. Wang Lingling was already watching him, a warm smile playing at her lips.
"Little Yuan is so strong. Even a mid-level Gnoll Battle Venerable genius couldn't match you."
"Yeah, yeah! Little Yuan is amazing!"
Rebecca's eyes sparkled like stars — she had fully committed to being Lu Yuan's biggest fan.
Even Si Tingxue had to concede, in her measured way: "It is quite impressive."
Meng Jiang clapped Lu Yuan on the shoulder with a grin.
"Good lad. You single-handedly took down three of their Battle Venerables. At this point they've got nothing left but Bloodrage Fang."
Lu Yuan glanced at the two unfamiliar Gnoll geniuses standing across the way.
"What about those two?"
"Both peak Battle General rank. Strong, certainly, but they shouldn't be able to hold their own against a Battle Venerable. Even if they somehow could, we've still got three Battle Venerables on our side."
As a Battle Sovereign, Meng Jiang had no trouble reading the two geniuses' cultivations at a glance.
Lu Yuan nodded slowly, the picture becoming clear.
Sure enough, the Gnolls made their move — they sent Bloodrage Fang up to the arena.
His expression was ice-cold, his dissatisfaction with the current situation plain to see.
To be fair, Dushan and the others had already known going in that Lu Yuan was formidable. They had stretched their assessment as high as they could, treating him as a Battle Venerable-tier Gene Warrior. With four Battle Venerable-rank fighters of their own, they had figured they wouldn't come up short — might even hold the edge.
What they hadn't anticipated was for Lu Yuan to surpass even that inflated estimate, defeating three of their geniuses entirely on his own.
At this point, their odds of winning the arena battles had cratered.
Dushan looked toward Bloodrage Fang and gave a slight nod.
"Do your best."
Bloodrage Fang's fur was blood-red, and his eyes brimmed with savagery. He swept a cold glance across the human side and sneered.
"One lone human Battle General managed to beat three of our Battle Venerables? I *am* a Battle Venerable. Naturally, I can do the same — beat three of their geniuses at the same rank!"
He leaped onto the arena, his aura crashing outward like a wave — dominant and terrible.
Wang Lingling's expression was serene, her faint smile in place.
"Should I go?"
Meng Jiang looked at her and nodded. "Go ahead."
He didn't know much about Wang Lingling's abilities in detail, but the Tianrao Battle Emperor had vouched for her strength. He was willing to take a Battle Emperor's word for it.
Wang Lingling wore a white mage's robe, one hand resting lightly on a simple wooden staff — white-colored, nearly two meters tall, nothing ornate about it.
She smiled across the arena at Bloodrage Fang.
Bloodrage Fang was an Assault Type warrior, blood-red waraxe in hand, clad in crimson battle armor.
The moment Meng Jiang signaled the start, Bloodrage Fang let out a roar. Crimson flames ignited across his entire body.
In the next instant, his foot slammed down on the arena stone, cracking the sound barrier in a single stride as he launched himself at Wang Lingling.
But the moment he moved, a blinding radiance erupted before his eyes — a white so brilliant it was almost violent.
The light was so intense that even the Gene Warriors watching from below the arena couldn't help but squint. For Bloodrage Fang, standing at the center of it, the effect was devastating. He let out a low, pained growl.
The flash lasted only a heartbeat before vanishing.
In its wake, Bloodrage Fang stood with his eyes screwed shut in agony. The burst had left him temporarily sightless.
Stripped of his vision, he charged furiously toward Wang Lingling's last known position — waraxe crashing down onto the arena floor, carving a shallow gouge. She wasn't there.
The expressions on Lu Yuan's side had become distinctly strange.
They had seen Wang Lingling step away from her original position the moment she triggered the technique. But had Bloodrage Fang's perception been disrupted too — or did this particular opponent simply not rely on perception at all?
Either way, he found nothing but empty stone.
Bloodrage Fang knew immediately the strike had missed. He roared and raised his waraxe high. In the next instant, brilliant crimson light blazed to life across his body — condensing into row after row of razor-sharp blood-axe blades that spun around him in a churning vortex, forming the Crimson Storm. The storm extended roughly ten meters in every direction, serving as both offense and defense at once.
The vortex moved with him as Bloodrage Fang began pacing the arena in erratic, unpredictable patterns.
