Chapter 208: Peers Hope for Peers to Die

Workshop!

The moment they made the judgment and conclusion, everyone's eyes lit up.

A glimmer of hope; they thought they had made a wasted trip, but they hadn't expected that they had only just finished off the outer security team, and after prying open the shell, there was still such soft and juicy clam meat inside.

Even Tong Shan's face showed a hint of joy.

But in the brief silence, Ji Xue quickly sensed something was wrong.

She looked at the front.

Those two not-quite-right Embers had, at some point, opened up a subtle distance, and when they looked at each other, their smiles became increasingly amiable.

It was just that for some reason, it always made people feel that there was a beauty in standing behind the other person and being ready to pick up something to help a friend crack their head open at any time.

"Workshop, huh..."

Ji Jue sighed gloomily, his right hand supporting his waist, as if he had sprained it just now while lying on the ground.

"Yeah."

Lou Feng's hands were in his pockets, as if he had casually pinched something unimportant, nodding slightly: "Workshop, huh."

Clearly, they were both smiling, but their gazes were almost about to spark.

"I remember last time, in the Rift Realm, Brother Ji caused quite a scene."

He suddenly sighed: "After returning to the workshop and home, I was miserable for a long time, mocked by people whenever I went out, unable to lift my head; the heartache in it is truly hard to describe."

"Yeah, yeah, I was miserable too, together with my Anquan Bureau companions, being chased and hacked by a whole group of Homecoming Knights in the Rift Realm, barely surviving."

Ji Jue shook his head melancholically: "At that time, I was sitting on a tricycle, crying my eyes out, having to think about whether this was the only chance I'd have in this life..."

"But it seems it wasn't you who was kidnapped, extorted for money, and blackmailed for a huge ransom, right?"

Lou Feng's expression gradually became serious: "People, you kept them safe. Sage legacy, you learned. Master Ye looks down on us, I understand... but you don't have to not leave even a bit of soup or water, right?"

"This was never what I wanted..." Ji Jue shook his head decisively. "Opportunity only knocks once; if you can't grasp it, then let me..."

Seeing the conversation between the two gradually becoming abstract, Ji Xue quietly pulled Tong Shan's sleeve, confused:

"What are they yapping about?"

"Things between Embers, you'd better ask less."

Tong Shan sighed, his eyelids jumping and jumping... holy shit, the workshop had only just been touched, and you two were already figuring out how to split the loot, right?!

It was no wonder they were Embers; the moment they heard they could raid a house, their already scarce humanity disappeared, just like a scumbag seeing a pregnancy test.

Tit for tat.

The tenderness and sweetness were gone.

The honeymoon period ended too quickly, to the point that everyone couldn't react.

Ji Jue shook his head: "The Lou family is big and wealthy, why bother snatching such a little bit of stuff from a child of a poor family like me?"

"You're a child of a poor family, then what am I!" Lou Feng was so angry he laughed; mentioning family background, the gap in the workshop wasn't mentioned at all!

"I'm not a family pillar like Captain Tong; now I'm just a red nose away from being the family clown. Who caused it! You surnamed Ji, you want to eat alone, you have to ask me if I agree first!"

"Then do you agree?" Ji Jue asked curiously.

"What do you think?"

Lou Feng was furious, no longer caring about his demeanor: "Agree my fuck, I don't agree even a little bit!"

"So, in the end, we still have to see the real thing with our hands, right?"

Ji Jue sighed: "Who goes first?"

"Nonsense, who else could it be, of course it's you!" Lou Feng sneered, "Isn't the Disintegration Art used for this?"

Just as the two were haggling over the attribution of the loot, all sorts of bags and packages had been pulled out of their own toolboxes or spatial equipment, hurriedly set up, cables scattered.

Just like two thieves squatting in front of a vault dividing the stolen money.

The intense preparations didn't delay any time.

Nor did they look at the workshop direction at all.

Until, on the equipment, all the scanned spiritual-quality signals were summarized, and the verification results appeared...

The breathing of the two became heavy again.

They looked at each other in silence, and in their pupils, the ghost fire of the Embers couldn't stop jumping out!

Hungry and thirsty...

Without a doubt, the workshop was under their feet!

Beneath the mall ruins, in the pale light, the shrill alarm sound echoed continuously.

Du Deng breathed as hard as he could, looking at the 【Signal Disconnected】 display message on the screen, already chilled to the bone and sweating profusely.

Just now, when his work was interrupted by the alarm sound and he stormed out of the production room, he thought it was some idiot who had accidentally triggered the alarm or violated the regulations again.

But what was shown in the projection wasn't the scene of those brain-dead people dumping trash everywhere or interfering with spiritual-quality circuits, but a patch of scarlet.

Slaughter.

Some group of Chosen from who knows where had descended from the sky without warning, hacking and slashing like cutting melons and vegetables, hacking that group of guys outside into fragments all over the floor, and in just two minutes, before he had even reacted, everything was already over.

Dead.

They were all dead!

If it hadn't been for the preset module in the temporary workshop that started the disguise the moment it sensed the environmental change, the knife would probably be at his neck by now.

What happened? What happened? Where the fuck am I?

Did those bastards from the Dragon Association turn against them? Did the guys from the Sin-Eroding Cult want to renege on their debt? Did the brain-dead monks of the Wulou Temple not take their medicine? Or did the teacher find out that I was secretly contacting people from the Heavenly Heart Society behind his back?

No, that's not right, none of it is right; they don't look like Sin-tainted ones at all, how does it seem like...

Fuck, the Anquan Bureau attacked?!

The moment he reacted, the last person putting up a desperate fight was casually pinched into sauce by Jiang Xuan.

Only Du Deng, an artisan hiding in the workshop, was sweating coldly, slumped on the ground, almost unable to crawl up.

Calm down, calm down!

Even if it was a temporarily set up workshop, his preparations were sufficient; the entire workshop had been implanted into the earth bone, integrated with the surrounding area of several kilometers, stable as a mountain.

The realistic phantom outside overwriting reality was a defense made by the teacher himself; they couldn't find anything, they would definitely leave.

They absolutely couldn't see it, they absolutely couldn't discover...

At that moment, the eyes of those two dog things lying on the ground looked straight at the workshop ah ah ah ah ah!!!

They saw it!!!

Du Deng swallowed his saliva dryly, subconsciously wanting to retreat, but didn't stand up; instead, he seemed to be crawling, currently having no idea what to do: Don't panic, Du Deng, don't panic!

No matter what, this was his own workshop; they absolutely couldn't handle it.

As long as he didn't make a mistake, sit firmly in the workshop, and wait for rescue...

Then, he saw the various specialized cracking equipment Lou Feng took out to deal with the workshop's outer defense, and he couldn't help but scream!

Only peers hope for peers to die; the ones who care most about an artisan's workshop are always other artisans!

Seeing Lou Feng's prepared appearance, Du Deng was already sweating down his back, almost screaming.

Immediately after, he saw a pale-faced guy with a scar on his face actually press his hands directly on the entrance of the workshop's outer perimeter, and then, the alarm sound detecting spiritual-quality detection rang again!

Is this preparing to go directly hands-on?!

As part of the Ember line, he knew this set too well: first spiritual-quality perception, analyze the main structure of the workshop, then find the weak points... no, this doesn't look like detection at all!

Instead, it looks like... intrusion?

After a moment of horror, Du Deng was stunned, then couldn't help but be furious.

Who the fuck do you think you're looking down on!

Peer suppression is the most common situation among the classifications of many Chosen; suppression, domination, and control of the weaker by the stronger among Chosen of the same line are common. Especially the Heavenly Human line; once there is a gap in level, this suppression is simply absolute!

The Ember line goes without saying.

Works created by apprentices with painstaking efforts, once they fall into the hands of artisans, can be easily reversed and analyzed in minutes, with no secrets at all.

What's more, when the gap is more than one rank, they can even forcibly seize the main control of the weaker person's alchemical works and dominate them.

But who the fuck are you!

Du Deng tremblingly put on a pair of glasses, repeatedly analyzing, carefully observing, thinking seriously, but no matter how he looked at it, this was a kid in the Invocation Period, not even touching the edge of an artisan, maybe a wild one who hadn't even attended a few classes, and he came here to my place to rebel against the heavens?!

Just by you?!

You're worthy!

Du Deng's expression gradually became ferocious; his hands gripped the core floating in mid-air, pulling the workshop's counterattack against external spiritual-quality interference to the maximum.

He wanted to see how this little brat would scream and howl and be burned to charcoal and turned to ash after the matrix and workshop achieved spiritual-quality connection!

SNAP!

In the sudden deathly silence, his expression froze on his face.

As if petrified.

At that moment, the outermost layer of the workshop, the spiritual-quality structure maintaining the disguise, lost response without warning.

The realistic phantom shrouding the workshop shattered in response!

It was as if it had never existed...

Then, he saw that scar-faced little brat again, with a lecherous look, a lewd smile, and a disgusting action, reaching out toward the defense layer on the outer perimeter of the workshop.

SNAP!

The alarm rang again, and following the disguise circuit, the repulsion perimeter lost response!

It was as if it had been stripped from the main body of the workshop by an invisible hand; in just a touch, it fell apart, vanished into smoke, making people feel like it had never existed.

Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong... something is fucking wrong!!!

Du Deng froze in place, trying his best to restrain the urge to scream, but he couldn't distinguish whether the thick, chaotic breathing or the phantom ringing filling his ears was louder.

With a gulp, he swallowed his saliva with difficulty.

As if falling into an ice cellar.

Could it be that today he...

"Whew, that feels great!"

Ji Jue whistled, listening to the shrill sound of countless spiritual-quality circuits shattering overlapping together; under his hands, the phantoms and repulsion vanished without a trace.

A pitch-black door finally emerged from the ruins, no longer disguised, weak, helpless, and hesitant, waiting for the ravaging that was to come...

A large amount of Supreme Good essence fell into his hands, grabbed by the Mechanical Descent, and refined in an instant!

That visible surge in progress almost made him moan.

Now, he finally understood why so many peers were afraid of his teacher!

No matter how tight the structure of the workshop was, no matter how complex and stable the circuit structure was, when facing something unreasonable like the Disintegration Art, it was still useless. No matter how much defense there was, it was like wearing a few more layers of paper clothes; once it was grasped, it was torn apart directly.

At first, when facing the phantoms he couldn't start with, he was at a loss, needing Lou Feng's assistance and Tong Shan's telekinetic interference to find gaps and create opportunities for himself.

That layer of phantom-disguised spiritual-quality composition, he didn't know who had made it; the rules were rigorous and chaotic, the style was careful and rough, like a combination of contradictions, but perfectly connected, tightly linked. Just the outer layer alone brought him a large amount of feedback and improvement.

Purely in terms of quality, it was completely on par with Master Ye's works!

But he just didn't expect that the hardest part of the entire workshop was just that one layer of disguise on the outer perimeter?!

It could be called gold and jade on the outside but rotten on the inside; the rest were all a bunch of rote, unoriginal structures, a makeshift look with barely passable completion.

Even if there were occasional surprises, in the practice sets Master Ye gave him, he could find corresponding answers for all of them.

Change the frequency a little, correct the application of details, and it immediately turned into a motley crew.

One touch and it jumped, one touch and it called.

There was no difficulty to speak of; it was simply vulnerable.

However, at least he now knew where those eerie and tricky practice sets came from...

"What are you dazing for?"

He restrained the urge to laugh at the sky, glanced at Lou Feng beside him: "Hurry up, press your hand on it for me!"

Seeing that the defense on the outer perimeter of the workshop seemed to be about to change, Lou Feng couldn't care about dazing anymore; at his feet, two metal monsters like hounds opened their mouths, and thousands of threads of spiritual-quality circuits extended from their mouths, disappearing into the surroundings of the workshop and the iron door.

After self-access, reading, sensing, transforming, and even interfering!

Not like Ji Jue, this wild apprentice, Young Master Lou lived a proper life as a biological son in Master Kong's workshop; he had everything he should have, he had things other kids didn't have, and he had a bunch of things other kids didn't dare to have!

Even the tools he made when he dismantled other people's workshops back then were thrown directly to Lou Feng by Master Kong. Even without Ji Jue, just relying on the spiritual intelligence and tools in those two metal hounds, he could have dismantled the workshop door from outside to inside like a water-grinding effort, just not as fast as Ji Jue.

But even so, it was still...

A bit too fucking fast, right?!

Cold sweat oozed silently from Lou Feng's back.

The hound's intrusion only interfered with the spiritual-quality operation of the workshop's outer perimeter for an instant; the moment the flaw was revealed, it was grasped by Ji Jue, and immediately after, under the Disintegration Art, it turned into nothingness.

SNAP!

The sound of cracking rang out again.

"Hehehe, hehehe, hehehe..."

Ji Jue laughed strangely, facing the blockade and isolation once more, as fragments of spiritual quality flickered incessantly.

You resist, you keep resisting, the more you resist, the more excited I get!

Under Tong Shan's suppression, the workshop didn't even have time to organize any effective counterattack. And in Lou Feng's intrusion, even if the response was delayed for an instant, it would be destroyed by the Disintegration Art!

Facing Master Ye's Disintegration Art and the intrusion tools made by Master Kong himself, a workshop that could only be called passable had no room for resistance at all.

With Tong Shan on the side, even the preset counter-measures and works couldn't play any role.

In less than two minutes, all the defenses of the entire workshop from outside to inside had been completely stripped naked by Ji Jue amidst the alarm sound. In the end, following the wail of the core, even the 【Earth Bone Sequence】 that maintained the defense was dismantled into powder by the Disintegration Art, with no safety to speak of.

"Brother Shan, see this?"

Ji Jue waved, unceremoniously ordering Tong Plant, pointing to the position slightly to the left of the center of the workshop door, drawing a circle: "Here, use force, give it a hard one."

BOOM!

Before the words fell, the invisible edge of telekinesis tore through the steel, piercing into the door like a broken bamboo, breaking through to the darkness behind the door, stirring all defenses into powder.

"And then?" Tong Shan asked.

"Then there is no then."

Ji Jue moved away, gesturing, "Please, everyone, our attraction isn't big, just a two-step walk."

With a creak.

Amidst the hair-raising friction sound, the tightly closed door slowly opened.

Tong Shan turned his head, looked at his teammates in silence, and then, a pleasant smile appeared on their faces in unison, rubbing their hands, lining up and walking in.

After waiting so long, they could finally vent their anger...

Collision sounds suddenly rang out, roars, explosions, all kinds of loud noises, gas leaks, and screams, the sound of bones breaking... In an instant, the sounds behind the door were endless.

But in less than half a minute, everything returned to silence.

Telekinesis extended, condensing into a semi-transparent index finger, beckoning toward the outside of the door.

When Ji Jue and Lou Feng finished packing up and walked in, they saw a mess on the floor, blood spreading in the hall, the bruised and swollen artisan kneeling on the ground, stripped naked, legs broken, right hand severed and fallen to the ground.

Seeing Ji Jue striding in, he shivered again, unable to control himself.

Subconsciously, he wanted to scream.

Even more afraid than the beating and ravaging after the Anquan Bureau rushed in.

If Ji Jue was just a little brat in Du Deng's eyes before, then now, in the heart of the Sin-tainted artisan, a judgment had been reached—eight thousand percent, this was absolutely a top-tier fierce ghost old fogey!

He had never seen such a bizarre and terrifying technique; the workshop he had exhausted all his efforts to maintain was simply like a packaging box, torn into powder in two or three moves.

Making him believe this was an artisan apprentice in his twenties was no different than making him scoop out his own brain, stir it into paste, and swallow it!

Can this be an Invocation?

Why don't you say I'm an Invocation!

Thinking of how eerie and cruel those legendary ancient alchemical artisans who were reborn by borrowing bodies were, he couldn't help but tremble.

Moreover, even if he didn't know how ancient artisans processed themselves, he knew exactly how his teacher treated materials!

If he were targeted, he would absolutely have no way to live and no way to die...

Just as he was trembling and sweating, the sound of a chair and floor rubbing rang out in front of him.

Unceremoniously, he pulled over a chair and sat down.

Ji Jue lowered his head, examining that twitching, distorted face.

Suddenly, he smiled.

"Name?" ===== CHAPTER 209 =====