Chapter 230: Dharma Protectors
Chapter 230: Dharma Protectors
Two unexpected individuals threatened Fang Jing.
Fang Jing was also puzzled by these two suddenly appearing people.
“Oh! I’d like to know, who are you?”
He stopped and looked at the man and woman who had suddenly appeared.
Both of them wore casual clothes, and they looked serious, with an atmosphere of tension.
At the same time, they radiated an attitude of hostility toward him.
Because his transformation state had not been undone, Fang Jing’s current appearance was quite terrifying: he was a gray-skinned giant with horrifyingly bulging muscles all over his body, forming outlines like pieces of armor.
“We are from the ‘Dharma Protectors.’ Whoever you are, you must stand where you are and not move!”
Their mouths were slightly agape as they tried hard to remain calm, because this “giant” emitted an overwhelming, terrifying pressure.
“How strange! Why should I listen to you?”
Fang Jing gave a slight smile, but just then his brow suddenly furrowed tightly.
“Who is it?!”
He widened his eyes, abruptly twisted his body, and formed one hand into a claw-like shape. A faint red glow emanated from it, like a fierce beast’s claw, as he pressed down hard.
Originally, there was only transparent air a few meters in front of him. But as his claw swept through it, ripples appeared in the air, and a faintly visible figure frantically dodged away.
“Did you think hiding with invisibility would keep me from noticing?!”
It was an old man, dressed strangely with a headscarf covering his face. A “single eye” was painted on the white headscarf. The old man held a short knife, and his entire face showed panic.
Fang Jing sneered and, without hesitation, thrust out his claw. The air tore open with a sharp, piercing shriek.
The other possessed an extremely special ability, seemingly able to lurk and hide in an even more bizarre manner, almost right beside him. His whole form became invisible. For him to be so close, it seemed he intended a sneak attack.
…So close, and yet daring to try a sneak attack. If not for his “Illusionless Mind’s Eye,” combined with the reaction from his Resonance Field, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
“Trying to ambush me? Then you can die.”
This kind of thing was something Fang Jing could not tolerate.
As soon as he struck, he activated the “Resonance Field.” Upon releasing it, the surroundings seemed to sink into a bog.
This field fluctuation would restrict all matter within a ten-meter radius, even causing it to enter a state of stillness.
The old man with the white headscarf on his face never expected that his opponent would be able to detect him.
Not good!
My invisibility was discovered.
And the “Curse Entanglement” his opponent possesses isn’t simple.
The enemy… is far stronger than I imagined.
“Swish!”
The muscles on Fang Jing’s back surged and squeezed toward his right arm like waves. Before the ferocious claw strike even landed, the powerful pressure already made the old man slightly short of breath.
Crack, crack!
A bizarre scene occurred: as Fang Jing swept his claw through, the void before him seemed to turn into a mirror. With the old man’s body at its center, countless spider-web-like cracks spread out. The next moment, the space peeled and shattered like old wallpaper, as if a mirror were completely breaking apart.
With a loud clang, the old man in front of Fang Jing suddenly vanished, as if he had never existed in the first place.
“What the… Is this also a Clan ability?”
Fang Jing glanced briefly at the empty space ahead—that strange old man had suddenly disappeared just like that.
“Lord Mugan!”
“Take action!”
The man and woman pair in the distance, for some reason, were stimulated. The young woman in the white dress picked up a catalpa bow.
She placed one hand on a lock of hair hanging over her right shoulder and ran her fingers through it like a comb. In an instant, she pulled out a black arrow from thin air.
She nocked it on the catalpa bow, drew the bowstring tight, and with a swish, the black arrow shot out.
After aiming and loosing the first arrow, she once again toyed with her hair falling from her shoulder to the front of her body, weaving strands of hair into black arrows. Before the first arrow reached its target, the girl had already nocked the next one. The bowstring vibrated, and she shot several arrows in succession.
At the same time, the young man in casual clothes beside her flicked his fingertips. With a sizzle, his fingertip suddenly broke, and blood splattered from the wound.
A few drops of blood landed on the ground, and a “black” fine line slithered like a snake along the ground, racing forward. As soon as he made his move, dozens of black lines shot out stealthily, one after another, from multiple directions, carrying a foul, nauseating stench of evil.
Fang Jing’s pupils slightly contracted. He didn’t know what ability this was, but it was clear that getting hit would not be pleasant.
A series of firecracker-like explosions sounded from within his body, as if his muscles and joints had countless detonators inside, setting off muffled, terrifying explosions in rapid succession.
“Get lost!”
Everything happened extremely fast—almost the instant the old man disappeared, an overwhelmingly powerful palm force struck from a distance. This was a palm force driven by the “Anomalous Martial Art: Extinction Wheel Fist.” Though he stood still over ten meters away, as the palm strike came, a wildly violent fury drove it, as if stirring up a raging crimson hurricane.
The black arrows, not yet having flown close, were blasted apart by the palm energy as fierce as a whirlwind, turning into a few strands of torn hair drifting in the air.
The black lines slithering along the ground, startled, also exploded apart under the swirling waves of the Resonance Field.
Once the black lines exploded, they weirdly turned back into droplets of blood, writhing like insects on the ground before, in the blink of an eye, returning to the young man’s body.
