Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 574 - 517: The Hill

"As you wish."

Ghost Shovel’s figure vanished instantly from where he stood.

Li Ang only felt a blur before his eyes as his retinas struggled to register Ghost Shovel’s attacking form.

He barely managed to lift his enhanced Triangular Spear, blocking the incoming Chopper. However, the force transmitted through the spear shaft was so immense that it drove his feet deep into the ground.

SHINK—

Ghost Shovel twisted the blade, slicing cleanly down the spear shaft and severing the four fingers gripping it.

The fingers spun through the air.

The next second, the Ink Silk within the phalanges spread out, connecting to the severed surfaces, dragging the fingers back to the point of severance.

Ink Silk repaired the tendons, filled in the bones, and replaced the nerves, as if nothing had happened.

"Interesting."

Ghost Shovel’s eyes narrowed slightly as he observed this scene and asked, "Are you repairing the injury or directly replacing the lost parts of your body?"

Li Ang did not reply. Instead, his armor transformed into more than a dozen scythes, which tightened suddenly like a spider’s web, slashing at Ghost Shovel from all directions.

Ghost Shovel glanced at the rapidly contracting cage of scythes and threw his Chopper through a gap, then opened his palm, revealing a fissure that emitted a powerful jet of air.

The intense airflow carried the Chopper toward Li Ang’s head.

Li Ang tilted his head, narrowly avoiding the blade, but Ghost Shovel also used the recoil from the airflow to dodge the scythe cage.

BANG!

He stomped heavily on the ground, drew back his right arm, twisted his waist, and unleashed a powerful punch.

BOOM!

The closing scythe cage instantly burst apart, a large number of Ink Silk Fragments flying chaotically through the air.

Li Ang was sent flying backward as if struck by a high-speed train, his feet carving two long white waves through the cold stream.

The scattered Ink Silk Fragments naturally gathered back toward their main body.

But Ghost Shovel gave him no chance to mend himself. His burly form charged through the stream, grabbed the broken half of a scythe limb on Li Ang’s armor, and smashed Li Ang heavily into the river like a meteor hammer.

THUMP!

Li Ang’s spine struck the riverbed cobbles. Even with the cushioning of the Ink Silk, he felt his blood surge up and a sweetness in his throat.

His surroundings spun wildly. Li Ang knew Ghost Shovel would strike again, so he immediately severed the connection between his Ink Silk Armor and the scythe limb, using the spinning momentum to launch himself into the air.

Then, he used Telekinesis to pull himself backward, regaining some distance from Ghost Shovel.

GULP.

He swallowed the blood rising in his throat with difficulty and scanned his surroundings with his Spiritual Sense.

His injuries, including ruptured viscera such as the heart and stomach, and broken bones, would have been enough to kill an ordinary person three or four times over.

Ink Silk!

At Li Ang’s mental command, the dark silken threads in his spine immediately spread throughout his body, repairing the damage, replacing the injured parts, and suppressing the injuries.

He slowly stood up from the ground, moving his shoulder joints.

"Recovered again?"

Ghost Shovel watched Li Ang, who seemed unharmed, and walked toward him, muttering, "Your teachers at the Academic Palace must have taught you, right? Anything involving Alien entities comes with a price.

Let me guess, with each use of the Alien ability to repair injuries, the level of erosion in your body increases by one degree.

It won’t give you back your original body.

Take a little more damage, and the non-human part inside of you will become more prominent than your human part..."

SWOOSH!

An arrow shot out from the woods at lightning speed.

Ghost Shovel’s head snapped to the left, and his right hand shot up, snatching the sharp arrow aimed at his temple.

The sharp arrow was nearly an arm long and made entirely of fine steel, with a triangular arrowhead featuring fine serrated barbs. Moreover, the serrations emitted a faint blue metallic sheen, obviously coated with poison.

Such a meticulously crafted, heavy Turkic-style sharp arrow could only be wielded by a Turkic Warrior of the Innate Realm.

Ghost Shovel looked in the direction from which the arrow came—a hillside hundreds of meters away, where a girl named Galuo stood with one foot on a boulder.

She drew a fine steel arrow from her quiver, nocked it on her longbow, tilted her head slightly, and drew the bowstring taut, the triangular arrowhead pointing down at Ghost Shovel in the stream.

WHOOSH!

Accompanied by the reverberating bowstring, the fine steel arrow shot out, aiming for the center of Ghost Shovel’s forehead.

This arrow did not aim for stealth, and its power and speed were even greater.

Ghost Shovel did not attempt to block it; instead, he tilted his head to dodge the arrow.

The fine steel arrowhead pierced into the pile of stones on the riverbed, its tail quivering incessantly.

"What are you dawdling for?!"

Galuo pulled a third arrow from her quiver and, despite the clear bloodstains on her palm, shouted down at Li Ang in the stream below, "Run!"

Ghost Shovel tried to step forward, but the third arrow was already bearing down on him.

He had no choice but to stand still, open the slit in his palm, and unleash a whirlwind to disrupt the trajectory of the arrows.

Seizing the opportunity, Li Ang collected the scattered Ink Silk Fragments from the stream, transformed his armor into wings, and with a push off the ground, he took flight over the ravine, arriving above Galuo.

It had been several years since they last met, and Galuo hadn’t changed much in appearance, still about the height of Li Ang’s chest.

"How did you get here?"

Li Ang grabbed hold of Galuo and lifted her into the air with him, his tone filled with astonishment.

"Someone contacted my Nearby Worm an hour ago, saying you would be here. They asked me to come over and provide support."

While keeping her bow aimed at Ghost Shovel, Galuo spoke from Li Ang’s embrace, "That person also mentioned something that happened during Qixi, something only you and I know about.

I thought it was someone you had arranged, so I hurried over here. My subordinates are still on the way."

"It wasn’t me who arranged it."

Li Ang furrowed his brows. An hour ago? At that time, he was still inside Tongluo City, before he encountered Ghost Shovel and Yuan Sou, before the escape began. Could the person who communicated with Galuo’s Nearby Worm predict the future, foreseeing that I would flee in this direction?

"If it wasn’t you who arranged it, then who was it?"

As Galuo spoke, she released a fourth arrow. But because she was in Li Ang’s embrace, the arrow missed its mark, landing ten steps away from Ghost Shovel.

However, it didn’t matter all that much, as they had once again widened the gap between them; catching up would take some time.

"..."

Ghost Shovel squinted his eyes, watching Li Ang and Galuo, who were getting further away and almost flying over the hill, and opened his right hand.

As the slit in his palm unfolded, he inserted the poisoned arrow upright into the slit but did not allow the slit to devour it.

Instead, he raised his arm, aiming his palm at the direction where Li Ang was flying away.

The evening sun’s glow passed through the gaps between his fingers, illuminating Ghost Shovel’s face.

He exhaled slowly, and the muscles in his right arm writhed.

Finally, WHOOSH!

Devouring Heaven and Earth operated in reverse. A powerful airflow blasted from the slit, propelling the arrow in his palm. It vanished in an instant.

Li Ang, while in flight, felt a chill on his shoulder. His entire right arm was pierced and torn off by the sharp arrow. The severed limb flew through the air, thumb pointing up, as if giving a thumbs-up.

He barely managed to shield Galuo in his arms as the two tumbled down the hillside, crashing into the rocks.