Old Toad, Your Sinful Life Ends Here!

With a crisp clack, Bai Zhou drew back his spear to stand upright and blew a breath across Light-Shadow Harmony at the tip, which was venting faint wisps of smoke. The smoke drifted away on the wind. The invincible Anguissola had finally fallen after all. After all, it was truly hard for any ordinary person to foresee that Bai Zhou would whip out three Extraordinary weapons in a single breath, let alone link them into such a bizarrely effective combination... Next, beneath the night-shrouded street, Bai Zhou pulled a palm-sized, faded wooden horse from his breast. "Troy, Troy, wake up!" Accompanied by an innocent, sweet, yet chilling nursery rhyme beneath the moon, the wooden horse creaked and wobbled, expanding against the night wind until it took on the size of a large doll. Smack! Bai Zhou raised a hand and rapped the wooden horse on the crown of its head, then gestured toward the nearby sea of flames. "Sing again, and I'll toss you in there!" "Troy..." The nursery rhyme cut off abruptly, and the wooden horse instantly became as obedient as could be. Click! Finding the mechanism, Bai Zhou opened its belly and shoved the spear-gun straight inside. The two-meter-long mechanical spear-gun slid deep into the horse's abdomen, yet the belly seemed bottomless, swallowing the entire weapon without the slightest resistance. Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat had told a story about the Trojan Horse, where many soldiers hid inside its belly to catch the enemy off guard and seize victory. Although Bai Zhou had no idea what connection his "Trojan Horse" had to that Troy... ever since he had tamed it using Laia's Light, the only function he could currently utilize was "storage"! It seemed that no matter what it was, it could be stowed away inside the little wooden horse's potbelly—it was absurdly convenient. —Just like the piggy bank from Bai Zhou's childhood. Anything that wasn't overly precious—such as his suit, heavy gold chain, mechanical spear, and a jumble of miscellaneous odds and ends—was normally kept inside it. Otherwise, every time Bai Zhou stepped outside, he would have had to wear a thick gold chain, carry a spear across his back, hold a saber in hand, and tuck a truncheon and pistol into his waistband. Rather than a master of arms, he would look like an eccentrically dressed, highly dangerous lunatic. There wouldn't even be any need for the Major to go through the trouble of hunting him down; enthusiastic citizens of Tinghai would have reported him a hundred times over. ...Having finished this, Bai Zhou infused another wisp of spirituality into the wooden horse. Buzz! The wooden horse obediently shrank down once more, resting light and handy in his palm. In truth, it seemed to possess other functions, but Bai Zhou had yet to unlock them. Even so, this alone was enough to satisfy him. An adventurer might lack companions, and a hero might lack a holy sword, but they always had a storage ring, even if it was only used to carry some ham and dried mushrooms. Packing away the wooden horse neatly, Bai Zhou picked his cavalry saber back up. Squelch! Squelch! The blade bit into flesh, then cleanly flicked off the beads of blood. He drove two finishing strikes into Anguissola's corpse. Only then did he loot her body with peace of mind. Pick the roadside wildflowers when you can, and stomp hard on fallen foes... No cool pose was as practical as stabbing them twice more afterward. His experiences in the Deep Ruin Realm had instilled in Bai Zhou the fine habit of double-tapping fallen enemies and the venerable tradition of looting corpses. Just like in adventure stories, whether it was a slime or a ragged skeleton soldier, both were stingy and wore tatters, yet upon death they would always drop legendary equipment—or even an ancestral blade left behind by the previous hero. Sure enough, before long... "Loot!" Bai Zhou's spirits lifted as he felt around inside Anguissola's lapel and pulled out... A parchment scroll? The tightly rolled parchment felt unusually warm and smooth to the touch, piquing Bai Zhou's curiosity. However, he dared not waste time examining it now and hurriedly put it away. "Time is short; I have to leave quickly!" Stowing the parchment scroll into the wooden horse as well, Bai Zhou looked around. Confirming that all surrounding surveillance cameras had been blown away, Bai Zhou turned his back on the roaring flames and hurried into the shadows of a corner, vanishing in the blink of an eye. There was a hole in the wall here that led straight to the snack street next door. Before long, an agile black cat slipped out on quiet paws, merging into the eating and drinking crowd of the night market. In moments, all trace of him was gone. ...Everything after the explosion and the brief clash took long to describe, but in truth, it had all unfolded in the span of an instant. Bai Zhou had saved as