Chapter 1064 - 875: Van Gogh’s Soulful Painting_2

Chapter 1064: Chapter 875: Van Gogh’s Soulful Painting_2

Under normal circumstances, given your Shadow Demon faction standing, of course you should be assisting in defending the city against the Mermaids—but that would mean going against the Ten Lords. If the Ten Lords get pissed, a single word from them is enough to make the Young Master fire you, and the Young Master will also be punished by the Ten Lords.

Mr. Xiaoshan suddenly has a flash of insight: "Then I teleport to Shadow Stream City, and sneak in as a mole to look for a chance to help the Mermaids?"

The Young Master sighs: "You just took the job as a Shadow Demon. Doing this is basically sacrificing your future, you know?"

Mr. Xiaoshan immediately declares his loyalty: "But as long as it makes the Ten Lords happy, the Young Master will receive rewards from them, and my future will become even brighter."

The Young Master is very satisfied: "Be extremely careful in action. Record and stream the whole process. The recording will be processed according to the highest confidentiality rules for choosing sides."

"Got it."

Mr. Xiaoshan is really going all in; all his assets amount to just twenty thousand, and once he goes on this trip, there’s basically no coming back...

...

After ending contact with Mr. Xiaoshan, the Young Master also lets out a long breath.

The Peeping Immortal is quite displeased: "Young Master?"

The Young Master says in a low voice: "Peeping Tom, what do you think?"

The Peeping Immortal has no choice but to quietly say: "Young Master, this is a ’kill-by-praise’ plan, extremely brilliant! If Mr. Xiaoshan successfully sabotages something, you can show the recording to the Ten Lords to prove your loyalty. At the same time, the Mermaids’ victory will make the Empire hate them even more, accelerating the Mermaids’ downfall, which also vents your anger! And if the Mermaids still lose, we can say we tried our best to help..."

The Young Master’s lips curl coldly: "Actually, there’s another goal: to use this opportunity to weaken the Shadow Demon Race a bit, make these two curries behave and cooperate..."

"Young Master is wise and magnanimous!"

As they speak, the livestream camera switches; Mr. Xiaoshan teleports and arrives in Shadow Stream City.

Right now, the city of Shadow Stream is blaring with alarms, over a dozen Magic Towers are flickering and smoking, yet there’s absolutely no sign of any attacking enemy.

Then another bang, and yet another Magic Tower explodes and starts smoking.

At this moment, not to mention Mr. Xiaoshan being completely dumbfounded, even the Young Master and the Peeping Immortal watching from behind the scenes are stunned.

Mr. Xiaoshan sees several Shadow Demon Mages, all smoking and wounded, drifting out of the exploded Magic Tower. They don’t dare run far, just lie by the street yelling and screeching.

Mr. Xiaoshan immediately steps forward to ask: "Sirs, is there anything I can help with?"

Those few Shadow Demon Mages glance at him with disdain, but then their eyes light up: "You’re a human part-time Shadow Demon?"

"Yes!"

The Shadow Demon asks again: "Then you can use Shadow Control?"

Mr. Xiaoshan instantly manipulates his shadow, making it crawl along the ground: "Of course I can! I learned this skill just to qualify for the job."

The Shadow Demon Mage immediately sketches a glowing three-dimensional diagram by hand: "Send your shadow to the core at the bottom level of the Magic Tower and shut down the Elemental Core switch there."

Mr. Xiaoshan freezes for a moment: "I still can’t leave the light. My shadow can’t reach that place!"

The Black Hands of all the Shadow Demon Mages suddenly stretch out and latch onto Mr. Xiaoshan, and a massive power of shadow surges through his entire body. At this moment, Mr. Xiaoshan tangibly feels his shadow has become a complete physical entity!

The Mages urge him: "With our blessing, your shadow can go down."

Mr. Xiaoshan asks: "My body stays here and doesn’t move?"

"Of course. A Shadow Demon Tower isn’t like towers of other races; physical bodies can’t enter."

Mr. Xiaoshan asks again: "Why does it have to be me, a human part-time Shadow Demon, going in to shut it down?"

"Because you have a physical body; the Impact you suffer will be smaller!"

So this is the advantage of part-timers, huh!

Mr. Xiaoshan’s confidence skyrockets. While he manipulates his shadow to move according to the map, he keeps asking: "Who’s the enemy? How are they launching their Attack?"

All the Mages say solemnly: "It’s that new Hell rookie who just defeated the Gem Guardian God. It’s attacking the Magic Tower’s energy core from the Elemental Realm..."

Mr. Xiaoshan continues asking: "If that’s the case, why not shut it down ahead of time, instead of only going to shut it when it explodes?"

