Bai Jie sighed inwardly. He hadn't expected things to spiral into this.
Perhaps, if You Rui hadn't shown up, Lin Binbin would have already killed Li Jiayu.
"That man is beyond saving." Bai Jie transmitted to Lin Binbin.
"Lord Bai Zhi, why did this happen?" Lin Binbin transmitted back.
"It has to do with Li Jiayu. The closer you are to her, the greater the risk of being contaminated by the anomaly, especially when Li Jiayu is on the verge of losing control." Bai Jie explained.
After transmitting the message, it probed toward Li Jiayu's information panel once more.
[Target]: Li Jiayu (Symbiote)
[Vitality]: 30
[Body Length]: 172cm
[Status]: Unstable
"Her Vitality has already surpassed Lin Binbin, and it's still slowly rising."
But Bai Jie still held its ground.
"Lin Binbin... is it?"
Li Jiayu gently set down You Rui cradled in her arms, straightened his remains, and stood up.
Her skin bloomed with countless pink-purple luminescent spots, wantonly roving all over her body. Her eyes were now completely swallowed by blackness—not a trace of white visible. Horrifying and chilling.
"My life—you want it, don't you?"
"Come on then. Come take it if you can." She spoke, detached.
Her originally mature female voice now carried a hoarse, vengeful-ghost quality, as if it were the curse of a wrathful spirit.
Li Jiayu intoned in that eerie voice: "Awaken from the darkness, my servants."
Lin Binbin suddenly found it hard to breathe. The night descended faster.
In an instant, all things fell silent. Space was compressed and contorted by an unknown force. One after another, pure black lines appeared beneath Li Jiayu's feet.
Those black lines slowly parted, forming holes of darkness. From within them, skeletal arms reached out.
"This... is Li Jiayu's ability?"
Bai Jie's spirit roused.
Because the "spirit fluid" inside him had taken effect, Lin Binbin was also provoked into a fierce hunting urge by Li Jiayu's aura. Yet seeing this bizarre scene before him, he chose not to act rashly.
Clatter. Clank. Thud.
Amid the sound of clicking bone joints, human-shaped skeletons emerged from the dark holes in the ground, as though crossing dimensions!
[Target]: Skeleton Undead (Variant)
[Vitality]: 1.5
[Body Length]: 180cm
[Status]: Stable
"Li Jiayu, you really are an ill omen, to possess such a wicked ability."
"As for these skeletons? I'll admit you're not ordinary, but dealing with me—you're still lacking!"
Lin Binbin sneered. Then his figure flickered and he charged forward.
In his starry eyes, blue-violet radiance flowed. His entire body's momentum solidified in an instant. His white dress shirt burst apart, revealing his solid, bulging muscles. He dove straight into the crowd of a dozen or more skeletons, brandishing his dagger, fists and feet flying.
One dash. One kick. One stab. One blast!
The force of his kicks tore through the air, producing a heart-rending sound that carried far and wide—incredibly ferocious.
Bang!
A skeletal arm as thick as a bowl was snapped off with a single kick!
In a flash of blade-light, a skull exploded like shattered porcelain.
Crack, crack, crack, crack...
Then he unleashed another thirteen kicks. In that instant, his entire body was engulfed in a flurry of leg shadows, like sharp blades and heavy axes hacking fiercely into the skeletons lunging at him.
A single breath later, every last one of those skeletons had been smashed apart and reduced to fragments—not a single one intact!
After defeating over a dozen skeletons in a row, Lin Binbin wasn't the least bit out of breath, his face unwearied. He withdrew his dagger and stood erect, coldly staring at the solitary Li Jiayu.
At this moment, Lin Binbin stood atop a carpet of crushed bones and severed limbs, like an undefeated god of war.
This was the first time Bai Jie had seen Lin Binbin display such combat prowess in actual battle, and he couldn't help but nod inwardly:
"This Lin Binbin's martial skills are impressive. No surprise, really—he fought in underground boxing rings for a while. Combined with the spider powers that grant him monstrous muscle control and precise predictive reflexes, dealing with these skeleton soldiers—barely stronger than ordinary humans—is a piece of cake."
By now, night had fully descended. It was the hour when cold stars scattered across the sky.
Seeing her skeletons fall one by one, Li Jiayu's expression remained utterly unchanged. She continued in a low, ghostly voice: "Under the night moon, manifest from the darkness, my servants."
She was about to summon something else!
But Lin Binbin had no intention of giving her a second chance.
"Die!"
Lin Binbin's entire body surged with muscle, like constellations streaming unbroken, like rivers roaring forth. He took one step, lunging to seize—three swift strides and he had crossed ten meters in a flash—then erupted with a devastating kick!
His foot connected directly with Li Jiayu's cheek!
However, what Lin Binbin felt under his foot wasn't the familiar sensation he expected. It was like kicking a sheet of steel.
Then, a brutal force transmitted from his own foot, wrenching him off balance. At the same time, a heavy punch slammed into Lin Binbin's face.
He went flying with a bang. In midair, Lin Binbin caught sight of two towering werewolf figures, standing before Li Jiayu like a wall of iron.
These two werewolves had gray-black fur, blood-red eyes, and utterly savage expressions. Their entire bodies bulged with exaggerated masses of muscle, swelling their frames to gigantic proportions—each over two meters tall.
"Well now, even Big Gray Wolf showed up?" The corner of Bai Jie's mouth twitched.
[Target]: Moon-Howling Werewolf (Awakened)
[Vitality]: 20
[Body Length]: 240cm
[Status]: Stable
"A single werewolf has 20 Vitality. Facing two at once, Lin Binbin might not hold up. And Li Jiayu hasn't even made a move yet." Bai Jie thought with some concern.
Lin Binbin steadied himself and felt his right cheek. The wound there was visibly healing at a speed the naked eye could follow—the work of his self-healing Transcendent ability.
Swish! Swish!
The two werewolves charged at him, arriving before him in the blink of an eye.
Lin Binbin sidestepped, slipping between the two Moon-Howling Werewolves, threading through. At the same time, several strands of thread—faintly visible under the moonlight—appeared in his hands: spider silk!
He darted left and right, twisting and turning, his form seeming like a creature not of this world, dodging the two werewolves' attacks while manipulating the threads in his hands.
By the time the two werewolves realized their speed had drastically dropped and their movements were impaired, their bodies were already wrapped head to toe in spider silk.
"Heh. Rabid monsters after all. Stupid as can be." Lin Binbin mocked.
"Roar!"
Yet under the moonlight's glow, with two roaring howls, the werewolves' bodies suddenly swelled massively—and they forcibly snapped the bindings of the spider silk.
"What?!"
Lin Binbin was dumbstruck.
The Transcendent and the two werewolves once again tangled in close-quarters combat. In this brutal melee, Lin Binbin gradually fell to the disadvantage. More and more claw marks and fist imprints appeared on his body. Blood streamed over his entire form, and his breathing grew ragged.
Under Bai Jie's observation, Lin Binbin's Vitality had already begun to drop.
"Enough."
A cool, noble sigh resounded in Lin Binbin's mind.