Elite. This was a group of elites.
Their disguises were perfect, their coordination silent, their attacks ruthless and decisive, their timing precise. Each possessed the cursed energy level and combat literacy of a Grade 2 sorcerer and was equipped with sophisticated cursed tools. This was an assassination squad, specially trained for high-risk elimination and sabotage missions!
Genji opened his eyes.
No anger, no surprise, only a deep stillness, like an eternal, cold pool. The moment he opened his eyes, his diffused perception acted like the most sophisticated scanner, instantly marking and distinguishing the scale of cursed energy of every living being throughout the entire cabin.
Nine people in total.
Genji simply raised his right hand from the armrest, extended his index finger, and lightly pointed it at the emptiness of the cabin.
Buzz—
A low sound, almost hallucinatory, but resonating in the souls of all those who possessed cursed energy. With Genji's finger as the source, nine threads of electric light burst forth!
Their flight paths were not straight lines, but mysterious, folded lines in the air, as if they had life and eyes, precisely bypassing all areas containing ordinary passengers and crew in their path, ignoring rolling meal carts, scattered luggage, and terrified bodies.
They were so fast they surpassed the perception of time. One moment they were just bursting from his fingertips, the next—
Thud! Thud! Thud!…
Nine soft, almost inaudible sounds, dissolving into the cabin's noise.
The nine attackers, in the midst of committing murder or about to turn towards their ultimate target, all froze simultaneously.
Regardless of their movement or which opponent they faced, each attacker had an invisible, needle-tip-fine, burnt black dot in the center of their forehead. No blood seeped out, no wound expanded. But their life force was completely extinguished.
Thud, thud, thud…
Solid bodies lost their support and fell to the floor one by one. Cursed tools were released, landing on the carpeted aisles or seats, making dull or clattering sounds, their cursed energy rapidly dissipating, turning into mundane iron.
Dead silence.
A dead silence even more eerie than when the engine had caught fire briefly enveloped the area where the bloody killings were still taking place. Nearby passengers hadn't even seen what happened; they only saw the ferocious attackers suddenly and inexplicably collapse. The sheer confusion even temporarily suppressed their fear.
Genji's brows did not relax because he had instantly eliminated the nine attackers. Instead, they furrowed more tightly.
Too weak.
This thought was like an ice pick piercing the brief stagnation after the battle. Nine people—upper-level Grade 2 sorcerers, silent coordination, fearlessness of death, well-equipped with standard cursed tools. In any modern sorcerer clan, they could be considered an elite action team, capable of executing most high-risk missions and even threatening a lone Grade 1 sorcerer.
But against him?
Not much more than an ant colony trying to shake a mountain.
Something was wrong.
A meticulously planned in-flight assassination, chosen from Jedi knights at 10,000 meters altitude, with hundreds of lives on the plane as the stage and burial ground, and in the end, they sent… this level of assassin?
If the mastermind behind this was truly targeting Zen'in Genji, they could not have underestimated his power from a thousand years ago. These assassins were not so much the core killing force as they were… sacrificial bait.
What was the purpose of the bait? To drain him? To tempt him? No, draining and tempting are meaningless.
A distraction? To create more chaos and create an opportunity for the real killing blow?
The traces of cursed energy erosion inside the engine, the abnormal speed of the fire…
A cold thought, like a venomous snake, suddenly slithered into the heart of Genji's reasoning.
Bait.
These assassins were thrown out from the very beginning to draw his attention—a splendid, bloody bait!
Their sudden attacks, their violent assaults, the chaos and panic they created, and even their "just right" weakness—all of it, all of it was meant to lock his focus at this moment, to occupy his mind for even an instant!
The real killing blow was not with them, not with the cursed, burning engine!
The engine fire was certainly a fatal crisis, but it could also be an ugly disguise to hide a deeper, more deadly, and less noticeable destruction device!
"No!"
Genji's silver-white pupils suddenly constricted to the extreme! The moment he understood the truth of the "bait," his vast and unparalleled perception "cut" deeper into the plane with unprecedented speed and precision, like the most sophisticated scalpel—not just the engine, but the load-bearing structure of the entire fuselage, the perimeter of the fuel tank, and the cargo hold and equipment layer beneath the passenger cabin, with its dense pipelines and hidden spaces!
