Chapter Eighty-Two: Lin Qiye’s Revenge! A Home Raid! A Hint from the Main World? [Four Thousand Words!]

No doubt about it. Song Shu was striking back in kind.

Wasn’t Li You leading a band of Golden Walkers to ambush and assassinate the Academy faction’s S-class geniuses?

Very well.

A gentleman never leaves a grudge overnight.

Two days later, he would repeat the same move.

He would let the geniuses under Li You’s command taste death for themselves.

With that thought, Song Shu produced a fragment of a magical artifact, thick with a vile and evil aura.

Once infused with spiritual energy, the fragment of demonic sorcery instantly transformed into a black missile and slammed violently into the floating island’s protective barrier.

Boom.

A thunderous explosion rang out.

The barrier shattered at once.

Fragments like glass rained and scattered through the air.

“Move. Kill every Walker on this floating island. I’ll hold off Li You.”

Before the words had even faded, the ten Golden Walkers of the Academy faction, along with Jiang Qingxue, had already charged into the island.

The ten Golden Walkers wore frigid, murderous expressions. Jiang Qingxue, however, remained impassive, as if she felt nothing at all, yet her killing speed was the fastest of them all.

Altogether, eleven Golden Walkers were slaughtering their way across the island.

Wherever their blades pointed, blood flowed like a river.

Not far away, Li You’s furious thunderous roar was closing in at high speed.

“Song Shu! You dare!”

Unfortunately, facing Li You’s threat, Song Shu’s heart remained utterly still.

“What is there that I wouldn’t dare?”

“Only repaying you in your own coin, that’s all.”

“Didn’t you ambush and kill the geniuses of our Academy faction the day before yesterday? Then today I, Song Shu, will repay you double, so that you will not think our Academy faction easy to bully!”

Li You ground his teeth.

“I didn’t kill your people!”

Song Shu stared at Li You, keeping watch in case he struck at any moment.

“Ha. What use is telling me that?”

“I came today precisely to return your cruelty in full.”

At those words, Li You’s face went green, then white.

“I’ll hold Song Shu here. You lot stop those bastards! Don’t let them continue their slaughter.”

Grinding his teeth, Li You ordered the Golden Walkers under him to resist the Academy faction experts rampaging across the floating island.

But the battlefield was on the island itself.

A single clash could kill swathes of people in the aftershock alone.

Thus, even though Golden Walkers from deep within the Jianghu faction’s floating islands kept arriving in waves to reinforce them, they could not save those unlucky souls.

Li You drew a long, heavy breath.

He knew the situation could no longer be salvaged.

So what if a handful of Silver Walkers died?

What truly enraged him was that the Academy faction had dared to be so brazen.

How could this be endured?

What could not be endured!

A blaze of fury roared in Li You’s eyes.

He stepped forward and unleashed his full cultivation, engaging Song Shu in battle.

“I’ll pin down Song Shu. You must all besiege the other Golden Walkers of the Academy faction. Better yet, kill one or two!”

As the shouts rang out, the Academy faction and the Jianghu faction were locked in a fierce struggle.

The shockwaves of battle formed ripples that spread across the entire sky.

Like torrential rain striking a lake.

Everywhere was the sound of震动, of trembling and impact.

Below, Lin Qiye lay concealed in the shadows, peeking out cautiously like some furtive guerrilla.

“This is fierce enough.”

“The battle should last another twenty or thirty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes is enough for me to slip in and loot their home turf, sweeping through one floating island, maybe even two.”

With that thought, Lin Qiye rapidly approached the Jianghu faction’s floating island cluster.

The Jianghu faction had more than one hundred and twenty floating islands, making them roughly twice as powerful overall as the Academy faction.

Looking at the islands one by one, killing intent flowed in Lin Qiye’s eyes.

“Analyze how to pass through the floating island barrier.”

[Analysis successful: you may pass freely through all floating island barriers.]

“Hm?”

Lin Qiye froze.

“What’s going on?”

He was dazed for a moment.

“I can actually pass freely through the floating island barriers?”

“Is something wrong here?”

He frowned and pondered for several seconds.

“Forget it. If I can’t make sense of the cause and effect in such a short time, I should do the most important thing first and think about it later.”

At that, Lin Qiye took out the Illusory Form Mask and transformed into the face and bearing of one of the Jianghu faction’s Golden Walkers.

“Perfect. Impossible to distinguish from the real thing. This is absolutely a divine tool for murder and arson.”

Lin Qiye let out a cold, sinister chuckle.

Then, like a fading star, he vanished from where he stood.

Before long, his figure appeared in the villa district of the first floating island.

Villas were a privilege reserved only for Walkers and their families.

Lin Qiye did not even need to think twice.

He simply broke into the villas.

As expected, every villa housed a Walker.

