Chapter 1227: Childhood Shadow
After Xue Lang stopped estimating the instance dungeon maze, his speed and destructive power increased exponentially. Xu Huo could only avoid his attacks by fully opening his spiritual realm.
The rays in his hand appeared clearer within the spiritual realm, but this did not mean the ray attacks were traceable. On the contrary, because of their special power, they could even directly cut through spatial gates.
Thus, even when Xu Huo moved within the spiritual realm, he had to avoid his rays. But even when increased to sixteen, relative to the relatively wide maze corridors, they could still only cover a very small area. And once he chose not to engage in direct combat, the area covered by the spiritual realm became a freely movable zone.
After shifting the spiritual realm several times, Xu Huo used the maze walls to create distance from Xue Lang and waited for a moment in a relatively safe position.
About five seconds passed before Xue Lang reappeared before him.
Of course, if they were fighting in an open space, even with his spiritual realm fully deployed, Xu Huo might not gain much advantage. Xue Lang's ability was limited by the maze.
Many of the surrounding maze walls had been dismantled, but after catching up to him again, Xue Lang's face was filled with anger, and the killing intent in his eyes grew stronger.
"Your rays can cover a length of about 100 meters in all directions—up, down, left, and right. Beyond that range, your control over the rays drops significantly, no longer enough to kill from a distance." Xu Huo analyzed Xue Lang's ability while retreating, carefully watching his expression changes.
"Trying to use that trick on me?" Xue Lang sneered. "You think Dr. Zhang only taught you emotional control?"
Xu Huo narrowly dodged a lethal strike, rolling across the ground before quickly standing up. Ignoring the wound on his shoulder, he once again shuttled through the spiritual realm, circling behind two maze walls before stopping. The moment he halted, the maze wall in front of him was sliced into several pieces, followed by Xue Lang bursting through the wall, twisting the sixteen rays into a single strand like a long whip sweeping forward!
What was cut apart was not only the several maze walls behind Xu Huo but also his spiritual realm.
The two maze walls plus the corridor between them were about a hundred meters wide, but after the rays merged, they sliced through four maze walls in one go, and in an extremely short time, caused the spiritual realm within them to collapse for an instant!
Although the spiritual realm was controlled by spiritual power, it affected reality. Naturally, reality could also influence the spiritual realm in return—as long as it was strong enough.
Once again widening the distance between them, Xu Huo controlled the spiritual realm within a hundred-meter range while condensing his spiritual power into a tangible door.
After his third evolution, his spiritual power had reached a level where he could condense substantial materialized objects to serve as attack weapons. However, no matter what type of super evolution Xue Lang had, cutting through his rays was extremely difficult, so he wanted to try whether he could block the ray attacks.
This black materialized door was about half a meter thick. Xu Huo opened a spiritual gate in front of and behind it. The rays sliced through the first gate without any obstruction, and the materialized door also failed to block them... But as the rays passed through, Xu Huo caught a different sensation, much like the first time he touched space rays through the cube space.
The materialized object condensed from spiritual power amplified the presence of that extremely thin ray.
Both the front and back doors had been cut. Xu Huo directly opened a third door to escape the trajectory of the rays, and when Xue Lang turned around again, he created another materialized door to block the rays.
Unexpectedly, the rays disappeared just before hitting the materialized door—Xue Lang had closed in on him, one hand reaching for his throat.
Xu Huo stepped back half a pace, then passed through a spatial gate and vanished from his spot.
Xue Lang missed, but his gaze shifted, and the next second, he intercepted the spot where Xu Huo emerged, his hand forming a blade to stab into the spiritual gate.
Before the gate had fully opened, his hand had already passed through, but what stood behind the gate was not Xu Huo, but a short, dark shadow.
Xue Lang's hand was still embedded in the shadow's chest and abdomen, but when he tried to pull it out, he found his fingers tightly twisted. Then the shadow, like water, flowed up along his palm, quickly covering his forearm... The shadow seemed to draw closer, leaning in to whisper in his ear: "Xiao Liang."
Xue Lang's eyes darkened. His other hand grabbed the shadow's head without hesitation and twisted it off, saying, "Xu Huo, you turn into a little one and think I'll be scared? Do you have some misunderstanding about your childhood self? If it weren't for Dr. Zhang, you'd have died seven or eight times in the hospital!"
The shadow's head seemed to be twisted off, but the shadow remained connected to the neck. Part of it still clung to Xue Lang, trying to crawl up his body.
Receiving no response, Xue Lang stepped back two paces, lifting his hand to sweep the rays toward the shadow.
The shadow was cut into several pieces as he wished, but the part attached to his body never receded. Even the severed pieces of the shadow quickly merged back into him upon hitting the ground.
"Xiao Liang, what is this? I want to play too." A hand separated from the shadow on his arm, reaching for the rays, only to be quickly cut off.
"Xiao Liang, what is this? I want to play too." The shadow repeated the same sound, continuing to reach for the rays, only to be cut off again and again.
Seeing that he couldn't shake off the shadow, Xue Lang raised one hand, and the spinning top that had been floating nearby appeared in his palm. As the top spun, a sharp, thin sound accompanied by vibrations surged out from it, instantly peeling away the shadow clinging to his arm.
The shadow flowed to the ground, sliding three meters away before reforming into a human shape. It had no face, no mouth, but it could still produce a human voice: "Xiao Liang, what are you playing? I want to play too."
"Can you shut the hell up?" Xue Lang shouted, and the rays in his hand split again, slicing the shadow into strips with a series of swishes.
But the shadow quickly gathered again upon hitting the ground, once more standing before him, calling his name.
Xue Lang turned his head to look at where Xu Huo was hiding, his voice low: "Killing you will be the same!"
The illusions and hallucinations came from Xu Huo. He didn't need to tangle with the shadow—just eliminate the source!
But just as he swung his rays, a resistance appeared, restricting and pulling the rays to a point behind his left.
Xue Lang turned around, only to see a hand separating from the short shadow—and that hand was hooking onto his rays.
Xue Lang's expression changed.
The rays vanished from his hand.
"Xiao Liang, let's play together." The shadow continued to emit its human voice.
Xue Lang stared at it. Two seconds later, his face twisted, and he charged forward, punching through the shadow's head with a single blow. "Play with your grandpa, play!"
The shadow lost its head again, and then its body was torn to pieces. Not only that, but Xue Lang also took out an item, nailing the shadow pieces one by one to the ground, muttering, "Should have killed you long ago!"