Chapter 285: Chapter 271: Return III
The Purgatory invasion was not a simple entry of ordinary creatures, but a full-scale assault by an organized army.
In an extremely short time, they amassed a massive force and broke through the sealed gate of Tuyue Inner City in a single blow.
After slaughtering the Black Army at the sealed fortress, they took advantage of Tuyue’s absence to quickly paralyze the formation arrays and destroy the surveillance Moon Towers, causing all the city’s experts to be isolated and forced to fend for themselves.
In the end, only a very small number escaped with their lives due to various special abilities. The vast majority were picked off and devoured one by one, ultimately perishing.
By the time Tuyue returned, it was too late. Without the amplification of the formation arrays, she and Xie Jun could only hold out for a little while longer, even when fighting together. They were crushed several times over by the Purgatory Duke and the Extreme Cold Queen, and finally had to flee in panic to Xingdiao.
At this very moment, the entire ruins of Tuyue were divided into two major territories. One was occupied by Purgatory, the other by Extreme Cold Heaven.
The two leaders were a man and a woman.
The man was powerfully built, with dark red skin. He wore heavy, black armor with silver patterns, had a square-jawed face, and gripped a massive, blood-red, long-handled battle-ax.
The woman wore dark red, lingerie-like leather armor with gold trim, revealing large swaths of fair skin on her chest and abdomen. Her eyes burned with red fire, and her hair was a mass of tiny, fire-breathing snakes that constantly twisted and writhed behind her.
"That person is of the utmost importance. To this day, we still don’t know how he bypassed the seal to spread and leak the Holy Prison Power. If we can replicate that situation just one more time, this entire airspace will be ours for the taking!" the man said in a low voice. "Princess Lanxi, this group of people carries that person’s original aura. Please, I implore you not to disturb them. We must follow them to find our target."
"That’s your mission. What does it have to do with me? Father never told me to restrain myself," the woman said languidly, a smile on her face. "I’ve gotten tired of feasting on Blood Ancestors. A change of pace with some common fare will be a nice diversion."
"Your Highness..." The man tried to persuade her further, but his vision blurred, and the woman suddenly vanished.
His expression changed in alarm, and he hurriedly rushed toward Master Yunxia’s group.
Fortunately, Her Highness didn’t attack directly. She seemed to be hiding off to the side, apparently with other plans.
This allowed him to relax slightly.
At this time, down in the group below, some people had already fallen behind, unable to keep up with the main party.
Most of these people had just been tagging along with Master Yunxia for safety. There were men and women among them, and many were former Original Bloods from the Moon Tower.
But as mere Original Bloods and not nobility, they had no Evil Energy and were naturally not considered upper-class in the Moon Tower. As a result, more of them had managed to survive. They weren’t the primary targets of the invasion.
But surviving the longest didn’t mean they were living well.
Because they used to fawn over their superiors while bullying their inferiors—transferring the psychological pressure of being abused by the upper class onto those weaker than themselves—many of them had long since become psychologically warped.
Now, feeling their Original Blood fading, the terror in their hearts was far more severe than anyone else’s.
This group was clustered around two young girls in the center, hurrying along. Feeling their Original Blood lineage waning, and with Purgatory monsters now in pursuit from behind, they grew increasingly frantic.
"This is hopeless! If we keep dragging these two burdens along, we’re all going to die!"
Someone couldn’t help but shout.
"Split up! We can’t stick together, or we’ll all die as a group!" another voice added.
"No, that’s not it! We’re not attractive targets at all. It must be those two nobles who drew the Purgatory monsters here! We have to ditch them if we want to live!"
At these words, the faces of the two Original Blood Nobility girls surrounded in the middle instantly paled.
"You were the ones who begged us to let you run with us!!? We even protected you multiple times along the way! You...!?" a girl with shoulder-length black hair exclaimed, choking with anger.
"Stop, Anling," Sha Ye said calmly from the side. "They’re saying this loud on purpose for us to hear. They’re not using voice transmissions, just shouting it out. They want to avoid a direct conflict with us while winning over the others and reaching a consensus to abandon us and escape safely."
The hardships of these times had forced Sha Ye to mature at an unimaginable speed.
She saw through the intentions of these Original Bloods at a glance. No one here was a naive youngster; they had all lived for at least several decades. Some things were simply left unsaid.
"These despicable bastards!!" The girl called Anling gritted her teeth, but said no more.
She, like Sha Ye, had always despised the nobles who casually devoured people, even though they were nobles themselves. But the act of eating a fellow being who looked just like them... that was the kind of thing that truly gave her nightmares.
Both she and Sha Ye were such outliers, the kind that appeared every so often among the Original Blood Nobility.
Their aversion stemmed from pure terror, especially after witnessing their own parents use Evil Energy to devour people they had captured from the outside. Ever since, they often dreamed that they, too, would be like those captured people—that one day, for being disobedient, they would be seized by their callous parents and eaten, piece by piece.
That was why, even though both she and Sha Ye were nobles with Evil Energy, they had never used it. Instead, they did their best to save people everywhere, most often helping the non-noble Original Bloods closest to them.
Because of this, they were also ostracized by the other nobles. But now... the very people they had always helped were treating them like this...
"In my opinion, these people are even worse than the cannibalistic nobles!" Anling said fiercely.
"At least when those nobles died, even though they were cruel cannibals, they died with dignity! Most of them showed no fear, only fighting to the death!"
"That’s enough, don’t say any more," Sha Ye stopped her. She glanced back quickly. Fortunately, the two Purgatory creatures that had just appeared were now gone.
She didn’t know why they hadn’t given chase, but at least for now, they were temporarily safe.