Even without sight, even without perception — he had no intention of abandoning his brutal offensive instincts.
Wang Lingling's face remained perfectly composed, her faint smile unchanged.
She swept her staff in an unhurried arc. Where she passed, dim golden motes of light drifted downward and sank silently into the air, swallowed by the arena — invisible.
Then, without warning, Bloodrage Fang's erratic path carried him directly over one of those hidden motes.
The mote blazed back to life.
**Boom!**
The golden point detonated. The shockwave was powerful enough to make the entire arena shudder.
Bloodrage Fang sensed the surge of power the instant before it hit. His expression snapped taut — blood-pattern runes erupted across his skin, and the phantom silhouette of a blood-red armor manifested over his real armor.
The explosion slammed into him. His body went airborne, the phantom armor dimming noticeably, and he let out a muffled grunt of pain.
But it wasn't over. As Bloodrage Fang tumbled through the air, whether by accident or deliberate design, his body landed squarely on another hidden mote.
A second detonation. The phantom armor shattered completely. Bloodrage Fang coughed up a mouthful of blood, the vivid rune markings across his body fading several shades.
Lu Yuan watched from below with quiet surprise. He hadn't expected Wang Lingling to be this effective.
*Well, "effective" might not be the right word.* Her fighting style genuinely matched her personality — devious didn't begin to cover it.
First blind the enemy. Then bury landmines while they can't see.
Who could survive that?
He also noticed that Wang Lingling had apparently etched only light-attribute Transcendent Genes — and light-attribute Transcendent Genes were genuinely rare. The fact that she'd managed to acquire multiple of them was remarkable.
No wonder she was this strong.
Bloodrage Fang's performance had left Lu Yuan slightly disappointed, though. All raw aggression, no adaptability — a charging bull with no thought behind it.
Then again — *he himself wasn't much different sometimes.* And to be fair, Bloodrage Fang hadn't known Wang Lingling's techniques in advance. Who could have anticipated someone burying invisible mines all over the arena?
Blood was trickling from the corner of Bloodrage Fang's mouth now.
What caught Lu Yuan's attention, though, was this: after taking those hits, Bloodrage Fang's aura was *rising.*
He wasn't alone in noticing. Si Tingxue beside him had furrowed her brow, studying Bloodrage Fang's contorted expression with cool precision.
"Something's off about this one."
Rebecca nodded. "Right — why is his aura getting stronger instead?"
The others were watching too, puzzled.
Their intelligence on Bloodrage Fang was limited. They knew his talent was formidable, but the specifics of his Combat Techniques were only partially known — let alone whatever special abilities might be built into his Gene Armament.
Up on the arena, Wang Lingling had also caught the anomaly. She narrowed her eyes, her composed smile unchanged.
Then she acted.
Streams of light rippled across her body, condensing beside her into a second Wang Lingling — and then those two split again into two more.
Four Wang Linglings now stood on the arena.
Each one walked away in a different direction, scattering across the stone, and as they moved, trail after trail of golden motes sank invisibly into the air behind them.
Every observer — human and Gnoll alike — felt a crawl move up the back of their neck.
That many golden points. If they all triggered at once...
Bloodrage Fang had learned his lesson, however. He planted his feet and stayed put, patiently waiting for his vision to return.
The initial flash might have permanently blinded an ordinary person. Against a Battle Venerable, though, the body's genetics were simply too robust — the blindness was temporary. Within moments, Bloodrage Fang's eyes had adjusted.
He opened them. Bloodshot red stared out from beneath heavy lids.
His gaze swept the arena — and when he counted four Wang Linglings, something flickered across his face.
All four of them looked back at him with gentle smiles, expressions of mild surprise on their faces.
"Eyes recovered already? You really are tough — Assault Type recovery is something else."
The teasing note in Wang Lingling's voice made rage surge through Bloodrage Fang like a tide.
"Wretched human! Those cheap tricks won't work on me again!"
With a roar, the Crimson Storm orbiting him exploded outward — blood-axe blades scattering in every direction.
The blades swept across the arena in a storm of crimson. Where they passed, golden motes flared and triggered — boom after boom after boom, an unbroken chain of detonations that made the ice-crystal arena shudder with every burst. Light filled the stage until it was impossible to see what was happening inside.
