The steady Wan Xin had watched Lin Jing duel the most.

And he’d seen this kind of scene the most, too.

So watching again this time, he felt almost no fear, and even had the mood to explain on the side:

“Normally, when an opponent’s body gets sliced into nine vertical strips of flesh, and those nine strips do a little death dance, the Duel Arena will announce Lin Shen as the winner.”

“But look—”

“That Bald Guy’s body has been twitching in strips for a while now, and there’s still no system prompt from the Duel Arena.”

People around him nodded repeatedly: “Looks like this Bald Guy really is kind of freaky.”

As soon as the words left their mouths, the situation on the field shifted again—

Lin Jing, dressed in black tactical gear, stared calmly at the flesh strips still dancing in the air.

His gaze shifted.

The fingernails impaled in Bald Guy’s body suddenly shredded him to pieces.

But even then, the Duel Arena still gave no sign of announcing a win.

Lin Jing’s expression remained unchanged. With a wave of his hand, the two hands that tore Bald Guy apart vanished into thin air.

Then his eyes widened—

A sky full of blood-red eyeballs suddenly appeared, scanning the entire Duel Arena from above.

The mass of densely packed eyeballs was enough to make anyone’s scalp crawl. If someone had trypophobia, they might’ve passed out on the spot…

But Wan Xin, unfazed as ever, continued to excitedly explain:

“Yep! He used this move in the second match too.”

“Back then, one of the eyes shot out a black shadow, hiding in the blood spilled from Bald Guy’s shattered body…”

And sure enough, almost as he was speaking, one of the crimson eyes on the arena shot out a black shadow, hiding under the pool of blood.

Wan Xin went on: “That eyeball seems to be tied to some kind of mental control ability…”

“In the second match, not long after the shadow was locked by the eye, the Duel Arena announced Lin Shen’s win.”

Then he added excitedly: “If this guy really is countering Lin Shen’s moves one by one before challenging him again…”

“Then this time, the eye scan shouldn’t be enough to take him down either…”

Sure enough!

Even though the black shadow had been locked on for a while, nothing happened.

No victory announcement for Lin Jing came from the arena.

Seeing this, Wan Xin’s eyes filled with shock, and he couldn’t help but exclaim: “This Bald Guy! Seriously! He’s f**ing nuts!”

Not just him—players in the spectator stands who knew about Bald Guy started voicing all kinds of amazement.

By this point, they were beginning to believe—

This Bald Guy wasn’t just some unlucky sap who got randomly matched with Lin Shen.

He might’ve actually…

Used a Privilege Card to specifically match against Lin Shen!

If the audience could see this much, of course Lin Jing on the stage wouldn’t be clueless.

Still, he remained calm. With a blink of his eyes, the sky full of blood-red eyeballs vanished like an illusion.

Then he took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.

And then—a giant bloody mouth appeared above the black shadow.

The huge mouth sucked in hard, and the shadow hiding in the blood was pulled in like a piece of paper.

Wan Xin again explained in sync: “This is Lin Shen’s third way of one-shotting Bald Guy!”

And just like before, this move… failed!

Next, Lin Jing raised his hand, and a massive sword appeared in his grip.

His gaze sharp and unwavering, he locked onto the black shadow inside the bloody mouth—and suddenly slashed!

The fierce sword light carried overwhelming killing intent, stirring up a storm as it slashed through the air toward the shadow!

Wan Xin’s voice rang out the moment the sword light flashed: “Fourth method to one-shot Bald Guy!”

His words came fast, tinged with excitement.

And not just him—the whole spectator section was buzzing with excitement.

It was like the climax of a performance, and everyone was fully drawn in.

And sure enough, just as the audience expected—

The black shadow, under that terrifying sword light…

Came out completely unharmed!

In fact, it soon floated right out of that gaping mouth!

Like a ghost, it zipped around the massive arena at lightning speed!

And as it darted about, a calm voice echoed through the arena:

“Familiar four killer moves. Are you probing me? Or are you out of tricks?”

The voice was totally emotionless.

But no one could deny—it was clearly mocking Lin Jing!

