"Bang~ Puh!"
"Crackling~ Crackling~"
"Ah~ Puh!"
"Who are you?"
"Ugh~! Ah~ Pfft~"
Ye Feng's figure flickered past, and all the black-clothed men who had been certain of victory coughed up blood and flew backward with screams.
"Thank... Thank you..."
At this moment, Jiang Shishan also struggled to climb out of the swamp mud and thanked Ye Feng with a dazed expression.
"Xiao Shan... you've really hit rock bottom... If I hadn't happened to come here, you wouldn't have been able to enjoy delicious chicken legs anymore..."
Ye Feng walked to Jiang Shishan's side and muttered.
"Xiao Shan? Chicken legs? May I ask who you are...?"
Jiang Shishan had just fallen into the swamp mud and water, and his vision was still a bit blurry. Coupled with Ye Feng's disguise, he didn't recognize him.
"It's me, Ye Feng!"
After speaking, Ye Feng reached out and touched his face, took off his hat, and removed some accessories from his hair.
"Ye... Ye Feng, is it really you?"
Jiang Shishan rubbed his eyes, a look of surprise on his face. He stood up, opened his arms, and was about to hug Ye Feng, but Ye Feng dodged him. After all, the other party was covered in blood and swamp mud...
"Uh..."
Jiang Shishan clearly realized this too. He scratched his head awkwardly, but a happy expression was on his face.
"That... does your stomach not hurt...?"
Ye Feng pointed at Jiang Shishan's stomach, which was exposed flesh and bleeding profusely.
"I... uh... Ah~ Hiss~"
Jiang Shishan's attention had been diverted by Ye Feng's appearance. Now that Ye Feng mentioned it, he gasped in pain.
"Your wound..."
Ye Feng frowned slightly, as he noticed that Jiang Shishan's abdominal wound had bulging lumps of flesh, and black runes could be faintly seen within the flesh.
"Ye Feng, these are Blood Sealing Runes. They devour flesh and arcane energy that they come into contact with. You can't touch them directly. You need arcane talismans..."
Amidst Jiang Shishan's anxious voice, Ye Feng's hands glowed with runes as he swiftly moved towards Jiang Shishan's abdomen.
"Pfft~ Pfft~"
The bulging lumps of flesh on Jiang Shishan's abdomen instantly burst open, revealing the black rune nails within.
"Sizzle~!"
After Ye Feng wrapped the black rune nails with arcane energy and removed them, the runes on the black rune nails glowed, corroding his arcane energy.
Immediately, Ye Feng's eyes narrowed. His arcane energy split into wisps, forming a field of runes, and the light of the black rune nails instantly dimmed...
"~Clang~ Clang~ Keng~"
Then, Ye Feng took out a large iron hammer and completely deformed all the Blood Sealing Runes before discarding them.
"Using... only arcane energy... to condense arcane talismans... without any medium..."
"And you even neutralized the Blood Sealing Runes..."
Jiang Shishan looked at Ye Feng with shock.
"These Blood Sealing Runes are quite tricky if they get into the body. But without flesh and arcane energy, a few blows with an ordinary hammer can destroy them..."
Saying this, Ye Feng turned to Jiang Shishan, "Aren't you going to bandage your wound? You'll lose too much blood if you don't..."
"Oh, right... right... Hiss!~"
Jiang Shishan came to his senses. He quickly took out bandages and alcohol, disinfected the wound, and then bandaged it.
Because the wound was on his abdomen, and it was relatively deep and large, it caused Jiang Shishan to gasp in pain, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and his face was a little pale.
"Use this, it won't irritate the wound, and your alcohol isn't enough. Abdominal wound infection is no joke!"
Ye Feng handed Jiang Shishan a bottle of iodine. "Speaking of which, with your Golden Rank Two strength... how did you get ambushed by a few Silver Rank advanced assassins? Even if they had something like Blood Sealing Runes that can strongly suppress arcane energy, they still have to get it into your body..."
"I just advanced... Wait a minute... Golden Rank Two?"
Jiang Shishan was slightly stunned. He looked at Ye Feng with disbelief. "Ye Feng, you can sense my arcane energy fluctuations and rank... but I can't sense yours... Ye Feng, is your strength beyond Golden Rank Two?"
It wasn't that Jiang Shishan was so surprised. When he first met Ye Feng in the City of Despair, Ye Feng hadn't even awakened his arcane energy, nor did he know what arcane energy was. Furthermore, Ye Feng's age had passed the latest point for awakening arcane energy...
When they met by chance in the sand dunes, Ye Feng's arcane energy fluctuations were only at Iron Rank... But now Ye Feng had surpassed him...
If it was about combat power displayed in life-or-death battles, Ye Feng being stronger than him was understandable... But the cultivation of arcane energy...
"Mhm!"
Ye Feng nodded and casually muttered, "I'm not just Golden Rank Two, I've surpassed Golden Rank Nine and reached Diamond!"
"Diamond?"
"Ye Feng, you're really joking. Even the Seven Great Powers don't have many Diamond-level powerhouses. Those people have been famous for a long time..."
Jiang Shishan stopped halfway through his sentence. He looked at Ye Feng as if he had seen a ghost. "Ye Feng, you... you're not really already... Di... Diamond, are you?"
"Mhm!"
Ye Feng nodded. "You still haven't answered my question. How was a Golden Rank Two like you chased by a group of Silver Rank assassins? Did you encounter monsters in the Black Swamp?"
"No!"
Jiang Shishan looked around and slowly said, "I came to this Black Swamp to obtain something called a Hidden Qi Stone... Because I was too focused, I was ambushed..."
"Ambushed?"
Ye Feng frowned slightly. "The people targeting you don't have very good intelligence... sending a group of Silver Rank individuals to assassinate a Golden Rank Two..."
"It's not like that!"
Jiang Shishan shook his head. "Silver Rank advanced is the highest level of assassins that can be hired within the Arcane City?"
"Highest level? What do you mean?"
Ye Feng looked at Jiang Shishan, puzzled.
"In the Arcane City, Golden Rank powerhouses are closely monitored, both openly and secretly... If the other party sent Golden Rank individuals to assassinate me, even if they succeeded, it would be easily traceable."
"So, Silver Rank advanced individuals have become the highest level that can be dispatched for assassinations, sneak attacks, and other such activities!"
He paused, and Jiang Shishan spoke again, "More importantly, those people were holding Arcane Scepters!"
"Arcane Scepter? What is that?"
Ye Feng looked at Jiang Shishan with some confusion.
"It's this!"
A gloomy male voice fell, and a figure suddenly emerged from the swamp, right behind Jiang Shishan. The figure was covered in black-green swamp mud and foul-smelling water.
Almost at the same time, a blinding light burst from behind Jiang Shishan, and in an instant, Jiang Shishan was engulfed in soaring flames.
...