Chapter 38: Gradual Emergence

"Yaoguang, I really want to thank you for today." After they walked out of Gourmet House, Su Yaoyu expressed her thanks with genuine sincerity.

Su Yaoxue and Ran Qiu followed behind. Compared to Su Yaoxue's constant, curious glances, Ran Qiu covered her face, feeling too embarrassed to look up. After what she had done earlier, she could no longer maintain a pure and adorable image in front of Yaoguang.

"Let's eat." Yaoguang did not say much.

"I'll bring everyone to a new place," Su Yaoyu said as she signaled for Caiyun to drive.

"Let's go to Deyue Tower, near my company. It's my treat," Su Yaoxue said. She also turned to Yaoguang. "Thank you."

Yaoguang gave a small nod, accepting her gratitude.

"Are the Ye family people still harassing you?" Su Yaoyu leaned closer and whispered.

"It's fine. Just a minor inconvenience," Su Yaoxue replied, remaining calm.

"Why didn't you tell the family about this?" Su Yaoyu asked.

Su Yaoxue glanced at her.

We are both essentially children without mothers. Whether it's my own mother, or Su Yaoshuang and Su Yaoqin's mothers, all of them had children with Su Huaifeng in exchange for money. Marrying into a wealthy family and becoming a rich family's madam? That was wishful thinking.

Before his illness, Su Huaifeng was still lying on the bellies of multiple women. In a sense, we are all children who have no parents. We have no one to rely on. After the broken engagement with the Ye family damaged family interests, the Family Laws Hall not punishing me harshly has already been the best possible outcome. Asking the Su family for help? Keep on dreaming.

But she did not say any of this aloud. She only said quietly, "I can handle it myself."

"These days, Director Zhang has been teaming up with Director Wei and Director Yan. They keep trying to overstep their boundaries, stirring up problems everywhere. Grandfather has been very busy. When things settle down, I'll talk to him for you," Su Yaoyu whispered.

"Zhang Yushu is the younger brother of the commissioner's wife at Tiannan's Development Bureau. With the Ye family and our competitor, the Shen family, taking the chance to push us down, on top of the possibility of someone with an even higher profile directing things from behind the scenes, getting the Buzhou Group through this isn't going to be easy," Su Yaoxue said, shaking her head.

"Grandfather will think of something," Su Yaoyu said.

Su Yaoxue did not continue arguing, as she knew it was meaningless. She simply needed to manage her company well and leave a retreat path for their small branch of the family.

They soon departed in three cars, heading toward Deyue Tower, which Su Yaoxue had mentioned as their destination. But after driving for only a short while, Yaoguang suddenly said, "Turn here. To the right."

Lei Yun did not understand why, but didn't question him. She immediately turned the wheel. Yaoguang took out his phone and sent a message to Su Yaoyu, telling her that he had forgotten something and that she should go ahead with the others.

After the vehicle turned, they arrived at a quiet, secluded alley.

"Stop," Yaoguang said.

"Young Master..." By now, relying on her experience, Lei Yun had sensed something. A car had followed them here.

"Wait in the car," Yaoguang instructed. He stepped out and walked into the depths of the alley, disappearing into the darkness.

The car behind them paused. A man in his thirties stepped out and followed at an unhurried pace.

Lei Yun saw this and wanted to get out immediately, but recalling her young master's instructions, she forced herself to remain seated. She raised her vigilance to the maximum, staring at the alley. At the slightest sign of danger, she would rush in without hesitation.

***

"You're brave," the man said as he walked into the alley and saw the young man standing not far ahead, as if waiting for him.

"The voice doesn't match," Yaoguang said.

Back at Yulong International, he had heard an old man's voice.

The main culprit still hasn't come in person, huh?

"Su Yaoguang, born in 999. Father, Su Huaifeng; mother, Zhang Ya. Raised by Su Anping. Received a good education but performed poorly. Mediocre grades, messy life... Then you suddenly rose out of nowhere last year, with your Martial Dao progressing at lightning speed..." The man stared at him. "Which sect are you from? Name yourself."

"And what sect are you from?" Yaoguang countered calmly.

"Don't want to say it? Or are you a rogue cultivator...? Forget it... You don't carry our qi, so you clearly aren't one of us. It doesn't matter where you come from. Once I kill you, I'll naturally get the information I want."

His body began to distort openly, beginning to daemonify...

"To force our leader to put down everything and send me to kill you personally, consider it an hon—"

His figure sliced through the air before he even finished speaking.

Sensing that this daemon intended to reveal its true form without restraint, Yaoguang immediately erupted with all his strength. He knew very well that once a daemon exposed its true form, the difficulty of the fight would instantly jump by an entire level.

"How bold!" The man's gaze turned vicious. His fully daemonified right hand shot forward, grabbing straight at Yaoguang's head. The air tore around his strike, the burst of jin vibrating violently...

Yaoguang realized something.

He is definitely more than a mere grandmaster! A martial paragon! If this daemon fully manifests its fiendish body, it can absolutely unleash martial-paragon-tier strength. When that happens, one grab will crush my skull as easily as pinching a chick to death.

