After saying that, Jiang Ran continued digging.
Looking at the battered state of the people around him, he felt no guilt at all.
If he had to guess, he'd killed the hardest thing to kill in this Ancient Tomb.
If it hadn't been for him, given the number of masked men outside and the old man's Blood-Nourishing Realm strength, it was hard to say how many people would've made it out alive.
Over there, after hearing Jiang Ran's words, Captain Zhou's expression didn't change. He turned back and resumed directing the rescue.
Anyone paying a little attention could guess...
The collapse of this pit had definitely had something to do with him.
"Prioritize rescuing the seriously injured! Anyone who can still move, form a defensive perimeter!" Zhou Yuan's voice echoed through the ruins.
At his words, everyone stopped looking at Jiang Ran and began organizing the rescue of their own people while holding back the masked men who had fallen from above but were still alive.
Gunshots and the blasts of supernatural abilities rang out again.
But even amid the chaos, some people had other things on their minds.
Nearby, after Qian Laojiu was dug out of the rubble, someone briefly bandaged the scrape on his arm. His gaze, however, never left the black figure in the distance.
He saw Jiang Ran crouching alone, quietly digging at something.
He shot a glance at several of his companions who could still move.
Those men had followed Qian Laojiu for years, and they were already perfectly in sync. They nodded discreetly at once.
Then, pretending to help search for survivors, they took up shovels or pry bars and slowly edged toward the area where Jiang Ran was.
Jiang Ran, of course, noticed them.
But he didn't care.
The moment the collapse began, Jiang Ran had immediately stowed the "Martial God Power" Nuo Opera Mask in his Heavenly Net Pouch.
At the same time, he'd bent down to put the Golden Skeleton inside as well.
But he hadn't had enough time.
He'd only managed to touch the skeleton's shaman's robe. The instant Jiang Ran stored it in the Heavenly Net Pouch, a wealth of information had appeared in his mind.
The robe was indeed a supernatural piece of equipment.
He just hadn't had time to examine its properties.
His attention had been drawn to the Golden Skeleton's chest.
There, pressed close to its breastbone, was a second mask.
It was a little smaller than the "Martial God Power" Nuo Opera Mask, pitch-black, and without any markings.
But before he could take a closer look...
The ceiling had collapsed.
Jiang Ran could only watch as the Golden Skeleton was buried beneath the rubble.
Now, what he was looking for...
Was that skeleton and the second mask on it.
And, of course, the blood pool.
That unusually large deer-like beast had emerged from beneath the blood pool. There might be other things hidden below it.
Besides, that beast itself was worth quite a bit.
After all, it had been much larger than the ones he'd encountered before.
Soon, a sharp clanging sound came from not far away.
"Clang!"
It came from Qian Laojiu's group.
A tall, thin man in a windbreaker was digging with a shovel. The tip seemed to have struck something metallic, producing a ringing clang.
Jiang Ran slowly straightened and looked over.
The others were keeping an eye on him, too.
When they saw him looking their way, they immediately turned back, pretending nothing had happened, though they quickened their digging.
But what they hadn't expected was that Jiang Ran had already started walking toward them.
The two sides weren't far apart. In just a few steps, Jiang Ran was beside the tall, thin man, looking down at the hole he'd been digging.
A gleaming golden bone showed through a gap in the rubble, untouched by dust.
It stood out sharply in the dim light around them.
Before Jiang Ran could say a word, the man beside the hole stepped between him and the skeleton, looking at him with mocking amusement.
"What do you want?" he drawled. "Planning to steal something in broad daylight?"
As soon as he finished speaking...
Qian Laojiu and the remaining seven or eight men gathered around, forming a loose semicircle.
Qian Laojiu wore a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
His gaze swept over the bloodstained, torn hoodie Jiang Ran wore before he finally spoke, unhurriedly:
"Brother, there are rules to these things."
He spread his hands, his tone full of smug certainty. "Finders keepers. That's how it works everywhere, right?"
A dozen or so men stood in a line, each holding some kind of weapon and glaring at Jiang Ran.
They were confident in their numbers.
The black-clad man before them might've had a fearsome reputation, but he'd just crawled out of the depths of the collapsed area and looked battered. He'd clearly expended a great deal of energy.
They had more people, and even in poor shape, they were still better off than someone fighting alone.
There was just one thing they hadn't considered...
Ever since entering the Abyssal Void, Jiang Ran had never followed the rules of the Safe Zone, let alone the rules and regulations of the real world.
He held to just one simple line.
The most basic moral boundary of being human.
Besides, they'd forgotten that even a starving camel was bigger than a horse.
At the Blood-Flow Realm, one's vital energy formed a self-sustaining cycle, renewing itself without end.
His last Lotus Brilliance attack had nearly drained him, but after catching his breath for a moment, his vital energy had already recovered by one or two tenths.
That was enough to deal with these explorers, who might not even have reached the Blood Sensing Realm.
Jiang Ran could've explained, of course.
He could've described how he'd fought the Blood-Nourishing Realm old man in the underground chamber.
How he'd barely survived and used his trump card to kill him.
That would've proved the Golden Skeleton belonged to him.
