When his stomach was "hammered," Zheng Qing had yet to recover from his earlier fright.
He had clearly rushed up to stop that bronze dragon in midair from using magic to destroy Black Prison Castle; he had clearly been prepared to pay a tremendous price, even to sacrifice himself; he had clearly wanted to do a good deed.
Yet events had unfolded completely beyond his expectations.
Granted, his resolve toward "self-sacrifice" had not been quite so firm, or rather, it had carried a measure of wishful thinking—Sir is so powerful. Even if I die, he can bring me back again, right?
But his desire to do a "good deed" had been beyond doubt.
It was only that this mindset had collapsed along with the fall of the Slender Red Heavenly Pillar and the breakdown of Black Prison Castle's internal defensive array.
This was not the outcome he wanted.
Standing in midair, he saw a hunting team stationed atop the Inner Castle Wall fail to evade the collapse and get buried beneath the fallen wall. He saw the astonished yet ecstatic, ferocious faces of the demons fleeing chaotically across the battlefield. He also saw the bewildered eyes of the Big Black Cat in the shallow pit below, as well as his companions' confused expressions.
The sky darkened.
The earth rolled like waves.
The entire world, along with the boy's mood, sank to the bottom.
Even after Dean Atlas's Heavenly Mountain descended, suppressing the Earth Vein, and the two suns ceased their conflict and steadied the heavens, lifting the world back up from the depths, the boy's mood did not improve in the slightest.
He did not know where things had gone wrong and began doubting his choice—if he had just stayed honestly below, none of this would have happened; when the