Chapter 229: Playing Tricks in Front of an Old Man

Before the tremor, the entire workshop was peaceful and orderly, like a clockwork watch, with departments collaborating and operating in an orderly manner.

But the moment the alarm sounded, the closely collaborating parts seemed to be disconnected, out of control, operating independently, and even crashing.

The crowd scattered.

Collisions and trampling appeared constantly, and the crowd surged toward the door; at the entrance and exit, it was overcrowded.

Not just apprentices, even artisans were panicked.

The Anquan Bureau attacked?

Fuck, so fast?

Then what should they do? What about Master Jianyuan?

Where did the Master Artisan go?

For a time, while many apprentices surged toward the exit, many artisans instinctively squeezed toward the upper level.

After the short impact, the chaos spread in the workshop like a wildfire, especially reflecting the explosions that rose one after another everywhere.

The elevator fell, amidst screams.

Fuel explosions, circuit loss of control, power outages, lights extinguished, under the illumination of the emergency lights, one face after another, shocked and stunned, was full of anxiety.

"Quiet, quiet, all be quiet!"

The artisan in black robes pushed the door open in a rage, looking at the chaos in the corridor, scolding repeatedly, "It's just a slight tremor, everyone, return to your positions!"

"Get out!"

Pushing the panicked apprentice aside, Jianyuan's fourth disciple, Lianyun, roared: "Stay in your positions, don't cause chaos, do you want the Master Artisan to come and question you himself!"

Instantly, the hall fell into dead silence, and everyone stiffened for a moment.

Under Lianyun's cold gaze, the manager stood out first, urging and beating his subordinates to return to their positions. Soon, the crowd thinned out, and the remaining apprentices scattered one by one.

Mainly, after the initial movement, there was no reaction afterward.

It was just an earthquake.

"Rabble!"

Lian Yun snorted coldly, not understanding why the Master had recruited such a bunch of motley crew.

Even if the Anquan Bureau really attacked, the workshop was absolutely safe; even a Heavenly Human couldn't break through the outer defense. At a critical moment, they could also break through the air and escape, without any danger at all.

Only this bunch of trash who couldn't even do their work well, only when there was a little wind and grass moving, would they be panicked and cause chaos themselves. If they alarmed the Master Artisan, one by one, they would all suffer the punishment of rock. After tossing, they would have to roll out with their petrified limbs!

The chaos along the way made Lianyun's anger rise.

When he saw an apprentice lying behind the panel in the corner of the corridor, not knowing what he was doing, his anger suddenly rose even more: "Trash, what are you doing!"

"Ah? Ah, me?"

The panicked apprentice raised his head sluggishly, holding a tool in his hand, incoherent: "No, I'm not, just now, alarm... the workshop's verification system is damaged, I, I am troubleshooting..."

Lianyun's expression suddenly paused.

"Get out!"

He scolded the apprentice aside, then opened the panel, woke up the circuit, and identified it carefully, but the more he looked, the more furious he became.

"Where is it damaged?" He turned back and scolded: "Isn't this fine?!"

"Ah?"

The apprentice with an ugly face full of scars froze for a moment, leaned over, took a look, and then reached out and touched it.

Slap!

A crisp sound, from under his hand, the identity identification and verification sequence module of the workshop's bottom layer instantly fell apart, dissipating like a stream of light.

It was as if it had never existed.

And the alarm that had just stopped suddenly sounded again, becoming more high-pitched.

"Alright."

He said, "Now it's damaged."

"You..."

Lianyun was sluggish, turned his head stiffly, and only saw that smile appearing on the scarred face, and then, his back felt cold.

Pfft...

Blood sprayed, gushed out, spiritual quality was disordered, blessing lost control, matrix shook.

Under the blade that was like light, between existence and non-existence, his own protection seemed not to exist, and there was no reaction at all.

And after the edge of the light poured into his body, it instantly spread, surging through his whole body; the blade of form turned into invisible scattered particles, omnipresent, blocking the circulation and flow of spiritual quality, dusting the blessing, and the operation of the matrix became increasingly difficult, losing response.

