Chapter 708

Ning Chen fired directly, hitting the palms of several men.

The speed of firing is far greater than that of using a knife; if not for the shortage of bullets, Ning Chen would have chosen to resolve matters directly with a gun.

But in the end, Ning Chen ultimately achieved his goal.

The bullets were just used up, and blood sprayed onto the walls.

The last second.

Ning Chen wiped the blood on the back of his hand; after the Time Stop skill ended, the people here began to move again.

In fact, compared to "Time Stop," this skill is more like "Body Immobilization"; Ning Chen later learned that this skill extracts a portion of the target's time, rendering them unable to move for a short period, as if frozen.

The system's voice sounded in Ning Chen's mind: "Time Stop skill usage complete."

As the words fell, Ning Chen heard cries of pain and wails; those sounds entering his ears made him somewhat irritable, but Ning Chen confirmed that everyone inside had lost their mobility, so he simply stood in place without moving.

Only after they all reacted did Ning Chen slowly walk out from the crowd, standing at the tent door.

Half the people in the tent were dead; the survivors looked at Ning Chen with fear, feeling intense pain in their hands; looking down, they discovered a knife cut on their hands.

Unable to even lift their hands, those dozens of people, some with weak psychological endurance, began to wail and cry out in pain; realizing their two hands had been crippled, they did not immediately seek the culprit.

Ning Chen thus saw that these people were certainly not martial artists; they were very likely ordinary people, who had come to this forest for some unknown reason and gathered in small groups.

Among these people, Ning Chen also found a few who remained silent and cried out no pain; even upon discovering their hands were crippled, their expressions showed only a moment of surprise before their gazes quickly shifted to Ning Chen's face.

Thus, Ning Chen locked eyes with these few people.

Seeing they had finished shouting and crying, and things had quieted down somewhat, Ning Chen spoke: "Shut up all of you; if you don't want to die, answer my questions."

The smell of blood in the tent was heavy, suffocating people; those whose tendons had been severed but were still alive looked back in fear, having now understood what had happened.

No one wanted to die, especially when incapacitated; although their hands were broken, their desire to live remained extremely strong.

Ning Chen glanced over them, taking everyone's reaction in, curled the corner of his mouth, and said: "You, what organization is this?"

The people in the tent had mostly different skin tones and did not appear to be from the same country, so Ning Chen asked in English.

Perhaps because these people did not want to die, one second after Ning Chen finished speaking, someone answered: "God guided us here."

Hearing this, Ning Chen's eyebrows furrowed: "What?"

That person repeated it; only after Ning Chen confirmed he had not misheard did a puzzled expression appear on his face: "God... your meaning is..."

He seemed to suddenly understand something; the faces of these people all turned pale; although there was the reason of excessive blood loss, Ning Chen was more willing to believe that these people had been trapped here for a long time, or chose to stay here voluntarily, all for a reason.

They might have been deceived, and this organization was fundamentally a cult.

Although Ning Chen had a hypothesis, he did not draw a conclusion so quickly; to prove it, he furrowed his brows and asked again: "Where is your leader?"

As soon as this sentence came out, everyone's gaze shifted to the right, fixing their eyes on the man sitting in the bottom right corner.

That man wore a black robe, his eyes hidden by a hat; his figure was very thin, looking as if he were just a skeleton. His entire aura was cold and sinister; though thin, he looked formidable.

Ning Chen understood in his heart.

Everyone inside wore black clothes uniformly, but only that person wore a black long robe; when he had just gone over to sever the tendons, he had glanced at the long robe, but because time was too rushed, he had no time to look closely.

Only now did he feel that the person wearing the long robe was of great importance.

Ning Chen stared at Hu Di, sizing him up and down; although Hu Di's eyes were hidden by the hat, Ning Chen could still feel a gaze like a venomous snake winding around, poisonous and ruthless.

This feeling of meeting a worthy opponent made Ning Chen raise his eyebrows immediately; he looked at Hu Di with interest and slowly walked over.

Hu Di also lowered his hat.

Only then did Ning Chen discover that the face hidden by the hat actually had very pale skin... actually, using the word "pale" to describe it was incorrect; although this person looked weak, there was color on his face, much better than the others' complexions.

He was a standard Western man's appearance.

Ning Chen stood before him and said: "Did you orchestrate all of this?"

Hu Di looked at him coldly; even though the hand hidden in his sleeve was still dripping blood, he stood firmly, even looking at Ning Chen with a provocative gaze.

Ning Chen met his gaze, confirming that he and this person were merely initial acquaintances; where did such hostility come from?

"Speak if you don't want to die," Ning Chen said, lacking patience, "I can grant you a quick death."

After Ning Chen finished speaking this sentence, his gaze remained locked on Hu Di's face; Hu Di also looked coldly back at Ning Chen, but kept his lips tightly pressed, refusing to utter a single word.

This attitude made Ning Chen furrow his brows; he knew how to pry a person's mouth open, but he did not expect the person before him to be so difficult to deal with, forcing him to take action.

So Ning Chen took out the knife in his hand again; the blade tip was sharp, inching closer to Hu Di's face bit by bit.

Hu Di furrowed his brows very briefly; the knife was already pressed against his cheek, the feeling naturally unpleasant, especially with Ning Chen's suffocating pressure; pressing against him while saying: "I'll shave off half a piece of your flesh... are you speaking or not?"

Hu Di was very stubborn, pressing his lips together and saying nothing.

