Ch.67 Hurry Up and Use It Already, Stop Dawdling
"Take a hit of my Purifying Light first!"
It was a good thing Luo Nan had long since prepared for the sort of opponent who played by no rules and refused to be swayed by his verbal offensive — he had already packed the magazine full of Sealed Purifying Light crystals produced by the Church, and had kept his right hand resting at his hip on standby the entire ti.
The Black Tempest whipped up a dense shroud of Black Mist and ca surging at Luo Nan with overwhelming, crushing force.
Clack — Hmmm — Zing —
The shing of chanical components, the resonant chord of the magical drive activating, the ethereal chi of the Purifying Light igniting — under Luo Nan's already practiced hands, all three completed in one fluid motion in under a single second.
Boom!
Blinding holy light pierced through the Black Mist and detonated a brilliant, radiant flower across Jeraf's chest.
"Urgh, urgh, urgh……" Struck squarely in the chest by a single blow, Jeraf staggered sharply backward, clutching the wound in his chest — nearly punched clean through, golden radiance seeping from it — and gasped for breath in ragged, heaving gulps.
"As expected of…… Your Excellency, quite the formidable thod……" Having taken Luo Nan's extravagantly expensive hit, and caught completely off guard at that, even Jeraf — his entire body cloaked in the Blessing — was left considerably worse for wear.
That said, an injury of this magnitude was sothing he could recover from within a few breaths.
Zing —
"Tch…… Only the first one lands effectively?"
Just as Luo Nan had predicted, with Jeraf now on guard, the second round of Purifying Light missed its mark.
"Has Your Excellency grown sowhat contemptuous of ? While the Purifying Light in your hands poses a significant threat, do I not have legs?"
As the words fell, the wound across Jeraf's chest had already finished nding itself. The golden radiant scarring remained, but it did nothing to diminish his strength or his ability to press the attack.
"Looking down on others is sothing that demands a price!"
Jeraf once again transford into the Black Tempest and ca charging forward, the montum carrying the promise of reducing Luo Nan to dry bones.
"Wait!" Luo Nan made another attempt at a verbal offensive.
"Talk of 'wait' and the like — that can co after I've disard Your Excellency!" Jeraf was entirely unmoved by Luo Nan's words, and the motion of his feet did not slow in the slightest.
"Damn it!" Seeing his verbal offensive fail once again, Luo Nan had no choice but to dodge first.
"Thunderflash Step!"
Channeling every last thread of Battle Aura into his legs and feet, Luo Nan executed the martial technique he had drilled over and over in recent days.
His entire figure instantly beca a blur, launching sideways from his original position at an acceleration that an ordinary person could not have endured.
The Black Tempest lunged at empty air, condensing back into Jeraf. "Oh? Your Excellency's martial technique…… is rather novel."
"Nothing novel about it — it's nothing more than a Tier One technique, the kind you rush to learn by throwing money at it!" Luo Nan replied casually, raising the gun and firing again in the sa motion.
Jeraf shifted back into the Black Tempest, nimbly evading Luo Nan's ‘monetary offensive.’
"Your Excellency truly has deep pockets…… If I'm not mistaken, the rounds you're firing are genuine Purifying Light, straight from the Church's production?"
"Five — five rounds of Purifying Light co out to the equivalent of our entire operating budget for a year!" At that, the previously breezy composure in Jeraf's voice was involuntarily layered with excitent.
"Are you all really that poor? Would you like to consider working under ? I'll double the budget and your salary, both."
Luo Nan grinned.
"Wha……" Jeraf's figure jolted to an abrupt halt, as though he had never anticipated Luo Nan would extend such an invitation.
"Idiot — I'm ssing with you. Soone like you, an Abyssal Cultist — this young master has no interest in hiring."
Seizing the instant that Jeraf's movent stalled, Luo Nan triggered three rounds of Purifying Light in rapid succession, and every single one connected.
"Grk……"
Taking three consecutive hits, Jeraf could no longer keep up the veneer of calm, and even the pained sound that escaped him twisted into a grating Abyssal screech.
"A bunch of monsters, and you think you're fit to eat from this young master's hand?"
"Die!!!"
Jeraf, fury ter filled to the brim, abandoned any pretense of decorum, transford entirely into a massive black beast, his diminutive fra unleashing a ferocity utterly at odds with his size, and ca crashing after Luo Nan with wild, barreling force.
"Good thing I drilled Thunderflash Step beforehand — otherwise this guy would have flattened
to pieces by now."
Luo Nan kept Thunderflash Step running to evade Jeraf's attempts to seize him, returning fire over his shoulder each ti, spending money to whittle down the enemy's life.
"Sa as I said before — let's see whether your way of spending lives, or my way of spending money, cos out on top!"
