In all fairness, Ji Jue might not be terrifying, but the idea of Ji Jue not being terrifying was virtually impossible.
One second ago, everyone felt as if they were seeing a ghost; the next second, they felt that seeing a real damn ghost was a hundred times better than seeing this face...
After looking for so long, they would have been far better off not looking at all!
It wasn't just Lou Feng who had arrived, but also that notorious Scourge of Haichao, Lord of Xinquan, and arms dealer—who in their right mind wouldn't be terrified?
Setting aside the magnitude of his abilities and the tier of his rank, one could only say that while Ji Jue's achievements as a craftsman were merely at the level of casting long shadows over his peers, his knack for stirring up shit had steadily spread its aroma across the four seas, winning universal acclaim!
He stirred up trouble from Yacheng all the way to Xinquan, and from Xinquan all the way to the Mid-Continent, stirring a whole bunch of Federation munitions enterprises to death, stirring Pacquiao to death, and stirring Tacheng into such utter chaos that panic gripped every heart...
Ever since his debut, his golden track record of 'whoever he stirs, dies' was indisputable!
The moment the winds blew the wrong way, he immediately started stirring!
Who was he kidding? Even when nothing was happening, he stirred anyway!
Turning small matters into big ones, and turning big matters into explosive disasters.
Now everyone finally understood how a good-for-nothing sack of straw like Minkler had miraculously transformed... Turns out your big hands, Ji Jue, had already reached right under the covers of the Chopra family, hadn't they?!
For a moment, everyone's expressions grew complicated. Plagued by anxiety and apprehension, they wondered what sort of eminent figures were lurking behind Ji Jue, and how many giant hands were stealthily reaching out to crush their own wretched skulls.
Looking at the Bloodstained Mother again, they couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity.
How tragic!
From the very beginning, this bastard had been baiting them!
Like boiling a frog in warm water, he kept upping the ante step by step. Using Minkler as bait, he drew everyone's attention. Using the Chopras as bait, he concocted every trick to tempt the Sukarnos into striking back. And now, using Lou Feng as bait, he had dragged out both the heirloom abomination and the Tyrant backing it!
If this string of combos were unleashed upon themselves...
They didn't even dare to imagine it!
Just how wicked could this rotten bastard Ji Jue be?!
BOOM!!!
In that instant, darkness fell before everyone's eyes.
An intangible ripple erupted from under Ji Jue's hand, piercing and shrill, like the agonizing scream of some colossal beast. Dispersed darkness burst forth and soared into the sky, distorting all vision and causing all surveillance and observation, whether overt or covert, to become intermittent and unstable.
Amid that shrill howling, the vast base shuddered violently. The seawater boiled as if alive, writhing and threatening to flood the shore.
The wrath of a Tyrant surged from the deep sea; with merely a single thought, oceans would boil.
Yet what bloody use was boiling?
They weren't in the sea!
The giant tree controlled by Lou Feng morphed once more. The flames of Mirror Transformation: Star of Bethlehem spread, setting the approaching seawater ablaze and severing every medium.
Meanwhile, the infant still screaming in Ji Jue's hand had already been reduced to charred cinders!
Before its words could even finish, a long-charged Zhanlu had already been shoved right into the infant's mouth. Torrents of flame surged, detonating with a deafening roar!
The weather's cold—drink more magma!
Brutal blazing light spread from within, igniting the aberrant evil entity. Not only the infant, but also the grotesque fish-man effigy holding it cracked open with fissure after fissure, behind which cascades of bloody water and flame gushed out like a waterfall.
Destruction struck out of nowhere. Under the blazing inferno, the abomination swiftly turned to cinders and fell apart, yet immediately stabilized once more, beginning to rapidly undergo Restoration.
Only the weeping and wailing grew ever more piercing.
A certain cruel and domineering decree descended out of thin air upon the abomination's body, governing everything and restructuring all, looking toward Ji Jue through that pair of pitch-black pupils resembling an oceanic abyss.
Mangled, bloody lips parted and closed, and an eerie voice rang out, shaking heaven and earth—as if a supreme sovereign were delivering Heavenly Punishment to the rebellious insect before him through this mere insignificant vessel!
And then...
Then there was no 'and then.'
Because the moment the infant's mouth opened, it was clamped shut.
"Excuse me, what did you say? I didn't hear you clearly."
Ji Jue's palm gripped the aberrant infant's face in a death grip. Beneath his fingers, quicksilver flowed like the thread in a kind mother's hand, densely stitching the evil thing's mouth shut.