Bloodrage Fang watched over a hundred golden motes detonate in a cascade of brilliance and felt cold sweat bead at his temple. Good thing he'd held his fury in check earlier and cleared the board first. If he had simply charged in — that would have been catastrophic.
But now the field was clean. He was safe.
Crimson flames blazed back to life across his body. He charged toward one of the Wang Linglings.
As an Elemental Type, Wang Lingling shared the common weakness of her kind: exceptional Mental Power, but a comparatively fragile physique. And a fragile physique meant limited speed.
He caught up quickly. The waraxe came down.
The instant the blade connected — Wang Lingling blazed with golden light and *exploded.*
**Boom!!**
Bloodrage Fang was hurled backward. Blood poured from him. The blood-pattern runes that served as his defense were nearly shredded, and the blood-red fur across his body had taken on a scorched, blackened tinge.
The heat released when a clone detonated was immense — blinding radiance and searing temperatures combined, rivaling a powerful fire-attribute Combat Technique.
Bloodrage Fang crashed down onto the arena floor and coughed up blood in waves.
Yet the worse his injuries grew, the stronger his aura became.
He dragged himself upright. Twin eyes, flooded red, fixed on the remaining three Wang Linglings. His face was a snarl.
The three Wang Linglings smiled back at him, gentle as always.
"My, what a scary look. Want to guess again which one is the real me? Maybe you'll get lucky this time."
Bloodrage Fang heard that and bared his teeth in a savage grin. Blood-pattern runes surged back across his body.
But they were *doubled* this time. His injuries had amplified his aura — and with it, his defensive technique had grown proportionally stronger. Twice as dense as before.
Wang Lingling raised an eyebrow, a genuine flicker of surprise crossing her face.
Down below, Lu Yuan and the others were frowning as well.
Hurt more, get stronger. Get stronger, defense gets stronger. If this kept escalating — would anyone be able to break through his defense? Could he even be killed?
Bloodrage Fang roared and charged another Wang Lingling. His speed, too, had grown.
The waraxe fell. Golden light erupted.
**Boom!!**
He was hurled skyward again. Blood rained down through the air.
**Thud.**
His armor cracked in multiple places. Patches of fur were charred and blackened. His body was lacquered in blood.
But his aura was stronger than before.
Bloodrage Fang forced himself upright. Blood runes surged back out — this time, doubled again.
Wang Lingling's expression shifted into something resembling genuine frustration, and she threw out a complaint to no one in particular:
"Hey — that isn't how this is supposed to work. Any normal person who took injuries like that should be completely unconscious by now."
Bloodrage Fang let out a savage snarl.
"Too bad. I will *never* fall!"
He charged toward one of the two remaining Wang Linglings. The waraxe fell. Golden light detonated.
**Boom!!**
This time, he didn't go flying.
The blood runes had collapsed, and his injuries deepened somewhat — but the explosion's force wasn't enough to send him airborne anymore.
Bloodrage Fang laughed. Eyes blazing, he surged toward the last Wang Lingling.
"*There you are!* Die, human!!"
The axe came down — and golden light bloomed once more.
Bloodrage Fang: *??????*
His grin froze on his face. He had been utterly certain this one was real. So certain that he hadn't bothered reforming his blood-pattern defenses before charging.
The detonation hit him dead-on. Flesh and bone, nothing between them.
**BOOM!!**
Bloodrage Fang was launched across the arena — this time with no defense whatsoever, his unguarded body absorbing the full force of the blast.
Yes, his injuries had been boosting his attributes — mainly strength and speed. His defense had risen as well, but not by nearly as much.
This one hit clean.
When Bloodrage Fang landed, he was utterly destroyed. His left arm had been incinerated to ash. One eye was gone. Most of his blood-red fur was burned to cinders. What remained of him was a patchwork of charred flesh and weeping wounds.
Dead silence.
Lu Yuan and the rest just stood there, mouths hanging open, staring at the arena.
Weili was the first to break. He erupted:
"What the — ?! What just happened?! ALL FOUR were fakes?! Where's the real one?!"
He wasn't alone. Every one of the young geniuses wore the same expression of complete, bewildered disbelief.
Reality itself seemed to be in question.
