Chapter 91: The Ultimate Move Failed to Make a Sound

The Niao zui yi sheng let out an angry roar, but having no other choice, he had to rely on his own strength to resolve the current danger.

He exerted all his strength, gathering a strange red light around his body, and slammed it toward the stage.

Boom!

After the loud noise,

But... the damage caused was negligible.

At most, it just cleared some dust off the curtain.

"No damage?"

"How could this be?"

The Niao zui yi sheng widened his eyes, finding it hard to believe.

This was his full-power strike; why did it have no effect at all!

"Master, look at the stage!"

Yi hao, who was to the side, suddenly exclaimed.

Upon hearing this,

The Niao zui yi sheng jerked his head up to look at the shadow puppet show on the stage.

Perhaps because the light had intensified, the massive curtain gradually became clear, and even the shadow puppets behind the curtain slowly revealed their forms.

On the stage, there were over three hundred shadow puppets, and every single one of them looked exactly like the audience members below!

Not only that!

Among these three hundred-plus shadow puppets,

There were actually Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao!

Shadow puppets modeled after them had also appeared behind the curtain!

This...

An inexplicable panic welled up in the Niao zui yi sheng's heart.

At this moment, Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao beside him spoke up, asking with a smile: "Master, do we look good as actors?"

The Niao zui yi sheng turned his neck with difficulty to look at Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao.

At this moment, they had changed.

They were no longer three-dimensional beings in a three-dimensional space,

But had turned into a sheet of paper!

Paper people belonging only to a two-dimensional space!

To be precise... they were shadow puppets!

"You... you!"

The Niao zui yi sheng stared at Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao, a flash of fear in his eyes.

He quickly gripped the scythe in his hand.

Immediately after!

He swung it violently.

Puchi!

Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao were instantly cut in two.

However, they did not possess the same ability as the little boy, so after receiving this blow, they perished almost immediately!

With their passing, the shadow puppets on the stage modeled after Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao also vanished without a trace.

"Huh?"

"This shadow puppet show can actually project into reality!"

The Niao zui yi sheng realized, understanding that the most urgent task now was to destroy this godforsaken shadow puppet stage!

Thus, he immediately gripped his scythe and charged toward the stage.

But—

Three more shadow puppets appeared on the curtain.

They were Yi hao, Er hao, and San hao.

"Still trying to scare me?"

Seeing this, the Niao zui yi sheng barely hesitated; he leaped up, and his scythe slashed out with a streak of red light.

The powerful attack bore down on Yi hao, Er hao, and San hao.

With a boom!

Yi hao, Er hao, and San hao were eliminated by the Niao zui yi sheng before they could fully transform into shadow puppets!

"Hehe, trying to use the people around me to deal with me?"

"You underestimate my ruthlessness!"

Even if Yi hao, Er hao, San hao, Si hao, Wu hao, and Liu hao had thoughts, so what?

To the Niao zui yi sheng, they were merely servants, subordinates, and tools that could be discarded at any time!

At the same time,

On the curtain,

The plot of the shadow puppet show continued to advance.

In a quiet, remote village, a group of strange shadow puppeteers arrived, inviting the whole village to watch a shadow puppet show for free.

The temptation of "free" stirred people's interest, and the villagers flocked to watch the show.

They were happy and watched with rapt attention.

As one classic play after another flashed across the curtain,

The villagers applauded and cheered repeatedly, still wanting more even when the show ended.

It was as if they were possessed.

At this moment, an ethereal voice came from above the stage, asking the villagers if they were willing to see such an interesting shadow puppet show every day.

The villagers replied that they were willing.

Thus, a cold wind blew across the scene, ghost fires danced, and shadow puppets modeled after the villagers appeared on the stage curtain.

These three hundred-plus shadow puppets performed the same play at a fixed time every day.

As for the content of the play,

Naturally, it was—

In a quiet, remote village, a group of strange shadow puppeteers arrived, inviting the whole village to watch a shadow puppet show for free...

Just like that,

A dead loop was formed!

This place seemed to be a small world unto itself, constantly repeating the events of the same day.

The villagers became shadow puppets, the entire village became the background, and the puppeteers in the mountains became the center controlling everything.

Everything,

Ran according to a set pattern.

Now,

The Niao zui yi sheng's sudden intrusion had broken this cycle.

When he, who controlled the cycle, sensed an unknown factor interfering with it, he would spare no cost to eliminate this threat.

At this moment,

The Niao zui yi sheng held his scythe, his robe tattered and his body covered in wounds.

The three hundred-plus shadow puppets approached step by step, their faces bloodless, mechanically following orders.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

"Having already died, why can you still be reborn!"

The Niao zui yi sheng's scythe swung continuously, slicing through one shadow puppet after another.

But it was useless.

These shadow puppets were already trapped in the cycle.

Things within the cycle could be reborn endlessly!

Moreover, this was a large-scale cyclic shadow puppet show.

The strength of the characters in the play was determined solely by the screenwriter.

Who was the screenwriter?

Naturally, it was the Long Guo Summoned Creature!

As time went on, the Niao zui yi sheng felt less and less hope for survival.

Slowly, in this eerie cycle, the Niao zui yi sheng's strength gradually depleted, and his crumbling will began to disintegrate.

His behavior became frantic.

"You all want me to die, right!"

"Fine!"

"Then I'll die for you to see!"