The audience burst into discussion:

“Holy sht! This Bald Guy! Too insane!”

“Lin Jing’s first four one-shot techniques—he just countered all of them this time! How the h*ll did he pull that off?”

“Don’t tell me this Bald Guy found some kind of bug in the duel system?!”

“Could he have SSS-tier comprehension? As in, once he dies from a move once, he instantly learns how to counter it?”

“SSS-tier comprehension? If that’s true, then that’s way too OP! He could just keep dueling, experience every expert’s killer move, and then become completely unbeatable!”

“I remember Duoe Organization’s announcement mentioned a Bald Guy before… could it be this one?”

“Very likely!”

“But that can’t be right. I saw the Bald Guy who fought Zhao Yudie, and everyone said that guy was the mysterious one Duoe had their eyes on!”

“Wait… they’re not the same guy?”

“Nope! The one who fought Zhao Yudie didn’t look like this!”

“Then the Bald Guy who fought Zhao Yudie must’ve been a fake! This one fighting Lin Jing is the real deal that caught Duoe’s attention!”

All the speculation about Bald Guy started tying back to Jiang Ye, who had also appeared bald in the past.

Wan Xin glanced at him teasingly.

But Jiang Ye didn’t care about the gossip—he just kept his eyes locked on the stage.

Of course, deep down, he didn’t want Lin Jing to lose just like that.

After all, he’d been planning to intercept Lin Jing’s Quick Battle streak.

If someone else beat him to it…

That’d be a huge loss for him!

Right now, Lin Jing was in a very unfavorable situation.

Even if he managed to kill Bald Guy again this round,

Bald Guy could still use another Privilege Card to match with him.

Unless Lin Jing had some kind of special technique that could repeatedly kill Bald Guy without getting countered,

sooner or later, he’d hit a wall.

Eventually, he’d be out of tricks, and Bald Guy would take both the Quick Battle prize pool and the glory!

Jiang Ye looked at Lin Jing standing firm, and the flickering ghostly figure, and guessed—

Lin Jing probably hadn’t used all his tricks yet.

But this kind of standoff was keeping him from risking anything new.

After all, using a new killer move might win this round,

but once it got countered, the next round would be even harder.

Every time he used something new, it was like stepping back a little.

Eventually, he’d have nowhere left to retreat—and would lose for good!

Having seen that future, he wasn’t daring to act rashly now.

And Bald Guy clearly figured that out too.

From the moment Lin Jing stopped trying new tricks, and instead reused his four previous killer moves, Bald Guy already knew—

Lin Jing had realized it.

But knowing the problem—did he have a solution?

Right then, the flickering ghost shadow suddenly stopped in the pool of blood.

This time, his voice came out with open mockery:

“What’s wrong? Scared?”

“If you really don’t dare to strike again…”

“Then sorry, it’s my turn now!”

As he spoke, the black shadow blinked once more—

And in an instant, flashed from the pool of blood to Lin Jing’s body!

From the audience’s perspective, it looked like he entered Lin Jing’s body—

As if the two had become one!

In that instant, Lin Jing’s usually calm and composed face suddenly changed.

A fierce killing intent surged in his eyes, as if someone had touched his reverse scale!

With a whoosh, his black tactical suit suddenly puffed up.

As if under that suit, there was a blower.

No! Not one blower—but two, three, dozens of them!

Under the inflating, bulging black suit, it felt like some kind of biological war was breaking out!

Wind noises, fabric rubbing, metal clashing sounds…

The audience couldn’t see the undercurrents beneath that black tactical suit.

But soon, there was a crack!

That black suit—suddenly exploded open!

And right after that, it was like it got completely torn apart by some tremendous force!

BOOM!!

The entire tactical suit burst open!

Even the fragile shirt inside was instantly shredded into strips—just like Bald Guy had been earlier.

The difference was, Bald Guy had his whole body torn apart.

Lin Jing only had his upper clothes ripped.

And with that explosion, Lin Jing’s bare upper body was revealed in full to the audience.

It all happened so fast, most of the spectators barely saw it.

But some sharp-eyed viewers who were laser-focused—like Jiang Ye—did see—

Lin Jing’s bare upper torso, near the chest over his heart, seemed to have a black tattoo.