Ensuring it couldn't make the slightest sound.
Yet the decree of a Tyrant did not rely on voice at all. Even if its mouth were torn to shreds, a single thought could still proclaim it to heaven and earth.
Unfortunately, across tens of thousands of miles, no matter how immense the power and how tyrannical the decree, it still required a fulcrum... And right now, this Tyrant's fulcrum was clutched firmly in Ji Jue's hand.
Ten fingers on two hands, remaking all phenomena!
It was like forcefully clamping down on a detonated grenade so it couldn't shatter and disperse.
Three-Phase Alchemy took effect within, forming barrier after barrier and ignoring the tempestuous pressure on the other end, suppressing surge after surge of terrifying power within the infant's body and completely sealing the inside from the outside!
Don't you dare come out—suck it back in!
Within those pitch-black pupils, a flush of crimson appeared, as if flushed red from holding it in.
Through that expanse of darkness, Ji Jue seemed to see endless majestic palaces, and at the palace's very zenith, an eerie figure shrouded in black mist, along with a pair of pupils chilling as an oceanic abyss.
Gazing at him.
Exuding an infinitely tempestuous gravitational pull, seeking to drag every soul down into the abyss at the sea's end!
A battered tome emerged in the Abyssal Lord's hand. As if sensing Ji Jue's aura, its pages whipped rapidly, countless names surfacing and flickering past, yet it could never settle, unable to stop, unable to lock onto the target.
Ji Jue only felt Chunjun hum deep within his soul, sounding an alarm.
Countless black threads emerged from the void, bearing immense malice as they coiled toward his soul.
Yet right after, the black threads snapped inch by inch, as if scorched by an invisible flame!
The Flame of Non-Fate!
It even traveled along the black threads, burning toward the other end...
The eerie tome suddenly jolted. Sensing some impending crisis, it seized up and forcefully severed the extending black threads; its cover wailed as a notch cracked open across it.
Its authority suffered damage!
The Abyssal Lord was stunned for a moment, then sneered in fury.
In that instant of clash, Ji Jue's blockage and suppression over the evil creature's mouth actually experienced a momentary lag...
A dike of a thousand li collapses at an ant nest. In this struggle akin to an arm-wrestling contest, an instant's delay was enough for the Tyrant's aberrant decree to drive straight in and break free of the restraints.
The aberrant infant grinned soundlessly, tearing open the stitches over its mouth and parting its jaws once more.
To utter the Absolute Sentence!
Yet it saw that Ji Jue had also smiled.
The five fingers originally gripping the evil thing's mouth abruptly shifted like iron pincers, forcefully wrenching wide the mouth that had barely cracked open.
Crack! The jaw dislocated!
And then...
His other hand, raised at some point, clamped its fingers together and shoved unceremoniously into that fanged maw—inward, downward, all the way to the stomach, burying in right up to the elbow!
He clutched tightly!
"Spitting up milk and refusing to eat? That's not very healthy for your growth, kiddo."
Ji Jue looked down at those stunned eyes and grinned. "So old and still can't talk? Uncle's here to prescribe some medicine for you..."
Before his words had even settled, the medicine kicked in!
—Jingzhen!!!
Jingzhen! Jingzhen! Jingzhen! Jingzhen! Jingzhen!
Abruptly, ten consecutive Jingzhens were unleashed in a brutal barrage.
The creature didn't even have time to scream.
Visibly to the naked eye, with every spiritus eruption, the aberrant infant expanded rapidly like a balloon being blown up, flesh tearing and scales crumbling.
And on the grotesque fish-man effigy, fissures grew and spread at top speed...
Teetering on collapse.
No, it had already collapsed entirely...
Pan Ying, Chunjun, Zhanlu, and now joined by the freshly completed Juque!
Into the aggression of Pan Ying, the spirituality of Chunjun, and the devastation of Zhanlu, the sheer mass and stability of Juque were infused, taking the destructive power up yet another tier. It was like stuffing steel bearings into explosives, adding tungsten carbide to bullets, or blasting a high-explosive anti-tank molten metal jet...
Ten blasts weren't needed at all!
From the very first blast, the abomination's heavily wounded spirit had already been pulverized into mush by Jingzhen!
All the rest surged backward along the newly reconnected spiritus flow between the Tyrant and the evil entity, rushing straight into the face of the Tyrant linked on the other end!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Resounding blasts detonated one after another from the abomination's belly. The overburdened statue of the Bloodstained Mother shattered completely; sharp bloody blades pierced out from the ceaselessly wailing aberrant fish head, foul smoke poured from its orifices and pores, and meandering bloody tears evaporated beneath the incinerating flames...
And on the other end, the Tyrant only felt darkness fall before his eyes.
It was as if just when you were about to speak, the guy opposite swung an iron hammer right at your forehead—a flying leaping strike caught totally off guard!
BANG!
An invisible iron hammer tore through the air. Beneath the mist, his head jolted, and a trickle of viscous, pitch-black blood silently seeped from his nose and mouth, dripping down...
The deep sea went berserk; the Tyrant seethed with fury.
Yet no matter how furious he was, it was useless.
Ji Jue had already severed the fiber-optic cable!
His connection to his offspring had been thoroughly severed, stripping him of the fulcrum for advent.
Even if he could still perceive the situation on the other end purely through intuition, he could only watch helplessly as that grinning craftsman grabbed a bizarre bone blade and hacked it into the aberrant infant.
What was he waiting for? Strike while it's still warm!
Such rare, prime materials—what a waste it would be to let them spoil!
Beside him, Lou Feng had already adeptly reached out, taking the assorted materials passed from Ji Jue's hands to process, pack, and preserve them while they were still fresh.
The division of labor between the two was smooth beyond words: one held it down while the other applied force, in perfect harmony as if sharing a single body. Grinning ear to ear, they were so thoroughly immersed in gathering mode that they forgot the heavens and earth.
Sorry, that's just how our craftsman game is played!
Who has the damn time to give gifts and wait for random events to grind affection points? Just get straight to the point and unlock special cutscenes with the materials!
They didn't even bother paying attention to the chilly glare cast by the Tyrant.
They didn't even turn off the lights!
He even enthusiastically displayed his harvest toward the Abyssal Lord, critiquing the quality and properties of the materials.
*Haha, was it like this on your end? It's completely different on mine! The recording's already sent to you—if you've got the guts, open it and have a look...*
Letting the entity on the other end seethe with fury, his eyes nearly tearing at the corners.
He couldn't even trigger the evil creature's self-destruction.
It wasn't until a final Dissociation Art landed, utterly destroying the abomination's last spark of life, that the venomous malice within those pitch-black pupils finally dissipated into nothingness.
And amid the ruins, that blood-splattered face finally lifted slowly, looking up at the firmament. As if gazing across the vast distance at the onlookers from every faction, he smiled faintly:
"Seen enough?"
Ji Jue flicked his finger. Instantly, pale mist materialized across the firmament, drawing the curtains.
Dispersing all observation.
The livestream was over.
Turning back to face the last worthless remnants of stone dust before him, he couldn't help but sigh wistfully:
"Truly, what a thoroughly exhilarating battle."
Exhilarating, my ass!
Lou Feng was so exasperated he laughed. "From start to finish, you were the dog doing all the tricking and ambushing, all right?! The other side didn't even have time to utter a single threat before you completely hard-countered them!"
"Satisfied?"
Lou Feng shot him a sidelong glance, annoyed at his role as a stepping stone, and snorted coldly. "From scamming and bluffing to baiting until now, you've brandished all the swagger you could across the entire Endless Sea, Mr. Ji."
"If I don't strut my stuff, how can we borrow a tiger's skin to make a great banner?"
Ji Jue retorted unconcernedly, "Between the two of us, one's a dirt-poor craftsman and the other's a corporate representative drowning in loans. Our combined credit score wouldn't even let us rent a power bank. If we want to catch a white wolf barehanded, we have to look completely unhinged and make a grand, brazen entrance!"
"What's next?" Lou Feng asked.
Ji Jue pondered for a moment and suggested, "Grab some late-night snacks?"
Lou Feng couldn't resist rolling his eyes. "I'm fucking asking you what you plan to do next!"
"Grab some late-night snacks," Ji Jue answered plainly with a shrug. "After exhausting ourselves for more than half the night, shouldn't we reward ourselves with good food? Once we've had our fill of food and drink, we'll get a good night's sleep. Then tomorrow, we strike while the iron is hot..."
He paused, glanced at Minkler, who was still wiping off sweat in the distance, and flashed a cheerful grin at their bewildered 'employer.'
"...And send our clan head candidate off to assume office in Xiangzhou!"
Chapter 703