Outside, at this moment, two heavy armored vehicles were rumbling loudly; dozens of guards in lead-gray armor had formed a semi-circular formation surrounding the smithy, their pitch-black gun barrels pointing straight at him.
Thuong Sinh stepped out of the blacksmith shop, his gaze cold, scanning the encircling formation without a shred of fear.
The commander stood atop the lead vehicle, adjusting the infrared goggles on his helmet, his voice broadcasting through a loudspeaker distorted by electronic static:
"Target confirmed!"
"It is this black-haired male and the woman with him who caused chaos on the Top Floor. Listen to the order: these two are extremely dangerous; if they take any resistive action, you are authorized to open fire and eliminate them on the spot!"
As it turned out, though their identities were not yet known, the images of Thuong Sinh and Lam Thanh Moc had been distributed throughout the city by the Top Floor's surveillance system. They only knew these were two "terrorists" who had just escaped the Battalion Commander's hands, and a report of a strange energy emitting from Forge No. 7 had led them here.
Thuong Sinh said not a word; his hand resting on the fabric-wrapped sword hilt suddenly tightened.
"Phantom Steps"
Whoosh!
The moment the commander finished speaking, Thuong Sinh's figure suddenly blurred. The heavy machine gun barrels began to spit fire frantically, but the lead bullets could only pierce through his afterimages before embedding into the steel walls of the smithy, creating a spray of sparks.
"Where is he?" the commander roared in terror, swinging the vehicle's turret gun aimlessly.
Slash—!
A cold, purple-black streak of light tore through the coal-dust mist.
Thuong Sinh appeared right on the roof of the second armored vehicle. The fabric-wrapped sword had not yet been fully revealed, but a surge of toxic blade-force had already pierced through the cloth, severing the machine gun barrel and the gunner's head.
Blood sprayed out, but before it could touch the ground, it was corroded into pungent smoke by the black aura from Thuong Sinh's body.
"Fire! Fire now! He's on the vehicle!"
The guards turned their guns in panic, but Thuong Sinh vanished once again. He glided through the enemy formation like a true ghost. Everywhere he passed, a "Puk" sound echoed; though the cloth wrapping around the blade had not been removed, the power and toxins radiating from the Marsh-Blood Sword were enough to render the lead-gray steel armor useless.
The soldiers he glided past did not die instantly from their wounds; instead, their flesh began to turn deep purple, their veins bulged pitch-black, and they collapsed in agonizing pain.
"Monster... he is a monster!"
The commander in the first vehicle intended to reverse and flee, but Thuong Sinh was already standing right before the vehicle's nose. He slowly drew the sword from its fabric wrapping.
The deep black blade with purple-red veins glowed brightly, reflecting his emotionless eyes. He swung the sword, a deep purple crescent sweeping through the air.
Boom—!
The thick steel of the armored vehicle was split in two like a piece of tofu. A violent explosion erupted from the fuel tank, the rising flames dyeing a corner of the forge district red.
In less than three minutes, the powerful encircling army was left as nothing more than piles of flaming scrap metal and mangled corpses. Thuong Sinh stood amidst the pool of blood, the sword in his hand vibrating slightly as if savoring its first feast of blood essence since being reforged.
He turned his head back to the forge, where Lam Thanh Moc was helping the teenager walk out. Their gazes met amidst the screen of smoke and fire.
"Let's go," Thuong Sinh said in a deep voice.
Thuong Sinh did not turn to flee toward the city gates as would be expected. He looked up at the skyscrapers of the Top Floor glowing with warning lights, where hundreds of reinforcements were pouring down like ants.
"What do you plan to do?" Lam Thanh Moc was astonished to see that Thuong Sinh wasn't heading for an exit but was staring fixedly back at the central elevator shaft—the one he had partially destroyed.
"The most dangerous place is the safest place." Thuong Sinh tightened his grip on the sword hilt, his glowing purple-black eyes looking up. "They think we will flee the city. But I will go back right under their feet."
