White Tiger's figure vanished from the spot without leaving even a ripple of spiritual energy. He came and went without a trace, just as he always did.
The abandoned industrial area returned to a dead silence, leaving only the whimpering wind and the increasingly piercing sound of police sirens approaching from afar.
Long Ao's eyelids struggled to open a crack, then closed heavily as he completely passed out.
Chen Guan didn't delay for a second. He bent down to prop Long Ao up, but the sheer weight of the man made him stumble.
He was dead heavy... Long Ao looked heavy, and he was indeed not light at all. If it were a proper illusionist, they really wouldn't be able to carry him.
He muttered to himself, adjusting his posture, and simply slung the man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Choosing a direction opposite to the approaching official vehicles, he plunged headlong into the labyrinthine alleys.
The bullet screen comments floated by at the right moment.
[He's off, Brother Guan hides his achievements and fame.]
[This wave by White Tiger is an absolute landslide victory. The coolness factor is maxed out.]
[By the way, do Brother Ao and Brother Guan know they are colleagues now? One is Vermilion Bird, the other is a reservist... Speaking of which, doesn't that make Brother Ao Chen Guan's superior?]
[They probably don't know, right? Little Brother Guan hasn't even become a full member yet.]
Chen Guan had no time to pay attention to the banter on the bullet screen; his feet didn't stop moving.
His enhanced spiritual power worked rapidly in his mind, causing the layout of the entire area to surface in his head.
Like a ghost, he perfectly avoided all areas with surveillance cameras, specifically choosing to travel through abandoned pipes and the crevices between buildings.
Ten minutes later, he exerted force to pry open a rust-mottled manhole cover and jumped into an abandoned underground subway platform with Long Ao still on his shoulder.
The air was thick with the choking smell of a mixture of rust, mold, and stale dust.
Chen Guan set Long Ao down, leaning him against a graffiti-covered pillar, and checked the man's breathing.
His breathing was steady, and his chest rose and fell rhythmically.
White Tiger's healing methods were clearly simple and crude, merely keeping him alive. Long Ao's current condition was still a hundred thousand miles away from being fine. After all, he was a summoner, not a life-type Esper. Relying on summons to heal, it was understandable that the healing efficacy was a bit lacking.
But it was enough.
No one would find this place anytime soon, and his own condition was still perfectly intact—at the very least, casting a Raging Flame wouldn't be a problem.
Chen Guan took two steps back and leaned against the cold wall, finally having the time to take stock of his gains this time.
At the same time, a question hovered in his mind—who exactly was the person who sent the message in advance, warning him that he was being targeted?
He had no clues for now.
He stopped dwelling on it and sank his consciousness into the system.
In his field of vision, the popularity points counter had stopped jumping, and the final aftershocks had settled.
A number that was enough to make his breathing stop lay quietly on the panel.
[Popularity Points: 124,880]
One hundred and twenty thousand!
A Tier 7 firework display, followed by the pursuit, the plot twist, and White Tiger's entrance... This series of events had directly multiplied his assets several times over.
Greedy Wolf died a worthy death, as did his two colleagues.
A whole family of loyal martyrs!
The cold enemies had all turned into warm popularity points at this moment.
Chen Guan suppressed the emotions in his heart without the slightest hesitation.
"System, add points to Spirit, 10 points."
[Spirit: 50]
The moment the attribute breached the 50-point threshold, Chen Guan's world was turned upside down.
There was no exaggerated shifting of light and shadow.
It was just that in an instant, it felt as though all the limiters on his brain had been removed.
A drop of water seeped from the top of the tunnel and fell onto the tracks. In his hearing, that sound was broken down into the whistle of the water drop piercing the air, the sizzling sound of it hitting the rust, and the clear chime of it finally shattering.
The trajectory of every speck of dust in the air, the direction of every tiny crack on the wall, the faint sound of blood flowing within Long Ao's body...
The entire world transformed into an endless stream of data, flooding into his mind and being processed in an instant, constructing an unprecedentedly detailed and realistic model.
The previously black-and-white model had now been endowed with color.
This was the world of a Tier 5 Spirit Esper.
Illusions would no longer be mere visual deceptions.
Instead, he could construct out of thin air a reality that could deceive even the five senses.
Chen Guan opened his eyes. The gloomy subway platform was revealed in minute detail to his eyes, as bright as day.
He left the remaining twenty-odd thousand popularity points untouched for the time being, saving them for emergencies.
...
At the same time, in the abandoned industrial area next to Blackwater Pier.
Dozens of heavy armored vehicles bearing the insignia of the Great Wall had already surrounded the place, making it watertight.
Over a hundred Great Wall members in black combat uniforms blocked all the exits. In the sky, several drones hovered, their infrared beams scanning every inch of the ground over and over again.
Long Ye paid no attention to the reports of the subordinates beside him. He crouched down and, with white-gloved fingers, pinched a pinch of scorched black soil.
He brought the soil to his nose and closed his eyes.
A moment later, he opened his eyes, his gaze filled with an unresolvable solemnity.
"Old Master, high concentrations of Tier 7 magical residual have been detected at the scene. It should be Pojun and Qisha from the Flesh Embrace," an adjutant reported in a low voice. "In addition to that, there is an unidentifiable power of extremely high tier. Our instruments cannot even analyze its composition."
Long Ye did not speak.
Of course he knew.
In this soil, he smelled three scents.
One was the nauseating rot of Pojun and Qisha.
One was the aura of Dragon Blood Marrow belonging to the Long family bloodline, which he was all too familiar with—violent, blazing, and carrying a tendency toward self-destruction. His grandson had been here and had even used a taboo item; this was within his expectations.
As for the third...
It was an unfamiliar aura he had never encountered before: gentle and vast, yet carrying an unquestionable, absolute dominance.
It had easily smoothed out the violent frenzy of the Dragon Blood Marrow, and had even roughly erased the traces of Pojun and Qisha's existence from this space.
That person had indeed kept their promise and sent someone over.
"Lock down Jiangcheng, Class A alert." Long Ye stood up. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of a mountain. "Investigate. Turn all of Jiangcheng upside down if you have to, but find the remnants of the Flesh Embrace."
"Yes, sir!"
...
Abandoned subway platform.
Chen Guan had just adapted to the brand-new perception brought by the surge in his spiritual power when an extremely faint vibration came from Long Ao's direction.
In the past, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to notice it.
But now, in his ultra-precise perception, this vibration was as clear as a beating drum.
He walked over to Long Ao and fished out a still slightly vibrating phone from the other man's pocket.
The screen was lit up, showing a newly received encrypted message.
The sender was an unknown number.
Chen Guan looked at Long Ao's unconscious face, a hint of hesitation flashing in his heart.
Snooping on someone else's phone was immoral.
But considering that mysterious warning message...
To hell with morality.
Chen Guan grabbed Long Ao's finger, swiped it across the screen, and unlocked the phone.
The content of the message was only a single line of text.
A line of text that caused Chen Guan's newly maxed-out brain to instantly crash.
[The ritual is brought forward. The entire city is the sacrifice. — White Tiger.]
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
end. Thus one must continue to cultivate, and become a saint or great emperor, in order to prolong one's life. Chen Xia, however, completely reversed this. Since his transmigration, he has gained immortality, and also a system that awards him with attribute points for every year he lives. Thus between the myriad worlds, the legend of an unparalleled senior appeared. "A gentleman takes revenge; it is never too late even after ten thousand years." "When you were at your peak I yielded, now in your old age I shall trample on you." - Chen Xia
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