He opened his mouth, vomited a large amount of blood, twitched, and subconsciously wanted to struggle.

He saw that apprentice reach out again

Poured into his own forehead.

And then, he couldn't move anymore...

"Hoo..."

Ji Jue wiped his sweat, looked at the corridor where no one dared to enter, and breathed a sigh of relief.

【Blade of Flowing Light】, a consumable blessed creation contributed by Young Master Lou. Dagger-like in form, the blade above the hilt was illusory and transparent, like flowing light.

In reality, it was a crystalline creation after spiritual quality metamorphosis.

Inside it contained the Heavenly Origin lineage's blessing 【Harmony of Light and Dust】, whose original effect was to reduce conflicts between other blessings within the body, acting as a buffer to alleviate the conflict between the self and the rules.

And after Master Kong's meticulous preparation, it had become an incredibly vicious weapon for sneak attacks.

The Lou family's spiritual quality shaping gave the dagger's blade a qualitative change, making it approach nothingness to the maximum extent to bypass the mechanisms of various defensive creations, and once it pierced into the body, the spiritual quality would disintegrate on its own, spreading through the soul and flesh along with the 【Harmony of Light and Dust】 blessing.

At that time, the victim's consciousness would, under the interference of Harmony of Light and Dust, see their ego, superego, id, and other miscellaneous thoughts quickly become ambiguous and blurred. And the soul, flesh, matrix, and blessings would also, under the effect of several times the overload, lose their independence and be forcibly reconciled and overlapped together.

It was as if all the delimiters in the database had been deleted, all segmentation removed, annotations and identifications erased, resulting in a jumbled mess that lost response and completely crashed.

And the victim would completely degenerate into an ordinary person, left to be slaughtered.

Of course, if it were Bai Lu, the Swarm, or the Ruined Realm, perhaps it would only be a moment of dullness, but if the victim were also an Ember... then that would be interesting.

Sure enough, peers hope for the death of their peers.

The viciousness was truly poisonous.

But it was also truly easy to use!

Breaking defense, true damage, and even carrying magic prohibition and control—once you've used it, it's so satisfying you can't stop. After working so hard through life and death, shouldn't I go back and fleece a few more from Young Master Lou?!

At this moment, watching the artisan twitching on the ground, unable to move, Ji Jue calmly reached out, took off the other party's amulet, and pinned it on himself.

The Non-Aggression Emblem manifested on his hands, and under the gaze of those desperate eyes, he nimbly extracted the workshop identification permission attached to the other party's matrix and transplanted it into his own soul.

"Thanks for nature's gift."

Ji Jue pressed his palms together in sincere thanks, and then, smiling, reached out toward that violently convulsing face.

Estimated time remaining: three minutes; stripping materials, enough.

In reality, it was not enough.

He had originally expected the workshop to fall into chaos, taking at least ten minutes to return to normal. But before five minutes had passed, all chaos had returned to dead silence under powerful suppression, and no one dared to walk around anymore.

Fast, too fast!

It was under the nose of Jianyuan, after all; there was no room for any mischief.

Facing the unexpected attack, the emergency response measures inside the workshop were still very mature, stabilizing the situation to the maximum extent, and then beginning to investigate hidden dangers.

And upon seeing that bloody, unrecognizable corpse in the corridor, everyone gasped.

"All departments, investigate hidden dangers, confirm the member list; anyone not in their position or showing abnormalities, take them all down!" Cunling, who was temporarily in charge of the workshop, said with a gloomy face, issuing the order: "Did you all understand?!"

"Yes!"

The subordinates nodded in a panic.

And among the crowd, Sun Ci, who had just been promoted to supervisor of the garbage heap, was particularly panicked, especially when he recalled his assistant's mysterious movements over the past two days, making him even more uneasy.

He could only barely maintain the calm on his face.

Dealing with the small talk among colleagues, he hurried all the way back underground, carefully knocked on the office door, and from behind the door came an impatient voice.

"What is it?"

"No, no, nothing." Sun Ci subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, forcing out a smile: "There's a problem in the workshop, emergency investigation."

The door was pushed open, revealing that familiar, ugly face behind it.

Full of impatience.

"What? Need my help?"

"No, no need!" Sun Ci shook his head decisively, his heart finally settling: "I was just worried, worried about your..."

"Worried if I'm the one causing trouble?" The scar-faced apprentice sneered: "Rest assured, I don't have the guts to play tricks under the Master's nose."

"No, no, how could that be!"

Sun Ci smiled, feeling completely relaxed. The door was slammed shut with a bang, almost hitting his nose, but he didn't care at all.

The burden was gone, feeling completely light.

It's fine, it's fine as long as it's fine.

Behind the door, the mercury puppet pasted with the Aether Correction Page gradually faded its skin color and lost response.

No more sound.

At the same time, on the third floor, in the warehouse, the intense investigation and inventory were still continuing.

As the outer reserves were gradually counted and clarified, the bald woman's expression gradually relaxed, and her gaze toward the spacious chair beside her became more relaxed.

"It seems there is no problem with the materials and reserves here." She looked at the report summarized in her hand and breathed a sigh of relief, "It's all here, does Master Lian Yun want to take a look?"

"Just some junk materials, what's there to look at?"

The artisan 'Lian Yun', who was waiting for the inventory results with his feet up, waved his hand expressionlessly: "If I were a thief, I wouldn't go for this pile of lame stuff even if I came in.

Are you sure there's no problem with the precious materials in the inner layer?"

"This... this..."

The bald woman's expression stiffened, nervous: "The outer blockade is complete, but inside, my permission isn't enough; there's only one key."

"That's why they sent me."

Lian Yun glanced at her, raised his hand, and the spiritual quality sequence granted by the workshop appeared, "The other key is with me. You still remember the emergency management regulations, right?"

"Yes, yes."

The bald woman nodded in a panic, walking in front to lead the way.

In an emergency, to open the precious material storage room, besides Master Jianyuan, two verifications—warehouse management and executive privilege—and two keys are required.

And after entering, there must be at least two people, and at the same time, no changes such as withdrawal or movement are allowed.

Having managed the warehouse for so long, she had already memorized it by heart.

It's just that, the further she went, for some reason, the more uneasy she felt in her heart.

It was as if she always felt there was some loophole somewhere, but couldn't say it, always remembering the plots in those movies where, when the management personnel opened the warehouse door, they found the scene inside empty...

Until the door to the innermost layer slowly opened.

Looking at the familiar scene inside, unchanged, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief, already sweating profusely.

Thank goodness, thank goodness, it was just a false alarm.

"The second-tier precious materials and the newly delivered urgent items are all here." She skillfully took the list and handed it to the artisan beside her, but the moment she turned back, her movements froze in place.

Chilled to the bone.

"Hmm?"

Lian Yun looked over in confusion, not understanding. But the bald woman's expression couldn't help but twitch, "L-Lian Yun, my lord, y-your... face... face..."

Smile.

Along with the smile appearing on that face, a thin, long bloodstain suddenly appeared from the forehead, extending slowly downward.

Slap!

Half of the thin facial skin lost its adhesion just like that and fell into the dust on the ground.

Restoring the despair and terror before death.

"Oh, it's fine, it's new, didn't stick it well."

'Lian Yun' bent down and picked up half of the face.

With a slap, he stuck it back onto the incomplete face, but stuck it in the wrong position.

It was stuck on top of the half-face that was still attached, drooping down halfway, making the other half of the face, which was exposing muscle, look even more ferocious.

Under the pale light, blood slowly seeped out from the crack and dripped.

It drew a mocking arc.

Gulp.

The bald woman swallowed hard.

That ferocious face was already close at hand.

Smiling, it asked:

"You just said... what's wrong with my face?"