Gu Shen stood silently in the thick fog.

After Hu Danian took action, he remained in this position, unmoving like a wooden stake.

When Shi Li’s voice appeared, the  light of the Ruler of Truth slowly glowed, and a longbow materialized in front of Gu Shen. He drew the bowstring in the air and pulled it to its limit, aiming the arrow at ‘Shi Li’ in the fog…

He waited patiently.

He waited for Hu Danian to create an opportunity for him.

Because he couldn’t see anything and couldn’t unleash the Blazing Fire, he maintained his posture of drawing the bow and arrow and listened intently to every sound nearby. The fight had started and ended.

Hu Danian’s voice sounded very weak.

Just as expected, in a head-on confrontation, he was indeed no match for Shi Li.

The two exchanged questions and answers.

Finally, there was a moment of surprise in Shi Li’s voice.

Opportunity!

Gu Shen aimed at the last place where the voice came from and released his grip. The bow erupted with a thunderous boom and dispersed the fog within a ten-meter radius!

An ethereal arrow shot forth, tracing a long path through the air.

With the release of this arrow, four stone walls on one side of the factory collapsed from the immense impact, sending rubble flying.

The moment Gu Shen released the string, he sprang into action.

He began running toward Shi Li.

In an instant, the bow in his hand changed shape and transformed into a long saber.

Gu Shen knew that the arrow he had accumulated for a long time… didn’t end Shi Li’s life because he didn’t hear the sound of blood splattering. In that moment of 0.1 seconds, there seemed to be a dull thud.

The moment he burst through the fog and saw Shi Li, Gu Shen knew that his judgment was correct. The man had raised his arm to protect his head, and the skin on his arm had been pierced by countless bones from within. These bones actually pieced together to form a shield. The surface was extremely smooth, and there was a deep white mark on it, clearly a mark left from deflecting the arrow.

He raised his arm and slashed!

…

Shi Li looked terrified and angry.

When the red silver fortress trapped him, his extremely accurate intuition kicked in once again.

Hu Danian had a teammate!

That person had been waiting for him.

So before the surprise arrow’s cold gleam occupied his vision, Shi Li preemptively took ‘defensive’ measures. He forced his entire arm’s bones outward to form a shield and smoothed it as much as possible.

The heavy arrow shot out!

It felt as though he had been hit by a powerful cannon blast.

Even with the bone shield as a buffer, Shi Li still felt as if half of his head was about to be blown off.

Fortunately, the shield deflected the arrow!

Too terrifying… With the lethality of this arrow, if he had reacted even a moment slower, his entire head might have been obliterated!

Shi Li had yet to regain his senses.

The hidden assailant who had shot the arrow had already rushed in front of him. What greeted his eyes was the cold and merciless face of a young man… And what he held in his hand was not a bow but a saber.

Swoosh.

A magnificent saber beam slashed down!

Shi Li stared in horror at the sudden saber beam in front of him!

How could there be such a treacherous person?

At the critical moment, the shield barely blocked the saber beam, which instantly slashed out a long, deep white mark.

Wait… Shi Li felt the impact through the bone shield and vaguely realized that this young man’s strength seemed quite weak… and not worthy of his fear.

…

Seeing the white mark on the bone shield, Gu Shen frowned. He was very dissatisfied with the power of his slash.

Before, he only needed one slash to kill Qu Shui in River Shoal!

But now, this slash… couldn’t even break Shi Li’s bone shield.

He had put all his strength into it, but judging from the effect, the power of the Ruler of Truth should be directly linked to his mental power.

This slash could kill Qu Shui.

But it couldn’t break through Shi Li’s defense.

This enemy was at least two levels higher than him in the Transcendent Trials.

Gu Shen took a deep breath.

The saber fell and rose again!

He slashed a second time with all his might!

This time, Shi Li didn’t dodge. Instead, he faced it head-on. The seemingly majestic saber beam shattered the moment it came into contact with the bone shield, highlighting the significant ‘quality’ gap between them.

This kid’s strength is at most at the Third Level of Deep Sea!

With just a touch, Shi Li knew where he stood.

Fury surged within him.

To think someone at just the Third Level of Deep Sea dared to assassinate him…

Seeing that Gu Shen had been repelled by the bone shield but was still determined to swing his saber a third time, Shi Li directly retracted the bone shield. Then the large bone spikes that looked like spider legs tore through his clothes and enveloped Gu Shen, forming a big net!

He saw through his enemy’s strength and attack intentions!

He no longer defended but decided to tear this kid apart immediately!

But the next moment…

Gu Shen’s third slash didn’t land but instead dissipated into thin air. Countless silvery white orbs of  light shattered in the violent wind, and finally, only a figure darting forward was left.

The two of them were close together in the bone net.

They were like two stiff insects embracing in a big cocoon.

At this moment, all that filled Shi Li’s vision was a streak of red.

Between the young man’s eyebrows… a dazzling, blazing red flame appeared.

…

From the beginning, Gu Shen’s planned ‘attack’ had nothing to do with the Ruler of Truth.