The Niao zui yi sheng gripped his scythe tightly; his mind broken, he could no longer endure the torture and prepared to end his own life.

However, when he aimed the scythe at his own neck, ready to cut,

He discovered with horror that he had also turned into a shadow puppet...

His body was like a thin sheet of paper.

The scythe in his hand had also lost its lethality.

He couldn't even commit suicide.

"Damn it, you want me to become a part of them too?"

The Niao zui yi sheng roared, but soon, he lost control of his own body.

The scene before him gradually blurred.

Even his thoughts were being controlled by some force.

The Niao zui yi sheng collapsed to the ground, and while he hadn't yet closed his eyes, he took one last look at the stage.

On the massive curtain, a shadow puppet modeled after him had indeed appeared.

Then,

A series of slow footsteps sounded in his ears.

Through the last sliver of vision, the Niao zui yi sheng saw the true face of the Long Guo Summoned Creature.

He saw,

The little boy crouched down, waved his hand in front of the Niao zui yi sheng, and smiled:

"Hello there, stranger."

With this,

The Niao zui yi sheng had completely turned into a shadow puppet!

In the deep mountains,

The ancient troupe,

Repeated a certain shadow puppet show over and over again.

The difference was,

The plot was no longer about a strange troupe coming to the village,

But rather,

In a quiet, remote village, one day, a stranger named Niao zui yi sheng arrived...

Everything he experienced in the village was repeated in the form of a shadow puppet show.

As for the Niao zui yi sheng,

From the moment he became a shadow puppet, it marked his complete death and assimilation.

Every day he had to experience the entire process of his own death,

Like an endless dead loop.

Death is painful,

But repeated death is even more painful.

On the arena,

When the barrier dissipated,

The Niao zui yi sheng, now a shadow puppet, lay on the ground, motionless, eyes tightly shut, having lost all signs of life.

Standing opposite him was that little boy who had given him such a headache.

He walked up to the Niao zui yi sheng, skillfully crumpled him into a ball of paper, and then swallowed him.

After finishing all this,

He turned to Zhang Cheng and smiled slightly,

"My performance ends here."

"Let's chat if we have the chance, goodbye."

As soon as he finished speaking,

The little boy returned to the System.

At this moment, many in the audience had yet to recover their senses.

Although they had witnessed the entire process of the Niao zui yi sheng's death, their hearts were still filled with questions.

"In this match, the Niao zui yi sheng lost too thoroughly!"

"He only learned the identity of the Long Guo Summoned Creature right before death, and that was only because the other party revealed themselves!"

"A dead loop, living people turning into shadow puppets, never to rise again—is this the 'Ghost Shadow Puppet'?"

"Although 'Ghost Shadow Puppet' didn't give me much of a visual shock, thinking about it carefully makes me shudder."

"A family sharing one portrait, shadow puppets imprisoned in wooden boxes—what are all these? Why can't I understand any of it?"

"I just thought about it; this sharing of one portrait is actually imprisoning the villagers within the portrait."

"That's the only way to make the cycle run more smoothly."

"As for the shadow puppets locked in the wooden boxes... is it possible that those puppets are the villagers' true bodies?"

"Remember what the little boy said?"

"Don't break into other people's houses casually, or they will get angry—obviously, they didn't want people to discover the secret in the wooden boxes!"

"So that's how it is; with your explanation, I really understand now."

The audience was having a heated discussion about this.

However, Steve, as the person in charge, did not look good.

"Damn it!"

"That's it?"

"I prepared for so long, even disregarding my reputation, to cultivate this top-tier SSS-level Summoned Creature,

and it's just gone like that?"

"Is the Long Guo Summoned Creature really that ridiculously strong, or is our Niao zui yi sheng just too weak?"

Regarding everything that had just happened,

Steve couldn't believe it at all.

The Niao zui yi sheng had died too bizarrely.

They didn't even have a life-or-death struggle;

He was just trapped in the endless cycle caused by the Ghost Shadow Puppet and dragged down to death!

It was just too frustrating!

His own failure was hard enough to swallow.

But the mockery from his peers was even harder to bear.

Those countries that had previously unconditionally supported the Triumphant Alliance now turned against them, mockingly looking down on their incompetence,

"No way, is that all the Niao zui yi sheng is capable of? This is too weak!"

"As soon as he entered the arena, he infected us audience members with diseases,

and even sacrificed millions of African lives before the duel, and what was the result?"

"I thought the Triumphant Alliance was going to show us an ultimate move, but the ultimate move... didn't make a sound!"

"To be honest, I didn't see anything impressive about the Niao zui yi sheng throughout the entire match!"

"Yeah, he was led by the nose by the Long Guo Summoned Creature the whole time; couldn't he use his brain to think of a way?"

"Hmph, I say, this Niao zui yi sheng isn't even as good as our Xiao Han Nation's Janghwa Hongryeon!"

"Um... you guys are exaggerating."

"The Niao zui yi sheng is indeed not great, but at least he was always looking for a way to break the situation;

your Janghwa Hongryeon was dodging and hiding the whole time; there's no comparison."

"Hmph! Even if he isn't, so what? The Niao zui yi sheng is still trash!"

Listening to the mockery and abuse from the surrounding audience,

Steve gritted his teeth, the anger in his heart reaching its peak.

He wished he could immediately summon an even stronger Summoned Creature,

and wipe out all these audience members who only knew how to talk!