What she didn’t know was that just a few meters above her head, a dark red figure was hidden within a special domain, observing the two of them with great interest.
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SWOOSH!
「Jade Sea Coast.」
A translucent phantom suddenly pierced through the dense fog, landing at high speed outside the Boundary Wall.
The phantom accelerated repeatedly, as if teleporting. In just half a minute, it crossed a vast distance, passing through Miyin Village, skimming over large tracts of wasteland, and finally appearing directly outside the labyrinth ruins.
Hiss.
The phantom landed, solidifying into Lin Hui’s form.
He looked at the gray stone ruins before him.
On the rolling, grayish-black hills were dilapidated stone buildings, remnants of ruined stone walls, and, in the distance, palace towers floating in mid-air.
There was no fog here. It was just as he remembered from his last visit, with little to no change.
THUMP.
Lin Hui stomped his foot lightly.
A rumbling sound quickly arose, and soon, a fissure over a meter long suddenly split open in the ground directly in front of his feet.
A pair of huge, fluorescent purple eyes appeared within the opening.
"Ah, it’s you. Thank you for your hard work all this time." Lin Hui recognized the newcomer. It was the Purple Crystal Flame Dragon he had stationed here long ago to stand guard underground.
This Purgatory monster, which had once evolved from a Purple Crystal Purgatory Tyrannosaurus, had now become a loyal Blood Seal creature.
The purple eyes blinked, and the ground sealed shut again, disappearing from sight.
Lin Hui also stepped forward, quickly entering to take a look around.
But as soon as he entered the medicinal garden, the empty and silent state of the place made his expression shift slightly.
The whole medicinal garden had changed quite a bit.
Before, there had been a medicinal garden, a pond, and a cluster of wooden houses where people lived. There were also two vegetable patches.
Now, a small bamboo grove had been added between the garden and the pond. The tranquil, green atmosphere was pleasant.
Behind the wooden houses were piles of wooden frames and stone boxes.
Besides these things, Lin Hui noticed something else.
By the side of the pond, a small cemetery had been newly built.
He flashed over and happened to see the Waterman, who was awakening from the pond and coalescing its body.
The Waterman’s body had grown to over five meters tall. It was grayish-black all over, and at some point, a V-shaped, purple-glowing crystal had grown on its chest.
Nodding to the Waterman, Lin Hui walked into the cemetery and glanced around. They were all unfamiliar gravestones.
But one of them made him stop in his tracks.
’Tomb of the Nine-Tailed Scorpion, Ah Hei.’
"..." ’So that’s where the other guardian went,’ he thought. ’It seems he’s dead...’
He had originally arranged for the Nine-Tailed Scorpion, the Waterman, and the Purple Crystal Flame Dragon to guard the labyrinth ruins’ medicinal garden together. Now the scorpion was dead, the Waterman had changed drastically, and the Purple Crystal Flame Dragon seemed to have even forgotten how to make a sound.
’I remember this guy used to be able to communicate simply through its calls...’
’Did it get beaten stupid?’
Lin Hui sighed internally. He entered the medicinal garden and took a look around, finding that the Purple Cloud Ganoderma inside was growing very well—neat, beautiful rows of them, purplish-black and crystalline.
"Unfortunately, this stuff’s medicinal effects are already diminishing for me now..."
Although the efficacy of the Purple Cloud Ganoderma was waning, this medicinal garden, as a secret base, was highly secure and still held considerable value. Lin Hui had no intention of abandoning it.
’The plan for the medicinal garden can’t keep up with the changes, but I can switch to growing other necessary medicines, or food.’
After looking around for a bit, he left the labyrinth ruins and flew at top speed toward the old site of Tuyue.
’Next up, it’s time to check on my hometown...’
Tuyue had died by his hand, which gave him the strange feeling that he had personally destroyed his own homeland.
To avoid causing a commotion and attracting the attention of Purgatory and Extreme Cold Heaven’s monsters, and also to search for survivors along the way, Lin Hui slowed down, flying at a reduced speed in the right direction while observing the ground below for any possible signs of life.
After flying for only a few minutes, he immediately spotted the entrance to an abandoned underground ruin that showed faint traces of human activity.
A warning trap formation was set up at the entrance. It even incorporated some Purgatory-tainted plants to help conceal the real entry point.
In the end, however, Lin Hui still discovered it.
He landed softly and walked to the entrance of the rock cave. Instead of going in, he extended his Heart and Spirit to sense the activity within.
Heart and Spirit perception was a truly wondrous sensation.
It was like having an infrared X-ray scanner installed in his body. Within a certain range, all conscious targets with a Heart and Spirit would appear in his mind, ignoring all physical barriers.
Of course, there were a few materials that could block the Heart and Spirit, but they were generally expensive, and there were certainly none here.
The moment Lin Hui released his Heart and Spirit, he "saw" the situation inside the ruins.
More than ten Summoners and Martial Artists were gathered together, taking turns raping five targets who had the aura of Original Blood.
The five Original Bloods were two men and three women.
The men were surrounded by a group of sturdy women, while the women were surrounded by the remaining men.
The Original Blood aura on the five was already very faint. Lin Hui guessed their regression was almost complete.
If they could have just waited another ten days or so, they might have completely reverted to ordinary people.
But unfortunately, they would not live to see that day.
Standing outside the cave, Lin Hui could hear the angry and resentful venting of the perpetrators inside.
"Did my father beg for mercy when you ate him!?"
"Kill him! What are you dawdling for? Don’t let this drag on!"
"So you have a day like this too!? Tuyue is finished! I’m telling you, Tuyue was gone a long fucking time ago!!"
"Still not dead after all that!? They can sure take a pounding."
"My sister died on his bed! These animals! They don’t even spare the corpses!"
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