CHAPTER 64: MY MYSTIC ART IS CALLED PTSD

Han Xuhan was pretty much disarmed now. Staring in rage at Shen Kai’s smug face, he let out a bestial roar.

"Do you know how expensive that glaive is?! Son of a bitch!"

Then, acting as if he had lost his mind completely, Han Xuhan walked straight towards Shen Kai. While keeping the guy entertained with his twisted expression and verbal abuse, he discreetly slipped a foot into the shoe that had just exploded for nothing.

Shen Kai welcomed Han Xuhan’s approach with open arms. He didn’t even try to go invisible. Finally, this battle was going to be settled in the proper way!

But the moment Han Xuhan was close enough to prepare for hand-to-hand combat, he flicked the shoe off his foot right at Shen Kai’s face.

Shen Kai was now more or less aware that these shoes were apparatuses with brute explosive power. So he tried to move out of the way. While he was successful in dodging it, he was only partially successful in evading the ensuing explosion.

Boom!

"Fuck—!"

Han Xuhan had already braced for it, expecting the shockwave. What he didn’t expect was that the explosion of gravity even affected the blade of his glaive. Before the explosion, only a few inches of it was visible above the soil, but now, a ditch had formed around it, exposing more than half of its length.

The first thing Shen Kai saw after scampering to his feet was Han Xuhan pulling out the blade. The sight only made him laugh derisively.

"You didn’t even have a proper grip on the handle. How are you going to wield it now without cutting your fingers off on the edge?"

Han Xuhan was aware of the problem too. There were only a couple of inches at the bottom of the blade where it was dull enough to grab onto. But wielding it like this wasn’t possible.

So Han Xuhan hurled the blade at Shen Kai’s laughing face at full speed without another word. Shen Kai choked on whatever he had to say and leaped away using his quick footwork.

However, the blade was a heavy object, and Ham Xuhan hadn’t even gripped it properly for a throw. It missed Shen Kai by more than ten meters and flew over his head.

Dumbfounded by the sheer lack of skill, Shen Kai forgot to execute the remaining half step of his footwork.

Both of them watched in silence as the blade travelled aimlessly in the air and disappeared behind some trees.

"Oops, my hand slipped," Han Xuhan said casually, breaking the silence afterwards.

Then he saw the furious expression dawning on Shen Kai’s face and added as an afterthought, "Sorry if that frightened you, Brother Kai."

Shen Kai felt like he wasn’t just hearing a rookie cultivator apologize but an abyssal devil mutter abhorrent scriptures. He had never felt so humiliated and violated in his eighteen years of life. This was...this was... He failed to come up with any appropriate word to describe his emotions right now.

"Brother Xuhan, I am going to skin you from head to toe, alive."

Completely ignoring his original intentions and his superior’s orders, Shen Kai really went in for the throat this time.

His body vanished from where he had been standing and reappeared behind Xuhan within the span of a second. Even in his most enraged state, he wasn’t stupid enough to initiate a direct attack on a cultivator who had so many tricks up his sleeve.

Han Xuhan had expected this to happen. So his counter move didn’t have anything to do with dodging the Shen Kai’s strike, no matter which direction it would come from, no matter how fast.

Hardly had Shen Kai’s body vanished from his sight when Han Xuhan shouted a one-word order.

"Brother Ran, attack now!"

Shen Kai had just drawn his dagger back in order to strike as hard as possible at Xuhan’s neck. But halfway through his strike, his enhanced senses perceived an object flying toward the two of them fast.

Shen Kai’s heart shook. Mu Ran was back?!

Dammit! He had wasted too much time in the battle!

Han Xuhan was using himself as bait to lure him into action so that Mu Ran could ambush him from the dark?

Using his internal energy, Shen Kai twisted in the air like a weightless, floating leaf and avoided the object thrown at them. From the corner of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of the object...

It was one of the knives Han Xuhan had thrown at him at the beginning of the battle! So Mu Ran really was back!

Shen Kai couldn’t even get angry anymore. His heart had reached the limit of his anger and transcended into simple stupefaction.

A trace of fear was finally born in him as the flying knife whipped past his right ear. Even while facing stronger opponents from his sect, Shen Kai had never experienced such sordid moves.

Despite his superior cultivation, he had been forced to retreat to save his own neck repeatedly in this battle, not to mention that each of his own moves seemed to set him up and bring him a further disadvantage.

In contrast, each of Han Xuhan’s moves seemed to set up another cunning counterattack.

Was this kid really a weak rookie cultivator? It felt like he was being toyed with! And most importantly of all things...

Han Xuhan has still not used his Mystic Art! He wasn’t even fighting like a cultivator!

Rolling in the air, Shen Kai smoothly landed on the ground and stared at the direction from where the attack had come. To his surprise, he couldn’t see Mu Ran anywhere. The woods were full of dark, shadowy areas. The moonlight could not illuminate his hiding spot.

Shen Kai couldn’t locate any signs of life around them except for Mu Ran.

He grew even more unsettled. Han Xuhan had fooled him again! The attacker was definitely not Mu Ran. Whoever had attacked him, they were an anonymous third party whose power level was unknown to him.

There was only one strategy left for Shen Kai to try. Calming his boiling nerves, Shen Kai turned toward Xuhan and decided to subdue him and take him hostage to threaten the newcomer.

But hardly had he turned on his heels when he sensed the aura of somebody at the fourth or fifth layer of a Mystic Art behind him, hidden somewhere nearby.

Shen Kai felt relieved to see that the unknown third party wasn’t that powerful. But then he immediately froze...

Because the intensity of the aura suddenly spiked up!

It was now at the seventh or eighth layer of an Art, far above an ordinary opponent!

Shen Kai gritted his teeth and mentally got ready to receive some serious injuries. He no longer wanted to keep on fighting. The enemy was too strong!

But then, the aura became even stronger than before.

It quietly reached the peak of the typical stage an orthodox Mystic Art could reach. The qi in their surroundings churned like boiling water, as if preparing to be visited by heavenly tribulation!

Shen Kai suddenly missed his sect. Life back then had been so simple and peaceful.

While he was contemplating whether to beg for mercy, a confused voice came from another direction.

"Guys, why are you all still here? Eh? What’s going on?"

This time, Mu Ran really made his appearance, leaping out from the portal at the center of the clearing.

Without any hesitation, Shen Kai reached into his pockets and crushed a jade talisman. To the surprise of everyone present, a red light enveloped his body out of empty air.

Shen Kai turned toward Han Xuhan and spoke his last words.

"We’ll meet again, kid. Better prepare yourself for a surprise!"

It didn’t take a genius to understand that he was using an escape method unknown to them. Fortunately, Han Xuhan recovered fast enough to gift the evil young man with some precious advice.

"Don’t let me catch you flashing such terrible skills the next time, Brother Kai, or I’m going to spank you to death! How can you lose to someone who didn’t even use any Mystic Arts or a martial technique? Pathetic!"

"....FUCK YOU, HAN XUHAN!"

Those inadvertently became Shen Kai’s last words as his body disappeared for good alongside the red light of his jade talisman.

This time, Han Xuhan was sure that it was real teleportation.