novelraw Chapter 221: Minor Detail on the Greater Good
Chapter 221: Minor Detail on the Greater Good
The Winchester in William's hand slipped powerlessly to the ground. This team shield, who had never retreated even when facing the Swamp Tree Fiend and the Subterranean Giant Eel, had now been defeated by that bizarre three-sectioned staff in the most humiliating manner possible.
One move.
He had used only one move.
Yan Xilou hadn't employed any flashy techniques. With a casual, almost instructional posture, he had effortlessly crushed the strongest defensive bulwark in the squad.
The disparity in strength displayed sent waves of chilling dread through everyone present.
"William!!"
Julian cried out in shock, unable to believe William had been defeated so swiftly.
Scrambling forward, he tried to support his old friend, who was coughing up clots of blood and had lost consciousness.
The moment his body made contact with William's broad back, exposing himself to Yan Xilou's dangerous attack range...
In that instant, a cunning smile utterly at odds with his outward appearance flickered at the corner of Julian's mouth.His left hand, reaching for William's back as if to support him, didn't change its motion at all.
But his right hand, hidden in his sleeve and clutching something, whipped forward with lightning speed.
A palm-sized frosted crystal vial was flung out. It contained a sinister deep purple liquid that churned and surged within like a living creature.
The potion bottle whistled through the air, aimed directly at Yan Xilou's face.
This was Julian's true fighting style. He was a master deceiver, adept at exploiting human psychology, the environment, and his knowledge to set deadly traps for his enemies.
His earlier panicked and grief-stricken cry had been nothing but an act.
He hadn't rushed forward to offer support.
He had done it to create a suitable attack opportunity—one that brought him within striking distance without raising the target's guard.
The potion in Julian's hand, personally concocted by him, was named 【Medusa's Gaze】, inspired by his research on the Petrification Worm.
Once shattered, the high-purity mixture of sulfur lichen and stone lizard extract inside would undergo a spiritual fusion the moment it contacted air.
This would create a terrifying field capable of petrifying flesh and blood into fragile silicon-based statues within three seconds.
It was a desperate counterattack brimming with intelligent courage and lethal conviction.
Yet, faced with this fatal ambush that could turn the tide of battle, Yan Xilou, with his back to the attack, didn't even deign to look at it properly.
His right wrist, having just retracted the 【Nine-Bend Yellow River】, flicked backward with swift precision.
The three-sectioned staff lifted slightly, its force exquisitely controlled.
It gently caught the bottom of the rapidly spinning crystal vial.
The immense kinetic energy the vial possessed, which should have resulted in a violent collision with Yan Xilou's body, was effortlessly dissipated by that seemingly casual tap.
The potion bottle didn't shatter. It didn't slow down.
It merely changed its trajectory.
The dark yellow tip of the staff, utilizing the unique flowing power of the 【Nine-Bend Yellow River】, gave the hard crystal bottle a subtle, guiding nudge.
With this one redirecting motion, the lethal attack was transformed into a harmless near-miss.
The crystal potion vial flew past Yan Xilou's ear.
Under the final dispersing force of that flowing power, the bottle landed on the ground beside them with a soft *plop*, completely intact.
It didn't break. It didn't explode. It produced no effect whatsoever.
Julian's cunning scheme had been defused with such casual, effortless grace.
Only then did Yan Xilou turn an appreciative gaze toward the face of the French scholar, now frozen stiff in place.
"A splendid attempt, Mr. Belloc."
"To remain calm despite a comrade being grievously wounded and on the brink of death, and yourself in a desperate situation, and to conceive a deceptive counterattack plan in an instant..."
"Truly worthy of an outstanding elite graduate of the French Academy."
"A pity, however..."
Yan Xilou shook his head.
"Your intellect is misplaced."
"A true master player does not place their hopes on any single scheme reliant on chance."
"Instead, they use absolute strength to crush all variables upon the board."
On the other side.
After the initial shock and fury, Lin Jie immediately adjusted his mental state to one of absolute calm.
He understood clearly that rage was the most useless and most extravagant emotion in the world at this moment.
The cold, ruthless schemer before him—this compatriot who had been chatting amiably one moment and turned his blade the next—his strength, his intellect, and that Grotesque Armament of his had all exceeded the limits of what their squad could handle.
A direct confrontation meant certain death. Their only hope lay in buying time and searching for a flaw within his seemingly perfect flowing ability.
But Yan Xilou had no intention of giving them any more opportunities. He had no desire to prolong the fight.
