The Modern Martial Immortal

”You...” Zhao Sheng glared at Yaoguang, his eyes fixed on him, speaking in between coughs as blood kept flowing from his wounds. ”Just who... are you...”

Yaoguang withdrew his sword and stepped back, dodging the blood that sprayed as the weapon was pulled out.

”You don’t need to know,” Yaoguang said.

”Heh...” Zhao Sheng stared at Yaoguang, as though he wanted to carve his face deep into his memory.

”Yao... guang, right? This... is not the end...” Zhao Sheng said before his not-yet-fully daemonified body slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor.

Dark-red blood quickly spread outward, soaking into the carpet. Life drained rapidly from Zhao Shen’s body. Yaoguang picked up the Soul-Capturing Bead and guided it with his psychic will, quickly drawing in what he assumed to be a fragmented remnant soul.

However, he could already hear loud shouts and the sound of quick footsteps from outside, accompanied by rapid bursts of gunfire. Clearly, a fight had broken out between the World-Saving Society and the occupants of the Xia family manor. It was not the time to examine Zhao Sheng’s memories.

He flicked the blood from the blade in his hand and used Perception to lock onto a rapidly approaching individual with abnormal qi and blood.

The moment the door was violently pushed open, he drew a gun from his body, and three shots rang out in rapid succession. Bang! Bang! Bang!

Even though the fiend that charged in had nearly completed its daemonification, the sudden impact of large-caliber bullets still made his body stagger uncontrollably, blood blooming across his chest.

Immediately after firing, Yaoguang pounced forward. Like a cheetah closing in for the kill, he charged with thunderous speed to close the distance to the fiend, who stood over two meters tall. As the creature reeled under the gunfire and lost his balance, the Divine Shadow Sword swept forward with a blur of afterimages.

This time, the daemon did not treat the sword’s afterimages with the same disdain as Zhao Sheng had. He reached out, seemingly trying to seize the blade of Divine Shadow Sword, but what he grasped was nothing more than an illusion.

His strike missed, and before shock could even register, his world suddenly began to spin. As his vision whirled and lifted upward, the daemon seemed to glimpse a headless body that looked strangely familiar...

Hey! Is that my body...?! He thought.

In the next second, he saw a figure charge forward, and the sound of gunfire rang out again. Only then did the daemon finally understand his condition. My head... fell off?

Terror mixed with a chilling cold. Darkness followed, swiftly swallowing his consciousness.

***

Yaoguang burst straight out of the building. Several figures rushed toward him head-on. The instant they raised their guns to aim, Yaoguang aimed faster than they could and pulled the trigger.

Perhaps compared to simple martial practitioners and martial masters, a grandmaster was only half a second faster in reaction and firing speed. But that half-second advantage was enough for Yaoguang to face the fully prepared armed personnel with the same ease as walking through an empty field.

Near the entrance of the manor, the people brought by Zong Yan had already clashed with the remaining elites of the Xie family manor.

Because Yaoguang had broken through from the inside, these well-prepared elites were forced to dispatch part of their forces upstairs to intercept him, greatly easing the pressure on Zong Yan and the others.

As for those who rushed up to the upper floors... Ordinary armed personnel simply could not fire in front of Yaoguang.

Some daemons reacted quickly, but when facing Yaoguang, they had nowhere to escape. Even using the terrain as cover, whenever a daemon attempted to expose its body, it inevitably faced Yaoguang’s deadly attacks.

Although gunfire would expose Yaoguang’s position, in a face-to-face encounter, one side could immediately lock onto the opponent’s location, while the other still needed about half a second to search for and lock onto the target. That created a clear difference between taking the initiative and being a step behind.

Seizing that fleeting gap, Yaoguang would suppress his enemies with gunfire first, then erupt forward at full speed, charging in for a close-range kill.

With this simple and brutally efficient tactic, by the time he reached the main hall, five of the twelve red dots that had originally been in the manor, including Zhao Sheng, had already died beneath his sword.

The rapid losses finally alerted Xie Yusheng, who was also a deputy-leader-level figure.

While Yaoguang was clearing out the remaining daemons, Xie Yusheng’s aura surged steadily, directly manifesting a daemonic form nearly three meters tall. An aura far exceeding the grandmaster level spilled out from his body.

Boom!

Seizing the moment when Yaoguang moved to strike the fifth daemon, the second-floor floorboards were smashed through as if struck by a cannonball, instantly cracking and collapsing. With the floor under him giving out, Yaoguang suddenly lost his footing and plunged straight toward the lower level.

However, under the Perception secret technique, the movement trajectories of every daemon were clearly reflected within Yaoguang’s mind. Although Xie Yusheng had blasted through the second-floor boards with a thunderous strike and forced Yaoguang into a free fall, Yaoguang had already adjusted his balance mid-descent. Gripping his sword with both hands, he used the momentum of the fall to thrust at Xie Yusheng’s head.

”Die!” Amid the cold sword light, Xie Yusheng let out a low roar. His daemonified arm, mixed with shattered bricks and debris, met Yaoguang head-on, intending to tear him apart even at the cost of taking a sword through his own body.

But, if one carefully observed the scene, due to the angle between them and the length of Xie Yusheng’s daemonified arm, it was highly likely that the upward-surging punch would strike Yaoguang’s body before Yaoguang’s sword could pierce Xie Yusheng’s head.

Outside the door, Zong Yan, who was locked in combat with a daemon, saw this and could not help but cry out, ”Watch out!”

But at that moment, Yaoguang was still falling, suspended in mid-air with nowhere to borrow force. He might have been able to twist his body and narrowly avoid Xie Yusheng’s punch, but if he did that, what awaited him next would be Xie Yusheng’s relentless, storm-like assault.

Realizing this, Zong Yan’s aura flared violently as he unleashed the full power of a martial paragon without reservation.

Yet the daemon blocking his path had also manifested its true form. Although its fiendish body was inferior to that of a martial paragon, its exquisitely refined combat techniques managed to hold Zong Yan firmly in place for the moment.

Another fiend that had manifested its true form had also just joined the attack. No matter how desperately Zong Yan pushed himself, he could not reach Yaoguang in time.

Compared with Zong Yan’s anxiety, Yaoguang had already made his decision in an instant. He was not going to avoid it at all!

He allowed the daemonified Xie Yusheng’s punch to surge skyward toward his body, and in mid-air, he abruptly hurled the Divine Shadow Sword that he had been gripping with both hands.

In the split second before Xie Yusheng’s fist struck his body, the blade of Divine Shadow Sword pierced through Xie Yusheng’s head, sinking in up to the hilt.

When enemies met on a narrow path, the brave prevailed! In a life-and-death struggle, every second, every instant had to be contested. Because what hung in the balance was a single fleeting moment. One step back meant utter ruin.

A booming impact resounded as Xie Yusheng’s skyward punch slammed into Yaoguang’s body without having lost any momentum. In an instant, the exploding jin scattered all the dust suspended overhead, forming a rolling wave of smoke and debris.

Under such a violent impact, Yaoguang was blasted backward. He did not merely fly back up through the hole to the second floor, but continued onward, smashing into the ceiling of the second floor and shattering the decorative fixtures there.

Immediately afterward, his body fell once more. Below, two daemons that had manifested their true forms roared and lunged toward his descending figure. Yet just as he took the blow and was about to fall back to the first floor, where the two fiends awaited him, a terrifying light burst from Yaoguang’s eyes.

Guided by his psychic will, the injuries from the punch that had nearly torn his body apart were forcibly suppressed. Cold sword light, carrying boundless sharpness, descended toward the two charging fiends in a crushing sweep. This was Psychic Descent!