Chapter 65: The Ultimate Showdown! Corrupted Source Energy

Zhang Nan also frowned. "Brother Xuan, there seems to be... a living person inside."

Li Hexuan did not answer. With a single kick, he directly caved in and deformed the heavy alloy door.

The scene behind the door left everyone momentarily stunned.

The room's decoration was still somewhat luxurious, but the air was thick with a mixed stench of alcohol and decay. A woman was curled up in the corner of the room. Her once-gorgeous dress had become filthy, her hair was disheveled, and her face was haggard and utterly devoid of color, radiating a sense of numbness and emptiness.

Upon seeing Li Hexuan kicking the door open, followed by the heavily armed soldiers behind him, the woman's body shuddered violently.

That numb face first flashed with a trace of extreme terror.

Yet when her gaze swept past Li Hexuan and landed on Su Mengyi—who stood tall and possessed an otherworldly aura right behind him—that terror was instantly replaced by a morbid, twisted jealousy and venom.

It was her! Jia Shuwen!

"Li Hexuan! Su Mengyi!" Jia Shuwen let out a piercing, harsh scream, her voice dry and grating. "It's you! You are the ones who ruined me! If it weren't for you, how could I have ended up like this? You all deserve to die! You all deserve to die!"

She had long since lost her former beauty and arrogance. By Chen Hao's side, she was nothing more than a disposable plaything. When Chen Hao escaped back from Li Hexuan's hands with severe injuries, all his rage and brutality had been vented upon her. She lived worse than a stray dog.

At this moment, she blamed all her misfortune on the two people before her, whose existence drove her mad with jealousy.

On Li Hexuan's face, there was not the slightest ripple of emotion. No anger, no pity, not even a trace of disgust. Only complete, utter indifference. For a woman as thoroughly hopeless as her, he didn't even care to waste a single extra word.

This dismissal drove Jia Shuwen even more insane than any insult could have.

"I won't let you off easily! I'll have Chen Hao kill you! Kill all of you!"

She shrieked, lunging toward a red emergency button on the wall.

It was the mining cavern's highest-level alarm!

Snap!

With all her might, she slammed the button down. The piercing alarm instantly escalated to a new pitch, and red warning lights flashed frantically throughout the entire cavern.

Having done all this, Jia Shuwen collapsed to the ground, a sick, vengeful smile plastered across her face.

Yet from beginning to end, Li Hexuan never even spared her a single glance.

As the alarm sounded, the final defensive forces within the cavern surged in from all directions.

"Open fire!" Canglong issued a concise command.

Instantly, gunfire erupted through the corridor, with source-energy bullets and conventional rounds weaving together into a dense web of death.

Amidst the chaotic exchange, a stray ricochet altered its original trajectory, flying into the lounge with an almost imperceptible sound of breaking air, spinning as it went.

Pfft.

The smile on Jia Shuwen's face abruptly froze.

She looked down in disbelief at her own chest. A bloody hole was continuously spewing fresh blood, rapidly staining her filthy dress.

Her life force was draining away at a terrifying speed. Endless regret and resentment flooded her consciousness. She seemed to want to say something, but in the end, she only let out a rattling "gurgle" before collapsing to the floor, falling completely silent.

This woman, who had once betrayed her companions and switched sides depending on the wind, ultimately died neither at the hands of the protagonist nor under the torture of the villain, but in a crossfire that had nothing to do with her, perishing from an insignificant stray bullet.

How utterly ironic.

Li Hexuan's footsteps strode past her corpse without a moment's hesitation.

His entire attention was already locked onto the end of the corridor: a massive alloy door radiating an evil and ominous aura beneath the pulsing red warning lights.

Chen Hao was inside.

Boom—!!!

That massive gate, crafted from special alloy and sturdy enough to withstand heavy artillery fire, caved inward and twisted like paper under Li Hexuan's single kick, before being blasted clean off its hinges by an irresistible, overwhelming force!

The heavy barrier tumbled through the air with a shrill whistle, violently crashing into the darkness at the end of the corridor.

The scene behind the door suddenly opened up.

This was no longer a narrow mining tunnel.

It was an unimaginably massive underground karst cave.

The cavern's dome was so high its ceiling was invisible, with colossal stone stalactites and stalagmites hanging downward like the teeth of some mythological giant.

And right in the absolute center of the cavern stood a gigantic altar constructed from some unknown black stone.

The altar's structure was bizarre and ominous, carved all over with twisted symbols representing the "Abyss," much like those found on the predator totem poles. Those symbols seemed endowed with life, slowly writhing under the dim light and exuding a soul-crushing, evil aura.

A slender figure stood quietly at the very peak of the altar.

It was Chen Hao.

The black windbreaker he wore was already tattered beyond recognition, his face was bruised, and dried blood still stained the corner of his mouth, making him look utterly disheveled.

Yet his expression was one of a feverish, manic euphoria.

"Heh... Heh-heh... Hahahahaha!"

Seeing Li Hexuan's figure appear, Chen Hao first chuckled softly, then burst into loud laughter that echoed through the empty cavern, brimming with a morbid sense of gratification.

"Li Hexuan! You're finally here! I've waited for you for a long time!"

His gaze swept past Li Hexuan, spotting Zhang Nan behind him, as well as the soldiers of the Dragon Tooth Special Task Force and the Thor Guard, and the mockery on his face deepened.

"Bringing so many people with you? Trying to build up your courage?"

The intense beam of Canglong's tactical flashlight instantly stabbed toward the altar.

In the center of the beam, everyone clearly saw what was floating above the altar.

It was a source crystal.

Roughly the size of a fist, it was a profound black throughout, as if capable of swallowing all light.

Yet it was unlike any black source crystal Li Hexuan had ever seen.

Its surface was entwined with wisps of visible, pus-like, viscous black Qi. That black Qi was riddled with corrosiveness and contamination; wherever it passed, even the space itself hissed with decay, growing intensely unstable.

A contaminated king-grade source crystal!

Li Hexuan's heart sank heavily.

"Welcome to my 'Abyss Altar'!" Chen Hao spread his arms wide, acting like an actor taking a final bow on stage, a crazed smile on his face. "Li Hexuan, my old classmate, to welcome you, I've prepared a grand gift you could never possibly imagine!"

"This is the rebirth bestowed upon me by the lords of the 'Abyss'! The true power granted to me!"

As his voice fell, he slammed his foot down fiercely onto the altar beneath him!