Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three more gunshots rang out in rapid succession. The sleeping Jumang's head jerked violently as the bullets struck; nearly half his skull was blown clean off, splattering bits of brain tissue across the ground.
It all happened far too fast, far too abruptly. From the first bullet to the fourth, from Jumang and Deep Sea Terror succumbing to slumber to the headshot, the entire process had taken less than two seconds.
The Saints present hadn't even seen a bullet trajectory. With their eyesight, they should have easily caught the path of the rounds.
This left Chazo and the others both bewildered and horrified. Traces of joy still lingered on their faces; none of them could have imagined that a peak level-six Saint would die so fast, without even the slightest chance to fight back.
In under two seconds, a legendary Beast King had perished right where he stood, returning to the Spirit Realm!
With stiff expressions, Chazo and the others looked toward the source of the gunfire. The shooter was Cocktail, the tall, thin young man with wildly asymmetrical features. He held a black, large-caliber shotgun half-raised.
Gunsmoke still drifted from its muzzle.
The Disorderly gave a chuckle. "I've been waiting for you a long time. Die in the night curtain, and a Beast King's passive can't trigger."
He twirled the barrel around and nonchalantly blew away the wisp of smoke.
To ensure they could hunt down Jumang, the Freedom camp had prepared two trump cards. One of them was in his hands—though not the shotgun itself. The shotgun was merely an ordinary firearm; the real prize was the bullet that had just been fired.
The Slumber Demon Bullet!
The Slumber Demon Bullet had been provided by the Night God Church. Its warhead was crafted from special materials and carved with slumber incantations, sealing within it the power of the Eternal Night class—a consumable item of Dominator quality.
The moment the warhead detonated, it created a twenty-meter slumber domain lasting five minutes. Even experts at the Dominator stage would struggle to resist that overwhelming drowsiness, let alone a Saint.
Typhoeus's boastful entrance had actually been meant to mislead the orthodox faction's Saints, especially Jumang lurking nearby, tricking him into thinking the killer move lay with Typhoeus and diverting his attention from anyone else.
Then, Cocktail could lie in wait for the ambush. The shooter had to be Cocktail and no one else, because a Disorderly could exploit loopholes in the rules to make bullet trajectories disappear.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible for a bullet to "close in" on a peak Saint.
As for the subsequent headshot rounds, they were standard ammunition. Inside the slumber domain, all spiritual energy fell asleep alongside everything else, rendering all skills useless; ironically, ordinary bullets faced no restriction whatsoever.
At that moment, Typhoeus, who had leapt back to the edge of the slumber domain, glanced back at Jumang's corpse. The area was blanketed by the night curtain, leaving Jumang's body indistinct, as was the oil painting of chaos. "A pity. Only one Dominator-grade item."
In the distance, Cocktail shrugged. "Nothing we could do. It was an ambush; there was only a split-second window. One is fine. The other returned to the Spirit Realm anyway."
The short blade left behind by Yuanshi Tianzun would return to the Spirit Realm with Jumang's death. Though they couldn't obtain it, a devastating loss for the enemy was as good as a huge profit for their own side.
Typhoeus looked toward the orthodox Saints not far away and let out a raspy laugh.
"The show has only just begun. Ready to return to the Spirit Realm, boys of the orthodox faction?"
The orthodox Saints' faces turned utterly grim.
***
At the bank headquarters building, inside the Heaven's Punishment secret chamber.
Winnie Berendt sat cross-legged by a pillar, meticulously wiping the tears of blood from her face with a wet wipe.
Her pupils were dull and hollow, like those of someone born blind.
Channing Lu stood several meters away. Rather than rushing her to leave the chamber, he kept watch on their surroundings while asking in a conversational tone, "What are your plans next? I mean, how do you intend to get through these five days of blindness?"
Winnie Berendt replied, "Go home. My grandfather will protect me. You should know that no one can break into his estate."
Channing Lu nodded. "A good idea indeed. Sigh, I wonder how the battle at the port is going. I'm a bit worried."
Winnie tilted her head, turning her face toward Channing. "Worried about what?"
Channing said, "New York Port is the headquarters of the Sea God Church. There's a demigod presiding over it, along with peak Dominators. What gives the evil faction the nerve to strike there?"
Winnie said impassively, "The evil faction has demigods, too."
"Still, in terms of high-ranking Spirit Realm walkers, the Sea God Church has the clear advantage," Channing Lu said in a deep voice. "Demigod against demigod, and the battlefield is a harbor. The evil faction's demigods might not be able to suppress the Sea Emperor. The Covenant of Freedom's best outcome would only be a draw, while trying to gain an advantage in the battle among the Saints. But if it were just about slaughtering Saints, there would be no need to make such a grand spectacle. A single misstep could cost a Dominator their life. The gains simply don't match the risks."