After crippling William, the biggest obstacle, with a single strike, he didn't spare another glance for the kneeling, defeated man.
In his eyes, crushing this elite hunter was as insignificant as casually swatting a fly blocking his path.
Yan Xilou turned his gaze toward the elite members of the Eternal Serpent cult, who had also been stunned by his display of power and had ceased firing.
Then, in a tone one would use to command a group of servants, he said calmly, "Dinner time has arrived, and the pre-meal appetizers have been dealt with."
"What happens next here, I leave to you."
"Remember our agreement. Before I retrieve the 【Scales of the Dead】, I do not wish for any uninvited insects to disturb my meal."
The usually unruly elite warriors of the Eternal Serpent, upon hearing Yan Xilou's words filled with insult and command, showed no dissatisfaction on their faces. Instead, they unanimously bowed their heads to him in respect.
It seemed Yan Xilou's status and authority within this "joint expedition team" were far greater than Lin Jie and the others had imagined.
Having received the loyal, obedient response from the cult members, Yan Xilou did not linger.
Leading the few silent, black-clad attendants behind him, he calmly and unhurriedly bypassed the battlefield where Lin Jie and the others stood, heading directly toward the depths of the temple's core.
"Halt!"
Just as Yan Xilou was about to pass by Lin Jie and disappear into the dark passageway...
Lin Jie spoke.
His 【Serene Heart】 had, at some unknown time, been reloaded.
The dark, hollow muzzle was steadily aimed at the center of Yan Xilou's back.
"Before you leave," Lin Jie's voice was icy, "I need an explanation."
Yan Xilou's footsteps stopped, but he did not turn around.
He merely responded calmly in his magnetic voice tinged with a strange amusement, "An explanation? Brother Lin, at our level, do we still need to waste each other's precious time with such deceptive, cheap language?"
"Both you and I understand perfectly well what kind of people we are."
"We are both gamblers willing to pay any price to achieve the goals in our hearts."
"The only difference lies in this—"
Yan Xilou turned halfway.
His deep, pool-like eyes pierced through the dim light, accurately stabbing into the deepest recesses of Lin Jie's heart. The smile at his lips carried mockery.
"Your stakes are too small."
"And your perspective is likewise too narrow."
"Perspective?" Lin Jie's brows knitted tightly together.
"Indeed, perspective." A look of pity appeared in Yan Xilou's eyes.
"You, Brother Lin, everything you do, this 'protection' you speak of—what is its essential nature?"
"You protect the pitiful people around you, bound by the ignorance of their era."
"You do not protect some grand collective, but those insignificant, specific individuals!"
"And this kind of protection," Yan Xilou shook his head, the pity in his eyes growing more profound, "how childish and laughable, how utterly insignificant it is before the truly monumental tide of history!"
"I am different from you."
Yan Xilou's voice began to rise.
"What I seek to steal, to revive, and to protect has never been any specific person!"
"It is that great civilization itself, with its five-thousand-year heritage!"
"For this!"
"For this sublime, greater purpose that renders all sacrifices insignificant!"
"Anyone who stands in the way of this path—be they enemy, friend, innocent bystander, or even compatriots like you—"
"They are nothing but negligible, minor details that can be sacrificed at will!"
This subversive, sophistical, yet seemingly irrefutable declaration of a ruthless schemer echoed across the turbulent sea of Lin Jie's heart.
In this clash of ideologies with his enemy, he felt an indescribable sense of suffocation.
Perhaps Yan Xilou wasn't wrong.
Weighing the life of one person against the survival of an entire civilization—which is heavier?
It is an eternal trolley problem with no correct answer.
And Yan Xilou had long ago, through his actions, provided the most cruel and most efficient answer.
"So, put away your ridiculous anger, Brother Lin."
A gentle, sympathetic smile returned to Yan Xilou's face.
He resembled a mentor delivering a final lesson to a disappointing student.
"Your so-called 'Way of Protection' is far too narrow."
"Once I retrieve the 【Scales of the Dead】, capable of weighing death itself, and fuse it with my Black Lotus Sect's art of nurturing new life through the Living Holy Embryos..."
"I will bring about a top-to-bottom rebirth for our dying homeland!"
After uttering this final "prophecy," Yan Xilou lingered no more.
He turned, leaving his back to Lin Jie, and disappeared into the darkness leading to the temple's core.
He left behind only a scene of devastation and a battlefield torn asunder by faith, ideology, and so-called patriotic, greater purposes.