With Li Yèlái beheading the Zhelan King, the Zhelan King's Banner crashed to the ground.
All the Prairie Cavalry scattered throughout the upper-level district instantly rotted away, turning into flying ash.
At the same time, in a hidden room in Border City No. 3,
a plain-looking middle-aged man in a suit held a horsewhip.
He suddenly opened his eyes in a daze. The Zhelan King was dead?
This was actually not unexpected. After all, the Zhelan Iron Cavalry had been facing the Handlers and Iron Guards. It was perfectly normal for him to be killed.
But why had such an extreme sense of fear come back to him?
"What happened to the Zhelan King? Could the other side have killed him with some terrifying Forbidden Item?"
The man in the suit frowned in thought, but ultimately gave up investigating.
This mission had been undertaken by several Ark Chosen. His task was merely to activate God's Whip and make the King's Banners suppressed in the various branches summon vast cavalry armies, thereby distracting and delaying the forces and attention of each branch.
Everything else was beyond his plans.
"Though the Zhelan King is dead, he still completed the task I gave him and released enough Forbidden Items. What happens next is beyond my control." The man in the suit gently pulled open the room's closed curtains and peered at the chaos outside.
With Fantasy Band's singing, it was not only the concert venue that resembled hell.
Even the broadcast songs carried varying amounts of weakened Void Realm power.
A small portion of the listeners' psychic potential would be forcibly awakened.
And when placed against the population of a megacity, that small portion was still a huge number.
As a result, the outside world was already in chaos. The Security Bureau, City Defense Force, and Handlers from every branch had almost all been mobilized.
But there were too many affected people, so they could only suppress them step by step.
Meanwhile, the madness psychic power emitted by the crazed and out-of-control people was being quietly gathered.
Once the gathered psychic power exceeded a certain threshold, that powerful Void Realm Creature would descend upon Border City No. 3.
That would be the final chapter of Song of Extinction!
Under these circumstances, if the Mad King could still move, he would not stand by idly.
Of course, there was one way to stop this operation: kill the people who were supplying the psychic power.
But the Handlers seemed to have no intention of doing so. Such foolish kindness!
Did they really intend to face that Void Realm Creature?
The man in the suit drew the curtains closed and said faintly, "Could it be that you truly are too old to fight again? What a tremendous pity. Even the Ark Chosen greatly revere your power. A hero in his twilight years."
Elsewhere, Li Yèlái grabbed the Zhelan King's Banner and immediately felt his speed increase slightly.
That was the effect of the Zhelan King's Banner. How should he put it? It was somewhat useless.
After all, the Zhelan King's Banner was not small, and it was not light either.
Carrying this thing for a slight increase in speed did not seem particularly useful.
Li Yèlái rolled up the Zhelan King's Banner and prepared to hand it to Cheese and Shā Lì, who were hurrying over.
After the battle just now, Li Yèlái was genuinely exhausted.
First, he had carved through the cavalry formation with the Hegemon Facial Mask, then been kited by the Zhelan Iron Cavalry's mounted archers.
Afterward, he had activated the Champion Marquis Facial Mask to punch through the army formation before pursuing the Zhelan King.
Though he had the Heart of Slaughter and seemingly endless strength,
his psychic power had been nearly exhausted after this battle.
The weariness that reached deep into his soul made him want to collapse and sleep.
"Wait!" Li Yèlái suddenly looked down at his bare upper body. The Heart of Slaughter was still beating.
"How long have I been wearing this?"
Only now did Li Yèlái start worrying about it. He seemed to have worn it for quite a while. Could he already have been affected by the desire to kill?
Cheese, who had rushed over, hurriedly said, "More than an hour and a half. Take it off—"
As her voice fell, Cheese's expression suddenly changed. It seemed she had seen something strange on Li Yèlái. She immediately shouted, "Word Spirit: Burst Flame!"
What the hell? She attacked me directly? No! I can still be saved!
No, there was something behind him!
Li Yèlái reacted with lightning speed. He grabbed Cheese's arm and spoke almost at the same time.
"Mountain!"
In an instant, Armored Soldiers appeared and raised a wall of shields, protecting Li Yèlái and Cheese inside.
At the same time, an explosion rang out, followed by three fierce impacts.
The former was Cheese's Word Spirit attack. She had directly detonated the attacker sneaking up behind Li Yèlái.
The three impacts afterward came from the three teammates who had originally been rushing over to receive Li Yèlái.
They had slammed headfirst into the suddenly appearing shield wall.
They immediately began howling in pain.
"Shadow Army? How do you still have the Netherworld's powers?"
"Ah, my nose!"
"Night General, that's not fair! Let me in!"
Li Yèlái's mouth twitched. He had really injured his teammates by mistake.
He immediately opened a gap in the shield wall and let Shā Lì and the other two crawl inside.
