Chapter 351: Dare to Come Closer, and I’ll Kill Him!
The vertical pupils contracted rapidly. The fingernails on his left hand, hidden behind his back, grew quickly, forming razor-sharp steel claws that lunged precisely toward Tu Ran’s heart.
The angle at which his arm bent and the length to which it extended were beyond Tu Ran’s imagination, twisting in an inhuman manner.
She dodged sideways, but the steel claws seemed to have eyes of their own, relentlessly pursuing her. Their length even extended to double their original size.
Tu Ran swiftly retrieved a curved blade from her storage space and slashed at the claws.
The blade, forged from the Federation’s most resilient material, sparked fiercely upon colliding with his arm.
A notch appeared on the edge of her blade, but the opponent’s arm remained unscathed.
Tu Ran had imbued her strike with her superpower, delivering immense force. While the orange-eyed leader’s arm was intact, the angle of his attack shifted downward by half an inch.
Tu Ran, known for seizing every opportunity, made full use of this slight opening.
The curved blade flashed with a white light before she tossed it back into her space.
Barehanded, Tu Ran grabbed his arm and exerted all her strength to twist it backward.
Since the orange-eyed leader was using his left hand, Tu Ran twisted it behind his back, then pulled it around to his right side. She yanked it forcefully, wrapping it across his chest, around his neck, and finally looping it over his left arm.
During this time, the orange-eyed leader attempted to use his right hand to cast a spell, but Tu Ran’s keen senses caught it. She restrained his wrist and twisted it in the same way as his left hand.
All of this happened within just two seconds. The once dignified and imposing orange-eyed leader now resembled a tightly bound crab.
“Gurgle, gurgle…”
A series of incomprehensible sounds emanated from the back of his head.
Suddenly, the green-eyed creatures, who had been waiting in formation behind him, surged toward Tu Ran like a tidal wave.
Some darted across the ground at breakneck speed, while others piloted beetle-like flying vehicles. Their strange, gurgling language echoed beneath the blood-red sky.
Tu Ran raised her foot and kicked the orange-eyed leader’s leg, forcing him to his knees. She stepped on his calf with one foot, while her right hand twisted his bound arms tighter behind his back. In her left hand, a glowing white orb formed, rolling, leaping, and expanding in her palm.
Her orange eyes, lit by the faint sky above, brimmed with undisguised killing intent as she scanned the advancing green-eyed soldiers.
Though they couldn’t understand her words, her actions conveyed her meaning unmistakably:
Come closer, and he dies!
The green-eyed army froze, stunned by the sight before them. The beetle-like vehicles screeched to a halt mid-air, hovering in place, while the ground troops skidded to a stop, standing rooted to the spot. Their gazes locked on their leader, waiting for his command.
The soft glow of the energy orb illuminated Tu Ran’s figure and the humiliated captive beneath her feet. Against the backdrop of the dark, apocalyptic cavern, she stood alone. Her defiant actions, her scornful expression—she trampled upon the pride of a race hailed as the greatest in the universe.
Even if only for a fleeting moment.
“Guh—”
A low sound emanated from the back of the orange-eyed leader’s head.
It was like the tolling of a funeral bell, resonating from ancient times to the present, breaking the taut strings in the minds of every green-eyed soldier.
Beneath her foot, the leader’s body began to tremble. Heat radiated from him, intensifying rapidly.
Tu Ran glanced down in confusion, only to see the captive lowering his head deeply, almost pressing his forehead to the ground like a devout worshiper.
Her heart clenched as a vivid vision of her body exploding into pieces flashed through her mind.
Self-detonation!
He was going to self-destruct!
Tu Ran sprang back immediately, turning to flee.
But the green-eyed warriors on the ground swarmed forward at that exact moment, blocking her path.
They were willing to sacrifice themselves, determined to trap this outsider within the blast radius of their leader’s self-destruction.
Tu Ran hadn’t expected a highly advanced civilization to use such a crude method to trap her.
It was like someone with a fully functioning body and mind deliberately knocking their bowl of food to the ground and then licking it up off the floor.
The green-eyed soldiers swarmed toward her in droves. Her laser shots cut through the first row of bodies, but their incredibly durable forms, made of some unknown material, rendered her attacks ineffective. She abandoned the laser gun.
[Penetration] + [Invisibility]
With a plan in mind, she activated her intermediate-level [Penetration] ability, which allowed her to move through only five meters at a time. First, she turned invisible, disappearing from the encirclement and leaving the green-eyed soldiers without a target. Then she activated [Penetration], reappearing five meters away, right at the tight formation where their shoulders touched.
Although she was invisible, her physical form still existed. The two soldiers she collided with instantly detected her presence. They let out sharp “gurgling” sounds, seemingly sharing information, and reached out to grab her.
Tu Ran immediately activated [Penetration] again, slipping past them and moving to her next target.
Bit by bit, she edged her way out of the encirclement, wasting no time. Five meters at a time, she shifted positions, barely letting her trailing foot land before leaping another five meters ahead.
Finally—
“Boom!”
An earth-shattering explosion erupted among the towering structures of the cavern. The force was so immense that the ground trembled beneath it.
Tu Ran staggered from the impact, quickly throwing up a protective spatial barrier behind her.
However, as the shockwave reached her, the barrier shattered like fragile glass in an instant.
Tu Ran, unable to escape in time, was hurled over twenty meters away. Her body slammed into jagged rocks protruding from the ground.
She thought bitterly: Karma really works fast.
Her face turned pale.
The sharp rocks pierced her right abdomen and left shoulder. Her helmet cracked open, and a jagged stone, as sharp as a nail, thrust through the fracture, stopping mere millimeters from her eye. Just one more centimeter forward, and her vision would have been lost forever.
Tu Ran’s back burned with a searing pain, and she didn’t dare imagine the state it was in.
The battle suit, crafted with the Federation’s most advanced technology, seemed utterly fragile in the face of this self-detonation.
Even with her own [Diamond Body] ability and the protective barrier she had erected beforehand, the multiple layers of defense were insufficient to shield her from harm. The devastating power of these non-human creatures’ self-destruction was evident.
The shockwave had disrupted her invisibility, leaving Tu Ran completely exposed.
Outside the blast radius, the green-eyed soldiers immediately turned their bloodshot eyes toward her and charged.
At the forefront of the group, one soldier’s dark green pupils slowly, yet visibly, shifted into an orange hue.
Tu Ran happened to lift her head and see this transformation. Her expression froze.
So… after all that effort, all those abilities, and the massive drain on her mental power, she had only managed to kill an ordinary “person”?!
Tu Ran nearly fainted from frustration.
She was surrounded again. The newly appointed orange-eyed leader, cautious of her danger, commanded his troops to keep their distance, ensuring they didn’t close in on her.
He then moved his right hand in a slow, deliberate circle through the air.
His clothing had unknowingly morphed into the same style as the previous orange-eyed leader.
For a moment, Tu Ran couldn’t confirm if the self-destructed leader and this new one were the same individual.
They were just too similar.
He approached her slowly, the glowing ring in his palm growing darker and more ominous in color.
Tu Ran realized that if she didn’t get up now, she’d never leave this place alive. Swallowing the blood rising in her throat, she gritted her teeth, enduring the excruciating pain tearing through her body. With a sharp, determined motion, she wrenched her broken body off the jagged rocks.
Blood gushed from her wounds, spraying onto the ground.
The new leader’s orange glowing ring had fully formed. It was a meter in diameter, and within it, four razor-sharp light blades spun.
He leveled the ring at Tu Ran, and the blades began to rotate, faster and faster, until they became an indistinguishable blur to the naked eye.
