Chapter 112: All is Lost

"……I am sorry, I was wrong."

The gaunt old man knelt respectfully, and beside him, two others knelt just as neatly and orderly.

The gaunt old man had been the first to attack Wu Pifu. Although Wu Pifu had no idea what he had actually attacked, the man had simply raised his staff, then displayed the standard shocked expression of a villain, while Wu Pifu hadn't felt a thing.

Just as Wu Pifu was about to raise his hand to give the opponent a swift end, the gaunt old man burst into loud laughter, then knelt down with a resounding thud—so decisively that the other two followed suit, kneeling with equal promptness.

This actually made it impossible for Wu Pifu to strike. After all, the opponent had only pointed a staff at him. While his personal code included "cutting weeds and eliminating roots," he wasn't a "protagonist" who would slaughter an entire family just because someone looked at him.

Xia Luote and Mary both breathed a sigh of relief. This was the behavior they were familiar with from most people in the Dark Faction; they had feared the opponent had turned into a chaotic monster.

Xia Luote laughed heartily: "You lot are truly brave, daring to strike at a hero. I thought you had converted to the religion of the Berserker God."

The three from the Dark Faction were neither ashamed nor annoyed, only looking at Wu Pifu with faces full of fear.

Wu Pifu fell silent for a moment, then sat at the dining table with Xia Luote and Mary. He said to the gaunt old man, "You all stand up. I'm not used to people kneeling to me."

The three stood up respectfully, not daring to move recklessly.

The three were the gaunt old man holding the skull staff, a very strong-looking man, and a petite yet curvaceous woman with a beautiful face.

The three exchanged secret glances, and the woman said in a slightly trembling voice, "Lord Hero, we were truly driven mad by the chaos, which is why we were muddled enough to attack you. Please, for the sake of the greater goal of resisting the end, spare us."

Wu Pifu was looking at the food on the table and asked Xia Luote, "Is it possible that every extraordinary faction has a Saintess?"

The curvaceous woman and Mary both blushed, but neither denied it. Xia Luote laughed heartily: "That is certain. Human desire for power, for longevity, and even for immortality will never cease. In the world after the Age of Gods ended, the bloodline of a hero is the ultimate pursuit of all people and all factions."

Wu Pifu was noncommittal and said to the three, "Let's set aside the matter of the offense. Tell me what you know about the Demon Castle, especially information regarding the Corridor, the Reception Hall, and the Sewer districts."

The three looked at each other, and it was the curvaceous woman who spoke again: "Lord Hero, could it be that you want to enter the Graveyard District?"

Wu Pifu was a bit puzzled. Was he being that obvious?

Seeming to see through Wu Pifu's confusion, the curvaceous woman spoke directly: "Because although the Sewer is a standard area of the Demon Castle, this area only leads to the Graveyard District. So, if one is scouting for information on the Sewer, the destination usually points to the Graveyard District."

Wu Pifu didn't speak. He picked up a bottle of white wine from the table, flicked the cork off with his finger, took a large gulp, and said, "Tell me the intelligence on these areas."

The three were surprised. A Hero-level extraordinary actually wanted to go to the Graveyard District? Naturally, they couldn't ask why, so the curvaceous woman began to recount the intelligence on the Corridor, the Reception Hall, and the Sewer.

This information was no different from what Xia Luote and Mary had said. Clearly, as low-level scouts, even though they belonged to the Dark Faction, they were no different from the low-level personnel of the Holy See.

Hearing nothing new, Wu Pifu said no more. He ate and drank with Xia Luote and Mary, consuming two-thirds of the food on the table, before the three set off again, heading deep into the Corridor.

Minutes after Wu Pifu and the others had left, the three relaxed and sat back down at the table.

Although only a third of the food remained, they didn't mind and continued to eat and drink.

The woman asked the gaunt old man while eating, "Gandi, have you gone mad? Even though this hero hid his strength and looks no different from an ordinary person, he was able to make those arrogant holy sticks from the Holy See walk obediently behind him. Can he be an ordinary person?"

The gaunt old man, Gandi, was also puzzled. He stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth before saying, "I guess I really was muddled by the chaos. When I first saw that hero, I inexplicably felt he was weak and wanted to beat him up, so I acted involuntarily..."

The other strong man said muffledly, "We should go back. Let's return to the entrance and look for the Return Room. We also need to report the Demon Castle intelligence to the Council."

The three nodded and continued to bury themselves in eating and drinking. But just then, the door at the far end of the room suddenly trembled. The three looked over subconsciously, and the next moment, the entire door exploded into pieces.