much time as possible because he knew full well that his opponents would not grant him much leeway. Right now, he was covered in wounds, and his spirituality was mostly spent. Having learned from his past mistake, he had carefully preserved only a tiny fraction of it. In this state, Bai Zhou had no way of dealing with further pursuers... Sure enough, the moment Bai Zhou slipped through the hole, the concealment ritual he had prepared at the street corner was triggered. The minor warning ritual sent Bai Zhou an alert, and the final image relayed back was three or four "old acquaintances" clad entirely in black arriving silently. The Black Warriors were here! A few of the Black Warriors who had been searching for "Bai Zhou's remains" two streets away had finally caught the scent of the explosion and come to investigate... Without question, these few Black Warriors were merely the vanguard. Once Bai Zhou's location was confirmed, the main force of Black Warriors carrying the Black Box next door would immediately envelop the area. Yet they were a step too late after all. Hopefully that Major Luo... wouldn't fly into a furious rage when he saw Anguissola's corpse through the Black Warriors. Muttering inwardly, Bai Zhou ran back in the direction he had come without looking back. Dashing through the cover of shadows, moonlight inadvertently fell across Bai Zhou as he hurried along. Suddenly, a cool, refreshing sensation coursed through every limb and bone, finally flowing into his brain and making Bai Zhou almost cry out in pure comfort. "Meow..." The sound cut off abruptly. Bai Zhou blinked, and the solemn black cat clamped its mouth shut. Then, he discovered to his astonishment that the spirituality within his body was rapidly reviving. This is...? On the back of the black cat's right paw, the crescent-shaped mark glowed faintly, resonating with the hazy moonlight shining down upon him. Understanding dawned in Bai Zhou's heart. It was the effect of Tears of the Moon Goddess! The immense medicinal power stored within him, having had nowhere to release itself, sensed Bai Zhou's depleted spirituality and began opening the sluice gates to irrigate him. Even so, Bai Zhou's drain on the medicinal potency of Tears of the Moon Goddess was barely perceptible, like a single hair from nine oxen. In the blink of an eye, half of Bai Zhou's spirituality was restored, and this spirituality in turn began to gradually mend his wounds. —Such an effect came merely from such a crude application of Tears of the Moon Goddess. Bai Zhou could not help but wonder: if he found a way to fully digest the Tears of the Moon Goddess and obtain that so-called "Blessing of the Moon Goddess"... wouldn't he become a perpetual motion machine under the moonlight? This was a complete and unexpected pleasant surprise for Bai Zhou. Because it meant that, once recovered, he would still be able to make it in time to enter the Deep Ruin Realm at midnight! The experience of having to finish off Anguissola had served as a stark wake-up call to Bai Zhou... Explosions were not omnipotent; in fact, this might be the last time one proved effective. Fighting to take an enemy down with him was handy, but Life Theft had a cooldown. If they could devise a counter-spell for the explosion ritual, they could naturally develop a counter-spell for the alchemy ritual as well. Anguissola had thought of disrupting his rituals; next time, someone else would surely bring new tricks. Better to be robbed by a thief than to be coveted by one—no matter how formidable a ritualist was, if enemies plotted against him day in and day out, they would inevitably find his weaknesses! Bai Zhou could not afford to lose, and he had no luxury to gamble on them failing to find his flaws. Moreover, most importantly— An explosion of that scale hadn't even completely killed a peak Rank 4 female assassin like Anguissola. Next time, what if the Major brought in a Rank 5 Extraordinary equipped with a Black Box? The explosion ritual, Bai Zhou's strongest trump card, had given the Major endless grief after numerous optimizations. But now, it was time for a major version overhaul— He had to become a Rank 3, or even Rank 4 Destined Adventurer! He had to become stronger! Ideally, strong enough to tear through all the conspiracies with a single stroke of his blade and split the Major's skull open with his own hands! Would the temple accessible via the Adventurer Token provide that answer? Bai Zhou felt a twinge of tension at the thought. "Still, something feels off..." Yet, even amidst his nervousness, a faint unease lingered in Bai Zhou's heart. To his horror, he suddenly realized that the warning transmitted by his mind power had not completely dissipated with Anguissola's death. Only a portion of it had vanished; the greater part of the heavy burden still weighed upon Bai Zhou's chest like dark clouds pressing down on a besieged city. Could it be that