"Is this Master Lin from Seacrest a man or a ghost?"
The old man muttered to himself, then glanced at Lucy Bai, who was standing still, staring in the same direction.
Evan Lin held the Reaper Dagger in his hand, while the hilt of the dagger was still gripped by Damien Graves.
Damien tried several times to exert force, even activating spell arts to drive the Reaper Dagger, hoping to wrest it back from Evan's grip, but it was all in vain.
The Reaper Dagger felt like it was completely nailed in place.
"Your spell arts are kind of interesting, but at the end of the day, they're just the same kind of trick as that grand array from earlier."
"If your talent were a bit higher, if you trained a bit harder, and then put in another two hundred years, maybe I'd take you a little more seriously."
"But right now, you're obviously not qualified."
Evan's tone was flat.
As he held the Reaper Dagger, he could feel a chilly sensation coming from the blade.
The sensation was like touching iron chilled to subzero—cold right down to the bone.
"Who do you think you are!"
Damien Graves's face turned green, then pale, as he listened to Evan. "I've spent decades mastering my spell arts, and now some junior like you dares to lecture me?"
"You think just because you grabbed the Reaper Dagger, you've already won?"
"Your qi can't hurt me at all!"
"Even if the Reaper Dagger can't hurt you, I can still wear you down and kill you by attrition!"
Damien was so furious he actually started to laugh, glaring at Evan. "You keep running your mouth—you're seriously getting full of yourself!"
"I don't even know what trick you used to lock down my Reaper Dagger."
"But if you can't hurt me, what right do you have to say I'm not qualified?"
Damien kept shouting in anger.
He believed that even without the Reaper Dagger, he'd still be unbeatable in the end.
But human strength always has its limits.
Damien refused to believe that this Master Lin from Seacrest had endless reserves of power.
"I can grab your magic artifact bare-handed—do you seriously think I can't hurt you?"
Evan stared at him.
"What a joke!"
Damien snorted coldly. "I say you can't, so you can't!"
"All these years, no one has ever managed to injure me, Damien Graves. Otherwise, how do you think I became one of Hong Kong's three grandmasters?"
"If you think you can do it, then prove it!"
"See my face?"
"My face is right here—come on, if you've got the guts, try hitting me!"
"Let's see if you can actually land a hit!"
"I'll show you what real despair feels like!"
Damien kept shouting angrily.
"That's a pretty weird request."
Yvette Locke, who hadn't worried at all from the start, muttered this under her breath.
Lucy Bai frowned, and even the old man hesitated, glancing that way.
They actually wanted to say, maybe just let it go.
From the past to now, Damien Graves really had never been hit for real by anyone.
It was exactly this trick that let him thrive and dominate Hong Kong.
Before Lucy and the old man could even speak up—
Everyone saw Evan Lin, still gripping the Reaper Dagger in one hand, switch to his other hand and whip a crisp, clean slap right at Damien Graves.
"You're just a dumb mutt."
"Like I said, you can't even touch me, let alone hurt me!"
"Total waste of effort!"
Damien sneered coldly.
But before he could finish his sentence—
Smack!
Evan's slap landed cleanly on Damien's face.
Up to now, Damien's smoke-body spell always let him dodge before getting hurt, but this time, it totally failed.
Damien's eyes went wide, his mind blanking out completely.
Before he could even react, the Reaper Dagger slipped from his grasp, and he was sent flying by Evan's slap.
With a loud thud.
His body turned into black smoke in midair.
Moments later, he reformed ten meters away from Evan.
"How could you possibly hit me!"
"How did you even do that!"
Half of Damien's face was already swollen.
Evan's slap packed real power—Damien sucked in cold breaths from the pain.
"Your spell arts are just kid stuff."
Evan looked at him. "As for how I managed to hit you—"
"It's simple."
"I slapped you before your spell could even react."
Before the spell could react?
Hearing Evan's simple answer, Damien froze, his expression flickering with shock as he stared at Evan.
"What does he even mean by that?"
Lucy Bai frowned, still trying to figure it out.
But the old man beside her spoke up, his face complicated: "Master Lin from Seacrest is just faster than Damien's spell."
"That's why he managed to land the hit."
"Even though Damien's qi couldn't be hurt by anyone, Master Lin from Seacrest actually did it."
"Just how freakishly fast is he, anyway?"
The old man finished speaking, and Lucy Bai fell silent.
Master Lin from Seacrest kept blowing past her expectations, shocking her again and again.
And now, he claimed he could strike faster than spell arts.
It was just absurd.
It was like someone telling you they could outrun a bullet train.
Spell arts are supposed to be formless and intangible.
But Master Lin's slap was something solid and real.
Normally, you can't even compare the two.
"As long as I hit fast enough, your spell can't keep up with me."
Evan stared at Damien.
He finished speaking and tightened his grip.
Right in front of everyone, he crushed the Reaper Dagger into fragments.
As the ashes of the Reaper Dagger fell to the ground...
Damien hadn't even processed what happened, when he suddenly realized the teen who'd been ten meters away was now right in front of him.
Evan raised his hand again.
He backhanded Damien.
Damien gritted his teeth.
Smack!
After being sent flying, Damien only turned into black smoke in midair.
When he reformed elsewhere, he coughed and howled from the pain.
That backhand slap knocked out one of Damien's teeth.
"How can he be that fast!"
Damien roared.
He'd barely finished speaking...
Evan was already in front of him again.
This time, Evan used his foot.
Damien had dodged all Evan's kicks before.
But this time, Evan booted him straight through the air, and Damien only turned to smoke mid-flight, then reformed somewhere else.
Now he was clutching his stomach, face pale, sweat pouring down his forehead, unable to stand up straight from the pain.
Evan, expressionless, appeared in front of him yet again.
Before Evan could even raise his hand...
Thud!
Damien, who'd been hunched over, suddenly dropped to his knees without hesitation.
"Stop!"
"I give! I give! I give!"
"I give up!"