Chapter 65: She Was Supposed to Slay the Dragon

Lin Yan chased after her.

As he passed Nadir’s corpse, he casually scooped up the two blades lying beside it.

The moment the hilts settled into his palms, everything inside [Blade Arts II]—the cuts, the entries, the ways of applying force—finally had somewhere to go.

When his hands had been empty, his head had been full of techniques, yet using them had always felt like something was missing.

Now, with a blade in each hand, that strange sense of incompleteness vanished.

In its place came a very simple urge.

He wanted to cut something.

Lin Yan tightened his grip and continued the pursuit.

Lucia raced upward, her mind still circling around what had just happened.

Sacred Energy had definitely entered that man’s body.

His expression, his tone, even the things he had said afterward had all been exactly the same as those who had accepted His power before.

By all rights, once things reached that point, the outcome should have been decided.

And yet Lin Yan had returned to normal almost immediately, then turned on her while still carrying the enhancements granted by Sacred Energy.

Where had it gone wrong?

The thought had barely crossed her mind when the noise behind her grew rapidly closer.

Lucia turned.

Lin Yan had caught up.

She raised a hand.

Sacred Energy poured from her palm and stretched across the passage, rapidly forming a thick white whip before sweeping sideways with a violent swing of her arm.

The whip tore across the floor, throwing up chunks of broken stone. When it scraped along the wall, it shaved away a layer of masonry, bearing down on Lin Yan with a heavy rush of displaced air.

Lin Yan swung his blade to meet it.

The method of applying force granted by [Blade Arts II] allowed the body that had undergone repeated enhancement to pour its absurd strength fully into the edge.

The next instant, the blade flashed.

Hiss—

The edge sliced diagonally through the white whip.

The thick mass of Sacred Energy was severed in two, and the broken halves lashed out toward either side, smashing more debris from the walls.

Lucia’s expression shifted slightly.

Lin Yan burst through the dispersing white energy.

The high-speed pursuit had tightened the muscles across his face. His eyes remained fixed on Lucia, and with a blade in each hand, he looked downright vicious.

Lucia continued upward, Sacred Energy supporting her body as she sped along the stairs, while Lin Yan stayed close behind.

After chasing her for a while, he noticed a problem with his body.

Even a little extra force through his legs would send him much farther than expected.

The problem became especially obvious at the turns in the staircase.

The amount of force he had been used to applying produced a completely different result with his current body. One push too hard and he would shoot past the turn entirely.

A couple of times, the corner came up too fast, so Lin Yan simply planted a foot against the wall and used it to kick himself back onto the right path.

This latest round of enhancement had pushed his strength and explosiveness too far. The coordination granted by [Agility I] was starting to struggle to keep up.

It was like playing a racing game, then suddenly replacing your usual car with a heavily modified machine packing several times the horsepower.

You still knew how to steer, you still knew how to work the throttle. But press down with the same force you were used to, and the car would suddenly launch much farther than expected.

That was more or less what Lin Yan was dealing with now.

Fortunately, chasing someone only required one thing.

Being fast enough.

The two raced up the final stretch of stairs.

The moment Lin Yan’s feet struck flat stone again, the vast main hall ahead gave him all the space he needed.

He pushed off.

His entire body shot forward.

Wind roared past his ears.

The walls on both sides blurred backward. Every time his foot struck the ground, a heavy thud sounded beneath him, and his body covered another huge stretch of distance.

The awkward restraint he had felt on the stairs and around corners disappeared completely.

Only now, with room to truly run, did Lin Yan realize just how much this round of enhancement had improved him.

The distance Lucia had opened vanished at a frightening rate.

Within a few steps, Lin Yan was right behind her.

Hearing the footsteps closing in, Lucia spun around again.

Sacred Energy surged in from all around her, spreading between them and forming a thick white barrier.

Lin Yan charged straight into the glow, his right-hand blade coming down first.

Hiss—

The edge cut into the Sacred Energy, but the dense white mass only split open a short distance.

Lin Yan never slowed.

The second strike followed immediately.

Then the third.

The fourth.

The two blades came down one after another, their flashes nearly merging into a continuous sheet of steel.

His enhanced body seemed incapable of tiring. Every swing carried the same speed and the same force, hacking layer after layer from the Sacred Energy blocking his path.

Over the span of only a few steps, the thick white barrier was torn open.

Lin Yan shot through the gap without breaking stride.

Lucia had only just begun to raise her hand when the blade in his left hand swept across with the momentum of his charge.

A flash of steel.

The edge passed across her waist.

Lin Yan ran several more steps before finally coming to a stop.

At the same time, two heavy impacts sounded behind him.

Lucia’s body had been severed at the waist.

Her upper half crashed to one side, while her lower half collapsed in the other direction. Blood poured from the wound and spread across the stone floor of the main hall.

Lin Yan turned around.

Poor Lucia.

The thought surfaced naturally.

Then he froze.

Wait.

Why had he insisted on killing Lucia?

Lucia was supposed to be the one who dealt with that dragon.

They had spent all this time and effort getting this far, running into plenty of danger along the way.

Wasn’t the whole point to have Lucia deal with the dragon?

So what the hell had he just done?

He had chased her all the way up here and personally cut her in half.

More strangely, not once during the entire process had anything felt wrong.

The urge to kill her had come so naturally that chasing Lucia down and cutting her apart had seemed like the most reasonable thing in the world.

Lin Yan lowered his gaze to the two blades in his hands.

His brows slowly drew together.

Only now, with Lucia actually lying dead in front of him, did the thought finally occur to him.

Had he really wanted to kill her that badly just now?