The Battle Emperors and Battle Sovereigns standing to the side exchanged glances with complicated expressions, looking down at Bloodrage Fang's crumpled form with something approaching sympathy. With their perception, they had naturally tracked Wang Lingling's actual position throughout the fight.
Across the divide, the Gnoll side was the same.
Wenlin and the other Gnoll geniuses stared in disbelief, trading uncertain murmurs about where Wang Lingling could possibly have been.
Dushan's group just looked ill.
"Hmph. Didn't expect the humans to have a talent like this."
"Who is she? We had no intelligence on her — is she a hidden genius of the Red Maple Empire, or from another empire on Great Qi Star?"
"Look into her background afterward."
The Gnoll seniors muttered among themselves.
On the arena, there was not a sound.
Bloodrage Fang lay in a bloody heap. He appeared to have lost consciousness — yet Wang Lingling had still not reappeared. There was no trace of her anywhere.
Lu Yuan understood, though. If Bloodrage Fang had genuinely been in mortal danger, the Gnolls would have conceded immediately to pull him off the stage.
Even now, despite the ruin of him, Bloodrage Fang still exuded a savage, violent aura.
He stirred. Laboriously, he dragged himself to his feet.
The injury-based boost was accelerating his recovery as well. The wounds that had looked catastrophic were already beginning to knit — slowly, but visibly.
His arm was gone. His eye was gone. Those weren't coming back.
His remaining eye swept the arena, murderous and empty. His perception reached out.
Nothing.
"Cowardly human!" His voice rang through the frozen valley. "If you've got any spine, come out and face me!!"
The echo faded into silence.
He tried to fall back on his earlier approach — blood-axe blades spinning back into orbit around him, that killing vortex reasserting itself. He began to move, but the memory of the golden motes made him pull up short before he'd taken ten steps.
Then, with a furious roar, he launched every blade outward.
Crimson steel blanketed the arena — and found nothing. The invisible Wang Lingling refused to be flushed out.
He raged at empty air until his voice went hoarse. It did nothing. She simply did not come out.
Ten minutes passed.
His expression changed. The savage, surging power that had been climbing all fight began to slowly ebb.
The observers below caught it immediately.
Stevenson's voice was grave.
"So the enhancement from his injuries has a time limit. That's a relief — without one, a technique like that would be far above King Grade."
Bakula nodded beside him. "No time limit and it would be genuinely broken. Wang Lingling must have calculated that. Once the boost burns off... in the state he's in now, can he really still match her?"
Eyes lit with understanding across the group. Quiet agreement rippled through.
Watching his own power bleed away, Bloodrage Fang felt a volcanic fury rising.
Blood-axe blades coalesced around him once more, spinning. This time, instead of launching them, he made a last desperate gamble — use whatever remained of his enhanced strength and cover the arena at speed, moving unpredictably.
He was careful enough to layer his blood-pattern defenses before he started running.
But he hadn't gone ten meters before he stumbled across several golden motes clustered close together — laid so near each other they formed a chain.
The golden light ignited.
Bloodrage Fang: *"I'm going to @#$%—"*
**BOOM!!**
He was sent flying. His aura had weakened since its peak, and his blood-rune defenses had weakened with it. Multiple connected motes detonating simultaneously sent blood spraying through the air in a wide arc.
He hit the ground hard.
This time, "devastating" fell short of the mark.
One leg was broken. His body was almost entirely charred black.
Lu Yuan's expression twisted into something hard to name.
*That's... rough.*
Silence swallowed the arena again. Bloodrage Fang lay on the stone, coughing up blood in wet bursts, his remaining eye carrying a look of profound existential doubt.
*When had that monster laid those golden motes? He had searched — how had he not found them?*
Dushan watched the wreckage for a long moment, his expression cycling through several unpleasant emotions. Then, coldly:
"We concede."
The moment those words fell, the air shimmered and folded, and Wang Lingling materialized from nowhere.
Her face was pale, but she was still smiling.
"If he had held on just a little longer... my Spirit Power would have run out too."
Lu Yuan blinked. He hadn't realized until this moment that Wang Lingling had been using some form of invisibility the entire fight.
But if she was invisible — how had Bloodrage Fang's earlier blood-blade bombardment completely failed to expose her?