Winnie finally knitted her brows. "Minister Channing, what are you getting at?"
Channing Lu glanced around and slowly approached Winnie, lowering his voice. "What I mean is..."
Without warning, he suddenly raised his hand, swiftly condensing a ball of lightning in his palm, and slammed it toward the crown of Winnie's head. "The Covenant of Freedom's target is you!"
Her head bowed, Winnie retrieved a black iron shield just as abruptly, thrusting it above her head.
Bang! Clang!
The lightning ball exploded against the shield's surface, charring it black. The massive shockwave blew the shield away and sent Winnie flying.
She tumbled across the floor, spewing a mouthful of blood.
A Lightning Mage's physique wasn't particularly sturdy. Any class with "Mage" in its name was generally a glass cannon.
As she rolled, Winnie channeled her spiritual power, drawing together lightning to form a bright-blue whip that twisted and danced wildly through the chamber, lashing out indiscriminately.
At the same time, she condensed basketball-sized globes of lightning that hovered around her, forming a defensive web to prevent her enemy from closing in.
"Channing!" Winnie gritted her teeth, blood seeping from the corners of her mouth. "I never expected it to be you."
Channing, his hairline receding slightly, smiled. "Catching your prey off guard—that is the true essence of hunting."
Winnie tracked his position by ear and lashed out with her whip, but it struck only empty air. Her enemy dodged it, and there were no footsteps—he was clearly levitating.
For a Dominator, flight was the most fundamental ability.
"Why me?" Winnie stilled her whip, hyper-focused and on guard.
"Didn't I just say? New York Port is the Sea God Church's turf. With them watching over it, there's no profit to be made on that battlefield." Channing quietly condensed a lightning spear. Winnie was also a Lightning Mage and acutely sensitive to lightning spiritual power. "The Covenant of Freedom's true targets were always you and Jumang. Killing you weakens Heaven's Punishment's New York County branch to the greatest degree. Killing Jumang yields at least one Dominator-grade item, and at the very least inflicts a loss of two Dominator items and a level-six Saint on Heaven's Punishment.
"Of course, there is one more reason to kill you..."
With that, he hurled the spear violently. Lightning flashed across the chamber.
By the time Winnie Berendt sensed it, it was already too late. How fast was lightning? Unless one could anticipate its trajectory in advance, even a Dominator could not dodge after the lightning appeared.
Having lost her sight, Winnie couldn't see Channing gathering power, let alone his throwing motion, leaving her with no way to predict the strike.
Pfft!
The lightning spear struck Winnie squarely between her lower abdomen and chest. The tremendous force blasted her backward as blood sprayed from her lips.
Her shirt tore open at the lower belly, exposing fair, flat skin that had turned charred and carbonized.
Fortunately, as a Lightning Mage, she possessed immense resistance to lightning damage. Taking the full brunt of the spear had critically injured her, but it hadn't killed her on the spot.
"What's the other reason?" Winnie asked, swallowing back the blood in her mouth, as if determined to die with answers.
This time, Channing produced a white feather fan and smiled. "Once you're dead, the Covenant of Freedom can deal with your grandfather. While Heaven's Punishment is busy seeking vengeance against the Freedom camp, no one will notice that a veteran Dominator who retired over a decade ago is under our attack."
Something seemed to click in Winnie's mind, and her expression changed.
Channing Lu waved the fan. Instantly, wild gales howled inside the chamber. A miniature hurricane rose from the ground, churning with blade-sharp wind cutters that swept toward the blind, wounded Winnie.
Her ears twitched. She quickly opened her inventory and pulled out a fish-scale cloak, draping it over herself.
An ethereal layer of fish scales instantly surfaced over her body, holding off the shredding hurricane. Next, Winnie fished out an earthy-yellow seal.
Her body abruptly sank, forcing her half-flat against the ground. The seal seemed unimaginably heavy, weighing her down so severely that she couldn't straighten her spine.
With two defensive items stacked together, the hurricane was completely held at bay.
Yet Winnie was suffering just as much. The seal was an Earth Monster item from the Second District, and the cost of using it was crushing weight—a terrifying burden for a Lightning Mage's frail physique.
As for the fish scales, their price was that if used for more than three minutes, the user's skin would fester and sprout scales irreversibly.
Channing Lu knew very well what tricks and items Minister Winnie possessed after years of working together. Content to bide his time, he chuckled. "No one is coming to save you. Every orthodox Dominator in New York County is under our surveillance, and all of them are watching the harbor battle, ready to reinforce at a moment's notice.
