Dead at Last

Meeting the burning gazes of his teammates, Zhang Yuanqing voiced his plan: "I have an item that can tie down the Autobot, giving us plenty of time to find the controller." Ashamed to Be a Father, Xi Shi, and Xie Lingxi all frowned. Huo Mo and Great Sage Equal to Heaven, on the other hand, looked utterly bewildered. "An item? Aren't our skills and items sealed?" Xi Shi offered a smooth, practiced smile and explained, "Earlier, while we were in the car, we found a card. It said we can use an item once." They could use an item? Huo Mo and Great Sage Equal to Heaven were momentarily delighted, but their brows quickly knit together. The latter asked cautiously, "Are you saying you want to use an item to take on that Autobot by yourself and buy us time?" Recalling the Autobot's ferocity, Huo Mo shook his head repeatedly. "That's not reliable. Unless our active skills are unsealed to go along with the item, we won't stand a chance against that robot." This time, Xie Lingxi agreed with Huo Mo, saying softly and timidly, "Brother Wang Tai, that's very dangerous. We're all Transcendent-stage Spirit Realm walkers, so the items we can get our hands on are roughly at this tier. Can a Transcendent-quality item really deal with the Autobot?" Items were categorized by type rather than explicit level grades, but Spirit Realm walkers knew that level was a hidden attribute, and items obtained during the Transcendent stage mostly belonged to that tier. Ashamed to Be a Father said impassively, "This idea is very risky. If a single item could resolve the danger so easily, that card wouldn't have appeared in the car in the first place." He was warning Zhang Yuanqing not to misjudge the situation and squander a card for nothing. How could an S-rank quest be so simple? Clearly, the teammates all felt Wang Tai's proposal was unrealistic. Yet based on the prestige Zhang Yuanqing had earned through his own actions, they only raised doubts rather than flatly objecting. An ordinary item naturally wouldn't cut it, but a rule-based item certainly could! Facing his teammates' skepticism, Zhang Yuanqing, who knew the red dancing shoes' capabilities all too well, smiled faintly. "As experienced Spirit Realm walkers, are you actually doubting my judgment? Don't forget, we're all grasshoppers tied to the same rope. Why would I joke with my own life?" His expression brimmed with confidence, and his tone was completely steady. At this moment, the solid track record Wang Tai had built up paid off. The team members frowned in silence. Though still somewhat skeptical, they raised no further objections. It was also largely because they either had no items at all, or lacked any potent offensive ones. Ashamed to Be a Father fell silent as well. Setting aside the bit about being experienced, he agreed with the second half of that statement. Zhang Yuanqing said, "Time is limited. Everyone, hurry and find car keys." The six Spirit Realm walkers moved quickly. Over the next while, Zhang Yuanqing found two car keys, Xi Shi found one, Great Sage Equal to Heaven found one, and Xie Lingxi found another. Each located their corresponding car and unlocked it to check. Aside from a metal card inside the little girl's car, no one else found anything. The text on Xie Lingxi's card read: [You have one chance to transfer aggro.] *A pity none of the cars in this parking garage can be driven...* Zhang Yuanqing thought regretfully. Suddenly, a high-pitched engine roar echoed from the distance. Like startled deer, everyone sharply craned their necks and looked toward the sound. At the entrance of the underground parking garage, the two-meter-tall Autobot reappeared. Brandishing its chainsaw, eyes glowing red, the speaker on its chest blared: "You all must die—!" Xi Shi screamed, "Wang Tai..." The others scrambled in a panic toward the same car and opened the doors. But instead of diving inside to take shelter right away, they turned toward Zhang Yuanqing with a glimmer of expectation. Zhang Yuanqing pulled the metal card from his pocket. [Ding. Do you wish to use the card to activate your inventory?] "Yes!" The next instant, he sensed his inventory once again. Opening it swiftly, he summoned the red dancing shoes. A streak of dim red light flashed out, gliding with agile grace before condensing into a pair of red dancing shoes in front of their useless master. *Tap-tap...* The brand-new, petite, and exquisite red dancing shoes quickly twirled once around Zhang Yuanqing. Their strut was imperious and insolent, yet carried a playful bounce, as if thrilled to be out dancing. To Xie Lingxi and the others, however, the scene was utterly eerie. Dancing shoes? A pair of dancing shoes that moved on their own? Whether it was an illusion or not, looking at the red dancing shoes sent an instinctive chill and dread through them—an unreasoned gut feeling. *Sigh, if my hand weren't forced, I wouldn't want to use it either,* Zhang Yuanqing sighed internally. Truth be told, when he had first seen the card, his immediate thought was: *The haunted house is in the bag.