Only then did Li Yèlái have time to look back.
He discovered that the attacker Cheese had blasted several meters away was none other than the Black Gargoyle that had previously been frightened away by Doll's hair.
At this moment, the gargoyle quickly rose. Its shattered body rapidly reassembled and recovered.
It launched another attack on the shield wall.
Without even a moment to mourn the Zhelan King's death, the one to arrive on the battlefield was the Black Gargoyle!
It slammed a fist into the shield wall, making it tremble violently. Obvious cracks appeared across it.
Cheese could only swallow another sugar pill before using Spirit Words again to blast the gargoyle away.
"How did this thing get here?" Li Yèlái asked in astonishment. He had seen it from afar when pursuing the Zhelan King just now. Had it already caught up?
There were so many Handlers and Forbidden Items along the way. Why had it locked onto him?
"Don't you understand yet?" A voice came from the Nuo Mask on Shā Lì's face. "This is your curse: you are destined to encounter powerful enemies! After the Zhelan King died, another powerful enemy was sent before you! That's why I said that if you stay by his side, something will happen to you sooner or later!"
Li Yèlái frowned. This was his first time learning about such a curse.
Did this count as a form of bad luck?
If what the Ghost Divination Nuo Mask said was true, then his luck was more than merely terrible.
Fate itself was arranging enemies for him. Did it think he was not dying quickly enough?
No, this had to be Mr. Shadow's scheme!
It wanted to force Li Yèlái into a deal, so it kept drawing powerful enemies to him and placing him in danger!
Li Yèlái harbored these suspicions.
But if that was the case, why had it given him the Facial Mask?
Without a second Facial Mask, Li Yèlái would have had no choice but to make a deal with it.
Was this... playing hard to get?
No, he had to deal with this Black Gargoyle first. But his psychic power was already running low.
At that moment, someone laughed loudly. "Oh? Destined to encounter powerful enemies? Is there such a good thing? Comrades, assemble! We'll sit beside the Night General and wait for rabbits!"
The one who rushed laughing out of the passage was the one-armed Night Watch, White Poplar.
Holding a large saber, he swept it horizontally. A blade gleam flashed through the air. White Poplar was a fourth-awakening psychic who followed the True Martial Path, and this blade gleam was his fourth ability, Razor-Sharp Blade Gleam!
In the next second, the Black Gargoyle was beheaded.
The beheaded gargoyle's body rose again, seemingly trying to grab its own head.
However, several heavy footsteps rang out, and several Iron Guards pounced on the gargoyle's body together.
Their combined weight of more than ten tons directly pinned down the gargoyle, leaving it no chance to break free.
At the same time, another Iron Guard seized the gargoyle's head, preventing it from returning to its body.
After a while, the gargoyle lost its vitality and turned back into a stone statue.
The Black Gargoyle had been successfully suppressed!
At the same time, more and more Handlers and Iron Guards arrived. There were even clerical workers carrying pistols who came to provide support.
Li Yèlái's pursuit of the Zhelan King's main force earlier had practically alarmed everyone.
One man chasing and hacking at more than a thousand cavalrymen was far too thrilling!
Some people were concerned about the Heart of Slaughter on Li Yèlái's chest, while others believed he would suffer for pursuing such a huge group of cavalrymen.
Thus, they had all hurried over to help.
As a result, more than twenty Handlers and thirty Iron Guards had now arrived at the scene.
Right afterward, without even a moment to mourn the Black Gargoyle's suppression, the one to arrive on the battlefield was the Tree Spirit!
It seemed to have been fighting other Handlers on the upper level. For some unknown reason, it had smashed through the ceiling, cleverly crashed down, and appeared before Li Yèlái and the others.
The crowd immediately rushed forward in delight and beat the Tree Spirit senseless.
They had seized this incredible stroke of luck!
After learning that Li Yèlái could draw monsters, the Night Watchmen made an immediate decision.
They had Li Yèlái rest to one side and continue drawing monsters.
They themselves would conserve their strength and suppress the living Forbidden Items that jumped into their faces.
"I've never fought such a wealthy battle before!"
"I hereby unilaterally announce that Night-Spawning-Cage is the hero of this suppression operation!"
"Excellent! Destined to encounter powerful enemies—what wonderful enemies!"
The Handlers smiled. They outnumbered their opponents, so suppressing the Forbidden Items was not difficult.
As the tree waiting for rabbits, Li Yèlái had no objections.
He had carried the Heart of Slaughter for too long, nearly two hours. That was far beyond the safe limit.
He had to remove the Heart of Slaughter immediately. With these teammates protecting him, his safety could also be guaranteed.
Thus, he removed the Fenglang Juxu Facial Mask and leaned against the corner of the wall.
He watched Cheese slowly cut through the blood vessels of the Heart of Slaughter and remove it from his chest.
