Fellow Townsfolk Meet

All the way outward, pressing forward against the tide. All that could be seen were living corpses swarming across the wilderness, crawling, stumbling, sprinting, and howling like beasts. Swarm after swarm of corpses had plunged recklessly into hell at the summons of the Kingdom of the Woods, slaughtering and preying on one another to become ravenous wolves or degenerating into sacrifices. Win or lose, from the moment they entered this place, they had already become expendable consumables for the Kingdom of the Woods. They possessed not a shred of reason, driven purely by instinct to attack any living thing before them. The front of Little Niuma had long since been stained crimson with blood. Corpses lunged and swarmed in disregard of their lives, only to be shattered to pieces one after another. Amid the dying wails and shrieks, Ji Jue looked down at the ghoul lying in the mud beneath his feet—crimson-eyed, mouth agape, howling wildly, yet unable to produce any sound. Its pale face still bore the cracked skin of sunburn and a faint flush. It was clearly just a child. No innocence or childlike bewilderment remained; those crimson eyes were filled with madness. Even torn in half and thrashing in its death throes, it continuously snapped its jaws, straining to bite. Ji Jue fell silent and drew his pistol. He bent down. He pressed the muzzle against the child's forehead, finding the spot. For a brief instant, Ji Jue's lips trembled slightly, but in the end, he said nothing after all. He merely pulled the trigger in silence. Bang! And with that, the shrieking ceased. He looked up and surveyed his surroundings. Across the gloomy wasteland, nothing remained but shattered corpses. High in the dome of the sky, Shangri-La's colossal tree spread its lush boughs. Amid the tender shoots, another crimson blossom opened silently, mirrored below in the slowly drying pools of blood upon the earth. Indistinguishable from one another. Though they had been speeding for an entire day and night, no matter how far they traveled, the gigantic tree behind them always seemed close at hand, following them like a shadow. "Which wave is this?" Ji Jue stared at the distant throngs of corpses gathering once more, his expression darkening. In just one short hour, multiple waves of living corpses had swarmed and harried them, growing faster and faster— "Something's wrong—there are wolves!" An Ning woke with a start from her stupor, her hairs standing on end. An instinctive warning. Ji Jue slammed on the brakes. Unfolding the map once more, he realized that while attempting to bypass the corpse swarms, his heading had imperceptibly drifted from his perception. The landscape before them no longer matched the terrain on the map. And as Ji Jue channeled his power into it again, the contours of the mountains and rivers on the map seemed veiled in a light mist. The eye drawn upon it twitched as if having a convulsion, trembling violently, blinking—opening, closing, opening, closing, and opening again... Little Niuma came to an abrupt halt, then began reversing without a second thought! He could sense malice erupting violently. Like needles pricking his back, right ahead. "Fool!" Having waited long in the valley, the three-eyed man watched the cooked duck suddenly sprout wings and take flight. Flushed with rage, he roared, "How many times did I say that bastard bitch's student has at least one Aether masterwork in his hands?! What the hell is Geludi doing?!" Right in front of the pre-prepared trap, just one step from springing it, Little Niuma suddenly reversed at full power. Furious howls and roars echoed from the distance. Along the ridgeline, pair after pair of concealed crimson pupils snapped open. Wolves! Hundreds of Transmutation Wolves had gathered into a pack! Ravenous with thirst and hunger, the wolf pack surged downward, mingled with living corpses and aberrations, descending in a vast, roiling tide. Unfortunately, it was utterly useless! Now liberated from all constraints, the galloping Little Niuma spewed two jets of flame. An explosive speed surpassing its peak in the rally race emerged amid the boiling dragon blood. Across hills or mud pits, it roared past as if on level ground. They couldn't even catch its taillights! In the distance, the ascending three-eyed man glared furiously, bloodlust flashing in his eyes. Behind him, bizarre silhouettes of tangled shadows flickered within his phantom backdrop. "Halt!" In that split second, the instincts of Ji Jue, An Ning, and Tong Shan all stung sharply. Sensing the impending catastrophe, Little Niuma whipped its tail around in a sudden drift-brake. With a deafening rumble, a deep chasm ripped open across the earth. An invisible barrier sealed every inch of air ahead; an unseen high wall had already shot up from the other side of the chasm, waiting for them to leap across and shatter against it head-on! The path was blocked. In that momentary delay, the pouncing wolf pack behind was already closing in. And amidst that fleeting change, Ji Jue's hair stood on end. He felt the aura radiating from the chasm—it was so familiar! There was no time to hesitate. The rear cargo compartment snapped open. Jettisoning all trivial baggage and supplies, a missile launcher rose up and unloaded its entire payload without hesitation. Blazing meteors shot into the sky and rained back down. Dazzling bursts of light soared from the wilderness behind them as flames erupted, swallowing and blanketing everything. In practically an instant, all the living corpses and aberrations were wiped out, and even the Transmutation Wolves, caught off guard, were severely wounded. Yet immediately after, the barrage did not stop. One volley followed another, and then another—billowing flames surged across the ground, and under the sweeping fire of alchemy bullets, severed limbs and mangled remains blasted skyward, tumbling back down as charred cinders. Such terrifying effects brought Ji Jue no joy, for it was too weak! Pitifully weak! A