Almost the same moment his perception touched the cargo hold beneath the center of the fuselage—
He "saw" it.
There, near the main fuel tank, in the shadows within an access panel, were several blocks of white, plastic explosive (C4), covered with a special cursed energy coating, perfectly bypassing regular security checks and cursed energy detection!
The entire scheme was brutal, precise, and interconnected, fully calculating human nature, sorcerer combat skills, and instinctive crisis reactions! The goal was singular: to ensure that the moment Genji was drawn to the "bait" and focused on dealing with the assassins and the runaway engine, the true destructive force would erupt from the "dead zone" of his perception, giving him no chance to react or stop it!
And by the time he saw through the bait and perceived the moment of explosion, a 0.3-second delay had already passed.
What could he do in that time?
With his ability, he could instantaneously decompose part of the explosive using his "Construction Technique" in the billionth of a second before the bomb detonated, or use a powerful barrier to forcibly suppress the blast.
But the explosive was close to the main fuel tank. The detonation would inevitably cause a sympathetic explosion, powerful enough to tear the fuselage apart.
More importantly, his top priority now was to protect Eriri, who was right beside him and defenseless!
Any large-scale, high-power technique attempting to suppress the blast could cause unpredictable damage to her or interfere with her safety.
In a flash, Genji made the most ruthless and correct choice—
Abandon bomb disposal! Abandon suppression! Abandon saving the plane itself!
Everything—the top priority was to protect Eriri and as many passengers as possible!
"Shadow Crane!!"
The thought and cursed energy to summon his best flying shikigami erupted like a volcano the moment he saw through the truth of the bomb! He didn't even have time to complete the complex hand seal, but summoned Shadow Crane into reality in the crudest and most direct way, with a gesture that nearly "tore" the shadow realm!
Almost the same moment the indigo light burst from the cracks in the shadow behind him, and the majestic silhouette began to condense—
BOOM—!!!!!!!!!!
A deafening, terrifying explosion, as if the world were being created anew, erupted from the middle of the fuselage, near the fuel tank!
The white C4 explosive released its terrifying energy, instantly tearing through the sturdy alloy skin and load-bearing structure! The main fuel tank beside it detonated almost without delay! An even more violent secondary explosion! Terrifying flames and shockwaves—like raging waves, centered around the blast point, spread out, sweeping and devouring upwards, downwards, left, and right!
The fuselage, that giant Airbus A330, was like a cookie punched by a giant, breaking in two with the sound of twisting, tearing metal! The burning front half of the fuselage and the rear half, trailing the engine, tumbled and flew apart in different directions under the immense force of the explosion! Internal explosions occurred one after another, flames jetting from every crack, every porthole, turning the entire plane into a blazing flying coffin!
The blast shockwave caught up with Shadow Crane, which had just burst out of the fuselage! The indigo wind and lightning shield trembled violently, emitting a deafening hum! Genji grunted, pulled Eriri close to his shoulder, and poured in more cursed energy to stabilize the shield, while he himself took some of the impact. Shadow Crane let out a cry of pain and anger, but its flight posture remained stable.
Genji stabilized his body and quickly constructed a technique.
"Chain of Ten Thousand Miles."
No roar, no fluctuation, only a calm but undeniable command. With a wave of his mind, he poured a majestic amount of cursed energy into the Chain of Ten Thousand Miles!
"Extend—!!!"
One, two, ten, dozens of dark golden ribbons, like dark golden chrysanthemum petals blooming in an instant, took Genji's palm as their sole starting point and simultaneously exploded towards dozens of different spatial coordinates below!
The chain flexibly avoided the passengers' flailing arms, threading through their armpits or the bends of their knees, forming a secure harness.
Genji breathed slowly, a flicker of fatigue in his deep indigo pupils, but more the cold, clear atmosphere of settled dust. He looked down at the island below, growing closer and closer, like an emerald scattered on blue silk.
"Shadow Crane, land."
"Caw—" The giant shikigami bird, bearing the heavy load, responded calmly, began to adjust its posture, and glided confidently towards the nearest green, uninhabited island and reef.
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