Gu Yuena: "Stop Time, Now! Without the Sun for a Hundred Years, All Life Will Go Extinct!"

"Waaah... Why are soul spirits so expensive? Isn't this just to cut off the advancement path for us commoners?"

"Heh... People are still defending Slaughter City these days? Back then, it was the prison for evildoers across the continent, specifically used to lock up the most vicious evil soul masters and desperados. And what happened? Tang San got his opportunity, then turned around and destroyed the place. Now that Slaughter City is gone, no one is keeping the evil soul masters in check. Who knew how many living beings they've slaughtered over these past twenty thousand years!"

"That's right. Isn't the Holy Spirit Cult this rampant now because Shrek's enforcers have done nothing? Though I suppose that makes sense—if there were no evil soul masters, where would you find people to tax?"

The barrage of comments was almost entirely curses.

The occasional comments defending Shrek were instantly drowned in the overwhelming fury.

In the information age, news spread fast, and resentment spread just as fast.

Resources were drying up, soul beasts were on the verge of extinction, the lower classes had become rigidly entrenched, and every kind of conflict had long been pushed to its limit.

Now, the Holy Spirit Cult was even spreading propaganda about how wonderful the Spirit Hall era had been.

Though if Spirit Hall really still existed, the Holy Spirit Cult would have been the first to be wiped out.

Still, that did not stop them from stirring up trouble and throwing all the dirt they could at Shrek and the Federation.

But what they said was indeed true.

In this day and age, awakening a martial soul cost a hundred thousand, while any random soul spirit cost seventy thousand.

For an ordinary person to become a soul master was harder than ascending to heaven.

As the female reporter watched the flood of curses in the comments, her expression darkened further and further.

The smile she was forcing had already started to stiffen.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something to salvage Shrek's dignity—

The air temperature suddenly dropped considerably.

At the edge of the camera frame, a black-robed figure silently appeared behind the reporter.

Dark crimson hair slipped out from beneath the hood, revealing only a delicate chin.

The female reporter's back suddenly stiffened.

She slowly turned her head, her pupils abruptly widening.

"Y-You... who are you? What do you want?"

In the middle of the night, hiding her face and dressed in black robes.

Who else could it be but the Holy Spirit Cult?

"For this attack, the Holy Spirit Cult hereby claims responsibility."

The black-robed figure's voice was calm, even carrying the clear, pleasant quality of a young girl's.

Her chin lifted slightly, as though she were smiling.

"And—"

She raised a hand and lightly swiped.

The movement was gentle and casual, as if brushing a fallen leaf from her shoulder.

The female reporter's head fell off.

Blood sprayed from her severed neck like a fountain, splattering the camera and staining it scarlet.

The reporter's body remained standing in the same head-turning posture for a full second before crumpling softly to the ground.

After a brief blank stretch, the livestream comments instantly exploded.

"Holy shit????"

"Special effects, right? This has to be special effects, right?"

"Ugh—I'm eating!"

"Is this real?! She killed someone! She really killed someone!"

Blood slowly trickled down the screen, while the female reporter's corpse lay in a pool of blood.

The black-robed figure turned toward the camera.

Beneath the hood, a pair of blood-red pupils flickered in and out of the shadows, gleaming with cold, fanatical light.

"Hello, dear viewers."

Her voice remained calm, even carrying a faintly courteous smile.

"That woman was desecrating my lord and smearing my faith, so I sent her to meet my lord."

She coughed softly and said in a solemn tone, "All right, enough about that."

Then she spread her arms, and her blood-red pupils ignited beneath the hood.

"Would you like to get to know my lord? My lord calls Himself the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator—in the past, the present, and the future, He is the great ruler who governs reality and the sovereign who controls fate."

"The End Dragon has awakened, and the bell of the Tenth Epoch will soon ring. Only by believing in my lord may you smuggle yourselves into the new epoch when the end descends—"

The screen went black.

The livestream was cut off.

There was no need to guess. The Federation had moved urgently to shut down the stream.

But it was already too late—the footage of the female reporter being publicly beheaded had been screen-recorded, captured, and reposted by countless people.

What came next would probably be another huge upheaval.

Lin Yan tossed the communicator onto the bed, fell onto his back, and stared at the ceiling light with one dead bulb.

His head buzzed.

Half from the lingering mushroom poisoning, half because there was too much information for him to process.

The Holy Spirit Cult. Shrek. Spirit Hall.

The End Dragon. The True Creator.

What a complete mess.

The key was that being targeted by the Holy Spirit Cult was not good news.

He only wanted to quietly farm, raise dragons, sell mushrooms, save up to buy soul spirits, and steadily raise his cultivation step by step.

But now, the whole world knew there was a World-Destroying Dragon in his hands, and the lunatics from the Holy Spirit Cult even wanted to invite him to become some kind of holy son.

It was all this stupid dragon's fault.

His icy gaze swept toward the stove.

Gu Yuena was curled up in the corner, pretending to be dead.

The instant she sensed that gaze, every scale on her body stood on end. She buried her head beneath her claws, leaving only a round little butt and a rigid tail exposed.

I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything. You can't see me, you can't see me.

Lin Yan did not have the strength to lecture her anymore.

His vision grew blurrier and blurrier, while drowsiness washed over him like a tide.

He pulled over the blanket, preparing to fall asleep just like that.

Click.

The light went out.

The entire room was plunged into darkness.

Lin Yan froze for a few seconds before realizing—the electricity bill had run out.

After so many days, it should have been cut off long ago.

He pulled out his communicator, opened the payment page, and his face immediately darkened when he checked it.

Online payments required a minimum top-up of fifty.

He searched his pockets—the hundred yuan Ouyang Zixin had given him had long since been spent buying fried chicken for the stupid dragon.

The money he had collected from the old ladies at the market today was all cash: crumpled bills and scattered coins, adding up to a little over three hundred and eighty yuan.

It was real money, solid and tangible, but he could not put even a single cent into his communicator.

Go to an offline service office? It had closed long ago at this hour.

"This is bad."

Gu Yuena's voice suddenly rang out in his mind, carrying an unusual urgency.

"Quickly stop the time flow in the little world, or there'll be a huge problem."

Lin Yan rubbed his temples, his voice hoarse. "What huge problem could there be?"

"At this time flow, one day equals a hundred years. Try going a hundred years without the sun."

Gu Yuena's voice jumped an octave. She leaped down from the stove, her four short legs scurrying as fast as they could. She rushed to the bedside, braced her two front claws on the bedframe, and glared up at him.

"I brought this up days ago, but you never cared—if the sun disappears, forget a hundred years, even one day will cause a massive problem!"

"The surface temperature will plummet below freezing, and within a week, plants will die from the loss of photosynthesis."

"In a month, the whole world will be completely frozen over. In a year, every living creature will go extinct, not even Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts excepted."

"Without the sun, the temperature of the entire world will quickly drop to negative one hundred degrees. Do you understand? Negative one hundred degrees!"