But unfortunately, almost the moment his shirt exploded,

The Duel Arena suddenly announced Lin Jing’s victory.

Then, Lin Jing instantly disappeared from the arena.

The spectators were left stunned, full of disbelief: “Wait? That’s it?”

“What just happened? I didn’t even catch it!”

“F**k! I was too busy checking out the muscles, didn’t see a damn thing!”

“Did anyone actually see it clearly? How did Lin Jing one-shot Bald Guy this time?”

“Who could see that?! That Bald Guy looked like he invaded Lin Jing’s body… then Lin Jing must’ve had some internal defense mechanism that shredded him?”

“What kind of defense? Antivirus software? Malware scanner?”

“……”

“No idea if next time Bald Guy comes back, Lin Jing can handle it again.”

Most of the audience was focused on how Lin Jing pulled off the kill this time.

And were looking forward to Bald Guy’s next match.

Almost no one noticed the tattoo near Lin Jing’s chest.

At that moment, Jiang Ye also looked away.

Inside, a sense of urgency welled up—

He had to intercept Lin Jing’s Quick Battle streak before Bald Guy did.

But Lin Jing had many tricks, so to be safe, he should probably use a Shadow Curse to seal Lin Jing’s Glyph Pattern ability.

So, back to the same question—

The Shadow Puppet had to be cultivated fast!

Just then, his main body also got some info from the Blackened Replica about Blackened Crow Blood.

So-called Blackened Crow Blood was actually a blanket term.

In essence, it came in two types.

One was what Jiang Ye understood—blood from a Blackened Crow.

The other was regular crow blood that had been processed to turn black.

So one was a blackened crow, and the other was blackened blood.

In the Doomsday Apartment, Blackened Crows were very rare.

So most of the stuff on the market was the artificially blackened kind.

That version could be called synthetic Blackened Crow Blood.

And compared to the natural kind, the artificial version was definitely weaker.

For example, the kind described in the Void Mirror Palace that affected Light-type abilities by default—it was the synthetic version.

The pure natural kind had stronger effects.

It could basically nullify any Light-type ability below S-tier.

Even for Light abilities above S-tier, it still caused some kind of corruption.

But exactly what kind of corruption—it was unclear.

Because both S-tier and above Light abilities and the natural Blackened Crow Blood were extremely rare.

Rare + rare = ultra rare.

So cases like that were practically nonexistent in the Doomsday Apartment.

Which is why even the Blackened Replica couldn’t say for sure.

Light-type was rare, but Dark-type wasn’t.

So when it came to the use of Blackened Crow Blood on Dark-type beings, the Blackened Replica did have more to share.

First, Glyph Pattern abilities—if paired with Blackened Crow Blood, had a high chance of evolving into a stronger form.

Like the Fleshweaving ability the Blackened Replica had—it could be affected in its second tier by Blackened Crow Blood.

Dark-type abilities could also mutate under the effects of the blood.

Usually becoming stronger—but not always.

Of course, the influence of Blackened Crow Blood on Dark types was generally positive, but using it did come with risks and side effects.

First off, there was a chance of losing sanity when using Blackened Crow Blood.

Especially the artificial version—pretty high odds of going nuts.

Like zombies.

Zombies were stronger than regular people, but no sane person would want to become a mindless zombie.

So except for a few psychos, very few people used artificial Blackened Crow Blood to boost their Dark-type abilities.

Another side effect—was being haunted by misfortune.

But as they say, misfortune and fortune go hand in hand.

Some people crumbled fast under bad luck.

Others, though, actually grew stronger through it.

So this so-called luck or misfortune… kinda depended on the person.

Jiang Ye wasn’t even sure if his blood really counted as Blackened Crow Blood.

But it was definitely… pretty damn black.

Suddenly, he looked at the Blackened Replica and said seriously:

“I remember you told me before—”

“That if you followed me, you’d get stronger…”

The Blackened Replica had indeed said that, and nodded solemnly.

Right after, Jiang Ye gave him a ghostly stare and suddenly said:

“Wanna… drink my blood?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep