A True God Breaks the Formation. Is This Kid Having a Cookout?

In the Eye of the Abyss basin, a breeze stirred a few withered yellow leaves.

The exotic beast meat on the grill gave off an enticing sizzle, and the scent of cumin and chili powder filled the air.

Leaning on his cane, Chen Tianxing stood less than ten meters from the grill. His weathered old face had the word "dumbfounded" written all over it.

Qin Wan and the dozens of Demigod-level teachers behind him were still holding up their weapons, poised to fight for their lives, like a group of statues someone had hit pause on.

To force their way into this secret realm sealed by Fourth Tier power, they had spent an enormous amount of divine power and had even prepared to fight the Mist Lord to mutual destruction. They had imagined a living hell, with students wailing in despair beneath the monsters' claws and fangs.

And yet...

This kid was having a cookout here?!

"Su... Su Bai?" Qin Wan was the first to recover. She rubbed her eyes and stared in disbelief at the boy holding a skewer of grilled meat. "Are you all right? Where's the Mist Lord? Where are the people from the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps?"

"Teacher Qin, don't panic. Have some meat first to settle your nerves." Su Bai smiled and offered her a skewer.

Qin Wan had no mind to eat. She knocked his hand aside, her eyes reddening with anxiety. "Stop joking around! Tell me what happened! The last image sent back by the monitoring formation clearly showed that the Mist Lord had awakened!"

Chen Tianxing also took a deep breath and withdrew the terrifying True God pressure surrounding him. His gaze swept over the basin like a pair of torches, and he keenly detected a lingering trace of dark matter contamination in the air. It was extremely faint, but pure to the extreme.

"The Mist Lord's aura has disappeared." Chen Tianxing looked at Su Bai, his expression exceedingly complicated. "Not just the Mist Lord's. There are also lingering fluctuations from the dispersal of divine power after the deaths of a large number of Second and Third Tier False Gods. Su Bai, shouldn't you give me an explanation?"

Su Bai sighed, put the skewer back on the grill, and put on a weak appearance, as if he were still shaken by the ordeal.

"Principal, Teacher Qin, you have no idea how dangerous it was just now!"

Su Bai began his performance with dramatic flair.

"Our team was out there minding our own business, killing minor monsters and earning points. Then a bunch of vicious-looking mercenaries suddenly rushed out and insisted on driving us into this basin. They also captured a lot of students from the elite class and were going to spill their blood to awaken that Mist Lord or whatever!"

"I couldn't stand by and let that happen. As an outstanding student of Linhai No. 3 Middle School, how could I watch my classmates meet their deaths? So I stepped forward and fought them in a desperate battle to the death!"

Su Bai spoke with spit flying, while Lin Que and Shen Yueli stood beside him, the corners of their mouths twitching uncontrollably.

A battle to the death, my ass! You obviously stood on the cliff watching the show, then treated them as ATMs and suppliers!

But the two kept silent in tacit agreement. Exposing Su Bai now would only be asking for trouble.

"And then?" Chen Tianxing frowned and pressed him for an answer.

"Then that captain called Blood Wolf forcibly activated the altar to kill me. The Mist Lord came out, but it seemed really cranky from waking up and swallowed Blood Wolf and all those mercenaries alive!" Su Bai spun his nonsense without batting an eye. "I saw how fierce that monster was, so I quickly pulled the class monitor and Fatty behind a rock."

"Later, I don't know what happened, but the Mist Lord seemed to have eaten something bad. It rolled around like crazy, and in the end, it went bang, exploded into a cloud of black smoke, and disappeared."

Su Bai spread his hands, looking innocent. "Maybe... the mercenaries' meat was too tough, and it couldn't digest them."

Dead silence fell over the crowd.

Indigestion? It blew itself up?

Do you think a Fourth Tier Anomaly is a husky that ate too much cheap gutter oil?!

The dozens of Demigod teachers exchanged glances. Clearly, not one of them believed Su Bai's nonsense.

Chen Tianxing gave Su Bai a long look. At his age, what great storms had he not weathered? Of course he knew Su Bai was lying, but he knew even better that Su Bai was hiding a tremendous secret that even he, a True God, could not see through.

From killing the Third Tier director single-handedly at Benevolent Heart Hospital to the Mist Lord's mysterious disappearance now, all the clues pointed to this young man who possessed the Wasteland Divine Kingdom.

But Chen Tianxing had no intention of digging to the bottom of it. In this world full of lurking dangers, everyone had their own trump cards. As long as Su Bai was not a traitor to humanity and could still stand on the side of the Great Xia Nation, Chen Tianxing was willing to protect him.