Ning Chen sneered coldly and applied a bit more force with his hand.

A line of blood appeared beneath the blade.

Hu Di's mouth twitched; although this expression was very subtle, Ning Chen still caught it.

Ning Chen knew this person certainly was not as calm and emotionless as he appeared on the surface; at the very least, this person still felt pain.

This made things easy.

Ning Chen did not release the hand holding the knife; he even pressed inward a bit: "I'm just asking a few questions; I won't really kill you... besides, it's not up to me to kill you; I'm not so impulsive."

Hearing this sentence, Hu Di seemed to finally react; his eyelids lifted slightly, and he finally spoke his first words: "You killed so many people too."

Hearing his voice, Ning Chen was stunned; because the voice did not sound like that of a twenty or thirty-year-old, but rather like an old man.

"I didn't kill you," Ning Chen said, "not really; speaking a few words is better than losing a piece of flesh."

His hand loosened slightly; he asked Hu Di: "Don't you agree?"

Ning Chen could feel the blade had already penetrated Hu Di's flesh; at this moment, Hu Di could no longer maintain a calm expression on his face; his eyebrows furrowed, and he looked somewhat painful.

Ning Chen sneered coldly and let go of his hand.

Hu Di seemed to finally compromise: "What do you want to ask?"

"Did you orchestrate this organization yourself?" Ning Chen got straight to the point.

Hu Di answered quite straightforwardly, nodding at Ning Chen.

Ning Chen knew this would be the answer, so he continued, "What kind of organization is this, and what role do you play in it?"

Hearing this, Hu Di replied leisurely, "I am their Main God."

Although Hu Di did not answer Ning Chen's first question, Ning Chen still understood all the answers from his words.

Ning Chen sneered, "A cult. You couldn't have trapped them all here by yourself; you have helpers." His gaze swept across the entire space. "Who are they?"

Hu Di said coldly, "They were all killed by you..." He couldn't help but ask again, "How exactly did you do it?"

Ning Chen knew what he was asking, but he did not want to answer. He stared fixedly at Hu Di's eyes, trying to find traces of a lie within them.

But Hu Di's gaze was too calm, like a stagnant pool. Ning Chen had felt this person was hard to deal with from their first meeting, and now it seemed to be confirmed.

However, Ning Chen could guess that Hu Di was not entirely honest; he must be lying.

Ning Chen tilted his head, staring at him with an examining gaze: "You are lying... There must be your companions here, and they are not dead yet."

Hu Di finally showed a hint of impatience: "I said there aren't any. You shot half of them dead, and now you still ask where my companions went."

This statement was not without mockery. Ning Chen found it grating no matter how he heard it, but he said nothing more, instead changing the question: "Why capture those people? Was it because they wouldn't cooperate with you? Couldn't give you what you wanted?"

Ning Chen referred to those who had mysteriously disappeared. Hu Di heard this and said, "They are a bunch of fools. If they had just listened to me and followed my guidance, they wouldn't have ended up in that state." Finishing his sentence, his gaze turned toward the outside of the tent. "I heard they cut their wrists; by now, they should all be completely dead, right?"

"No," Ning Chen said. "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Those people were saved by us and are doing very well."

Hearing this, a trace of surprise finally flashed across Hu Di's face: "You..."

He seemed about to speak but stopped. Ning Chen admired his rare look of panic and added, "Alright, I have nothing more to ask. Wait."

After saying this, Ning Chen turned and walked out.

Leaving the group inside the tent staring at each other in silence. Among them were some who were lifeless and had lost their will, but Hu Di's physical constitution seemed stronger than theirs; he just stared silently at the corner, not saying a single word.

Five minutes later, Ning Chen returned with over thirty people and stopped at the tent entrance.

Because the smell of blood inside the tent was too heavy, Ning Chen said to the thirty-odd teammates, "Carry them out. Don't leave them inside too long; the smell is disgusting."

He himself lifted the tent door and walked in, first pulling Hu Di out. Ning Chen wasn't gentle when dragging him, but he avoided the wounds, preventing them from bleeding further.

Since Hu Di's identity was relatively important, Ning Chen asked the Uncle for some hemostatic medicine. Whether the others lived or died didn't matter, but Hu Di absolutely could not die; otherwise, he would lose an important channel for obtaining information.

In the process of moving all the living people out, Ning Chen naturally noticed the others' gazes toward him gradually changing; in the end, they looked at him as if he were a living King of Hell.

Aside from a few spots of blood on his body, Ning Chen's clothes bore no other marks, and his expression was calm; one could not tell at all that he had just killed people. Yet the scene inside the tent was clearly a human hell; not only was the smell of blood extremely heavy, but the corpses were piled up haphazardly, almost forming a small mountain.

In the end, the people who went in to carry the bodies had become numb; they came out with the same expression they had gone in with, without a shred of doubt.

Seeing that everyone had been moved out, Ning Chen scanned the crowd, spotted a few people with pale complexions, took the Uncle's medicine, and applied it to stop their bleeding.

Fortunately, the Uncle had plenty of hemostatic medicine; one bottle could be used for many people. In the end, Ning Chen took a bottle of hemostatic medicine and applied a layer of powder to everyone's wounds, ensuring no one would die from blood loss there before considering the task finished.

After finishing this series of tasks, there was actually nothing else to do; the truth of the entire matter had become clear.

Hidden in this forest was a cult organization, and this cult often captured tourists in the forest, forcing them to believe in the "Main God."

At 6:20, the police arrived.