“Spring Festival Gala” is so good

The sound of the cane tapping the ground grew louder and louder.

Su Xuan had already wrapped the metal wires back around his body and was lying down, pretending to be unconscious.

Even after absorbing two of the Black Energy Stones, Su Xuan was still not confident that he was a match for the old man.

Therefore, playing “innocent” became Su Xuan’s best protection.

Outside, the battle was a chaotic mess.

Nearly a thousand cultists surrounded the villa, forming a temporary isolation zone.

Countless bodies lay on the grass and the road.

Blood stained the earth dark red and filled the air with a foul stench.

Although this group of cultists was just a disorganized rabble, easy to defeat, under the leadership of the reckless Shadow Thorns, they withstood wave after wave of the soldiers’ attacks.

Zhang Heng gazed at the not-so-distant villa.

The altar was in the basement.

To avoid the unpredictable destruction that high-end combat power could bring, the three elite warriors summoned from the front lines had all gone to fight on the top floor.

Time was running out.

Zhang Heng felt he had to find a chance to break through.

But the persistent middle-aged man in front of him wouldn’t give an inch, and Zhang Heng could feel that the energy particles inside his own body were nearly depleted.

The reason he had been able to kill the sallow-faced man so domineeringly just now was largely due to the small amount of power remaining in his blade.

Now that the residual power was exhausted, breaking through this middle-aged man was too difficult.

The stalemate between Zhang Heng and the middle-aged man was a microcosm of the entire chaotic battle.

Advancing even one step was truly hard.

Even though the number of Inspection soldiers now far exceeded that of the cultists, because of the close-quarters combat and the cultists’ tightly contracted formation, the number of soldiers the cultists faced at any one time was not as many as one might imagine.

It was like a large group of people trying to hit someone through a small opening; although they were fighting, a large portion of them couldn’t even make a move.

They could only wait for a spot to open up and then fill it.

A large number of the Inspection Bureau soldiers could only watch from behind, completely unable to advance.

Wang Xiang listened to the sounds from outside.

The fierce battle told him that no one had broken through into the villa’s interior from below yet.

He quickly opened the basement door; therein lay his greatest reliance in this whole mess.

The door opened.

The expected greetings from his subordinates did not come.

Under the dim yellow light, even though it was May, the sight before him sent a chill through Wang Xiang’s heart.

The subordinates guarding the door had had their necks broken and were both lying on the ground.

Wang Xiang looked with trepidation towards the far end.

The dark, sinister altar seemed unchanged, still as bizarre and terrifying as ever.

However, this seemingly unchanged black altar was missing its most crucial part.

The five indentations were empty; the original four black-gold Black Energy Stones had vanished into thin air.

A chill shot straight to Wang Xiang’s heart.

His beating heart suddenly trembled strangely.

With a crack, the cane held in his withered hands was stabbed into the floor.

No expression could be seen on his chrysanthemum-like face, but his entire body exuded a sinister coldness.

Years of experience allowed Wang Xiang to calm down immediately.

Noticing that something was wrong, Wang Xiang immediately turned back to check the state of the door.

Su Xuan, with his eyes half-open, secretly watched Wang Xiang’s movements, his heart pounding.

He saw the old man suddenly turn around and walk towards the door.

Seeing this, Su Xuan first breathed a sigh of relief.

However, the expected scene of him running out the door did not happen.

The old man stopped at the entrance and looked at the security door.

Instantly, the breath Su Xuan had just released was sucked right back in.

In a flash, Su Xuan understood the old man’s thought process.

The door was locked from the inside.

This was the only door in the entire basement that allowed passage.

Unless someone had a key, it was impossible to get in from the outside without damaging the door.

And even if they did get in, after taking the Black Energy Stones, there was no need to lock the door from the inside again.

This meant that if the door was undamaged, the thief who stole the Black Energy Stones was very likely still in this room.

Wang Xiang scanned the security door with his murky eyes.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of damage.

His heart, which had previously stopped, started beating again.

Under the dim yellow light, the old man slowly turned around, his eyes fixed on the group of people lying in disarray—the group of young people bound by metal wires.

There were fourteen people in total.

Those captured before were all high school students whose backgrounds had been investigated.

Apart from the two captured today, none of the remaining twelve had broken through to the Initial Form, and all had had their Life Source Energy drained for at least a day.

It was impossible for them to have killed two Initial Form users.

Therefore, the most likely suspect had to be one of the two captured today.

And of these two, Su Xuan had been investigated and was just a high school student.

The other was brought along incidentally.

The problem could only lie with him.

Wang Xiang figured it out.

Instantly, his sunken mood lifted again.

Like a drowning person grabbing onto driftwood, his heart, which had sunk to the bottom, rose once more.

His hand gripped the handle of his cane tightly, the blood vessels visible under the sallow, skin-and-bones flesh.

His muscles bulged.

With a two-handed pull, a long sword, inky black yet reflecting a metallic luster, was drawn from within.

Under the dim yellow light.

The old man slowly began to walk towards the disheveled group, his slow steps becoming faster and faster, the long sword held perpendicular to the ground slowly being lifted.

The moment Su Xuan saw the old man go to check the door for damage, he knew he couldn’t escape today.

He could only rely on the massive amount of Life Source Energy and energy particles from the two Black Energy Stones absorbed into his body to fight a desperate battle.

Su Xuan watched the approaching old man, his heart beating rapidly, yet his whole body felt as if it were submerged in ice water.

His brain worked furiously, ‘What do I do… When he talked to me before, he must have investigated my background. So his primary target is definitely not me, but Gao Chong, who was brought along incidentally…’

The old man strode forward and shouted loudly, “Stop pretending, kid!”

Under the cover of his bangs, Su Xuan half-opened his eyes.

The distance of ten meters was closed in an instant.

Just as he thought, the old man’s target was clearly Gao Chong, who was behind him.

Su Xuan clenched his fists tightly.

The Life Source Energy that had just integrated into his body was like a turbine, frantically churning the energy particles within him.

His cells madly absorbed the energy particles.

Suddenly, his mind seemed to go blank.

Throughout his entire body, the decomposition of every energy particle, the release of every bit of energy, was “seen” with perfect clarity.

That block of ice grew “colder” and larger, as if it were about to reach its absolute limit.

Inside his body, the conversion of energy particles no longer required the pulsation of meridians or the flow of macroscopic energy streams to be driven.

At this critical moment, Su Xuan understood that he had mastered Energy Control.

The old man, who had just walked past Su Xuan, suddenly felt a chill run up his spine.

Blue-white spots of light lit up on Wang Xiang’s thigh.

With an extremely powerful burst, he overcame his forward momentum and dodged diagonally in a way that defied physical inertia.

However, he was still a fraction of a second too slow.

A not-so-large fist slammed viciously into his back.

Wang Xiang was sent flying, stumbling back several meters.