The Net and the Fish

BOOM!! A furious roar erupted. The instant Zhou Lun collapsed—no, the instant that speck of scarlet was noticed appearing on Zhou Lun's forehead—the first to react was unexpectedly Lü Yang, who had just been butting heads with him moments ago. The winged Vortex Celestial Chosen swelled abruptly, limbs bursting open as hundreds, thousands of arms shot out. In midair, flesh and blood shifted, unfolding writhing wings as they transformed into a structure like a soaring serpent, hurtling away. After successive flesh-bursting accelerations, the mass pierced straight through the torrential rain, transformed into pale bone spears, and plummeted from the sky, instantly blanketing both the bullet's origin and the position An Ning had once occupied. Immediately after, the forest of bone spears detonated one by one. Sinister flames and venomous blood splashed and spread like bombs, plowing through the entire ground. Amid the rotten, scorched earth scoured by the downpour, winged insects that had rotted out from countless spear fragments spread their wings, hungrily searching for any living thing. Yet they found nothing. There was nothing there. After firing—no, the very instant the trigger was pulled—they had already turned and left. All traces had been thoroughly erased, leaving behind only a shattered, twisted mount broken by the recoil, mocking the late-arriving assault. The insects, resembling white ash, scattered in a swift search, but apart from a few massive ruts left in the mud by a catapult start, they found nothing. Instead, they somehow tripped bombs concealed beneath the mud and were completely annihilated in the expanding flames and explosions. Footprints, scents, clues, traces—even the Aether records had been thrown into total disarray by pre-prepared Mirror illusion ash and fragments of an Aether record tome. It was completely untraceable. During the investigation, they even took sniper fire from multiple directions—all pre-manufactured single-use devices, and the damn things even self-destructed. It was a trap. Just as Zhou Lun had said before dying, perhaps from the very beginning they were prey lured into a trap by bait. God only knew what else that bastard had hidden away. What the hell was wrong with this bullshit profession of Artisan?! How could anyone play if it wasn't nerfed?! Yet even for an Artisan, this shouldn't be so absurdly ridiculous. Even if he carried a matrix like Non-Offensive capable of barehanded transmutation, even with the tutelage of that monster Ye Xian behind him... it was still far too exaggerated! Even though they had upgraded their countermeasures by several notches, preparing against him under the premise of Regeneration tier, and even deployed a monster like Yue Chen, he had still succeeded time and again. What was worse, they had exposed a great deal of their own intel. Considering the countermeasures an Artisan would naturally take next... None of them were going to have an easy time. Soon, an off-road vehicle manifested out of thin air. Gao Cheng sat inside with a grim expression, slowly shaking his head. He had pursued along the possible escape routes regardless of the cost, jumping through over a dozen locations consecutively, yet at his closest, he could barely catch sight of the other's taillights. The opponent possessed at least one Eternal Gate artifact with a high-grade blessing chain. Even the [White Harness]'s "Rut of the Preceding Carriage," used to churn space and establish a locking domain, had actually been breached. Not only that, before the final jump, the blessed equipment on his person had actually given him an advance warning—a sudden, spine-chilling dread, as if an aircraft had been locked on by radar. That was no baseless delusion, but a genuine instinct that had saved his life countless times. He had narrowly and forcefully aborted the final jump. He had already lost his navigator, his partner of so many years; he could not afford another misstep. Yet seeing Zhou Lun's body growing cold again at this moment, rage consumed him, mingled with surging grief. It was just a single shot. Among the four blessed artifacts Zhou Lun carried—one active and three passive: Tianyuan's Repulsion Field, Mirror's Illusory Mirage, Vortex's Life Consolidation, and Desolate Ruins' Wall of Air and Iron Bulwark—all had been pierced through in an instant. Even Vortex's blessing chain hadn't had a chance to take effect... Now, though the corpse appeared pale, no one dared to touch it. A breeze blew by. Under the scouring of the torrential rain, fissures surfaced one after another. As if built from dust, it gradually dissolved, leaving only grains of blood-red iron sand emerging in the mud, stark and conspicuous. During the tempering process, the fragments peeled from Pan Ying's blade also possessed Pan Ying's properties. In fact, having broken free of control and the Artisan's deliberate restraint, their thirst for and siphon of life and blood essence was all the more exaggerated. After all, the sword Pan Ying needed to ensure stability for long-term use, but the fragments extracted and purified did not. They were originally impurities within the blade, utilized directly as single-use expendables. A fragment less than a third the size of a fingernail, once in contact with blood and soul, would devour and siphon rabidly without pause even as it neared its limit, continuing until self-destruction... under the nourishment and agitation of immense blood essence, detonating with a roar! It was as though all blood and life throughout the body were drained in an instant, turned into a bomb that shredded the entire shell and soul from the inside out. During this process, the corruption mixed within the fragment also vanished without a trace amid the surging and incineration of spiritus. In the end, all that remained was a seemingly intact empty shell. Seeing Zhou Lun meet such an end, everyone present felt a chill run down their spines—especially the Entropy Chosen who had nearly died under Flying Light earlier, now hardly daring to breathe, their expression shifting wildly. "The situation is terrible. Everyone is pressing us." Having just finished a call inside the car, Gao Cheng pushed open the door and announced the decision to the others: "The higher-ups' stance is that we can't drag this out any longer. We settle it at Kunwu." "Settle it? So soon? Didn't they say to wait until—" Lü Yang's expression shifted slightly. Realizing he had misspoken, he hastily changed the subject: "What about reinforcements?" "Reinforcements were dispatched long ago, but don't pin much hope on them," Gao Cheng said indifferently. "Wang Zhengxing, Qian Yu, Zhao