barrage of this magnitude should have been enough to vaporize every pursuing Transmutation Wolf in an instant, yet after three consecutive strikes, they were merely heavily injured? The power of his weapons was being suppressed! [Sir, spiritus sample comparison complete.] Isis's cool voice delivered the final grim news: [The target analysis indicates corruption alchemy. Preliminary assessment points to the domain of the Tower of Great Sin, a creation of the Path of the Harmonious Lord. Confirmed as a Profound Masterwork.] "I knew it!" Ji Jue's face grew darker still. He had already gotten his answer the instant the opponent carved that precipice; having Isis run the comparison was merely for confirmation. What a joke—could he possibly fail to recognize the scent of the Profound? Setting aside the manic cramming sessions from Kanemoto's crash course and the spiritual empowerment of the Rite of Illumination, his own private research and exploitation of it hadn't been small either! Whether something belonged to the Profound, he could tell with a single sniff! What he never expected was to run into a Profound artisan on a narrow path right here in the Kingdom of the Woods! And one with authentic Great Sin transmission, deeply versed in the essence of Stagnant Rot at that— No, this was an encounter battle for him, but for the other side, that might not be the case! Now he knew what that spastic twitching eye on the map was all about—they were gunning straight for him! Now, seeing the Profound and the Kingdom of the Woods tangled together... one could truly only say that dog shit had been shoveled onto dog shit; they stank of the same filth! But if the enemy had come prepared... Ji Jue grew vigilant once more. Then, amid frost winds rising out of nowhere, the spreading flames froze inch by inch. Dark clouds gathered out of thin air in the sky, followed by countless strange rimes of frost gushing from the air. The entire world seemed to plunge into an ice cellar in an instant. Howling gusts of frost wind swept past, striking the vehicle's armor plating with sharp, screeching noises like grinding metal, effortlessly leaving behind deep gouges! And within the clouds, an even more violent power was brewing amid the extreme cold. In the reflection of an ancient bronze mirror amid the mist, the eerie silhouette of what seemed like a calamity beast loomed, its six eyes slowly opening. The divine essence of Defilement circulated and spread—a genuine natural calamity! Boom! The shadow of a calamity beast resembling a black dragon manifested from the void. Having brewed for who knew how long, a cascade of frostfire capable of freezing all things into shattered dust poured forth, blanketing the sky and engulfing everything! Yet in the next moment, as if crashing into an invisible wall, it was held back! The moment the domain of the Calamity Prevention Codex opened under the crushing pressure of the Kingdom of the Woods, blood erupted from Tong Shan's nose and mouth. He gripped the hilt of Huihao with white knuckles, his eyes crimson. In turn, ink sharp as a blade thrust skyward! "Brother Ji Jue, northeast!" The Flying Light in An Ning's hand had already been hurled, tracing an arc through midair as it whistled forward, locking onto the artisan's position. It pierced through layers of defense, only to shatter head-on against a bizarre scepter rising from the shadows! Under the scepter's protection, the three-eyed Profound artisan froze for an instant, never expecting the brat from the Hunting Finger family to possess such keen perception and actually pinpoint his location. Yet what good was locking onto him? Such a feeble— And in that very instant, he met Ji Jue's cold, indifferent eyes. A finger turned to metal lifted for a split second. Immediately after, purple lightning thundered across heaven and earth. A bolt of violet lightning soared from his hand; the moment it was sensed, it was already right before his eyes! Unlike the grandiose vastness of the calamity in the artisan's hands, the flash of lightning was remarkably faint, yet the power condensed within made the artisan's expression contort in sudden horror! The scepter flared again! The authority of the Harmonious Lord locked down heaven and earth, colliding head-on in an ear-splitting boom. Cracks webbed across the void. The artisan's figure visibly stumbled and fell to his knees for an instant, defensive artifacts triggering around him in a continuous cascade of snaps and pops, leaving him utterly disheveled. He had never anticipated that the Blessing chain of Shock Comes would instantly convert all the energy into concussive impact. After its full eruption, the aftershocks could convert once more into lightning, permeating and piercing right through! "Zhanlu! It really is the Ye clan's Zhanlu!" Tao Chen's three eyes flared crimson as he glared fixedly at Ji Jue. A raspy voice sounded: "If that bitch Ye Xian knew her student would fall into my hands today, I wonder if she would regret what she did back then—" In the brief silence, Ji Jue tilted his head. Neither happy nor angry, he asked with curious bewilderment, "Excuse me, who are you again?" And visibly, Tao Chen's expression turned even darker. "Truly her student—your mouth is just as foul as hers!" He squeezed out venomous words through gritted teeth: "Well, of course. Back then, she used every unscrupulous trick to tear down our Coagulation lineage, plundering our heritage and forcing me to flee into the Profound just to survive... Such shameful misdeeds, she naturally wouldn't dare speak of them to anyone!" "Shameful misdeeds?" Ji Jue was amused. He couldn't help spreading his hands, unable to contain his mockery any longer: "As an artisan, you couldn't beat her in an argument, couldn't beat her in a fight, and had to run to the Profound just to save your skin. Mm, and judging by the look of it, you're still selling your ass to the Harmonious Lord... Just whose shameful misdeed is that? By the way, did you ever say thank you to my teacher?"