Lam Thanh Moc nodded.
Thuong Sinh knew well that at this moment, all the guards on the lower floors would be pouring toward the exits and the waste areas to block the way. Meanwhile, the central administration area that had just been swept would have a temporary defensive gap, as they believed no madman would return to the enemy's lair.
"Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual: Great Poison Domain"
Thuong Sinh placed the Marsh-Blood Sword at his hip, approached to hold Lam Thanh Moc's waist, and hoisted the other boy over his shoulder. A deep purple black aura enveloped his surroundings, enough to wrap all three of them into a blurred pocket of space, merging completely with the black smoke of the vehicle explosion.
He, Lam Thanh Moc, and the teenager became a blurred black streak lunging back into the heart of the industrial zone. Instead of using the elevator, he used the Marsh-Blood Sword to stab into the metallic walls, gliding through massive ventilation pipes that were filled with toxic chemical waste.
What was death to others was the perfect camouflage for Thuong Sinh. After only ten minutes of frantic movement, they were at the Underground Energy Storage Room right beneath the Speaker's mansion. The place held massive lead tanks and the roar of machinery, completely concealing all sound.
Thuong Sinh set the two down, his breathing slightly hurried. He signaled Lam Thanh Moc to take the teenager into a hidden corner behind the storage tanks.
"We will rest here," Thuong Sinh sat down cross-legged. "We will act only when they have scoured the entire city outside and found nothing."
Thuong Sinh sat cross-legged amidst the darkness of the massive lead tanks; the machinery roaring around them served as a perfect shell for their presence. He took a deep breath, sensing the pungent chemical exhaust in the underground room being transformed into internal force by the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual", seeping into every aching meridian.
Beside him, Lam Thanh Moc also closed her eyes to rest, her skin gradually regaining a bit of color thanks to her plant-based self-recovery ability. As for the teenager, after taking the pill, he had fallen into a deep sleep.
"The Top Floor..." Thuong Sinh muttered.
If the words of the blue-clad male shackled in the cellar were true, the "brains" were taken to the Top Floor to operate systems and research weapons. Although he had just caused a commotion in one corner of the Top Floor, that was only the administrative and outer guard area. The Speaker's true lair, where technical talents like his brother were held, must be deep within the tower's core or in laboratories he had not yet reached.
"Brother... surely you still have utility value to them," Thuong Sinh told himself. He knew he couldn't be hasty. If he charged single-handedly into the Top Floor core again before recovering, it would be no different from suicide and would drag Lam Thanh Moc to her death as well.
He had to get these two out of here first; only when Lam Thanh Moc and the boy were sent to a safe place could he return here without distraction to level this Top Floor.
Suddenly, from the piping system above their heads, the city's public address system rang out, the Speaker's tone now carrying madness: "Seal all exits! Activate Level 5 biometric sensors! Find their corpses! If they are not found, burn the entire Bottom Floor slums to the ground!"
Lam Thanh Moc startled awake, her worried gaze turning toward Thuong Sinh: "They intend to massacre the Bottom Floor?"
Thuong Sinh replied coldly: "That is how they force us to reveal ourselves."
He stood up, the power in his body having recovered seventy percent. He approached a tattered technical schematic discarded in the corner of the underground room. His eyes stopped at a massive waste discharge pipe connecting directly from this energy core to the outside of the city's cliffs. A place even they wouldn't expect because the radiation levels there were too high.
"We will go this way," Thuong Sinh pointed at the schematic.
Thuong Sinh approached the door separating them from the discharge pipe. It was a thick alloy block, its surface marred with blue-gray rust from being corroded by high-concentration chemicals. He sensed the violent vibrations from the other side of the pressure door—tons of waste waiting to erupt.
"Fall back."
He didn't choose to open the door conventionally because a sudden pressure change would trigger the central control's alarm system. He needed a discreet passage, a "loophole" outside the control of machinery.
