High Martial: I Grind Professions

Chapter 263: Chapter 163: Guarding Bluestone County (3)

The battle raged on, and casualties began to mount on the platform for both the Human and Demon Races.

The three peak-level demons and the veteran captain were locked in a white-hot battle, the terrifying aftershocks of their energy cracking the surrounding ground apart.

’An opening!’ After a long, fruitless assault, a vicious glint flashed in the eyes of the Dark Gold Lion Demon, which had been searching for a weakness.

It suddenly retreated a step, its chest heaving violently like a bellows. The ancient markings on its forehead flared with a blinding golden light as an invisible pressure, as tangible as a physical force, spread outward.

”ROAR—!!!”

A terrifying, earth-shattering lion’s roar suddenly erupted.

The sound seemed to carry a power that could pierce the soul. It wasn’t an auditory attack, but a direct assault on the sea of consciousness of every opponent present.

Captain Zhang Zhen, being closest to the Lion Demon, bore the brunt of the attack.

He had been focusing all his energy to fend off the three demons’ siege. Caught completely off guard by the direct impact of this Talent Divine Technique, his sea of consciousness trembled violently. His vision went blank, the power behind his spear faltered, and his entire body froze in place.

’We got him!’ The eyes of the Lion Demon, Lizard Demon, and Water Demon simultaneously gleamed with ecstatic cruelty.

Three fatal attacks, charged and ready, were unleashed without reservation upon the defenseless captain.

Time seemed to freeze. The squad members near the captain sensed the danger and tried to help, but they were pinned down by their own opponents.

’Now!’

Li Wen, who had been maintaining a steady, unremarkable offense, suddenly had eyes as cold and sharp as the Thunder God looking down upon the mortal realm from the highest heavens.

The battle lust and killing intent he had suppressed for so long were finally unleashed, erupting like a dormant volcano.

The once-restrained purple lightning around him instantly turned frenzied.

”Star Rush!”

The low cry was like a clap of thunder from a clear sky! Li Wen’s figure vanished.

It wasn’t teleportation, but pure speed pushed to its absolute limit.

Fast! A speed that defied the imagination of everyone present.

A blindingly brilliant bolt of purple lightning, wreathed in a ferocious blade aura that seemed to tear at space itself, shot forward, striking first despite being the last to move.

Its target: the Dark Gold Lion Demon, which was in a brief moment of recovery, its aura wavering after unleashing its Divine Technique.

The ecstatic look had not yet faded from the Lion Demon’s face when its pupils reflected a soul-freezing purple glint. It was so fast that the demon only had time for a flicker of despair to register.

FWIP!

There was no earth-shattering crash, only a soft, dull sound, like a blade slicing through tough leather.

The dark gold mane, strong enough to withstand an attack from a typical peak-level warrior, was laughably fragile before the blade’s edge, which held the immense power of the Ninefold Divine Body.

The long blade slashed across, and a massive lion’s head, its face frozen in shock, flew high into the air, followed by a fountain of dark red demonic blood.

The momentum of the blade didn’t stop there. The lightning energy exploded, instantly incinerating the massive, headless demonic corpse into a pile of scorched ash.

The Lion Demon, slain in a single strike!

Li Wen’s figure didn’t pause for a second; he didn’t even glance at the slain Lion Demon.

He used the momentum from slaying his powerful foe to lunge directly at the Lizard Demon and Water Demon, who were just about to deliver the killing blow to the captain.

”Thunderblast!”

His blade spun, and two arcs of light, even faster and more bizarre than the last, flashed into existence without a sound, like soul-reaping chains reaching across time and space.

The Lizard Demon, the one with the strongest defense, felt only a chill at its waist as the bone armor it took such pride in was severed, along with the entire top half of its body.

The Water Demon didn’t even have time to react. It felt a sharp pain between its eyes as an impossibly cold arc of light split its entire demonic body in two, from head to toe.

It all happened in the blink of an eye!

From the Lion Demon’s roar stunning the captain to Li Wen erupting and slaying the three peak-level demons, the entire sequence took less than half a breath.

Time seemed to start moving again, but the state of the battle on the underground platform had already been turned completely upside down.

The captain recovered from the brief mental shock. Though still shaken, his eyes blazed with ferocious battle intent.

”Kill—!”

The captain’s furious roar echoed across the entire platform.

Witnessing this stunning reversal, the morale of the defending warriors surged to its absolute peak.

As for the remaining members of the Demon Race, they stared as their leader, who had been so menacing moments before, was reduced to scorched ash and a dismembered corpse.

Their eyes then fell upon the young man standing like a demon god in the center of the field, the purple lightning still crackling along his blade.

Fear, like the deadliest plague, consumed them in an instant.

”Flee! Get back to the Stargate!” someone shrieked.

The surviving demons had lost all will to fight. They turned and fled for their lives toward the Stargate behind them.

Tactics and objectives were forgotten. All that remained was boundless terror of the figure in purple.

”I lured you out, and now you think you can just run?” Li Wen’s voice was frigid as his figure once again transformed into a streak of purple light.

”Star Rush!”

”Thunderblast!”

...

The Basic Knife Control Skill from the *Profound Dome Rainbow Silence Chapter*, something he normally used just for practice, had become a terrifying reaper’s scythe.

Li Wen’s blade work was a perfect symphony of death. Every flash of his knife was answered by a spray of demonic blood.

Combined with his absolute speed—far surpassing anyone of the same level—the fleeing demons were like prey caught by the Grim Reaper, cut down long before they could make it back inside the Stargate.

The captain and the other defending warriors snapped out of their initial shock and unleashed even more ferocious attacks.

Spurred on by Li Wen, they coordinated with his despair-inducing speed to conduct the final mop-up.

The air filled with the desperate roars of demons and their dying wails, but the sounds soon grew sparse.

In just a dozen breaths, the last demon, a late-stage combatant, made a desperate dash for the Stargate’s edge. It was caught by a purple streak that shot across the space, nailing it and half its torso to the spatial barrier before the gate, where it convulsed and died.

As the last demonic corpse fell to the ground, the piercing alarm finally ceased.

Only the thick stench of blood and the lingering fluctuations of True Essence and Demon Power bore witness to the fierce battle that had just taken place.

「After a brief silence.」

”We won!! We won!!”

”We wiped them out! A total wipeout of the invading Demon Race!”

A tsunami of cheers and shouts erupted from the defensive fortifications at the platform’s edge, from the logistics staff watching from the sidelines, and from the very chests of every soldier on duty, instantly filling the vast underground space.