The Mages answer gravely: "Knew you were new. Shutting it down after it explodes counts as wartime emergency repair; not only is that not wrong, it’s actually a merit. But if nothing has happened yet and you shut it down, that’s evading battle—that’s a crime!"

Mr. Xiaoshan is instantly dumbstruck. What kind of logic is this?

"Is there really no supreme commander who can order everything shut down?"

The Mages say: "We’re waiting for orders, but the enemy’s sabotage is way too fast."

As the words fall, another Magic Tower somewhere else erupts in a thunderous explosion!

Ah this...

Mr. Xiaoshan suddenly feels inexplicably relaxed. With Shadow Stream City in this state, the Mermaids might find it hard to lose even if they tried. He actually doesn’t even need to deliberately sabotage anything; he just has to trim this segment of conversation out of the video, only send the footage of himself going into the thick smoke to ’repair’ the Tower to the Ten Lords, and claim that’s him sabotaging. Of course, since he’s streaming live to the Young Master right now, he can’t edit the video himself—but the Young Master can...

Finally, Mr. Xiaoshan reaches the bottom of the Tower. The chaotic energy flows there boil like molten rock in a steel furnace!

Mr. Xiaoshan panics: "Are you sure a newbie like me can really go in there?"

The Mages suddenly press harder with their hands, pinning Mr. Xiaoshan’s body so he can’t move: "Of course. Get in, the slower you are, the more painful it gets..."

Mr. Xiaoshan goes all out; his shadow dives in. In that instant, it feels like the entire screen is on fire! A huge flood of system prompts for soul burning and Spirit damage scroll furiously across the screen...

...

Ten Lords Chat Group.

The Lords anxiously follow the progress of the messengers; very smooth!

The team member follows Amy and knocks open the door of the Wild Rose Tavern. Vivian comes out to greet them in her pajamas. Vivian takes one look at the painting and is stunned! Then she doesn’t even bother changing out of her pajamas and drags Amy straight off to find Baron Fepeng.

Amy’s speed is insane; she practically flies down the street dragging Vivian along. When they reach the Baron’s Mansion, the Baron, a round ball in pajamas, and his butler both also freeze for a moment at the painting, then immediately have the butler prepare a carriage and dash straight to the newspaper office.

Honestly, whether it’s Amy and her bodyguard who saw the painting first, or these current NPCs, they all had that stunned reaction when they saw it. This proves that this street artist Van Gogh’s work has astonishing power. Otherwise, NPCs wouldn’t react like this, right?

Then, at the newspaper office door, they just happen to run into Count Aamir Khan in pajamas.

In short, under the joint intervention of the Count and the Baron, the painting is forcibly printed across tomorrow’s Black Iron City morning paper, taking up a whole two large pages.

From start to finish, the first new newspaper rolls off the press in under ten minutes!

Sariel is genuinely blown away. So this is the Mermaids’ status in Black Iron City! People always say nobles are inefficient and drag things out; apparently that’s completely not the case here.

With the first newspaper printed, the machine just devours and devours and churns out several hundred more!

Sariel has already sent subordinate team members from Silver City over by teleport to pick up the papers; after all, only the Silver City team members have money on them to afford teleporting, then they’ll post the papers around the Five Great Cities.

Honestly, this player-directly-posting-newspapers method is hard to say whether it’ll actually trigger prayers from citizen NPCs—but Sariel chooses to trust Van Gogh’s abilities!

Sure enough, the streets where the papers are posted in each city immediately draw crowds of Night Market NPCs to watch!

Especially the Silver City and Black Iron City citizens; after reading the paper, they surge with passion and shout: "Let us pray to the Lord of the Divine Throne!"

"Where’s the Church? The Church masters need to wake up, now!"

Extremely effective! This is basically Van Gogh’s soul paintings, stabbing straight into the heart of faith! This painter looked useless, but in truth he’s unimaginably powerful!

Sariel is overjoyed and immediately directs his team: "Bring a copy of the paper to the Aquarium, and find the Temperamental Priest!"

After all, the Church in Silver City has a bastard Bishop, who’s the biggest obstacle; they must bypass him.

Sure enough, the Temperamental Priest gets even more worked up after reading the paper, and directly gives players a quest: "Knock on every house’s door and wake the citizens! The Lord of the Divine Throne is fighting for his life, how dare they sleep soundly..."

—System Prompt: You have received the Temperamental Priest’s quest: ’Citywide Emergency Prayer’!

Sariel is thrilled: "All Silver City team members, go find the Temperamental Priest and accept the quest..."