# 197
**Chapter 197: Double Kill**
During the Carnival Day drill, even with the instructors restricting its range, the Chaos Cube had still managed to cover the entire Building Three.
Now, the cube in Lin Qiye’s hand was a genuine "River" Realm artifact—how could its range possibly be limited to just a few meters?
The silver man realized he’d fallen into a trap. In a panic, he flailed his arms; one arm morphed into a rope-hook, trying to claw his way out of the chaotic space.
But the instant the hook was about to bite into an overhead rock face, Lin Qiye shifted that slab aside, turning it into empty air. The hook snatched nothing and snapped back to the silver man’s side.
He tried again, and again—yet no matter what he did, he couldn’t escape the churning maze.
Meanwhile, Lin Qiye kept sliding the pocket of space that held Zhuang Qi’s blade-mist against the silver man’s pocket. Again and again the silver fog—still under Zhuang Qi’s frantic control—raked across the silver man’s body, opening countless hair-thin cuts.
So your body can turn to metal, harder than steel?
Perfect—Brother Zhuang Qi’s blade-mist specializes in shredding every kind of defense!
Zhuang Qi watched his own mist slash the wrong target again and again, so furious he nearly coughed blood. With only his hunting knife as a weapon, he could only glare helplessly from outside.
The blood-soaked silver man spat a mouthful of crimson; in the chaotic space the blood never hit the ground, just spun through the air, flecked with quivering silver grains.
Some of the mist had already reached his organs.
"Idiot! Stop driving your knife!" he roared.
Zhuang Qi froze, then cut the power to every fragment. The shards lost all momentum and drifted wherever the shifting space took them.
Lin Qiye’s cube could only displace spaces, not overlap them, and certainly couldn’t command the blades themselves. As long as Zhuang Qi refrained from “friendly fire,” the mist posed almost no threat.
Seeing the silver man grasp the trick, Lin Qiye gave a regretful shake of his head. The cube’s charge was almost spent; he locked the surrounding space in place.
The Chaos Cube couldn’t scramble space indefinitely—at least not at this level. During the Building Three drill it had needed several minutes between activations, and each lasted only seconds. By sacrificing area for duration he’d stretched it further, but there was still a limit.
With the final pulse he yanked two massive blocks of earth above the silver man. The instant the spatial distortion ended, the slabs crashed down, burying the badly-wounded man deep underground.
Zhuang Qi’s silver mist was entombed with him.
Lin Qiye kicked off the ground, shooting forward like a bullet. The pale-blue edge of his Straight Blade carved the air, aiming straight for Zhuang Qi’s neck.
Deprived of his mist, Zhuang Qi had almost no way to fight back. Lin Qiye had to seize this moment.
Though no close-quarters fighter and currently unarmed, the veteran hunter reacted with lightning speed, twisting aside just before the blade touched him.
The Straight Blade sliced across his shoulder, laying it open. Biting back the pain, Zhuang Qi spun and sprinted away—toward a thin thread of silver that had cut through the soil and was racing back to him.
Lin Qiye’s eyes narrowed. A sphere of absolute darkness erupted outward; the Straight Blade quivered and shot out—
Thud!
The blade crossed a dozen meters and buried itself in Zhuang Qi’s back. He grunted, pain jerking the corner of his mouth, but a “River” Realm body is tough; the sword failed to reach his heart.
More and more silver mist seeped from the ground ahead—hope flashed in his eyes.
Then the black-coated figure ghosted behind him, seized the protruding hilt, and rammed the blade halfway deeper.
This time the Straight Blade punched clean through. The tip burst from his chest; the light in Zhuang Qi’s eyes dimmed.
The mist he’d summoned drifted down like ordinary sand.
Zhuang Qi—“River” Realm—dead.
Lin Qiye pulled the blade free without expression and glanced at the quivering ground nearby. The silver man, buried alive, was clawing upward.
"Rested?" Lin Qiye asked calmly.
The cube hovering above his palm flickered. A mechanical voice answered, "Ready."
"Don’t let him surface. Suffocate him."
"Affirmative."
Silver light flared again. Every chunk of rock and soil—above, below, left, right—spun and slammed toward the silver man’s pocket. Each time he broke through a layer, a fresh slab rotated overhead; after two breakthroughs the cube flipped him back to the bottom and buried him anew.
No matter which way he clawed, endless earth awaited.
He was “River” Realm—hard, strong—but he still needed air. Between every breakthrough, suffocation crept closer, and with it, despair.
In that boundless sea of stone he was a drowning man with no escape.
Eventually the cube’s glow faded.
"Power exhausted," the mechanical voice said.
Lin Qiye frowned, knelt on a patch of soil, and sent his mental power downward.
Ninety meters below, the silver man still lived—and still climbed.
"Persistent. A worthy opponent," Lin Qiye murmured, drawing his Straight Blade. "But persistence alone won’t save you."
Ninety… eighty… seventy… twenty… ten meters.
Even with lungs burning and despair flooding his mind, the silver man never stopped, smashing upward layer after layer.
One meter left—the soil loosened.
Hope flared like a dying ember; despite near-asphyxiation, fresh strength surged.
He was about to break through—
A slender Straight Blade slid through the earth, pierced his eye socket, and drilled through his skull.