*Must be her Gene Battle Technique,* Lu Yuan concluded.
Either way, Wang Lingling had won. That was plainly a good thing.
Smiles broke out all around.
Li Xinghai glanced sideways at Adams, the corners of his eyes creasing.
"Adams — the Algaibi family has raised quite the talent."
Adams laughed, letting a note of self-satisfaction show. "Lingling really is something."
Dushan took the badly injured Bloodrage Fang off the stage and handed him to a Healer Type Battle Sovereign for treatment. Then he fixed Wang Lingling with a flat, cold stare.
Wang Lingling just smiled back. "You still have two left. Will they not come up?"
Dushan's jaw worked. He drew a slow breath, then turned to look at Meng Jiang.
"The arena battles. We concede."
Meng Jiang's smile was mild. No surprise there.
The two remaining Gnolls were Battle General-rank. Sending them up against Wang Lingling would have been pointless.
Her performance alone — thoroughly playing Bloodrage Fang for a fool — made the outcome of any Battle General matchup self-evident.
Meng Jiang kept his good mood. "In that case, the team battle will proceed tomorrow."
Dushan said nothing, offered no protest. A cold grunt was all he had.
Bloodrage Fang's injuries were severe. They needed real time to treat him — possibly the rest of the day.
Wang Lingling descended from the arena. Several of the young geniuses involuntarily took a step back as she approached, eyeing her with wary expressions — as if afraid she might casually drop a golden light-point mine into the crowd at any moment.
Even Stevenson and Bakula looked slightly uneasy.
Wang Lingling took in their reaction with a gentle smile.
"What's wrong? Are you really that scared of me? I'm not a bad person, you know."
Stevenson gave a dry laugh and said nothing.
Lu Yuan had been familiar with Wang Lingling's particular brand of scheming for a while now. He just grinned.
"Lingling — I had no idea you were that formidable."
Wang Lingling smiled back.
"That Gnoll was just too stubborn to think on his feet. Honestly, Little Yuan, *you're* the impressive one — you're only Battle General-rank, and you're already that strong."
Rebecca glanced between them, then broke into a grin.
"Are you two just complimenting each other in a circle?"
Wang Lingling laughed. "Maybe a little."
Si Tingxue looked at Wang Lingling for a long, measuring moment, then said nothing.
Meng Jiang cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention back.
"Let's return to the warcraft."
They followed him aboard.
Aboard the warcraft, Meng Jiang allowed himself a smile.
"Everyone worked hard today. We won the arena battles because of your efforts. But..."
His expression grew serious.
"The team battle comes next. Don't let your guard down — it's more dangerous than what we just faced."
The words landed. The easy mood that had been settling over the group tightened back up. Every eye drifted toward the five who had volunteered for the team battle — Lu Yuan among them.
Meng Jiang drew a measured breath.
"Here is what their team battle roster looks like: four Battle Venerable geniuses — one high-level, one mid-level, two low-level. Their fifth participant is likely at peak or pinnacle Battle General rank. Among those five, there is a Guardian Type, an Assault Type, and an Elemental Type. A well-coordinated team with that composition would be formidable. There is also one more thing worth keeping in mind: the two Battle General-rank Gnoll talents we weren't previously aware of — the ones who didn't participate in the arena fights. That doesn't mean they're useless. They may possess special Combat Techniques. Keep them in mind."
Li Xinghai spoke up from beside him, his tone warm and easy.
"In the end, it's just an Ice Vein Crystal mine. Valuable, certainly — but not compared to the lives of young people like you. Especially you, Lu Yuan. Tomorrow's team battle — your safety comes first. Everything else is secondary."
Lu Yuan nodded. "Understood, Elder Li."
He paused.
Something had been turning over in the back of his mind. He voiced it.
"If I kill some of those Gnoll geniuses in there... will that cause problems?"
He had been weighing this. The Red Maple Empire's overall strength seemed to fall short of the Blood Bone Gnolls'. If he actually killed their geniuses, would the fallout spiral beyond what their side could contain?
That was his real concern.
The question landed like a stone in a quiet pond. Every person in the warcraft went still — eyes swinging toward Lu Yuan, toward the slightly sheepish smile on his face.
A beat of silence.
Li Xinghai drew a long breath. The lines of his face seemed to deepen. He studied Lu Yuan for a long, steady moment.