Anguissola wasn't dead? Or was the source of danger he sensed not Anguissola at all?! The more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became, though Bai Zhou showed no outward reaction. However, in his black cat form, he quietly decided against heading straight to his destination. He prepared to turn at the next intersection and take a detour to circle around... Yet just as he was pondering this— In the next instant, a sudden feeling of relief washed over Bai Zhou's heart. In the unseen depths, the mental warning abruptly vanished, as if the crisis had dissolved into thin air. It was like reading halfway through a suspenseful novel, only for the next page to end on a sudden cliffhanger: "To find out what happens next, tune in to the next chapter." "...What happened?" A cold sweat faintly prickling his spine, Bai Zhou was gripped by suspicion and bewilderment. This roller coaster of the unknown was even creepier than a crisis manifesting right in front of him! Was it the calm before the storm? Or had someone he didn't know secretly helped him neutralize the danger? This was the first time Bai Zhou had ever encountered such a situation. Puzzled and vigilant, his fur was practically standing on end. ... Just as Bai Zhou was looking all around in bewilderment, directly above the snack street, on the rooftop of a ten-story residential building by the road, shrouded in the dim moonlight, a bald old man stood at the edge of the cluttered rooftop, gazing down at the bustling night market snack street below. "Sss... Smells so good!" The man took a deep breath, sniffing the scent in the air, and shamelessly swallowed a thick mouthful of saliva. A long, forked, deep-purple tongue slowly licked across dry, cracked lips, as if savoring the scent of prey carried on the wind. Standing less than 1.6 meters tall, the old man was severely hunchbacked, with a massive hump bulging beneath his yellowed, filthy white undershirt. "The same smell as in the photo... the smell of a genius!" Leaning forward and drooling as he peered downward, he looked just like a toad poised to leap. His plastic flip-flops squeaked beneath his feet. The man squirmed, swallowing his saliva, and rubbed his hands together with a raspy chuckle. "Gulp... Good child, your scent smells delicious even from three streets away!" "A rare ritualist, suspected secret legacy of the Sun Knights, a genius among Extraordinaries... Delicious!" His foolish, turbid, yellowed eyes bulged so high they seemed about to pop from their sockets, and when they narrowed into fleshy slits with his grin, they laid bare an undisguised greed and hideous malice. Then he inhaled forcefully through his nose, deeply taking in the aroma of everyday life drifting up on the wind from the snack street, looking so intoxicated he seemed ready to ascend to heaven. All his desires converged, and thousands of thoughts ultimately condensed into a single phrase: "I want to eat him!" —"The Toad Who Loves Eating Geniuses." Such was the moniker that the Extraordinaries of Tinghai City's underworld used for this old wretch, spoken with both disgust and dread. Feng Xingyuan: Rank A+ wanted criminal, renegade former Blood-Robed Elder of the Blood Worship Cult, notorious Rank 5 Extraordinary... And the "Elder Feng" hired by Zijing Group. At this moment, he had finally locked onto Bai Zhou. "Where did you hide? The scent is faint here... Hmm, I need to look closer..." Poking his head out over the street below, muttering to himself like a senile old lunatic, he carefully traced the source of this "genius flavor," leisurely composed, like an old angler taking stock of his bait. Unfortunately, the pungent aromas of the street food had mingled with Bai Zhou's scent, requiring painstaking sorting and filtering... Otherwise, he would already be standing before Bai Zhou, impatiently digging into his feast and devouring the little genius down to the bone! "No matter, no matter... Hasty men don't get to eat hot tofu." "You're already right under my nose. A little game of hide-and-seek makes for a nice appetizer..." Mouth slightly agape, saliva dripping toward the street below, he muttered indistinctly, twitching his nose every few seconds to sniff. "Found you—over that way!" Suddenly, his eyes lit up as he looked toward a bustling pocket of the crowd. —Right where Bai Zhou was concealed. "Right there. You won't get away." As he spoke, the old man slowly fished a battered, antique-looking dirty bowl from his trousers. Tapping the rim of the bowl like a beggar, he swayed his head to and fro, softly crooning a tune under his breath. Like a grandfather humming opera to soothe his little granddaughter: "Don't run, don't run, be a good child—" "Be a good child and hop into my bowl..." Singing, the old man bent his knees and hunched lower, his bulging eyes laced with excited veins of blood. Crack... A fracture formed along the rooftop edge beneath his