Thuong Sinh drew the Marsh-Blood Sword. The pitch-black blade began to vibrate as black aura from his hand transmitted into the sword body. He didn't strike hard but slowly thrust the sword tip into the center of the door.
Sizzle—! Sizzle—!
The heat from his toxic internal force combined with the sharpness of the Marsh-Blood Sword caused the alloy to begin melting. He utilized extreme poison to corrode the metal instead of using raw strength. He spun his wrist in a circle, the blade gliding as if cutting through mud.
Crack—!
A circular block of steel fell, but immediately, Thuong Sinh used his left hand to unleash a surge of suppressing black aura to prevent the toxic contents inside from gushing out too quickly.
"Go fast! I will hold the pressure!"
The opening was just large enough for one person to crawl through. Lam Thanh Moc understood; she quickly helped the teenager into the pitch-black pipe, which reeked of the pungent stench of chemicals. Once the two were in a safe position, Thuong Sinh slipped through, simultaneously swinging his hand to control his toxic internal force to solidify, temporarily sealing the hole from the inside.
Inside the discharge pipe was an entirely different world—dark, damp, and filled with lethal toxic fumes. But to Thuong Sinh, this was a sacred land. He felt his body frantically absorbing the surrounding toxins, compensating for the internal force he had just consumed.
"Stay close to me; we will slide down this flow to exit the city cliffs."
"Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual: Great Poison Domain"
He used this technique again to envelop all three of them; the three began sliding down the steep pipe at once, heading straight toward the light outside the sheer cliffs of Iron City.
Splash—!
After a long slide, the three were ejected from the massive discharge mouth suspended mid-cliff. Looking down, the pool of chemical sludge was bubbling with gas—a death trap that could melt the flesh of any ordinary person in an instant.
"Sword Kinesis: Gale Transformation"
The Marsh-Blood Sword flew beneath his feet; he caught the two while flying. Under the pressure of protecting two people at once, Thuong Sinh concentrated all the internal force he had just absorbed from the pipe into the sword.
A deep purple toxic surge transformed into a thick air cushion enveloping the sword. Instead of falling into the sludge pool, the three were like they were riding a black dragon, gliding across the toxic surface at a terrifying speed.
Whoosh—!
The sword carried them leaping across the swampland, landing on a high and dry rock ledge far from Iron City's contaminated zone.
Upon landing, Thuong Sinh retracted the sword; his whole body staggered, and a streak of black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Forcing the Sword Kinesis to carry two people was too great a burden for his current cultivation.
"You... are you okay?" Lam Thanh Moc hurried to support him, her eyes filled with horror mixed with admiration. She knew that without that move, she and the boy would no longer be whole.
Thuong Sinh leaned against the rock wall, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. He waved his hand to signal Lam Thanh Moc that he was fine, then slowly sat cross-legged to recover the chaotic internal force in his meridians.
Thuong Sinh looked back. Under the night sky, Iron City appeared like a giant metallic beast; the lights from the watchtowers swept continuously across the sky, but they only focused on the city gates and the waste area below. Not a soul inside suspected someone had dared to forcibly exit through that lethal toxic sewer. Silence enveloped the space, leaving only the sound of wind whistling through.
Lam Thanh Moc let out a long sigh of relief; she sat flat beside him, saying nothing as she looked toward the horizon. Thuong Sinh at this moment was focused on circulating the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual". Although the surrounding environment lacked the concentrated toxins of the pipe, the air here was naturally heavily polluted by radioactive dust and chemicals. To an ordinary person, this was a harsh environment, but to Thuong Sinh, every toxic molecule in the wind was a medicinal spirit helping him recover.
"We need to find a shelter before dawn," Thuong Sinh opened his eyes; the purple-black light in his pupils had stabilized. "This city will soon realize we are missing from the discharge system."
He stood up, looking toward the black forest—an area full of mutated plants not far from the cliff. That was where Lam Thanh Moc's wood-type ability could maximize its effect for concealment.