Buyan... after key personnel were deployed, every single one went dark. Li Wuliang's body was found yesterday in Longyuan, with only half a head left. Fighting has escalated to this point between both sides—it's not just here and Haizhou. I'm afraid the entire Desolate Sea coastline has already turned into a battlefield!" Gao Cheng paused, then asked bluntly, "Now we're all grasshoppers tied to the same string, battered pawns that have crossed the river. Stop holding back. What exactly did you bring along when you set out this time?" Lü Yang remained silent. Several times he wanted to retort, but in the end he concealed it no longer. Glancing at his surviving teammate, he let out a soundless sigh: "A set of 'bait.'" Gao Cheng froze as well, falling silent, his expression shifting. As if shocked. "How Echo arranged things, I have no idea, but don't tell me Xinyuan is clean," Lü Yang looked up at him. "Things have reached this point, and now that we've laid our cards on the table, as comrades in distress, shouldn't you at least show your hand?" Gao Cheng said nothing. In silence, he spread his hands. As if an invisible seal was slowly opened, between his hands in the empty air, the faint outline of something like a glass bottle appeared. Like gazing at flowers through mist, it was difficult to distinguish. Shimmering in and out of view, its details remained indistinct. Yet through the surface of the glass bottle, one seemed to see flickering silhouettes, faint human figures, and even an illusory black drizzle. Just looking at it, countless faint wails seemed to echo in one's ears. "..." In the silence, Lü Yang instinctively took a step back to put distance between them, his face turning pale green with horror: "Are you insane?!" "Your Northern Realm commands Huangzhou. Even if you lose the military-industrial market, you can go back to energy and still live in luxury. You know full well how brutal the competition in Midtown is—Xinyuan has no way out." Gao Cheng was expressionless. "Before coming here, Fourth Uncle's instruction was to succeed or die trying. If we can't win, none of us get to walk away happy! Besides, at this point, do you really expect to emerge in one piece if we lose?!" Lü Yang said no more. His expression fluctuated, until after a long silence, ferocity surfaced. "Then so be it!" BOOM!!! Outside Yacheng in Haizhou, across the vast wilderness. A flash of lightning slashed across the sky, illuminating the wilderness seemingly being swallowed up by the scouring downpour. Amid the raging torrents lay broken corpses strewn across the mud and scorched earth... Traces of burning fire and freezing cold could be seen everywhere, and sharp, angular fissures still lingered in the empty air. Beneath a Cataclysm Phantasm that resembled a black hole, gravity warped, suspending countless fragments and water droplets in midair, still tinged with wisps of scarlet. Tong Shan sheathed his sword without expression. From Yacheng to here, pursuing multiple targets all the way deep into the wilderness, fighting bitterly for days on end, even he felt a long-absent trace of exhaustion. He wondered how Ji Jue was doing right now. No, knowing that fellow's style, he was probably like a fish in water at this very moment... Why would he need anyone to worry about him? Tong Shan let out a self-deprecating sigh and shook his head. Hopefully all was well. Yet when he turned around, the fleeting warmth in his eyes turned cold once more. "Another bunch of fools courting death..." He looked up, glancing deeper into the torrential rain at several gaunt silhouettes gradually taking shape. Unlike the typical look of Federation folk, though their hair was black, their eyes were emerald green, their noses tall and prominent, and their sun-weathered bronze skin was lined with wrinkles. The three old men were adorned with abundant gold and jewels, their hunched figures seated atop a luxurious, enormous carpet. The curls of smoke rising from spices burning in a censer formed a wall around them, keeping out wind and rain. "This look..." The leading elder grinned. "You must be Lord Tong Shan, correct?" "Corpse priests of the Rock Nation?" Tong Shan said indifferently. "What, even Mid-Continent folk want to wade into these muddy waters?" "What are you saying, Lord Tong?" The elder in front burst into laughter. "Under all of heaven, whoever pays is our father, and whoever nurses us is our mother. So long as the pay is right, even muddy water is a fragrant bath." With that, he rubbed his fingers together. "To tell you the truth, I'm not overly keen on their offer either. If the Tong family is generous enough, this matter is by no means off the table. When the time comes, your noble house eats the meat, and if you can spare us old fogies a sip of broth, we'll be more than satisfied." Though he spoke thus, blazing greed was practically pouring from his eyes, where the whites far outweighed the pupils. "Get lost." Tong Shan rested his palm on Huihao's hilt, expressionless. "The Tong family does not make a habit of talking rules with wild dogs. The meat isn't for you, and you won't get a single drop of broth." Hearing this, the three elders exchanged glances as if having discovered something, their smiles growing increasingly bizarre and excited. "If this were any other day and Heavenly Hearing's Tong family gave such an order, wild dogs like us would naturally obey. However..." The leading elder paused, then asked mockingly, "Reaching this point after three consecutive battles, how much strength do you have left, Mr. Tong? Why put on airs? You can't possibly be trying to stall for someone to come bail you out, can you? When we came by, your subordinates were all quite busy." "..." Tong Shan remained silent, sighing in self-deprecation. It seemed he was truly foolish to waste mercy on a pack of old dogs buried in coin. "I truly am a bit tired." He sighed softly and released the sword's hilt. Just as delight surfaced on the old men's faces, he waved toward the space behind them. "These pieces of trash—I leave them to you." "Heh—" A sneering voice drifted down from the sky above. "Wouldn't it have been over already if you were this direct from the start?" At that moment, as the three elders' faces drained of color and they whipped their heads around, they saw it: straight beams of lightning aimed down from the heavens toward the earth—thousands upon tens of thousands, endless lightning frozen within spiritus crystals, transformed into sky-covering spears that had long hung suspended high in the heavens! Amid the storm and thunder, Lou Yanyue, appearing as a young girl, looked down indifferently and extended a finger: "Then die, all of you!"