What?!
The man and woman too had not expected that their proud Clan power would be utterly useless at this moment.
“Is the Clan’s standard really only at this level?”
Fang Jing was somewhat surprised inwardly. In his mind, the Clan was considered an extremely powerful entity, at least not so “helpless” when facing him.
—So weak! Apart from their bizarre abilities, these people are weaker than the bandaged man Tsurutada earlier!
“Could it be that they haven’t used their full strength? Whatever, I’ll test them further.”
At his mental command, his entire body’s muscles twisted slowly under control, radiating faint red strands. Wrath swelled in his chest, as anger could trigger the fluctuations of the “Original Fury Heart.” Waves of power surged through his entire body as he took a starting stance.
“Extinction Wheel!”
His whole body slid forward as if shot from a bow, his fist carrying a terrifying shriek as it blasted toward the pair.
In that instant, both of them felt an ominous premonition, as if all the hairs on their bodies stood on end.
An indescribable sense of crisis descended.
A crimson radiance scorched the atmosphere, the void tearing apart under a horrifying force, as something shot through.
It all happened in a hundredth of a second. How could their nerve reflexes possibly sense the impact of this power? The terrifying fist force struck like a comet hitting the ground. Rows of trees behind them were shattered, mud and sand were thrown skyward, only to fall back under gravity’s pull.
With a loud “bang,” the shockwave dissipated, and the heavy force of the Extinction Wheel Fist vanished too.
“Hmm! I actually missed.”
Fang Jing had thrown a punch with unimaginable power and increasingly astonishing destructive force.
One could see that the ground in front had been gouged out into a very deep hole.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
Everything that had existed on the excavated ground—whether people or vegetation—had all vanished without a trace.
Before his attack even landed, those two had abruptly disappeared in that split second.
“Clan abilities are indeed a bit interesting.”
At this point, he had to admit it.
After the three left, Fang Jing circled the area once more but found nothing noteworthy.
He returned to the original spot and found the Maeda Girl missing from under the tree.
“… Seems like she woke up and left on her own.”
For some reason, he had a strange feeling and could sense the Maeda Girl’s condition.
This was a trait given by the Primal Rage Resonance Field; even from a distance, he could vaguely grasp her situation.
Oh well, there was no need to chase her down on purpose. After all, that girl would come looking for him sooner or later.
Fang Jing didn’t quite believe that thought, his lips curling into a confident, slight smile.
Since things were settled here, he didn’t need to stay any longer.
After he returned to Naomori Town, he found Ōsumi had driven over to pick him up.
This was also part of his prearranged plan.
Thanks to the preparations in Ōsumi’s car, he changed into clean clothes and sat inside.
Right at that moment, he received another phone call.
The person calling turned out to be his mother, Motoko.
After listening to his mother’s call, Fang Jing couldn’t help but tightly furrow his brows.
He hadn’t expected his little sister, Nishizuka Satsuki, to run into such a thing.
CRACK!
Like a mirror shattering into pieces, countless shards rotated and changed, revealing a passage.
“What a close call!”
The old man addressed as “Blind One” flashed away again, bringing a young man and woman to the other side of the woods.
His face, hidden beneath a white headscarf, showed a look of terror.
The girl in casual clothes asked nervously, “Blind One, what happened to us…!”
She and the young man had been teleported out in that instant.
This was the Blind One’s power—Mirror Reflection—and a mid-level technique of the Jikouin Clan, one of the twelve noble families.
As a long-established noble family, members of the Jikouin Clan gained specific powers through the Mirror Ritual after their bloodline awakened.
He and his partner could escape safely thanks to this old man.
“It was dangerous! I never imagined the Dawn Star cult would have such a powerful upper-level bloodline…“
Thinking back to what just happened, the old man took a sharp breath. He raised his “Mirror Jade Sword” and saw the blade, as reflective as a mirror, was covered in cracks.
That power earlier must have been something else. But he wasn’t sure if the other party was from a Clan; that ability felt a bit like an ancient Nocturnal creature, different from Clan strength.
“Whether it’s a newly awakened strong bloodline or a descendant of ancient great demons, it means Dawn Star is stirring trouble after lying low for so many years—especially now…”
With that in view, the coming period was sure to become a time of unrest.
Recommended reading: “Hundred Years of Solitude”
Not Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
It’s a new work by a beginner on WuKe.
Title: “Hundred Years of Solitude”
Introduction: I used to be a classic cultivator until I became a true Taoist master in folks’ talks.
But somehow, I wandered into this bizarre world cluster, and the great Tao seemed farther and farther away.
Oh no, I ran into a terrifying, dangerous entity!
St-op, it’s fine; this time I mastered the Star-Seal Nether Manifestation with a thousand eyes and a thousand wings—no need to back down.
Hold on, after removing this beast’s head… its figure doesn’t look half bad?
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This book mixes Lovecraftian horror, cultivation, and plenty of memes—grab it if you like that stuff.
Besides, I never got into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”—his style didn’t grab me.
Among modern writers, I personally prefer Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy.
Murakami praised his work, calling it fine literature that doesn’t take thirty years to mature—and he’s got a point.