Chapter 766: Waist Cut

A cello?

The three of them froze simultaneously.

The sound seemed incredibly distant yet intimately close. Even inside the car, surrounded by the roaring engine, the three could distinctly hear it. The cello's strings seemed to tug directly at their souls, making their hearts leap.

Though Yang Xiao and Lu Xun were puzzled, they didn't understand what was happening. Only Chen Ling, even at high speed, precisely focused his gaze on the rhythmic tremor of the ground, resonating with the cello's sound…

Dust, vibrating in resonance with the music!

Chen Ling's eyes swept over the vibrating sand and dust, and a sense of crisis immediately surged through him. He sharply swerved the steering wheel, causing the speeding sports car to drift in a long arc across the wilderness before turning sharply and fleeing in another direction.

The drift was so sudden that Yang Xiao and Lu Xun were completely unprepared. They were violently jolted as if about to be flung out, and Yang Xiao's face turned pale; he nearly vomited on the spot!

The next moment, as the cello string suddenly tightened, the wilderness where the trio had been heading collapsed with a roar!

Boom—!!

The ground seemed to come alive, rapidly cracking open in undulating waves. A fissure, tens of meters wide and leading deep underground, sealed off the east, resembling an impassable chasm.

If Chen Ling had reacted even a few seconds slower, the car and its occupants would likely have plunged into the chasm by now.

“Are they insane?!” Lu Xun remarked gravely upon seeing this. “This level of destruction… it looks like they don’t intend to leave us alive.”

“They even deployed missiles, is that really necessary?!” Yang Xiao quickly added.

As they spoke, the cello music echoing in their ears grew increasingly urgent!

It was as if someone was violently plucking the strings, the hurried melody like a chaotic downpour, relentlessly pounding the real world. An unseen force seemed to be closing in, trying to entrap the speeding sports car.

Thump, thump, thump—!!

Even with Chen Ling flooring the accelerator, the rapidly widening chasms continued to close in. He violently swung the steering wheel again, performing an extreme tail-whip at the edge of a cliff, then sped along, almost grazing the chasm's rim!

During the tail-whip, Chen Ling's gaze swept across the distance, pinpointing a figure amidst the endless chasms.

It was a middle-aged man with a long braid.

He sat on a black folding chair, cradling a cello covered in mysterious patterns. Around him, the ground spread outwards like a spiderweb, and as the music's rhythm changed, lava surged from the earth as if boiling!

He played alone amidst the cracked earth and rolling magma, his eyes closed, as if performing a doomsday symphony.

Chen Ling sensed an aura from him even more powerful than that of Nie Yu at her peak, meaning this man playing in the wasteland was at least a Tier 6.

At this moment, Chen Ling and his two companions were all within his domain.

As if sensing Chen Ling's gaze, the man, deeply engrossed in his performance, slowly opened his eyes. Across the endless chasms and magma, their gazes met.

Then, he calmly closed his eyes again, and the speed of his playing intensified!

Clicking and creaking sounds—

Faint clicking and creaking sounds emanated from inside the red sports car. It was as if, besides the ground, the car's components themselves were being affected by the music, trembling violently.

Yang Xiao and Lu Xun's expressions changed simultaneously. They clutched their heads in pain, feeling as though their entire beings were about to collapse from the music. Their internal organs vibrated continuously, and blood began to flow from their orifices.

Chen Ling watched this unfold, his grip on the steering wheel tightening.

The music was not without effect on Chen Ling; his internal organs were also continuously being damaged. However, empowered by the Blood Garment, these injuries were temporarily insignificant to him. Instead, as his internal organs sustained damage, the injuries were constantly converted into strength, and his spiritual energy surged into the sports car beneath him.

Chen Ling knew clearly that this car was their only way to escape the encirclement.

Although he could traverse the air, his speed would never match this car pushing its limits. If he ascended into the sky, he would likely face a relentless siege by armed helicopters, and Lu Xun and Yang Xiao would have nowhere to escape.

The cello player's domain seemed capable of destroying all matter within its range through melody, naturally including the car… This was likely their objective.

He was trying to break down the car's structure, while Chen Ling was frantically pushing its materials to their limits. For a time, the two forces reached a peculiar balance.

Vroom—!!

The red sports car roared through the dense network of chasms and lava, on the verge of breaking through the blockade and entering the distant city.

“This is Hunter Wolf 3, target is about to enter the main city!”

“He absolutely cannot be allowed to enter populated areas, otherwise there's a high risk of casualties. Immediately tell the performer to…”

“Immediately… *crackle* *crackle* *crackle*…”

Suddenly, all communication signals within several kilometers were cut off.

Even so, it didn't affect the performer's actions. Sensing Chen Ling was about to breach the border of his domain, his brows furrowed even deeper.

“Just a Tier 4, and you think you can escape?” the performer muttered to himself.

The next moment, his five fingers suddenly clenched, crushing the cello in his hands into splinters. Wood fragments and broken strings flew into the lava!

Yet, he didn't stop his movements. His hands pulled at the emptiness, as if playing an invisible cello that resonated with heaven and earth!

“Go.”

The performer's eyes slightly opened, and a piercing light flashed from deep within his pupils. The aura of a peak Tier 6 exploded forth!

A string of almost no width instantly materialized from thin air, seemingly piercing through space as it swept across tens of kilometers, like a single cello note sweeping across the world!

Resonance—!

The music across heaven and earth abruptly ceased.

The red sports car, just about to burst through the domain's edge, was cleanly sliced in half at its center as if cut by something. The engine's roar gradually died down, falling into silence as the music vanished.

At the same time, the three figures sitting inside the car also began to split and slide from the waist down… They were still clutching the handles or steering wheel, completely unaware of what had happened, their expressions frozen in their final moment.

Profuse blood erupted within the severed car, instantly turning the windows crimson. Lu Xun and Yang Xiao completely lost their lives, their severed upper bodies tumbling within the vehicle, their waistlines cut as smooth as glass.

On the driver's seat, Chen Ling's eyes also began to lose focus.

His pupils, wide with shock and unwillingness, slowly rotated, locking onto the performer not far away… His aura hadn't completely vanished, but the remaining expression on his face was one of monstrous ferocity.