No matter how good the timing was, what the Ruler of Truth could do… was only a surprise attack on the physical level.

Shi Li was an assault-type powerhouse whose true strength far exceeded his. A fierce attack was the worst choice.

The most correct tactic was to use his own spear to attack the enemy’s weakness.

However, in this thick fog, once he got close, he would be detected. The success rate of his best skill, hypnosis, was greatly reduced. Only by making Shi Li misjudge would there be a slim chance of success.

What Gu Shen had been waiting for was the moment when Shi Li removed the bone shield and decided to kill him.

“Dream!”

The Blazing Fire trembled!

The two pairs of eyes met, and the killing intent in Shi Li’s eyes instantly dissipated and turned into confusion.

But he didn’t directly enter a dream.

On the other hand, Gu Shen felt extremely strained. As he locked eyes with Shi Li, his mental power was depleting at an unimaginable speed!

All transcendents, regardless of which type, needed to cultivate both mental power and the physical body. Shi Li’s realm was at least two levels higher than his. Even though he was an assault-type, his mental power was not weaker than his.

To hypnotize Shi Li, he could only rely on the ‘special characteristics’ of the Blazing Fire.

“Dream!” Gu Shen roared again, and veins bulged on his forehead. At this moment, all his mental power poured into Shi Li’s mind.

Shi Li’s face turned pale as he frantically resisted the invasion of Gu Shen’s consciousness.

Click!

In just ten seconds, Gu Shen’s mind reached its limit.

One of the beads of the Six Blessings Bracelet on his wrist cracked open. It was as though an invisible power of fate descended upon Gu Shen and flowed through his mind like a stream of clear spring water, replenishing his exhausted mind!

As their wills entangled…

Hu Danian, propping himself up against the wall, raised his hand with difficulty. The red silver flowing on the ground surged again, transformed into a sharp blade, and stabbed at Shi Li’s feet.

The intense pain instantly invaded his mind.

Shi Li’s eyes became unfocused.

This battle of wills had reached the final moment of confrontation. Any momentary distraction was enough to tip the scales.

Boom!

Shi Li seemed to hear something explode in his mind.

Blood seeped out from his mouth and nose, and his consciousness seemed to have been battered by a heavy hammer that was forcibly chiseling its way out from within.

When the explosion reverberated in his mind, Shi Li knew.

Everything…

… was over.

…

Hu Danian gritted his teeth and wanted to get up. In order to prevent hypnosis from causing leaks, the transcendents of the Eternal Foundation had programs such as ‘self-destruction’ implanted in their minds.

If Gu Shen won…

Then… Shi Li was going to explode!

The massive bone net hung silent in the thick mist. Hu Danian struggled desperately in fear for a few seconds, but in the end, nothing happened. There was only the sound of the howling wind and the thick mist that could not be blown away on Iris Pellet Street.

“…”

The self-destruction didn’t happen.

Losing control didn’t happen either.

He slowly moved his body to the web of bone spikes and saw the young man who had saved his life among the thousands of bone spikes.

The bone spikes, which were sharper than any blade, were just short of piercing into his flesh.

Gu Shen was unharmed, but his clothes were drenched in sweat.

His two fingers seemed to be gripping something very slender. It was the hour hand of a clock, with the tip piercing into the space between Shi Li’s eyebrows.

His skin was torn, and blood should have flowed out.

But… it didn’t.

The small hour hand seemed to have frozen everything from the wound between Shi Li’s eyebrows—pain, blood, and… a certain ‘explosion’ triggered at the mental level.

Hu Danian held his breath. He saw the slender flame flickering slowly between Shi Li’s eyebrows, burning away.

Finally, this flickering flame drew out a long line… and burned it into nothingness.

Invisible smoke dispersed into the fog.

After doing all of this, Gu Shen let out a long sigh, feeling relieved of a heavy burden. He pulled out the hour hand that was lighter than a feather, but it felt like he was exerting every ounce of his strength, so much so that even his fingers were trembling uncontrollably.

The bone spikes retracted bit by bit.

Shi Li wasn’t dead but had fallen into a state of unconsciousness.

He was hypnotized.

Hu Danian looked at Gu Shen in a daze, as though he were looking at a freak from another world.

In his understanding, the transcendents of the Eternal Foundation were all irredeemable lunatics. These people didn’t care about their own lives or victory and defeat. They were a scourge that the Parliament sought tirelessly to eradicate, but no one had a viable solution.

Because no one could stop a person who was ready to die by detonating their mind.

But… Gu Shen had done it.

There was a long, long silence.

Hu Danian said hoarsely, “Is it… over?”

“Yeah…” Gu Shen replied wearily.

He crouched down and used the Ruler of Truth to treat Hu Danian’s wounds simply. Snow-white radiance flowed out, and the bleeding stopped, but it was merely a temporary measure… Hu Danian stared at the silvery  light in surprise. From the arrow moments ago to the two saber slashes, and now this treatment—all of it seemed to come from a sealed object?

He looked up and saw a blazing red flame.

A gentle voice with irresistible power sounded in Hu Danian’s ears.

“It’s over. Forget the pain and have a good sleep.”