The three were stunned. Immediately after, they saw a deformed humanoid creature with long arms, long legs, and a long neck crawl out from behind the shattered door.

This humanoid creature looked terrifying; its arms and legs were two or three meters long, and its neck was over two meters long, yet its head was a human head, and its body was about the size of an ordinary person. Its entire image was filled with a deformed, grotesque feeling.

"Ha, let me see what this is. Three cute little puppets. Hello there."

The head on the long neck swayed left and right, and then it reached out its hands. Its fingers were more than ten times longer than an ordinary person's, and at the same time, invisible threads were spreading from the tips of its fingers.

The three turned pale simultaneously. Without even a second's delay, they ran toward the room where Wu Pifu and the others had left. At the same time, their respective extraordinary abilities erupted, and they even used all their magic tools and various life-saving equipment.

"Entrance District Commander!" "Puppeteer!"

"Why? Why did the Entrance District Commander come to the Corridor District!?"

Two minutes later, the Puppeteer extended its three fingers. Embedded on these three fingers were three heads: the gaunt old man's head, the strong man's head, and the curvaceous woman's head.

The gaunt old man's head said: "Run! Go find that hero!"

The strong man's head said: "It's no use, we can't run. I'll hold him off, you two run immediately!"

The curvaceous woman's head said: "How strange, why did the Entrance District Commander enter the Corridor District? We must report this to the Council immediately!"

The Puppeteer's head looked at the three heads with a perverted, infatuated expression, and then the three heads gradually began to melt, merging into its fingers.

"A hero? Hehe, a hero, how wonderful..."

The Puppeteer shook its head and limbs, moving toward the depths of the Corridor in an abnormally twisted posture.

Meanwhile, Wu Pifu and the others were walking deep into the Corridor District. Xia Luote said as they walked: "From the entrance, the Corridor District is considered the simplest terrain; it's a straight line. But from the Reception Hall, the terrain becomes much more complex. That belongs to the middle-layer area. The Reception Hall connects to the Library, the Arena, and the Sewer—three areas. The terrain is very complex, and it's also the area with the most extraordinary teams."

!

Wu Pifu just walked forward without a word. As he walked, he suddenly stopped and closed his eyes.

Xia Luote and Mary also stopped immediately, taking defensive stances and looking around cautiously.

But after looking for a long time, the room remained quiet. The monsters had been killed directly by Wu Pifu just moments ago. They looked at Wu Pifu, not understanding.

After closing his eyes for a moment, Wu Pifu opened them and asked: "Are there extraordinary factions that specialize in hunting humans, and hunting humans alongside monsters?"

Xia Luote was slightly stunned but answered immediately: "Yes, and there are three such extraordinary factions: the Grave Diggers, the Chaos Supplicants, and the Doomsday Cultists."

Wu Pifu nodded and strode toward the room ahead.

Passing through the corridor, as soon as the three entered the next room, they immediately saw more than a dozen strange-looking humans, mixed with an equal number of monsters, besieging seven people.

The attire of these seven people was also different. Among them were three extraordinaries wearing the white robes of the Holy See, two shirtless men and women holding axes, and the remaining two were a man wearing future-style semi-mechanical tight armor and a person wearing red clothing, looking like a bridal outfit. They were struggling to resist the siege of more than thirty deformed humans and monsters.

What really caught Wu Pifu's attention was the person wearing the red clothing. It had a beautiful face and a graceful figure, but its body was flat, and it had an Adam's apple. However, these were not the reasons; the reason Wu Pifu noticed it was... it actually had a title above its head!

Titles can be hidden, but they can also be displayed by the Main Brain. However, even if displayed, only humans from the real world on Gaia can see them. For example, when Chu Minghao displayed his three titles, he had displayed them.

And this "it" had displayed its title brazenly.

"Zhang Heng."

The name of this title was just that, completely meaningless. Wu Pifu couldn't even guess what this title meant.

Just as Wu Pifu and the others arrived, these seven people had already been besieged to a precarious point. The dozen or so deformed humans were all extraordinaries, with various curses, weakening, ice, fire, and the like erupting. The dozen or so monsters were thick-skinned and fleshy, blocking the front and fighting these seven people.

Then the red-clothed "it" gasped and said: "Protect me! I'm going to explode!"

The other six people immediately showed expressions of unbearable pain, but they didn't dare to say anything more, forming a formation to protect the red-clothed person in the center.

Just as Wu Pifu was about to join the battle, he was suddenly stunned, showing a look of fear.

The red-clothed person directly lifted its red clothing, took out a short knife, and slashed down at that thing on its lower body.

Hand falls, knife drops, all is lost!

At the same time, the title on the red-clothed person's head flashed with light!