Chapter 375 - 359: Moral Blackmail?

Chapter 375: Chapter 359: Moral Blackmail?

A thunderous BOOM suddenly ripped through the sky above Anhe City!

The sky was filled with a ghastly green fire! The sea of green flames seemed to have come from the Nine Netherworld Hell, yet it was laced with a mundane, explosive fury, instantly engulfing the Evil Cultivators who were futilely trying to form another array.

Their faces turned ashen as they watched the tide of green explosions rush toward them.

’How do they know the Nine Nether Ghost Fire? And why does their Nine Nether Ghost Fire explode?! Don’t tell me I learned an incomplete version?’

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A chain of explosions erupted around them!

The moment the explosions began, Zhang San, who was inside the array, reacted with lightning speed, slamming the [Broken Bowl] down over them!

"Li! Inside! Now!"

"On it!"

Their movements were practiced and efficient, ignoring the cataclysm unfolding outside.

RUMBLE—!

Outside, flames surged to the heavens and waves of heat rolled out, dyeing the entire sky above Anhe City a ghastly green.

Yet the two of them, hiding inside the broken bowl at the heart of the explosion, were completely unscathed.

Zhang San sent a message: [sunglasses.jpg] [Art is Pai Daxing!] My bowl’s durability is getting low! Make sure you reimburse me for it later!

Li: ...

After a long while, the smoke and dust settled.

The once-unbeatable Foundation Establishment Evil Cultivation Group was now utterly crushed.

Of the nearly ten Evil Cultivators at the center of the explosion, some were now charred corpses hanging from tree branches, still trailing black smoke. Others had been slammed into walls by the shockwave, so embedded they couldn’t be pried out. The rest were all heavily wounded and dressed in rags, wailing on the ground with no will to fight.

"Mon... Monsters..."

A few of the Evil Cultivators, who had luckily been preparing to flee and had shielded themselves with their comrades, survived the blast. Seeing that the situation was hopeless, they immediately fled!

’It’s all Nine Nether Ghost Fire, so why is theirs so much stronger than ours? How the hell are we supposed to fight this?!’

The few surviving Evil Cultivators fled in all directions without looking back, wishing their parents had given them an extra pair of legs.

However, directly in the path of their frantic escape...

A small figure was walking against the tide, heading unhurriedly toward the center of the battlefield.

Strangely, as the fleeing Foundation Establishment Stage Evil Cultivators rushed past this small figure, they merely glanced at it without a second thought before continuing their desperate escape.

...

As the aftershocks of the attack faded, a suffocating, scorched smell was all that remained in the air.

Amidst the surrounding ruins, the council members and various players, who had been desperately trying to save people to keep their mission from failing, were now covered in soot and dust. They were frozen in place, still in the middle of tending to the wounded, but their eyes kept darting toward the center of the battlefield.

OneSwordToRule stared at the field of charred corpses and muttered, ’So this is what a battle between Foundation Establishment Cultivators looks like?! This is the power of sect players?’

BiquCountryGo4 swallowed hard. ’Do us F2P players only exist to make the P2W players look good?’

TombRaider stomped his foot in frustration, his eyes green with envy at all the loot scattered on the ground, but he didn’t dare go and scavenge any of it.

Meanwhile, Kabuta Giant wore an expression of pure agony as he watched the two overwhelmingly powerful figures, so full of regret he could have kicked himself.

He slapped himself hard across the face. "Why! Just why?!"

’They were such amazing players, and I actually left the guild?! Why did I leave?! Now they won’t even give me the time of day!’

But shock was just shock. Life had to go on, and the mission still needed to be completed. Those who had spawned here didn’t want to be re-classed as homeless drifters.

"Quick, quick! Stop staring! The minimap shows an NPC over in those ruins who’s barely breathing! Use your healing skills to keep him alive! Don’t you dare let him die!"

"Even if you have to treat a corpse like a living person, we have to keep that personnel survival rate up!"

...

As the battle subsided, the [Mirage Gauze] in Su Wenjing’s hand finally exhausted its last wisp of Spiritual Power, and its light faded away.

The members of the Su Family and the hundreds of civilians they had been hiding within the barrier were suddenly exposed.

But there were no cheers, no cries of joy. Only silence and fear.

The civilians stared, wide-eyed in terror, at the two figures nearby, at the ground littered with charred bodies, and at those two individuals who radiated a bizarre aura... who were even toying with what looked like Human-Blood Buns.

Everyone’s hearts hammered in their chests. They were terrified that making the slightest sound would displease the two gods of slaughter, who might then casually annihilate them all on a whim.

After all, as far as they knew, Evil Cultivators were notoriously capricious. Praise and adulation could just as easily offend them. One might get you killed just for looking at them the wrong way; it would be a complete disaster!

...

However, the subjects of their fear, Zhang San and Li, were busy looting.

"Tsk, tsk. These Foundation Establishment Stage mobs are loaded!"

Li hummed a little tune as he pulled a storage pouch off a charred corpse, casually absorbing the body’s residual essence into his bun.

Looking at the buns in his hand, now reddish-purple and slightly charred, Li grinned. "Hey, look. The ghost fire roasted these a bit. Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. If we sprinkle some cumin on them and refine them a little, we could sell them as [Roasted Buns]!"

Zhang San rolled his eyes. "Is eating all you think about? Finish up so we can go!"

Just as the two were enthusiastically debating whether to refine the corpses into pills or process them into flower fertilizer...

Suddenly, a small figure burst out of the crowd, stumbling forward.

He was a little boy, about seven or eight years old, covered in filth and his face streaked with tears.

His face flushed red as he looked at Zhang San and Li, pointing a finger at them as he cried out, "Sob... Why... Why didn’t you come sooner?!"

Everyone gasped, staring in horror at the reckless child.

The little boy continued to cry, roaring hysterically, "You’re obviously so strong! Why didn’t you help us sooner?!"

"If you’d come earlier, my mom and dad wouldn’t have died! So many people in the city wouldn’t have died!"

"You’re like gods, you have all this power, so why did you just stand by and watch us suffer?!"

"Sob... It’s all your fault! It’s because you were late that our Anhe City is in ruins!! Sob, sob, sob..."

His words were forceful, each one dripping with sorrowful accusation.

But at this moment, to the surrounding civilians and players who had just narrowly escaped death, his words were nothing short of a death wish.

’This kid... Where did he come from? Does he have a death wish?!’

...

Zhang San and Li stopped what they were doing.

The two of them slowly turned and looked down at the child, who was a sobbing, snot-nosed mess.

Zhang San was still holding his broken bowl; Li was still munching on a Human-Blood Bun.

’Are we getting guilt-tripped right now?!’

...

「The barren mountain had transformed into a Senluo Ghost Realm.」

The lingering power of the [Soul Banner] left behind by the Ghost Nether Elder, along with the sky-rending [Nine Nether Ghost Fire], continued to slaughter every living thing on the mountain.

With every advance of the flames, vegetation turned to ash and the very air seemed to twist and distort from the heat.

Beyond the sea of green fire, countless wraiths drifted back and forth.

Deep within the crevice of a massive boulder, Su Wenxuan was curled into a ball.

Less than three meters away, wraiths floated past, sniffing the air for any trace of the living.

He instinctively glanced down at the [Heart Guarding Pendant] in his palm, which was now flickering faintly.

Its light sputtered, its stored Spiritual Power on the verge of depletion.

"Sister... where are you..."

"Boss... your successor isn’t going to last much longer..."

And at that very moment, Su Ling’er was still on her way, flying on her sword.