* No matter how terrifying the spirits inside the haunted house were, they were still spirits. The Demon-Subduing Pestle contained the divine power of the sun and held half of Niangniang's yang soul, making it the nemesis of all yin creatures. Once inside the haunted house, he could have unleashed the Demon-Subduing Pestle. Under the blazing sun, even if the ghost bride were ravenously thirsty, she would collapse to the floor and whimper through tears: *My good sir, please don't—* Unfortunately, resolving the immediate predicament took priority. The underground parking garage stage was straightforward, but excessively brutal. Furthermore, using the red dancing shoes offered another benefit: deterring the killer. If the killer disregarded everything and assassinated him, then under that worst-case scenario, the masterless red dancing shoes would revert to their baseline state and hunt down every Spirit Realm walker in the area. Everyone would die together. Watching the Autobot roar toward them, Zhang Yuanqing whispered, "Go!" The red dancing shoes shot forward. Two eerie trails of crimson light flashed like lightning and slammed into the Autobot's chest. With a deafening *clang*, the steel Autobot, charging with thunderous momentum, was actually brought to a screeching halt and knocked back a few inches. That wasn't all. Having kicked the Autobot to a stop, the red dancing shoes launched into a rapid barrage of stomps, each strike rattling the mechanical frame so hard that it stumbled. They completely neutralized the Autobot's advance. The Autobot swung its chainsaw in fury, but a weapon capable of cutting through gold and jade could not even graze the red dancing shoes. The footwear seemed to exist outside physical reality. The only regret was that the Autobot's frame was virtually indestructible, meaning the red dancing shoes could not destroy it either. Yet to Huo Mo, Xi Shi, and the rest, this was nothing short of the most wonderful sight in the world. "What kind of item is that? What kind of item is that?!" Huo Mo was both shocked and thrilled, his eyes gleaming with greed. Xi Shi, Xie Lingxi, and the others finally let their suspended hearts settle. Looking at the red dancing shoes, their eyes were filled with varying degrees of envy and longing. Given the rarity of items, a Spirit Realm walker's desire and greed for powerful gear was practically etched into their genes. "Don't get into the cars! Hurry and find the keys!" Zhang Yuanqing shouted, not forgetting to add, "The price of these shoes is that if I don't put them back into my inventory within an hour, they will kill indiscriminately." Huo Mo and the others blanched slightly. The trace of greed in their hearts vanished instantly. Not daring to delay another second, they scrambled to resume their search. Great Sage Equal to Heaven reluctantly tore his eyes away from the red dancing shoes. Remembering the drawback, he called out loudly, "Wang Tai, don't you dare die..." If he died, those shoes would become another danger—a catastrophic one. Throughout the time that followed, the red dancing shoes bore the heavy burden of holding back the Autobot, shielding them from danger time and again. Finally, after half an hour of nonstop searching, Xie Lingxi pulled the controller out of a sports car. "Is it this? Is this it?!" The young girl shouted with all her might. *Is this girl's luck insane or what?* Everyone dropped what they were doing and surged toward her with unprecedented speed. In her hands was an elongated piece of black metal, resembling an old-fashioned brick phone, with an antenna on top and a red button in the center. "Try it!" Huo Mo urged. Xie Lingxi glanced at Zhang Yuanqing. Seeing him nod, she promptly pressed the red button. In an instant, everyone held their breath and looked toward the robot struggling against the red dancing shoes nearby. The towering steel frame suddenly stiffened, as though its power source had been cut. All its movements ceased, and the red light in its eyes went out. *Tap, tap, tap...* The red dancing shoes delivered a few more kicks. Seeing the lump of iron stand dumbly without reacting, they paused in apparent confusion before trotting back to Zhang Yuanqing's side. *Here they come, here they come. They're coming to make me dance...* Even as relief washed over Zhang Yuanqing, the corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. "It worked!" Xie Lingxi cheered. Xi Shi and the others let out an exhausted sigh of relief, joyful smiles breaking across their faces. No one had died. A deathless clear. Just as they were about to shower Zhang Yuanqing with gratitude and praise, they suddenly saw the Autobot in the distance—which had clearly ground to a halt—light up with red eyes once more. Its engine roared fiercely as it charged toward the group like an arrow loosed from a bow. *What is happening?!* Everyone's expressions warped in horror. Zhang Yuanqing jolted and roared, "Stop it!" He issued another command to the red dancing shoes. But it was too late. The Autobot had already surged past the shoes, reenacting the scene from the very beginning as it slammed into the group. Its objective was crystal clear: Xie Lingxi, who was holding the controller. The turn of events came so suddenly that no one had time to react. Driven purely by instinct, they threw themselves to the ground, bewildered by the sudden catastrophe. Had the controller malfunctioned? Had the quest shifted, rendering the controller useless? Reflected in Xie Lingxi's wide eyes was the high-speed steel monster and the roaring chainsaw. Her mind went completely blank. Yet in the very next moment, what filled her gaze was Ashamed to Be a Father's honest, simple face, along with the ferocity and absolute resolve in his eyes. Ashamed to Be a Father threw all his weight into shoving Xie Lingxi out of the way, slamming himself directly into the chainsaw. His body was sliced cleanly in two at the waist. His intestines, internal organs, and upper torso crashed to the ground together with a wet thud, blood splattering out in a gruesome spray. "I am no longer who I used to be..." Wild laughter erupted from the speaker on the Autobot's chest: "Demon Lord, you're finally dead! You're dead at last! Demon Lord, even if you killed me, don't think you can live on alone!"