# 190
**Chapter 190: Reliable**
After firing the rocket, Mumu shrank back down, swaying with Lin Qiye’s steps.
“Bullets and rockets are also metal, but he didn’t break them down. That means he can only decompose that blade—or that specific type of special metal. That simplifies things,” Lin Qiye muttered.
Above, a few bats flapped past, circled once, and darted away.
Lin Qiye’s expression darkened.
The bats’ report was worse than he’d feared. He’d thought there were only three River-realm and one Sea-realm enemy, but another River-realm had been hiding in the forest, evading every nocturnal scout.
Instructor Hong, rushing to save Shen Qingzhu, was now tangled with that newcomer and couldn’t break free. Baili Pangpang, luckily, hadn’t been exposed and was still heading straight for Shen Qingzhu.
But… could their small group really beat a River-realm?
Worse, the second River-realm had changed course, bypassing Village 1 and closing in on Lin Qiye.
Information from his night creatures lagged about ten minutes; he could talk to them, not share their sight. To learn anything, he had to wait for them to return.
Another worrying point: the Sea-realm enemy who’d been sitting on a hillside had vanished. No sign of him anywhere—only a strange cave where he’d been. Bats were already exploring it.
Whoosh—!
While Lin Qiye sorted the data, a figure shot up behind him. Countless knife-shards stormed forward like steel locusts, shearing every bush and sapling in half—as though an invisible giant blade had sliced the jungle clean away.
In his mental perception, the shards were far smaller than before—previously thumbnail-sized, now grains of sand. Same blade, utterly different lethality.
Shards this fine could be inhaled; with a thought, Zhuang Qi could mince a body from the inside. Even a graze would flay skin; deep penetration could shred bone.
Lin Qiye finally grasped the man’s Forbidden Ruins: infinite decomposition of that special metal, controlled for slaughter. At River-realm, the blade could only be split to sand-grain size…
Any higher, and he might reduce it to nanometers, invisibly exterminating every life nearby.
A terrifyingly lethal Forbidden Ruins—and Zhuang Qi, humiliated, was now furious.
The silver fog of blades reached Lin Qiye’s back, spreading to encircle him. Once enclosed, he’d be shredded alive.
“Heya!”
Mumu’s shoulder-tube fired again. The rocket burst amid the silver swarm, slowing it barely a heartbeat before the grains surged onward.
Rockets couldn’t stop a cloud this dense and minute.
Shards already fluttered ahead of him; the net was closing.
Mind racing, Lin Qiye stayed calm. His Mortal Divine Realm couldn’t erode so many fragments; swordplay was useless against a 360-degree storm…
His eyes lit. He yanked the little mummy off his shoulder, threw himself down, and pinned the tiny figure beneath him.
“Sorry, but we’re out of options. It’s up to you, Mumu.”
Linked by soul-contract, Mumu understood instantly. Its body ballooned; two satchels of explosive bulged from its back beneath Lin Qiye.
Far off, Zhuang Qi watched the encircling silver cloud and grinned savagely.
“Heya!”
Boom—!!
The instant the blades were to close, the charges under giant-Mumu detonated, hurling mummy and master skyward like a firecracker, clearing the lethal fog before it could contract.
With Mumu on top, Lin Qiye felt almost none of the blast; his reliable mummy took every shred of damage. A few scorched bandages curled, then relaxed back to normal.
Together they traced a graceful arc over the peak, plummeting toward a distant valley.
Zhuang Qi stared, dumbstruck.
“The hell? They can play it like that?!”
…
Elsewhere in the mountains.
Boom—!!
An explosion thundered at the foot of the slope, a fire-dragon roaring sky-high and igniting trees—until the air was suddenly sucked away and the flames vanished.
In the scorched wasteland of charred trunks, a giant ax-man climbed from a crater and chuckled.
“Kid, your bang still ain’t big enough.”