"Nobody would imagine that Minister Winnie, right here inside Heaven's Punishment headquarters, is being assassinated at this very moment. Don't even think of running. The fact that I chose to kill you in this secret chamber means your death is sealed."
Winnie raised her head with difficulty, looking toward the head of administration. "I've known you were a spy for a long time."
Channing froze for a second, then shrugged. "Uh-huh?"
Disbelief was written all over his face.
Winnie drew a deep breath and said coldly, "At first, I didn't believe there could be a Covenant of Freedom spy among our branch's Dominators. Every single Dominator was painstakingly nurtured by headquarters and passed rigorous vetting. They were companions worthy of absolute trust.
"Furthermore, you're the oldest among us, and you aren't even sixty yet. It seemed unlikely you'd have ties to the Covenant of Freedom, which has existed for over a century. It wasn't until Jumang told me that the Covenant of Freedom can corrupt an orthodox walker's mind and twist their cognition in a short period that I began suspecting the three of us.
"If one of us had to be a spy, you were the one I suspected."
Channing raised an eyebrow. "Why not Sean? Let me guess... hmm, because his son died?"
"No. Because he made a major mistake and was nearly replaced by headquarters," Winnie replied with a mocking sneer. "In Sean's eyes, what matters most isn't his son—it's power and status. He would wager his son's life to earn trust, but he would never gamble with his power."
Channing fell silent.
Winnie continued, "Of course, I didn't suspect you at the very beginning. But the moment you proposed using the Eye of the Sky, I realized something was wrong with you. So I beat you at your own game—I voluntarily bore the cost of the Eye of the Sky and took the initiative to ask for your protection, just to test whether you really were a spy. Looks like my guess was right."
"Even if you guessed right, so what? Don't you think betting your life to verify it is utterly foolish?" Channing narrowed his eyes. "Or do you really think you have the ability to turn the tables and kill me?"
"Do you know why I chose to rest here instead of leaving immediately?" Winnie looked toward the door of the secret chamber, the corners of her lips curling up. "When Sean left, he didn't lock the door."
As her words fell, a figure clad in a mink coat pushed open the iron door, plunged a cross greatsword into the ground, and proclaimed loudly:
"Indoor combat rule: No using lightning!"
***
*The show has only just begun...* Hearing Typhoeus's raspy jeer, the orthodox Saints exchanged glances. A wave of overwhelming dread gripped them, and they couldn't help wanting to turn and flee, to back down.
Mengmo and Sect Master Tongtian were amplifying their feelings of terror, chipping away at their fighting spirit and resolve. Jumang, a champion of the orthodox faction and the core powerhouse of this operation, had died so easily—it dealt an immense psychological blow to the orthodox Saints.
A qualified Illusionist would never pass up an opportunity when an enemy's state of mind was in turmoil.
In just a dozen seconds, three Saints from civilian organizations lost their will to fight completely. After exchanging glances, they turned on their heels and ran in tacit agreement.
To them, there was no longer any point in continuing this battle—unless they wanted an early return to the Spirit Realm.
No one in their right mind wanted to return to the Spirit Realm.
The trio's flight triggered a chain reaction, and two more Saints from civilian organizations fled the field.
The evil faction's Saints watched this scene with sneers. Their true targets were the peak Saints; as for the ordinary Saints, letting them flee simply cleared away a few nuisances.
Emily gazed at Jumang's corpse shrouded in the night curtain, feeling a mix of regret and disappointment—regret that such a high-quality man had died like this, and disappointment because she had harbored expectations for him, only for it to end in such an anticlimactic blunder.
It truly lived up to the adage, "Fate is fickle."
Chazo, North, Reilly Eugene, and the others exchanged swift glances, caught in a dilemma.
In this situation, retreating would inevitably invite pursuit, handing the evil faction an opportunity to pick them off one by one; anyone hunted down would surely die.
Furthermore, if they scattered and fled, the item Jumang left behind would definitely fall into the hands of the evil faction. That would be a catastrophic loss, snuffing out any hope of turning the tables.
Yet if they didn't retreat, their only option was to call for reinforcements. The orthodox faction had arranged backups nearby, but ordinary Saints would be of little use. Unless a substantial number of peak Saints or Dominator-stage powerhouses arrived, changing the course of the battle would be nearly impossible.
Just as they hesitated, a tiger's roar resounded from the direction of the lighthouse, sonorous and majestic, echoing across the darkness-shrouded harbor.
Everyone's gaze was drawn by the roar, including the Saints who were fleeing.
Atop the lighthouse stood an imposing, magnificent striped tiger. With the night curtain as its backdrop and the lighthouse as its throne, its slanting eyes were cold and merciless, like a supreme sovereign looking down upon rebellious subjects.
Chapter 722