No! Power is not the only danger. This grab also carries a level of Martial Dao mastery far beyond a grandmaster. Even judged among martial paragons, it ranks as outstanding.

This one grab created a world within its palm and sealed every path I could use to evade. No matter where I move, the claw can shift precisely and track my escape route, closing in on my head and crushing my skull.

Yet, even when faced with such exquisite and unfathomably refined technique, Yaoguang needed no time to think.

Being a peak grandmaster, with progress already pushed to 85% toward the martial paragon realm, allowed him to think of more than a dozen counter-techniques in just an instant.

And he chose the most efficient, the most dangerous, and the most violent option.

With the daemonized arm slashing toward him and his own speed already pushed to its limit, he suddenly accelerated again, his figure becoming even faster.

Relying only on this desperate surge in power, he forcefully broke through every seal and transition contained within that grab.

Long before he had condensed his third-tier Dao Fruit, he had already comprehended core jin. Now, as he charged at full speed, core jin erupted throughout his body. It felt as though a furnace had been ignited inside him, pouring boundless strength into every part of his frame. His qi and blood surged so fiercely they nearly burst out from within.

Had someone been able to see through his clothes at this moment, they would have noticed that his entire body was red like a boiled lobster. It was the sign of qi and blood pushed to its absolute limit.

He didn't just push his speed to the utmost with core jin, but in the instant their figures were about to collide, the Chengying Sword in his hand shot out like lightning.

The already transparent, feather-light Chengying Sword, empowered by the Formless secret technique, moved like a phantom. It far surpassed the limits of human vision.

The moment the sword thrust forward, his organs resonated in unison. Jin surged through the blade, making the sword edge vibrate at an impossibly high frequency.

It was the Signless Five Elements! The sudden, violent change shattered the enemy's attack rhythm entirely.

Although his reaction speed was astonishing and his sensory acuity far surpassed that of a grandmaster, his arrogance in insisting he would crush Yaoguang's skull prevented him from completing the next transition smoothly. By the time he locked onto the formless and traceless Chengying Sword, its tip was already inches from his throat.

"Audacious!" The man—who had not fully daemonified yet—widened his eyes. His previously black-and-white pupils had turned blood-red without Yaoguang noticing, as if containing endless nightmares.

Just one glance made Yaoguang feel as though his entire mind was being dragged inside, plunging him into an infinite nightmare.

Before the icy terror could spread through his limbs, the vast knowledge of the Martial Dao he had accumulated thanks to the ancient tree in his mental world allowed him to understand what he was facing.

Psychic strike! I have been hit with a psychic-will attack!

Psychic will was a power that only peak fourth-tier experts and formal fifth-tier experts could truly master!

Just as core jin was the threshold from the third tier to the fourth tier, psychic will was the essential requirement to step from the fourth tier to the fifth tier.

This is bad!

Yaoguang snapped out of the psychic will attack instantly.

Yet in the brief moment he had been stunned, the daemonized man had already grasped the Chengying Sword that was about to pierce his throat with absolute precision. Restrictive force locked the blade completely, preventing it from advancing even a single centimeter.

He formed a sword with his left fingers and thrust straight at Yaoguang's heart. The cruel smile on his face made it clear he intended to pierce Yaoguang's body, rip out his heart, and crush it.

Life and death balanced on a single breath. The Chengying Sword, held nearly immobile in the daemon's iron grip, suddenly trembled violently.

It was Star Ignition. The human body possessed seven apertures aligned with the nine stars, and Star Ignition was a forbidden technique that stimulated the body's deepest potential, unleashing strength far beyond its limits!

As the forbidden technique activated, Yaoguang's body appeared to break through some natural restraint, as if his subconscious removed all protective limits. Every ounce of strength was focused into a single point and poured into the sword for a lethal strike.

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Empowered by this surge, the Chengying Sword that had been trapped immovably tore free from the daemonized claw and thrust forward with unstoppable ferocity.

The sword pierced straight through the man's throat, and blood sprayed from the wound. Explosive jin shattered his cervical vertebrae and drove the blade out through the back of his neck.

A beat later, Yaoguang's body convulsed violently. A torrent of fierce, savage power erupted from the man's chest wound, blasting outward and nearly tearing Yaoguang apart.

Without hesitation, he retreated explosively. It was as if he had been blasted away, sliding back two meters before taking four more steps and crashing heavily into a wall.

He redirected the invading jin, cracking the wall behind him instantly and sending stone chippings scattering.

This was the result of using an exquisitely refined technique to divert the jin that had invaded his body as soon as he could.

Fortunately, by the time the blow struck him, the Chengying Sword had already severed the daemon's cervical nerves, causing it to lose control of most of its body. Because of that, the jin striking him had already weakened significantly, allowing him just enough time to endure and use the wall to unload the remainder.

Otherwise, this strike would have torn open his chest, snapped his ribs, and pulverized his organs, leaving him dead on the spot.

A difference of only half a second, and life and death reversed places.