Lin Qiye’s expression was icy as he moved through the houses.

With fifth-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, coupled with the activation of the Gate of Heaven and the Gate of Earth, even without using his wings, his speed was ghostlike.

So fast that even ordinary Golden Walkers could not detect him.

The first villa.

The first unlucky Walker was merely an ordinary Silver Walker.

Too weak.

He never noticed that Lin Qiye had reached his back.

Lin Qiye swung his longsword cleanly.

In his hand, the silver-grade blade drew a sword light thin as a cicada’s wing.

The light flashed.

A throat was sealed with one stroke.

A head rolled to the ground.

Blood spurted several meters.

One sword, one kill.

In an instant, Lin Qiye vanished.

The next second, his afterimage flickered inside another villa.

This was a Golden Walker’s residence.

At that moment, the Golden Walker was lying on the bed with several beauties, going through his morning exercises; the rough chant of their “training” shook the entire villa.

Lin Qiye sneered.

He landed at the bedside like a phantom.

The sword rose.

In that instant, the Golden Walker suddenly trembled violently, his scalp prickling.

A fierce sense of danger made him leap up at once.

Unfortunately, Lin Qiye’s sword light had already anticipated his dodge.

The thin blade-light plunged into his throat and severed his head in a spray of blood.

As for the women, Lin Qiye killed them with the same sword.

“The entire floating island’s Walkers are done for. On to the second island!”

In barely twenty breaths, Lin Qiye had finished off every Walker on the first floating island.

Then he became a residual shadow too swift for even ordinary Golden Walkers to catch, streaking toward the second island.

One minute later, Lin Qiye successfully slaughtered the Walkers on the second floating island.

Though some Walkers had entered the Walker path early and escaped disaster, the majority were still beheaded by Lin Qiye in a single stroke.

At that moment, Li You and the other Golden Walkers had not yet realized that their rear had been raided.

They were still fighting Song Shu and Jiang Qingxue.

As for the Golden Walkers left behind to guard the rear, either they had failed to detect Lin Qiye, or they had perished under his sword.

Thus, Lin Qiye plundered the Jianghu faction’s floating island district to his heart’s content.

Eighteen minutes later, after visiting fifty-three floating islands, Lin Qiye arrived before the remaining villa on the fifty-third island.

“Kill off the last unlucky one, then withdraw early, so I won’t get trapped.”

With that, Lin Qiye slipped silently into the villa of the final victim.

The villa was occupied by a peak Silver Walker.

Yet his senses were sharper than those of a Golden Walker.

He instantly detected Lin Qiye’s presence.

And in an extremely short time, he sprang aside to dodge.

Lin Qiye lifted a brow, narrowing his eyes slightly as he stared at the Silver Walker.

“Interesting. You’re not human.”

Sensing the other’s strangeness, Lin Qiye suddenly unleashed even more powerful force.

That formidable aura made the creature’s scalp go numb.

In just an instant, its bloodied eyes rolled out of their sockets, and its nose, mouth, and ears all split open.

It opened its mouth.

The corners stretched all the way to its ears.

Then its face cracked apart like torn cloth, producing a chilling rending sound.

A monster with green eyes and a triangular head crawled out from the torn human skin.

Its skin was dark red, bare, and wrinkled, like a rat stripped of fur after a fungal infection, carrying a nauseating ugliness that made one deeply uncomfortable.

“Damn it. How did you see through my disguise?”

The monster stared at Lin Qiye with a sinister look.

Its broken voice came out like fingernails scraping over a blackboard, making one’s flesh crawl.

Lin Qiye frowned.

“Can demonic creatures disguise themselves as humans?”

“Of course they can, especially advanced mutated demons like me.”

As it spoke, the demon vanished in an instant and lunged at Lin Qiye.

“Heh heh heh, you’re dead!”

A creepy laugh leaked from the demon’s mouth.

But the next second, its laughter cut off abruptly.

A wind-and-thunder sword qi, infused with Violet Emperor true energy, pierced straight through its chest.

The monster screamed miserably and crashed heavily to the ground. The agony tore at it so badly that it curled up and convulsed wildly on the floor.

“You haven’t fully grown yet, have you? Your ability isn’t mature. Still, being able to turn into a human is terrifying enough.”

“How many demons like you are lurking among us humans?”

“And why would an advanced demon come all the way to such a shabby, impoverished backwater like Licheng?”

Lin Qiye had many questions.

But the demon was unexpectedly tough.

Clenching its teeth, it fixed Lin Qiye with a dark, venomous gaze.

Seeing that look, Lin Qiye grabbed the bronze cauldron nearby and smashed it down hard on the demon’s head.

The triangular head was shattered to pieces.

“Go to hell.”

The corpse of the triangular-headed demon twitched weakly, all its life force draining away.

Then Lin Qiye unleashed a bolt of lightning.

The monster’s body was burned to ashes and scattered to nothing.

Of course, no trace of lightning remained at the scene.

“Though I’ve run into some incomprehensible matters, I should leave first and talk later.”

Lin Qiye exhaled lightly and withdrew at once.

Only then did the thick smell of blood finally begin to spread.

An old Golden Walker noticed something was wrong.

“Enemy attack!”

“Enemy attack!”

“Someone has secretly infiltrated the floating islands and is murdering people!”

Six blaring alarms, urgent beyond measure, echoed again and again over the entire floating island cluster.

The surviving Jianghu faction Walkers, the slaves on the islands, the commoners who bred children, and the families of the Walkers all looked up at the sky, faces filled with grim shock and terror.

“A six-ring alarm? Has some great catastrophe occurred?”

“Even during the terrifying black mist tide three years ago, the six-ring alarm was never sounded. What on earth happened today to trigger it?”

“Quick, hide in the safe rooms!”

The crowd’s hearts surged like stormy seas; the unknown disaster left them terrified.

The relatives of the Walkers hurried toward the safe rooms.

The slaves, meanwhile, cowered in their tiny pigeonholes, trembling.

Amid the urgent alarms, Golden Walkers spread out to investigate.

One corpse after another was carried out from the villas and laid across an entire plaza.

The Golden Walkers were dumbstruck.

“Dead... so many dead?”

“All beheaded with a single sword...”

“How is this possible? How could nearly 3,500 Walkers be killed without a sound? And seventeen Golden Walkers too! Impossible!”

“Who is it? Who on earth is it?”

“How could so many people be killed under our noses, without the slightest noise?”

“And the barrier wasn’t even shattered! Couldn’t he have been stopped by it?”

“No way!”

“Even a floating island guarded by an ordinary Golden Walker can hold off a platinum-tier expert for a while. A platinum-tier expert would need to attack five times before breaking the barrier. On the islands of higher-ranked Golden Walkers, even platinum-tier Walkers would need to use fragments of demonic artifacts to smash it.”

“Never once have I heard of anyone who could simply pass through the barrier!”

The Golden Walkers looked at one another, their eyes full of uncertainty and shock.

At that moment, their minds were in utter chaos. Their understanding and worldview were nowhere near enough; all they could do was stare at each other in bewilderment.

“Could it be a demon?”

“Can demons come out in broad daylight?”

“Then maybe it’s an inside traitor?”

“No idea. We can only inform Lord Li You. Perhaps Lord Li You can catch the true culprit!”

Unable to fathom it no matter how they thought, the Golden Walkers exchanged glances.

In the end, they decided to ask Lord Li You to intervene.

So they sped toward the main battlefield at top speed.

“Still fighting?”

“Two platinum-tier Walkers, neither able to do anything to the other...”

“Who would have thought Song Shu’s retaliation would come so swiftly?”

The Golden Walkers looked up.

They saw two platinum-tier powerhouses still locked in fierce combat.

High in the sky, the clash was so terrifying that it darkened the heavens and earth; any stray aftershock was enough to make the floating islands tremble on the brink of collapse.

Near the islands, the eleven Golden Walkers and more than twenty Golden Walkers from the Jianghu faction were also clashing.

As for the unseen dark corners beyond the crowd’s sight, Lin Qiye’s face was completely submerged in darkness.

Only his eyes flicked once toward Li You.

The moment that gaze landed on him, Li You was suddenly startled.

A dreadful, scalp-numbing premonition burst forth from his heart, making his back turn cold.

His eyes hurriedly swept toward Lin Qiye’s direction.

But Lin Qiye had already vanished.

Only a faint murmur faded away into the darkness.

“When I become a platinum-tier Walker, the first person I will kill is you.”

Lin Qiye tightened his knuckles and let out a bitter, icy snort.

After all, that day had been the closest he had ever come to death.

Had it been delayed even by one second, Lin Qiye would now be sealed in an ash urn, waiting for the seventh day rites.

And so, he bore the grudge deeply.

“In the next Walker trial, I’ll try to step into platinum tier in one go.”

“I’ll strive to kill Li You as soon as possible, so that my heart can finally know peace!”

As he thought, Lin Qiye returned like a ghost to the villa on Jiang Qingxue’s floating island.

Throughout the entire process, no one noticed a thing.

It was flawless.

Lin Qiye smiled, removed the Illusory Form Mask and put it away, then reclined on the sofa and closed his eyes to rest.

After all, after slaughtering seventeen Golden Walkers at full speed, along with more than 3,500 Silver Walkers and novice Walkers, he was indeed a little tired.

But just as Lin Qiye shut his eyes, a prompt from the main world suddenly rang out in his mind.

“To think it was a prompt from the main world?”

Lin Qiye was rather astonished, and could not help raising a brow.