"Lu Yuan — did you hold back today?"
Lu Yuan thought about it. He'd be using it tomorrow anyway. No reason to hide it now. He smiled and nodded.
"I kept a few things in reserve."
Sharp intakes of breath rippled through the cabin. Battle Emperors, Battle Sovereigns, fellow young geniuses — every last one of them stared at him with wide eyes.
Because the strength Lu Yuan had already displayed was enough to leave anyone shaken.
He was a high-level Battle General — and he had crossed a full major realm to defeat Battle Venerables.
And now he was saying he hadn't even used everything.
Li Xinghai, Adams, and Meng Jiang exchanged a glance, something shifting in the air between them.
Li Xinghai's expression turned serious. "Are you certain you can kill those Gnoll geniuses during the team battle?"
Lu Yuan weighed it. "Based on what they showed today — the odds are very good."
Li Xinghai exhaled slowly. He closed his eyes and was quiet.
Then his eyes opened. Something cold and decisive moved through them.
"Then kill them. Every one you can. Our conflict with the Blood Bone Gnolls runs across the other two Spatial Rifts as well, and the Land of Origin too — we're fighting on multiple fronts. If you have a chance to cut down their geniuses, why wouldn't you take it?"
He added, a cold smile on his lips: "The Blood Bone Gnolls are cunning. The talent you've revealed here is extraordinary. They've likely already sent word calling in reinforcements — and they'll be thinking about ambushing you on the return trip, putting you down quietly. I was already planning to summon additional backup. Now I see one escort won't be enough."
Si Tingyu's gold-red eyes hardened with a sharp gleam.
"Elder Li — I'll send word to Ancestor. With Little Yuan's talent, Ancestor will certainly be willing to make a move."
"Good. Do it."
Li Xinghai nodded, deliberate and certain.
Seeing Li Xinghai's decisiveness, Lu Yuan hesitated for a moment, then spoke again.
"The Blood Bone Gnolls are generally stronger than us — the Red Maple Empire overall, I mean. If things actually come to blows because of this... would that trigger a large-scale war? Wouldn't that make this whole competition pointless? A lot of Guard Corps soldiers would die."
It wasn't an abstract concern. He had been stationed with the Southern Guard. He knew what that life cost the people living it. If there was a way to resolve things without sending countless soldiers to their deaths, that was always worth pursuing. He hadn't refused to come. But if killing a few geniuses reignited a conflict that could have been contained, there would be a weight of ghosts standing behind him — and he couldn't ignore that.
The question made Li Xinghai and the others pause. They looked at each other.
Then Li Xinghai placed a hand on Lu Yuan's shoulder, his tone warm.
"That you're thinking about the soldiers in the Guard Corps — that's admirable. Your time on the Southern defense line wasn't wasted."
He continued, measured and calm.
"The Blood Bone Gnolls are stronger overall, yes. They control the entirety of Blood Bone Star. But by the same token, every Spatial Rift and every Aberration Event on that star falls on them to suppress. The military pressure they face is no lighter than ours. If it weren't for that, why would they have agreed to negotiate at all? Why settle the question of an Ice Vein Crystal mine through a competition? And beyond that..."
A cold light moved through his eyes.
"The rules have already been set. The Blood Bone Gnolls agreed to them. They can play by those rules — or they can refuse. And if they refuse?"
His voice dropped, quiet and absolute.
"Then we fight. Even that is acceptable. This is an empire's dignity — forged in blood and fire."
Adams spoke up from the side, his tone easy and unhurried.
"Lu Yuan — the Blood Bone Gnolls do have more Battle Emperor-level powerhouses than the Red Maple Empire. If they bring them to bear, the pressure won't be light. But we from other empires aren't about to sit and watch the Spatial Rift in Red Maple territory fall. Even brothers who've gone their separate ways come together when an outsider picks a fight. You think we'd stay home?"
The knot in Lu Yuan's chest loosened.
He broke into a grin.
"So I don't need to hold back at all?"
"Not one bit. Go ahead — kill as many as you can. If you can wipe out all their geniuses, we'll bear every last consequence for you."
Li Xinghai clapped Lu Yuan on the shoulder, his own grin wide — and behind his eyes, an icy killing intent gleamed.