"Thanh Moc, do you have enough strength to hide our tracks as we enter the forest?"
Lam Thanh Moc nodded slightly; she stood up, her slender hands vibrating slightly, causing the dry grass sprouts beneath her feet to grow long to erase the footprints and black bloodstains Thuong Sinh had just left on the stone.
He wore the Marsh-Blood Sword back at his hip, one hand carrying the still-unconscious teenager, leading the way into the deep darkness of the mutated forest.
The deeper they went into the mutated forest, the more bizarre and eerie the scenery became. Pitch-black tree trunks twisted like demon arms reaching out. Thorny vines, bright red as if filled with blood, occasionally moved slightly as if searching for prey. This place was naturally a dead zone for anyone from Iron City who dared to set foot here. Lethal fungal spores floated in the air, and carnivorous plants hidden under layers of rotted leaves were ready to swallow any stranger.
Yet, to Thuong Sinh and Lam Thanh Moc, this was a perfect natural fortress.
"Don't step on that purple carpet of grass," Lam Thanh Moc whispered.
She could sense which surrounding plants were harmful; she didn't know their names or what to call them, but she could sense their spirituality. Thanks to the sharpness of a Wood-type ability user, she was like a skilled guide, pointing out safe paths for Thuong Sinh amidst the lethal labyrinth. Thuong Sinh followed, carrying the teenager with one hand and resting the other on his sword hilt.
Thuong Sinh sensed that this forest contained a massive amount of natural toxins, causing the black shell around his heart to vibrate incessantly with excitement.
After several hours of winding through the thickets, the two set foot in a fairly large clearing deep in the forest's center. This place was surrounded by sheer cliffs and mutated ancient trees tens of meters tall, their canopy so dense it completely obscured the view from above for drone squadrons.
"We will stay here," Thuong Sinh spoke; his voice wasn't loud, but in this space, it echoed everywhere. "They cannot find their way here." "Even with radar scans, the mutated plants here will completely jam their signals."
Lam Thanh Moc breathed a sigh of relief; she looked around the clearing and smiled: "I can use my ability to stimulate the great trees to form a sturdy treehouse. We will stay here for a while to recover and train."
Thanh Moc knelt, her hands touching the ground. Under her control, massive tree roots from the earth began to rise, intertwining to form the frame of a solid house. The canopy above also automatically wove together to form a roof protecting against rain and radioactive dust.
Thuong Sinh placed the teenager inside the newly formed treehouse. He stepped to the edge of the clearing, looking at the dense trees outside. He used the Marsh-Blood Sword to lightly chop down several pieces of steel-hard timber. He gathered them into a large pile in the middle of the clearing. Then he took a lighter from the small pouch on his back.
Whoosh!
The fire erupted, its brilliant orange light dispelling the gloom and chill of the mutated forest. White smoke coiled up. At this deep and remote distance, the firelight was no more than a small speck of light amidst this dark forest, completely undetectable from the direction of Iron City.
Lam Thanh Moc stepped out from the treehouse, carrying several types of wild fruit she had checked and purified of toxins using her ability. She sat beside the fire, feeling the warmth.
"It has been so long since I've seen such a peaceful fire," she said softly, her eyes reflecting the flames.
Thuong Sinh sat cross-legged opposite her; he stabbed the sword into the ground, beginning to use the fire's heat to dry the sword's fabric wrapping, which was soaked with water vapor and chemicals.
"Rest," Thuong Sinh said neutrally. "The kid will wake soon. We need him to recover to learn more about what happened at the forge before we arrived."
That night, while Lam Thanh Moc slept near the fire, Thuong Sinh sat motionless as a statue, circulating the "Marsh Blood Corrupting Heart Manual". Waves of deep purple internal force circulated through his acupoints, healing the damage to his meridians from the previous forced sword-flight.
The natural environment, while lacking the concentrated toxins of that city, had a strange balance that helped his internal force become more refined and stable.