"What a case of indigestion." Chen Tianxing snorted, but did not pursue the matter. Instead, he changed the subject. "You said just now that the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps captured students for a blood sacrifice?"

"Yes! It's the absolute truth!" Su Bai immediately pulled a pile of things out of his schoolbag and threw them on the ground.

There were more than a dozen spatial rings, along with a token engraved with a blood-red wolf's head.

"Principal, I risked my life to pick these up from those dead mercenaries. This is ironclad evidence!" Su Bai pointed at the token and raised his voice. "And I heard their vice captain Poison Wolf say with his own mouth that the Gu Family paid them ten million to come in here and kill me. They were also supposed to awaken the Mist Lord and make the whole school's students die with me!"

At those words, an uproar broke out.

Qin Wan trembled with rage. "The Gu Family! They really dared to do something so deranged!"

The other teachers were filled with righteous indignation as well. To sacrifice thousands of innocent students for a personal grudge had crossed the bottom line of every educator!

"Good! What a fine Gu Family!" Veins bulged on Chen Tianxing's hand as he gripped his cane, and a terrifying killing intent shot into the sky. "I was going to leave them some face, but since they're courting death, they can't blame me for what happens next!"

Just then.

Another spatial fluctuation came from the sky.

Several psionic airships bearing the emblems of the Municipal Education Bureau and the Gu Family passed through the spatial rift Chen Tianxing had blasted open and landed at the edge of the basin.

Gu Qingshan, the Gu Family's grand elder, hurried down from an airship with Wang Hai and a squad of Gu Family elites.

They had seen Chen Tianxing forcibly break the formation and, fearing their scheme would be exposed, had hurried in with their people to investigate. As Gu Qingshan saw it, with the Mist Lord awake, Su Bai must have been so dead that not even a trace remained. As long as the dead could not testify, he could wash his hands of all responsibility.

However.

When Gu Qingshan led his people to the center of the basin and saw the scene before him clearly, he froze on the spot as if struck by lightning.

There was no rampaging Mist Lord.

No corpses covering the ground.

There were only Chen Tianxing and dozens of furious teachers, along with Su Bai, who held a skewer of grilled meat and smiled like a little devil!

"Grand Elder Gu, you got here awfully fast." Su Bai took a bite of meat and spoke in a mocking tone. "What, did you come to inspect the results of the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps' work? What a shame. They had a poor attitude toward their work, so the Mist Lord confiscated their tools of the trade."

Gu Qingshan's face instantly went deathly pale.

The Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps was wiped out? The Mist Lord was gone too? And this kid was still alive?!

"You... what nonsense are you spouting? I don't know what you're talking about!" Gu Qingshan forced himself to remain calm and argued loudly, "Principal Chen, I heard something had gone wrong in the secret realm, so I brought people here to help. This kid is spreading lies and slandering my Gu Family. You mustn't believe him so easily!"

"Slander?" Chen Tianxing sneered and kicked the Blood Wolf token and several spatial rings to Gu Qingshan's feet.

"Gu Qingshan, do you take me for a blind man? How did these mercenaries sneak into the elite class's group? Why did they use the students in a blood sacrifice to awaken the Mist Lord? Do you dare say this has nothing to do with your Gu Family?!"

Chen Tianxing stepped forward, and True God Level pressure crashed down on Gu Qingshan like Mount Tai.

Bang!

Though Gu Qingshan was a Peak Demigod, he was still no match for a True God. The pressure forced his knees to buckle, and he fell to the ground with a thud, smashing two deep pits into the rock.

"Chen Tianxing! You dare touch me?! My Gu Family's ancestor is a True God too! Are you trying to start an all-out war between the family and the school?!" Blood trickled from the corner of Gu Qingshan's mouth as he roared madly.

"All-out war? You think you're worthy?!" A cold light flashed in Chen Tianxing's eyes. "You slaughtered students for a personal grudge. Even if Gu Canghai comes out of seclusion, he won't be able to save you today!"

Just as Chen Tianxing was about to strike and cripple Gu Qingshan, he was stopped.

Su Bai suddenly came over and grabbed Chen Tianxing's arm.

"Now, now, Principal, don't be rash. All this fighting and killing isn't good. It affects our school's glorious image."

Su Bai smiled at Gu Qingshan, who was kneeling on the ground, as though he were looking at a walking super-vault.

"Grand Elder Gu, since you say this is a misunderstanding, let's settle it like adults." Su Bai rubbed his hands together and held up five fingers.

"I'm a very magnanimous person. Compensation for emotional distress, compensation for damage to my reputation, and a reward for my bravery in risking my life to protect my classmates. One fixed price: fifty million Great Xia Currency, plus ten top-grade Third Tier spirit vein cores. Then I'll act like none of this ever happened. How about it?"