"I do have a backup plan." Chen Guan turned to him. In the absolute darkness, his eyes met Long Ao's. "But I need your help."
"Tell me!" Long Ao's spirits lifted. Chen Guan's calmness made him instinctively choose to trust him. Although it was pitch black all around, he felt that Chen Guan must be glowing at this moment.
As long as he could help, that was enough. Long Ao's thoughts were simple and unpretentious.
Chen Guan raised his hand and pointed in a direction toward the outskirts of the city, far from the center.
"My method can only target the core of the ritual, which is the Queen Casino. But the scope of this ritual covers the entire city. The civilians in those fringe areas are the first batch of sacrifices, and I cannot be in two places at once."
"The Great Wall's main forces will be blocked in the city center; they won't be able to get through. I need someone to go to those residential areas that will be affected first. Do everything in your power to evacuate and protect them."
"Buy me some time."
Every word of this speech struck heavily upon Long Ao's heart.
He looked at Chen Guan. At this moment, the image of his classmate grew infinitely taller in his mind. He even forgot to wonder how Chen Guan, a mere student, planned to resolve such a disaster.
Perhaps he had already grown accustomed to Chen Guan's omnipotence.
Prioritizing the greater good, keeping the big picture in mind.
While everyone else was staring at the center of the storm, he still remembered the most inconspicuous victims.
Meanwhile, his own mind had just been filled with charging into the casino to fight the Blood Butcher to the death, completely forgetting the civilians who needed protection the most.
A wave of guilt welled up in his heart.
He felt deeply ashamed that he fell short of this selfless devotion to the world.
"I understand." Long Ao nodded heavily. He straightened his back, and the remaining dragon aura on his body surfaced once more, this time carrying an indomitable resolve. "Leave it to me! You... be careful."
After saying that, he hesitated no longer. Dragging his mostly recovered body, he identified the direction, turned around, and dashed into the pitch-black tunnel leading to the surface. His heavy footsteps quickly faded into the distance.
One couldn't help but envy Long Ao's physique. His recovery speed was truly top-tier; even when his powers were sealed, he was just as strong.
[Tears in my eyes. Brother Guan is for real, he holds every single one of us in his heart.]
[Brother Ao was also assigned perfectly, going to protect the civilians. This is what a protagonist group should look like, they are all such good boys.]
[Long also put Chen Guan in danger for the big picture. Bold speculation: Chen Guan actually knew this all along, but he came voluntarily. Just like now, he came to protect more people.]
[Stop talking, person above. You're making me feel awful this late at night.]
Chen Guan watched Long Ao's disappearing back and glanced at the bullet screen. The heaviness on his face vanished in an instant.
The viewers were overthinking it, and Long Ao was probably overthinking it too.
He just needed an excuse to send away this hot-blooded idiot whose head was full of justice. He didn't want him to know what was going to happen next. Conveniently, the suburbs were far enough away that even if Long Ao ran himself to death, he wouldn't be able to make it back in time.
"Baal."
He called out in his mind.
A lazy voice echoed directly in his mental world. "Yo, still alive. So, how do you like this grand spectacle covering the whole city?"
"Is this just a low-level demon?" Chen Guan cut straight to the chase. He didn't believe such a massive scale was the work of an ordinary little demon.
Even among demons, there were disparities.
"Of course... not." Baal's tone was filled with the amusement of someone watching a fire burn. "That cult leader guy hit the jackpot. He disturbed the obsession of a... well, an old thing that should have been dead and gone long ago."
"The Blood Butcher's ritual accidentally became the coordinates for this obsession's descent. So, this is no longer a simple summoning ritual."
Baal's voice carried a hint of playfulness. "This is a feast competing for the remnants of a divine spark. That cult leader wants to devour that obsession to complete his own ascension. Oh, he has no idea what kind of existence he has awakened."
Chen Guan's heartbeat skipped for a second.
The obsession of an ancient demon god?
Remnants of a divine spark?
Instead of feeling any fear, Chen Guan's eyes erupted with an unprecedented light.
He really didn't care much for ordinary demons.
But the obsession of an ancient demon god was practically a super supplement tailor-made for his slumbering true body.
Many demon gods had once existed in this world. Some survived, like Baal, and naturally, others had died.
A centipede dies but never falls down. Even a dead demon god would always leave something behind, just like the lingering obsession currently summoned by the Blood Butcher.
This feast, I, Chen Guan, will absolutely devour!
Baal chuckled and began to egg him on. "The chef has already prepared the dishes, so there must be a decent diner, right? Your reverberation can perfectly record this thrilling moment."
"I will go."
Chen Guan delayed no further. Carrying the coffin on his back, he left the subway station through another tunnel.
His figure moved swiftly through the city, perfectly evading all patrolling officials and the scanning drones in the sky.
Ten minutes later, he arrived at an abandoned office building opposite the Queen Casino, perfectly situated no more than a hundred meters away.
Chen Guan climbed up to the rooftop and lifted the lid of the water tank. He carefully unloaded the black coffin from his back and gently placed it at the bottom of the tank.
Casting an illusion over it, the water tank blended seamlessly with the surrounding environment to any mental perception.
Having done all this, Chen Guan walked to the edge of the rooftop.
Below, the Queen Casino was brightly lit, its luxurious neon lights tracing its sinful silhouette.
Countless luxury cars were parked at the entrance. The impeccably dressed gamblers were completely oblivious to the apocalypse unfolding at this very moment, still living in a drunken dream inside.
But in Chen Guan's eyes, that place was the terminus of a bloody torrent, a massive vortex frantically devouring the entire city.
A trace of coldness surfaced on his face.
He leaped forward, his body tracing a silent trajectory through the air. Like a black feather, he landed lightly into the shadows of the casino's back alley.
The diner had officially taken his seat.
Chen Guan's figure weaved through the intricate staff corridors inside the casino without making a single sound. His powerful mental strength allowed him to preemptively evade all the guards.
His goal was clear: the top floor, the core of the ritual.
Just as he stepped onto the final flight of stairs leading to the top floor, a familiar female voice echoed in his mind without any warning.
"You are even bolder than I imagined."
"Need any help, reserve member?"
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