But looking at Qian Laojiu's face and the greed and malice in the eyes around him...
Jiang Ran suddenly realized...
He didn't want to say another word.
When some people were shameless to the extreme, trying to reason with them only made you sick.
So, in response to Qian Laojiu's "friendly" warning and threat...
Jiang Ran merely tilted his head slightly. Beneath his tattered hood, the corner of his mouth curled upward.
He smiled.
The next second...
A column of vital energy and blood surged skyward from his body.
A five-meter-tall Furious Vajra Phantom rose up around him, its body wreathed in crimson Buddhist light that bathed the area in a blood-red glow.
Then, Dragon Form and Tiger Form phantoms appeared above the Vajra's enormous hands.
Black flames spread from the Underworld Binding Gauntlets to the phantom's fists, blazing fiercely.
As the dozen or so men had looked at Jiang Ran with mocking amusement, but when they craned their necks to stare at the Vajra Phantom, which nearly touched the rock ceiling of the lower chamber, the hostility on their faces froze.
A video... and seeing it with your own eyes were two completely different things.
But they were stunned. Jiang Ran wasn't.
He drove Eight-Step Cicada Chase to its limit. The Vajra Phantom took a step forward with his movement...
BOOM!!!
The giant fist crashed down.
The two men at the front didn't even have time to scream before they burst into clouds of blood.
Bone fragments and flesh sprayed everywhere.
"Run!!"
Someone finally came to their senses, shrieking as he turned to flee.
But it was already too late.
The Vajra Phantom's left fist swept sideways, smashing three men in half. Limbs and entrails spilled across the ground.
The whole thing took only a few seconds.
The dozen or so men who'd been standing there were now just heaps of mangled flesh.
As for Qian Laojiu...
He seemed to have been hammered to death while trying to approach. Jiang Ran hadn't paid him much attention.
The heavy stench of blood spread through the air.
Jiang Ran stood still and slowly let out a breath.
The Vajra Phantom faded, and the crimson vital energy and Buddhist light withdrew into his body.
"Refreshing," he murmured.
This was the first time Jiang Ran had killed someone.
Killed one of his own kind.
It would've been a lie to say he felt nothing.
People with top-tier psychology skills were often better at noticing subtle shifts in their own minds, and more sensitive to them, too.
But...
Jiang Ran also felt another emotion.
A sense of exhilaration.
The feeling that when someone threatened him, he had the power to kill them immediately.
No need to hesitate. No need to weigh the options. No need to worry about rules or consequences.
It was an incredibly satisfying feeling.
No wonder the ancients said not to put off revenge until the next day.
Taking revenge on the spot felt even better.
But only after he'd done all that did he notice how quiet it had become around him.
Jiang Ran looked up and glanced around.
Manager Sun and the others, along with everyone from the Deep Realm Inspection Team, had stopped what they were doing. They were all staring at him, dumbfounded.
Seeing this, Jiang Ran pretended to cough twice, breaking the silence.
"All right."
"Get back to digging."
With that, Jiang Ran turned around, first gathering the belongings of Qian Laojiu and his men, then heading toward the pit where the golden bones showed through.
Behind him, the others exchanged glances, their throats dry.
Manager Sun swallowed, looked at the mangled remains on the ground, then at Jiang Ran's back as he crouched down to keep digging out the bones. Finally, he silently turned to his subordinates and said in a low voice:
"What are you all standing around for? Get back to rescuing people..."
Over with the Deep Realm Inspection Team, Zhou Yuan gave Jiang Ran a long look without saying anything. He merely signaled to the team members beside him to heighten their guard.
But as soon as Jiang Ran had pried away a few rocks, he heard footsteps approaching.
A figure stopped beside him.
Jiang Ran frowned and turned around.
It was Zhou Yuan.
Jiang Ran was slightly taken aback.
He hadn't expected anyone to dare approach him.
Especially after witnessing that one-sided slaughter just moments ago.
"Are you here to lecture me about federal law?"
Jiang Ran asked quietly, his tone unreadable.
Zhou Yuan paused, then shook his head.
"No. According to Article Seventeen of the Provisional Regulations for Transcendents, conflicts involving Transcendents are handled by the Order Purification Center, and that only applies in Safe Zones and the real world."
Jiang Ran listened and nodded calmly.
Then he turned back, wanting to keep examining the Golden Skeleton and the mask on it.
But Zhou Yuan spoke again.
"I wanted to ask whether you encountered any living people in here."
Jiang Ran paused.
He remembered the old man.
"I'm not sure if he's still alive."
Jiang Ran considered this before answering. "But he still had basic reason and thought."
Zhou Yuan's face lit up.
"Then where is he? Where is he now? We have..."
His words cut off.
Because Jiang Ran raised his hand and pointed at the Golden Skeleton, which had just been half unearthed in front of him.
"There."
Jiang Ran said calmly,
"It's right here."
The delight on Zhou Yuan's face instantly froze.
He slowly turned to look at the Golden Skeleton, his expression blank.
Several seconds passed before he seemed to process the information. His throat bobbed, and he managed to rasp out,
"You..."
"You killed Qu Yuan!?"
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