For a mont, light and darkness intertwined and spread through the Black Mist.
"……You can really run, I'll give you that," the Black Tempest condensed back into Jeraf, who gave Luo Nan — now forced into a dead corner — a vicious grin.
"Did you think I was just chasing you without purpose? Take a look at the surroundings. Right now…… does that escape technique of yours still have any room to work?"
Luo Nan swept a glance at his current situation. As unlucky as it was, exactly as Jeraf had described: rock wall to the rear, massive fallen strata on either side collapsed from above — a textbook three-sided enclosure with one gap left open.
And that one open gap was being plugged by Jeraf.
Luo Nan was not in a hurry, because it was only once Jeraf believed he had been cornered into a hopeless dead-end that the man would stop to listen to his verbal offensive. Only then would the 'one move' he had prepared find its proper use.
With that thought, Luo Nan smiled. "Mr. Jeraf, aren't you even a little curious…… about my true identity?"
"Your true identity?" Jeraf's lips curled back in a predatory grin. "Even if you don't say it, I can make a rough guess. After all, soone with as much money as you, who could also recognize who I was back at the Whisper Market…… that would have to be 'the gentleman in the Golden Crow-Beak Mask,' wouldn't it?"
"Oh? Seems you're not entirely dim. You knew I had money, and you still dared to make a move against ?" Luo Nan reached into his coat, produced the Golden Crow-Beak Mask, and gave it a leisurely wave in front of him.
"Aren't you afraid I might spend a fortune to hire a few Tier Three tamorphosis-realm powerhouses to send you on your way?"
At Luo Nan's words, Jeraf tilted his head slightly. "Naturally I'm afraid — but that would first require…… Your Excellency making it out of here alive!"
With that, Jeraf raised his hand, preparing to strike Luo Nan down.
"Wait!"
"Any last words?"
This ti, Jeraf — certain the victory was already in hand — unexpectedly brought his feet to a halt, seemingly willing to indulge whatever final struggle or plea Luo Nan might offer at the edge of death.
"Guess again — beneath this Golden Crow-Beak Mask, or rather, beneath this Human-Skin Mask — whose face is it?"
"Oh? You had a second layer of disguise? Now that I'm genuinely curious about." Jeraf tilted his hairless head upward, scrutinizing the plain, nondescript face behind Luo Nan's current disguise.
"Naturally, this young master will satisfy your curiosity."
With that, Luo Nan slowly peeled away the Human-Skin Mask, revealing the true face beneath.
"……Luo Nan von dillion?! How could you possibly co in person……"
Clearly, Jeraf had never anticipated Luo Nan's true identity. Even for soone who considered himself a veteran of storms great and small, his entire being froze completely for a single instant.
"Thunderflash Step!"
Seizing that gap, Luo Nan activated his martial technique again, and like an arrow loose from a bowstring he shot forward in an instant, slipping past the frozen Jeraf and breaking out of the three-sided dead corner he had been trapped in.
However, Jeraf did not choose to pursue.
This too was exactly as Luo Nan had anticipated.
"Heh heh…… heh heh…… ha ha ha…… Luo Nan von dillion, if you ask , aren't you just a pampered noble heir with too much ti on your hands — why on earth would you personally co all the way here to throw your life away?"
Jeraf broke into a twisted, contorted laugh, watching Luo Nan — in his eyes, a man already dead — with an expression of easy satisfaction. "Though the outside world says you're an ordinary person, and I have no idea when you entered the supernatural realm — surely you don't think that just because you've entered the supernatural realm, you're sohow qualified to face
directly?"
"I had no choice — this young master didn't want to co in person either, but your lot's assassination attempts against , one right after another, have been keeping
up at night!" Luo Nan ca to a stop and shrugged.
"Do you recognize this?" Without responding to Luo Nan, Jeraf reached into his coat, produced the black Soul-Devouring Curse Skull, and held it up toward him in inquiry.
Luo Nan played along cooperatively. "That is……"
"The Soul-Devouring Curse — prepared specifically for you. To activate it, we expended an extraordinary amount of materials!"
"All because you snatched that Saint's Blood from
that day!"
"You can count yourself lucky — if you hadn't gotten to the Saint's Blood before us, that very night, you, Luo Nan von dillion, would have been saying farewell to this world!"
"But no matter — divine materials are not irreplaceable. After a week of preparation, I've substituted the Saint's Blood with other supernatural materials and completed the activation ritual for the Soul-Devouring Curse."
"Now…… all I need to do is recite the final activation incantation, and you can guess…… what happens next?"
At this, Jeraf's voice was threaded through with sothing diseased, sothing trembling with excitent — as though he were about to accomplish so feat without precedent in all of history.
"Then recite it. I'm waiting."
"What did you just say?!"
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