Or rather, the Heart of Slaughter had severed the blood vessels itself and cooperatively detached from Li Yèlái.
Had even the Heart of Slaughter become frightened by Li Yèlái's luck?
Or had the Heart of Slaughter glimpsed something?
Li Yèlái had no time to wonder. The moment the Heart of Slaughter was removed, the strength seemed to drain from his entire body.
The exhaustion accumulated during the battle surged forth all at once.
He soon closed his eyes and fell asleep against the corner.
Cheese glanced at him, gently laid him on the ground, and continued treating his wounds.
Meanwhile, the Handlers continued beating and suppressing the living Forbidden Items drawn in by certain "coincidences."
No one mentioned the second Facial Mask Li Yèlái had displayed.
Likewise, no one knew what disaster had occurred on the surface. Everyone was doing their utmost to fulfill their duties.
Elsewhere, on the surface of Border City No. 3,
as the psychic power gathered, a crack suddenly appeared above the concert venue.
The crack expanded rapidly within seconds, instantly spreading to more than a hundred meters.
Every Handler turned pale at the sight of it.
From within that crack, they sensed a familiar power—the power of the Void Realm!
The power of the Void Realm had actually appeared directly in the physical world!
This meant that a calamity was about to descend upon Border City No. 3!
"How could this happen? What are they trying to do? What are they doing?"
Starfire had returned to the battlefield after settling his younger sister. Upon seeing this, he nearly collapsed.
He did not understand why anyone would do such a thing.
What had the people living in the megacity done wrong? Why did they have to suffer this calamity?
Watching those once-ordinary people struggle in pain, Starfire felt as though his heart were being cut by knives.
Yet there was nothing he could do. He could only continue suppressing the panic and rescuing the people alongside the Handlers.
When the crack expanded to three hundred meters, a pair of enormous, scale-covered hands reached out from it. They gripped the crack and pulled it apart in both directions.
It seemed intent on widening the crack so it could escape through it.
At this sight, even the most elite Night Watchmen became rigid from head to toe.
It was suppression at the level of life itself, a powerful existence they could not resist.
But they still summoned their courage, roaring as they prepared for battle.
Border City could not fall!
Even if that existence truly descended into the physical world, they would fight at any cost to drive the monster back!
Watching this scene, the man in the suit hiding in the room gave a quiet laugh.
"What a truly shocking sight. When calamity descends, humanity stands ready for battle and refuses to retreat, displaying humanity's final glory." The man in the suit sighed. "Unfortunately, all of this will become Border City's final brilliance."
"The Old Mad King did not act after all. Perhaps he is too old, so old that he can no longer fight. Or perhaps he has already died of old age."
"Now that Border City No. 3 no longer has the Old Mad King, Black Source City and Doomsday Forest will probably continue advancing. Heavenly Realm likely will not remain unmoved either."
"All three forbidden zones will undergo changes. I wonder whether the other megacities can withstand the pressure." The man in the suit muttered his analysis as he rose and prepared to leave, to leave Border City.
His mission was complete. He could now safely enter the "Ark" and collect the reward that belonged to him.
Compared with Qin Zhi, who had used Song of Extinction in full view of the public, his task had merely been to quietly use God's Whip within the megacity. Even Qin Zhi did not know his identity.
He had enjoyed the safest seat in the audience.
Now that the performance was about to end, it was time for him to leave.
However, when he turned around, his entire body stiffened, and God's Whip in his hand began to tremble faintly.
Because an old man—a very old man—was standing right outside his room.
The old man's hair was snow-white, and his wrinkles were deep enough to trap flies, as rough as the bark of an old pine.
His body had shriveled into a wretched state, his back hunched, his height less than five feet.
Yet he held a Trident Double-Edged Blade.
He stood silently in the doorway.
The man in the suit was frozen stiff, unable to move.
The old man slowly took a step forward and entered the room.
With the first step, his skin began to glow, and his wrinkles stretched out and faded away.
With the second step, he began to grow taller, his shrunken muscles and bones filling out.
With the third step, his hair turned from white to black, and all signs of age vanished.
With the fourth step, his blood and energy surged like those of an ancient beast.
With the fifth step, he stood before the man in the suit. He had become a burly man over two meters tall, and beneath his disheveled long hair, a pair of golden eyes gleamed!
"Mad King," the man in the suit cried out, naming him.
But the man ignored him and hurled the Trident Double-Edged Blade from his hand!
Like a meteor streaking across the sky, it plunged straight into the rift.
A furious roar came from within the rift, but the many hands above it disappeared as well. The rift began to close rapidly.
One strike. Just one strike had driven back that mysterious being!
The man in the suit was terrified, but the terrible pressure bore down on him, leaving him unable to move even a fraction.
Then he saw the Mad King's hand slowly approaching.
"Wang, this isn't over."
Before you continue