# 496
Chapter 496 – He’s Got It Down to an Art
After the last sentence, the deep male voice vanished completely, and the air sank into total silence.
“Hm?”
The sudden quiet puzzled Twelfth Seat. He turned to look at Shen Qingzhu, who stood behind him.
“You finally turned it off?”
Shen Qingzhu shook his head. “I didn’t turn it off… the rest of the story will be told by me.”
He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.
Snap—!!
…
Second floor.
Lin Qiye reached out and tapped the desiccated Seventh Seat; her body crumbled like dry sand, spilling into the lush green beneath his feet and vanishing without a trace.
The flowers that had absorbed every last shred of her life-force now bloomed to an outrageous size.
Lin Qiye rose slowly. All the flowers dissolved into motes of light and drifted away; the emerald lawn beneath him disappeared as well.
“Huh?”
The instant 【Eternal Secret Garden】 dispersed, a stream of pure mental energy rushed into Lin Qiye’s mind, replenishing the Forbidden Ruin’s cost and even nudging his realm slightly higher.
Surprise flashed in his eyes.
The life and mental power those blossoms had devoured actually returned a portion to him?
Strictly speaking, this was the first time Lin Qiye had used 【Eternal Secret Garden】 to kill. In Xining, when he’d fought the members of Team 009, he hadn’t taken their lives, so he hadn’t noticed this extra effect.
He didn’t know the woman’s exact rank among the 【Believers】, but with “Boundless”-tier mental strength she had to be near the top. After the garden sucked her dry, her vitality and psyche had merged into it, and the garden—stingy middleman that it was—had funneled a sliver of mental power back to him… barely enough to qualify as a tip.
“How many left?” An Qingyu walked over.
“Three.” Lin Qiye swept the manor with his perception. “One’s fighting Shen Qingzhu, one’s Ninth Seat—we saw him last time at the Baili skyscraper—still circling the yard, and one just woke up in the underground altar.”
“They haven’t noticed?”
“No. We were careful—no noise, and with Pangpang’s relic blocking aura, they have no idea one of them is gone.”
The ambush had been long in the making. After slipping into the manor, the group headed straight to the second floor. Using Jiang Er’s ability, they contacted Shen Qingzhu and had him lure a Believer upstairs for a silent kill.
A straight fight could have done it, but the commotion would alert the rest and leave them surrounded. Hence the first rule of tonight’s trap: not a whisper.
Jiang Er’s 【Spirit Medium】, An Qingyu’s condensed psychic pollution, Lin Qiye’s 【Eternal Secret Garden】, and Pangpang’s universal disarmament—all designed to let Seventh Seat die voiceless.
“Next, the real threats are the ‘Klein’ underground and Ninth Seat strolling the yard,” Lin Qiye judged. “Good news: the ‘Klein’ was badly cut up by Sword Saint’s sword-qi—his aura’s a mess. We can take him.”
“Do we hit the ‘Klein’ first, or Ninth Seat?” An Qingyu asked.
Baili Pangpang clicked his tongue. “That Ninth Seat… honestly, he seemed decent last time. Shame to waste him.”
“Underground first, then,” Lin Qiye decided. “Once the ‘Klein’ is dead, Ninth Seat is just ‘Boundless’—easy to handle.”
“Just ‘Boundless’…” Cao Yuan sighed. “Listen to us now.”
“Confidence, pal. We’re Sword Saint’s students—what’s a little ‘Boundless’?”
Pangpang slapped his shoulder. “Oh right, you’re still only ‘River’…”
Cao Yuan: …
“Step it up, old Cao. Even little Jiang Er’s reached ‘Sea’. You’re letting the seniors down.”
Floating nearby, Jiang Er lowered her head, embarrassed. “My realm isn’t all from training… it’s not the same.”
“Not all from training?” Pangpang frowned. Realms could come any other way?
Everyone stared, equally puzzled.
“…Things happened.” Jiang Er brushed it off, unwilling to elaborate.
They tactfully let it drop.
“Does Draggy need backup?” Pangpang worried.
“No.” Lin Qiye’s lips curved. “Looks like he’s already an old hand at assassination…”
…
First floor.
Dead silence.
Not the hush of quiet, but the absence of air to carry sound.
Battered and bloodied, Twelfth Seat ran like a madman, mouth gaping for breath that wasn’t there, eyes bulging in terror.
Suddenly he slammed into an invisible wall and bounced back, crashing down. Veins writhed beneath his skin; his face contorted in a soundless scream.
Shen Qingzhu leaned against the wall, hands in pockets. He drew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it—with his fingertip.
Yes, lit it. Around him alone, air still existed.
He exhaled a lazy smoke ring.
Twelfth Seat glared, then sprang up, black light flaring, and shot toward Shen Qingzhu like an arrow.
Bang—
He bounced again.
An invisible wall of hyper-compressed air boxed him in. Six hundred cubic meters of atmosphere had been squeezed into a two-millimetre membrane—thin as paper, tough enough to stop an intercontinental missile, let alone a Twelfth Seat.
He hammered the barrier, roaring without voice, cursing without sound.
Shen Qingzhu didn’t care. Cigarette between his lips, he smiled.
“Next life—show some respect to your seniors.”
Snap—!
The two-millimetre wall of air funneled into a needle, slid down Twelfth Seat’s airway, and burst inside his lungs.
Then—
it detonated.