feet. Exerting force through his legs, he was about to leap from the tenth-floor roof and shoot straight toward Bai Zhou's location. Just then— "Oi—old man over there!" A crisp voice called out from behind Feng Xingyuan, stopping him: "With so many people down below, jumping off a roof here is a bit lacking in civic decency, don't you think?" Feng Xingyuan: "?" Even the rooftop edge beneath his feet had cracked under his weight, yet Feng Xingyuan ground to a halt like slamming on the brakes just as he was about to catapult forward. Turning around in bewilderment, he wanted to see what kind of suicidal passerby dared poke their nose into his business. Yet when he got a clear look at the newcomer, the sinister sneer on his face froze. —Because greeting his eyes was a breathtakingly splendid and elegant figure. Bathed in the hazy moonlight, a magnificent Western-style dress fluttered in the breeze, a silvery-white masquerade mask elevated her poise, and at her waist hung an assortment of colorful gemstones. A mysterious witch had descended upon this place. She was— "The Gem... Witch?" His voice was wavering with doubt and alarm, as if choked on a clump of thick phlegm. After his throat bobbed for several moments, Feng Xingyuan finally croaked out the words, his expression stiffening. A nuisance! Why would it be that Gem Witch?! Wiping away his ravenous drool and shedding his leisure, the man's face darkened. Now things had become troublesome... This Lady Witch looked as though she had just climbed up from the snack street below. In one hand she held a toothpick, and in the other she cradled a disposable paper bowl containing two takoyaki balls sprinkled with bonito flakes. —Printed on the paper bowl in bold red letters was: "Free Sample Only." "Hot, hot, hot!" Lifting the toothpick, she cautiously popped a takoyaki ball into her mouth. Puffing hot air, Lady Witch shook her head and waved the hand holding the toothpick repeatedly in front of her mouth. At the same time, she didn't forget to size up Feng Xingyuan. The more she looked, the wider her eyes went behind her mask. Her gaze shifted from confusion to shock and uncertainty, and finally, she pulled a small notebook from her breast, flipped to a certain page, and cross-referenced it with Feng Xingyuan's figure. Slap! The Gem Witch smacked her thigh hard, her joy and surprise beyond words. "Rank A+ wanted criminal pursued by the Anomaly Investigation Bureau? Renegade Blood Robe of the Blood Worship Cult?" "—It really is you! Old Feng!" "What a huge fish!" Though the two had never met before, the Gem Witch's delight was more dramatic than running into an old friend in a distant land—she was practically ecstatic. Seeing that the Major couldn't be counted on, Lady Witch had resolved to act independently in pursuit of the bounties, aiming to investigate on her own. The moment she heard a commotion broke out here, she immediately used her grappling hook to scale buildings and vault rooftops, sprinting all the way over. Little did she expect... She hadn't found the Rank A wanted criminal, Bai Zhou— yet Feng Xingyuan, an even higher-tier Rank A+ wanted criminal, had practically walked right into her lap?! What more was there to say? Bai Zhou was linked to the Blood Worship Cult, and this old toad was also linked to the Blood Worship Cult... Perhaps the two were even accomplices! "Haha, the heavens have eyes!" "Thank nature for its bountiful gift! It must be because I do so many good deeds on ordinary days that such a pie fell from the sky and landed right in front of me!" See? She knew she had to take the initiative! If she had kept waiting around in that Base 36, she wouldn't earn half a federal coin in her entire life! With a pious expression, the Gem Witch thanked the heavens, then shook her head beneath the mask and looked up at Feng Xingyuan, her eyes sparkling bright: "You've committed every evil under the sun; it's only right you crossed paths with me." "Now, I—recorder of love's elegant verses, guardian of the scales of reason, agent of justice, favored of talent, guide upon the path of brilliance—" "The Gem Witch! I sentence you to life imprisonment. Surrender without resistance!" Carefully setting the takoyaki bowl on the ground beside her, her expression turned solemn, her low, cool voice sounding like the chant of a holy psalm: "You may attempt to resist, but I cannot guarantee your physical safety." "...By the way, where were you planning to go just now? Now that you've run into me, don't even think about running away." With that, the Gem Witch stood tall and straight, producing a synthetic gemstone. Lifting her cloak, click! The amethyst was slotted into her belt— The Witch's silhouette lengthened under the moonlight, exuding a chillingly formidable pressure as purple radiance blossomed at her feet, banishing the gloom atop the building. "Old Toad, this sinful life of yours..." She declared: "—ends here!"