From the moment Shiori encountered those three human horrors, Lin Xian had sensed something unusual. The anomalous radiation caused by the Oceanic Titan covered an extremely wide area. Since yesterday until now, they had only encountered members of the Falcon Sea Group and that mysterious Sanctum organization on the island. He had prepared for possible attacks last night, but nothing happened throughout the night.
After encountering Laine's group, Lin Xian realized the abnormal entities gathering in the waters near Haiyan Island were likely directly related to him. He had already made preparations for this scenario. If the Descendants faction targeted Lin Xian after the Sword Bearer incident, the Phoenix Society would undoubtedly focus their efforts here, as it might confirm Ye Lan and Lin Xian's suspicions—that the consciousness of the dark civilization was using the Descendants faction to oppose humanity!
Thus, Lin Xian paid close attention to information about this Sanctum organization. His drones had deployed surveillance devices across many areas of the island, both for security defense and to track other personnel moving about the island.
After the radiation-laden storm passed, signals from surveillance devices in large areas gradually reconnected. Lin Xian rushed over at high speed with KIKI and Shiori, learning en route from Monica and Ning Jing that this group belonged to the Sanctum organization. They had engaged in combat after being detected by Monica's ability during their retreat, then were caught in a pincer attack by Ning Jing and Qian Dele's squad, sparking a full-scale battle.
From their panicked retreat, it seemed the Oceanic Titan's appearance had also taken the Sanctum organization by surprise. But now Lin Xian understood—the floating island, the underwater monstrosity, the migrating giant starfish, and other abnormal entities were likely gathering here due to some artificial influence. With the orbital network down, letting these people escape would leave them trapped on the island in passive defense. So Lin Xian used his drone swarm and Shiori's perception to remotely locate their position and struck with lightning speed!
Lin Xian immediately dropped a ten-thousand-ton ship from the sky without giving them any chance to react, as Shiori had already warned him—these two individuals emitted extremely high ability fluctuations. Remembering how Vanessa's combat power had multiplied after crystal lattice enhancement, Lin Xian didn't dare be careless. If they were dealing with ability users exceeding ten thousand peak value, this would be troublesome.
The man looked up at the oppressive shadow and his expression changed instantly. He shouted coldly: "Scatter!"
As he spoke, a strange silver pocket watch appeared in his hand. The moment it was revealed, a powerful dark invasive force and strange gravitational field erupted instantly.
Lin Xian reacted immediately: "Forbidden artifact! KIKI, grab him!"
"Got it!" KIKI shot up from the street below, suppressing the others while using her telekinesis to restrain the middle-aged man. But facing KIKI's telekinetic grip, the man solemnly opened the pocket watch—and in the next instant, his entire body became transparent ripples before vanishing on the spot.
"Disappeared?" KIKI gasped in shock as Lin Xian's voice came from behind:
The leader in dark gold power armor erupted with crimson energy and charged directly at KIKI.
A kinetic cannon beam shot past KIKI's ear, hitting something mid-air. The man materialized from the dust cloud, and KIKI instinctively pushed him away with telekinesis just before the massive ship came crashing down.
Instantly, the sky-obscuring ship smashed down, burying several people beneath it. The ship's bulbous bow crushed the building's rooftop and upper floors completely, followed by a tremendous metallic groan as the entire structure began collapsing, sending dust exploding in all directions!
Lin Xian's expression darkened as he saw the two leaders—one had broken free from KIKI's telekinesis and vanished, while the other was crushed beneath. That object in the middle-aged man's hand was undoubtedly a forbidden artifact—capable of making him disappear into thin air. Did it share properties with his Flickering Bullet?
Just then, Shiori's voice came through his earpiece: "Lin Xian, be careful! An energy signature is approaching you!"
Lin Xian stood still as dust swirled around him. At that moment, a ghostly figure appeared behind him—the man in dark gold exoskeleton power armor, his face cold and stern as he raised his left hand toward Lin Xian.
A plane of energy resembling an air wall flashed before his palm, then violently expanded into a massive cube that launched a high-temperature impact within milliseconds. With a sharp sound, the spot where Lin Xian stood and the rooftop behind him shattered instantly, as if precisely sliced by a square shockwave. The building behind showed razor-sharp impact marks, while concrete fragments around Lin Xian turned to powder at the epicenter.
Yet Lin Xian seemed unaffected at ground zero. Seeing the faint hexagonal force field shield around him, the man frowned: "An energy shield this dense? This far exceeds your ability peak!"
Lin Xian glanced sideways and smiled faintly: "Don't even understand this? Your master isn't so all-knowing after all."
The man's expression twisted with rage: "Blasphemy against the master! You deserve death!"
His power armor joints erupted with blinding arcs as crimson energy coursed through the armor like blood vessels. Crushing the ground beneath him, he became a blur charging forward, his fist carrying an ultra-compressed air cannon aimed at Lin Xian's face to break through the defense field.
Lin Xian wouldn't just stand there letting him test the shield's limits. His right hand clenched mid-air—
The AT force field materialized into a translucent prism blocking the fist. When the two energies collided, air within a kilometer radius was instantly vacuumed out, the shockwave shattering all nearby windows. Recognizing this as some kind of energy-gathering or resonance ability with extreme burst damage, Lin Xian simultaneously activated an oscillation electric field. Crackling arcs exploded radially from his body, completely engulfing the man.
Caught off guard by Lin Xian's versatile attacks, the man was swallowed by the electric storm. His power armor developed glowing perforations from multiple arc strikes, systems blaring alarms. In that instant, a high-speed sonic boom detonated—before he could react, a black torrent of Iron Rain drones smashed him through multiple floors. Pulse lasers from the Thunderhawk drone swarm followed relentlessly, allowing no breathing room.
"KIKI, leave one alive."
After suppressing that target, Lin Xian looked across to see KIKI using telekinesis to crush several Sanctum soldiers along with their power armor. He immediately called out:
KIKI had already prepared—after dealing with the grunts, her VK Electric Blade swarm began scouring the toppled ship wreckage for the middle-aged man. But he'd vanished completely, untraceable even to Shiori's senses. His presence had disappeared from the entire collapsed building.
Just then, an eerie fluctuation came from the old building beneath Lin Xian. Reacting instantly, he energy-jumped several hundred meters away—right before the upper dozen floors of the building he'd been standing on were violently blasted skyward by a tremendous shockwave. The reinforced concrete structure became flying debris like fireworks. The man in dark gold power armor rose from the shattered fault line, tearing off his half-destroyed faceplate to reveal a sinister young face.
"Impressive. Worthy of being the Phoenix Society's Sword Bearer." The man looked at distant Lin Xian with a deceptively mild smile: "I'm curious—why would the Phoenix Society send such important personnel through oceanic routes to die without even completing your crystal lattice evolution? Are you just bait?"